sdOffice (r) 2.0 Automate Microsoft Office(r) from Your Application (c)2001-2007 by Synergetic Data Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Web: http://synergetic-data.com Email: support@synergetic-data.com sales@synergetic-data.com sdOffice is a registered trademark of SDSI. Microsoft Office is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Release history: 2.0.b1 (beta 1) March 2, 2007 2.0.01 released June 19, 2007 2.0.02 released July 16, 2007 2.0.03 released September 7, 2007 2.0.04 released September 20, 2007 2.0.05 released December 11, 2007 2.0.06 released April 29, 2008 2.0.07 released October 22, 2008 2.0.08 released September 22, 2009 (see release notes!) 2.0.09 released January 11, 2012 Current Office Client Build: 2.0.56 See bugfixes.txt in the Office Client install directory for a history of fixes to that program. Notes about the upgrade from version 1: sdOffice 2.0 is a re-write and re-designed application from sdOffice 1. It is now composed of three components, a Network Server, an Office Client, and Application Clients. The Network Server acts as a switchboard, handling job communication between applications and Office Clients. Rather than directly connecting to sdOffice on a user's PC, as happened in version 1, now all communication goes through the server. This provides several benefits. Centralized licensing is implemented, so that only a single license is required to service all users on a network. Licensing is now based on concurrent job traffic, which allows unlimited distribution of Office Clients to desktop users without requiring individual PC-based licenses. Remote PC's can connect through NAT routers, allowing VPN or Internet-based users to receive sdOffice jobs. This was not possible when a server needed to initiate the connection directly to the PC. Many new requested features have been implemented, and new objects as well. For example, email can be sent and received directly through SMTP and POP servers, rather than using MAPI or Outlook. Popup messages and Print Previews are provided. Automated file distribution to desktops is supported. And perhaps most powerful of all is extensibility. All the objects support extensions via VBScript files that can be customized to support any functions not built into the sdOffice command interpreters. The manual (sdo20.pdf) covers the new features extensively. 2.0.02 6/27/07 - Modified machine recognition code to identify some Intel-based machines correctly as Intel rather than RISC. 6/27/07 - Added FileAs, Notes, Body, and JobTitle fields to the UpdateContact command in the Outlook object. 6/27/07 - Documented the Borders command in the Excel object. 6/27/07 - Added the MergeCells and WrapText options to the Format command in the Excel object. 7/10/07 - Fixed an error in the close command of sdofc.bb/pv, which was issued automatically by sdrun.bb/pv, as it was sending two quit commands, the second of which caused non-critical errors in the office client. 07/13/07 - Office Client Fixed - bold attribute not being set when using the 'format bold' command. Added - Option to show or hide the sdOffice client window when the application is started. See: Options Tab -> General Tab -> Show At Startup checkbox Added - ReplyTo parameter added to the Mail plugin -> SendEmail command Example: sendemail to=item@address.com,from=item@address.com,replyto=replyto@address.com 7/16/07 - Updated the Office Client to optimize overhead on non-SSL connections, so repeated attempts to use SSL would not be attempted. 7/16/07 - Corrected problem with multiple connections not making expected connections to the server. The last connection of any multiple connections would be the only connection established with the sdOffice server. The client would show all connections as being successfull, but in fact, they were not. 2.0.03 9/5/07 - Modified socket handling to deal with blocks exceeding about 10K properly. This affects both the server and the office client so both must be updated together. 9/5/07 - Improved the writerow command performance to help with large block submissions that were otherwise timing out. 2.0.04 9/17/07 - Added keepalive to the server side of the office client connection. 9/17/07 - Corrected a problem with sdofc.pv where "get" commands would timeout and return responses incorrectly. 9/18/07 - Added a feature in the Office Client setup to look for a companion sdOffice2.ini file in the same path as the setup.exe. If found, it will be copied to the Office Client install path and serve as the default configuration file. An existing, properly configured Office client will have an sdOffice2.ini file that can be the source for other installations. 9/19/07 - Corrected a CRC calculation problem that could randomly cause authentication to fail. This would have affected security modes 1 or 2 in the sdo20d.ini file. This change only affected the Office Client. 9/20/07 - Modified the activation key for jobs to not incorporate the machine type, as it was found on SunOS that the machine type reporting from the operating system was inconsistent. NOTE: Users of prior releases will have to re-license. This should not require a reset, just an automatic or manual license step to obtain a new jobs activation key. 11/13/07 - Corrected an error in security mode configuration in the Windows server manager. It was setting the secure= value in the [clients] section rather than the correct [defaults] section. 12/11/07 - Modified server to poll clients during idle periods to determine if a client handle has become disabled. We have found that if a client connection is broken by an untrapped operation, such as hibernation or standby mode switching or other operations that terminate network connections, the handle remains active on the server and jobs could be assigned to this dead handle. This change allows the server to notice the broken connection and remove it from its client table. This is not perfect, because sockets remain active for several minutes and the server will be unable to identify the broken socket until it becomes inactive, but it should solve some issues we've seen in the field. Further refinement can be developed in future releases. 1/7/08 - Modified client assignment logic in server to scan for the most recent active client connection. This should resolve the issue of dead client handles mentioned above, as long as the job(s) are submitted after the client has re-connected, and as long as the number of jobs do not exceed the number of client connections. Exceeding the client connections would result in an attempt to use the dead connections that are not yet cleared out of the tcp/ip cache. 2.0.06 4/29/08 - Changes in Office client to minimize the memory and performance impact of logging, and to simplify the user interface. The log is now viewed optionally by a separate task, so viewing the log will no longer impact job performance. 5/12/08 - Added support for the sdrun.exe command to the office client. 2.0.07 10/21/08 - Adjusted server socket options to allow immediate restarts when the server is stopped while clients are connected. 10/21/08 - Corrected a problem with file transfers from the server, where intermittent ping packets would sometimes interfere with data transfers. 2.0.08 9/22/09 - Modified SSL vs. non-SSL connection modes on the client to avoid potential deadlocks when the client did trial connections in SSL mode first. The new client build now only attempts whatever connection style it is configured for (default=non-SSL). As a result, connections are faster and place less load on the server's listening socket. Also, a randomizer has been applied to the wait time before a reconnection attempt if the server disconnects the client. In previous releases, the timer value was honored by all clients, possibly resulting in a swarm of reconnects. The randomizer allows connections to be re-established at various times from the configured value to 50% longer than the configured value (i.e. 10 seconds will reconnect in from 10 to 15 seconds). Note that you must run the client build of at least 2.0.56 to be compatible with this server level. 11/4/10 - Updated sdofc.bb to ignore pro5/vpro5 revision number test. 2.0.09 1/11/12 - Updated the network server to address a race condition when an application closed the connection and immediately reopened a new connection to the same client. It was possible for two client responses to the previous job to get incorporated the new job, depending on the timing of socket events. The result could be mis-interpreted "ok" responses.