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ST 5-0 - released 17th Oct 2008
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Summary: Synchronized Cursors, OPC Cloaking, SNMP and Windows Performance Plugin Dlls in the Sapphire Collector.
For a more comprehensive review of the enhancements in this release see the New Features section of the
online help (see: http://www.sapphiretrend.com/NewFeatures).
Enhancements
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All Clients
0012: The logon dialogs have been revised to match other Jemmac OPC products.
0001: Updated 'About' dialogs for all Sapphire clients.
stPro
0708: A User Preference has been added allowing the user to specify the default
Compression Mode to use when there is too much data to display each value on the trend.
0707: The Plot Properties Mapping tab has a new optional column called 'Read Status'. This reports the
last observed error for items in error, and "Bad Value" for items returning bad data values. The
same column is available in the Tools->Edit Data Source->Item list for Sapphire Collector Data Sources.
0701: The Icon set for stPro has been refreshed to improve clarity.
0698: Most Recently Used (MRU) lists have been added to the Right-click File menu for Plot files and
to the "User" drop down menu for User Preference files.
0688: The Edit Data Source dialog now allows sub second scan times to be specified when connecting
directly to DA or HDA OPC Servers.
0687: A User Preference has been added allowing the Item Details Area tooltips to be disabled.
0670: A "Fit to Page" option has been added to the printing controls. This will scale the plot
to make the maximum use of the available paper.
0613: The User Preferences Auditing tab now has a "View Current..." button allowing the active
audit file to be reviewed without having to navigate to the files location.
0597: It is now possible to display the Pen Pointers which indicate the position of the latest
data samples on the right hand Y-axis without having to enable the Preview Pane.
0575: A new feature called "Synchronized Cursors" has been added. This allows values in multiple trends to be
compared concurrently by sweeping the cursor to the desired time period in the 'lead' plot.
stOCX
0070: The Set/GetUserPreference methods have a new option for "SHOW TOOLTIPS" to control whether
tooltips are displayed in the Item Details Area.
0068: The Set/GetUserPreference methods have a new option for "PRINT FIT TO PAGE" to control
whether the plot is stretched to fill the available print space.
Sapphire Collector
0176: Two new Performance items have been added to the __PERF__ DL returning the numbers of seconds into
the day, and the number of minutes into the day. These are useful for testing purposes.
0167: The Collector now supports optional plugin DLLs allowing data to be read from sources other than OPC.
These currently include 1) SNMP data from devices such as network switches, servers, environmental
monitoring devices etc and 2) Windows Performance counters - allowing operating system and process
data to be historized.
0164: The Collector build version can now be trended as a Performance item on the __PERF__ DL. This provides
an easy way to establish the version of all Collectors in a multi-Collector network domain.
0162: The Collector can employ either persistent or non-persistent OPC connections on a per DL basis. In
non-persistent mode the connection to the OPC Server is rebuilt at a user defined frequency.
This reduces the Collector's exposure to badly behaving OPC Servers.
0157: The user can now nominate the account that the Collector should use when connecting to an OPC Server
on a per DL basis. By definition, this account does not have to be the account that is running the
Sapphire Collector. This allows the Sapphire Collector to connect to OPC Servers in a non-trusted domain
without the need for a third party OPC tunneller.
stManager
0184: A new DL properties dialog has been added for the optional SNMP and Window Performance Plugin Dll's.
0180: The line wrapping logic has been removed from the Item Properties dialog as the dialog can now
be resized.
0178: The Items dialog that displays items in an SDR has a new column called 'Read Status'. This
reports the last observed error for items in error, and "Bad Value" for items returning bad data
values.
0177: The look and feel of the user interface has been updated to match other Jemmac products.
0176: The Data Location Properties dialog now has Refresh and Apply buttons allowing the active Data Source
to be updated without having to exit from the dialog.
0174: The Data Location (DL) Data Source Properties dialog has been enhanced to allow the user to
specify the security credentials to use when connecting to the underlying OPCServers.
See Sapphire Collector item 0157.
0171: The Archive path is now displayed on the Configuration tab.
stTabularHistory
0112: The Properties dialog next and last page icon now mirrors the page controls from stPro.
0094: The Item Properties Auditing tab now has a "View Current..." button allowing the active
audit file to be reviewed without having to navigate to the file's location.
stTHOCX
0015: A new API has been added called LoadPrefsFile allowing the Tabular History OCX to load an explicit
User preferences file. New API's called AddItemViaAliasNameAndColor and AddItemWithDisplayNameAndColor
have also been added allowing the user to control the pen colour assigned to items when they are added
to the application.
stOPCAdmin
0019: The auditing tab now has an option allowing the current audit file to be viewed directly.
0017: The look and feel has been updated to match other Jemmac products.
Installshield
0059: The Installshield error reporting has been improved to display textual messages instead of numeric codes
when encountering security problems and other Installation issues.
0058: Two new Plugin DLL's are now delivered to allow the Collector to read SNMP and Windows Performance
Monitor data. The Installshield has a new check box to control whether these are enabled by default.
0057: The Installshield now defaults the value of recvtimeout to -1 on Collector nodes to prevent
Sapphire client timeouts occurring when running large exports.
0056: The screen shot displayed by the Installshield has been updated.
0053: XP Themes have been added to the resource files for all components with user interfaces.
Bug fixes
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All Clients
0013: A crash could occur in SphCommonDialogs when "suspending" and reinstating an OCX.
0004: A TCP/IP socket management bug has been fixed which could have resulted in a tight loop continually
logging messages about "An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.."
stPro
0711: When working with multiple Data Sources the Plot Properties dialog Select Data Source dialog was incorrectly
offering an Apply button for DA and HDA OPC Servers.
0709: Addressed an issue that could cause the pens for X-Y plots to get out of order when performing
complex pen assignments and movements via the Plot Properties Mapping tab option.
0704: The Export Definition tab was not correctly refreshing the list of Export definitions when the refresh
button was clicked.
0702: The Plot Synchronize feature was not updating the time duration when the "Left Time Label Shows Duration"
User Preference was set.
0700: The Plot Properties Pen tab "Link to Pen" drop down for X-Y plots was referencing the pens numerically
rather than as X-Y pairs.
0699: The item name is now blanked out when using the Plot Properties Mapping tab right-click "Copy Pen"
option for virtual items since virtual items must always have unique names.
0695: If a pen contained data points which can be plotted (in scale) and others that can not because they
are a long way off scale, the drawing code could fail to display ANY of the trend when the plot
window was maximised.
0694: Virtual pens are no longer offered on the Annotations dialog since they do not exist within the
Sapphire Collector (and therefore cannot have Annotations associated with them).
0693: Virtual items where showing as online - "No (Auto)" and resolved - "No" when a plot was loaded than
contained virtual items.
0692: The pens ordering on the User Preferences Palette tab was based on ASCII and not numeric order.
0691: The toolbar icon and menu option for opening a user preferences file were throwing the Save As dialog.
0690: Plot files that reference HDA OPC Server as Data Source were not being restored with the saved
collection frequency.
0686: The Export Definition dialog was not showing the correct export frequency for saved definitions.
0684: The Edit Data Source dialog did not remember its new size.
0681: Sapphire entries were being written to an incorrect registry location ("Software" was in the path twice).
0674: stPro now selects an appropriate time period when loading a CSV file. Previously the user
had to interact with the plot to make it switch to the time period defined in the CSV.
0672: It was possible to crash stPro by saving an empty tab file.
0669: A number of boolean values restored from session/plot/prefs files were not being applied correctly
on application startup and file reloads.
0667: The tooltips in a new stPro instance stopped working after the plot was assigned to a data source.
0665: The plot reload options are now conditioned to not be available unless a plot file has been
previously loaded.
0661: It was possible to crash stPro by exiting the application immediately after loading a highly
complex SPHCSV data file.
stOCX
0071: The Get/SetUserPreference API's now support missing attributes for YAXIS_MODE, DISPLAY_SUFFIX, LEFT_TIME LABEL
and AUTO_SCALE_STRATEGY.
0065: The OCX would incorrectly report "Loading facility error message DLL 'SphNetErrors.DLL' [126]
The specified module could not be found.." when trying to decode errors.
Sapphire Collector
0178: The circular Item log buffer permits up to 50 characters of extra information per item log entry. In
some situations it was possible to overwrite this 50 character limit.
0174: The Collector now flushes data back to disk when each time slice is recorded. This addresses reports of
the Collector losing history when it is incorrectly shutdown (for example when a power outage occurs).
0172: Collector is now resilient to situations where OPC Servers return errors for OPC RemoveItems calls.
0166 Identified that the Conn.Count performance item was misleading since it also included incomplete
partial connections. The counters used to record and control logon connections were revised
accordingly.
0161: The Item Properties dialog has been modified to use the data type returned from SPHNGetItemAttributes,
rather than the types returned in SPHNGetAvailableItemAttributes. This manifested itself by
displaying the incorrect error message "Error 0xe002000a returned for the Value Item Property".
0160: In some circumstances the Collector would close a client's TCP/IP socket twice. This caused
problems with management of the Collector's listen socket which could result in client logon failures.
0159: Fixed an issue with B-flag auditing when clients ask for large amounts of history (> 6,000,000 days).
0158: Addressed a potential deadlock during the logon sequence that could prevent clients from connecting.
The issue could also cause SDPs to stop collecting if they included the __PERF__ conn.count item.
stManager
0186: The Browse Data Source dialog was displaying DA OPC Server using a green icon instead of the
correct red icon.
0185: Resizing the stManager could end up with the display not being rendered correctly.
0183: The file retrieved via the "View Current..." button on the Auditing tab was not necessarily the
current file as it was not being refreshed when a new file was opened.
0181: The DL properties button is now correctly conditioned for inbuilt DLs such as __SYSTEM__ and __PERF__.
stExporter
0017: The exporter was incorrectly generating two connections to the Collector whilst executing.
stTabularHistory
0111: Tabular History would either crash or report invalid data when launched via a right-click from an stPro
trend that contained virtual items.
0110: The network browse now returns DA OPC Servers as well as HDA as both types are supported.
0109: Manually deleted items were throwing an error on the next data fetch.
0108: The focus no longer automatically shifts when the mouse moves between the main application window, the
trend window and back.
0105: Tabular history trends can now be launched by right-clicking on the application as well
as via the existing double click in the Item region of the application window.
0104: Loading a second instance of a Tabular History file that referenced the existing data source resulted in
errors being reported.
0103: The activity Hour glass was staying 'up' after "Save As" operations.
0102: The Properties dialog was indicating it could be resized, but was not working properly when 'stretched'.
0101: If you started Tabular History by double clicking a TabHist file that referenced a Collector which could not
be reached, the activity hour glass never went away.
0100: Hitting F1 with the focus set to the application window was not launching the help correctly.
0099: Tabular History was not fetching new data after the initial update.
0096: The hourglass remained 'up' after exiting the Properties dialog giving the impression that the
application had locked up.
0095: Tabular History was offering audit flags that were not used by the application.
stTHOCX
0018: Tabular History did not always display the correct time headers.
0017: AddItemViaAlias was failing to resolve the aliases properly when the Alias name supplied was valid.
0016: The first data scan did not always properly colour the min and max values for the daily averages.
0014: The dialog would return an hour glass when selecting the same item from the item selection control
as was previously selected. Note, the same problem was apparent in the full application, but it
was easier to resolve as resizing the application window cleared down the hour glass.
stOPCAdmin
0022: The stOPCAdmin would report that an OPC Server was connected to an incorrect Sapphire Collector
if the Collector was changed whilst the Server was running.
0021: Auditing changes are now only applied when the user clicks 'Apply' to make the behaviour consistent
with the other settings and controls.
0020: stOPCAdmin now identifies W2003 SP1 and uses the new extended DCOM permissions (as per XPSP2 & Vista).
0018: Changes made to the auditing levels for a Sapphire OPC Server were not always being correctly applied.
0016: The Sapphire OPC Server could end up being incorrectly registered following repeated updates of
the product due to mismanagement of the null terminators on some of the associated registry keys.
stOPCServer
0018: It was possible for the stOPCServer to enter a tight loop on start up when trying to connect to
a Sapphire Collector that was not running (typically on machine reboot).
0017: Changing the settings for an stOPCServer could take a long time due to pre-save checks being made
that were not always necessary (for example when applying auditing changes).
0016: Not all the configured stOPCServers were always restarted following a product upgrade.
0015: The DA interface in the stOPCServer seems to be calling SPHNLookupItems more frequently than is necessary.
0014: DA reads now use a 'window' of two values to guarantee we always get at least one valid value back
rather than in some situations getting 'In Future'.
Installshield
0055: Added a file association type for Tab file (.sphTab).
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