Adlib Information Systems

6.5.1 release notes

Adlib Information Systems

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Adlib Information Systems. Adlib assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. The software described in this document is furnished under a licence and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such a licence. While making every effort to ensure the accuracy of this document, products are continually being improved.

As a result of continuous improvements, later versions of the products may vary from those described here. Under no circumstances may this document be regarded as a part of any contractual obligation to supply software, or as a definitive product description.

1-9-2009

Contents

Introduction 1

1 New functionality 3

1.1 Extended possibilities of favorites list 3

1.2 Importing mono-lingual values in multi-lingual fields 4

1.3 Changing the invariant language of a multi-lingual field 5

1.4 Processing links during import has been split up 6

1.5 New possibilities in the Media Viewer 6

1.5.1 Zooming in on selection rectangle 6

1.5.2 Scroll bars only visible when required 8

1.5.3 Zooming from 7% up to 2000% with zoom buttons 8

1.5.4 Move the zoomed in image with the mouse 8

1.6 Setting up efficient image retrieval and storage 8

2 Other improvements 14

2.1 Searching 14

2.2 Display 15

2.3 Editing/saving 16

2.4 Printing 20

2.5 Multi-linguality 20

2.6 Serials 21

2.7 Adloan 21

1-9-2009

Adlib 6.5.1 Other improvements

Introduction

These release notes describe a number of improvements in the Adlib executables, which are implemented in Adlib 6.5.1. This release is available from the beginning of September 2009 to all customers with a support contract, and can be downloaded from the Adlib web site.

You can simply install this software on top of your existing Adlib-system (for versions 4.4 and higher). So you do not need to uninstall anything, but please make a backup of your databases and applications first.

From Adlib 5.0 a new licence file is used: adlib.lic. If you are already using 5.0 or higher, you can use this upgrade immediately after installing; your licence file has already been renewed, is in the right place and will not be overwritten by the upgrade. When you install this upgrade over an Adlib version that is older than 5.0, then the following applies: if you receive this release on CD, then on it you’ll find the proper licence file; if you downloaded this release, then e-mail our helpdesk () for the necessary password and your licence file. Place this file (you can make copies of it) after installation of the upgrade in your Adlib \bin and \tools or \executables folders (if present). The point is that the licence file should be located in the same folders as your Adlib .exe files. How these folders are named is not important.

The release notes of previous major releases and service releases can be found on the Adlib web site.

n Security warning

A requirement for using Adlib software on a Microsoft operating system older than Windows XP (Windows 2000), is that the Microsoft component gdiplus.dll is present in your folder containing the Adlib executables. For Windows XP or higher, this file can be removed.

In this gdiplus.dll software component, Microsoft has found a security leak that may introduce a virus to your system by means of specially prepared JPG images. To prevent that, all gdiplus.dll files on your system need to be replaced by its latest version.

On the Windows side you can do this by activating Windows Update, and installing the latest Microsoft service packs and hot fixes. If you also use MS Office, you’ll also have to update that through Microsoft’s Office Update.
On the Adlib side you can fix the potential problem by installing release 6.0.0 or higher; gdiplus.dll will then be replaced automatically.
Instead, you may also replace all occurrences of gdiplus.dll (versions 5.1.3097.0 and 5.1.3101.0) manually, by a newer version.

This dll can normally be found in your Adlib \bin folder(s) and the folder in which wwwopac resides (if you use Adlib Internet Server), and in certain Windows folders. Through the Windows Explorer you can search your system for all places where this file occurs.
You can look up the version of an occurring gdiplus file through the properties of the file: right-click the file and choose Properties in the pop-up menu. The version can be found on the Version tab.

Note that Microsoft’s Update function may install a GDI+ detection tool, which tells you whether you need to update this file. But the test that this tool performs is not complete and doesn’t check your whole system. It is possible for you to get a message that your system still needs an update, when you have already installed it. So check which versions are present on your system yourself, and execute any required updates and/or replacements manually.

21 1-9-2009

Adlib 6.5.1 Other improvements

1 New functionality

1.1 Extended possibilities of favorites list

Previously, you could only save terms or names in a favorites list if you entered them in linked fields. From 6.5.1 you can save field values in the favorites list, from within all text fields (and even numerical fields), so that you’ll be able to enter those values again quickly, next time. This is especially handy for fields which contain longer, frequently occurring texts.

So if you often fill in the same texts, terms, names or numbers in certain fields, but you don’t want to have to type them or (in the case of linked fields) select them from the Find data for the field … window (aka Linked record search screen) each time, then from now on you can label such values as favorites for that field, so that you’ll be able to select that text directly from the pop-up menu next time. It works as follows:
1. Open a record in edit mode and put the cursor in a field for which you want to add a favorite, for instance the Bibliographical notes field in a library application.
2. Type the desired text in the relevant field, or retrieve it via the Linked record search screen if it concerns a linked term or name. If the field already contains a value, then that one can be added to the favorites as well, of course.
3, Right-click in the field, Bibliographical notes in this example, and in the pop-up menu that opens, choose the Add to favorites option.

4. From now, each time the cursor is in the Bibliographical notes field, e.g. in a new record, and you right-click that field, then in the pop-up menu you can immediately select the text Contains a bibliography which will be copied to the Bibliographical notes field.

In the same way you can store up to ten favorites per field. If you save an eleventh favorite, Adlib will automatically remove the oldest favorite so that ten remain again.
By the way, it is not possible to delete specific terms from a favorites list manually

1.2 Importing mono-lingual values in multi-lingual fields

Previously, there was no way to set a target language attribute with which mono-lingual field values from the exchange file had to be imported into multi-lingual fields.
From Adlib 6.5.1 though, you have the possibility to provide a language (use a standard language code*) per mapped field on the Mapping tab of an import job in Designer. And on the Options tab you’ll find a Default language option.
These two options always apply if your exchange file is of the Adlib tagged type; for Adlib XML exchange files they apply only to field values without language attributes. The Adlib tagged exchange format cannot hold multi-lingual fields, and the Adlib XML format can still hold mono-lingual fields, even if multi-lingual fields are present as well; so on import of mono-lingual fields (fields without language attribute) into a database that does contain multi-lingual fields, you’ll want to select the data language into which the imported values will be stored. If you do this in the field mapping, you can specify per field into which language a value must be imported. You can even repeat a target field in the mapping, provided that you specify a different language for all repetitions; this allows you to e.g. import tag ti into multi-lingual tag ti in the Dutch language, while importing tag ta (which in this example contains a translation of the title from ti) to the same multi-lingual tag ti in the English language.
However, if your exchange file contains values in only one (non-explicit) language, you do not have to specify a language for every multi-lingual target field in your field mapping; then just set the desired target language of all multi-lingual fields at once in the Default language option. (If you provide neither option, values will be added to multi-lingual fields without any language attribute; however, bug fix 4197 allows you to add this attribute later.)
For multi-lingual fields in Adlib XML type exchange files, the Default language and field mapping Language setting do not apply. This is because Adlib XML contains a language attribute per multi-lingual field value. When you import a record with multi-lingual fields, all multi-lingual values from the exchange file will automatically be copied to the target database, thereby leaving other, existing multi-lingual values intact. So, if a source field were to hold three values in the Dutch, English and French languages, and the target field would hold two values in the Dutch and Greek language, then the Dutch value would be overwritten, the Greek value would remain intact, and the English and French values would be added.

* The language code is a code put together from an abbreviation for a language and a region identifier (for more information about this, see the “Using Language Identifiers (RFC 3066)” document which you can find on the internet). (Ref.no: 4181)

1.3 Changing the invariant language of a multi-lingual field

The translated values of an (SQL) multi-lingual field can not only be changed in the field itself (by choosing the desired entry language in the Data language menu) but also in the Edit multi-lingual texts window, which can be opened by right-clicking a multi-lingual field and selecting the Edit multi-lingual texts option in the pop-up menu. Click a language to enter, edit or remove the desired value in the Editing text for language … box.

From 6.5.1, you can also change the invariant language. To do this, click the checkbox for the language which you want to make the invariant*. In the figure below, Nederlands (Dutch) is the invariant language, while the English value can be edited right now.

* The invariant language is normally set to the data language in which you enter this field first. The value in this language appears in the edited field when you switch to a data language which has no value yet, so that translating in the field itself becomes easier. (Ref.no: 4227)

1.4 Processing links during import has been split up

The Process links option in import jobs (in Designer and adlwin.exe applications) has been split up into two: Process external links and Process internal links, to be able to separate the processing of links. This can result in faster importing if the processing of one of both types of links is not required. Normally though, you would mark both options, for the full functionality of the old Process links option. The complete description of the split-up options can be found in the Designer Help (version 6.5.33.8 and higher).

1.5 New possibilities in the Media Viewer

1.5.1 Zooming in on selection rectangle

Click the image on the Normal tab, keep the mouse button pressed down and drag the mouse pointer to another spot on the image. A dotted rectangle will be displayed. When you release the mouse button, the image display will be zoomed in on the part of the image you just selected, as much as possible.

In principle, you can zoom in up to 65000% this way. Click the Back to normal display button to zoom out again.

1.5.2 Scroll bars only visible when required

The scroll bars to the right and below the image are only visible if a part of the image falls outside the window frame because of zooming in.

1.5.3 Zooming from 7% up to 2000% with zoom buttons

You can zoom images out down to 7% of the original size or zoom in up to 2000%.
Note that on zooming in, the display of the image becomes increasingly less sharp because the resolution of the photo is limited: the higher the resolution (call it the number of megapixel) of the photo, the further you can zoom in sharply.

1.5.4 Move the zoomed in image with the mouse

Right-click a zoomed-in image, keep the mouse button pressed down and move the mouse to move the part of the image which is being displayed.

1.6 Setting up efficient image retrieval and storage

In Adlib Designer 6.5 there are three new image and application field properties: Storage path, Retrieval path and Thumbnail retrieval path. You can find these three options on the Image properties tab of a selected data dictionary field of the Image data type, and two of them also on the Application field properties tab of a selected data dictionary field of the Application data type, in the Application browser. Their functionality has changed somewhat.

These properties provide a means to always store a linked file in a predetermined location and retrieve it from there as well, by setting a path to a folder location or a URL to wwwopac. URLs to third-party web services, with which images can be stored and/or retrieved, are possible as well. In a URL calling either wwwopac.ashx (available from version 6.5.1 for Adlib SQL and Adlib Oracle databases) or wwwopac.exe, extra instructions may be added to process the file in some way, for instance to resize or rotate an image.
In the path or URL, the variable %data% must be included to allow the calling program to merge the file name (which is present in the linked field) with the path or URL set here. The complete path or URL will then be used to store or retrieve and process the relevant file.
Advantages are that the file's location and possible other sensitive information needed to access it can now be hidden from the user, if you make sure that of linked files only the file name or a partial path plus file name will be saved in the record. Processing an image through wwwopac has the added bonus of improving the performance of your application, since all processing is done on the server (before the file is sent over the network or internet): for example, retrieving a thumbnail image requires less bandwidth and less processing time of your application’s core software than retrieving the full image to resize it on the client side. In wwwopac.ashx, the performance with respect to wwwopac.exe has been improved further still, by saving any resized images for a future request for the same image.
If you don’t fill in these properties, nothing changes in the way linked files and images are currently stored and retrieved.