FirstClass 9.1 Release Announcment
This is an announcement of the general availability (GA) of FirstClass 9.1 for Windows, OS X, and Linux platforms.
The new product versions are:
FirstClass Server 9.1 Build 599 for Windows
FirstClass Internet Services 9.1 Build 9.100 for Windows
FirstClass Server 9.1 Build 599 for Mac OS X
FirstClass Internet Services 9.1 Build 9.100 for Mac OS X
FirstClass Server 9.1 Build 599 for Linux
FirstClass Internet Services 9.0 Build 9.100 for Linux
FirstClass Client 9.104 for Windows
FirstClass Client 9.104 for Mac OS X (Universal binary for PPC and Intel machines)
Availability
FirstClass 9.1 server components are available to customers, who have a valid maintenance and support contract, for immediate download from the FirstClass online server FCOL (fc.firstclass.com).
To renew or purchase your M&S contract, please contact Aptiris.
Please ensure that you have your server specific FirstClass 9.0 license, and review the FirstClass 9.1 Release Notes, ReadMe First! text, and instructions accompanying the installer thoroughly before proceeding with the upgrade.
New Product Features and Enhancements
New in Server
Archive Services
Archive Services has been extended in FirstClass 9.1 to include published conferences and conference messages along with multi-user calendar events.
Conferences and conference messages to be archived are configured by adding the conferences to a Container Template group with the "Archive containers" and "Retention period" fields filled out. Archived published conferences and conference messages can be restored using the List Directory.
Multi-user calendar events, which are shared objects, are archived for the originator along with all participants. Archiving is controlled by selecting the "Archive group calendar events" checkbox on the Services tab of the appropriate group. Calendar events will be mixed in with messages and instant message transcripts when archived.
Music Folder Container Template
A new container template has been added to the Group folder. When users create a new music folder in their File Storage containers, FirstClass will extract MP3 tags as column data.
Authenticated Personal Web Publishing
In FirstClass 9.1, the "Share documents" privilege has been expanded to also control whether the user is allowed to share their personal web pages with other authenticated users on the same FirstClass system. This means that the Personal Web Publishing application can now be safely used as a powerful internal (or intranet-style) communication facility amongst members of the FirstClass online community. Employees can publish to other employees without management worrying that the public might have access to these web pages. Students can publish to other students without school administrators worrying that the resultant information is publicly visible.
A secure authentication ticket scheme has been implemented so that an authenticated user using the FirstClass client can easily view other users' personal web pages in a browser without having to re-authenticate.
Audit Services
The audit summary has been expanded to include the number of uploaded files, tasks, and calendar events, in addition to the already reported number of documents and messages existing on the system.
Other changes included are:
licensing and directory information is now reported under the heading "Server and Network Store"
summaries with zero values are now suppressed to save space
the object creator has been replaced with the object owner
the unbalanced directory diagnostics now report why a rebuild is required.
Other Server Enhancements and Fixes
General
List Directory by Voice DN & Custom ID is now supported.
Search has been enhanced to be more consistent and predictable.
Auto-reply suppression system is no longer applied to conference rules.
Paging for calendar reminders has been fixed.
Send undelete status is now correctly displayed in clients.
Pressing the Résumé button on a User Info Form no longer results in a potential crash.
Client requests for user detail form no longer results in a crash.
Contacts synched from Personal to FirstClass server now contain a correctly configured email address. Previously, the email address was being set as undeliverable resulting in messages not being sent.
Routing multiple documents to Personal offline conferences has been fixed.
Attempted archive syncing of directory objects which cannot be archived, such as remote names, has been fixed.
Characters rendered as square boxes no longer appear in the "start up log being captured" message.
Error handling on attached FirstClass objects, which previously caused gateway problems until the offending object was deleted, has been fixed. The gateway will now skip over bad FirstClass object attachments and issue a report to the log. The remainder of the message will be transferred without the attachment.
Server Control : Sticky Disable all login feature has been fixed.
Server Monitor > Audit progress bar no longer displays greater than 100% .
Rules
The check in Rules for an empty string now correctly returns TRUE only when compared to another empty string.
Rules that send a new message (e.g. forward) while called from within an audit no longer results in a potential crash.
Directory
A rebalance will no longer occur when directory is still small.
When the Server Tools form is closed, if a rebuild was not requested then all rebuild options will be cleared.
Unicode and Extended Character Support
Search has been improved for Unicode characters.
Handling of Chinese and Japanese dates no longer results in a potential crash.
When a new user was previously added with extended characters in the password, the UTF8 bit was not being set correctly for it. This would result in the password being corrupted the first time the user profile was accessed following a subsequent server upgrade.
In Scripting (aka Batch Admin), case sensitivity for extended characters has been fixed.
In Scripting (aka Batch Admin), DIR command now translates output properly.
New in Internet Services
Global signatures - Each Internet Services server that handles outbound SMTP now supports the option of a Global Signature, which is a piece of styled text that is appended as a signature to all outbound SMTP messages. This option is controlled through a new configuration document Global Signature, that is available in the Internet Services folder.
Web Site Access Controls - The Multiple Sites and Languages form has been extended with two new columns ("Authentication" and "Web Publishing") to provide a wide range of control options for authentication requirements and web publishing abilities on a per domain basis. This form can be used to implement an override of individual and group permissions if/when required.
In addition the SSL Status field now supports a "Login" option which indicates that secure logins are required for the authentication mode.
Advanced Help Information - More and more advanced Internet Services information is being provided via FirstClass OnLine (FCOL) in Conferences > Peer to Peer Support > FirstClass Webmasters > FAQs. As an example of this the HTTP Inbound API and HTTP Outbound API containers have been removed from the online help and are now available in the indicated location on FCOL.
Other Internet Services Enhancements and Fixes
General
Override image resource support in #imgdata has been corrected.
URLs for override picture resources have been corrected.
Sound resources (Mac SND resources are automatically converted to windows .wav format) are now supported.
Server delivery notifications support for the Mailbox and Calendar has been added.
Outbound image-bullet and numbered lists (text/html) are now supported.
Inbound bullet lists are now supported.
The default calendar view now uses the layout value from the lower pane instead of the week view. This can still be overridden using headermatch.
The icon expiry time has been increased from 1 day to 1 month.
iCal/vCard filename and content is encoded (quoted-printable).
vCard attachment filenames that are miscoded no longer result in a crash.
The gradient generator has been enhanced to allow gradients to be generated using a single core value and a fade percentage.
MIMEType for cached gradient images has been fixed.
Missing expiry times for color swatches and gradients has been fixed.
Missing operation terminator for gradient generator has been fixed, which previously may have resulted in MS Internet Explorer crashes with "Stack overflow at line: 0" error messages.
Web table summaries have been enhanced for 508 compliance and AJAX support.
Recipient-list variant of private web publishing URL support has been added.
GetSecureSiteHostRequest now only redirects to secure sites with the same domain/IP address.
Delivery to additional MX hosts when receiving 4xx response to the DATA command has been corrected.
Fix for stalled outbound attached FC objects.
The relay attachment timeout value has been increased from 20 seconds to 2 minutes to address 452 errors.
Rendering of literal HTML has been improved.
HTML decoding of <div> tags in table cells has been enhanced to eliminate extra line breaks.
iPhone handling of media attached to both messages (e.g. voice messages) and embedded in web pages, and Adobe Acrobat Reader random access is now supported.
Google’s 'application/ics' content type for attached calendar items is now supported.
AppleSingle attachments that fail the ASHeader tests are now treated as a regular attachment. This resolves Outlook attaching word documents and labeling them as AppleSingle files.
Winmail.dat handling has been improved for previously missing filenames, empty attachments, and performance saving large attachments.
Fixed issue parsing multiple Symantec scan problems.
Internet Services is now compatible with the Softerra LDAP browser.
The LDAP server now sends multiple email addresses in search responses as a single mail attribute with multiple values. Previously, separate mail attributes were sent for each address. A setting in inetsvcs.cf will restore the old behavior, if required for backwards compatibility.
The default charset for directory lookup has been corrected.
File name corruption no longer occurs in HTTP when attaching files with x-char names to non-UTF-8 documents & messages.
Extra character set translation when sending mail to multiple SMTP servers no longer occurs.
TLS protocol crashes should now be resolved.
Error pages have now replaced all outstanding references to loginsdisabled.shtml.
The voucher ID on ticket logins is now suppressed.
Settings for fcpTicket auth method previously missing have been added.
If-modified-since header support for normal uploaded files has been improved.
If-modified-since header support for resources (i.e. icons/pictures/sounds) has been added.
The HTTP server's EscapeString handing of <CR> and <LF> has been fixed.
A 'do not decode attachment' mail rule action (NODECODEATTACH) has been added.
DNS malfunctions that return SRVRFAIL error instead of NAME handling has been corrected.
The CONTENT_LENGTH for Linux/OS X CGI calls is now always set.
ClearHiddenAttachments now clears all the attachments - previously the first one was missed.
The APPEND command no longer stalls.
IMAP IDLE EXPUNGE now reports when messages are deleted/unsent from the mailbox.
IMAP path encoding has been fixed.
The message encoding that appears in the body of Draft and Sent copies of IMAP messages has been fixed.
Inbound HTML 'decode and attach' handling (just decode) when APPENDing IMAP messages is now turned off, to avoid Attach0.html attachments.
The IDLE command has been fixed.
,Internet is now stripped off from addresses in unsent and draft messages when retrieved via IMAP.
X-FC Tags
X-FC-IDLE tag (AJAX support) has been added.
X-FC-SESSION tag to get session data has been added.
X-FC-OBJECT tag to hold information about the currently open object (as opposed to the data in that object, which is covered by the other extant tags) has been added.
X-FC-WHITESPACE tag, which can be used to strip excess whitespace from a template during the compile process, has been added.
X-FC-RESOURCE tag support for sound resources has been updated.
X-FC- tags that support ESCAPED now supports an "ESCAPED2" argument, which does double escaping (AJAX support).
X-FC-RESOURCE tag now supports a COUNT argument, called on indexed string resources, has been added.
X-FC-SCHEMA tag now supports an ENUMSTRING argument, which fetches the enum string for a cfEnumerated or cfResStr column.
X-FC-BODY tag now supports PAGE=<page> & NUMPAGES arguments for presentations.
X-FC-BODY tag now supports an EMBED=["no"|"yes"|"autoplay"] argument to determine how embedded objects are handled (legacy is "no", which presents embedded objects as links).
X-FC-SESSION tag now supports BROADCAST. One can COUNT broadcasts, access them by INDEX[xxx] (at which point one can check to see if that index EXISTS, get the TIME it arrived, check the broadcast LENGTH or output the broadcast, either as a STRING, LITERALSTRING or ESCAPED), or MARKASSEEN[xxx] a given index when it’s been processed.
X-FC-BROWSER VERSION major version number now allows for more than 2 digits, in support of Safari which is now >256 for its version number.
New in the FirstClass Client
Support for Bullets - The FirstClass document editor now provides the ability to apply bullets to text. This option can be selected from the toolbar or the Format menu.
Enhanced Spell Checking - The spell check feature has been enhanced to check the spelling of fields in the message envelope in addition to the message body content.
Auto-Deletion of Empty Messages - If a user creates a new message and then closes it without making any modifications, it is automatically deleted.
Auto-Reply Management - If a user has an auto-reply message active, they will see a small popup window appear in the bottom right corner of their screen each time they connect to their FirstClass server which will automatically disappear after a few seconds. While the popup window is displayed, it offers a shortcut that enables the user to turn off their auto-reply by simply clicking the button.
Searching - The Quick Search feature is now available on all container toolbars by default. Also, a keyboard shortcut and a menu choice have been added for this feature to enable power users to quickly access this popular feature without requiring the use of the mouse.
Transparent Color Option for Punch-through Calendars - Punch-through calendaring enables users to combine multiple calendars into one calendar view. Along with the previous ability to specify a color for events of each selected calendar, a new right-click option "Transparent" displays the events of the selected calendar in the specific color they have in their original calendar.
Calendar Printing - The calendar printing options of Week View and Today List View have been completely redone to address many customer requests for style and formatting enhancements. Also included with these two calendar printing formats is an option for including tasks and punch-through calendar items.
Enhanced Calendar Import/Export - Support has been added in for importing and exporting .ics calendar items.
Primary Email Address Display - Each user's primary email address is now displayed in the summary bar in the Mailbox view. This feature is intended to reduce the number of calls to system administrators from users who have forgotten what their email address is.
Quick Personal Web Site Access - Viewing other users' personal web pages has been simplified by the new "Open User Web Site" option that appears in the menu when right-clicking on a user's name. When selected, this option launches a web browser window with the appropriate URL to display the indicated user's personal home page.
Other Client Enhancements and Fixes
The Login form will now only save to the settings file if the user has typed a new name and password when the Save button is clicked.
Copy and paste from Word into FirstClass anomalies have been resolved.
Background colors on text fields now render properly.
Opening a PDF file no longer results in a potential crash.
Printing of specific messages that previously caused a lock-up has been fixed.
Enhanced voice player interface to improve playing multiple files in folders.
Voice Message > has no volume indicator displaying. Fixed
Several issues with the Call User form have been Fixed.
The volume preferences under messaging/audio is ignored when set. Fixed
Problem inserting voice results in IM window. Fixed
Unread voice messages again autoplay if the preference is set to do so. Fixed
Improved music player functionality.
Spell check now handles accented characters properly on replace-all.
Spell check now handles multiple replace-all words without mixing them up.
Spell check no longer hangs when a forms field contains strings of multiple hyphens or apostrophes in a word.
Calendar export now properly tags data with the correct charset.
Editing repeating events no longer creates extra events in group calendars.
Reminder icons no longer render poorly in the Calendar Index view.
Modified calendar events are now always saved correctly.
Calendar printing that resulted in an incorrect date (1917) has been fixed.
Dragging a link directly to Bookmarks folder results no longer results in the name being dropped.
URLs added to Bookmarks no longer become incorrectly truncated.
Thumbnail view now remains correct after switching to other containers.
Downloading folders with long name lengths has been fixed.
Type down in file lists has been fixed.
Drag and drop of a list of text names (one per line) to the subscribers list to have them validated is now supported.
The Add to browser button behavior for multi-languages and for Vista has been fixed.
Images added to Podcast Album Art with 9.0 Clients are now properly displayed.
Saved Podcast details field contents are no longer lost after reopening the form.
VCard import now obeys charset tags.
VCard export now exports charset indicators in a format that works with Outlook 2007 and various popular Apple Macintosh applications.
VCard import no longer crashes the client when canceled.
Importing a 0K file via Batch Admin no longer results in a potential failed assertion error.
Extended character corruption in contacts and bookmarks has been resolved.
Extended characters in email addresses are no longer corrupted after being saved.
Extended characters in the export summary of documents are no longer corrupted.
Double byte names are no longer corrupted when playing MP3 files.
Uploading and downloading folders can now have UTF-8 names up to 63 bytes long, increased from 31 bytes.
Embedded image files with extended characters in their names no longer results in losing the attachment.
Mapi.dll now correctly supports extended characters in the filename.
The calendar name is no longer corrupted when exporting/importing VCal in the Japanese language client.
Time picker now works correctly if region is set to UK.
[Leopard] Auto-reply redraws have been fixed.
[Leopard] The Get Info form’s icon picker now works correctly.
[Leopard] Instant Messaging and conference view now renders correctly.
[Leopard] Keystrokes are no longer intermittently missed.
[Vista] FirstClass default mail client registration has been fixed.
[OSX] Date picker behavior has been corrected.
[OSX] Voice message playback of the last second or two of the audio file is no longer repeated.
[OSX] The cursor placement in italicized text has been fixed.
[OSX] Importing bookmarks no longer results in a potential crash.
[OSX] External application files now show the correct icon/type when uploaded to the FirstClass desktop.
[OSX] The Show BCC hotkey now works the first time on a newly created message.
New in the Enhanced Web Interface
Additional Client-like Behavior - In FirstClass 9.1, the Enhanced Web Interface has been significantly improved through an extensive application of AJAX technology to deliver many more client-like capabilities. These include:
tables can now be created
context menus (right-click on Windows or ctrl-click on OS X) are now available for most objects
FirstClass client sounds are now available (new mail, new calendar event , new conference item)
FirstClass client keyboard shortcuts are now supported
icons can be moved one pixel at a timeobjects can be dragged to move, copy, or link themmultiple objects can be selected by dragging a rubber band selection box over themobjects can be opened in separate windowsinformation for closed objects can be changed directly by highlighting the object and clicking Propertiesobjects can be directly renamed in the tree view area.
Presentations - Presentations created with the FirstClass client can now be displayed in the Enhanced Web Interface.
Messages - A Create Mail To button has been added to contact forms and mail list forms. This lets you create a message addressed to the selected contact.
Web Publishing - Like FirstClass client users, connected Enhanced Web Interface users can now access other users' internal web sites without having to authenticate again.
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