Comet2010

From CometWiki

Contents 1 Here is a summary of our accomplishments in 2010 1.1 The Workstation Install Program 1.2 Comet.exe 1.3 Comet16 1.4 Comet32 1.5 CosW 1.6 CosM32 1.7 CosC 1.8 CosP 1.9 CFAM 1.10 CometExplorer

Here is a summary of our accomplishments in 2010

The Workstation Install Program

• The workstation install program is now a self-extracting .zip file. This should simplify

Comet installations and updates.

• GdiPlus.dlx has been added to the list of .dll files installed. This is required for printing

under Comet. Some Windows 2000 installations may not have this file and would result in errors.

Comet.exe

• Added several dlls and manifest files to support conversion to VS 2008 runtime.

• Now launches the installer for VS 2008 redistributables if necessary. Also detects if no

/PN and no .cfg files and will attempt to run SYSGEN from REL.

• Comet.exe will now run the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Redistributable installation when required

for full Comet clients.

• Fixed a problem in determining whether the MS VS 2008 Redistributables need to be installed.

• Now will install the MS VS 2008 Redistributables for CA clients automatically.

Comet16

• Connecting to certain addresses via the winsock gateway could have caused Cosh to crash.

This has been corrected.

• Introduced a spool alias for the spool section of the Comet.ini file.

[SPOOLERS] Spool = SP1,$(lac); ... [PRINTERS] Printer = Lac,p ,x,SPL:adobe ,Adobe PDF;

This makes it possible to configure a printer called SP* Previously all printer names needed to begin with "L". If your programs open "SP1" this makes it possible for them to be used with DocMgr without needing to recode them.

Comet32

• This is the first release of the mySQL driver. For more information read the

wiki doc and check out the sample programs.

• Restored the functionality of dynamic ACCESSes which was broken in version .4*

• Corrected a problem handling TERM$ values above T9*

• The NUM function now handles ROUNDed variables correctly.

• Trailing printer controls such as (FF) and (LF) were not getting processed.

• The size of the task buffer for mySQL has been increased to 64K.

• Introduced a spool alias for the spool section of the Comet.ini file:

[SPOOLERS] Spool = SP1,$(lac); ... [PRINTERS] Printer = Lac,p ,x,SPL:adobe ,Adobe PDF;

This makes it possible to configure a printer called SP* Previously all printer names needed to begin with "L". If your programs open "SP1" this makes it possible for them to be used with DocMgr without needing to recode them.

• Corrected a problem that could have crashed Comet32 if the SQL device was opened.

• Added more info about DOS errors in Comet32 error messagebox.

• Corrected a problem that could have caused a crash if an attempt was made to ENTER a program

that doesn't exist.

• Local pathnames are now returned in drive letter form even if the folder is configured

using a UNC name. This effects PATH and DSTAT.

• New XML file statement introduced to make it easy to output your data in XML format. For more

info, read the XML Output wiki doc.

• A couple of problems were fixed in SetGlobal and GetGlobal:

- The data is now unique for each partition. - The data persists thru running of programs. Previously a STOP would clear it.

• Corrected a problem that was reporting E25 and E99 in some dialogs

• Fixed a problem that was causing some Windows events to be lost

• Corrected a problem that could have caused a crash when printing

• Corrected a problem that could have caused a crash when using the First IB function

to retrieve the first key of a file.

• Changed the handling of the clock device to match that of Comet1* DSTAT of any name

beginning with "c" will return the status of the clock. If you wish to OPEN the clock you must use a filename of "CL1".

• Corrected a problem with CosM32 that could have caused internal error 91 stack over/under

flow error. This was introduced in version .41*

• Introduced Cryptographic Support. This is a major enhancement to the encryption features of

Comet. You can now encrypt/decrypt using the best methods known today including RC4, AES and 3DES.

• Added a new SetTimer instruction. This causes an event to be fired to the program

when a specified duration (in milliseconds) has passed.

• Corrected a problem in passing numeric arguments to a proc.

• CONTAINS result was reversing its TRUE / FALSE result. This has been corrected.

• Corrected problems with FPT and BASE6*

• Numeric overflow errors (ERR 1) are now ignored just like Comet1*

• Changes required to get CometExplorer's DirBuild to load.

• Fixed a bug that caused a trigger event when resetting a timer that is not running.

• Prevented the changing of a constant when inputting a list of fields.

• FSTAT now returns E11 if the file is not found and a directory was not specified.

• Corrected a problem in the NUM function for Comet32 objects that wasn't returning an error

if the last character in the string was invalid.

• Corrected a problem in the STRING function for Comet16 objects that could have resulted

in corruption of data in other variables.

• Session colors specified in the configuration file are now used.

• Background partitions can now be ACTIVATEd. The X00 device is automatically open on LUN 0 for

these partitions. (See item # 2 below for X00 enhancements.)

• The X00 device can now do (CopyFile), (RenameFile), (EraseFile), (FindFirstFile), (FindNextFile),

(FileStatus), (GetDirAlias), (SetDirAlias), (OpenClipboard), and (CloseClipboard). Previously these mnemonics could only be used with LUN 0 which excluded background partitions.

• If a configured directory can't be accessed at startup you'll be notified through a messagebox and an error

message will be posted in the Comet log.

• The Msgbox IB function and statement can now be used in background partitions.

• The delimiter used for .csv files can now be specified with the FILE (lun) DLM=char$ statement.

• FILE (lun) NORMAL introduced to reset a file's access from CSV or XML back to normal.

• Added new clipboard mnemonics (OpenClipboard), and (CloseClipboard). An error can occur if the clipboard

is opened by another user and there is no good way to convey that in IB. Now you can use (OpenClipboard) first and test for that case and try again. The old method will still work but this is more reliable. Use of these mnemonics requires REL *08 or higher.

• Added a new mnemonic (ClearBuffer) to clear the X00 buffer between writes. Use of this mnemonic requires

REL *08 or higher.

• CosC now detects 64-bit Windows and will launch Comet32 automatically.

• Corrected a problem that could cause a crash if a printer (or other device) was open in a

parent program and the LUN was reused for a file in the subprogram.

• Corrected a problem with numeric editing which caused numbers to sometimes be truncated.

• Corrected a problem that could have caused a crash when launching Comet32 automatically

on 64-bit Windows systems.

• FSTAT now returns E11 if the file is not found and a directory was not specified. It returns

E31 if an invalid directory is specified.

• Corrected a problem with num2date(0,5). It was returning a blank string.

• Background sessions now inherit the activating partition's printers, including # printers.

• Corrected a problem with editing numbers which used (LM) in a FORMAT.

• Corrected a problem with editing numbers which used a length override in a FORMAT compiled

for Comet3*

• Corrected a problem with numtodate. Leading zeroes were not preserved.

• Introduced new date functions.

• Implemented DOSFC for mkdir.

• Corrected a problem that would crash if you attempted to log out of Comet while background programs

were running.

• Corrected a problem with the NUM function that was reporting an error if the field contained a trailing blank.

• Enhanced the NUM function so that it accepts special characters such as ,.()-+ in the input string.

• Corrected problems with the INPUT statement that doesn't require transmit marks (ie the new INPUT).

• Now reports E74 if a Comet32 IB object file is corrupted.

• Comet exception reports for CometAnywhere clients now appear on the client instead of the host.

CosW

• Corrected a problem in CopyFile. The file would not get copied if CopyFile needed to

create a dir alias folder on the client.

• If the CosW.ini file does not exist yet it will now be set up to use Windows colors.

• Older versions of Comet would store the COSW.INI file in the windows folder. Newer versions

of Windows do not allow writing to files in that folder without Administrator privileges. Starting with Comet version 410, COSW now looks in Documents&Settings/All Users for the INI file and if not found, but found in the Windows folder, COSW will copy it into the All Users folder.

• Corrected a problem that was preventing proper positioning of popup menus within

tab contols.

• Listview sorting using numeric rules now sorts non-numeric or negative values as less than 0.

Prior releases treated these values as zero and could mix them in with valid zero values.

• Fixed a problem with print screen using multiple monitors when running Comet.

• Corrected a problem that could have caused a crash if the CometAnywhere host domain name

was longer than 15 characters. This problem was introduced in .420.

• The location of CosW.ini file has changed (again!) It's now under the user's local folder

rather than All Users so each user gets their own copy. Depending on which version of Windows you're running you'll find it here:

Prior to Vista look in Documents And Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Signature Systems

Beginning with Vista look in Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Signature Systems

• Corrected a problem that could have caused crashes or "out of memory" errors associated with

extended windows.

• When COSW starts up it will ALWAYS validate system aliases (CATEMP, CATOOLS, etc.) for write-ability.

Other user-created aliases will not be validated as it is possible that read-only aliases are required by the application.

• In the past by default, aliases were established in the CAFiles folder which was created in the folder

from which COSW.EXE was executed. This is no longer the case. From now on the CAFiles folder will be created below the Signature Systems folder. This folder will be located differently depending on the version of Windows:

Vista/Windows 7 User: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Signature Systems All Users: C:\ProgramData\Signature Systems

Windows XP User: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Signature Systems All Users: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Signature Systems

• When starting COSW, if a Cosw.ini file is not present in the Signature Systems folder,

COSW will look for a Cosw.ini file first in the “All Users” folder and then the Windows folder. Whichever it finds first will be copied to the Signature Systems folder after which all of the aliases will be validated for write-ability. If the alias cannot be written then it will be removed from Cosw.ini. Following migration aliases that were removed should be re-established when used. Please note that any intentional read-only aliases will be removed during validation and thus must be re-established afterward. Non-system alias’ will be validated one time only following migration. The original Cosw.ini files will not be deleted during migration. It is recommended that once migration has been validated, the old Cosw.ini files are removed.

CosM32

• Corrected a problem with conditional compilation and procs.

• Corrected a problem that could have reported error count of zero when there were errors found.

CosC

• Faster connection to CometLib.

CosP

• New image library installed to better handle the lossy jpg format for print images.

• Now uses a longer timeout for completion of pdf copy (from 30 to 45 seconds). This timeout

value is also now configurable in CosW.ini.

• An error indicator is now added to the DocMgr status for a document if an error occurs

while copying it to the document archive. This change requires REL version *09 or higher.

• It now replaces any invalid characters in the (SpoolMessage) used for a document's name

with "_".

CFAM

• In a terminal services / remote desktop environment it was possible that a user's CosC

could have connected to another user's CFAM. This has been corrected.

• Dynamically accessed dabs weren't being seen by CometLib. This has been corrected.

CometExplorer

• Added Merge/Append to the Copy utility.

• Comet32 IB objects are now differentiated from Comet16 objects in the file list display.

This enhancement requires Comet Server Products *2 or higher.