Data Digester Changelog

What's new in Data Digester 1.6.15 Build 967

Apr 16, 2015

Added Connect/Disconnect Toolbar Icons
Connect/Disconnect Menu Items Work Properly
Installers For Windows/Mac OS X Now Signed
Uninstall From Running Program
Separate Docking Windows Restored In Dock
Managing Database Sequences
Network URL Address Parsing Not Functional
Exceptions After ComboBoxes Have Been Populated
Closing And Restoring Separate Docking Windows
Sync: Digest Files Not Transferred For New Source Files
Remove Incomplete Files After Sync Interruptions
Task Dialog While Deleting Files/Folders
Sync Of Multiple Directories Functional Again
Directly Execute Energy Saving System Commands
New Option To Control Scrolling Behaviour Of Lists
Setting Default Number Of List Items
Improved Support For Oracle DBMS Including Express Edition (XE)

New in Data Digester 1.6.14 Build 960 (Jan 5, 2015)

New in Data Digester 1.6.13 Build 957 (Jul 5, 2014)

Expanding File System Directories With Handles:
Due to to an internal issue during file resolving the file system window did not list subdirectories in the overview tree on the left side properly. This behavior could be seen if a directory in the tree was expanded using the entry handle (plus symbol under Windows, arrow symbol under Mac OS etc.).  This behavior has been fixed so that expanding directories works properly this way again. For older application versions it is possible to circumvent this situation by navigating into subdirectories with the double-click mechanism instead of clicking the handle.
License Not Valid:
Due to a timezone issue found in the license engine used by Leisenfels both license types for evaluation and commercial have been rejected in certain situations. For example if a U.S. customer obtained a license at 10 p.m. then the license was generated being valid from the next day. The license could not be used immediately in these rare cases.  This behavior has been fixed so that licenses are valid from one day before the license is obtained.
Rarely Occurring GUI Hangs Avoided:
If dialogs were displayed right after the application main window showed up on the screen the program got stuck in rare cases. This was due to an internal calling scheme for dialogs. The program had to be terminated by the Windows Task Manager to solve this situation.  This behavior has been fixed so that such hangs should not take place any longer.
Connection Combo Properly Displayed:
Sometimes the connection combo box in the toolbar has been displayed too small so that the item texts couls not be read properly. This behavior has been corrected so that the items are readable.
Setting Upload Content Length Only When Required:
Some time ago a new method for setting the S3 upload content length has been introduced to VFSLib (see release note #11 written 2014-02-03). As this works perfectly for the Amazon S3 provider this settings MUST NOT be used for SFTP connections when large files are being transferred. For example if a 2 GB video file is to be transferred via SFTP then a 2 GB array is allocated internally by the SFTP driver. Normally this leads to OutOfMemoryErrors of the Java VM which then has to be terminated by force (e.g. using the Windows Task Manager).  To avoid this unwanted side effect programmatically the method VFSUtils.isContentLengthRequired() has been added to VFSLib. It checks if the VFSLibConstants.ATTR_CONTENT_LENGTH attribute is required for a given VFS network file. Currently only the Amazon S3 provider requires this attribute.  Programmers should modify existing code using the FileObject.getContent().setAttribute() method as follows:  if (VFSUtils.isContentLengthRequired(url)) { url.getContent().setAttribute(VFSLibConstants.ATTR_CONTENT_LENGTH, len); }
Subdirectories Not Listed:
Due to unnecessarily raised internal exceptions during file resolving the file system window did not show subdirectories in the overview tree on the left side under Linux. Changing into a subdirectory was not possible with previous program versions.  This behavior has been fixed so that listing and changing into subdirectories works properly.
Help System Callable From Window Tabs:
Docking windows like the new database session window are capable of displaying multiple tabs. Previous versions of the so-called tabbed windows were limited to display context sensitive help only if a reference was deposited for each tab which was never the case.  This behavior has been precised by implementing a failsafe structure now. If a help system reference is set for the surrounding tabbed window then this is used instead. This works for the many tabbed windows like output window, search result window, or database session window.
Dummy URL Adresses Suppressed:
Applications based on the Commons framework often use hyperlinks to navigate to certain program features like a certain configuration. If the hyperlink target is not a real Internet address often "dummy://test" is used as placeholder. This worked out with most operating systems on the market.  Windows 8 opens a dialog to specify an app in such cases. It has been reported that also some Linux/UNIX systems create unwanted dialogs here, too. This behavior has now been fixed by a code modification so that such placeholder URLs are not browsed by the operating system any longer.

New in Data Digester 1.6.12 Build 948 (May 1, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.11 Build 942 (Mar 24, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.10 Build 941 (Feb 7, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.9 Build 930 (Jan 17, 2014)

VFSLib Now to Support Amazon S3 (Amazon S3 Edition):
As third cloud file system provider the Amazon S3 Edition has been added to VFSLib. Please register a valid Amazon Web Services (AWS) account first. All necessary parameters for the Amazon S3 provider including the keys are provided by the Amazon S3 system.
Like the Dropbox provider also the Amazon S3 provider supports all standard VFS operation as there are creating files and folders, renaming, deleting, downloading, uploading etc. Remember that versioning is not supported by the original Commons VFS and so VFSLib doesn't.
Added Google Drive To VFSLib (Google Drive Edition):
As second file system provider Google Drive has been added to VFSLib.
Developers need a Google Drive account and their application setup on the Google website. Once an application token has been generated (you must allow your application to access your Google Drive files first) then the VFSLib Google Drive provider can be configured with a few steps.
Like the Dropbox provider also the Google Drive provider supports all standard VFS operation as there are creating files and folders, renaming, deleting, downloading, uploading etc. Remember that versioning is not supported by the original Commons VFS and so VFSLib doesn't.
First Official VFSLib (Dropbox Edition):
The release of the first official VFSLib for Dropbox (Dropbox Edition, aka DBE) is now likely to be published in the next few weeks. This initial version comes with a VFS provider implementing the functionality to access the Dropbox network file system.
Developers need a Dropbox account and their application setup on the Dropbox website. Once an application token has been generated (you must allow your application to access your Dropbox files first) then the VFSLib Dropbox provider can be configured with a few steps.
The first available VFSLib edition will be the Dropbox Edition (DBE), additional VFS providers e.g. to access Amazon S3 will be released in Q4/2013. Finally an Enterprise Edition will be published which contains all available VFSLib providers for an attractive price.
Hint Dialog On Network Session Close:
If one or multiple network session tabs shall be closed then a hint dialog is displayed now. Here the user may cancel closing the tab e.g. if the close action was performed by mistake. As usual this dialog can be disabled permanently by setting the "Do not show again" flag. The dialog may be reactivated at any time by adjusting the preferenes.
Log Messages Minimized:
The Data Digester 1.6.8 produced too many log messages (exeption stack traces). If multiple network connections were opened the log file grew quickly so that the application ran out of memory in certain situations. This behaviour has been fixed so that the log file grows normally again.

New in Data Digester 1.6.7 Build 895 (Sep 4, 2013)

Support For Multi OpenPGP Keys Files:
A library has been updated to a newer version so that it is now possible to import key files with multiple OpenPGP keys. Such key files are used e.g. by Apache Software Foundation to bundle their many OpenPGP keys. You can find an example key file by clicking the link below.
Better Network Performance: Connection Pools:
Connections for stateful protocols as there are FTP, FTPS, and SFTP are now managed by pools. Existing idles connections from the pool are automatically reused. This may increase the performance for accessing server systems significantly since new connections have to be created only if there are no idle connections available.  By default the connection pool function is enabled for FTP/FTPS/SFTP connections. A new menu item to release unused connections from the pool has been added.
Direct Checking of Network Files Deleted Contents:
If digests or signatures were being checked directly on a network server using the network files window the target file contents have been deleted in some situations. The target files had zero-length afterwards. This behaviour has been fixed so that network files are left untouched during checking.
Network Expert Setting Removed:
The network expert setting "Automatically reconnect to dead peers" has been removed. Lost connections must be reconnected manually.
Network Files May Be Moved On The Server:
Previous version of the Data Digester software provided a copy & paste function to copy files and directories locally or from one server to another. This works well for small files but is too time consuming for large files like backups since the whole file must be transferred first. Network files may now be moved directly using the FTP/SFTP connection features (please check support). Like pasting entries from clipboard also the new "Move" feature has been integrated into the context menues of the file system and the network files docking windows. Just copy the source entries into clipboard, then select the target directory and call the new "Move" context menu. The optimizations described above are applied where possible, in all other situations the files are copied and the sources deleted afterwards.
Network Connections Optimized:
The network functionality of the Enterprise Edition has been optimized in several ways. Now the user's home directory is not longer the root directory by default which means that any absolute path on the connected system may be used as server path as long it may be accessed by the user (please check permissions). This modification is valid for FTP, FTPS, and SFTP network connections.  Especially on systems with slow connection like ISDN only the current folder may be refreshed instead of refreshing the whole folder tree. To achieve this an arbitrary entry shown by the table on the right side if the network file system window can be selected, then press F5.  After refreshing the network file system window the tree showed truncated entries sometimes ("..."). This behaviour has been cured so that the full folder names are always being displayed.  A new option has been added for the configuration of FTP connections: passive or active mode.  Command line URL addresses to be checked, generated etc. may be processed now also if username and password are omitted (like sftp://teiresias.company.com:22/home/user/steps.png.md5). This works if an appropriate network connection including the required credentials (username and password) has been setup with the GUI version of Data Digester. Missing credentials for command line URL arguments are automatically applied if available.
Auto-update Web Start Version No Longer Available:
Due to problems with Oracle's Java Web Start technology shipped with their runtime environments Data Digester is not longer available as auto-update version. Customers wishing to use Web Start must use the fixed versions now which are never updated automatically like the installer versions.  One of main problems of Java Web Start is that new libraries cannot be added without a complete reinstall and this makes the auto-update version obsolete. Adding new libraries or even updating to the latest library versions from time to time is common business for software developers and necessary e.g. to workaround security issues.
Find File and URL Duplicates:
Especially for collectors of audio files like MP3 or AAC it is a useful for Data Digester to scan directories for duplicates. These can be deleted in order to save storage space. This can be easily done with message digests since digests are fingerprints of files and every file maps to exactly one digest value per algorithm.  The Data Digester context menu found in both the file system and network file system window can be used to identify duplicate files. You simply can select one or more files or directories and let the program generate SHA-512 (or one of the other algorithms) in the caluclate-only mode. The tab showing the calculation results (message digests) has a new context menu "Find Duplicates...". The duplicates are finally shown by a tab where you can easily delete unwanted duplicates directly.
Shutdown Computer After Tasks Have Been Finished (Auto-off):
In order to implement as many green features as possible the auto-off functionality has been added. Once time consuming tasks like generating message digests for whole directory trees have been finished it is now possible to do the following actions afterwards:  * Exit program * Standby mode * Log off user * Reboot computer * Shutdown computer  While tasks are being executed the new status bar icon (I/O symbol) is enabled. When clicked with the left or right mouse button an context menu with the options listed above is presented. The "Normal Operation" item may be used to reset a previous setting. If all tasks have been finished regularly (not cancelled) then the chosen action is being executed automatically. If the user is logged off or if the computer is hibernated, rebooted or turned off (shutdown) then a dialog is displayed where the user may cancel the auto-off function within a number of seconds.  For the log off, standby, reboot, and shutdown functions the system runs special commands which may be configured from within the options dialog. The new "Energy Saving" unit has been added to achieve this. Here you can enter the various commands which strongly depend on the used operating system. Commonly used commands for major platforms have been preset. The dialog to cancel the chosen auto-off feature may be configured here by setting the number of seconds to wait (countdown).  The dialog to inform the user that tasks are being executed if the program is up to be closed also displays the new functions listed above to be called directly from here.
External Help System Links Opened With System Browser:
The external links to http:// addresses are now displayed by the default browser of the operating system. Earlier versions of the help system opened such links directly which resulted in poor display quality due to the limited HTML capabilities of the used Java components. Normally, external links are indicated with a special trailing icon to be recognized easily.
Default Window Size Now 1024 x 768 Pixels:
The default size of the main window has been raised to 1024 x 768 pixels (was 800 x 600) due to bigger screens available for the mass market. The application may still be operated with 800 x 600 pixel resolution.  The new menu item Windows -> Resolutions has been added to adjust the main window size.
Performance Improved:
When the GUI application was started sometimes the application seemed to be frozen if time consuming tasks like listing large directories in the file system window were executed. This behaviour has been improved so that the GUI is being created more fluently. It can be easily recognized by watching the digitial clock on the right side of the status bar: in earlier versions the clock was not updated for seconds, now it is in sync.
Window Check/Generate/Refresh Callable from Context Menues:
The context menues of both the file system and network file system window allow users to check, and generate digests or signatures for single selected files. Three new menues have been added to allow for checking, generating, and refreshing on a per directory basis. Now it is possible to select local directories or network folders and process them recursively. The new generate and refresh functionality starts its work on basis of the template that is currently being selected in the generate options window. You'll find the template name displayed in round braces.
Data Digester Now Shipped With Java 1.7:
The installer versions if the Data Digester software are now shipped with the JRE 1.7 instead of the JRE 1.6. The main advantages of the current JRE 1.7 are the improved web security and the better performance especially of the GUI components.
Displaying Nimbus Under Java 1.7:
Since Java 1.7 the Nimbus look & feel is official part of the Swing packages of Java. The class path switched from com.sun.java.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel to the new value javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel. The application checks for Java since 1.7 and uses the new package automatically then.  If you are switching from Java 1.6 to Java 1.7 to run the Data Digester software and if you have the Nimbus look & feel activated then it may be necessary to activate Nimbus again when the application is started using Java 1.7 the first time.
Calculate-only Required PGP Key Selection:
If message digests should be calculated only (no file generation) then a PGP key had to be selected in the list, too, if one of the PGP enabling options had been selected. In other words, it was not possible to calculate-only MD5, SHA-1 etc. without selecting a PGP key in such cases. This behaviour has been fixed.
Write Digester XML For Read-only Files:
If checksums for files on read-only mediums like CD or DVD have been generated it was not possible to write the data as Digester XML to a writable directory. This has been fixed so also digests/signatures for files on read-only file systems may be stored now.
Restoring Docking Windows:
Due to missing internal configuration some docking windows (e.g. text editor window) could not be restored properly. If the docking window had been closed the last time this window were being displayed again the next time the application has been started. This works fine now.
Preferences Import:
Preferences of the Data Digester software may be exported from one instance and then imported also on other platforms to move the configuration. The target directory had been cleared before the import and some or all extracted files from the export ZIP were removed, too. This was due to a timing behaviour in the directory clearing routine. Some or all extracted resources were missing then including the license file etc. This behaviour has been fixed so that the target import directory is not cleared before the ZIP import. Existing files are simply overwritten by the ZIP resources while additional resources created by the user are kept now.
Docking Windows Under Linux With KDE:
Some of the Data Digester docking windows (file eystem, network file system) were not displayed on some Linux platforms using the KDE desktop. The initialization went wrong due to a missing Java Desktop reference. This problem has been fixed so that all windows are being created properly.

Data Digester Changelog

What's new in Data Digester 1.6.15 Build 967

New in Data Digester 1.6.14 Build 960 (Jan 5, 2015)

New in Data Digester 1.6.13 Build 957 (Jul 5, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.12 Build 948 (May 1, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.11 Build 942 (Mar 24, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.10 Build 941 (Feb 7, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.9 Build 930 (Jan 17, 2014)

New in Data Digester 1.6.7 Build 895 (Sep 4, 2013)

New in Data Digester 1.6.6 Build 823 (Jul 15, 2013)