Inventu Viewer+ Software Updates

https://software.inventu.com/2021H3?dl=IVSetup64.exe (64bit)

ViewerLib API

• Visual Studio Runtime Library upgraded from 110 to Version 141 (Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019)
• Original C++ .NET implementation upgraded to CLI
• If a DBCS entry field was defined on the screen following a datastream “shortcut” for stopping/starting DBCS data, the entry field was not the correct length. Fixed in this release.
• Windows Toolkit upgraded to latest version
• Added new property – VTKeepDeltas to avoid the active delta list from being cleared when a new buffer is received from the host. This can improve the ability to identify deltas in situations where two or more buffers make-up a host response.
• Added new HostConnection property “ClusterAvailability” which provides an easily parsed text string containing active cluster server names and the number of available sessions on each.
• Added new HostConnection method SetSessionKerberosTicket which accepts a byte array that must be filled by appropriate SSPI or .NET functions prior to the call. This call sets-up the necessary flags and integration so the Emulation Service will utilize the ticket when connecting the user.The following sample code may be used to obtain a ticket in a .NET application for a user signed-in using Windows Authentication with an Active Directory setup for Kerberos sign-ins:

        using (var domainContext = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
        {
             KerberosSecurityTokenProvider tokenProvider = new KerberosSecurityTokenProvider({kerberosSPN},
             System.Security.Principal.TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation,
             CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials);
             KerberosRequestorSecurityToken securityToken = 
             tokenProvider.GetToken(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)) as KerberosRequestorSecurityToken;
             byte[] ticket = securityToken.GetRequest();
        }

• Added new ScreenDelta and ScreenData classes which are returned as List<ScreenDelta> and List<ScreenData> from the new HostScreen.getData and HostScreen.getScreenDeltas calls. These enable powerful dynamic parsing and rendering of ASCII protocol screens.
• Added new HostScreen Boolean property VTLockOnTextCursor when set true will use the VT text cursor state to manage when the keyboard is unlocked and methods like putCommand return. This enables far better synchronization and screen recognition when the host uses the TextCursor state to indicate a complete or incomplete update.
• Added new method getRectangle(row, column, width, height) or HostScreen.getRectangle(offset, width, height) which is like HostScreen.getTextFull but with a height parameter as well as support for “box drawing” character translation. For ASCII protocols with box drawing, typically used for describing the borders of a pop-up, with standard calls the box characters are read as text, like x,l,m and so on.  The HostScreen.getRectangle will return the Unicode values for the correct characters making-up the box.
• Added new popup box-tracking Boolean read-only property, NewBoxWritten which will be true following a HostScreen.putCommand if the updates to the screen include the upper-left corner of a box.
• Added new read-only integer property HostScreen.BoxCount which will provide the number of popup boxes currently on the screen. This is updated following each putCommand.
• Added a new methods getBoxOffset() and HostScreen.getBoxOffset(boxNumber) that returns the offset in the screen of the upper-left corner of a popup box. Generally should only be used for the top-most box, indicated with the HostScreen.BoxCount property.
• Added the readonly property ScreenFlags which returns an integer with up to 32 bits set indicating the active protocol state. Can be used to read active states such as the VT TextCursor state.

InventuSSO Connection Framework

• Added support for Splunk event generation, either to a folder on the server or via an HTTP call to a configured Splunk server.
• The LogEvent Action is now available for Splunk logging
• The Recog keyword now can set * as the Row for ASCII environments where a specific prompt can appear on any row in the screen.
• The Enter action now supports an expression, so that variables can be embedded in {{format}} as with other expressions. This was needed for ASCII protocols as these cannot use SetScreen to set screen data with a variable value.
• Unrelated to Kerberos, some tweaks were made to enable flexibility in excluding certain connections from running in the screen-based InventuSSO framework.
  • The SetState action now can take an expression so that the ? switch expression can be used to apply some simple logic to what the next state should be.
  • The global setting IgnoreAnonymousUsers was added to exclude non-identified users. For example, if a SAML 2.0 security configuration in an implementation phase allows anonymous connections, this setting will exclude those connections from the SSO logic.
  • If the first screen has a WhenState LogonInit section, this can now set the state to Exit using a conditional SetState ? expression. If LogonInit sets the state to exit, no processing will occur for the user.

Profiles Emulation Configurator

• Added two new options in the Profile for TN5250 Protocol connections- “Connect with Kerberos SSO” and “Kerberos Service Principal Name (SPN)”. These enable connecting to a properly configured AS400/IBMi without the need for the user to enter a userID and password.  If Active Directory is synchronized with your AS400, this is a preferable option to the InventuSSO framework, which is for hosts that are not in the same Active Directory as your FVTerm Server.
• Added the Web Server Security setting “SAML 2.0 Allow Anonymous Connections” to enable support for anonymous users in a SAML 2.0 environment.
• New setting in Web Server security for the FVTerm Cookies SameSite setting. As modern browsers are restricting how cookies are stored, the “Lax” default setting for the SameSite cookie property can cause problems with the Session Connection Security Cookie and other FVTerm cookies.  This is if the FVTerm session is inside an iFrame hosted in a page that has no domain relationship with the FVTerm server.  Normally this is OK as the iFrame runs in its own space, but if a cookie’s SameSite property is not set to “None” the session key cookie fails and a session will not properly connect.
• AzureAD now has a new Web Server setting in the configuration user interface to help identify a user. Prior versions were only identifying a user as the FVTerm application pool.   Connection Identity now offers “Claims Principal” as a new option…when set, the new setting, Claim Identity is visible and defaults to the user’s email address but can also use the user’s Mobile Phone Number or Display Name for identification purposes when viewed in an administrator’s session list.
• When adding a new Host in the Config/Admin.html page, any blank in the host name will now be replaced with an underscore during the Apply of the change.
• When adding a new profile, blanks and other special characters will be converted to the underscore character
• Added new setting in Profile / User Interface: “Use Tabs in Clipboard Paste” – the paste operation will now recognize a tab character in the clipboard when pasting text into simple fields (not fields that are part of a multi-row editor block with lines 50 characters or greater). Each tab will terminate the current field’s entry and clear to the right prior to tabbing to the next field on the screen. For ASCII hosts, the keystrokes sent will include and embedded [tab]. While this setting defaults to checked, by unchecking it you can reset the default for paste operations to work like it did with prior releases. Note that functionality involving note pasting, with word-wrapping as well as column-based pasting is unaffected by this setting and works as it did before (in vertically aligned fields of 50 characters or more).

Installer IVSetup64.exe

• Security settings were tweaked to avoid a problem with the Admin Console displaying a registry access error at startup. This affected new installations only, not installations of the prior product “Flynet Viewer”.
• .NET Version required bumped from 4.6.1 to 4.7.2 to enable control of the SameSite Cookie property in FVTerm
• Added a Message Box if the IISApi executable could not be loaded, which can be caused by the user running the installer from a network drive.
• The Inventu Viewer Emulation Service and the Controller Service were both still being installed with an “Interactive Process” flag, which caused an event log warning each time they were installed and/or started. This flag has been removed from the installer.
• WebSockets were not set as default for new setups due to a coding error in the Profiles configuration code (fixed in this release).
• Updates were creating invalid URL strings when the FVTerm application was set as default for the IIS web server, instead of at the /fvterm/ folder.
• Google API assemblies and the NewtonSoft JSON assemblies had version issues that have been fixed in this setup.
• Added updater to web.config to bump the Google API versions used when Google Signin is the active IAM provider.
• The ViewerLib4.dll version has been updated to 4.1.0.14 from 4.1.0.12 – this can cause some issues with existing code that references ViewerLib4.dll using a specific build number.

Notification Tray Service Control Icons

• If a second copy of SCControl.exe ran, any interaction would set the “hourglass” and only killing with the Task Manager would fix the issue. When a second copy of SCControl runs, it will now display a message box (“Inventu Viewer Task Service Control Pipe not Available–Check if there is another Task Control Tray Icon active!  This instance of the Task Control Client will now Exit… “) The same message will occur if, for some reason, the Inventu Service Controller service isn’t running.
• AutoStart was not being set correctly, so in many situations, the service icons would not be auto started and would need to be manually started, even when “Autostart” was checked, following a system restart/reboot/power up.

Viewer Studio

• When running the new Task Wizard for Web Service during the design phase, if many screens were in the active list, as “Add New Data” types were set, the display of the screen with the fieldmap for filtering would slow to intolerable levels. This made the use of the Task Wizard intolerable for long complex processes.
• The recording reader was incorrectly setting the codepage of the recording. This would cause recordings from non-English systems to include incorrect characters and sometimes corrupted the layout of a screen.
• Connection code is now generated to support Profile-based connections so that in a UI environment the emulator iFrame will use a Profiles settings appropriately.

Visual Studio Extension

• Additional support for startup and Task integration to fix compatibility with newer versions of VS2019

https://software.inventu.com/2021B1?dl=IVSetup64.exe (64bit)

InventuSSO Connection Framework

• Custom DeviceID templating that generate a unique DeviceID/Template based on the userID or a custom value would not cleanup a closed ID when the Disconnect action executed (versus user explicitly closing the session).
• Tracing for DeviceID templating extended to more function points

ViewerLib API

• When streaming screens with DBCS, converting to UTF-8, extra Unicode characters were being sent to the HTML client at the end of the buffer.

Emulation Configurator

• Recent updates to the Chromium-based browsers caused the settings tabs to have odd scrolling effects when updating any property not at the very top. This was fixed by adding a position:relative CSS setting to each element within the settings div elements.
• Added new View Advanced Setting for Auto-Close of the FVTerm window—if loaded as part of a parent page action, if the user clicks on the disconnect icon, the FVTerm window or tab will automatically close. This is an enhancement particularly for Single-Signon environments where the SSO script should run on each connection and be tied-in with properties provided by the opener.