round-up: versions 15.5.4 - 15.5.5

Layout-8000 versions 15.5.4 - 15.5.5
9/1/2016 - 9/22/2016

This is a maintenance release that addresses several issues reported by customers and staff.

Ad Order Entry (AOE)

• The ad order form's zone list now takes into consideration the Paper and Edition that the ad requests.

Get Ads

• Layout-8000 has become better about detecting changes in the mechanical width of ads. For example, say that an ad's width changes from 3.25" to 2.75". Layout-8000 now reports that size change, even when the ad uses the same number of columns.

AdMAX XML Interface

• Layout-8000 may now accept a XML trickle feed of ads from AdMAX systems.
• AdMAX's "Layout Ad Notes" field is passed to Layout-8000's "Instructions" field.
• Regression testing revealed a few differences that this version of Layout-8000 corrects.

Product List

• When a paper and/or edition are removed from Database Ranges, that product no longer appears in the list of future / scheduled products.

Design & Dummy Area

• Changed the underlying architectture of how commands and actions use scopes to eliminate "uninitialized variable - InnerCmdScope" errors.
• Fixed a bug that had caused the following message to pop up. "Failed to add a message to the messages table."
• Fixed two bugs related to testing at the start of dummying whether there are double truck ads but no double truck pages or color ads but no color pages. First, we do not test that when dummying one page. We also do not test that when dummying a section, group or scope that is less than the entire paper, because we don't need to have a place for every color or double truck ad in that scenario. Second, the scan for double truck and color ads included killed ads. We do not need pages for a killed ad.
• Addressed a potential cause of database corruption in custom tables.

Press Run Report

• The tabloid version of the Press Run report includes both subreports: (1) the Press Run Order report and (2) the Color Advertising Report.
• Suppressed PostScript code in CSV files that are exported to Microsoft Excel.
• Restored a blank line in CSV files that are exported to Microsoft Excel. The blank line is critical to the operation of a Microsoft Excel macro at one site.
• If the Press Run report is cut off or has an orientation problem, GhostScript version 9 solves both problems. You can install that version of GhostScript by running "/u/scs/bin/spm install gs" on each Layout-8000 server as the root or super user. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 already has GhostScript version 9 and does not experience this problem.

Send to Pagination

• Ads that request an unknown group no longer cause "uninitialized variable Ads.GrpReqName" errors when Layout-8000 creates an SCS XML file.
• When a page has no message, SCS XML files no longer contain an empty <message/> tag. That is a requirement for valid SCS XML files. A <message> tag will appear only for pages that have a message.
• CCI AdDesk Sales systems will see an improved translation to Layout-8000 groups. (a) When an ad requests a Section and SubSection but no page request, Layout-8000 will use a Map record that also has no page request. (b) When an ad requests a Section, SubSection and page, Layout-8000 will try to find a Map record that is a perfect match for that request. If no record is found, Layout-8000 will fall back on a Map record with no page request. This allows you to define a default map for records that have either (a) no page request or (2) a page request that does not matter for the Layout-8000 group translation.

Export Procedures

• When a report is emailed, the attached PDF file contains the entire report. Previously only the last 1-2 pages of the report were mailed.

StandbyAdBoss

• Corrected standby ad widths from SCS/AdMAX.
• Layout-8000 now detects and reports size changes in standby ads.
• Layout-8000 reported "Ads not in Cardex" for standby ads. It then prompted the user to kill every standby ad. That has been corrected.
• StandbyAdBoss allowed the user to select up to 10 standby ads to import. That limit has increased to 105.

Maintenance

• The "Printer Maintenance" menu's "Physical Printers" menu entry works. SCS corrected the path to a "prnphys.scr" file that this menu entry uses for the GUI.
• A spreadsheet of groups that apply to all publications can be imported "Database Ranges" without "uninitialized variable" errors.

High Availability (HA) Mirroring

• Overnight processes restart the CUPS service on the standby node after CUPS configuration files are synchronized, so that CUPS configuration changes take effect.

Software Updates

• Faster upgrades! Layout-8000 software updates will become faster, because SCS accelerated the database conversion process. A past year's products will be marked during your next Layout-8000 update. The next update after that one will see that products for that past year have already been prepared for conversion, skip that year, and move onto the next year. Our first test yielded a 40% faster database conversion. Wow!
• GhostScript v9.19 and GhostView are now distributed via SPM; SCS's Package Manager.
• Enhanced SCS's Installer (scsinstall) to support packages with an operating system version in their file name, e.g. "xml2json.el7.tar.gz". This enhancement allows software packages to have file names that are more consistent with Red Hat Linux naming conventions.
• SCS's Package Manager (SPM) allows a specific version of a package to be installed.