PROMOTIC 8.1 - Release notes

- Data bindings of the Pmg object: Fixed bug: In Windows OS XP some data bindings in panels were not evaluated.

- Web panels: Important modifications for InternetExplorer 10 Web browser. Unfortunatelly since this version of the viewer some major technologies are no longer supported. These technologies were used by Web panels up to the version of PROMOTIC 8.2. (The PROMOTIC 8.2 version now uses standard HTML technologies allowing to display the Web panels in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, InternetExplorer ...)

- Alarm and Event system: If the "Storage type" configurator in the PmaAlarmGroup object was set to "Remote connection via the Web" value, then:

- PmaSequencer object: If the object was set to run in another thread, then sometimes the GU of the application froze.

- PmaAlarmGroup object: If set for the Remote connection via the Web type, then the filtering text did not work if diacritic characters (i.e. national dependent characters) was used.

- Pm.FileBinaryRead method: if there was les information in the file than requested, then random values were read.

- PmaWeb object: The Web server has been improved - now supports the persistent connection type (standard for HTTP/1.1), i.e. the connection with the Web browser is not closed after each transmission. This way the transfer rate is increased and the communication load is decreased.

- PmaAlarmGroup.Acknowledge method: Now takes into consideration also the UserNote even for aggregate alarm acknowledgment using the "$all" flag.

- Web panels: There is a new safer method of computing the data bindings.

- PmMBus communication driver: Fixed bug: When transmitting the message without the acknowledgement some unnecessary timeouts occured

- PmFilesApp: When opening corrupted application (the Application.pra file), the application now does not crash with an error, but displays a report and terminates properly.

- PmgTrendViewer.onMouseArea event: The pEvent.Alt parameter did not set properly with Alt key pressed.

- PmaObject.GetOwnedByType method: Fixed bug: The method returned also the forbidden objects in runtime (see the "Disable object at application launch" configurator).

- PmgTrendViewer object:

- Pm.EncryptText method: An error occured if the input text was empty string.

- PmS7 communication driver: Fixed bug: If the PmaCommGroup object contained many bit (Boolean) variables, then the communication messages were not composed correctly and some variables were unable to transmit.

- Web: fixed software security vulnerabilities:

- PmgString object: in the Web panel the "Value format type" configurator sometimes did not work if set to formatting rule of %f or %e.

- Data binding E - General expression: Fixed bug: Sometimes caused excesive memory usage.

- Pm.TransformValue method: Fixed bug: (221-224) operations sometimes caused excesive memory usage.

- PmaTrendGroup object: If the "Automatic saving after launch is enabled" configurator switched on, then the application under load could try to write multiple records with identical time.

- PmgTrendViewer object: Flickering of axis descriptors when filling graphs with large number of points has been removed.

- PmaTrendGroup object: Reading of large number of DBF files at application launch has been accelerated.

- PmaAdo object: Some methods of the AdoRecordset object did not return the confirmation of completion/failure flag. Therefore the PROMOTIC system adds properties (Pm_LastErr and Pm_LastTextErr) into this object, that can be used for obtaining such confirmation.

- PmgRasterImage.Src property: Fixed bug: Sometimes on writing the modification was not done immediatelly.

- PmgWCheck object: was moved by 4 pixels in the Web panel1

- Menu and toolbar of the development environment: In the basic menu, when selecting the > Save application as the application was not saved correctly.

- PmaPanel.OpenView method: The PmaPanel.OpenView("/#glob/webbrowser","","URL address") method can now be used for opening the window also for vieweing any HTML page on the Internet or on the disk.

- PmChar communication driver: Generalization for the possibility to receive the binary data to the value of the HexaString type (it is a String containing binary data - for example 3 bytes with values (in hexadecimal) A1, 00, 4B are saved into a string with 2*3 characters "A1004B"). This way it is possible to easily transmit any binary data.
See new configurators There is HexaString only in 'Data-sent' and There is HexaString only in 'Data-received'.

- Pm.TransformValue method: New transformation types 240 and 241 for conversion of the HexaString into the byte array and back. These transformations are used for supporting the PmChar communication driver, but can also be used for other purposes, e.g. if you need to write binary data to the value of the String type (e.g. into the text file).

- PmaSequencer object:

- PmgTrendViewer.SaveToHtm method: The method did not work correctly when the trend was filled by the AddPoints method. The patch has also been included into the version Pm8.0.13.

- Data binding E - General expression: Allows to simply include very general relations into Pmg objects. It is functional also for Web panels.
This binding replaces the data bindings VB - Script expression, V - Elementary expression and LN - Linear function, that are now considered obsolete (but still functional).

- PmgString object: The Value property used to be of the String type, but now (according to the "Data type of entered value" configurator) returns the value of String, Integer or Float type. The old behavior can be activated in the "Always return String (obsolete)" configurator (the objects that are already existing will use the old setting so the behavior remains the same as before).

- Pma object preconfigurations: There is a basic preconfigurations is now available for all important communication drivers. When creating the PmaComm object the correct configuration is used for corresponding communication.

- PmSBUS communication driver:

- PmABradleyDF1 communication driver: Generalization for usage in the PmaCommGroup object.

- PmMelsecQA communication driver:

- Web panels: Methods Pm.ColorOper and Pm.ColorRgb are now working also for Web panels.

- PmaCommGroup object: Fixed bug: In the "Value recalculation" configurator the d constant when converted from older projects was set to 0 (instead of 1) - bug since Pm8.1.0 version.

- PmaAlarmGroup object:

- PmS7 communication driver: New driver for communication by the S7 Ethernet protocol with PLC devices Simatic, VIPA, INSEVIS, etc. It is now possible to communicate with these devices directly via the Profinet connector. OPC servers and special PC cards are no longer needed.
The driver can also be used for communication via the MPI or PROFIBUS interface through the NetlinkPro converter.
There are also new preconfigurations available for this driver:

- PmaAdo new object: This object allows to access databases via the ADO technology. The object is more general and developed compared to the PmaDatabase object (that supported DAO and ODBC technologies) and therefore it is better to use the PmaAdo object for database access.

- PmaWeb object: The new "Web server type" configurator can be used in order to implement new Web server of the "HTTP(S) service" type. This server type allows to use more secure HTTPS protocol.

- Web panels: C++ formatting (see the "Value format type" configurator) is now implemented directly into the panel and therefore the PmAxTool1 ActiveX object is no longer needed.

- Parameters of the Pma object: Now each Pma object can contain the parameter.

- PmaData object: Each data item (PmVar object) has a new Unit property (see also the "Unit" configurator).

- PmaCommGroup object:

- PmTeco communication driver: Generalization: Added TECO data type: DINT, LREAL, TIME / TIME_OF_DAY and DATE / DATE_AND_TIME.

- PmABradleyDF1 communication driver: Generalization for Ethernet.

- PmMelsecFXS communication driver: Generalization for Ethernet

- PmgTrendViewer object:

- Pm.GetSystemInfo method: New options "memory.free", "memory.usage" and "cpu.usage" for detecting the free memory, used memory and CPU load.
These options replacethe following properties Pm.MemoryUsage and Pm.CpuUsage, that are now considered obsolete (even if functional).

- Pm.RtLang property: Returns the language version of the runtime in the form of a standard text identifier.
This property replaced the Pm.RtLanguage property that is now considered obsolete (even if functional).

- How to create an application using different national languages: Support of the whole set of international languages in runtime PROMOTIC. The system texts are translated into some of them.

- PmgString object: new properties FontId and Multiline.