1. General Framework & Tools: What's New

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1. New Project Architecture

The underlying project architecture and file format for Designer has completely changed with 3.0 M2. It is the biggest change since Designer 1.0 and sets the stage for Version Control, Team Enablement, and other capabilities in the future. Because the change was so large, we have been unable to provide a converter in this milestone. But, you can get most (if not all) of your old project data over by doing exports or deploy and then import. Steps on how to do all of this have been added to the Help documentation in this milestone. If you try to open an older project in this version of Designer, you will see a prompt with a link that will take you to the help page on how to do this.

Because of the nature of the changes, we cannot guarantee that any projects you build with Designer 3.0 M2 will have a converter to 3.0 M3. But, you will still be able to move most data over in the same way. We will have a converter (or other such upgrade mechanism in place) as soon as it is feasible.

2. You Can Specify the DN Format of Application Schema

It's important to be able to specify the DN Format for schema for drivers that don't have a specific format associated with them (eg. Loopback, Null, Delimited Text, SOAP, etc.). This allows DirXML Script to be able to deal with DN parsing, comparison, and conversion correctly.



3. Browse History

Every place where you can browse eDirectory, there is now a history button next to the browse button. This will save you time, because it allows you to select previous browse choices that you have made so you don't have to keep browsing and drilling down again and again when you're working in the same spots in the tree. The item at the bottom of the list allows you to clear the history if you choose.



4. Filter Outline for DS Trace Viewer

The DS Trace Viewer now has an outline view that lists all the events available in the log file. If you select an event in the outline, it will filter the viewer to see that event. Filtering based on dates/events are reflected in the outline view. You can press "Clear Filter" to reset.


5. Live DS Trace

In addition to the DS Trace Viewer, there is a now a new tool on the main Tool menu called "Live DS Trace". This will let you connect to an eDirectory server and view a live DirXML trace from that server. The trace will be rendered in a graphical table with filtering and resizable columns that are organized by Timestamp, Trace Name, and the Details.




6. Search Results Show Full DN




7. Clear Project Checker Results

In the Project Checker view, there is now a button that will let you clear the current items that are in the view. It may be helpful to click this icon before you run the next project check, as it will enable you to see more clearly the new set of results as they come in.




8. Version Control Indicator on Projects

When a project is under version control, the icon in the Project View and in the Outline View will have a version control indicator. In the diagram below, you can see that the two customer projects are under version control.




9. Enhanced Disk Space Checking at Install Time

Designer's Install does a better job of checking for free disk space. And, if you install over an existing install of Designer, it will take that into account, which will allow some types of installs to proceed that were blocked in the past.

10. Silent Install

The Designer installer now supports the silent install mode of InstallAnywhere. This is useful if you wish to setup the install of Designer as an automated process in a script.

The standard usage is as follows:

Run a normal install but specify the -r option. This will create a file named installer.properties. This will contain the definitions of any variables that were modified from the defaults.

                               > ./install -r

You can now use installer.properties to run the install in silent mode.

                               > ./install -i silent -f installer.properties

NOTE: If the file is named installer.properties, and it resides in the same directory as the installer, it will get used automatically. If it resides elsewhere, or has a different name, the -f option is required to specify it. In brief, the "-f file" option specifies a properties file that defines InstallAnywhere variables. The "-i silent" option tells the installer to skip any install panels and use the default values. If the installer's built-in defaults meet your needs, you do not need to specify a properties file for silent mode. If the installer encounters an error that prevents the installer from continuing it will display the error before exiting. If it would normally display a warning that allows the user to select to continue the installation, the warning will be silently logged and the installation will continue.

10. Help Index



The Help system now has an index of key terms and actions all ordered alphabetically. This makes it very easy to look up items by topic and gives you another alternative for finding what you're looking for.

You can access the index by selecting the second tab at the bottom and you can navigate by clicking the previous/next links at the bottom. When you click on an item, it's help page will come up on the right.

If you want to see more information about this topic, or see where it sits in the larger context of help, just click the "Refresh" button at the top (with the little yellow arrows). This will switch you over to the Table of Contents tab and keep your current item selected. You can then see where it fits in the overall Table of Contents and thus, be able to navigate to related topics very easily.



Key Bug Fixes & Other Enhancements
  1. Browser Preferences - URLs are validated and the ommission of "http:" is allowed
  2. DS Trace View - viewer performance is no longer slow with very large files - Click here for details...
  3. DS Trace View - has a horizontal scroll bar - Click here for details...
  4. DS Trace View - fixed error when setting the filter - Click here for details...
  5. eDirectory Tools - don't set username and password if authentication fails - Click here for details...
  6. ECMAScript Editor - right-mouse-button menu support for cut, copy and paste - Click here for details...
  7. Help - more context-sensitive help wired up throughout and help is more up to date
  8. Help - restore Defaults and Apply now works when editing the scope in Search Online Help - Click here for details...
  9. Project Checker - reports invalid Active Directory base containers - Click here for details...
  10. Project Checker - can change filter descriptions - Click here for details...
  11. Project Checker - functions correctly when a class is set to Remove - Click here for details...
  12. Schema - only show tabs which are applicable with Vault schema - Click here for details....
  13. Schema - can associate class when adding a new attribute - Click here for details....
  14. Schema - refresh Application Schema fixed in a few special cases - Click here for details...
  15. Schema - export to LDIF file is functioning properly - Click here for details...
  16. Schema - import schema without memory problems - Click here for details...
  17. Schema - can use the mouse scrolling in the Schema Deploy wizard - Click here for details...
  18. Schema - the constraints of an attribute is grayed out depending on the syntax - Click here for details...
  19. Schema - classes are not deleted from app schema if you click cancel - Click here for details...
  20. XML Editor - can use the right-click menu to create a task - Click here for details...
  21. XML Editor - can undo after a delete - Click here for details...
  22. UI that was chopped off on SLED 10 is now fixed (like Project Checker filter, Job Scopes, etc.)
  23. Field Values are much better checked throughout Designer against allowable ranges
  24. WorkSpace can be created under the Designer directory in user's home folder - Click here for details....


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