Fluent Latest Release
Check out what's new and noteworthy in our latest release of Fluent.
Fluent
New Features & Improvements
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Live Preview Output in Designer:
See your template's output update in real time as you design it. Currently available for Word templates only, with support for other template types coming soon.
Clearer warnings for unsupported formatting:
When converting to PDF, PPTX, or HTML output, you'll now see clear warnings if your document uses features that aren't supported in that output format, including:
- Line spacing before/after paragraphs (PDF)
- Bullets and numbering (PDF)
- Text direction (PDF)
- Slide numbers and dates (PDF and PPTX)
- Drawings (PDF and PPTX)
- "Format as Table" styling (PDF and HTML)
- Headers/footers (HTML)
This helps you catch formatting issues before they surprise you in the final output.
Designer performance improvements:
The tag data tree no longer reloads unnecessarily on every click, making the Designer feel noticeably faster and more responsive.
Data source management:
- Schema files and data source files are now displayed separately for easier organization.
- Added support for Excel data validation lists.
- Added data source support for XPath 1.0 (dom4j) and JSON XPath in the runner.
Clean Template Command Line Tool enhancements:
- No longer requires a license to run.
- Can now convert RTF and WordML XML templates directly to DOCX.
- All required dependencies are now bundled into CleanTemplate.exe. No separate installs needed.
- Process legacy Function Tags into modern, supported Fluent tags.
- Produces an error document that highlights any tags or content that couldn't be cleaned, making troubleshooting easier.
Improved error handling and licensing checks:
- Clearer errors when attempting to generate PDF/UA or PDF/A output using external output builders.
- Clearer messaging when attempting to generate PDF/A output with a Demo license.
- Provider enumeration failures in one connector no longer cascade and affect other connectors.
Designer usability updates:
- The "Parameters" folder has been renamed to "Input Parameters" for clarity.
- Added help buttons throughout the Designer, including the Connection Editor, Tag Editor, SQL Select Wizard, XPath Select Wizard, and JSON Path Select Wizard.
- Added first-time help guidance for all major tag types (ForEach, Out, Import, If/Else, Link, Bookmark, Set, Query, Switch/Case, Chart) and key tools (Choose Data, Connection Editor, Tag Editor, and the SQL/XPath/JSON Path wizards).
- Text, Number, and Date tags are now simply Out tags with preset properties, and Repeat, Column Expand, and Row Expand are now ForEach tags with preset properties, simplifying the tag model.
- Added a link to provider documentation directly from the Connection Editor.
API and engine improvements:
- New API to retrieve template names from the Fluent Engine.
- ProcessReport.setTimeout() is now production-ready in the Java Embedded Engine.
- Added support for cooperative cancellation via ProcessReport.abort() in the Java Embedded Engine.
- Preview generation from Fluent Manager can now optionally use your production key.
Bug Fixes
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Document generation and formatting:
- Fixed unexpected font changes in generated output.
- Fixed Table of Contents numbering starting at "0" instead of "1" in generated PDFs.
- Fixed paragraph numbers incorrectly appearing in document headers instead of the body.
- Fixed errors when generating PDF output.
- Fixed € (Euro) characters not displaying correctly in PDF output.
- Fixed extra page breaks and overlapping table/footer content.
- Fixed blank pages appearing in reports.
- Fixed errors generating PPTX output from Fluent Designer templates.
- Fixed barcode issues introduced in version 26.
- Fixed TOC page numbers not updating when a long input parameter changes the page count.
- Fixed an issue where DOCX to PDF/UA conversion failed UA compliance testing.
- Fixed a case where Color Underline warnings weren't cleared properly.
- Fixed missing content warnings appearing in PPTX-to-PDF conversions with no actual content issues.
- Fixed an issue where the End RowExpand tag didn't correctly capture an endif later in the row.
Tags and data handling:
- Fixed an issue with ForEach tags referencing an earlier ForEach.
- Fixed data disappearing when sorting was added to a ForEach.
- Fixed a NullReferenceException in Excel templates.
- Fixed an "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error in Tag Processor 2 and in v26 templates.
- Fixed an XLSX index-out-of-bounds exception.
- Fixed the Tag Editor not allowing users to update the data source on the Properties tab.
- Fixed CASE tag updates not saving after clicking "Save Tag."
- Fixed deleting a query in the Basic Tag Editor not being reflected in the Advanced Tag Editor.
- Fixed "Update Datasources" not working for data tags like ForEach (previously worked only for Databin).
Designer stability:
- Fixed a crash when switching the base graph in Designer.
- Fixed a crash when changing values in the PPT ribbon.
- Fixed an issue where double-clicking a node to set a selection and then clicking away would revert the change.
- Fixed the Connection Editor closing with the current document disappearing when there were no changes.
- Fixed an edge case where templates weren't populating the Import Template dialog correctly.
- Fixed the "Go to Tag" button not navigating to the correct tag after a tag error.
File-specific fixes:
- Fixed a specific template that errored out when outputting to .docx.
- Fixed an issue outputting to a specific file type that previously threw errors ("Your file must be saved using the PPTX or PPTM format").
Manager and platform fixes:
- Fixed template versioning issues on non-default stages.
- Fixed the Manager frontend's nginx configuration not forwarding protocol correctly.
- Fixed PostgreSQL compatibility issues with the RESTful engine in Manager.
- Fixed some entities not serializing correctly for Spring session JDBC storage.
- Fixed an issue uploading templates with dependencies from Designer to Manager.
- Fixed the Store and Admin Portal UIs incorrectly showing "deleted" subscriptions.
- Fixed the ability to select version and stage when generating a preview in Manager.
- Fixed an issue previewing a PPTX document with an XML data source in Manager.
- Fixed the Python RESTful client expecting a file path instead of raw bytes for the "data" parameter.
- Fixed needing to enter credentials twice to log into Manager.
Review the full details in the Release Notes.
