Inventu Viewer+ Software Updates

Inventu Viewer+ 2020F1

Setups 2020F1 mark a new chapter in the history of the Inventu terminal emulation product line.  From the early days when WildTower Solutions produced the first versions based on Screensurfer, the “Flynet” name has been in the products.  Inventu has now renamed our products from Flynet Viewer 2016 to Inventu Viewer+.

The “plus” stands for the added features and fixes that Inventu provides with the Inventu Viewer+ product compared to earlier releases of Flynet Viewer 2016.  Since the April 2018 setups, only Inventu has provided updated versions of Flynet Viewer 2016 and now Inventu is the sole provider of Inventu Viewer+.

Throughout the Inventu Website and Products, all references to “http://flynetsoftware.com” are now “https://software.inventu.com”.

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components
(Version: 6.0.14 June 15, 2020)

Base Inventu Viewer+ Emulation Service

• All tools and windows updated to reflect name change from Flynet Viewer to Inventu Viewer+
• Note that for existing servers updated to this build existing registry hives and file folder names will continue to use the base name “Flynet”. New installations will use base name “Inventu”.
• Clustered servers improved support for upgrades where the name of the server is appended to reflect a new key (enabling increased sessions for example). Tickets from an upgraded server are now recognized by other servers as an upgrade is being made using hold/release on a live 24/7 environment.
• Added MaxWarningBand, named Session Max Warning Band which if set will monitor total active sessions on a single server or cluster and send a warning email to the registered company administrator if the number of sessions comes inside the band. For example, for a cluster with 1,000 sessions, setting the warning band at 100 would send an email the first time active sessions exceeded 900.  Please alert support@inventu.com if you wish to use this feature, and provide the email you would like informed.  Requires HTTPS access to inventu.com from each server that this setting is live on for the email to work.
• 3270 protocol additional tweak for entry fields with attribute at last position on screen instead of row1, column1.
• 3270 sessions were vulnerable to a rare condition when a session was terminated as a TN3270E buffer acknowledgement was queued for sending. If this occurred,  that session would fail on the first TN3270E buffer received from the host needing an “ack” buffer from then on.  This is fixed in Version 6.0.14 of Flyserver.exe.
• With a 3270 screen with an entry field at row 1, column 1, the buffer sent to the host was sending the field at row 1 column 1 first. Based on behavior of IBM Personal Communications terminal emulator, which sends this as the last field, the logic was tweaked to behave the same as PCOMM to maximize compatibility.
• The 5250 attribute Mandatory Fill was causing a field to be set as numeric only. Fixed in this release.
• Added Console Command at port 82, “resetLicense” for subscription licenses, will enable updating the subscription expiration without restarting the service (must first “Check Subscription” with the FVLicense.exe tool).

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

• Welcome Icon changed to “Inventu Fast View Terminal” from “Flynet Pure Web Terminal Emulator”
• Minimum Worker Threads no longer needs to be set by administrators from the default of zero in order to activate the recommended setting of TotalSessions*2 / vCPU’s/Threads. This setting is important to insure fast session response times in larger session configurations.
• SAML 2.0 Security Framework was enhanced to allow different top-level web pages than SCTerm.html to initiate and complete a sign-in.
• StretchFonts was defaulting to ON regardless of the default set in a Profile in Profiles configuration mode. Fixed in this release.
• Clipboard Paste actions were broken in prior setup, fixed in this release.
• ClipBoard detection of columns improved when combined with repeating a previous screen’s copy block selection (double-clicking the Copy icon)
• The SamlAuth.js file was added to the Scripts folder to support top-level web pages that replace SCTerm.html as the default page for users.

Setup, Profiles Configuration and Runtime

• New name – IVSetup64.exe instead of FVSetup64.exe
• Discontinued 32 bit version
• Detect if existing install and determine if Flynet or Inventu as base name
• Add new /f parameter so that a customer can install to Flynet registry and folder base names if in an existing environment where these names are part of sharing or maintenance procedures.
• When loaded as a re-install, there is now a confirmation message box to allow the user to cancel before any actions are taken, in case the IVSetup64 executable was accidentally run.
• Fixed some minor issues for workstations with only IISExpress installed
• New detection if the IIS default folder has been set to FVTerm so that internal URL’s and shortcuts don’t include “/fvterm/” in URL’s. This is for installations where the customer wants URL’s to be simply the web server without /fvterm.
• WebSockets are now defaulted ON for new installations for the FVTerm web terminal emulator settings
• The Introductory Help for FVTerm is now defaulted OFF for new installations. This is a summary help page describing how FVTerm works for new users and in practice was preferred OFF by customers.
• At completion of the setup, the Emulation Configuration Editor was loading sometimes without the correct web.config – the Editor will now wait if part of an install before initializing.

Inventu Viewer+ Studio
(Version: 2.0.217 June 15, 2010)

Inventu Flynet Viewer 2016EQ Enhancements and Fixes

• New Web Terminal Emulation Security Option: SAML 2.0, which works with SAML 2.0 SSO including SalesForce SSO and OKTA Security framework. Configured using the Profiles mode Configuration editor.  Security options now include Windows Security, Azure AD, Google Sign-In and SAML 2.0.
• Web Terminal Emulator Clipboard Copy Enhancements–Repeatable Copy and Column Detection for Spreadsheet integration
• Further Continuous Updates, Enhancements and Fixes

Inventu Flynet Viewer Base Product and Components
(Version: 5.0.389 March 26, 2020)

FlyServer Emulation Service

• 3270 formatted screens with input field starting at row1, column1, with the attribute byte at the last row / last column (like row24 column 80) were sending updates to that field with the wrong address of the update.
• For tightly driven server-side API environments, there was a timing issue if a key sequence caused the host to terminate the Telnet socket at the same time that the HostConnection.disconnect() was called. This would cause an error condition on subsequent attempts to start a session on the same ID.
• 3270 Set Buffer Address, Repeat to Address and Erase to Address orders would not function correctly if a telnet escape character 0xff was in the address and buffers from the host terminated in the middle of the order. Normal state-based parsing was implemented to fix the broken buffer problem.
• TLS Connections- more reliable initial Telnet handshakes for some TN3270 environments
• TNVT VT320 Protocol-added support for alternate font graphics2 used for box-drawing in some applications
• 5250 Device Printer on a Clustered Server would cause an exception on certain stop conditions
• By Default, the service will now create a minidump in the installation data folder (default c:\program files\flynet\viewer\data). It will not create more than one minidump files for exceptions occurring at the same address.  This can be turned-off (not recommended!) by setting the registry setting HKLM\Software\Flynet\Viewer\Settings:ExceptionMiniDump to “No”
• Additional logging for socket errors and correction of a logic loop that can occur with a socket error on initial connection to a host causing an exception

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

• Added new Security option: SAML 2.0, which works with SAML 2.0 SSO including SalesForce SSO and OKTA Security framework. Configured using the Profiles mode Configuration editor.  Security options now include Windows Security, Azure AD, Google Sign-In and SAML 2.0.
• The Start Clipboard Copy Icon now has a double-click function which is to “RepeatCopy” – this will use the previous rectangle for a clipboard copy and copy that same screen area to the clipboard. Adds ease of use when a client is paging through multiple screens and copying the same screen area to the clipboard on each paged screen.  The “RepeatCopy” is also available as a keyboard setting, which is assigned for new installations to Alt-D.
• A new mode for the Clipboard Block Copy was implemented. When a block clipboard copy is executed, columns will be detected if there is more than one row copied, and TAB characters will replace any blanks in each column.  This enables more productive pasting into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel.   This mode is the new default, but is controllable with the Profile Setting “Clipboard Block Copy Detect Columns” and also has been added to the user’s settings as an option.
• Active Sessions list can be configured to display on the top connection menu and now includes how long a session has been idle so users can see if a “stale” session can be reconnected.
• Improved synchronization of server-side macros with client requests including cancelling an active macro
• Added a new Profile Macro setting- New Connection Server Macro, which specifies a server-side macro to be run following a successful connection to the profile’s host
• Client Macros Editor width was increased to better reflect typical screen sizes and improve work space.
• Auto-prompting for a Printer Device ID will now work when an active entry field is on the screen
• Android devices had a bug with newer versions of Android where the Emulator Entry field option prevented effective use of the virtual keyboard due to extra keys being entered after the first key. Fixed in this release.
• If the FVTerm v4.0 Application Pool was recycled, active sessions would have a field update problem when the user cleared the contents of a field using the Field Exit—the field would not be updated properly—fixed in this setup.
• 5250 protocol – System alert message screens written to the client without the user having pressed enter caused any active entry field updates to be lost once the alert was cleared. Fixed in this release.
• When the Emulator Refresh icon is clicked, any pending entry field entries by the user for 5250 and 3270 protocols are now preserved.
• The initial display of the TopMenu.html file, which is used to present selection options, under certain network conditions could be loaded until the View and Profile information is loaded in the parent SCTerm.html page. This would then only display the settings and help tiles/icons until the page in the browser was refreshed. TopMenu now has logic to ensure that the parent page is fully loaded prior to displaying the menu tiles.
• A new parameter on the SCTerm.html page will launch the sessions.html page following any needed security authorization such as with Google Sign-in or SAML 2.0. The new parameter is launchSessions=yes. Example: https://term.mycompany.com/fvterm/scterm.html?launchSessions=yes
• When an entry field for 3270 or 5250 protocols has been identified by the host as “Numeric Only” or “Alpha Only” a red error message is displayed when a user attempts to key an invalid character, such as an alpha into a numeric entry. To accommodate instances when this may be due to a protocol or screen map error, a new green clickable text is appended to the message so that the user can click to allow entry of any character into the field.
• The error message for alpha/numeric only was moved into the terminal browser element to fix positioning errors due to transforms of the screen text.

Setup, Profiles Configuration and Runtime

• Added new option for SAML 2.0 Security to the Web Server Tab along with specific SAML 2.0 configuration properties.
• Updated Configuration online help to include new settings that were added.
• The FVTerm Logging Root Folder can now be set in the Web Server Advanced settings

Screen Recorder 2.0

• Default for Ctrl-V is now Paste Keys from Clipboard instead of sending the Ctrl-V key

Trace Viewer

• If an ASCII protocol screen had the ^ character on the screen, the trace viewer was masking all following data with an * which is logic for 5250 and 3270 screens as ^ is an attribute for a password field. Fixed in this release so that ASCII screens are properly rendered with embedded ^ characters.

Visual Studio Inventu Flynet Viewer Extension Version 1.3.29

Newer versions of Visual Studio 2019 block extensions that do not start using an asynchronous initialization.  Even when enabling synchronous extensions, the changes caused exceptions in the extension.  This version fixes these issues and improves stability.

Inventu Viewer Studio
(Version: 2.0.216 March 17, 2010)