See the below links for short infographic videos of some of the item new to v21.5

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – Lists

Demonstrating Lists functionality which allows a list of key/pair values to be created and maintained by users outside of Formate.   The GetList and GetListItem commands can then be used to parse data.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – ModernAuthentication

Demonstrating new email connectors for Gmail and Microsoft Office 365 which use token based authorisation to replace older protocols like SMTP and IMAP.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – EdPdfAddOpLetterhead

Demonstrating the EdPdfAddOpLetterhead command which allows for a PDF to be used as a letterhead or background and combined into an existing PDF.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – BookmarksAndPdfCreateContentsPage

Demonstrating the “Bookmark” Element Property of the SetFormTypeProperty command to add a Bookmark to a Custom PDF.  The PdfCreateContentsPage command is then used to take the PDF with Bookmarks and add a Contents page to it.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – DownloadImage

Demonstration of the DownloadImage command which allows an Image to be downloaded from a URL.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Video – Explorer

Demonstrating new functionality in Formate Dashboard Explorer which allows folders to be created to group related items.

Formate eVo v21.5 Release Videos – SuperTrim

Demonstrating the SuperTrim command which allows for spaces to be trimmed from a string, including removing blank lines.

New Release – v21.5 coming shortly

Just a teaser – v21.5 will be with everybody shortly.

Web Service Monitor (WSM) – Error created by network scanner

Formate eVo’s internal webserver is used for the remote lightweight publishing of the eVo event log, and to provide limited remote control functionality.

As an embedded webserver running on an unusual port specified arbitrarily by theSystem Admin at the time of setup, it may appear suspicious to your network monitoring and security software.

Access of the WSM URL, ( example http://Formate-eVoSrv:8080) by third party monitoring software may trigger errors to be recorded in both the Windows and eVo event logs on the server similar to this:

Level ::  Error

Created ::  04/05/2021 09:47:31

Details ::  WebSvcMon.SimpleFile(1150): Could not find file ‘C:\Program Files\Extra Resource Limited\T3\Web\Source\index.html’.

Whilst this may not affect access to the WSM, nor produce an undue overhead on the server*, it will fill the logs with unwanted additional entries, and therefore your network monitoring or security software should be configured by rule to not probe this URL.

*extra entries in the event log may make future diagnostic examination more difficult.

eVo internal ID Association

Ever wondered what the internal id of a form type or revision is?

Underlying configuration files have an an internal unique name of the form

ED67314B275448D9BCBAC17DDB4BB5AD-00000263.formtype2

the root of the file name is associated with the machine it was first created on, and the extension identifies the object type, in the above case the actual form type revision. Some of the other extensions identify , Parent Formtype Set, shared value sets, email connections, server tasks, in fact all objects in the Explorer tree have an underlying physical file.

Sometimes this identifiers will turn up in the event log, so it would be useful to be able to link the id back to the item in Explorer. Well to find the association;

Method (1) More Utils|List Config files tool

tool to list all config files

Opening the tool gives you

List Config Files dialog – use refresh button to load content

Method (2) Formtype Sets, Revisions, and Include scripts have the information available in the “info” tab of the properties page for the item.

March/April 2021 – Windows OS Reported Print Problems – Resolution by Microsoft

Further to the previous entry describing print system problems, Microsoft have issued a series of patches to resolve the issues. Exact patch is dependent upon build of windows in use. In simple terms a fully patched ( as up to 07.04.21) windows system should have the fixes installed automatically.

Otherwise cumulative updates from February or March 9th should be either further patched or rolled back, or the following fixes applied

Fixes

Windows OS 2012R2 KB5001640

Windows 10,2019 (1909 – 0n) KB5001648 & KB5001566

March/April 2021 – Windows OS Reported Print Problems

Whilst most information relates to Windows 10, it appears that a number of recent updates have adversely affected the printing sub-system – it manifests itself with random print job failures, job not reaching the queue, or disappearing from the print queue immediately after appearing but not reaching the printer, and reporting of GDI+ errors. Problems are across Type 3 and Type 4 drivers, with Type 4 being seen to more prone to jobs not reaching the queue.

It seems that versions of the updates have been rolled out to other supported OS. Some of the issues are detailed here

March 15, 2021—KB5001565 (OS Build 17134.2088) Out-of-band (microsoft.com)

Application of the latest Cumulative update for Windows 10 or KB5000842 appears to fix the issue.

Obviously if running a production system on a server OS you will have had significant control over update application, but for a customers choosing to run Formate on a Windows 10 machine in production, the problem updates may have been applied automatically, thus introducing the issues, so please be aware.