Portfolio Server 8.5 for Macintosh Release Notes

Extensis Portfolio Server 8.5 for Macintosh

Version 8.5.2

Release Notes

April 2008

Thank you for purchasing Extensis Portfolio Server! This version of Portfolio Server adds new functionality as well as ensures the maximum level of compatibility with modern operating systems.

Extensis Portfolio Server 8.5

Installation notes

System Requirements

These are the minimum system requirements, and are designed for a small creative workgroup with modest sized files. Your implementation may require a more powerful system.

Portfolio Server Macintosh

Mac OS X v10.4.9, including Mac OS X Server v10.4.9
1GHz or faster G4, G5 or Intel Core processor(s)
512MB of available RAM• 500MB of available hard disk space (additional space required for database and asset storage)
QuickTime 7 or higher
1024 x 768 or larger display
Adobe Reader 5 or higher
Network interface with a 10 megabit or faster connection
Microsoft Office X (10.1.9 only) for text indexing and thumbnailing of Office file types.

SQL Connect Macintosh
1GB RAM
1 GHz or faster G4, G5 or Intel Core processor(s)
MySQL 4.1.21 or 5.0.37
MySQL 5 offers tremendous improvements in overall catalog performance, and is recommended as the preferred choice over MySQL 4. For a complete list of Portfolio SQL Connect system requirements, please see the detailed chart in the Portfolio User Guide Update PDF.

MyODBC 3.51.14
Use newer or alternate ODBC drivers at your own risk.

Installing Portfolio Server

To install Portfolio Server, double click the installer icon and allow the installer to guide you.

The Portfolio Server application has no interface itself; access to Server features is handled through the Portfolio client application software. If you are using a hardware or software firewall, you will need to open port 2903 for Portfolio Server communication.

For complete installation and setup details, see the Portfolio Server User Guide that came in the box, and is also located on your product CD.

Installing Portfolio SQL Connect

Portfolio SQL Connect is automatically installed by the Portfolio Server Installer. Please see the Portfolio Server User Guide for configuration details, and the Portfolio User Guide Update file for database upgrade information.

Installed Files

Files are installed to the directory chosen during installation. The default install locations are:

<system Applications folder>/Extensis Portfolio Server 8.5

The following files are installed in addition to those found in the Portfolio application folder.

/usr/local/pdftotext
/Library/Application Support/Extensis/Portfolio

Previous Versions

It is recommended that you uninstall any earlier version of Portfolio Server before installing Portfolio Server 8.5

What's new in Portfolio Server 8.5.2

Preview file optimization

When Portfolio Server creates preview files of cataloged images, the previews are now organized into a subfolder hierarchy within the preview directory. This organization helps speed the cataloging and access of images. Due to this change, all versions of Portfolio that are used to connect and access assets in Portfolio catalogs must be Portfolio 8.5.2 or greater. Using any earlier client or server can result in missing preview files.

Large catalog performance improvements

A number of performance enhancements were added to this release that improve performance with large catalogs of 100,000 items or more. These improvements address AutoSync cataloging processes, opening catalogs, using the collect command, importing and exporting field values as well as working with assets across multiple catalogs.

What's new in Portfolio Server 8.5.1

AutoSync improvements

Portfolio Server offers additional improvements for AutoSync folders on Mac OS X.

Leopard compatibility

Portfolio is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Improved XMP metadata support

Portfolio Server has been updated to use the Adobe® XMP Toolkit v4.1.1, offering improvements for both extracting and embedding XMP metadata.

Support for new digital camera Raw formats

The newly supported camera Raw formats include:

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
Canon EOS 40D
Canon PowerShot G9
Nikon D3
Nikon D300
Olympus E-3
Sony DSLR-A700

What's new in Portfolio Server 8.5

AutoSync improvements

This release of Portfolio Server offers improvements on the performance of AutoSync folders.

Updated image processing filters

On Microsoft Windows server platforms, updated image processing filters will allow certain asset types to catalog much more reliably and quickly. Most notably is improved support for EPS, PDF, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign formats.

Fixed issues

The following reported problems have been fixed for this release of Portfolio. The list is intended to cite the most serious fixes known. It is not an exhaustive list of all fixed problems.

Fixed in Portfolio 8.5.2

ID	Description

11869	Updated preview file creation so that preview images are now created and stored in a folder hierarchy providing a performance boost.
32217	Fixed an issue with large galleries that contained more than 65536 items that may have caused Portfolio to close unexpectedly.
32247 32253	Fixed an issue relating to the simultaneous editing of an item in a Portfolio catalog stored in a MySQL database. Doing so caused Portfolio to incorrectly record the data changes, and caused issues with copying and moving the item from one catalog to another.
32406	Updated the Photoshop Rating field so that it is now an integer field.

Fixed in Portfolio 8.5.1

ID	Description

A	Speed improvements with AutoSync folders due to the optimization of scanning processes. The result gives 5x faster performance with SMB mounted volumes and a 2x performance boost with AFP volumes.
B	Optimized the detection of renamed directories, thus preventing long wait times when deleting times in the Folder View pane.
C	AutoSync folders now display more quickly when a catalog is first opened.
D	AutoSync logging now includes the full path to items being processed.
E	Optimized the import of text into SQL based catalogs.
20560	Fixed an issue on Mac OS X, where Portfolio Server would not extract XMP metadata from certain EPS files.

Fixed in Portfolio 8.5

ID	Description

A	Fixed an issue where Portfolio was not able to fully-catalog certain EPS and PDF documents on Windows. The files were labeled as partially-cataloged and no thumbnail or preview was generated.
B	Addressed various user interface issues. This includes the scrolling behavior, states and positions for buttons and other elements.
C	Portfolio Server now translates the network path to the local disk on Mac and Windows servers. This addresses an issue where Portfolio Mac Server was not able to generate/update disk previews if the preview folder was local to the server, yet not mounted as and SMB share.
13291	Addressed an issue that caused the Server Administration dialog box to be disabled when returning from Serialize or Serve Catalog dialog boxes.
26129	Fixed an issue that caused Portfolio Server to improperly launch when specifying a ListenerID in the server's configuration.txt file.
26226	Fixed an issue that caused Portfolio AutoSync to improperly indicate that files were not properly cataloged if the server did not have proper permissions to create preview files. This persisted even after the permissions issue was corrected.
26790	Fixed an issue that caused Portfolio to close unexpectedly when moving subfolders from one AutoSync folder to another.
28203 28207	Fixed an issue that caused the Portfolio client to close unexpectedly when renaming custom fields in a served catalog.
28818	Fixed an issue that caused the Portfolio Mac client to stop responding if the catalog that the client had open was closed because the associated Portfolio Server was stopped.
29667	Fixed an issue that caused some fields to be ignored when creating an archive catalog from a served catalog using the Collect command with a Windows Portfolio client.

Known issues

The following issues are known, but have not yet been addressed in this version of Portfolio. The list is intended to cite the most serious problems known. It is not an exhaustive list of all known problems.

ID	Description

A	Adobe Version Cue is incompatible with MySQL and will likely cause serious errors. Do not install Version Cue and MySQL on the same physical machine.
B	Portfolio Server cannot generate thumbnails and previews for SWF files if the server has QuickTime version 7.3 or higher or installed.
21429	When cataloging some camera Raw files from an AutoSync folder, the EXIF-Metering Mode metadata field can indicate "5 Pattern" rather than the expected "Pattern" value.
21532	When cataloging camera Raw files from and AutoSync folder, the EXIF - Exposure Bias metadata field can contain extra decimal places beyond what is expected. For example containing "1.333333333" instead of the expected "1.33".
25001	If you perform a multi-catalog find with a Server based catalog, the filenames are sometimes missing from the items that are displayed.
23934	Manipulating galleries that are on MS-SQL catalogs can be very slow from a Macintosh client yet fast on a Windows client. This difference in interaction speed can enable a Windows client to access and modify a gallery that a Macintosh client has recently made Private. If a Windows client changes a gallery to Public/Read-only that a Macintosh client has very recently changed to Private, the gallery will disappear on the Windows client Gallery pane once the Macintosh client's Gallery type modification is completed.
30378	When embedding metadata into the "XMP - Marked" field, the only valid variables are 0,1,True and False. Using any other variable will cause Adobe Photoshop to display an error when opening the file.

Contacting Extensis

To reach us for technical support or general questions please use the following method:
Web/email: http://www.extensis.com/support/

If you have an annual service agreement, you are entitled to priority support. Please use the contact information on your service agreement.

For customer service please use one of the following methods:
Web/email: http://www.extensis.com/customerservice/

Phone:(800)796-9798