Collanos Workplace 1.0.3.13 - Release Notes

[Gil Heiman]

Today we released Collanos Workplace 1.1 (also referred to as 1.0.3.13)

(A pdf version of these notes is available below)

If you are not automatically prompted during start-up to download the new updates, please make sure to check for them in the Help menu under Software Updates -> Find & Install, or you can also download the latest version of Collanos from www.collanos.com.

IMPORTANT:
1. With the introduction of the Collanos Central User Directory, users will be required to create a NEW user profile with a Collanos Name and Password. This is NOT your name or email and confirmation code provided when you first installed Collanos. This is ALL NEW! Existing users doing the auto-updates will need to create a Collanos Name and Password in order to access existing and future data. New users will simply need to follow the instructions provided upon installation.

2. It is required with this release for each member to have Collanos Workplace 1.1 installed to ensure optimal operation of Collanos Workplace and the ability to use the latest features across the entire team(s).  Team members using older versions of Collanos Workplace will not be able to invite or replicate with Workplace 1.1 team members.

A. NEW IN THIS RELEASE

There are several new enhancements and fixes released in version 1.1.

1. Central User Directory (CUD) – Users’ profile from now on will be stored centrally by Collanos with a dedicated Collanos User Name and password. This will allow users to maintain their Collanos identity and not get lost with re-installations. Also, users can enter additional profile information that will be accessible to other team members and can search for other users via the Advanced Search.

Please note that we have not implemented the ability to have one unique identity per machine, but now that we have implemented the CUD, having multiple machines for one identity is our next step.  Today users can login from multiple machines at the same time (using the same User profile), however Workplace will only work from the last machine the user logged into.   We do not recommend users do this, since it will likely cause replication inconsistencies between the user’s different machines.

2. Offline Invitations– With the addition of the CUD and centrally managing user profiles, users can now search and find other users even if they are offline and invite them to workspaces.  Invitations are sent to offline users every 10 minutes.  So after an invited user goes online, he or she should receive the invitation within 10 minutes.

3. Conflict Bin – The Conflict Bin stores a backup of any file or object that has been modified or deleted by another team member.  This will protect a user from losing files or objects that another member overwrote or deleted advertently or inadvertently.  Users will notice the Conflict Bin icon on the bottom left corner of their screen only when there is actual files or objects in it. Clicking on the icon will open the bin, where users can restore files or objects to any workspace of their choice.  Users can also manage the size of their Conflict Bin by setting alerts that notify them once the bin has exceeded the specified size. To customize bin settings go to: Preferences - > Collanos Workplace - > Workplace Data.

4. Collanos Name and Password Protection – By implementing the Central User Directory, users will now have their own unique Collanos Name and Password, that can protect their system from being accessed by other users.

5. Auto-Start and Login - Users can now select if they want Collanos to start immediately with their operating system as well as skip the login process.  This will allow users to always have Collanos Workplace up-and-running when they start their computer.  This option is set as the default option and users can change this option during the time of registration or from their Preferences-> Account Management section. 

6. Multiple User Login from One Collanos Installation – For those who have multiple users sharing the same machine.  Collanos Workplace now allows for multiple users to login using the same instance of Collanos Workplace.  Users just need to enter their Collanos Name and Password and select to either start fresh with a new user or select a data directory on the machine where the users’ data can be found. Keep in mind that all the user data still resides only on the user’s machine and not hosted on any Collanos server. The data is only accessible from the machine where the user created the Collanos account.

7. 400% Increase in LAN Replication Performance – We have significantly improved our local area network (LAN) replication speed.  Users will notice a significant speed improvement of around 400% when replicating with other users in their LAN.  For additional replication performance improvements users can go to Preferences - > Connections to change their bandwidth settings to further improve performance.  To change your settings do the following:
• In Connections select “Individual” and click Apply. 
• Go to Advanced Bandwidth settings and change “Uploader speed limit (KB/sec)” and “Downloader speed limit (KB/sec)” to 100 and “Download manager sleep time (in milliseconds); -1 for random:” to 1.  Only do this if your network allows you to download 128 KB/sec or greater and upload 64 KB/sec or greater.

8. 20% Increase in WAN Replication Performance – With Workplace 1.1 we have also been able to increase WAN replication performance.  Users using the Internet will now have a ~20% increase in performance.
To change your settings do the following:
• Go to Preferences - > Connections
• Select “Individual” and click Apply. 
• Go to Advanced Bandwidth settings and change “Uploader speed limit (KB/sec)” and “Downloader speed limit (KB/sec)” to 100 and “Download manager sleep time (in milliseconds); -1 for random:” to 1.  Only do this if your network allows you to download 128 KB/sec or greater and upload 64 KB/sec or greater.

9.  Discussion Speed – Besides improving LAN and WAN performance we have also significantly improved the speed of the Discussion object.  Users will find that the performance is now similar to standard Instant Messengers.

10. Deleting Large Files During Replication – If a user wants to stop the transfer of a file you can now do so, however this requires multiple steps and IS NOT recommended to novice users:
1. Delete the file from the active workspace
2. Close Collanos Workplace
3. Go to the folder that you selected to store your data when first installing Collanos
4. Scroll down sub-folders “Data” - > “replication”  - > “rsvc” -> JXTA ID Number (long name starting with a letter) - > “rsio”
5. In “rsio” search through the folders to find the exceptionally large file (locate the file via the size, not name as it will have a different, system-generated name) and delete it.

Deleting the file will cause the replication to be terminated at the replication layer.  Next time you re-start Collanos it will no longer send this file.  Only the person who is sending this file should follow these steps.  People receiving the file do not need to do anything. 
The Collanos data folder is located where you specified during installation.  By default on Windows it is found in My Documents and on Mac it is found under the user’s Home User Directory.

11. Large File Replication Improvements - We have made significant improvements to our replication layer so that large files ranging from 1 megabytes to several gigabytes of data can be consistently and successfully transferred with Collanos.  Replication speed of large files will still take time, but the files will consistently arrive.  If Collanos crashes while the large file is being uploaded or the user force quits the application, then the file will not have been uploaded and the user will need to upload it again. Once the large file shows up on the screen, then the file has been uploaded successfully.

12. Small File Replication Improvements – We have made significant improvements to our replication layer so that many small files ranging from hundreds to thousands of files and objects can be replicated consistently and successfully.  Replication speed for small files will take some time especially if you are sending thousands of small files at once, but the files will consistently arrive. In order to improve performance we suggest that users change views to another folder where no replication is happening. This will not require the GUI to refresh with each new file that arrives and, in turn, will increase the speed of the file transfer. If Collanos crashes while many small files are being uploaded or the user force quits the application, then all the small files that have not been uploaded to the GUI may need to be uploaded again. We also consolidated the sound effects for many small files arriving. Users will only receive one sound alert for the batch of many small files arriving.

13. Folder and File Structure Replication Inconsistencies – If different team members change the location of the same folder or file to different locations, Collanos Workplace will manage the discrepancy and keep the last user’s move consistent across workspaces and store the other changes in the Conflict Bin.  This additional logic will prevent files and folders from disappearing because of moving conflicts.

14. File and Folders Disappearing – In rare occasions users have reported the disappearing of files and folders.  A combination of the Conflict Bin, fixing folder and file structure replication inconsistencies, fixing corrupt workspaces, and additional enhancements to the replication layer and user interface have significantly lowered the possibility of files and folders disappearing.  We will be improving the object manager in the next releases in order to further address this issue.

15. Corrupt Workspaces – In prior releases some users had issues with corrupted Global Workspaces that prevented the users from opening certain workspaces or even Workplace.  We have fixed this issue so users should not have problems opening Workplace. If a workspace is corrupt, the user will not be able to open the workspace, but can ask another member to re-invite him or her to the workspace.  Corrupt workspaces are not common.

16. Invitation Enhancements – We have significantly improved the user invitation process so that invitations are successfully sent and received by users.  In rare cases invitations may take up to 10 minutes to be received.  The reason for this is that Workplace sends invitations every 10 minutes if they are not accepted the first time. 

17. Backup and Data Moving Improvements – In the past users have had problems with backing up and moving their data.  Cases have been reported that users have stored other non-Collanos files in the data directory and during a move these files had been deleted.  We have fixed this problem and non-Collanos files will not be deleted.  They will be moved to the new location where the user has chosen to move his or her data.  Also, backup or moves that are interrupted because of a system crash or a force quit will not be completed and Collanos will still work from its original location. Backup and restore work properly and Collanos Workplace will go offline during these operations and automatically restart itself after such operations.

18. Traffic Monitor Improvements – We have significantly improved the Traffic Monitor and users can now get a better picture of how much data they have coming in and going out. 

19. Freezing Workspaces on Linux – In previous release when receiving invitations on a Linux could cause the Collanos Workplace interface to freeze.  We have fixed the issue and the Linux Workplace is no longer freezing.

20. Vista Support – Vista users can now install Collanos.  If a user is not logged in as ‘admin’, the user will not be able to install Collanos in the default application directory and will be required to select a different directory, where he/she have access rights.  Vista’s new enhanced security features prevent applications from being easily stored in the application directory (aka "Program Files").

21. Chinese Translation – Collanos now is translated into Chinese.  Users can go to Preferences - > Languages and choose the Chinese version.  If your operating system’s default language is Chinese, then Chinese will be your default language in Collanos Workplace.

22. CUD Proxy Settings – For users who are having problems accessing the CUD because of a company firewall, they can use Collanos proxy server by going to Preferences - > Connections, checking the proxy server check box and entering the proxy server information: "https://superedge02.collanos.net:8443". 

23. Auto-Accept Default Setting – Auto-accept is now the default setting in Collanos.  Invitations to workspaces will automatically be accepted.  If a user would like to change this he/she can go to Preferences - > Collanos Workplace and uncheck “Auto-Accept Invitations”

24. Memory Consumption Reduction – We have improved the Collanos user interface to reduce the amount of memory it consumes.  We still have more work to do in this area, but users will notice an improvement on the amount of memory that is being consumed by the system during process intensive operations.

25. Corrupted Log Files – In prior releases some of the log files submitted to Collanos support were corrupt.  We have fixed the issues leading to log file corruption. 

26. Un-Inviting a User – When un-inviting a user and then re-inviting a user some files that the user had prior to the un-invitation are never replicated.  This problem has been fixed and the user should receive all the files.

B.THINGS WE ARE STILL WORKING ON

1. Object Manager Improvements – We are working on improving the Collanos Object Manager.  Improvements to the object manager will be the final component in Collanos that will bring added stability and performance to Collanos Workplace.

2. Mac UI Improvements – In the upcoming releases we will be improving our interface to become more compatible with the Mac operating system.  Because of our dependency on Eclipse we need to wait for the next release of Eclipse that will include additional Mac support to add Mac system tray and notification integration as well as additional UI improvements.

3. Installation and Performance Improvements – We are planning on upgrading our installer and JRE to add additional stability to our install process and performance to Collanos Workplace.

4. 64 Bit Linux Support – Linux users who are using 64 bit operating systems may have problems using Collanos.  64 bit systems are not yet being tested and therefore supported by Collanos. 

5. Mac Keynote Pages – Keynote uses an XML format that causes a Keynote file to appear as different folders in Collanos.  This is still an open issue that we need to address.

6. Traffic Monitor – Although the traffic monitor has significantly improved, there are still some bugs with the traffic monitor that need to be fixed.  When stopping a replication during transfer this may cause traffic monitor inconsistencies.  Restarting Collanos Workplace in most cases can help reset the traffic monitor.  Also, individual workspace traffic monitor views are not working. 

7. Auto Start not enabled on Linux  - Auto start with the operating system is not enabled on Linux. 

8. Copy and Paste between Workspaces – Users still cannot copy and paste objects between workspaces.  We will address this issue in an upcoming release. 

9. Deleting Global Workspaces – Users cannot delete their Global Workspaces. Global Workspaces are only displayed in All My Workspaces view to users who had enabled them in their Preferences.

10. Permissions – When viewing a user’s permission from a member list the default is manager if not specified.  Managers today do not see what each member’s default permissions are, until they assign them.  In a future release we will make the permission process more clear and ensure that team members’ permissions are more visible. 

11. Online User View - With our current implementation we have not added the capability for other users to see who is online at the same time from the Search/Invite list.  We will be adding this capability in the upcoming release.

Thanks again for the time you spend providing us with feedback. Please feel free to contact us by email or through our support forum.

Sincerely,

Steven Tedjamulia
Head of Product Management
steven DOT tedjamulia AT collanos DOT com