Actinic Catalog

Version 4.0.7

&

Actinic Business

 

Release Note

 

 

Actinic Software Limited

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date:                      19 January 2001

Revision:                1.77

 


Revision History

Revision

Date

Author

Comments

1.0

03/08/00

GS

Release

1.1

11/08/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.1 (section 5.1)

1.2

16/08/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.2 (section 5.1)

1.3

23/08/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.3 (section 5.1)

1.4

23/08/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.3 (section 5.1)

1.5

22/10/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed, plus recommendations and known issues in version 4.0.5 (sections 5.1 to 5.3)

1.6

07/12/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.6 (section 5.1), plus an upgrade caveat.

1.7

19/1/00

GS

Addition of faults fixed in version 4.0.7 (section 5.1),

 


Contents

 

1       Introduction   1

1.1          Description   1

1.2          Description of Changes to Catalog Since Version 3.... 1

1.2.1             Product options.  1

1.2.2             Improved user interface. 1

1.2.3             High-speed and combination searching at the web site.          1

1.2.4             Site snapshot.                  1

1.2.5             Configuration wizard.   1

1.2.6             Enhancements to shipping. 1

1.2.7             Stock monitoring.                  1

1.2.8             Enhanced taxation and pricing.   2

1.2.9             Additional themes, theme manager, colouring options and layout options for products. 2

1.2.10             Email order confirmation               2

1.2.11             Remember me                  2

1.2.12             Address book        2

1.2.13             Back orders 2

1.2.14             Handling charges   2

1.2.15             Improved tax model      2

1.3          Business Only Features...... 2

1.3.1             Customer accounts 2

1.3.2             Sophisticated discounting using price schedules 2

1.3.3             Linked product information                  3

1.3.4             Attribute based searching 3

1.4      System Requirements              3

1.4.1             Vendor PC  3

1.4.2             Web site      3

1.5          Restrictions    3

1.5.1             Support for Comma Separated Keywords in Meta-tags (Catalog 3 Users Only)                  3

1.5.2             Change to Support for PSP’s (Catalog 3 Users Only)                  3

1.5.3             Linking to External Databases 4

1.5.4             Installing MDAC    4

1.5.5             Connection Wizard default ISPs                  4

2     Release Version Details....... 5

2.1          Installation directory structure..... 5

2.2      File version numbers..... 5

2.3      Install program version numbers..... 6

3       Installation   6

3.1          Authorization Key 6

3.2          Download all orders before upgrade (Catalog 3 Users Only) 6

3.3          Installation Instructions 6

3.4          Simultaneous Installations of Catalog and Business              7

3.5          Installation Checks 7

3.6      New installation 7

3.7          Upgrading v2 to v4 7

3.8          Upgrading v3 to v4 8

3.9          Upgrading previous Supermall Client releases of v3 to v4    8

4       Instructions for Use 10

4.1          Introduction 10

4.2          Printing the Help Manual.... 10

4.3      The Navigator 10

4.4      Starter Guide  10

5     Changes       11

5.1          Summary of faults fixed in current release       11

5.2      FAQ in current release       11

5.3          Summary of faults fixed in release 4.0.6              11

5.4          Installation caveat for the v4.00.6 Patch   13

5.5          Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.5...... 13

5.6          Known faults in release v4.00.5...... 17

5.7      Hints, tips and recommendations in release v4.00.5...... 17

5.8          Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.4...... 17

5.9          Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.3...... 18

5.10          Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.2...... 18

5.11          Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.1...... 18

5.12          Summary of known faults in release v4.00              19

 


1          Introduction

1.1         Description

Actinic Catalog is a desktop Windows program which enables the user to publish an illustrated, on-line catalogue, take secure, encrypted orders over the Internet, and process these orders in-house.  It supports the creation of an e- commerce site with catalog, shopping cart, secure payment and subsequent order processing.

Catalog is unusual in not requiring a database at the web site nor a Secure (SSL) Server, a leased line, or transaction charges – all the user needs is a dial-up account with an ISP and a web site with CGI access capability.

Building on the proven business to consumer base of Actinic Catalog, Actinic Business provides business- to-business capabilities, including customer account handling, sophisticated discounting options, links to external databases and more advanced searching.

1.2         Description of Changes to Catalog Since Version 3

1.2.1        Product options.

The range and ease of use of features that allow product options to be handled has been improved. For instance, products can be assembled from other products and given any number of additional attributes which are either passed through as comments on the picking list or can resolve to separate product references.  The appropriate HTML to support this is automatically generated for the web site and includes choices between radio buttons, drop down lists and a button for each combination of choices.

1.2.2        Improved user interface.

Product options are added to the display in a tree similar to windows explorer.  They can be drag and dropped, and cut and pasted.  Catalog displays have been reviewed and changed to tab controlled panels.

An additional feature, known as “Navigator”, has been added providing users with a simplified view of the steps necessary to set up and run their online store.

1.2.3        High-speed and combination searching at the web site.

Catalog dynamically builds an index to produce lightning-fast searching on text and prices. Boolean search on multiple words can be combined with a choice of AND or OR.  Vendors control the number of search returns per page as well as product display details.

1.2.4        Site snapshot.

A snapshot of a site can be taken and restored into the same or another Catalog installation.  The snapshot is stored in a single file, including database entries, security settings, GIFs and registry entries.  This enables a comprehensive backup to be taken and enables Actinic partners to develop their ecommerce solution in house and more easily transfer the result to the vendor.

1.2.5        Configuration wizard.

For vendors using commercial web space, Catalog will self configure with the web.  Popular ISP configurations will be pre-programmed into a settings file to further simplify this step.

1.2.6        Enhancements to shipping.

Shipping charge calculations have been enhanced to include the ability separately to identify charges for handling.

1.2.7        Stock monitoring.

A stock level can be set by product and then counted down as each order for the item is received on the desktop. Once the item is out-of-stock, it will be marked as such on the web site following the next upload.  Reports of out of stock and close to out-of-stock items can be produced.


1.2.8        Enhanced taxation and pricing.

Enhancements to tax include any number of tax rates, the ability to automatically calculate tax based on the location of the buyer including exemptions for businesses that quote their VAT or sales tax number, handling of pricing in both Euros and one other currency, displaying prices either tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive, and other numerous improvements in tax handling.

1.2.9        Additional themes, theme manager, colouring options and layout options for products.

Enhancements to the options available for selecting the site appearance provide an unlimited number of choices for site style, layout and colour, simply by pointing and clicking.

1.2.10    Email order confirmation

An order confirmation email can optionally be sent to a customer at the point when they place an order. Also, Catalog can generate an order progress summary, allowing it be emailed to a customer at any stage during the order processing phases.

1.2.11    Remember me

Optionally stores the buyers details. When the buyer next places an order, each online order page is pre-filled with the saved information.

1.2.12    Address book

Several delivery addresses can be stored and recalled, allowing regular customers to select an address from the address book, rather than re-keying the address every time.

1.2.13    Back orders

Orders for more items than are in stock can be split into two orders, the first part to be processed now with the current stock and the second part when the stock levels are replenished.

1.2.14    Handling charges

The cost of sending goods can now be split in shipping charges and handling charges.

1.2.15    Improved tax model

Two tax models have been implemented, a simple model for use when only a flat rate is required, and an advanced model, where the tax calculation is based on country, multiple rate per tax definition and cumulative taxation.

1.3         Business Only Features

Actinic Business extends the feature set of Actinic Catalog 4, with the following additions.

1.3.1        Customer accounts

Customers will each have their own account.  Multiple unlimited addresses and buyers can be defined per customer.  Buyers can log in using their own logon and password.  Each customer has their own method of payment and a particular price schedule which can be unique to the customer or shared across many customers. Logged in customers only see the prices which apply to them.  The vendor can choose to only accept orders from customers with accounts, or can also allow previously unknown customers to place orders. Accounts can be created for these customers from their order details.

1.3.2        Sophisticated discounting using price schedules

Multiple unlimited price schedules can be defined and each schedule can be automatically calculated from the standard retail price schedule e.g. 20% discount.  By individual product, the standard schedule price can be over-ridden giving complete flexibility.

1.3.3        Linked product information

Products can be dynamically linked to an ODBC database, Access database, Excel spreadsheet and many other options so that pricing and other product information updated in another application is automatically made available within Business and, following the next upload, at the online store.

1.3.4        Attribute based searching

Searching will be available on defined attributes of a product so that, for instance, all houses for sale with four bedrooms can be searched for.

1.4         System Requirements

1.4.1         Vendor PC

Your desktop PC may run Windows 95/98, NT 4 or 2000 and should have a minimum of 32 MB memory, 45 MB of free disk space and dial-up (or leased line) access to the Internet .

Your PC must be configured to a minimum resolution of 800x600 pixels. Any thing less and Catalog won't be displayed wholly within your screen. Catalog is also best viewed using a 65536 colour (or better) display.

1.4.2        Web site

Your ISP must be running Windows NT, 2000 or Unix, and provide Perl 5 or better, and a user writeable CGI directory.

Actinic Business requires a set of Perl files called 'MD5'. These files implement encryption/decryption, which is required to support logging in to online customer accounts. From v4.00.5 onwards, Actinic Business includes a local copy of MD5, however for improved performance, Actinic recommend that the ISP be asked to install "Digest-MD5", version 2.09 or later.

1.5         Restrictions

1.5.1        Support for Comma Separated Keywords in Meta-tags (Catalog 3 Users Only)

Catalog 4 now supports comma-separated keywords. If a Catalog 3 import containing space-separated meta-keywords is imported into Catalog 4, they will not be modified.

1.5.2        Change to Support for PSP’s (Catalog 3 Users Only)

With Catalog 4, the payment service providers now have their own install program, so they can be installed independently of a particular release of Catalog but are shared by all the current installations of Catalog. With Catalog 4 (and Actinic Business) the PSP installation is optional.

·         If Catalog 3 and then Catalog 4 (but not the PSPs) are installed on the same PC, uninstalling v3 will prevent payment service providers from working in v4. The solution is to simply install the payment service providers again. To do this, locate and run PSPSetup.exe on the Catalog 4 installation CD.

·         If Catalog 3, Catalog 4 and the PSPs are installed, uninstalling Catalog 4 won't disable the PSPs in v3 unless the v4  PSPs are uninstalled. As above, the solution is to simply install the payment service providers again. To do this, locate and run PSPSetup.exe on the Catalog 4 installation CD.


1.5.3        Linking to External Databases

The ability to link to external product repositories is limited to Excel spreadsheets and Access and SQL databases.

Access 2000 is not currently supported. For full support, Actinic recommend they be converted to Access 97.

Support is also available for Paradox, Foxpro and Dbase databases but as we have had mixed success, correct linking and operation cannot be guaranteed. If they do not work for you, we recommend you convert these databases to Access.

1.5.4        Installing MDAC

If, after installing then starting Catalog, you get the message "Failed to insert record with values (353, -1, 0, 'eng-uk', You do not appear to have Javascript enabled in your browser.  The login process requires that you have Javascript enabled … A serious error occurred while upgrading the database" then your PC does not have a full matching set of database-related files. To correct this, install MDAC v2.5. This can located on your installation CD as mdac_typ.exe.

1.5.5        Connection Wizard default ISPs

The new connection Wizard is designed to ease the configuration of your network settings to your web site, verifying the information you provide and performing real-time upload and download tests. Part of this process involves downloading and presenting a selection of ISPs which the Connection Wizard has been tested against. Initially this list will be empty, but ISPs will be added to it as they are approved.


2          Release Version Details

2.1         Installation directory structure

 

Actinic ecommerce v4                The default installation directory. Holds files common to all sites, such as reports and help files.

   Backup                                              Any files replaced during the installation are placed here.

   Formats                                             Holds various default styles.

      NavigatorSkins                The files and configuration details of the Navigator.

      ProductTemplates                A variety of product styles that can be selected from a Section or Product dialog.

      Themes                                           The files that constitute the themes, available via the Design | Themes menu option.

   OCCUpgrade                                   Installation directory for the Payment Service Providers install program. Contains the master files. On startup, Catalog copies the relevant files to the current site.

   Original                                             The master set of files from which all licensed sites are created.

   Sites                                                    Locates all licensed sites.

      Site1                                                 Default site after installation.

   SnapshotFolder                Default location of all site and theme backups made via the File | Snapshot menu option.

   Starter Guide                                   The browser-based introduction to the functionality in Catalog v4 and Business.

 

2.2         File version numbers

 

File

Version

Description

Catalog.exe

BASA

The main application program.

ConnectionWizard.dll

BAOA

Supporting file for the Network configuration wizard.

ActExport.dll

ANAA

Supporting file for creating and importing site snapshots.

ActDiagnose.exe

ActDiagnostics.dll

BARA

BARA

A diagnostic and problem solving tool. Do no use unless instructed to do so by Actinic's technical support staff.

ShipHand.ocx

BAOA

An ActiveX control used by Catalog. It enables shipping and handling.

OCCControl.ocx

DHOCCControl.ocx

AIGA

AIGA

ActiveX controls used by Catalog. It supports some of the online payment service providers.

 

2.3         Install program version numbers

 

File

Version

Description

Catalog.exe

BASA

Installs Actinic Catalog or Actinic Business.

PSPSetup.exe (UK)

PSPSetup.exe (USA)

ANBA

BASA

Installs the supported online payment service providers.

Mdac_typ.exe

2.5

Microsoft data access installer. Ensures all database-related drivers are correctly installed.

DAO

3.5

Adds support for linking to external databases. Does not support Microsoft Access 2000.

 

3          Installation

3.1         Authorization Key

Actinic catalog v4 and Actinic Business both require new keys. The v3 keys will not work so if you are upgrading from v3 to v4, you need a new license.

3.2         Download all orders before upgrade (Catalog 3 Users Only)

Existing Catalog 3 users who are planning to upgrade to Catalog v4 or Business and also reuse the same web site should perform the following actions:

·         Download all v3 orders

·         Tell Catalog 3 to suspend ordering on your web site

·         Upgrade to v4

·         Instruct Catalog 4 (or Business) to refresh the web site

·         Remove the suspend setting

If you have the web space we recommend uploading to a test site and verifying the site before going live with it.

3.3         Installation Instructions

Close any open Windows applications.  Place the CD in the CD drive.  The installation program will self start.  If it doesn't, locate the file setup.exe on the CD and run it.  You will be directed to install four components, which together form the full release of Catalog.  Read the instructions carefully before advancing to the next installation wizard screen. In most cases the default options can be accepted.

The install program works on all Microsoft platforms. Windows 2000 users should note that no system files are installed into the system directories. Windows 2000 comes pre-loaded with all the system files (e.g. ODBC, DAO) that Catalog requires.

3.4         Simultaneous Installations of Catalog and Business

Like previous releases of Actinic Catalog, it is not possible to install two copies of these applications on the same PC. However, once a copy of Catalog or Business has been installed and licensed, new sites can be licensed for either Catalog LE, Catalog or Business. Thus, through one installation, several different sites can be maintained.

3.5         Installation Checks

Click on Help and from the drop down menu select About.  Check that the version number begins with "4.00".

3.6         New installation

Catalog / Business v4 installs into a new directory and will be the default installation option for most users.

·                     If you have v2 and/or v3 installed, they will be unaffected by the installation of v4.

·                     If you had an existing installation of v4, it will still be present but non-functional. You can re-use the old configuration databases in the new installation.

·                     v4 requires a different authorisation key to v2 and v3.

·                     Do not upload the upgraded site(s) to the existing v3 web site directories until you are satisfied the upgrade is working correctly. We recommend you choose a temporary location at your web site so that you can still take orders with your v3 site. This will require a change to the network settings, in particular the CGI ID and the web site directory. When you are ready to use the upgraded site, suspend ordering on your v3 web site, return the v4 network settings to point to the existing (v3) web site and upload the v4 files. Use of a second site to 'evaluate' the upgrade is permitted within the terms of the license agreement so long as you do not operate both sites concurrently to take live orders.

3.7         Upgrading v2 to v4

It is perfectly safe to upgrade Catalog v2.x to v4.

The v4 install program detects the presence of a v2 installation and offers to upgrade it. It does not have to be upgraded. However, if it is, please note the following issues:

·                    Your v2 customisations are not transferred during the upgrade. If you wish to keep these changes they will have to be applied to the new files.

·                     The install program first installs v4 into a new directory. It then copies a few files, including the configuration database, from the v2 installation directory to the v4 site1 directory. When Catalog is started it will prompt for a v4 authorisation key – v2 authorisation keys are not valid. After this, the v2 configuration details will be upgraded to v4. If you Upload the files to the web site in the usual way you will notice that your site looks a little different and has more functionality. It will still reflect your list of products.

·                     The v2 installation of Catalog is not modified or altered in any way.

·                     You should spend some time familiarising yourself with the v4 configuration options and how they affect the online catalog.

·                     The v2 to v4 upgrade process does not use your v2 templates, perl scripts or image files. If you have modified the v2 templates, you will have to re-apply the changes to the equivalent v4 templates. See the "View | Template Manager" menu option. The same applies to any changes you manually made to the perl scripts. We recommend you test the v4 perl scripts first as they are much more functional and powerful than v2.

·                     You may also need to re-map the product image files within Catalog to the actual location of the files.

·                     If you use an import file to import your products, and it contains references to images without pathnames, the v4 import wizard will look for the images in the current 'site' directory. Unless you copy these images to this directory, or modify the import file to point to the correct location, the import will fail.

·                     See the Help file, section "Using HTML in Catalog", if you have added any code in the product description fields to create image buttons. V4 has the ability to create buttons, rather than icons, for similar purposes.

3.8         Upgrading v3 to v4

It is perfectly safe to upgrade Catalog v3.x to v4.

The v4 install program detects the presence of a v3 installation and offers to upgrade it. It does not have to be upgraded. However, if it is, please note the following issues:

·                    When first started, Catalog will replace the v3 files with the new v4 files, moving any overwritten files into a backup directory. Therefore if you have customised the Perl and HTML files, these changes will have to be reapplied to the same v4 files.

·                     The first time the v4 install program is run, an upgrade option called "Upgrade existing v3 installation" will be available. Select this to upgrade one or more of your v3 sites. The installer will display your existing v3 site names and allow you to select one or more of them. You will then be asked to select one of them to become the default site used by Catalog v4 when it first starts up after the installation.

·                     The install program first installs v4 into a new directory. It then copies the selected v3 sites to the v4 installation directory. When Catalog is started it will prompt for a v4 authorisation key – v3 authorisation keys are not valid. After this, the v3 configuration details will be upgraded to v4. If you Upload the files to the web site in the usual way you will notice that your site looks a little different and has more functionality. It will still reflect your list of products.

·                     The v3 installation of Catalog is not modified or altered in any way.

·                     You should spend some time familiarising yourself with the v4 configuration options and how they affect the online catalog.

·                     You may also need to re-map the product image files within Catalog to the actual location of the files.

·                     If you use an import file to import your products, and it contains references to images without pathnames, the v4 import wizard will look for the images in the current 'site' directory. Unless you copy these images to this directory, or modify the import file to point to the correct location, the import will fail.

·                     If you subsequently want to upgrade some more v3 sites to v4 then run the v4 install program again. This time an upgrade option called "Upgrade further v3 sites to v4" will be available instead. Select this to upgrade more of your v3 sites. The installer will display your existing v3 site names and allow you to select one or more of them. You will then be asked to confirm the selected sites for upgrade before the selected sites are upgraded.

3.9         Upgrading previous Supermall Client releases of v3 to v4

·                     Only ever obtain Catalog install programs from your reseller!

·                     This product has now been renamed to Actinic Host.

·                     Only upgrade your copy of Host (more specifically, your copy of Catalog running in Host mode) if your ISP or reseller allows you to. This is because the Host files on your PC interact with some files on your reseller's web server, and it is important that both sets of files are the same version. Your reseller must be able to support v4 before you can upgrade your copy of Host to v4. If you upgrade first, you may find you can't access your online catalog.

·                     Once you are able to upgrade to v4, the process is similar to that described in Upgrading v3 to v4


4          Instructions for Use

4.1         Introduction

Actinic Catalog / Business comes with extensive and integrated help. You can press the F1 key on your keyboard at any time to display the main help file. You can also click on the '?' button at the top right hand corner of each window and then click on an individual field on the screen to get specific, context sensitive, help. Use the Help menu for a complete explanation of using Actinic Catalog, including configuration details and creating the online catalog at your web site.

In addition to the help system, a complete manual called UserGuide.pdf will have been placed in the installation directory. To access this manual, a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader needs to be installed on your machine. You can download the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader application free from www.adobe.com or www.adobe.co.uk.

There are no differences between the contents of the help file and the user guide, they are just different mediums to suit different tastes.

4.2         Printing the Help Manual

If you wish to have a printed copy of the help, we recommend printing the manual (UserGuide.pdf) as this contains a table of contents, page headers, page footers and page numbers.

4.3         The Navigator

Finally, this release of Catalog / Business comes with a feature known as the Navigator, designed to help you configure the system and carry out routine tasks.

The Navigator is a useful tool that makes it quick and easy to move around the key areas of the program. When Catalog / Business is first started, or if enabled via a menu option, the Navigator appears as a moveable window and acts as an interface to the Catalog / Business configuration screens. By clicking on the Navigator icons you can view a series of screens and access all the functionality you need to design and publish your catalog, and to download and process orders from your web site.

To invoke the Navigator, select menu "View | Navigator" or type Ctrl + N once Catalog has been launched.

4.4         Starter Guide

The starter guide is a HTML-based tutorial designed to introduce the salient features of both Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business. It is available as a Window's menu option. First click the Windows Start button, then the Programs menu, then the Actinic Catalog v4 menu, then finally the Starter Guide menu.


5          Changes

 

5.1         Summary of faults fixed in current release

 

Description

Wrong symbol was being used for Greek Drachmas – used to be ‘Drc’, now ‘Drs’.

Orders could fail to download if the server-side filename began with characters similar to ‘COM’. (e.g. “COCODE00000.ord”). Orders aren’t lost though. Typical error messages would be “error decrypting order” or “Permissions problems”.

In the extremely rare event of an order download problem such as the circumstances cited in the above fault, it was possible that aborting the download may caused the previously downloaded order in the session to be deleted.

Tax rate precision has been increased from 2 to 4 decimal places, i.e. a tax rate of, say, ‘1.2345’ can be set.

The custom variables (CUSTOMVARs) defined for a section and the Catalog weren’t available when processing the Act_ProductBody template that defines the overall layout of the sections and products on a page.

When the option to process orders externally was chosen, the downloaded orders were being marked as ‘completed’ rather than leaving them in the Pending queue so that they could be exported.

If product pricing is based in some way on its components, then if all the components are deleted a warning is now given saying the product pricing needs amending.

Problem placing an order using the Java applet on a Mac has been resolved.

Removing the online checkbox to allow a delivery address to be entered resulted in the order confirmation email missing the invoice address details.

If an online shipping location of ‘none of the above’ is selected, the online order processing used to prevent the buyer moving beyond the invoice address because of an error in matching the invoice country with ‘no particular’ country.

 

5.2         FAQ in current release

The Separator in the Attributes dialog does not work. To use the separator drop down in the attributes dialog box, you need to edit file “Act_VarientAttributName.html” and remove or comment out the <P> at the beginning of:

<P><FONT FACE=ARIAL>NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTENAME:</FONT>

 

5.3         Summary of faults fixed in release 4.0.6

 

Description

Tax-inclusive prices are now displayed in the online search results.

Catalog could crash after selecting the Find button on the Find Ordered Products dlg.

Catalog could crash after changing the default template in the Section dlg.

When the top level section list was being generated, the section templates specified for each individual template were being used rather than the default section template specified in the Design Options | Sections tab. Side effect of a v4.00.5 change.

Incorrect status of downloaded orders. Side effect of a v4.00.5 change.

Very subtle problem with the catalog tree resulting in orphaned Choices.

Image files outside of the 'site' directory were not displayed in preview mode.

Customer Account Login Screen failure, now resolved.

Catalog could crash after importing custom properties.

OCC-Pending orders that were marked for purging after 'n' days caused an SQL error after the 'n' days expired.

PortalBuilder-specific: Classifications removed from PB were correctly removed from Catalog but a warning message was not given.

Going immediately to checkout on a 4.004 site that had been upgraded to 4.00.5 caused script errors.

Fixed error relating to path names when creating a snapshot.

'Context sensitive' help file split into three separate files.

A condition has been identified and fixed which caused Catalog to crash when generating the indexes for the online search.

Improved SSL operation.

If an ordered item quantity was greater than one, the calculated Custom Tax rate on the Invoice report used the single item price, rather than the item*quantity price.

The email created from menu "Report | Order Summary" didn't include the product references (if Catalog was set to use manually entered references).

Order status of Completed orders changed when Data Entry report was printed.

Snapshot import/export handles relative paths better.

A referrer URL without a trailing slash resulted in an incorrect BASEFILE being set in the business cookie. One symptom was missing navigation icons.

Using drag-and-drop to copy products with permutations resulted in missing permutations.

It was possible for Catalog v3 'tax2' settings to be lost during the upgrade to v4.

When calculating tax with 'rounding per order', the individual lines never got rounded so when the Java applet params were written out, they appeared as floating point numbers when the applet expected an integer. The result was a Java exception.

If an online buyer put a full stop in either the 'name field' or the 'post code' field, the result was an order file that didn't download. These two fields are used in part to create the order name. This has been fixed and will also download such 'stuck' orders if it finds them.

 

5.4         Installation caveat for the v4.00.6 Patch

It was necessary to change three templates in this release. The service patch does not attempt to upgrade in-use templates in the 'site' directories so you will have to manually transfer these files.

In your installation directory there is a "Formats" directory. Within this is a "Themes" directory. Each theme has been upgraded by the service patch.

·         the following two templates have changed:

Act_LoginPage.html
Act_SignPage.html

They relate to the online login procedure for Business customer accounts.

These files are identical in each theme, so when copying the files, choose any theme.

If you haven't modified these two files in your site directories then simply copy these two files from a theme directory into each of your site directories, replacing the existing files.

If you have modified these two files, then save your existing files, copy the new files, and then re-apply your changes to the new files.

 

·         the following template has changed:

Act_Order02.html

It places a restriction on the country field in the online order.

This file is not identical in each theme, so you need to select the appropriate theme when copying the file.

If you haven't modified this file in your site directories then simply copy this file from the theme directory into your site directory, replacing the existing file. Repeat for each site you have produced.

If you have modified this file, then save your existing file, copy the new file, and then re-apply your changes to the new file.

 

·         the following template has changed:

Act_SearchTemplate.html

Allows for better configuration of the online search page.

This file is identical in each theme, so when copying the file, choose any theme.

If you haven't modified this file in your site directories then simply copy this file from a theme directory into your site directory, replacing the existing file. Repeat for each site you have produced.

If you have modified this file, then save your existing file, copy the new file, and then re-apply your changes to the new file.

 

5.5         Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.5

 

Description

Catalog crashed giving a sharing violation when importing from a spreadsheet currently open in Excel

Problems using cpan modules MD5, now installed pure perl MD5 as a module, therefore MD5 does not need to be installed by the ISP for Actinic Business to work.

Catalog produced an error “Query too complex when attempting to export a large number of orders (5000).”

Catalog crashed when cutting an attribute from the tree management system.

No tax code for shipping tax displayed in the invoice report after software upgrade from V3.5 to V4.

On start up the Navigator was hiding the tool and menu bar in the top left corner, it is now in the centre.

In Catalog the tax rate is displayed after upgrade from V3.5 as custom in the invoice when it should be % tax nominated.

Problem when the section has several products each with variants, the product references where being mixed up in some cases when using cut and paste.

Hierarchical import fails when using identical attributes in different products.

The connection wizard will now display a warning message then continue if MD5 is the only perl module missing.

In the orders file there were some duplicate columns ( Handling   tax cost 1 ).

During Catalog upgrade you could change to an unlicensed site.

Search was not searching on the product reference field.

During downloading you were getting a warning "some of the files have changed on the website these will be completely refreshed the next time you upload".

When using the discount feature, then printed an invoice the line unit price and the total cost still showed the undisclosed amounts.

You can now use a different section template for the section and its children, not just for the child sections.

When using either visa or mastercard, then go to outstanding credit card schedule and preview or print you had a card issue number on the report.

When using images for sections or products you were getting incorrect error messages about the image.

Error messages when using the hierarchical import feature.

The currency drop down has now been removed from the payment window.

The payment status field was incorrect after upgrading from V3 for OCC orders.

Import errors when using attributes with several choices, problem occurred when some had the same sequence number.

In the permutations field you can now enable sorting by columns.

If you add an additional component to a product that already has components, when Catalog is started you got an error message.

If importing product properties that are not variants, before that product, then an error message was shown ,”Cannot import a component as a child item to a product as this product already has an attribute child item.”

When using any  theme, setting ”Request location information early” and then adding a product to the cart resulted in untranslated variables displayed.

On import there was no HTML separator option for choices.

HTML for name and import, now defaults to the Choice or Attribute name if not present.

The theme list is now in alphabetical order.

You were getting a warning message about decimal points when importing currency.

The last word of product/section description was not indexed.

A cursor has now been added during import to tell the user their copy of Catalog has not locked up.

Business field visible in catalog when exporting orders in normal Catalog, all business functionality is hidden in Catalog mode.

When going from advanced shipping  to simple  shipping or select apply on advanced shipping there was an invalid page fault, this only happened when you use tax exemption and enter in a prompt.

Searching indexes on the section text is now an optional feature.

If all text in the info panels has been removed the button disappears as normal, but then if you select the URL for the info page the button will not be displayed.

The option “generate ftp files” under advanced has now been renamed “generate scripts.”

The Canada dollar symbol has now changed to “can$.”

The import Catalog menu option under File has now been changed to just 'Import' to make it more generic.

The buyers file now contains the online buyers details.

When exporting files after initially having imported 300 customers you got an error message “Attempt to scroll past end or beginning of data.”

When using the order summary option the recipients address details were missing.

You get a warning regarding the latest MDAC and then installing it, a message now warns not to download versions greater than MDAC 2.5.

In Business you want your registered customers to have different options of payment, but for unregistered customers you might only want them to have one option, for example credit card.

From the search results page, if you go to checkout and have no products in the basket you will get an error message, and then erroneously returned to the search results page.

A button has now been added to the passive error dialog so the customer can now read the errors regarding invalid customer accounts.

The payment status was not updated correctly when entries were removed from the payment history.

Tax wasn't being calculated correctly on multiple quantities if the tax rules "Round/Truncate Order XXX" in Advanced Tax were used. E.g. if ordering 20 items at 6.00 the cost is 120 but the tax only shows 1.05 when it should have been 21.00.

The sample customer import file had two columns with the same name ’Customer purge.’

If you created a snapshot in one version and then upgraded the software, then imported the snapshot you got an error message, “The program has caused an illegal operation.”

After upgrading to newer versions of Catalog then sent the upgrades to the client (multiple  sites ) who in turn upgraded, both received a warning error “Scripts on the server were incompatible with the scripts on the hard drive.”

At present a warning is given when creating a site snapshot for files outside the site directory, now included is a similar warning on creating a snapshot.

Now any hidden products below the current product are shown first in the order drop down list.

In the component dialog drop down list which shows all the products that can be associated with the component, the (none) product now appears below any products that are hidden on the website.

In certain circumstances a valid import was followed by a “No products were imported” message

The currency warning in the import wizard contained %s.

When you were using the flat file import in some cases it ignored the tax treatment.

When the customer received the confirmation e-mail if  they had purchased a product with components, it was not showing all the components purchased, but showed the complete price.

In permutations when you exclude a permutation from a price schedule it adds no permutation price to the shopping cart rather than adding the retail permutation.

Downloaded order with unusual shipping values crashed the shipping control.

HTML name has now been added for choices and attributes.

Leaving the product price field blank caused display problems.

If the shopping cart was empty and the Checkout button was selected from the 'search results' page, you were returned to the wrong page.

Customer accounts were limited to use any payment method, now you can set them up for any method.

The Connection Wizard would sometimes display the same MD5 error message twice.

The 'additional file' table contents were not being saved when upgrading from v3 to v4.

The transaction with referrer and outstanding product reports used the wrong data for tax name fields.

The meta characters in the product reference caused search failures.

If large prices were entered for price schedules, they sometimes caused errors and the numbers were not saved.

Under certain conditions exporting orders caused Catalog to crash.

Certain flat-file import conditions resulted in a 'Null pointer access' message.

Extra resilience added to FTP file uploads.

Performance improvements now made to hierarchical imports.

Incorrect column headings in exported files.

It has not been possible to import a product associated with a permutation, until now.

Duplicate custom properties were being created during the import process.

A customer can't use a different country in an address than that used to calculate the shipping charges.

The 'Other Info' field (in the Product dlg) can be changed in the template to a multi-line field, thus supporting such requests as addresses, etc.

Multiple copies of reports can now be requested.

Repeating imports in a certain way was causing duplicate product references.

Changing between HTTP and HTTPS has been improved.

Tax treatments weren't importing correctly.

IE on iMac had problems with B2B login.

When using SecPay as the PSP, to add support for AMEX and Diner's Card, edit file "OCCSecPayScriptTemplate.pl", search for "amex" and "diners" and follow the instructions.

Imported custom properties no longer need to be in upper case, they are now converted to upper case during the import process.

Cancelling an order line just containing attributes was failing.

 

5.6         Known faults in release v4.00.5

 

Description

If Catalog (or Business) v3 and v4 are running together, trying to display the help file in v3 and v4 simultaneously will sometimes crash the Windows Help engine.

 

5.7         Hints, tips and recommendations in release v4.00.5

 

Description

If you choose not to display the search page, by not selecting "View | Search Settings | Options | Show Searching on Front Page" then the header navigation icons are followed by two line separators. To remove the second one, open the Template Manager, select the "Main" tab, click the "Body" button, locate the "<HR…" tab and put comments around it.

Prior to release v4.00.5, Actinic Business required the Digest::MD5 Perl modules be installed on the web server by the ISP. v4.00.5 now installs it's own MD5 script and uses it if it can't find MD5 installed on the web server. If MD5 is already installed then it is used instead of Actinic's.

Actinic's MD5 implementation is slower than the true implementation so we recommend the ISP install it for improved browser performance.

 

5.8         Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.4

 

Description

Certain combinations of components, attributes and choices were losing their association to their parent products if the sections containing the products were drag and dropped to another location.

The application could crash if an attribute was 'cut' from the tree.

The Actinic Business 'Patch' was not amending the version details correctly (as seen in the About box).

 

5.9         Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.3

 

Description

Attempting to import a non-existent Network settings file caused a crash in Catalog.

It is now much easier to re-sequence (e.g. sort alphabetically) the sections in the catalog tree.

The search settings on the front page of the online catalog now reflect v3 operation, i.e. not visible unless made visible by selecting the appropriate flag.

If the Alternate Currency 'symbol' was changed, it wasn't being displayed in the online catalog.

Importing a snapshot wasn't working if the imported 'ActinicCatalog.mdb' database required upgrading.

If taxation is location dependent and no location has been set, all applicable taxes are applied.

 

5.10     Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.2

 

Description

After logging into the online catalog, placing an order using the "invoice with order" payment method did not create an order file.

Completed orders did not show the 'cross' icon when deleted, even though the order was actually deleted.

When deleting tax rates, an error upgrading the database was sometimes seen.

Pro-Rata and custom tax were being applied to the order even when location is exempt.

If the Perl 'safe' library is incorrectly installed, we now fail gracefully.

 

5.11     Summary of faults fixed in release v4.00.1

 

Description

The Advanced User Guide documents how to replace the 'Add to Cart' buttons with images. This now works in Catalog v4 and Business, even if the product has variants.

Negative multiplication factors now disallowed in price schedules.

Stock levels now work correctly regardless of how products and components are set up.

Shipping database contained several old prompts causing odd shipping calculations and actions – including the reported problems with free shipping.

Connection Wizard wouldn't complete if it reported that required library 'MD5' was missing.

Speed of FTP upload of web site files increased.

GIF, JPEG and PNG file formats correctly supported.

 

5.12     Summary of known faults in release v4.00

 

Description

The v3 Advanced User Guide showed how to replace the Catalog-generated 'Add to Cart' buttons with image files. This continues to work in Catalog v4 and Business, but it will not work if the product contains variants.

Do not use negative values in price schedules. Whilst there is a good argument for supporting such a concept, there are errors in the way shipping and tax are calculated.

Products that use components (but not attributes) associated with another product have been reported as not decrementing the stock levels correctly.

Problems exist when rewarding large orders with free shipping. The calculated shipping and tax values are incorrect in some circumstances and is being investigated.