Search

Note about compatibility and upgrading

New Futurama releases are backwards compatible. In some situations changes in the Futurama behavior are made that may break existing applications. When upgrading from an earlier Futurama version, consult the page Updating Futurama - Compatibility behavior  to check whether there are compatibility issues that are relevant for your application.

Version 24.02.1

Version 24.02.1 is an hotfix that is released to fix the performance of the VisionReferences that was caused by a change in the 24.01 release.

Performance of VisionReferences

In 24.01 we made security enhancements in the Management Site. Some of these changes also affected the VisionReferences, but caused the VisionReferences to be much slower than before. This is fixed now and the performance of the VisionReferences are improved to a normal response time.

Version 24.02

Days360 formulas updated

Significant changes have been made to the Days360 and Days360Excel formulas in this version. The Days360 formula is deprecated due to redundancy and will be automatically converted to Days360Excel with the 'Method' parameter set to True, as both formulas give identical results. Additionally, adjustments have been implemented to address a misalignment between the Futurama and Excel outcomes, particularly when calculating for the last day of the month. To ensure seamless transition and continuity with previous behavior, a new compatibility mode 24_01 has been introduced.

Webservice security updated

Numerous updates have been applied to fortify the webservice against path traversal vulnerabilities. Furthermore, improvements have been made to sanitize response and error messages to prevent inadvertent disclosure of full paths.

Version 24.01

Security enhancements in Management Site

Continuing our commitment to bolster the security of the Management Site, this version introduces the following changes:

  • Enhancement of the hashing algorithm for saving Forms users.
  • Improved error handling for the service ImportPolicyForProductGroup, ensuring accurate status codes and messages.

Management Site page migrated

We are continuing to migrate the Management Site pages to the latest .Net version. This release the page "Synchronize accounts" is migrated.

XML to JSON conversion updates

Refinements have been made in the XML to JSON conversion process:

  • Improved handling of the fut_json_emit_array attribute, ensuring a correct array structure in the returned JSON.
  • Attributes in the XML are now represented in JSON with a @-sign before the name, preserving the distinction between original XML elements and attributes. This update enhances the clarity of the JSON structure.

Version 23.12

DefaultNamespace parameter in Webservice object

A new parameter 'DefaultNamespace' is added to the webservice object. Specifically designed for RESTful JSON calls, this parameter ensures seamless integration by adding the necessary namespace during the JSON to XML conversion. This enhancement ensures the validity of your XML, aligning it with your application requirements. It simplifies support for REST JSON calls to your native XML webservice. For more details, visit the WebService documentation page.

Version 23.11

Culture parameter introduced to format formulas

The FormatDate and FormatNumber formulas now include a new parameter enabling the setting of the culture in a formula. Previously, the culture was configured at the application level. With this enhancement, you can now specify the culture at a formula level, ensuring bilingual usage of dates and numbers within the same application.

Bug fixes

This release includes fixes for various bugs:

  • The deletion of a RegisterApp is now prevented when participants are present for data integrity.
  • The attribute fut_json_datatype in ConvertXMLToJSON is now working correctly when the data is empty.
  • Fixed a problem where, when using a FileSaver with a false condition, it attempted to reach the configured path, causing errors if access was not granted. The fix ensures that if the FileSaver condition is false, no steps are executed.

Version 23.10

Bug fixes

This release includes fixes for various bugs:

  • Dutch NPR Koppelvlak 6 was not working correctly if there was only 1 'partnerpensioen' or 'wezenpensioen' in the data.
  • In version 23.09, the HTTP status code and headers were added to the webservice. The order in which the webservice is evaluated has been changed to ensure that the output is evaluated before the status code and headers. This order is crucial when 'changeValues' are used in the output of the webservice.
  • The migrated RegisterApps table has been updated. When editing a RegisterApp, the data did not have the correct values.

Version 23.09

Improved JSON generation

The JSON generation in Futurama has seen significant improvements, especially when accessed via REST JSON calls. Previously, all objects were generated as strings, but now we generate the correct object types in JSON format. Additionally, we've introduced a new feature that allows you to reference a Formula within a FileSaver to save JSON data. Furthermore, we've added a new formula for converting XML to JSON. For more information, please visit the ConvertXMLToJSON page.

Webservice improvements

We have made multiple improvements to our webservice. You can now set custom HTTP status codes for precise communication, include additional HTTP headers for tailored requests, and execute GET requests to effortlessly retrieve data from your server. These enhancements improve the webservice experience, offering more flexibility and control. You can find more information on the WebService page.

ValidateJWT supports multiple audiences

We have enhanced our validateJWT formula to offer support for multiple audiences. This allows you to validate JWT tokens across a wider range of use cases and applications.

Improving the Security of Futurama

We are continuing on improving the security of Futurama. There are new changes made in the Futurama code to fix potential security issues.

Version 23.08

Support for JWK Format in ValidateJWTToken

Previously, only keys in PEM format were accepted for validating JWT tokens. We have now expanded our support to include keys in JWK format.

Update DocConverter for Bookmarks Inside Tables

The functionality of bookmarks within tables has been enhanced in our DocConverter. Previously, there were issues when rows were merged. These issues have been resolved, and now bookmarks work correctly with different tables.

Dutch NPR Conversion from Koppelvlak 5 to Koppelvlak 6

We have updated the Dutch NPR conversion process from 'Koppelvlak 5' to 'Koppelvlak 6'. This update ensures that you don't need to upload new data to support Koppelvlak 6, but is converted automatically.

Bug Fixes

On the 'PersonDetails' page of the Management Site, there was an issue with the 'Reset Account' action after migration. This issue has been addressed, and now all actions on the page function as expected.

Version 23.07

Bug fixes

Some bugs were fixed:

  • In the Management Site some tables of the migrated Security pages were updated even when the update was canceled.
  • For some documents containing a reference, pointing to a formula with an argument, the calculation mode 'Compile' did not work.

Version 23.06.1

Version 23.06.1 is an hotfix that is released to fix an issue of the DocConverter that was missed in the 23.05 release.

DocConverter updated for bookmarks inside tables

In 23.05 we fixed the DocConverter when working with bookmarks inside tables. Not all situations were working correctly yet, when multiple bookmarks are present in the same table. This is fixed now and all situations of bookmarks inside a table are working correctly.

Version 23.06

Management Site pages migrated

We are continuing to migrate the Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We are working on the WebEditor for the first beta release.

Improving the Security of Futurama

We are continuing on improving the security of Futurama. There are new changes made in the Futurama code to fix potential security issues.

Version 23.05

jQuery version updated

The version of jQuery and jQuery UI that is used in the Futurama release is updated. We currently use the latest version.

DocConverter updated for bookmarks inside tables

Bookmarks inside tables using the DocConverter weren't working correctly. Not all cells were emptied and/or removed. The handling of these bookmarks is updated and now work as expected. When selecting a complete row, the row will be removed. When the cells of the table are selected, the text will be removed, but the cell itself not.

Management site improvements

The following updates are made to the Management Site:

  • We are continuing to migrate the Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.
  • It is now possible to scan the file content of uploaded files in the File Manager, before it is saved on the server. See Vision Security for more information.

Version 23.04

Management Site pages migrated

We are continuing to migrate the Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Version 23.03

Dutch NPR Koppelvlak 6 updated

For the Dutch NPR there has been an update in the format for 'Koppelvlak 6'.

Formulas added to encrypt and decrypt a string

There are new formulas added to encrypt or decrypt a string. Previously it was only possible to encrypt or decrypt xml, but now it is also possible to encrypt or decrypt strings. See EncryptString and DecryptString for more information.

Formula added to validate a JWT token

A new formula is added to validate a JWT token. See ValidateJWT for more information.

Version 23.02

Management Site pages migrated

We migrated new Management Site pages to support the latest .Net version

Bug fixes migrated pages Management Site

There were some bug fixes on the migrated pages of the Management Site. The most important fixes are:

  • It was possible to delete an Encryption Method while it was still being used. This is not possible anymore.
  • When an user was set to a specific ProductGroup, on some pages the data wasn't shown, while this data should be available for that ProductGroup.

Bug fixes

Some bugs were fixed:

  • It wasn't possible to select or alter VisionReferences in the Editor. This is fixed now.

Version 23.01

Dutch NPR Koppelvlak 6

For the Dutch NPR we have added support for 'Koppelvlak 6'

Management Site pages migrated

We migrated new Management Site pages to support the latest .Net version

Bug fixes

Some bugs were fixed:

  • There were some bugs regarding the migrated pages of the Management Site. The Apps tab wasn't loading in some cases and when adding new data the error wasn't cleared, which meant it wasn't possible to save the data after an error message.
  • It wasn't possible to request a custom WSDL of a webservice hosted in Azure

Version 22.12

Improving the Security of Futurama

We are continuing on improving the security of Futurama. There are new changes made in the Futurama code to fix potential security issues.

DatabaseView working with new license manager

Since Futurama 22.03 we changed the way we manage our licenses. We have found an issue where the DatabaseView didn't work correctly with the new license. This is fixed now and the DatabaseView is also working correctly with the new license manager.

Version 22.11

Improving the Security of Futurama

We are scanning Futurama for security vulnerabilities. Using these scans, some lines in the code were found that could potentially be a security risk. To be sure that we fix these potential security issues in advanced, we have made different changes in the Futurama code.

Version 22.10

Continue migration Management Site pages

We are continuing with the migration of the different Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Security of Futurama

We are continuing to improve the security of Futurama. With different tools from Visma, we are scanning Futurama for security vulnerabilities.

Version 22.09

Host websites in Azure

In this version we added support to host website application in Azure. It was already possible to work with AzureFiles in Futurama, but not all functionality to host a website application was supported yet.

Formula added to create a GUID

A new formula is added to create a GUID in Futurama. See CreateGuid for more information.

Continue migration Management Site pages

We are continuing with the migration of the different Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Version 22.08

Migrated Management Site pages cleaned up

The Management Site pages that were already migrated are cleaned up. This includes the following parts

  • Previously the old page was still supported and was redirected to the new page. In this version the old pages are removed
  • Redundant logging is cleaned up

Version 22.07

Continue migration Management Site pages

We are continuing with the migration of the different Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Migrated Management Site pages improved

Some improvements were made to the migrated Management Site pages. This regards layout changes, redirects from the old pages to the migrated pages and custompage sessions that weren't completely removed after logout from a migrated page.

XsdMessages now working with AzureFiles

The formula XsdMessages was not working correctly when the XSD file was on a Azure fileshare. This issue is fixed and the formule XsdMessages now also works correctly with AzureFiles.

Version 22.06

Continue migration Management Site pages

We are continuing with the migration of the different Management Site pages to the latest .Net version.

Migrated Management Site pages without internet connection

The migrated pages of the Management Site relied on an active internet connection. We have moved this to local files, to make sure the Management Site also works without an internet connection.

Security of Futurama

We are working hard on the security aspect of Futurama. With new tools from Visma, we are scanning Futurama for security vulnerabilities. We will continue to integrate new tools in order to improve the security of Futurama.

Version 22.05

Upcoming migration to .Net5

We are working on the changes for the migration to .Net5. We are working on the Management Site pages and have migrated multiple pages in this version.

Version 22.04

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We are adding a lot of features to the WebEditor for the first beta release.

Logging added for number of sessions

Extra debug logging is added that represent the number of sessions. This makes it easier to get a better view for example why th ethrottle page is being showed.

Bug fixes

When using the Editor in Dutch, some texts of the Matrix Min and Max formulas were incorrect. Some Min formulas were shown as Max formulas in the Editor. These incorrect texts are fixed now.

Version 22.03

New License Manager

We have changed the way we manage our licenses. When updating Futurama to version 22.03 or newer, a new license is needed. See this page for more information.

Version and session information removed from html body

There are some security changes made in the new version. This regards a sessionid that was visible within the body of the page and the Futurama version that was present in the source of the page. To make sure this information isn't present in the html, they are removed.

Logging EmailConverter extended

When using the EmailConverter with extended debug logging the parameters of the EmailConverter is added to the logging. Some parameters, for example the return-path, weren't added to the logging. The logging for the EmailConverter is extended with the extra information.

Layout changes migrated Management Site pages

We are working on migrating the Management Site to .Net5. In the previous releases different pages were already migrated, but within the migrated pages some textboxes were too small. Within this release we made some layout changes to the migrated Management Site pages and also bundled the different js and css files for the different pages.

Version 22.02

Error handling ConvertExcelToXML improved

The error handling for the formula ConvertExcelToXML is improved. When the file is opened or a value within the Excel sheet is incorrect, a more specific error will be given.

Upcoming migration to .Net5

We are working on the changes for the migration to .Net5. These changes are made for the different compoonents, in order to make sure the migration to .Net5 can be executed.

Bug fixes

The Max formula for matrices were incorrect. The min value was resulted instead of the max. This is changed and the correct max values are resulted now.

Version 22.01

Improvements when using Content Security Policy

The jquery-ui version that is used with CSP is updated. The image of the notifier that wasn't working when using CSP is also fixed.

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We added a lot of features to the WebEditor and are getting close to the first beta release. 

Bug fixes

An issue is fixed where it was not posible to use SAML2 in the Vision Managementsite when this is a root application

Version 21.12

Docker support

In this version we add support for Docker for Windows. The use of docker makes installation and updates much easier. You can read more on this page

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We added a lot of features to the WebEditor and are getting close to the first beta release. 

Version 21.11

Webservice

Futurama Webservice can now be configured to be statefull. That enables a big performance improvement in the situation where the first webservice call for a person is slow, because data must be read from a system, but subsequent calls are fast. By keeping state the webservice doesn't have to read the data for every call. 

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We added a lot of features to the WebEditor and are getting close to the first beta release. 

Bug fixes

We fixed an issue with SAML authentication using HTTP-POST in combination with Content Security Policy. This occurs for example when using eIDAS.

Version 21.10

Management site

In preparation of the migration to .Net 5 we are updating the management site to a new UI Framework, Kendo UI, which is .Net 5 compatible. We are updating page by page and the first new pages are now available. 

Load balancing

Futurama used to contain a seperate module for using saml2 in combination with load balancing on a webserver. This module became obsolete when we released the internal load balancer in Futurama. It has now been removed from the Futurama release. 

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

We added a lot of features to the WebEditor and are getting close to the first beta release. 

Bug fixes

  • an issue where the login functionality with eIDAS didn't work in combination with Content Security Policy is fixed 
  • an issue with the fileuploader where the permissions on the uploaded files were incorrect is fixed

Version 21.09

Security improvements

Futurama has a setting that prevents session-hijacking. This functionality was limited when using certain firewall configuration because the original IP address was not used. Now we also the X_FORWARDED_FOR header to keep track of the original IP address that initiated the session

Dependencies

The component we use to generate PDF documents was updated.

Version 21.08

Security improvements

  • We updated a dependency that contained a vulnerability. Customers have been informed about the vulnerability.
  • We added a setting to allow for a maximum session timeout length. Please see our hardening page for more information. 

Bug fixes

  • We fixed an issue with the menu in the Vision Management Site.

Version 21.07

Upcoming migration to .Net5

We are planning to migrate Futurama to .Net5. To execute the migration without problems, we are taking steps to make sure Futurama is compatible with .Net5.

Upcoming Futurama WebEditor

A few months ago we added new functionality for the upcoming Futurama WebEditor. We are continuing taking steps for the WebEditor.

Bug fixes

  • We fixed an issue with executing a javascript function after a button was clicked when using CSP.

Version 21.06

Performance improved in Content Security Policy

We improved the performance of the buttons when using CSP, by removing the dynamic generated scripts and change it to static script files.

SessionID length increased

From the last DigiD audit we received the advise to increase the SessionID cookie length before next year. We already made this change this month, to increase the security of the applications. The length of the SessionID can be increased by setting the sessionIDManagerType. See Security-hardening for more info.

Version 21.05

Vision Resources without VisionReference

You can now use Resources from Vision without defining a VisionReference yourself. This makes it much easier to use text resources from Vision

EncodeOutput property for XmlConverter

The XmlConverter now has a property to EncodeOutput. The default is true for returning encoded HTML. But you can also use the XmlConverter to generate FICO. This gives more flexibility in using FICO in WebAPI. 

Version 21.04

Improvements in Content Security Policy

In this release we made a number of improvements to the Content Security Policy (CSP) functionality we released last month:

  • we improved the speed of the CSP setting. Pages that use this are now much faster
  • we added the CSP header to the page that returns dynamic web resources
  • we fixed an issue in the CSP implementation that prevented it from working in a multiprocessor environment

New functionality

  • the XmlConverter now allows you to return unencoded data. This is primarily used in Futurama WebAPI
  • we added an API for managing Futurama documents, which will be used by the upcoming Futurama WebEditor

Bug fixes

  • we fixed an issue with creating documents using PageData, without the use of a resourceDocument

Version 21.03

Content Security Policy

In this release we implemented support for the Content Security Policy (CSP) setting in the browser. Futurama now returns HTML that contains no inline scripts and no inline styling, so that you can implement a CSP in your configuration. To enable this you need to make a few changes in the configuration. For more information see the setting baseCSPHeader in Security

Version 21.02

LogViewer improvements

The logviewer to view errors in the logging database is greatly improved. 

  • easier to navigate
  • added sort option
  • after selecting a different loginstance, the page is refreshed
  • the timestamp now also shows milliseconds

Text management improvement

Last month we released the new functionality to edit resources in the Futurama management site. You can now download and upload all the resources in application to and from Excel.

Bug fixes

Some bugs were fixed:

  • for certain formulas with an invalid circular reference, a crash could occur in the editor
  • some issues in the newly release text management page

Version 21.01

Content management in Vision Management site

In this version we added screens to define the various texts on the Futurama website via the Vision Management site. A full description how to define texts via the Vision Management Site can be found on this page.

PageControls

A new feature has been introduced within the WebPage: PageControls.

This feature provides the opportunity to include WebControls (such as a Button, CheckBox, WebListBox or DropDownList) within a HTMLInclude as a HTMLCode or within a XmlConverter as a XSLT-file by referring to the name of the WebControl.

This creates possibilities to improve both the layout and functionality of the website.

The layout of a web page, with in particular the layout of a text including WebControls, can be defined in a HTML or XSLT-file. From now on it is possible to make one or more WebControls part of a running text without putting the WebControls before or after a XmlConverter or HTMLInclude in the Editor, or placing them in the correct order. As a result, the layout does no longer depend on the structure in Futurama.

For more info about how to use this feature see WebPage

This feature offers endless new application possibilities, for instance when placing WebControls on a website with multiple languages. It also introduces the possibility, for example, to put the same CheckBox at the end of a Dutch sentence while it should be placed in the middle of an English sentence.

Improved logging

We added the option to log the performance of a Futurama website. This makes it much easier to detect and solve performance bottlenecks in the Futurama Website. See Performance log configuration for more info.

Bug Fixes

We fixed some small bugs:

  • An XmlFiled was not reset if the property ReturnDefaultIfEmpty or ReturnDefaultIfAbsent was changed in the editor.
  • If you used a Navigator to navigate to a different page with clicking on a button, the PageData was not correctly filled. 
  • If a document did not have a StartWebPage, the error message was unclear and has been improved.

Version 20.12.1 

Version 20.12.1 is an hotfix that is released that fixes an issue in 20.10. Therefore 20.10, 20.11, and 20.12 are no longer available. We advise you to upgrade to 20.12.1

Performance improvements in calculations

In this release we applied some improvements to the calculation code that is generated by Futurama webservice. This leads to an improved calculation performance. 

Improvements in Futurama Webservice

You can now add a HTTP-header ('FUT_AddCalculationTimeToOutput' with value 'TRUE') to a call to Futurama Webservice to include the calculation time in the output. This enables us to better monitor and improve the performance of the Futurama Webservice.

Improvements in WebReference

Futurama now supports calling Rest services what return a JSON message with multiple root elements. 

Performance improvements

The performance of the DocConverter has been improved, when it is used from a website. 

Executing update queries in Vision

In the Vision Tasks page you can now define update queries,so people in your organisation can use Vision to run those queries and perform administrative tasks

More output types supported in FileSaver

The FileSaver now supports saving different files than XML files and images because you can now also use an XmlConverter to generate the output. 

Bug fixes

We fixed the following issues:

  • an issue where an XmlField that reads an attribute or child element from a parent XmlNode with an XPath that does not lead to a result sometimes returned a value from the parent of that XmlNode. The new behavior is that an XmlField that is a child of an XmlNode without a result will not return a value. For current Futurama documents the compatibility mode will be set, to ensure consistent behavior.
  • an issue with Formula Left 
  • an issue in the editor if you move a folder into itself
  • uploading files to Vision with a ZIP file does not work for some destinations
  • an incorrect recursive formula that used tables could lead to a crash, this has been fixed. The formula now reports a validation error, and generates a calculation error.
  • Web fixed an issue where the editor could crash if you created a circular subdocument structure. You will now get a warning and will be unable to define an invalid subdocument structure. 

Version 20.09

New formula "Range"

The Range object has been replaced by the Formula 'Range'. This enables the use of this formula in parameters.

Bug fixes

We fixed some small bugs

  • The speed of the formula ReadFileNames has been fixed and improved, it is now even faster than it was in the past. 
  • The FileUploader did not work in combination with an UpdatePanel. This has been solved
  • The use of a DateBox, WebSlider of RadioGroup in combination with  a UserTable and WebListbox did not work properly, this has been solved

Version 20.08

Executing tasks in Vision

In the Vision Management you can now define tasks and allow users of the Management Site to execute them. The first type of tasks that we support are select queries. Custom select queries can be defined in order to retrieve specific information that is stored in de Vision database. For example information that is stored in datasets. The result of these queries is given in the Management Site. Please see here for more information on how to define a task. In the next releases we will suppport more types of tasks. 

Bug fixes

  • an issue in de the editor was fixed where you could not change the type of a Formula when auto evaluation was turned on
  • the FileUploader now supports uploading files that are smaller than 256 bytes
  • when executing multiple Vision References at the same time, sometimes an issue occurred, this is now fixed

Version 20.07

ReturnPath property for sending emails

We added new functionality to include a ReturnPath property for sending emails. if this property is filled, we use it to pass a Return-path header to the smtp server. 

Performance improvement import policies

We added functionality to import multiple policies in Vision with one webservice call. This is a much quicker way than performing a seperate call for each policy. You can find more information here

Bug fixes

  • if you log in with a SAML2 Identity provider and the connection is refused and after that you log in with a Futurama account, the result of the IDP login was incorrectly preserved. That resulted in performing a logoutRequest that was invalid. This behavior has been fixed. 

Version 20.06

Easier use of Futurama Webservices

  • We added new functionality to call Futurama Webservices from within a Futurama Website via an internal route. This makes the use of Futurama Webservices much quicker and easier:
    • because we can use a quicker method to perform the call, the overhead in the webservice call has been reduced by more than half
    • we host the Futurama webservice within the Futurama website, so you can now have a single Futurama installation, instead of a seperate Futurama Website and a Futurama Webservice. This makes installation and maintenance much easier.
    • Additional information can be found here.

Bug fixes

  • if you use a Custom page in the Vision Management site to generate a PDF file, the license was not set properly. 

Version 20.05

New features

  • The Rest service in Futurama WebService has been improved.
    • We now support the use of an URL without request parameters. So instead of calling http://server/rest/WebServiceResult?folder=testapp&document=testdoc.xml&webservice=testservice you can now also use
      http://server/rest/WebServiceResult/testapp/testdoc.xml/testservice. This makes it easier to use Futurama Webservice for some applications. See paragraph Endpoints in Installation Futurama Webservice for more information
    • if you pass ClientCertificates to the webservice as part of the webservice security, they will now be part of the headerinfo that is included in the input message for the webservice. You can then use this ClientCertificate to perform security checks. 
  • The vision datamodel has been improved. The key for a person used to be restricted to allow only 20 characters. This has been extended to allow 40 characters.

Rendering Futurama Websites

Futurama Web used Telerik to render a DateBox and a WebSlider in the document mode XHTML. A few years ago we introduced support for HTML5 and replaced the Telerik DateBox and WebSlider by HTML5 versions. We recommend the use of HTML5 since then and most of our clients have made the transition to HTML5 in the past years. The Telerik functionality is now no longer supported and has been removed from Futurama Web. As part of that the default rendering template has been changed from XHTML to HTML5. If you still use XHTML and the Telerik Datebox or WebSlider, please contact us, we will assist you in migrating to HTML5. 

As part of the transition to Futurama 20.05 we recommend that you remove any references to Telerik.Web.UI.dll from the web.config file. 

Version 20.04

New features

We added the new functionality to create CustomPages within the Futurama management site that are a FullPage. They open in a new window. If you use this functionality you can make the internal version of your Futurama application part of the management site. That makes installation much easier and it also makes the security and hosting much easier. 

We also added functionality to the SAML2 IDP to be able to support the use of multiple SAML2 IDP's in combination with SingleLogout. 

Security enhancements

We applied to security enhancements:

  • a javascript file was stripped of comments
  • in certain situations using invalid input Futruama could return a HTTP 500 exception. This has been changed. Futurama now returns the configured customError. 

Version 20.03

New features

When using a SAML2 Identity Provider you were unable to configure, the entityid. We used the organization url for this property. Some SAML2 providers require these to be different. You can now specify the entityid in the SAML2 configuration. 

Bug fixes

In this version we fixed some issues:

  • In a SAML2 authentication request the Comparison level for the security mode was always 'exact'. This used to be 'minimum' prior to Futurama 19.10. We now made it possible to configure this option in the SAML2 configuration. The default has been restored to 'minimum'.
  • When using a custom page in Futurama Vision, downloading a file to the browser did not work, this has been fixed. 
  • The formula FindPreviousRow and VLookup returned the wrong row when you had double values in the index column (see below for compatibility with previous Futurama versions)

Version 20.02

New features

In version 20.02 we added functionality to analyse the performance of your calculation. This functionality enables you to configure the option generatePerformanceAnalyticsFile in the section Configuration-Calculation and then it will generate and Excel file that shows you how long the calculation of each item took. This helps to find calculation bottlenecks.

This functionality is currently only supported in  Futurama Webservice, later it will be expanded to Futurama Batch.

Bug fixes

In this version we fixed two issues:

  • When you defined an XmlBuilder in the editor that contained a link to the same XmlBuilder, so you created a circular reference, this could lead to a crash of the editor
  • In the SAML2 provider in Futurama some of the errors that occurred during the generation of the metadata were not logged

Version 20.01

Upgrade .Net 4.8

In this issue we upgraded to .Net 4.8. In order to use Futurama, this framework version has to be installed. Now we use the latest .Net framework with a lot of security and performance improvements. As part of the upgrade to .Net we strongly advise you to use SHA256 bit encryption in the IdentityProvider, as the SHA1 encryption is not recommended by Microsoft. See the Configuration - Identity Provider page for more information regarding SHA256 bit encryption.

Bug fixes

  • The screen in Futurama Register to remove policies has been improved, we now support policy identifiers with a quote
  • In the editor copying a relative reference from an external file did not work, this has been solved
  • The Futurama Rest Webservice can now access the Http Headers that where passed to it
  • The formula FindPreviousRow and VLookup returned the wrong row when you had double values in the index column (see below for compatibility with previous Futurama versions)
  • In the Editor the evaluation of a very large string sometimes led to a performance issue, this has been solved.

New compatibility mode

A new compatibility mode 19_12 is introduced due to the changed behavior of the VLookup and the FindPreviouwRow formula. See this compatibility support page for more information.

Version 19.12

In this version we added a lot of new functionality.

Performance improvements 

  • The performance of the editor is improved. The editor has a new way of displaying the history, which is much quicker. 
  • We added a formula for a text substition using a Regular Expression. See here for more info. 
  • A Futurama Webservice can now include the Http Headers that were passed as a part of the webservice call. You can use the new property IncludeHttpheaders in input. 
  • The SAML2 identity provider now supports the use of encrypted assertions. 

Version 19.11

Bug fixes

In this version we fixed an issue where for certain documents the calculation mode Compile led to an error.

Version 19.10

Webservice

We improved Futurama Webservice. If you use a custom WSDL, the WSDL is now improved so that you can import it into Visual Studio to make it very easy to reference Futurama Webservices

WebReference

We added a new Method to the Webreference : ‘REST_JSON”. With this method you can now call a Rest service that expects JSON input without any configuration. This makes it much easier to implement those services.

Vision Managementsite

We added the option to authenticate with a SAML2 Identity provider to the Vision Management site. In that way you can use for example Microsoft Azure Active Directory to authenticate the users of the management site. This makes it much easier to setup and maintain the security of the management site.

SAML2

The SAML2 functionality in Futurama Website is improved. You can now also use Azure Active Directory as an Identity Provider. That means that you can for example use Azure AD as a way of logging in to your application for your employees.

Bug fixes

In this released we fixed some bugs

  • an issue with the back button of the browser in combination with an HTML 5 webslider
  • an error occured when trying to undo a change in a DataTable in the Editor
  • in the Dutch NPR module a validation error occurred in a specific scenario
  • a small security issue in the FileManager allowed you to copy a web.config into a webapplication folder.

Version 19.09

Hosting

You can now store the Futurama application files for a webservice or website on an AzureFileShare. That makes it much easier to share those files with multiple Azure AppServices

Performance improvements

  • The performance of the LogViewer has been improved
  • requests to a webservice with Custom WSDL can now use the Futurama load balancing feature

Bug fixes

In this release we fixed some bugs:

  • in the deployment folder exe a file was missing
  • There was an error when writing an XML file on an AzureFileShare when file did not yet exist.
  • when calling a webservice with Custom WSDL, sometimes a timeout occurred

Version 19.08

Performance improvements

  • the performance of the logViewer that is connected to a database has been greatly improved. It is also much easier to filter lines for a specific date
  • the performance of Futurama calculations has improved by using a quicker way to perform the Divide formula

Bug fixes

In this release we fixed some bugs:

  • performing a VisionReference using HTTPS with TLS 1.2 did not work.
  • when calling a Vision method with user credentials, the credentials were not processed when using HTTPS.

Version 19.07

Support for reading from and writing to Azure

in this version we added support for reading from and writing to AzureFiles. You can now use AzureFiles in almost all places in Futurama. This makes it very easy to use a shared set of files from multiple app services in Azure.

Bugfixes

In this version we also fixed two issues

  • a document containing very large content could not be upgraded to version 19.04
  • a Vision method that changed data did not work in combination with the setting requireCredentialsForServices

Version 19.06

Reading files from Azure

In this version we add the first parts of the ability to read and write files to and from different file providers. You can use this to read files from an Azure Fileshare.

Extension of Custom Pages

In version 19.05 we introduced the ability to create custom pages in Futurama Vision management Site. We now improved this by adding the ability to have multiple sessions for multiple documents within one session of the Management Site.

And we added the ability to upload files.

Various bugfixes

  • For the Dutch NPR we fixed an issue that the Validate function did not work for the NPR5 format
  • For the Dutch NPR we fixed an issue that the schema provided by NPR contained some external references, forcing Futurama to request them online.
  • A small issue in eIDAS is fixed where the URL: in the metadata did not match the URL that was used when processing the message

Version 19.05

Ability to add custom pages to the Vision Management Site

Up to Futurama version 19.04 the Vision Management Site was a Management Site with a pre defined (menu) structure. Depending on your Futurama license you can use several components of the Vision Management Site (for example the File Uploader, Futurama Server and Futurama Accounts). From Futurama 19.05 it is possible to create your own Management Site pages. These custom pages can be developed in a Futurama document and integrated within the Vision Management Site.

The advantage of these custom pages is using the existing functionality of the Vision Management Site (account management of Management Site, data management, file management, etc.) in combination with a custom defined process. You can add pages for specific processes in your organisation. An example for the Dutch market is using these custom pages for URM calculations (calculations that insurers and pension providers must perform by Dutch pension law).    

See this page for more information regarding installation, configuration and developing the custom pages.

Koppelvlak 5B

For the Dutch NPR we added support for ‘Koppelvlak 5B’

New Matrix Formulas

A couple of new matrix formulas are added:

  • PowerMatrix:  to apply a^b for every element of matrix a and matrix b
  • Step: an easy way to create a Range within a formula
  • Repeat: a way to create a vector of multiple items of a certain value
  • Split: a way to split a string into a vector

Various bugfixes

We fixed some small bugs:

  • Editor crash when using a non existing formula plugin
  • upgrade issue in some documents to a new Futurama version
  • a download  in de Visoin Management Site for an account reset letter was missing the .pdf extension
  • The formula Convert.Excel.To.XML could only be used 99 times

Version 19.04

Logging of messages

Futurama 19.04 introduces a new way to store messages of your application. These messages used to be stored in different files. You can now choose to store them in a SqlServer database. This enables you to view all messages from all you application in one place, the LogViewer. Please see this page for more information.

New webservice in Futurama Vision for importing data

Futurama Vision now offers a new webservice to automate copying your imported data records to production data. For more information look here

Use of PageData in WebListBox

In version 19.03 we introduced the use of {{PageData}} to display content. In version 19.04 we take this one step further. For content within a WebListBox you can now use {{WebListBoxIndex}} to refer to the index number of this WebListBox. Please see this page for more information.

RadioButton with AutoNumber

The RadioGroup now has an option IndexType. If you set this to Auto the index number of the corresponding RadioButtons will be automatically assigned. This makes it easier to use RadioButtons in a WebListBox, you no longer need Actions to set the IndexNumber.

Improvement in SAML2

Futurama now supports the use of Encrypted assertions in Saml2. This is used in some eIDAS implementations.

Bug fixes

This release contains a few bug fixes:

  • some documents with a very specific type of recursion returned an error when determining the Rank of the recursive formula
  • After converting a file, some Validation messages that should be ignored, were not ignored

Version 19.03

PageData

In this release new functionality to Futurama Web is introduced in order to simplify the creation of webpages with dynamic content. Previously for all the dynamic content an XSLT-file had to be used. This type of file is more difficult to interpret and use then HTML-files. The Futurama Object WebPage has a new property ‘PageData’ that can be used to use HTML files for displaying dynamic content. Once the variables are defined within this PageData object, these can be used to define the text content. This can be done using the syntax: {{PageData:datafield}} to make sure the value of ‘datafield’ is entered in that location. In fact this is simular to the use of mergefields within Word. 

ConditionalText

On top of the PageData to use merge fields you can also use PageData to display conditional text. You can use a syntax like {{if:PageData:testCondition}}Value if true{{/if}} in all text on the webpage. ‘testCondition’ needs to be a boolean in this example.

Usage

You can use this functionality in the following cases:

  • webcontent form an external file with only a few merge fields. Previously you had to use an XmlBuilder and XmlConverter to create a webpage with content from an external file. You can now use a HtmlInclude. We recommend using an XmlConverter only for the more complex pages.
  • setting properties of type string on an object. For example if you want to give some content a cssclass depending on some condition, previously you had to use  an action, you can now also use a PageData field.
  • displaying conditional text in an HtmlInclude. You can use this to manage different situations with only one HtmlInclude where you previously had to use an XmlConverter of different HtmlIncludes in combination with an action.

More information

For more information please see the supportpages WebPage and Text management and multi-language.

For Dutch NPR: Koppelvlak 5A

In this release the webservice ‘deelnemerstatus’ is added to Futurama Register.

Bugfixes

We fixed an issue in the emailconverter that prevented the use of the ‘CC’ property.

Version 19.02

Enhancement for eIDAS

  • To further support the use of eIDAS we enhanced the SAML2 functionality in Futurama. Futurama now supports the HTTP_Artifact binding for SAML2 responses.
  • If you configured 256 bit encryption, then the Metadata will also be signed using a 256 bit signature

Authentication for Futurama Vision webservices

Futurama Vision exposes a number of webservices. You can now specify permissions for each webservice for a user or group of users. For more information see Futurama Vision Management - Security. We advise you to enable the setting ‘requireCredentialsForServices’. The default value is false, to make sure your current installation will continue to work as expected.

Webservice for retrieving information about importing data

We added a webservice to Futurama Vision to retrieve AppEvents. AppEvents store information about changes to an app, for example importing data into an app.

Version 19.01

Support for eIDAS

To support eIDAS we extended the SAML2 functionality in Futurama.

  • You can now use a POST binding, next to the Redirect binding we already supported
  • You can add scoping information to the configuration for SAML 2, this information will be included in the Authentication request
  • You can add information about the attributeConsumingService to the configuration for SAML 2, this information will be included in the Authentication request
  • The metadata is now signed
  • if the IDP signs the assertion, the assertion signature is now checked with the configured IDP certificate
  • we now support the situation where the IDP does not support Single Sign On

VisionMethod CreatePerson

We added a Vision method to create a person. This is convenient if you do not store the policy data in Futurama Vision but you want to save some application data to Vision

Performance improvement in calculation with code generation

The performance for calculations regarding large matrices has been improved. The performance difference between dedicated matrix formulas and the corresponding normal formulas has been removed. That means that for example if you add 1 to a matrix with Add(1, matrix) this will have the same performance as AddScalarToMatrix(1,matrix).

Memory usage improvements

Futurama webservice sometimes used a lot of memory. This has been greatly improved

Bug fixes

We fixed some bugs:

  • errors in the editor when copying objects
  • invalid validation message after converting to Futurama 18.12
  • in Futurama Vision a timeout occured if a stored procedure was called that took more than 30 seconds to complete, this has now been solved

Version 18.12

Performance improvement when reading very large XML files

We added a formula ReadMatrixFromXml to the Futurama Formula Library. This formula allows you to read a matrix of doubles from an XML files. This bypasses the need to read the entire XML file into memory and interpret it with an XmlNode and XmlField. The biggest benefit of this formula is to reduce memory consumption when opening very large XML files. In our sample, we opened an Xml file that was 650MB large. The memory used by Futurama to process the file with an XmlNode and XmlField is more the 5GB. This memory released after reading the XmlField. With this new formula the file is read sequentially, so the memory usage is much less. Now Futurama only uses memory for the resulting matrix, which is only 80MB.

Use Reference to Formula with multiple argument to create matrix

Futurama 18.12 introduces the property DimensionGroup for an argument for a Formula. With this property you can create a matrix by calling a scalar function with two arguments. It simplifies the modelling of some complex matrix calculations. Because the model can be less complex, the calculation will be quicker.

Bug fixes

In version 18.12 some small issues were fixed:

  • the value of the special character tab was not saved in a Fixed, and it was lost on conversion.
  • in the Editor some userVariables returned an error
  • in objects with a RepeatData property, you were unable to use a reference to a formula with arguments, and supply the arguments in the reference
  • during the database conversion for Futurama Vision, a timeout occured if you have a very large database
  • Some ChangeValues gave an incorrect Validation error
  • The function ReadXPathScalar for resulttype string returned an error for an empty element

Version 18.11

Read from Excel sheets

Futurama already supported reading information from an Excel file on disk. In this version we added the ability to allow the user to upload Excel documents and read from those documents. Now you can allow the user to upload data via an Excel sheet en use that data in the application.

Output Excel sheet

Futurama now has the option to generate output in Excel sheets. Just as with the DocConverter, we now have an ExcelConverter. As a template file you select an Excel sheet, and then the Excel sheet is filled with the data from Futurama. it is very easy to define the target location for the data. You can define names in Excel that correspond to the names of the Elements in the XmlData.

Improvement in speed of calculation

For formulas that return a matrix and have multiple arguments of type integer the speed of caching is greatly improved. This is a very common case in complex calculation models. This is done by making use of the AllowedRange property of the arguments.

Rendering

In some situations a special character was escaped twice and was displayed on the website as an Entity code. This has been fixed.

Bug fixes

We fixed a lot of small issues in this release

  • an issue with code generation for some files
  • an error when visiting the ViewBsnHistory page in Vision
  • an editor issue when changing the type of a Fixed
  • formula GetURL returned an exception in non-web modus
  • formula IsNull(Document) returned an Exception, but it should be false.
  • in some situations it was not possible to assign a vector to a UserVariable.

Version 18.10

Multiple identity providers in Futurama Web for eIDas

In this version you can define multiple identity providers, to support the new eIDas legislation.

Add ability to clean URL after logging in

For some customers a Futurama website is started with a request parameter that passes a token to pass credentials from another application. For performance and ease of use, it is better to remove the token from the request parameters. To be able to do that we created a new option: removeRequestParametersOnLogin in the Futurama security settings. Please see this page for more information.

Bug fixes

We fixed a lot of small issues in this release

  • an issue with code generation for some files
  • an Editor crash when you applied a circular reference in an XmlNode
  • an XmlNode with ReadXPathScalar formulas gave incorrect validation warnings
  • an issue with recursive formulae that use a table that is not a part of the recursion
  • the formula ConvertJSONToXml  did not work in Webservice mode

Version 18.09

Load balancing for Futurama Web

In this version the speed of the Futurama load balancing is improved. The overhead for using load balancing is now only 1 ms.

Replacing an existing Futurama session

In Futurama a special page Session/replace.aspx is added. This page can be used to end an existing session and replace this by a new one. This can be useful when you redirect customers from one webportal to another, and you want to make sure that their existing session is closed. See this page for more detailed information how to use this.

Bug fixes

We fixed a lot of small issues in this release

  • one customer had an issue upgrading their database to version 18.08
  • some email-addresses with long top level domain names (for example info@futurama.amsterdam) where not allowed in Futurama Vision
  • an XmlNode with ReadXPathScalar formulas gave incorrect validation warnings
  • The HTML5 Datebox had a problem with some regional settings

Version 18.08

Load balancing for Futurama Web

In version 18.02 we introduced a load balancing feature in Futurama WebService. This feature is now also available in Futurama Web. Our consultants can help you to determine the optimal configuration for the load for your website.

Performance for Futurama Vision

Some Vision references were too slow, and got slower when the size of the database increased. This has now been solved.

Formula to read a vector based on XPath

In this version we introduce a new formula ReadXPathVector that enables you to read a vector from an XmlNode based on an XPath string.

Version 18.07

Improved error message custom WSDL

In some situations Futurama didn’t return a clear error message when a request was defined that didn’t match the corresponding WSDL. This has now improved.

Upgrading the Vision Database

In order to allow a user to upgrade the Futurama Vision database via the Management Site, in the Management Site specific configuration is needed (https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/313). When this configuration wasn’t done, a unclear error message was given. This is changed to a clear error message.

The configuration mentioned above is changed to the security configuration section of Vision. When you configured this via the deprecated appSetting section you will get a warning.

XmlField

For the XmlField object (https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/69) two new properties are introduced: ReturnDefaultIfAbsent and ReturnDefaultIfEmpty. With these two properties the behavior of the XmlField can be configured in the situation the either the result of the Xpath query, that is used to retrieve the value of the XmlField, is empty or absent. The property ThrowEmptyIfEmpty is deprecated and is converted to ReturnDefaultIfAbsent.

WebListBox

- The WebListBox (https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/29) can be used to create multiple panels in a website by looping over a table. Up to version 18.07 it was only possible to loop over an index table (indices 0,1,2,..). From Futurama 18.07 this has extended to tables of all types (for example a table with strings, or a table with values 65, 66, 67,..).

Bug fixes

In this release a number of bug issues is solved:

  • In a specific IIS configuration/installation setting, the load balancing functionality of the webservice threw an error
  • In the Vision Management Site at some places it wasn’t possible to change an existing configuration. This was introduced in Futurama 18.06

Version 18.06

Validation improvements

When validating a webservice that has a request and response XSD file without a namespace led to an invalid validation. This has now been solved.

Bug fixes

When using the load balancing functionality that was introduced in Futurama 18.02, the warm up documents were not processed. This has now been solved.

In this release a number of small issues is solved that arose in 18.05:

  • in some cases the required database upgrade was not started after installing and starting the new Futurama version
  • when logged in a as a Windows user, the required database upgrade was not started
  • after upgrading to 18.05, in some cases you were unable to use the Vision method ‘StoreData’

Version 18.05

Futurama WebAPI

Futurama WebAPI now supports the use of History Functionality. By adding a StateID parameter to your request you can retrieve old states from the user session and enable support for the back and forward button in the browser. See the ‘State management’ paragraph at the Futurama Web API support page for more information.

Bug fixes

In this release we solved a number of small issues:

  • the function CountErrors gave the wrong number of errors when using the WarmUpXmlBuilder functionality.
  • when using the Futurama Multilanguage functionality, you were not able to use a resource identifier within the XML data that is used to create a document with Futurama Documents.
  • You can now use Word templates that are opened in Word to generate documents. This makes it easier to edit templates for Futurama Documents.
  • When you used Forms authentication in the Futurama Vision Management site without any user, the login page returned an error. This error has been clarified.
  • Some XmlNodes that were a child of a different XmlNode had an invalid path defined and returned a validation error. You were unable to edit this path and resolve the situation. You can now edit the invalid path.

Version 18.04

Changes in encryption to support the GDPR

In Futurama a couple of changes are done in order to comply to the GDPR. These changes are all encryption related:

  • all privacy related data can now be encrypted
    • custom events
    • register XML
    • policy XML
    • account properties: e-mail and answer to password phrase
  • if you use encryption, you are required to use a salt value
  • records that were previously encrypted without a salt are automatically re-encrypted with a salt. This conversion happens during the Futurama Vision update (see below).

Pay attention to the next points:

  • before Futurama 18.04 it was possible to encrypt your user data with 2 generic passwords (i.e. passwords that are the same for all your policies). This is changed from Futurama 18.04. From this version 1 generic password en 1 user dependent password is used. This implies that the first time you want to import new user data after installing a Futurama 18.04 + version, this XML data also has to be encrypt meeting this encryption requirement. See paragraph ‘Import encrypted data ’ at this support page for more information how to encrypt your data;
  • at this support page the different types of data that can be stored into the Futurama Vision database are given. See this page for more information how to configure that this data will be stored encrypted. 

Change in update policy for Vision

With previous upgrades for Futurama Vision you needed to manually apply the database updates. Futurama Vision will now automatically detect if database changes are needed and apply them. This update process can be done after installing the new version of the Futurama Vision Management Site. An Vision Management administrator can upgrade the Futurama Vision Database by opening the Management Site and start the upgrade process. See paragraph ‘Upgrading existing version’ at this page for more information.

Vision enhancements

Windows security user can now have a product group filled

In the Futurama Vision Management Site it is possible to define which Management Site pages can be visited by which type of user. Up to Futurama 18.04 this advanced security set up could be done for the situation Forms authentication was used for the Management Site. From Futurama 18.04 it is also possible to use this advanced security for Windows authentication. When you define Windows users or groups you can now fill the product group property to make sure the members of that group can only see data for that product group.

Change in ActuIT skin

The user interface of the ActuIT skin of Vision has been restyled. See the version information for Futurama 18.02 and 18.03 for more information about the look and feel of Futurama Vision.

Bug fixes

  • When using a WebService with the property ExposeExplicitOperation the WebService Response was not always correct. This has been solved

  • When generating code for a document with a $ in the name, an error occurred. This has been fixed.

  • When generating code for a variable with an argument with a name that is a reserved word like ‘string’, an error occurred. This has been fixed.

  • when using a webservice with loadbalancing, you could not use the PhysicalPathCrendentials property of an applicationpool. This restriction has been removed.

Version 18.03

New functionality to export data for a person

To comply with the new European Data Protection Act new functionality is added to export all the data  for a person that is stored in the Vision database. See the ‘Person Management’ paragraph of this page for more information how to export this data.

Change the Visible property to a variable

All user interface objects in Futurama have a Visible property. In a lot of instances this property is filled dynamically by an action. This is made easier now by changing the visible property to a variable. That means that you no longer need to create an action to make the Visible property dynamic. Existing actions that point to a Visible property are converted. For more info please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/584. With this change it is a lot easier to make the visibility depend on another variable.

New look and feel for Vision

In version 18.02 Futurama Vision is made skinnabble. Now the default look and feel is changed from an ActuIT look to a more modern Futurama look. If you want to keep the ActuIT look you can change the configuration and select the ActuIT skin. See this page for more information how to set up another skin (for example the ActuIT skin)

As part of this change some layout issues in the management site have been fixed.

Added the German language to Futurama Vision

As part of our business in Germany we added support for the German language to Futurama Vision, with credits to our German partner Solvengine for the translation.

Remove the name ActuIT from screens

Since more than a year now, Futurama is developed by Futurama B.V. To make that more clear we will be removing all references to ActuIT from the software. In this release the first part is done, the name ActuIT is removed from the screens in the Editor.

Smaller changes

  • The property on a WebService ‘GenerateCustomWsdl ’ has been renamed to ‘ExposeExplicitOperation’
  • A validation error in the XSD file for a WebReference has been fixed
  • We added a validation to a datatable that contains too many fields.

Version 18.02

Migrate to .Net 4.6.2

In this version of Futurama we started to use .Net 4.6.2 instead of 4.5.1. That means we use a lot of the improvements in the .Net platform. One important example of improved functionality is the ability to call webservices that use an HTTPS connection that is secured with TLS 1.2.

That means you need to install .Net framework version 4.6.2 on the webserver to be able to use Futurama 18.02. You can find it on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53345

New formula

In this version we added a formula to convert a range in an Excel Workbook to XML. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/629/ for more information about this formula. This enables you to easily read values from an Excel sheet, without converting it to CSV, and it eliminates the risk of errors due to conversion mistakes.

Multithreading in webservice

We added functionality to Futurama to enable multithreading behavior in Futurama Webservice. Instead of installing a load balancer and installing Futurama multiple times, you can now install Futurama Webservice once and specify the number of processors you want to use. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/590/ for more information.

Functionality to remove data from Vision Database

In the Vision Database the (user)data stored can be divided into several levels. This can be an entire ProductGroup, or an Application within a ProductGroup (see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/403). Within an Application persons are available, and these persons do have policies with policy data. From this version of Futurama it is possible to delete data at each of this levels. To delete this data the Futurama Vision Management Site can be used. Deleting a ProductGroup or an Application can be done by browsing to the admin page of the Management Site. Deleting a single person, or a single policy of a person can be done in the person details screen in the Management Site.

Functionality to make a Futurama application multilanguage

Up to Futurama version 18.02 the text management of Futurama could be divided into two categories: text management outside the Futurama definition models (for example HTML-files and XSLT-files) and text management within the Futurama definition models. For the second category knowledge of the Futurama Editor, and building applications with this Futurama Editor was necessary in order to change texts. This also meant that setting up a multilanguage Futurama application took some time, and had to be done by a developer of the Futurama models. In Futurama version 18.02 we added functionality to read text resources from a resource document. This implies that text management for all the texts in a Futurama application can be done without any knowledge of building application with Futurama. This makes it also very easy to make a Futurama application multi-language. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/649/ for more information about the text management in Futurama in general, and setting up a multilanguage application in particular.

Vision Management Site is skinnable

You can now define your own skin for the Vision Management Site, depending on the URL that is used to open the site. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/650 how to define and use your own skin.

WebService

This version of Futurama supports a WADL page to get a description of the REST service

Bug fixes

In this issue we fixed a few bugs:

  • in a textbox with the password property set to true, you could not use a partial postback
  • the functionality in an XmlBuilder that you can use $ in the name to render the XML in the current node did not work for a DocConverter
  • a DocConverter that was a child of an action could not use the download functionality
  • you were allowed to change the App of a RegisterApp, but the change did not work
  • we fixed a small conversion issue when opening a file defined in Futurama 5.3.2.7 in version 17.12

Version 18.01

New formula

In this version we added a formula to validate an XML message against an XSD schema. The name of the formula is IsValidXml.

New validation for WebReference

In Futurama 17.11 we added the functionality to specify an XSD schema for the request and the response of a webservice. If 2 different XSD files are defined (for request and response) with the same targetnamespace, a validation message is reported..

Bug fixes

In this issue we fixed a few bugs:

  • in the dutch “NPR” a rare issue was reported. In the situation where multiple records were found for a person and one of those records consisted of multiple subrecords, then only the first of those subrecords was returned. In the new version all subrecords are returned.
  • when using a Logoff button the session was closed, but an error was logged in the error log. This error has now been removed.

Version 17.12

GraphConverter

In 17.11 we enhanced the GraphConverter with the ability to create a pie chart. In addition to that you can now also create a doughnut chart.

You can for example create a chart like this:

doughnut

XmlConverter

The XML converter now has a property Data that you can use to set a reference to the XML Builder that contains the data for the XML Converter. That means that you no longer need to create an action to set the value of the XML Converter. Existing actions that point to an XML Converter are converted. For more info please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/584.

Smaller changes

In this version some smaller issues are improved:

  • a small bug in the editor is fixed that caused an error when setting the Request Filename for a WebService
  • a small bug in the editor is fixed that caused the property box to display some properties that should be invisible when you undo an action in the editor that made the items visible.
  • some issues in the Vision Filemanager that occurred using Internet Explorer are fixed
  • The conversion to version 17.11 gave too many documents a compatibility mode Futurama_17_10. This compatibility mode will now only be applied to documents that have an XmlBuilder with a Condition that are a not child of an XmlBuilder.
  • an issue in the editor, that was introduced in Futurama 17.10, made it impossible to set the AttachementData property for an EmailConverter.

For all these issues we have now build unit tests to ensure that they will not occur again.

Version 17.11

WCF

A big improvement in Futurama 17.11 is the ability to define an xsd schema on a Futurama WebService. If you define a schema you can now view the WSDL of the Futurama WebService. Based on this wsdl a client can automatically construct a valid request. Using SoapUI as an example, previously the generic request to GetWebServiceResult was constructed when referring to …/service.svc?wsdl :

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:web="http://www.ActuIT.nl/Futurama/WebService">
	<soapenv:Header/>
	<soapenv:Body>
		<web:GetWebServiceResult>
			<!--Optional:-->
			<web:location>
				<!--Optional:-->
				<web:Document>{Futurama document name}</web:Document>
				<!--Optional:-->
				<web:Folder>{Futurama document location</web:Folder>
				<!--Optional:-->
				<web:WebServiceName>{Operation name}</web:WebServiceName>
			</web:location>
			<!--Optional:-->
			<web:inputxml>
				<!--You may enter ANY elements at this point-->
			</web:inputxml>
		</web:GetWebServiceResult>
	</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Note that the web:inputxml node is generic and not documented in the wsdl. As a result, this information was documented and shared in external sources (sample requests, descriptions).

From 17.11 onwards, a specific xsd documentation can be integrated in the definition that is shown on calling …/service.svc?wsdl&folder={Futurama document location}&document={Futurama document name} :

<soapenv:envelope xmlns:pyt="http://www.ActuIT.nl/Futurama/WebService/Pythagoras" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
	<soapenv:header>
		<soapenv:body>
			<pyt:pythagoras>
				<pyt:a>?</pyt:a>
				<pyt:b>?</pyt:b>
			</pyt:pythagoras>
		</soapenv:body>
	</soapenv:header>
</soapenv:envelope>

Note that the actual content of the operation request is set to two parameters here. Responses are documented in a similar way.

That also means that you no longer call a generic webservice (…/service.svc) with the file location and operation specified within the soap envelope, but directly (…service.svc?folder=myapplication&document=myapp.xml&operation=pythagoras) with a typed message.

Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/50/webservice/ for more info.  

Generate XSD

To help you specify an XSD for the WebService, you can now generate an XSD document from various types that return XML. You can just right click on an XmlBuilder, XmlNode, WebReference or WebService to generate the XSD that fits the XML for that object. 

GraphConverter

In 17.09 we enhanced the GraphConverter with the ability to add annotations. In this release we added the ability to create pie charts. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/49/ for more info.

Use a Range or DataTable as an argument in a Reference

When you create a Reference to a Formula with an argument, you could select a Range or DataTable as the value for that argument. This is no longer supported. You can now use a Reference to that Range or DataTable. All the situations where that was used will be automatically converted.

Futurama Server Job to create a ZIP file with Documents from Futurama Data Store

Within Futurama Data you can save various XML messages, including documents. To be able to retrieve those documents in a secure way we added the ability to run a Futurama Server job that retrieves all the documents from a specific dataset and stores them in an encrypted ZIP file, which you can later download. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/442/ for more information.

 

New Vision Method to retrieve Policy identifiers

We added a new Vision Method GetPersonIdentifiers to retrieve the complete list of identifier keys for all Persons associated with the current Futurama Application. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/625/ for more info.

Various small issues

  • A small fix in the history functionality that was released last month
  • Compatibility issue in the conversion of older Futurama version to 17.x is fixed
  • The WebReference logged two errors in a fault situation. This has been changed to 1 error.
  • An Editor issue is fixed that was introduced in 17.10 where the Editor crashed on editing a specific type of Reference
  • If you start writing errors to a log file that already exists, the errors will now be appended, instead of overwriting the old file
  • When you write files with the FileSaver, it will now automatically create a directory if it does not exist
  • You can now set a Condition on a DocConverter object
  • You can now start the Futurama LogFileViewer from the Futurama FileManager in the ManagementSite

Version 17.10

History

In this version we added history functionality. If you enable this function in the config you will be able to use the back and forward button in the browser to navigate through the various pages in the Futurama session. To make this possible Futurama keeps all the choices that  a user made in memory for the duration of the session. So this option will lead to some extra memory consumption. You can configure this option using the cache section. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/320/configuration-cache/

 

Small improvements

  • You can now use negative arguments for the Formula Round. To Round numbers to multiples of powers of 10. For example: Round(123,-2) will lead to a result of 100. If you use this function your document will get Compatibility mode 17_09. If you use a later compatibility mode, you will get the new behavior
  • some small improvements in the Annotation function that was released in 17.09
  • We made an improvement in the formula FormatNumber or FormatDate . If you use a non-existent regional culture in the Futurama settings you will now get an exception. The old behavior was that dependant on the operating system you got an exception or a default culture. If you use this function your document will get Compatibility mode 17_09. If you use a later compatibility mode, you will get the new behavior.

Version 17.09

Enhancements for GraphConverter

You can now add annotations to a graph. Annotations are texts or pictures that highlight a specific datapoint.

Futurama Vision Filemanager enhancement

The Futurama Vision Filemanager that was released in 17.07 has been enhanced. You can now restrict access to certain folders to specific functional groups that are defined in the Futurama Vision security configuration.

Small improvements

  • When you call a Futurama Rest Service with JSON, then the JSON is converted to XML internally. If the JSON you pass contains names that are invalid in XML, this is now automatically corrected. And to detect this situation, an item is logged for the situation that the JSON needs to be adapted to be valid as XML.
  • Since Futurama 17.02 the functionality to set uservariables with a querystring parameter was broken. This has now been corrected. This functionality will be deprecated in version 18.07. If you use this functionality, you will get a warning.

Version 17.08

Webservice enhancements

  • When you call a Futurama Webservice, you need to pass the folder, the document and the webservicename. You can now pass this information via the Querystring. In that way the input  does not contain any Futurama wrapper and is completely free-format.
  • We added new functionality to the Filemanager to create directories and move files and folders

Bug fixes

In this release a lot of small issues are fixed:

  • a protection for a stack overflow that we built in 17.04 led to an incorrect warning for a circular reference consisting of multiple circles
  • uploading a zip file to the Futurama File manager via drag-drop did not lead to unzipping the file
  • some formulas that were entered  in an old version of the editor had an incorrect rank that  lead to calculation errors
  • calling the GetResource method in Futurama WebAPI via REST led to an error
  • when opening a document with  an old history file in an editor with a new fileversion, an error occurred

Version 17.07

New formulas

In this version we introduce some new formulas.

GetPortNumber

This formula GetPortNumber returns an integer with the port number that is in the request to the webserver. It is useful when you use Futurama in a load-balanced installation. With this function you get detect the instance of Futurama that is processing this request and use that info to change the behavior of the request. For example yoou could have a webservice that calls another webservice that is also load-balanced. With this formula you can make sure that you call the same instance.

Various hashing functions

With the formula Encrypt you could generate a hash using MD5, SHA1 of SHA256 hashing method. This formula generates a hash and then converts the hash to a string. For MD5 and SHA1 it used a BitConverter to generate the string. For SHA256 it used Base64-encoding. This is not consistent. From version 17.07 Futurama Documents that are using this function will get Compatibility mode 17_06. If you use a later compatibility mode, you will get the new behavior that uses a BitConverter to convert the hash to a string. In Futurama 17.07 the Encrypt function is also renamed to HashText.

If you want to use the Base64 encoding for converting the hash to a string, you can use HashTextWithBase64. This function performs the same hash, but converts the hash to a string using Base64 conversion.

If you want to hash a binary file you can use HashBase64EncodedFile or HashBase64EncodedFileWithBase64. These functions convert the Base64 encoded input to a byte-array, hash it and then convert it to a string using BitConverter or Base64 encoding. You can use this formula to generate a hash of a document you generate in Futurama, or a file you read from disk.

File manager in Futurama Vision

Futurama Vision now contains a file manager. You can use this file manager to upload documents or Futurama applications to a webserver. The file manager is disabled by default, you van enable it in the File manager config section.

Various improvements to WebReference

  • The webreference now support the extra HttpMethods PUT and DELETE.
  • With the property InputHttpHeaders you can add Http headers to the webservice call
  • With the property InputBinaryFile you can specify a Base64Encoded string that will be passed as binary input to the webservice

Various enhancements

  • the formulas GetRequestParameter and GetURL did not return a value in webservice modus. This has been solved.
  • if you use a formula plugin, you can now specify the location of the plugin with a relative path.
  • We added methods to Futurama WebAPI to keep a session alive and to terminate a session.
  • an issue is fixed where reformatting a Futurama document that contained a Fixed of type string with only spaces in it removed the spaces.

Version 17.06

New formulas

In this version we introduce two new formulas.

ReadXPathScalar

This formula evaluates an XPathQuery on an XmlNode and returns the result. If you pass in a vector as XPathExpression you get a vector as a result with the result of all the XPathExpressions. In this way you can create dynamic XPathExpression that are based on the result of other formulas. Please see ReadXPathScalar for more information.

Exp

This formula returns e to the power of the specified number.

 

 

Various small issues

In this version we fixed a number of issues

  • the parentFolder property in the mapping config section did not work.
  • for some documents containing a very specific complex set of formulas passing arguments the calculation mode ‘Compile’ did not work.
  • In the editor when you saved a document using the ‘Save All’ button, the history items of a document where placed in the wrong document.
  • when you created a WebReference where the InputXml property pointed to the WebReference itself, Futurama crashed.

 

Version 17.05

Futurama Editor issues

In this version we fixed the situation where a recursive calculation using matrices could lead to a stack overflow and an Editor crash.

Calculations

  • We have improved the code that Futurama generates to calculate your models. If you have recursive formulas that have an invalid recursion you will now get an error message. The situation where a wrong calculation could lead to a crash has been solved.
  • We improved the Range object. For some Ranges of type double with a broken number as stepsize, an invalid number of items was calulcated. For example a range from 1/12 to 11/12 with a step of 1/12 led to only 10 instead of 11 items. If you choose compatibility mode Futurama_Current you well get the improved behavior. If you use ranges with a type double and your compatibility level was  Futurama_Current your compatibility level will be set to Futurama_17_04 to ensure that your calculations will stay the same.

Futurama WebAPI

Futurama WebAPI now has improved support for REST services. Sometimes the JSON output was not recognised as a valid JSON string. This had now been solved. Note the the WebAPI samples have also been improved to display the REST/JSON use of Futurama.

Version 17.04

Improvements in Vision

Futurama 17.04 supports "NPR koppelvlak 4.0", the new technical architecture for the dutch National Pension Register. Therefore it enables you to meet with the requirements of the NPR well before the set deadlines.

Editor issues

In this version we made a lot of small editor improvements:

  • some circular formulas with errors could lead to a stack overflow and an Editor crash.
  • we added a way to reset the layout of the Editor windows, when they get mixed up you can now select View – Reset window layout, and everything is restored
  • we added buttons to show windows in the editor that were hidden
  • in the error window you can see the error message in a popup. In this screen the error message is filtered to remove unnecessary messages. This filter is improved
  • when you pressed ClearTestValues, sometimes the testValues were not removed as dependants or determinants

Futurama Server

In Futurama Server you can start jobs and see the status of jobs. If jobs had errors you can press a link to the error file to see it in the logFileViewer. Sometimes these links were not shown, and that is fixed in this release.

Webservice

You can now use a Http basic authentication header when you can Futurama Webservice using REST

Version 17.03

Improvements in Futurama WebAPI

  • Futurama WebAPI now supports extra functionality. Downloading documents is now supported. The result can contain a DownloadData element with the Base64 encoded string of the file the user wants to download.
  • The charts that you can make with Futurama now support an extra way of delivering the data. With MicrosoftChartDataURI you get a Base64 encoded string containing the image. This string can directly be returned as an image source towards the user.

Improvements in calculation speed

The speed of the calculations is greatly improved when you use calculation mode Compile. The generated code is now much more efficient.

  • For Formulas or References that contain a loop, variables that do not depend on the argument are now calculated outside of the loop, instead of for each item in the loop.
  • When you use a formula with an argument that is of type integer, you can now specify a range containing the allowed values for that argument. When you do that, Futurama can calculate the formula more efficiently.

For some clients the combination of the changes leads to a reduction in calculation time of 80%.

Editor issues

A small issue in the editor is fixed where the button to move items is still visible after closing the document.

Version 17.02

HTML5

We now include an extension to allow easy use of HTML5. You can just change the configuration and the HTML output changes to HTML5. If you use a webslider or a datebox, you will need to make some changes in the styling.

 

WebAPI

With this release we support a lot of extra WebAPI functionality. This includes support for logging in, logging out, time out pages.

We also added the option to add XML messages as input for Futurama WebAPI. These XML Messages are available as RequestParameter in Futurama.

 

Editor issues

We fixed a number of issues in the editor where the dependencies screen was not updated correctly after making changes in the editor.

 

New functionality for SAML2 identity provider

You can now log out and keep the existing Futurama session. With this functionality you can provide the user with the option of logging in for multiple people. For example a user and his or her partner.

 

Reduced memory usage

If you use an XmlNode for a large XmlDocument, the amount of memory used by Futurama is reduced by up to 40%.

 

Webservice security

We added the option to call Futurama Webservice with message security based on a username and password. You can provide the allowed usernames and passwords in the web.config.

Various bug fixes

  • a crash in the editor with a formula with a circular reference is fixed
  • an incorrect error message in Futurama Webservice is fixed
  • performing a partial postback from a subdocument sometimes led to an error. This is now fixed.
  • a small issue with an XmlField is fixed

Version 17.01

Logfile viewer

The logfile viewer that was released last month is now also available in Futurama web. Please see Configuration - Debug for an explanation of how to use the showNotifier attribute to enable the logfileviewer.

We strongly encourage you to use this functionality when developing and testing Futurama applications. This functionality should not be enabled in a production environment as it makes a lot of debugging information available. Is is disabled by default.

External formula libraries

Futurama now supports external formula libraries. That means that you can extend the list of formulas supplied by Futurama with your own formulas. As a first use of this functionality we made the validation functionality for Futurama Register available as a formula.

Please see Configuration – PlugIns for a description of how to add a reference to a plugin.

Please see ValidateNPR for a description of how to add the Futurama Register validation as a formula.

Please see Creating custom formulas in Futurama for a description of how to create your own formula library.

 

Bug fixes

Two issues are fixed in the Futurama SAML component:

  • when performing a logout at the Identity provider, Futurama logged the user out correctly but did not give a correct response to the webservice call received from the Identity Provider. This has now been solved
  • when using the SAML2 LoadBalancer supplied by Futurama, an error could occur when a user had more than one simultaneous session. This has now been solved.

An issue is fixed in the ImportUsers Webservice for Futurama Vision. When this service was called simultaneously sometimes an error occurred and the data was not processed. This has now been solved.

 

Version 16.12

Logfile viewer

When errors or warnings occur in a Futurama Batch process, you can now view this messages from the Futurama Management site. With this functionality you don’t need file access to the logfiles to view the information. And in the logfile viewer, the information is much easier to understand, than in the old plain text format.

Validation improvements

Validating documents in the editor is improved. All validations that lead to an evaluation of the result of the object are now changed. In that way we avoid errors that occurred because a formule could be evaluated in a certain situation. For example because a database connection was not available.

You can now choose to ignore validation warnings. The list of ignored validation warnings is stored in the Futurama document. With this functionality we make sure that there are no unnecessary warnings.

Various bug-fixes

  • an error occurred when generating code for a document that contained a formula with an argument that has a space in the name.
  • in the Futurama Editor the scrollbar scrolled to a strange location when clicking in the treeview, just after opening a Futurama file.
  • Formula GetSessionID did not work since Futurama 5.3. Is now works again
  • Vision Reference GetDataItems returns the wrong item if there multiple applications for the same person
  • Futurama javascript files are now referenced with a dynamic parameter in the URL to avoid in issue due to old javascript files being cached in the browser

Version 16.11

New version number

Starting with this version we have a new version numbering system. We will release a new Futurama version every month. The first two number are the year and the month of the release. The third number is the filecompatibility version. This is now 35. In a new release with the same number, the files will be compatible with this version.

Undo/Redo in the Editor

A big improvement in the Editor is that you can now undo/redo all your actions. That makes editing a lot easier. You can also choose to log every action you perform, for audit purposes.

Security improvements for Futurama Web

We added some security features to Futurama Web. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/585/ for an explanation of the configuration.

  • Futurama now automatically prevents Cross Site Request Forgery, by adding a security token to every postback request that is made
  • Via the request string, you can instruct Futurama to press a certain button. From now on you can configure that this is only possible for buttons that are visible on the page. This is the default setting.

Furthermore it is now possible to specify a list of allowed folders or documents that can be opened from a website. This can be configured in the mapping section in the web.config.

Improvements in Vision

In Futurama Vision it is now easier to start and manage jobs. You can restart a job, and on the job status screen you can apply filters to only see your own jobs, and/or only the latest version of a job.

Support for LoadBalancing

Futurama now supports the use of a load balancer in combination with the SAML2 SingleLogout functionality. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/606/saml2loadbalancer/ for a description of the component that enables that scenario.

And you can now also specify the hostname in the path you specify for a log file. In a load balanced situation, that means you can get a different logfile for every instance. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/329/configuration-log/ for an explanation of the configuration.

WebService supports REST

Futurama WebService now supports REST. You create calculation webservices that communicatie via REST and JSON.

WebReference

We added support for calling webservices that require RAW JSON input.

New formulas

We added a formula log_e and and a formula log. log_e is the natural logarithm, and log is the logarithm with any base number.

Bug fixes

We also solved a lot of small bugs:

  • An error in an XmlNode could lead to a lot of errors being logged, that is now reduced.
  • When evaluating an XPath query in an XmlField thet returned multiple items, instead of the expected single item, no value was returned, but no error was logged either. Now Futurama reports an error.
  • With the function CSV2XML you can easily read a CSV file from Excel into Futurama. When the last column in Excel contained empty cells, no XML element was created for these cells. Now an XML element is created for every cell, even if it is empty.
  • A needless warning occurred on the start of Futurama Web. That is now fixed.

Version 5.3.2.6

Small hotfix

In this release some small issues are fixed.

  • Problem with SingleLogout with a SAML2 Identity Provider solved
  • some properties were not saved to the XML file for the Futurama document, this is now solved
  • Logging in with a SAML 2 Identity Provider now also works when you use a load balancer

Version 5.3.2.4

Small hotfix

In this release an issue with the SAML2 identity provider is fixed.

Version 5.3.2.3

Small hotfix

In this release an issue with the timeout page is fixed. 

Version 5.3.2.2

Small hotfix

In this release an issue with a page containing a reference to a weblistbox is fixed. 

Version 5.3.2.1

Various issues fixed

In this release a number of bugs where fixed.

Version 5.3.2

Allow simultaneous use of NPR 3.0 and NPR 2.1 in Futurama Register

Futurama adds to option specify per app which version of the NPR data you wish to provide. Futurama Register now provides seperate adresses for NPR 3.0 and NPR 2.1. For more information go to Futurama Register Management

Various issues fixed

In this release a couple of bugs where fixed.

 

 

Version 5.3.1

Different rendering of website

As an addition to the new rendering functionality we introduced in Futurama 5.3, we now also support changing the scripts, metatags and the DocType that Futurama renders. This enables a lot of scenario’s. For example the transition to a more modern version of jQuery than the one we used to have is now very easy.

Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/595/change-add-html-headers-with-fico/ for more information. 

WebReference Enhancements

  • WebReference can now include a header in the mesage. With this functionality you can now call webservices that require information in the header.

  • WebReference adds option to include the header in the result. In that way you can use the value of the information in the header in the processing in Futurama.

WarmUp request for WebService

The module Futurama WebService now supports the use of warm up requests. With this functionality you can make sure that the first request to a webservice after a restart of Futurama is as quick as the subsequent requests. You can read all about this option in https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/320/configuration-cache/

Various fixes

  • An issue is fixed with the dutch NPR
  • behaviour of the timeoutpage has been improved. When a user reaches the timeout page, the session and authentication cookies are removed. A reload of the page will lead to a new session.
  • When using Futurama Monitor, the value of a textbox with the password property set to true is no longer logged to the database. 

Version 5.3.0.1

Validation issues in editor fixed

With the release of Futurama 5.3.0 we introduced some validation errors in the Futurama Editor. These are fixed in version 5.3.0.1. 

Version 5.3.0

Different rendering of website

Futurama now renders the webpages to an XML structure which is translated to HTML by an XSLT document. That means that you can make changes in the way Futurama generates HTML yourself by providing a custom XSLT document. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/453/futurama-intermediate-control-output-fico/ for more information. 

Calculation Enhancements

  • Code generation speeds up calculation

    Version 5.3.0 is the first release with code generation functionality.This functionality is now available in batch and webservice mode. To speed up calculations Futurama translates the Futurama model to C# code and executes the generated program. In that way we achieve very big increases in the calculation speed. For scenarios with recursive calculations the increase in speed can be more than 100%. See https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/590 for more information on how to use this feature.

  • UserVariable now supports storing matrices with arbitrary rank. In this way it is much easier and quicker to store and manipulate matrices.

  • New function to convert CSV files to XML. With this function you can translate CSV content to XML. That makes it very easy to use CSV files from Futurama. Please see: https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/575/ for  more information.

  • WebReference adds option to display an error that occured in the result, instead of throwing an exception. That makes it possible to define the behavior when a webservice that is called does not respond as expected. Please see https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/67/ for more information.

Futurama Vision

Futurama 5.3.0 supports "NPR koppelvlak 3.0", the new technical architecture for the dutch National Pension Register. Therefore it enables you to meet with the requirements of the NPR well before the set deadlines.

Various fixes

  • An issue is solved in the Percentile function. The old behavior led to small differences in the results. The new behavior leads to the same results as in Excel. The new behavior is only applied when you select Compatibility level Futurama_Current.
  • Behavior of Futurama Webservice with parallel calls has been improved. All the parallel calls are now queued by IIS.

Version 5.2.1.3

Memory leak fixed

A memory leak issue was fixed. When a web session expires the memory is now released to the operating system. Batch jobs that generate a lot of graphs consume a stable amount of memory now.

Version 5.2.1.2

Various security enhancements for Futurama Website

In versions 5.2.1.2 we added options to enhance the security for Futurama Web. Please see: https://support.futurama.eu/docs/all/page/585/configuration-security/ for more information.

With these settings a number of standard website attacks are a lot harder.

Version 5.2.1

Various fixes

In this version various bugfixes were applied. This release gets a new version number because the files are not compatible with 5.2.0.x.

Version 5.2.0

New design for webservice support

In this version the most biggest new feature is the way webservices are supported. We now support WCF webservices. That enables a lot of scenario’s that were previously not possible:

  • REST services from Futurama
  • Calling webservices with various security options
    • wsHttp binding with Transport or Message encryption
    • wsHttp with a certificate as a credential for the service
    • basicHttp binding with authentication
    • rest services with an authorization header

Part of the new way of supporting webservices is that the configuration for webservices is now done via the WCF configuration file. That leads to a much clearer separation of responsibilities. The Futurama Developer designs the call to the webservice and the IT-department can configure the address and all security options.

Futurama Vision

  • Futurama Vision Management site is now Multilanguage. Depending on your browser, the site will display in Dutch or English. See the paragraph 'Configuration' of the Installation Futurama Vision Management Site for more information
  • The communication between Futurama and Futurama Vison now also support all the WCF security protocols
  • The communication between Futurama Vision and Futurama Server now also supports all the WCF security protocols
  • In Futurama Vision you can create accounts for the persons administered in Futurama. You can now create accounts in Futurama Vision via a batch process.

Various issues

  • A cross site scripting vulnerability in Ajax calls in Futurama HTML is fixed
  • Futurama Server listened for requests on a fixed IP port: 8080.This port can now be configured. In this way you can avoid conflicts with other software using that port.
  • Various other small issues where fixed

Compatibility

In 2008 Futurama started to support XHTML. From that moment on you can choose to build web applications in XHTML or in the older HTML4. With all the new browsers and devices we decided that HTML4 is outdated and support in Futurama for HTML4 no longer required. That means that Futurama 5.2 will be the last version to support HTML4 websites. If you have Futurama applications in HTML4, we advise you to switch to XHTML.

PDF Rendering

Futurama 5.2 uses a new version of the component that converts documents to PDF. Some issues where resolved with differences between the Word document and the resulting PDF document.
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Futurama, your resulting PDF document can be slightly different. This only occurs when you have a table in your document, for which the first row element has an empty last line with a line spacing that is not given in point type.  

Version 5.1.4

Improvement in security for Futurama Vision Accounts

In this version our security module is greatly enhanced. We now support different methods for hashing the password for the user. You can select the hashing method to use for the passwords. We recommend to use a method with a salt value because it is much harder to crack. You can select SHA1WithSalt or SHA256WithSalt. The currect users will be migrated to the new hashing type you select as soon as they log in with a valid password.

We also added a new formula to check if an IBAN bank account number is valid.

Apart from that we fixed some small issues:

  • errors in editor
  • a request from a page with an ajax updatepanel that was initiated after the loginsession timeout was not handled correct
  • some conversion problems with formulas getting the wrong type
  • the vision management site activity overview page had some errors
  • some validation errors for formulas were fixed

Version 5.1.3

Improvement in VisionReference

In this version the VisionReference is improved. You can now use wildcards to specify the location of the Futurama and the App that connects to Futurama Vision. That enables a scenario where Futurama Vision is used from a clustered environment where the application is installed on two instances of the same server.

Version 5.1.2

Various small bug fixes

In this version we fixed some small issues:

  • conversion issue in calculating a table
  • an editor crash when editing a recursive formula
  • a crash when using an incorrect navigator

Version 5.1.1

Various small bug fixes

We fixed some small conversion issues.

Version 5.1

Matrix formulas

In version 5 we added a lot of formulas to enable very fast calculations for large datasets. In version 5.1 we added a lot more formulas, to enable more calculations for matrices.

Email functionality

Futurama has had the ability to send emails since a longe time. In version 5.1 we added the functionality to send HTML emails with attachements. You can use Futurama now tos end emails with graphs, pdf attachements and HTML email layout.

Errorbox

The error box is greatly improved to make error message more readable.

Bug fixes

A lot of small bugs were fixed. This includes various issues in the editor.

Security

We solved a security issue that opened up a cross site scripting vulnerability.

Version 5

Matrix formulas

We added a lot of matrix formulas in Futurama 5.

The performance of those formulas is increased ten times. This gives you the ability to do super fast calculations for large sets of data.

Identity management

Futurama now supports logging in with an external identity provider. We now support the SAML2 protocol, which is widely used. It is also used in the dutch market for authentication with Digid.

Webservices

We added a lot of options to the webservice functionality in Futurama. We now have much better support for exception handling.

FileUploader

We added a control to upload files to Futurama. This opens up a lot of opportunities, for example: saving and retrieving settings and data from a website to the user computer.

Aggregation object

Futurama 5 now supports a new object. "Aggregation". This item is used for the aggregation of variables within an XmlBuilder with a loop. This item automatically creates totals for variables in an XmlBuilder. This saves a lot of time in modelling the calculation of totals and group values in Futurama.

Holland: NPR 2.1

Futurama 5 supports "NPR koppelvlak 2.1", the new technical architecture for the dutch National Pension Register. Therefore it enables you to meet with the requirements of the NPR well before the set deadlines.

Bug fixes

A lot of small bugs were fixed. This includes various issues in the editor.

Futurama Vision

We added functionality in Futurama Vision to be able to retrieve the number of unique logins to the website.

Formula for determining the user agent

Futurama 5 contains a formula to determine the user agent for a visitor. This opens up a lot of new possibilities to have a very fast implementation of responsive design.

Version 4.3

Overview

In version 4.3 a lot of new functionality is added. The most important new feature is the possibility so save your data with Futurama DataStore.

Next to that we have improved a lot of existing functionality:

  • A lot of Editor issues have been resolved
  • Computing speed increased substantially
  • Enhanced configuration system
  • Various other issues

Below you find a complete list of improvements.

Calculation method

Matrix formulas

More and more customers use Futurama to implement very complex models for large amounts of data. For instance an investment product for which large numbers of scenarios predict the future. In Futurama 4.3 we introduce a number of matrix formulas that will make it easier and more efficient to calculate with large matrices at once. For this type of calculations the performance has increased by a factor 100!

In this Futurama release we introduce the first version of the matrix library. In future releases we will continue adding different matrix formulas.

Performance other formules

The calculation method of Futurama is strongly enhanced. For formulas that use large tables, and references in which large tables are included, the performance has been improved. In a lot of complex computational situations we find a performance improvement of more than 40% over Futurama 4.2!

Futurama documents

In this release we use a new version of the component that generates PDF documents. The resulting PDF document now perfectly matches the Word original in even more situations.

Enhanced configuration system

In Futurama 4.3 we introduce a new method to configure your applications. All configurations that were in the Appsettings of the config file (web.config) are now relocated to a special Futurama configuration section.

All information about the configuration system can be found in chapter 7 of this support website.

Usability of the Editor

In Futurama 4.3 we have resolved a number of small Editor issues. We are working on a big project of making the Futurama Editor easier to use.
In this release a lot of situations where a modelling mistake would lead to a crash of the Editor have been resolved.

Better suited for touch devices

Futurama 4.3 contains a new version of the WebSlider and DateBox object. On touch devices like the iPad, these new versions have a better performance. Futurama is therefore even more suited to develop applications on all different platforms.

With these objects, browser Internet Explorer 10 is now fully supported.

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 are supported

Futurama 4.3 works on the 64-bits version of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. This enables you to use Futurama on the most modern and safest platforms.

Futurama Data

In version 4.3 we introduce a new feature that enables you to generically save data from your webapplications.
In Futurama Vision the datatype is defined. Futurama Data will then minister the validation and if necessary the migration to a next version of the datatype.
Futurama Data enables you to document the different choices a visitor of your website makes, without the necessity to facilitate this in your own infrastructure.

Data encryption

Futurama already facilitated the encryption of data. This feature has now been expanded significantly. Encryption of data can now also take place while importing files.
Also the data imported in Futurama Register can be saved encrypted (Dutch use only).
Your data is now even better secured. If data falls into wrong hands, it will be unusable.

Process improvement

In version 4.3 we have made substantial improvements in the building process. The building process is now fully modelled on a build server. This strongly reduces the risk of errors in a release.

Integration of Futuama and Futurama Vision

We used to release seperate versions of both Futurama and Futurama Vision. As from version 4.3, these are merged. By releasing one overall version, we can better ensure that all interactions between different modules operate optimally.

Version 4.2.1.2

Some small issues were resolved.

Editor usability improvements

  • Within the Editor, the F8 key can now be used to open the "edit" menu of various objects, such as formula's and variables.
  • Access to the menus within the editor is now provided by using the alt-key. This displays the various shortcuts by underlining the key to be used in conjunction with the alt-key. For example, [Alt-F] opens the file menu, [Alt-V], followed by [F] will focus on the Find screen.
  • The usage of the shortcuts [CTRL-C], [CTRL-X] and [CTRL-V] for the respective commands Copy, Cut and Paste is now enabled in various places within the Editor.
  • The Menu-key on the keyboard can now be used with the editor as an alternative to using the right mouse-button.

Version 4.2.1

96 issues are resolved, a lot of new functionality has been added, many bugs were fixed.

Extensions

The Futurama Editor is completely translated into English. It is still possible to have Dutch formulas. To do this use the setting ActuIT_FormulaLanguage in the config-file of the Editor.

Recursive calculation has been changed

The recursive calculation has been changed once more. In a number of situations the recursion caused problems. These are solved now.

Performance

  • Calculations using tables are adapted. This improved the speed by approximately 20% compared to version 4.2.0.
  • Futurama 4.2.1 uses the latest version of the module to create PDF documents. This has improved the speed of creating large PDF files by approximately 13%.

Ajax behaviour improved

  • During an AjaxUpdate (i.e. using an UpdatePanel) the updates which are sent to the user have decreased in size, which has a positive effect on the speed of the website.
  • In a number of situations the property UpdatePanel did not work, in particular when combined with a WebSlider and a DateBox. These issues are resolved.

Additional features in Web Objects

  • You can now link action objects to Webcontrols like the WebLabel. This gives you many more opportunities to execute actions when a user clicks on objects on the website.
  • As a consequence of the above we were able to clean up a number of redundant functionalities:
    • DefaultButton does no longer exist. This was an old option which has become redundant by the possibility to place Actions on WebPanels.
    • The Submitbutton property was used only for a Textbox, but functioned only in Internet Explorer. This property has been removed.
    • The Navigator object as well as the Button offered the possibility to navigate to another page in the document. For the sake of simplicity now only the Navigator offers this possibility.
  • During a conversion to the new version 4.2.1 a couple of changes will be made to the Futurama document automatically in such a way that all functionality will continue to work in the same way:
    • Under a Button a replacing Navigator will be placed.
    • Under a Textbox with the SubmitButton property an Action with a Reference to the Action under the Button will be placed.
    • The Action in a DefaultButton will be placed on the page itself.
    • Buttons using the property IsNewDefaultButton will get a ChangeValue which stores in an UserVariable the name of the DefaultButton.

Several bugs resolved

  • WebSlider and DateBox didn't work in UpdatePanels. This has been solved.
  • Formulas with an Argument containing a TestValue which was in turn also a Formula could potentially lead to circular references. To resolve this only Fixed values are allowed as TestValue. Existing TestValues not being a Fixed will be removed during the conversion.
  • When naming a Serie in a Graph points could not be used. This has been solved.

From version 4.2.1 onwards it is necessary to add a httpHandler to the web.config for Telerik controls. This used to be necessary only when the website made use of AJAX functionality. See this page for detailed information about how to add httpHandlers.

Versie 4.2

In versie 4.2 hebben we de volgende dingen gewijzigd:

Nieuwe mogelijkheden voor Futurama Documents

  • Optie toegevoegd om te zorgen dat altijd een document altijd een even aantal pagina’s krijgt. Hierdoor is het gemakkelijker om flexibele templates te gebruiken en toch te zorgen dat de documenten voor de drukker een even aantal pagina’s hebben.
  • Mogelijkheid toegevoegd om mailmerge met tabel mogelijk te maken. Hierdoor kunt u in uw documenten ook lijsten van variabele lengte gebruiken.
  • Door overstappen naar nieuwste versie van gebruikte component sluit de opmaak in PDF nog beter aan bij de opmaak in Word.
  • Zie DocConverter voor een uitgebreide toelichting van de nieuwe mogelijkheden.

Systematiek voor bestandsconversie verbeterd

  • Bestanden kunnen worden geconverteerd zonder ze op te slaan. Hierdoor kunt u ook met een nieuwe versie van Futurama bestanden openen zonder ze direct te wijzigen.
  • Futurama converteert indien nodig de bestanden automatisch. Mocht u vergeten de bestanden te converteren, dan werkt uw website nog wel. Omwille van de performance raden we u aan om altijd bij overgang naar een nieuwe versie alle bestanden te converteren.

Rekenmethodiek aangepast

Futurama kan nu rekenen met oneindig diepe recursies. Vroeger was de beperking dat recursieve berekening 500 niveau’s diep mochten zijn. Hierdoor is er geen risico meer dat berekeningen niet uitgevoerd kunnen worden omdat ze de grenzen van de recursie overstijgen.

Overig

  • Het bereik van de range is uitgebreid. Een range kon 100.000 rijen bevatten. Dit is verhoogd naar 1.000.000
  • Onterechte validatiemeldingen verwijderd.
  • Bug opgelost waardoor de resultaten van een XmlNode niet altijd werden getoond
  • Fout bij het converteren van een oud Futurama bestand is opgelost
  • Diverse kleine bugs opgelost

Versie 4.1.2

In versie 4.1.2 hebben we de volgende dingen gewijzigd:

  • formulebibliotheek is vertaald naar het Engels
  • VisionReference toegevoegd, om gemakkelijk informatie uit Futurama Vision te kunnen lezen
  • diverse kleine bugs opgelost

Versie 4.1

Onderstaand de wijzigingen in versie 4.1:

  • PDF’s Futurama Documents verbeterd door gebruik van de nieuwste versie van de component die PDF documenten maakt

  • formule toegevoegd om directory namen uit te lezen

  • foutafhandeling toegevoegd tijdens het genereren van XML berichten. Gebruiker kan specificeren hoe Futurama omgaat met berekeningsfouten

  • logging functionaliteit sterk uitgebreid. Futurama kan loggen naar:

    • eventlog

    • bestanden

    • database

    • trace

  • U kunt de logging configureren met de logging sectie van het configuratie bestand

  • Futurama Server is uitgebreid

    • Server kan nu diverse jobs parallel draaien

    • management website van Futurama Server is onderdeel geworden van de Futurama Vision Management Site, en daarmee veel gebruiksvriendelijker

  •  

Versie 4.0.3

Onderstaand de wijzigingen in versie 4.0.3:

Overig

  • PDF’s Futurama Documents verbeterd:
    De component waarmee documenten in PDF gegenereerd worden is verbeterd. Met de nieuwe versie van deze component is gezorgd dat footnotes goed worden afgebeeld. Dat was in de vorige versie niet in alle situaties het geval. 

Versie 4.0.2

Onderstaand de wijzigingen in versie 4.0.2:

Nieuwe functionaliteit

  • De formule Converteer.XML is toegevoegd aan de formulebibliotheek. Hiermee kunnen xslt transformaties uitgevoerd worden op xml-bestanden. De formule kent als invoer een XML-builder en de locatie van de xslt-file voor de conversie.

Versie 4.0.1

Converteren naar versie 4.0.1

Bij de overgang naar versie 4.0.1 moet rekening gehouden worden met het onderstaande:

In versie 4.0.1 van Futurama zijn o.a. de volgende functionaliteiten toegevoegd of verbeterd:

Nieuwe functionaliteit

  • Datebox: De DateBox biedt een makkelijke manier om datums in te voeren. De datum kan direct ingevoerd worden, maar met de muis of pijltjestoetsen kan er ook gescrolld worden in dagen, maanden en jaren. Foute invoer wordt direct afgetest. Daarnaast biedt de datebox de handige kalenderfunctionaliteit waarbij de datum vanuit een scrollbare maandkalender gekozen kan worden.
  • Webslider: De nieuwe versie van de WebSlider biedt nieuwe grafische mogelijkheden en oogt nog professioneler. Daarnaast biedt deze nieuwe versie de mogelijkheid om tijdens het sliden de waardes waar overheen gegaan wordt real-time te tonen.
  • ClearCache: ClearCache is een Futurama-object dat gebruikt kan worden om de cache van andere objecten te legen. Normaalgesproken onthoudt Futurama alle uitkomsten van objecten en haalt deze uit de cache wanneer deze ongewijzigd opnieuw opgevraagd worden. In sommige gevallen (bijv. de aanroep van een webservice) wil je echter dat er altijd een nieuwe uitkomst wordt opgevraagd. Hiervoor dient de ClearCache.

Overig

  • In Futurama 4.0 zijn we overgestapt op het .Net Framework 4. ActuIT volgt standaard de nieuwste ontwikkelingen en sluit hiermee ook nu weer aan op de nieuwste .Net bibliotheek. Futurama 4 is ontwikkeld met de nieuwste Visual Studio 2010.
  • PDF’s Futurama Documents verbeterd:
    De component waarmee documenten in PDF gegenereerd worden is verbeterd. Het genereren van PDF’s vanuit een generieke Word-template is daardoor nu nog makkelijker geworden.
  • Webservice verbeterd:
    Door een verbeterde caching is de webservice een stuk sneller geworden. Daarnaast biedt de webservice een uitgebreidere documentatie.
    Aanpassing grafieken:
  • In Futurama Graph hebben we een kleine wijziging moeten doorvoeren. In Futurama 3 werd op de achtergrond gebruik gemaakt van een externe module die werd geleverd door Dundas. Deze module is verkocht aan Microsoft en is nu onderdeel van het .Net Framework. In deze nieuwe versie van deze externe component zijn een aantal dingen gewijzigd. De meeste daarvan zijn wijzigingen in het programmeermodel. Futurama zorgt ervoor dat u daar niets van merkt. De enige wijziging die u wel merkt is bij de keuze van getallen langs de assen. U kunt daar kiezen tussen automatische labelling, of een expliciete instelling van bijvoorbeeld om de 5 jaar een label. Bij automatische labelling verzint Futurama zelf een handig passende systematiek, bijvoorbeeld om de 4 of 5 jaar, afhankelijk van de leeftijdsrange, de maat van de grafiek, etc. In de nieuwe versie is deze automatische systematiek iets aangepast. U zult daardoor in bepaalde situaties andere getallen langs de assen zien. Als u liever de oude getallen wilt, raden we u aan om over te stappen op de keuze van de expliciete labelling.

Versie 3.4.0.1

In versie 3.4.0.1 van Futurama is o.a. de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

Futurama modules

Futurama Webservice: het is nu mogelijk om in te stellen dat Futurama Webservice gebruik maakt van caching, hetgeen de snelheid van de webservices zeer ten goede komt;

Versie 3.4.0

In versie 3.4.0 van Futurama is o.a. de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

Futurama modules

  • Futurama Documents is verder verbeterd. Belangrijkste verbetering is dat het genereren van PDF documenten nog sneller gaat. In de vorige versie van Futurama Documents werden voetnoten niet goed in een PDF document gezet. Tevens was het nog niet mogelijk om automatisch de inhoudsopgave bij te werken in een PDF-document. Dit is in versie 3.4.0 opgelost.

Diversen

Binnen een XmlBuilder kan onder andere een Reference gemaakt worden naar andere XML, bijvoorbeeld een andere XmlBuilder of een XmlNode. Door de naam van de Reference te beginnen met een $ wordt er voor gezorgd dat de waarde van de XML waarnaar verwezen wordt, wordt terug gegeven. Klik hiervoor een voorbeeld. Het opvragen van de waarde was nog niet mogelijk als verwezen werd naar een XmlNode. Vanaf versie 3.4.0 is dit wel mogelijk gemaakt.

Versie 3.3.0

In versie 3.3.0 van Futurama is o.a. de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

Futurama modules

Futurama is uitgebreid met een tweetal nieuwe modules:

  • Futurama Server: met behulp van de Futurama Serverkunnen via een website futurama jobs gedraaid worden. Het werken met grote deelnemerbestanden zal vaak veel computertijd in beslag nemen. Bij grote opdrachten, zoals bijvoorbeeld het uitdraaien van overzichten voor al uw deelnemers, wordt daarom bij voorkeur gebruik gemaakt van een server om deze uit te voeren. Met behulp van de module Futurama Server kunnen deze opdrachten centraal uitgevoerd, beheerd en gemonitored worden;
  • Futurama Register: de module Futurama Register is een pasklare oplossing die u kunt gebruiken om aan de verplichtingen van het Pensioenregister te kunnen voldoen. Futurama Register ondersteunt en verzorgt alle door het Pensioenregister gedefinieerde functionaliteit, en voldoet aan alle performance- en veiligheidseisen.

Nieuw object

  • Futurama is uitgebreid met het object WebService. Met behulp van Futurama Webservice kunt u zelf een WebService aanbieden. Hierdoor kunt u met Futurama webservices bouwen die complexe in Futurama gebouwde berekeningen uitvoeren.

Nieuwe functies

In versie 3.3.0 is een aantal functies toegevoegd:

  • de functies Encrypt.XML en Decrypt.XMLzijn toegevoegd. Met behulp van de functie Encrypt.XML kan een XML-element versleuteld worden volgens het zogenaamde Rijndael encryptie algoritme. Met behulp van 2 wachtwoorden en XML die versleuteld moet worden kan deze versleuteling plaatsvinden. De functie Decrypt.XML is de tegenhanger van de Encrypt.XML en kan versleutelde XML (uitgaande van dezelfde wachtwoorden die gebruikt zijn bij het maken van de versleutelde XML) weer ontsleutelen. Krachtige toepassing van deze functies is het gebruik voor het versleutelen van deelnemergegevens. Indien deze gegevens in xml-formaat staan, kunnen deze versleuteld in bijvoorbeeld een database opgeslagen worden. Hiermee wordt een extra beveiligingslaag gemaakt ter voorkoming van misbruik van privacy gevoelige informatie. De wachtwoorden waarmee de xml ontsleuteld moet worden kan bijvoorbeeld in de web.config worden opgeslagen. Hiermee is het mogelijk om de versleutelde gegevens en de wachtwoorden om te ontsleutelen op verschillende servers op te slaan!
  • de beschrijving van de functie LeesBestandsnamen is aangepast. Er is een reguliere expressietoegevoegd met behulp waarvan met de functie LeesBestandsnamen alle bestanden uit een bepaalde directory ingelezen kan worden;
  • de functie LicentieAanwezigis nieuw. Met behulp van deze functie kan nagegaan worden of er een licentie aanwezig is voor een bepaalde Futurama module.
  • de al bestaande functie Is(Niet)Gelijk is uitgebreid met de mogelijkheid om Boolean te vergelijken. Dit was voorheen alleen mogelijk voor het vergelijken van tekst en getallen. 

Diversen

  • bij de ontwikkeling van websites met behulp van Futurama kunnen er foutmeldingen op de pagina voorkomen. Het is wenselijk om deze foutmeldingen in een zo vroeg mogelijk stadium te detecteren, zodat deze meteen opgelost kunnen worden. Dit kan vanaf versie 3.3.0 door middel van het toevoegen van de setting ActuITWarnForErrors (zie ook instellingen in web.config) in de web.config. Door deze key de waarde TRUE te geven, zal bij het optreden van een foutmelding op de website een waarschuwing verschijnen. Dit geeft ontwikkelaars te mogelijkheid om deze fouten direct op te lossen;
  • Tenslotte is er een aantal bugs opgelost.

Versie 3.2.0

In versie 3.2.0 van Futurama is o.a. de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • Met de nieuwe module Futurama Vividis het op eenvoudige wijze mogelijk zogenaamde AJAX-functionaliteit aan de website toe te voegen. Hiermee kunnen websites interactiever worden gemaakt, wat de grafische mogelijkheden vergroot. In versie 3.2.0 is het mogelijk om een gedeelte van een webpagina te updaten zonder dat de héle pagina opnieuw geladen hoeft te worden. Dit heeft als gevolg dat er minder dataverkeer hoeft plaats te vinden en dat de website dus sneller zal gaan reageren op acties van de deelnemer. Tevens zal de website een rustiger beeld vertonen;
  • Het automatisch converterenvan Futurama bestanden naar een nieuwere Futurama versie is verder vereenvoudigd. Bij het automatisch converteren volstaat het om de map aan te geven waarbinnen alle Futurama bestanden geconverteerd moeten worden. Het is niet meer noodzakelijk om alle Futurama bestanden die geconverteerd moeten worden op te sommen;
  • De functie Lees.Bestand.MetEncoding is toegevoegd. Deze functie is een uitbreiding van de functie Lees.Bestand. Het kwam voor dat bestanden die volgens een bepaalde encoding waren opgeslagen niet konden worden ingelezen met de functie Lees.Bestand. Met de functie Lees.Bestand.MetEncoding treedt dit probleem niet meer op. In de functie kan worden meegegeven volgend welke encoding het bestand moet worden ingelezen;
  • Het opstarten van Futurama Insight is veranderd en geschiedt nu met SHIFT-F9.
    In Futurama Insightis de weergave van de formules verbeterd. Het is nu mogelijk om binnen een formule subformules in en uit te klappen. Hierdoor is het mogelijk om zowel de uitgeschreven subformule te zien alsmede het resultaat van de subformule.
  • Het is nu mogelijk aan de WebLabels of Buttons die binnen een DropDownListstaan een CSS Class toe te voegen, zodat de opmaak hiervan individueel geregeld kan worden.
  • De functie Lees.Erroris nieuw. Indien er een fout optreedt, retourneert deze functie de tekst van de eerst opgetreden fout. Deze kan vervolgens bijvoorbeeld op de fout pagina vermeld worden.
  • Aan de RadioButton is de eigenschap 'Enabled' toegevoegd. Hiermee is het mogelijk een RadioButton wel zichtbaar, maar niet klikbaar te maken.
    Het is nu mogelijk om in de Futurama directory een subdirectory te maken en daarin de websites te zetten, terwijl de URL hetzelfde blijft. Dit kan door in de web.configde locatie van de websites in te stellen met behulp van de key DirectoryPrefix.
  • De tooltip bij het Error.Window is verbeterd:
    1. De tooltip is groter en er verschijnen Scrollbars als de tooltip groter dan het venster wordt.
    2. De tooltip wordt getoond bij de muis pointer.
    3. Er kan nu door te dubbelklikken op een error direct genavigeerd worden naar het object waar de error optreedt.
    4. De tekst van een tooltip kan geselecteerd worden.
    5. De tooltip blijft zichtbaar als tussen applicaties overgeschakeld wordt.
  • De XMLinput van een WebReferenceis niet meer beperkt tot een XMLBuilder, maar mag een willekeurige string zijn, mits die valide XML levert.
  • De eigenschap UseProxyServer van een WebReferenceis aangepast.
  • De validatievan kringverwijzingen is verbeterd.
  • In de XMLConverter en HTMLIncludeis het attribuut REL_FOLDER beschikbaar gekomen. Hierdoor is het niet meer nodig om het relatieve pad naar de databestanden mee te geven.
  • Om gebruik te kunnen maken van de modules Futurama Vivid en Futurama Insight moet de web.config uitgebreid worden. In instellingen web.config staat deze uitbreiding beschreven. 

Versie 3.1.0.4

In versie 3.1.0.4 is Futurama Insight verder uitgebreid:

  • In Futurama Insight wordt niet alleen meer de uitkomst van een formule getoond, maar wordt deze formule ook helemaal uitgeschreven. Op deze manier is het mogelijk om de waarden te zien van de afzonderlijke componenten waaruit een formule bestaat. Hiermee kan snel achterhaald worden hoe een waarde van een formule tot stand is gekomen. Het is ook mogelijk om de uitkomst van een subformule te bekijken. Op deze manier kan een formule helemaal ontleed worden, en kunnen tussenuitkomsten bekeken worden.

Versie 3.1.0.3

In versie 3.1.0.3 is Futurama Insight verder uitgebreid:

  • Er is een aantal verbeteringen in de layout van Futurama Insight doorgevoerd;
  • Futurama Insight is uitgebreid met het History Window. Met behulp van het History Window kan gekeken worden op welke objecten in de Document Explorer achtereenvolgens is geklikt. Door te klikken op een object in het History Window wordt dit object meteen geselecteerd in de Document Explorer.

Versie 3.1.0.2

In versie 3.1.0.2 is een aantal bugs van versie 3.1.0 opgelost.

Versie 3.1.0.1

In versie 3.1.0.1 is een aantal bugs van versie 3.1.0 opgelost.

Versie 3.1.0

In versie 3.1.0 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • Module Futurama Insightgelanceerd. Met Futurama Insight is het mogelijk om de onderliggende berekeningen van alle getoonde bedragen in een webpagina te achterhalen. Alle gebruikte factoren, getallen en berekeningen die voor de totstandkoming van de in de website getoonde resultaten benodigd zijn, worden in een aparte pagina zichtbaar gemaakt. De module is daardoor een zeer bruikbaar hulpmiddel, zowel bij het implementatie-traject als nadien bij de beantwoording van eventuele vragen over de berekening;
  • Futurama is uitgebreid met een nieuwe formulewaarmee gecontroleerd kan worden of er bij het laden van de pagina schadelijke fouten zijn opgetreden. Deze functie kan gebruikt worden om een gebruiker van een website door te sturen naar een fout-pagina als er bij het bezoek van de website fouten zijn opgetreden, waardoor eventueel weergegeven resultaten onbetrouwbaar kunnen zijn geworden;
  • De GraphConverter is uitgebreid en verbeterd. Zo zijn nu ook tooltips mogelijk geworden, is de legenda geheel naar eigen inzicht te vormen en te plaatsen, en kunnen de assen naar eigen wens ingedeeld worden.

Versie 3.0.4

In versie 3.0.4 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • Bij het gebruik van webservices ondersteunt Futurama nu ook een ProxyServer.

Versie 3.0.3

In versie 3.0.3 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • in de DocConverter zijn de eigenschappen ErrorIfFontNotFound, IncludeFontsInPDF en OpenMode toegevoegd. Met de eerste twee eigenschappen is er meer controle over de opmaak van de PDF's die gegenereerd worden.

Versie 3.0.2

In versie 3.0.2 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • met behulp van de DocConverteris het nu ook mogelijk om brieven met voorwaardelijke stukken tekst te maken. Voorwaardelijke stukken tekst zijn stukken tekst die getoond worden als aan een bepaalde voorwaarde voldaan is. Op deze manier is het heel makkelijk om uitgaande van 1 template brief, meerdere doelgroepen (met doelgroep specifieke teksten) te bedienen;
  • de performance van het ResultsWindow is verbeterd. Indien het resultaat van bijvoorbeeld een grote XmlNode bekeken moet worden, dan wordt dit veel sneller getoond. Dit komt doordat de nodes niet direct uitgeklapt getoond worden, maar standaard ingeklapt.

Versie 3.0.1

In versie 3.0.1 is een aantal bugs van versie 3.0.0 opgelost.

Versie 3.0.0

Converteren naar versie 3.0.0

Bij de overgang naar versie 3.0.0 moet rekening gehouden worden met het onderstaande:

  • het formaat van het licentiebestandis gewijzigd in Futurama 3.0.0. Het is derhalve noodzakelijk om de nieuwe versie van het licentiebestand over de bestaande versie te zetten;
  • de huidige Futurama bestanden moeten worden geconverteerdnaar de nieuwe versie. Bij dit converteren is de volgorde waarin geconverteerd wordt van belang: eerst dienen de subdocumenten van een document geconverteerd te worden, voordat het document zelf geconverteerd kan worden;
  • het is mogelijk om in batch-modus een Action te laten uitvoeren of in de url van de applicatie een Button te selecteren, een WebPage te openen of een UserVariable een waarde te geven. Hierbij moet een padnaam meegegeven worden aan deze vier objecten. In Futurama 3.0 is deze padnaam gewijzigd (zie definiëren padnaam voor de nieuwe definitie). Eventueel bestaande padnamen moeten derhalve bij het gebruik van Futurama 3.0.0 aangepast worden naar de nieuwe definitie. 

Futurama Modules

Met de lancering van Futurama 3.0 is de opzet van Futurama enigszins verandert. Via verschillende Futurama Modules zullen extra functionaliteiten afzonderlijk van elkaar als add-on aangeboden worden. De modules kunnen apart van elkaar afgenomen worden. Nieuwe modules zijn Futurama Accounts en Futurama Documents.

Nieuwe functionaliteit

In versie 3.0.0 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • in het Properties Window van het Document kan het DocType geselecteerd worden. Er kan nu gekozen worden tussen het HTML4_Transitional DocType en het XHTML_1_0 DocType. Het kiezen van XHTML_1_0 DocType levert een aantal voordelen op ten opzichte van HTML4_Transitional DocType. Een belangrijke verandering die optreedt bij het kiezen van het XHTML-doctype is de wijze van renderingvan WebSite objecten;
  • indien gekozen is voor het XHTML-doctype is het aantal eigenschappen in de Properties Windows van de WebSite objecten afgenomen. De eigenschappen die betrekking hebben op de layout van een dergelijk WebSite object zijn verwijderd. Deze opmaak eigenschappen dienen dan gedefinieerd te worden in het stylesheet dat geselecteerd is bij de WebPage waar de WebSite objecten toe behoren;
  • de functies URLEncode, URLDecode, Converteer.Van.Base64 en Lees.Versienummerzijn nieuw;
  • het Find Windowis uitgebreid. Indien gekozen is voor het XHTML-doctype dan bestaat nu ook de mogelijkheid om on het Find Window te zoeken naar de layout. Op deze manier kan bijvoorbeeld gezocht worden welk object een gegeven CssClass heeft;
  • er is een nieuw window toegevoegd, namelijk het Layout Window. Het Layout Window is alleen zichtbaar indien gekozen wordt voor het XHTML_1_0 DocType. In het Layout Window kan afgelezen worden wat de selectors zijn die van toepassing zijn op een WebSite object;
  • in het Properties Window van een WebPage kan geselecteerd worden welk stylesheet van toepassing is op deze WebPage. Indien gekozen wordt voor het XHTML-doctype is het mogelijk om in de Futurama editor te controlerenof alle selectors die in het betreffende stylesheet voorkomen ook daadwerkelijk gebruikt worden. Op deze manier kan het stylesheet (of kunnen de stylesheets) zo bondig en overzichtelijk mogelijk gehouden worden;
  • het object DocConverter is nieuw. Als een licentie voor de module Futurama Documentsis gekocht, kan gebruik gemaakt worden van dit nieuwe object. Met behulp van de DocConverter kunnen Word -of PDF-documenten gegenereerd worden, zonder dat Word op de webserver geïnstalleerd hoeft te zijn. Het is tevens mogelijk om met behulp van de DocConverter grafieken in documenten af te beelden;
  • ten behoeve van het bovengenoemde nieuwe object DocConverter is bij de GraphConverterde eigenschap Resolution toegevoegd in het Properties Window. Met behulp van deze eigenschap is het mogelijk om grafieken scherp at te beelden in de documenten die gegenereerd worden met de DocConverter;
  • de eigenschap VersionNumber is toegevoegd aan het Properties Window van een Document. Met behulp van de nieuwe functie Lees.Versienummerkan dit versienummer ingelezen worden en bijvoorbeeld op een webpagina worden afgebeeld;
  • er is een nieuwe pagina version.aspxbeschikbaar. Door het opvragen van deze pagina kan onder andere bekeken worden wat de verschillende versienummers zijn van de documenten met behulp waarvan een bepaalde applicatie gemaakt is. Ook wordt getoond wanneer de bestanden voor het laatst opgeslagen zijn;
  • de functionaliteit van de functie Lees.Requestparameter is uitgebreid. Het is mogelijk om deze formule in batch-modusuit te voeren. Hierdoor kan in batch-modus bijvoorbeeld ingesteld worden hoeveel berekeningen uitgevoerd moeten worden, of welke berekeningen;
  • het is nu mogelijk om na het draaien van Futurama in batch-modus een melding te genereren of er al dan niet fouten en/of waarschuwingen zijn opgetreden. 

Versie 2.3.0

In versie 2.3.0 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit toegevoegd:

  • het object Navigatoris nieuw;
  • voor het object DatabaseViewis de eigenschap 'TimeOut' nieuw;
  • Documentengemaakt met een bepaalde versie van Futurama zijn niet meer met oudere versies van Futurama te openen;
  • de functie Is.Lid.Van.Groep is nieuw.

Versie 2.2.2

In versie 2.2.2 van Futurama is de volgende functionaliteit aangepast:

Versie 2.2.1

In versie 2.2.1 van Futurama is een aantal nieuwe mogelijkheden van de GraphConverter toegevoegd:

  • de schalen van de x-as en de y-as van een grafiek kunnen nu worden vastgesteld met de opties Minimum en Maximum. Als voor deze opties wordt gekozen, dan worden deze schalen niet meer aangepast en dus constant gehouden. Zie GraphConverter;
  • met behulp van het actie object Filesaverkan nu ook een grafiek worden opgeslagen;
  • in de eigenschap 'Series' van de GraphConverter is als ChartType nieuw het type 'LineFillOut'.
    Met behulp van dit type worden grafieken gemaakt waarvan de y-waarde constant blijft voor de x-waarden, totdat deze y-waarde in de dataset opnieuw bepaald is. Vanaf de bijbehorende x-waarde zal deze nieuwe y-waarde gelden. Het verloop van de grafiek is horizontaal en verspringt op het moment dat een nieuwe y-waarde is bepaald;
  • van Series en XLabels kunnen de waarden rechtstreeks ingesteld worden in het Properties Window, dit hoeft nu niet meer per se met behulp van een Action.