The following are general upgrade considerations and product changes for WebFOCUS:

• SET SUBTOTALS=ABOVE is supported with column freezing (HFREEZE) as of Release 7.7.05M gen 134.
• As of Version 7 Release 7.05 Gen 697, field names can be up to 512 characters.
• As of WebFOCUS Reporting Server Version 7 Release 7.05, the background color of the pop-up descriptions (ToolTips) has been standardized and set to white for a uniform look throughout all HTML reports.
• As of Version 7 Release 7.02, the setting EMPTYREPORT=OFF is now supported for FORMAT WP report output.
• In Version 7 Release 6.8, when borders were implemented for EXL2K Formula reports, an issue was introduced that in certain circumstances caused the row based formulas to contain incorrect cell references and the column total formulas to point to incomplete cell ranges. This issue may have caused worksheets to present incorrect values within the report. This issue was resolved in Version 7 Release 7.02, and the formulas are being generated correctly. This correction may cause reports to present different results when they run in Version 7 Releases 6.8 - 6.11 or Version 7 Release 7.01.

• As of Version 7 Release 7.02, redirection has been turned off for EXL07. This provides enhanced security because the temp file does not need to be written into the temp directory, and is passed directly to the browser. Depending on the browser security settings for the security zone you are in, the browser might display a pop-up message indicating:

  To help protect your security, Internet Explorer blocked this site from downloading files to your computer. Click here for Options.

  If the Download file option is selected, the report is not returned. To fix this, within the advanced setting in the browser, change the Downloads, Automatic Prompting for file downloads option for the Web site security zone to Enable.

• As of Version 7 Release 7.01, the Amper Autoprompting facility requires a Version 7.7.01 or higher Reporting Server. This is due to the enhancement to send the value _FOC_NULL, by default, instead of FOC_NONE, when the No Selection value is selected for a dynamic multi-select variable. However, you can control which of these values is passed for the No Selection option with the IBIF_describe_null variable that configures the value the WebFOCUS Client will send. For information about Parameter Prompting settings, see the WebFOCUS Security and Administration manual. _FOC_NULL is a replacement for FOC_NONE, which differs from FOC_NONE in that it is processed by the parser as follows:
  • _FOC_NULL as a verb object removes that field from the verb set. If all fields are removed, then the verb is to be removed as well. When a verb object is removed, the stylesheet will be adjusted accordingly.
  • _FOC_NULL as a BY or ACROSS field removes the field and all of its ON statements and other references in the report.

    When a BY field is removed, the stylesheet is adjusted accordingly.

    When an ACROSS field is removed, there is a stylesheet issue. If all ACROSS fields have been removed, then the syntax of the stylesheet must change.

    From:

    TYPE=DATA,     ACROSSCOLUMN=N1,  COLOR=RGB(255 102 0),

    To:

    TYPE=DATA,     COLUMN=N(1+x),     COLOR=RGB(255 102 0),

    where x is equal to the column number of the prior BY.

  • When used in logical expressions, _FOC_NULL on either side resolves to a value of 1.
  • In a stylesheet drill down, when the parameter value is a field name and the field name is _FOC_NULL, this should be replaced with a constant _FOC_NULL.
  • _FOC_NULL in a DEFINE or COMPUTE command is not supported.
  • _FOC_NULL yields an error message when used in an undefined or unsupported case.

  If you have manually coded procedures that include FOC_NONE, you need to evaluate your requests as some remediation may be required. The recommended remediation is to use _FOC_NULL, but if your application logic cannot, you can add a -SET statement to your procedure to test if the parameter value is _FOC_NULL and if it is set to FOC_NONE.

  For example:

  -SET &TESTVAR1 = IF &VAR1 EQ _FOC_NULL THEN FOC_NONE ELSE &VAR1;

• As of Version 7 Release 7, using a delimiter on both sides of an &variable in a -READ command on a fixed-length file is now strictly enforced.

  For example,

  -READ MYFILE &FIRST.A25.&SECOND.A50.

  In previous releases, while documentation has always indicated that the delimiter was required on both sides of the format, dropping the trailing delimiter often did not produce an error and the command executed successfully.

• As of Version 7 Release 7, instead of displaying a No HTML Output message when no report is returned, the following message is displayed:

  Your request did not return any output to display. 

  Possible causes:

  No data rows matched the specified selection criteria.

  Output was directed to a destination such as a file or printer.

  An error occurred during the parsing or running of the request.

• As of Version 7 Release 7, the font mappings for both PDF and PostScript report output have been moved to XML files (fontmap.xml and fontuser.xml). In earlier releases, the font map files were separate for PDF and PostScript and were stored in the files PDF.FMP and PSCRIPT.FMP. If you modified your font maps in earlier releases, you must convert your font mappings to the new format in order for them to continue to be available for your reports. See WebFOCUS Font Support in the Creating Reports with WebFOCUS Language manual.
• As of Version 7 Release 7, the default width for PDF underlines is light. This will only effect the thickness or width of the lines, not the overall spacing of the lines on the page. In earlier releases, the default line width for underlines in PDF displayed medium width. This was different than the other output drivers (HTML, PS, PPT, DHTML, EXL2K) that defaulted to light width.
• As of Version 7 Release 7, additional spacing is inserted around the data columns within the body of the report when LEFTGAP or RIGHTGAP are explicitly defined. With default gaps, the horizontal spacing is the same between Version 7.6.x and Version 7.7.02. When gap values are explicitly defined, the report displays slightly more white space between columns.

  This will cause reports to expand horizontally. For PDF, DHTML, and PPT reports, this may cause paneling to occur where it had not previously. For compound reports where paneling is not supported, this may cause reports to wrap within the defined component positioning and overwrite existing columns. This can be remediated by either removing explicit gap definitions or defining smaller gaps to reclaim the horizontal space.

• The server supports procedure (FEX) names up to 64 characters. The WebFOCUS Client prepends an underscore (_) to this name during internal processing. In earlier releases, a WebFOCUS Client internal procedure name that contains more than 64 characters is accepted by the server but does not function correctly. As of Release 7.7, the server returns the error (FOC32568) FILENAME IS TOO LONG when the procedure name is longer that 64 characters. It also truncates WebFOCUS Client internal procedure names to 64 characters.
• The standard for all styled output formats for decimal, packed, and floating formatted fields that are defined without decimal places (D12, P12, or F12) is for the resulting value to be rounded. The value 143.65 presented as D12 would return 144. In earlier releases, the EXL2K Formula differed from this standard and returned the truncated value rather than the rounded value. The value 143.65 presented as D12 would return 143. As of Version 7 Release 7, the output generated for EXL2K formula has been modified to function like the other formats and return the rounded value for decimal fields where no decimal places are explicitly defined.
• In Version 7 Release 7, line height has been expanded to provide sufficient space to correctly display underlines and borders in PDF, PS, DHTML, and PPT reports.
• As of WebFOCUS Reporting Server Release 7.7 Version 05M gen134, multi-verb requests are supported in Accordion By Row reports that contain sort fields on the highest level display command.