Typefi Server 8.7.0 release notes

Released 17 April 2020

We're excited to share that Typefi Server 8.7.0 (v8.7.0.3966) is now available. Typefi 8.7.0 introduces support for Adobe InDesign 2020 and is focused on usability and accessibility improvements to help you do even more. We’re especially excited about our new role-based user controls and keyboard shortcuts.

Typefi 8.7.0 is a major update with significant new features, improvements, and bug fixes. It's possible some new issues will surface. If you find something, please drop us a line.

Typefi Server 8.7.0 system requirements

Typefi Workgroup

• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019; or macOS Catalina (10.15), Mojave (10.14), or High Sierra (10.13)
  • OpenJDK 11 (see Switching to OpenJDK below)
  • Apache Tomcat 9 (for Linux only; bundled with our installers for Windows and macOS)
  • an LDAP-compliant directory service
• Adobe InDesign Server 2020 (15.x), InDesign Server 2019 (14.x), or InDesign Server 2018* (13.x)
  • InDesign workflow plug-in v30 or later
• 8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended), and an additional 2–8 GB per instance of InDesign Server
• Multicore (64-bit) processor
• fast storage I/O

* See Adobe Creative Cloud notices below for more information.

Typefi Desktop

• Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit)*; macOS Catalina (10.15), Mojave (10.14), or High Sierra (10.13)
  • OpenJDK 11 (see Switching to OpenJDK below)
  • Apache Tomcat 9 (for Linux only; bundled with our installers for Windows and macOS)
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or later (for Windows only)
• Adobe InDesign 2020 (15.x), InDesign 2019 (14.x), or InDesign 2018* (13.x)
• Microsoft Word 2019/2016 (32-bit only) on the Semi-Annual channel, or Word 2013 (32-bit only) with security update KB3039794
• 2 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)†

* See Adobe Creative Cloud notices below for more information.

† These system requirements are baseline requirements, but your number of users, number of assets, and number of asset revisions affect system performance. The requirements with an asterisk (†) are affected by these variables.

Key features

InDesign 2020 support

Typefi 8.7.0 adds support for Adobe InDesign 2020 (15.x) and retires support for InDesign CC 2017.

NOTE Requires Adobe InDesign plug-in version 30 or later.

For more information about our end of support policies, see Typefi Product Support Lifecycle.

Roles

Roles is a new feature designed to give Typefi administrators the ability to control what specific users are allowed to do in Typefi Server. For example, an admin could create a role that allows users to run, but not modify, workflows and then assign this role to users of their choosing. By default, all users will have a role of Default, which means they will have the same level of permissions as they did in Server 8.6.4 or earlier. For step-by-step instructions, see Working with roles.

We're working hard to provide you with more role-based features in the future. Stay tuned!

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts make Typefi Server more accessible for everyone and help you work more efficiently. See Keyboard shortcuts for Typefi Server to start using keyboard shortcuts.

Other changes

New features

• You can now download a workflow as a TSS file to use with Typefi Writer in off-line mode
• If you have versioning enabled, you can now view comments for deleted files in the Trash, which can now be visible to more people via roles 😎
• Typefi Workgroup only: you can now choose to handle user authentication 100% within the Typefi Workgroup Server. To enable this feature, go to Admin → LDAP and make sure you deselect Use LDAP

Improvements

• Made Typefi Server faster! We made some internal performance improvements for page loading times
• To prevent accidental changes to a workflow, we removed Autosave. If you navigate away from a workflow without saving your changes, you will now see an Unsaved changes dialog. For step-by-step instructions, see Working with Typefi Workflows
• When downloading folders, you can now choose to omit file version history
• When uploading a ZIP archive, you can now decide if Typefi Server should automatically expand the archive on upload
• Moved the Delete (x) button for file-based tokens to the left to make it easier to delete multiple files quickly
• If you have versioning enabled, hovering over a filename now displays comments for the most recent version of the file
• Improved integration with help.typefi.com to show you more relevant articles
• Improved the sign out process for mobile devices
• Multiple improvements to logs:
  • The page header, which includes the Cancel Job button, is now static so you can easily cancel a fast-scrolling job
  • Reduced the warnings from the omission of characters from Field variables to once per action
  • Added an orange label to the logs folder if the log contains warnings
  • Updated the terminology from “logged out” to “signed out” to be more consistent
  • Created logs for file uploads

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue where using " in a tag could make the user interface become unresponsive
• Fixed an issue where the Choose File dialog wasn’t appearing for imported workflows with multiple ${ask} variables
• Fixed an issue where a folder containing a space character could not be duplicated, but could be copied
• Fixed an issue where scrolling within the Choose File dialog wasn’t working reliably for mobile browsers
• Fixed an issue where uploading ZIP archives could fail if if the archive contained these filename extensions and folders:
  • .DS_store
  • __MACOSX folder and its contents
  • .typefi_version
  • .typefi_manifest
  • .die
  • .purge
• Fixed an issue where the Enter key would not confirm a deletion.

Workflow actions compatibility

Notices

Every product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it is no longer supported.

For more information about our end of support policies, see Typefi Product Support Lifecycle.

Adobe Creative Cloud notices

Adobe updates and adds new features to the Creative Cloud on an ongoing basis. Both because previous versions are uninstalled by default and because Creative Cloud updates may break compatibility with Typefi, we recommend disabling or deselecting both Auto-updates and Remove older versions for Adobe InDesign. For more information, see Update Creative Cloud apps.

In May 2019, Adobe announced changes to Creative Cloud download availability that limited direct download access to the two most recent major versions of Creative Cloud apps. Concurrent with this change, Adobe either recommends or requires your operating system be no earlier than two versions back. For more information, see: InDesign system requirements, InDesign Server system requirements, and Do my Adobe apps work in macOS Catalina 10.15?.

Microsoft Office compatibility

One of the benefits of Office 365 is that Microsoft provides new features for Office apps on a regular basis. The schedule for these updates depends on your selected update channel. Typefi only certifies Writer compatibility with the Semi-Annual Channel, which is the default update channel for Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise (formerly Office 365 ProPlus). While the Monthly Channel delivers new or updated features and security and non-security updates at least once each month, these releases are only supported by Microsoft until the next monthly channel release is available and may break compatibility with line-of-business applications like Typefi Writer (for example, the August 2017 "Monthly" update introduced a bug in a critical component used by Writer). For these reasons, Typefi strongly recommends selecting the Semi-Annual Channel, which also delivers new or updated features and security and non-security updates, but on a slower schedule of two updates (in January and July) each year. For more information about the channel releases for Office 365 client applications, see Office 365 client update channel releases.

To change to the Semi-Annual Channel, do the following:

1. Run Command Prompt (cmd) as Administrator
2. Enter the following commands:

   cd "\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun"
   OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Deferred
   OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user
   exit
   

3. Wait for the updates to download and install

Switching to OpenJDK

Oracle has announced that Oracle JDK builds released after January 2019 cease to be free for commercial use. As an alternative, Oracle has an open source Java available named OpenJDK. With the release of Java 11, Oracle will be providing functionally identical JDK builds to both the commercially licensed Oracle JDK and the open source OpenJDK.

While we bundle Oracle OpenJDK with our Windows installations, customers running macOS or those who run custom Apache Tomcat installations may find the following distributions favorable:

• Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multi-platform, production-ready distribution of OpenJDK. Corretto comes with long-term support that will include performance enhancements and security fixes. Typefi runs Corretto internally on production services and Corretto is certified as compatible with the Java SE standard.
• AdoptOpenJDK provides prebuilt OpenJDK binaries from a fully open-source set of build scripts and infrastructure. Supported platforms include Linux, macOS, Solaris, ARM, and Windows.
• Oracle OpenJDK is what Typefi builds and packages with our Windows installers. Oracle intends to continue to support open-source and open standards through the distribution of OpenJDK. Although binaries for Linux are available readily, macOS and Windows distributions require assembly.

Linux support statement

Typefi will provide installation support for distributions based on the Linux 2.6 kernel or later to customers with Gold or Platinum Support Agreements.