PowerWF for VMWare 0.9 Release Notes

What's New

0.9.3630.29986

Enhancements

Autodiscovery/import of PowerShell Modules and Snapins
New Start Page
added typeeditor to CmdExec
output window now automatically scrolls to the end of output as text is added
when activities are renamed their bindings are now automatically reset to reflect the new name

Bugfixes

fixed, toolbox search results initially selected item not draggable
replaced pack manager
fixed splash screen framed incorrectly when large fonts turned on
fixed "save as", project wasn't being renamed
fixed "more than 1 sequential workflow" error message; "save as" not updating changing xoml and xoml.cs
changed "solution" references to "project" for naming consistency
fixed if a project was opened before project pane made visible it didn't get loaded
removed files from the MRU when they're deleted from the disk
fixed New Project-Browse-click "OK", the New Workflow Project window was misclosed
fixed changing workflow documents setting was not permanently affecting the workflow documents location

0.9.3608.25185

Enhancements

In addition to deploying to Cmdlets and Snapins workflows can now be deployed as Modules
Added 'Documentation\PowerWF Studio - Getting Started.pdf'
Added File/Directory Compress/Decompress activities to FileSystem
Changed default workflow location from "Documents\My Workflows" to "Documents\Workflows"
Redesigned deployment dialogs
Support for alternate Windows display modes (magnified, increased font size, etc)
PowerCLI activities now detect whether a connect-viserver is missing from the workflow; automatically adds it
'Deploy to Toolbox Activity' can now extend existing Activity Packs in addition to creating new packs
Activity packs no longer installed via MSI cluttering up 'Add/Remove Programs'
Shrunk installer; PowerWF Studio for Psh 60M -> 33M, PowerWF Studio for VMWare 67M -> 37M
Shift-Arrow in embedded shell now selects text for copy/paste

Bugfixes

added 'Advanced' properties to to GetPerfmon activity
fixed HttpPost - input parameters weren't editable
renamed agent service to "PowerWF Workflow Scheduler", shortcut "powerwf"
fixed 'DefaultValue' property of the exported workflow parameters
added dropdown list of available services on all system service activities in the windows management activity library
fixed exception in SetServiceStartMode activity
fixed exception when running TaskEditor on XP
made FTPGet,SCPGet,SFTP activity DestinationPath property more lenient
removed specious dll dependencies from the activity libraries
fixed GetRSS -> DataGrid columns
fixed hang on FileSystem.CreateTempFile activity
fixed auto-binding problems with File Write activities; e.g. GetDirectories -> WriteLines
fixed parsing/handling of line-continuation characters in the embedded shell (ref: http://halr9000.com/article/473)
fixed autobinding on datagrid inside an if-else activity
fixed AssemblyResolver not finding PowerCLI Dlls when it isn't installed in $env:ProgramFiles
fixed When using Windows 7 with fonts set to Medium 125% splash screen is messed up
fixed don't bind to empty values on sibling windows connection activities
fixed Deploy to toolbox refreshes the toolbox even if no changes
fixed packinstaller plugin 'remove' isn't working with imported plugins
fixed apply the new cache activity updates to windows collector caching mechanism
fixed Error compiling for Cmdlet Deploy w/ verb Put
fixed when creating a workflow, Studio always says the project exists, even if it doesn't
fixed warning on embedded shell when running on XP

0.9.3586.7390

Enhancements

Bugfix; Failed to open existing scripts unless Psh Console enabled
Bugfix; Failed to run PowerCLI workflows if PowerCLI installed outside of $env:ProgramFiles
Bugfix; VIX new workflow wizard not displaying slashes in username textbox
'Runspace' activity is no longer required when running PowerShell activities
CacheData activity enhancement: added support to show both adds and removes, added 'HasChanged' property
Improved PowerShell interpreter

0.9.3579.33590

User Registration moved up into the installer
Toaster bugfix: input xaml escaped
New Column Selector + column re-ordering on several destination activities

0.9.3572.16911

Enhancements

new runtime dependency checker for activity packs
eliminates the need for 2 different versions of PowerWF for PowerShell v1 and v2
new embedded PowerShell
improved PowerShell Parser
combined PowerWF Studio for Desktop and PowerWF Studio for DataCenter into a single download

Known Issues

The parser cannot interpret partial property names. So where PowerShell reads both "sort -desc" and "sort -descending", the interpreter only knows how to parse the latter
The parser cannot interpret unnamed properties when they come after the named properties. So where PowerShell reads both "select -first 5 name,cpu" and "select name,cpu -first 5", the interpreter only knows how to parse the latter.
On embedded shell startup we see this warning: Error loading the extended type data file: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core, C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\types.ps1xml(2879) : Error in type "System.Security.AccessControl.ObjectSecurity": Exception: Cannot convert the "Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SecurityDescriptorCommandsBase" value of type "System.String" to type "System.Type".

0.9.3560.17995

Snapin deployment now includes an option to generate/publish a module
Interpreter improvements: functions and while loops now parsed correctly.

0.9.3540.16613

Improved dialog when auto-request for serial number fails
More minor UAC fixes

0.9.3539.39378

UAC FIX: import/remove from toolbox requires elevated privileges
UAC FIX: new import folder creation requires elevated privs
UAC FIX: registering dlls requires elevated privs
UAC FIX: registry access to localmachine hive to get product version set to read-only
add shield icons where appropriate

0.9.3526.29938

Visualization activities now do their own bootstrapping

0.9.3525.6769

Improved type provider; makes the compiler more lenient
bugfix; When the new 'Import' directory was missing an exception was being thrown

0.9.3524.12100

Deep third-party integration with PowerScripter

0.9.3523.29754

Activity Template Compiler added
API made more lenient, EditWorkflow takes either XOML or DLL

0.9.3517.31824

powershell runtime: better thunking into Nullable<DateTime> and Hashtable parameter types
fix bug in packinstaller
interpreter: added full support for using case-insensitive command parameter names
added .Net Api

0.9.3516.20486

improved intepreter performance
added If,ElseIf,Else to PowerShell activities and Interpreter
added ExecScript and Interpreter fall-through

0.9.3513.19465

powershell runtime: better thunking into Nullable<DateTime> and Hashtable parameter types
fix bug in packinstaller - copying imported dlls into the wrong directory, wasn't creating/modifying plugin manifest
interpreter: added full support for using case-insensitive command parameter names

0.9.3512.31225

PowerShell Interpreter Improvements
fixed Get-Variable, Set-Variable 'Name' property mishandling
fixed multi-line group block as parameters

0.9.3511.21462

PowerShell Interpreter Improvements; Get-Variable
Improved ToPerfmon, ToWMI tolerance for complex data types

0.9.3508.39413

PowerShell Interpreter added
- all v2 commands
- named and unnamed parameters
- variable expressions
- pipelines
- comments
- multi-line parsing
PowerShell and PowerCLI activity properties and runtime improved. Parameters are now loosely typed at design time and interpreted at runtime for greater workflow design flexability.

0.9.3484.25848

Fixed Tabs showing up in output window.
Enabled write-host to display text inside designer during play.
PowerCLI Activity Get-View improved.

0.9.3484.15480

No notes.

0.9.3481.23943

Fixed pervasive bug. PowerShell Cmdlets with parameter name 'Name' not being set correctly.

0.9.3478.28958

The footprint of the bits generated for deployment (i.e. 'Deploy to Snapin') was drastically reduced. Previously the directory where the bits were deployed were populated by every library dependency. As of this build a small bootstrap is compiled into the runtime binary that finds the required dependencies in the runtime environment (querying the registry or searching Devfarm and 3rd party directories when required).
When PowerShell derived activities are dropped onto a canvas with no RuntimeSequence one is created for them.