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FusionPro VDP 9.3 Now Available


Dan Korn

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PTI has released version 9.3 of the FusionPro VDP Suite. This release includes both Mac and Windows releases of FusionPro VDP Creator as well as the Windows-based FusionPro VDP Producer and FusionPro VDP Producer API.

 

Enhancements:

  • Natively read in Excel XLS and XLSX files
  • Natively read in dBase DBF files
  • Support for Macintosh Yosemite
  • Support for InDesign CC 2014
  • Speed Improvement for FusionPro Producer and Server
  • Improved Web Services system for FP Server customers

UPDATE: FusionPro VDP 9.3.21 and 9.3.22 also include the following:

  • Support for Acrobat DC
  • Support for InDesign CC 2015

UPDATE: FusionPro VDP 9.3.36 adds support for Mac OS X version 10.11 "El Capitan."

 

Issues Addressed:

  • HTML web links disabled
  • “Critical Parser Error” when opening FusionPro document while Enfocus Pitstop is installed
  • Create over 65535 image QR barcodes on Windows
  • Fix to properly save advanced settings in FusionPro Imposer

 

Additional information about the 9.3 release, feature-set, and addressed issues can be found in both the FusionPro 9.3 release notes as well as the FusionPro VDP Software Version History page.

 

Upgrades and New Licenses

FusionPro customers can download the 9.3 release from the FusionPro VDP Software Download page. FusionPro Creator 9.x customers can use their current serial number to install the new version.

 

New licenses of FusionPro VDP Creator 9.3 are available for $799 per license. Upgrade and full new versions can be purchased from the FusionPro VDP Store. Please note that pricing and upgrade eligibility may change at any time.

 

FusionPro Direct/Server and MarcomCentral customers who are active on their maintenance are entitled to an upgrade of their FusionPro VDP software. FusionPro Direct/Server customers can obtain their upgrades by contacting the FusionPro VDP Support team while MarcomCentral customers can contact their CPM to inquire about the upgrade.

 

MarcomCentral Support of FusionPro VDP Creator 9.3 Templates

PTI has completed testing of the FusionPro 9.3 template format and it is currently compatible with MarcomCentral.

Edited by Dan Korn
Added support for El Capitan, Acrobat DC, and InDesign 2015.
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Long time no see. A recent hardware malfunction led to an early upgrade to a device running Mavericks and with it, an immediate jump from FusionPro 8.2 to 9.3.6. During installation, i reviewed the possible current issues, mostly regarding fonts.

 

I am happy to report no major snafus with fonts. I am currently using FontExplorer X Pro to manage fonts and I disabled Asian character support in FP. Some fonts are being renamed from what they were called in Mtn Lion/FP 8.2 but now that the font usage dialog actually works, relinking fonts is only a chore for tags in rules. I'll keep an eye on this issue to see if other fonts require editing .ini files or submitting fonts to support.

 

There are a few difference in UI that are a minor annoyance though:

 

1) All output files are appended with a "1" even if not part of batch output.

 

2) Browsing for files is set to last Finder location used by FusionPro. In 8.2, browsing for a file either started in the last location accessed by the current file, or the location of the current file's input data.

 

3) Tabbing no longer works in FP dialog boxes. If I fill in a value in one field, I can no longer tab to the next field. I have to point-and-click in each field.

 

None of these are deal breakers, but they do affect my productivity. #3 is by far the most annoying as I sub-consciously tab between fields and only afterwards do I realize I've been typing all my values over top of one another. Can anyone confirm these aren't just issues on my own setup?

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esmith those are all issues I've come across. 9.3.6 is much buggier than 8.x

 

I also have these issues:

-Imposition selection in compose window does not "stick", if after selecting a file you select another tab

-Javascript globals sometimes do not work

-2D datamatrix barcodes are broken

-Font naming for me is a major pain, almost every other font I need to edit the fonts.ini for

-And I had the error message pop up again today that has to do with rotated frames and enfocus pitstop.

-Rules with the same name as a database field sometimes are not applied instead of the db field

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Can you run Acrobat CC with FusionPro Creator 9.3? Or is InDesign the only support provided for the Creative Cloud programs?

What is Acrobat CC? The most recent version of Adobe Acrobat is version XI (11). Acrobat XI is included with a Creative Cloud subscription, but there isn't a new CC-specific version of Acrobat like there is with InDesign.

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Font handling seems to keep getting worse and worse. Is it possible to share what priority it is on the "enhancements" or "bug fixes" list?

Can you be more specific as to how it's getting worse? As for our development priorities, I'm not sure what I can tell you, other than that, if Apple would stop coming out with new versions of OS X which require changes to the program so often, we might have more time to work on other things.

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What is Acrobat CC? The most recent version of Adobe Acrobat is version XI (11). Acrobat XI is included with a Creative Cloud subscription, but there isn't a new CC-specific version of Acrobat like there is with InDesign.

 

You are correct . I could have swore there was a specific CC version that I used a trial version of.

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In the release notes under Mac OSX Yosemite, it talks about support for Mavericks. So does FusionPro Creator support up to Mavericks or Yosemite?

Sorry, that's a typo in the release notes. As noted in multiple other places in that PDF, as well as in this thread, FusionPro VDP 9.3 does support Yosemite, as well as Mavericks.

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I am happy to report no major snafus with fonts. I am currently using FontExplorer X Pro to manage fonts and I disabled Asian character support in FP. Some fonts are being renamed from what they were called in Mtn Lion/FP 8.2 but now that the font usage dialog actually works, relinking fonts is only a chore for tags in rules. I'll keep an eye on this issue to see if other fonts require editing .ini files or submitting fonts to support.

Thanks.

1) All output files are appended with a "1" even if not part of batch output.

I'm not seeing this. Does this happen with all jobs? Can you reproduce it with the Tutorials? Are you chunking (composing to multiple output files)? Can you give me any specific information as to how to reproduce this?

2) Browsing for files is set to last Finder location used by FusionPro. In 8.2, browsing for a file either started in the last location accessed by the current file, or the location of the current file's input data.

I believe that 9.3 functions the same as 9.2 in this regard. Anyway, I think that the way it works now is technically more in line with the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines. Maybe we could add a user preference to control this.

3) Tabbing no longer works in FP dialog boxes. If I fill in a value in one field, I can no longer tab to the next field. I have to point-and-click in each field.

This is also an issue that was carried over from 9.2. This will be fixed in the next patch release of 9.3.

-Imposition selection in compose window does not "stick", if after selecting a file you select another tab

I'm not seeing this either. Can you provide more details?

-Javascript globals sometimes do not work

I'm not sure what you mean by "do not work." What exactly is not working?

-2D datamatrix barcodes are broken

We are investigating this issue.

-Font naming for me is a major pain, almost every other font I need to edit the fonts.ini for

Sorry you're having trouble, but there's not much for me to go on here. If you could contact Support, and include at least one of the font files you're having trouble with, along with the fonts.ini and fonts.err files, then we can investigate.

-And I had the error message pop up again today that has to do with rotated frames and enfocus pitstop.

Please contact Support and ask for the 9.3.8 release. The next 9.3 public release will also have the change to prevent the PitStop pop up.

-Rules with the same name as a database field sometimes are not applied instead of the db field

I'm not seeing this either. Can you post a sample job which reproduces the problem?

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I'm not seeing this. Does this happen with all jobs? Can you reproduce it with the Tutorials? Are you chunking (composing to multiple output files)? Can you give me any specific information as to how to reproduce this?

Attaching a test that shows the issue. In the test, you can see the .cfg and .msg files have the name I originally entered in composition dialog while the output.pdf appends the 1. This did not happen in 8.2 using same layout. I don't have this issue when not using an FPI imposition.

 

I believe that 9.3 functions the same as 9.2 in this regard. Anyway, I think that the way it works now is technically more in line with the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines. Maybe we could add a user preference to control this.

You're right about the new format being a standard; I confirmed similar results in InDesign. And actually, it looks like FP behaves the same way as it used to -- perhaps my initial observation was due to first time processing file on a new machine. My bad.

 

This is also an issue that was carried over from 9.2. This will be fixed in the next patch release of 9.3.

This is great news. By far the most annoying thing I've dealt with thus far.

test.zip

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2) Browsing for files is set to last Finder location used by FusionPro. In 8.2, browsing for a file either started in the last location accessed by the current file, or the location of the current file's input data.

I believe that 9.3 functions the same as 9.2 in this regard. Anyway, I think that the way it works now is technically more in line with the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines. Maybe we could add a user preference to control this.

I'm not sure where this behavior is being controlled from, but if you hit the back button in the Finder dialog, you're taken to the folder that you would expect as with 8.x. So maybe there's something in OSX that is overriding FusionPro's action?

 

-Imposition selection in compose window does not "stick", if after selecting a file you select another tab

We compose a lot of our files both 1up, and 2up. So the usual process goes compose the 1up versions, then compose again for the two up versions, but select the imposition file. If we view any extra tabs, or make any changes, the job is composed without the imposition file we selected. Opening the composition window again shows the imposition field is now blank.

 

-Javascript globals sometimes do not work

Seems to only work on jobs that were created previously. We keep some job options as variables in the Javascript Globals. Making a change to any of these variables does not take effect until a rule is added or deleted. Changing any rules does not "refresh" the javascript global variables we have set.

 

-Font naming for me is a major pain, almost every other font I need to edit the fonts.ini for

It's more the logic behind the fonts.ini that is being a pain. I know for PC, and some scripting having the option of using bold/italic tags, styling, etc. is beneficial. But it seems like FusionPro assumes too much about what is a bold/italic version of a font. Here's an easy example, since we all have access to Myriad Pro.

Myriad Pro Black Italic	Myriad Pro Black	MyriadPro-BlackIt	Black Italic	0	1	W		OpenType PostScript	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.bfk	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.pfa	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.otf	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.ufk
Myriad Pro Black Italic	Myriad Pro Black It	MyriadPro-BlackIt	Black Italic	0	1	W		OpenType PostScript	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.bfk	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.pfa	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.otf	/Library/Preferences/PTI/FusionPro/Fonts/MyriadPro-BlackIt.ufk

This causes conflicts, and odd behavior. If I assign text the font Myriad Pro Black Italic, in the Variable Text Editor it does not appear italic, until I hit the Italic styling icon.

I'm used to InDesign where it does not have styling of fonts, and even in Quark the mantra has always been do not use the fake styling of fonts. So, to get the behavior that I expect I end up having to delete the first entry in my fonts.ini

 

-Rules with the same name as a database field sometimes are not applied instead of the db field

Unfortunately this is one of those hard to reproduce bugs. I'm not sure how to make it happen again. When I noticed the error I reassigned the text from the db field to the rule field and all was ok. If it happens again, or if I can find the job that it happened to me on this morning I'll send to support.

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Thanks.

I'm not seeing this. Does this happen with all jobs? Can you reproduce it with the Tutorials? Are you chunking (composing to multiple output files)? Can you give me any specific information as to how to reproduce this?

 

I seem to be having this issue as well. It happens when an imposition is applied.

 

This was tested by creating a blank PDF, input file set to none, record range set from: 1 to 1. Composed with an imposition, locally and to the API. Both versions append a 1. Turn the imposition off and the 1 goes away.

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Anybody else having an issue with the update? I am running MAC OX 10.10 (Yosemite) and Adobe Indesign CC 2014 (10.1.0.71) latest update. I run the installer and it adds the plugins to the plugin folder for Indesign and when I open Indesign it tells be it doesn't recognize FusionProCC10UI.IndesignPlugin and a valid plugin.

 

I have tried uninstalling and trying again and same thing. I made sure the plugins where deleted and they were removed from the Library/Application Support folder to.

 

I actually think there is an issue with the install or the package in the installer. After I install it and look in the Indesign Folder/Plugins the plugin it lists as not valid is Zero bytes. If I look in the Library/Application Support/PTI/PlugIns/Design/Indesign were all the plugins are it is the same there. All the others UI files are around 87 KB except the one I need.

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Anybody else having an issue with the update? I am running MAC OX 10.10 (Yosemite) and Adobe Indesign CC 2014 (10.1.0.71) latest update. I run the installer and it adds the plugins to the plugin folder for Indesign and when I open Indesign it tells be it doesn't recognize FusionProCC10UI.IndesignPlugin and a valid plugin.

 

I believe Dan addresses this specific issue in this thread.

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Attaching a test that shows the issue. In the test, you can see the .cfg and .msg files have the name I originally entered in composition dialog while the output.pdf appends the 1. This did not happen in 8.2 using same layout. I don't have this issue when not using an FPI imposition.

Thanks for posting the job. I am able to reproduce this issue, where a "1" is appended to the output file name (before the extension), on both Windows and Mac. It seems to want to treat the output file name as if chunking (multiple output files) is in effect. The problem seems to be specific to using stacked imposition, which invokes preprocessing.

 

Can anyone else report what other versions they've seen this problem with? I know it's a regression since 8.2. Does anyone know if it's present in 9.0, 9.1, or 9.2? (I can find out here, just seeing if anyone knows already.)

 

I think this is the only issue remaining to go into a patch build of 9.3.

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How about tabbing between fields in Custom Color dialog and Composition dialog (Input tab) on Mac? One of the more simple yet annoying bugs I've come across.

As I noted earlier in this thread:

This is also an issue that was carried over from 9.2. This will be fixed in the next patch release of 9.3.
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Thanks to everyone for the input. We currently have new builds of FusionPro VDP 9.3 (9.3.12) for both Windows and Mac in QA testing. With any luck, we'll be able to release these some time next week. (If you have an immediate production need for the new version before it's released, please contact Support. Note that templates created with a pre-release version of the software may not be compatible with MarcomCentral, Digital StoreFront, or other web-to-print systems.)

 

The new Mac build includes fixes for many of the problems brought up in this thread and elsewhere, including:

  • Default button appearance on certain dialogs is incorrect on Yosemite.
  • The tab key is not properly handled in certain dialogs.
  • 2D barcodes not working.
  • Controls on the PPML Options dialog and the Graphics tab of the Composition Settings do not match Windows.
  • Still have references to FP Direct in the UI.
  • InDesign CC 2014 plug-ins installed incorrectly.
  • PitStop error message about rotated frames.
  • All output files are appended with a "1" when using stacked imposition, even if not chunking (fixed on both Windows and Mac).

 

I was not able to reproduce the following problems:

  • Javascript globals sometimes do not work
  • Imposition selection in compose window does not "stick", if after selecting a file you select another tab
  • Rules with the same name as a database field sometimes are not applied instead of the db field

These may be fixed in the new build, or perhaps I was just not able to reproduce the exact conditions to replicate them.

 

Regarding fonts, we are aware of ongoing problems, especially on Mac. However, as far as I know, the font handling is no worse in FusionPro 9.3 than it was in previous versions, so there's no regression that we need to address immediately for backward compatibility. I can tell you that we do have plans to overhaul Mac font handling to address these problems, although I don't have a timetable on that. As usual, if you're having problems with specific fonts, please contact Support.

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