Skip to main content
Documentation & User Guides | Fotoware

Planning an update from FotoWeb 7.0 to 8.0

Important points to consider before migrating FotoWeb 7.0 to version 8.0

When updating a FotoWeb 7.0 to version 8.0, several concepts are different. Make sure you study this document carefully to understand the implications of migrating to FotoWeb 8.0.

 

FotoWeb 8.0 requires faster hardware

Before commencing an update to FotoWeb 8.0, study the system requirements of all the affected FotoWare products in your system.

FotoWeb 8.0 is a major leap from FotoWeb 7.0 in many ways and requires more power, memory, and I/O to operate properly.

One main difference in memory requirements for FotoWeb 8.0 is that it requires an additional 1GB of memory per 100.000 assets. An easy way to tell if a system has sufficient memory when running FotoWeb 8.0 is to check the physical memory usage in the Windows Task Manager. An aid to getting the system specifications right before updating can be found in the Example configurations section of the FotoWeb system requirements.

FotoWeb 8.0 requires Index Manager 8.0

We recommend installing Index Manager 8.0 before updating FotoWeb to version 8.0.

 

Mention any Disclaimer, limitations

SSO with Active Directory has been deprecated

Note that SSO against on-premise Active Directory is deprecated and may not work in many scenarios. We now recommend using ADFS and SAML authentication.
 

Local file system archives are not supported

FotoWeb 8.0 can only connect to Index Manager archives. It cannot directly browse a folder in the file system.

A single Index Manager can no longer serve two FotoWeb servers

In version 7.0, it was possible to have a single Index Manager server handle indexes and search processing for more than one FotoWeb server. This is no longer possible with version 8.0, as Index Manager syncs metadata exclusively with a single connected FotoWeb.

The other way works fine: It is possible to have several Index Manager servers deliver content to a single FotoWeb.

Metadata views replace metadata editors

What does this imply?

Existing Metadata editors in FotoWeb 7.0 are deprecated. FotoWeb 8.0 uses metadata views, which are collections of fields with permissions that control how they behave from a user's perspective. As metadata editors from 7.0 are not automatically migrated, metadata views must be set up from scratch. Also, all archives will be initially disabled until a metadata view has been set.

For information on defining a metadata set, see Creating a metadata set.

Watermarks are no longer set at the user level

Watermarks are no longer set at the user level. This requires a revision of the status of watermark application after an update to version 8.0.

For more information about the implementation of watermarks in FotoWeb 8.0, see Watermark settings explained.

Albums need to be migrated

What does this imply?

Albums are completely redone in FotoWeb 8.0.

An album migration tool is available that will convert your FotoWeb 7.0 albums so that they can be found and used in FotoWeb 8.0.
In FotoWeb 7.0, a Microsoft SQL Express database is used to store albums and album settings. The tool will copy albums, and album assets that are linked to an index manager index, and import them to FotoWeb 8.0. Note that assets that have been added to an album from a local disk archive will not be migrated since this in unsupported in FotoWeb 8.0 - see above remark on local file system archives.

Requirements for the album migration tool

Before running the migration tool, make sure that:

  • FotoWeb 8.0 is running.
  • You don't have any albums created in FotoWeb 8.0.

Downloading and using the album migration tool

  1. Contact Support to get access to the tool.
  2. Log on to the Windows Server console with an account that has read access in the SQL database.
  3. Run the migration tool by double clicking on the AlbumMigration.exe file. A console window will open, and when the window closes the migration has finished. Normally this operation only takes a few seconds.
  4. Verify in FotoWeb that your albums have been successfully imported.

Album permissions are set per group in FotoWeb 8.0

In FotoWeb 8.0, album permissions are set per group. Administrators should review group album permissions to ensure users can use their albums properly.

Quicklists are replaced by taxonomies

FotoWeb 8.0 uses taxonomies to deliver predefined content for metadata input. A tool exists that allows the conversion of existing quicklists to taxonomies.

The quicklist migration tool will convert your quicklist files into taxonomy fields with the values from each file. The quicklist files are flat, so the resulting taxonomies will have a flat structure.

Notes on the quicklist migration tool

  • Values that contain %%INS macros will be skipped. Only text values are imported.
  • Illegal characters (such as /\#%,?+) will be replaced by _.
  • Duplicate values within the same field on a site will be skipped.
  • After running the quicklist migration tool, re-run the FotoWeb Upgrade Wizard to initialize the changes.
Downloading and using the quicklist migration tool
  1. Contact Support to get access to the tool.
  2. Before running the migration tool, make sure FotoWeb 8.0 is running.
  3. When FotoWeb was updated to version 8.0 a backup of the existing quicklists was created in the site base folder. Unpack the contents of backup-MetadataSets-DATE.zip into the Site Settings\SITENAME\Metadata Sets folder.
  4. Run the migration tool by double clicking QuickListMigration.exe file. This will open up a dialog box showing you the FotoWeb 7.0 metadata sets that each typically contain a number of quicklists. Select the metadata sets with the quiclists you want to migrate to a taxonomy and click the migration button. In the lower part of the tool you will see any output from the migration. Run the tool once, and set up taxonomies for an archive to see any values added to those taxonomy fields.
  5. Rerun the FotoWeb Upgrade Wizard or manually delete the Site Settings\SITENAME\Metadata Sets folder.

Destinations are replaced by Actions

FotoWeb 8.0 uses Actions, which offer far superior functionality. These will have to be set up from scratch. Existing destinations from FotoWeb 7.0 are not migrated.

Interface customizations will not be carried over

Any user interface customizations made to your FotoWeb 7.0 site will be discarded.
FotoWeb 8.0 has two new interfaces, the Main and the Pro.

The main interface can be styled with CSS, but does not offer UI tweaking like the 7.0 templates did. It is also possible to add custom contact information, a privacy policy, etc, to the site using a Markdown editor included in the site configuration.

To add custom content to either interface consider using User Interface Integrations to add custom content to either interface.

Search trees are replaced by taxonomies

In FotoWeb 8.0 taxonomies offer much the same functionality as search trees for archive navigation and content filtering in FotoWeb 7.0.

SQL server is not a requirement in version 8 if logging is not required

SQL server is now optional and is only used for system logs. If no logging is required, a SQL server is not required.

Migrating from FotoWeb 7 and Archive Agent

The FotoWeb 7 Archive Agent API is still available in FotoWeb 8 and is included in the Enterprise edition of FotoWeb. However, it is deprecated, so any integrations made using the Archive Agent should be redone using the new, more powerful REST API. This REST API is licensed separately. (Read more about FotoWeb Licensing.)

You can migrate your existing integrations based on the Archive Agent API to the new REST API, though this will require updating the API code and changing the authentication mechanisms. Existing integrations made using the Archive Agent interface in version 7 will continue to work in version 8 until the Archive Agent interface is deemed End of Life. We strongly recommend changing any dependencies on the Archive Agent ASAP.

Note that authentication mechanisms for Archive Agent may have changed; learn more about that in User Authentication with the Archive Agent APISeveral permissions have now been moved from individual users to the group level

These permissions are affected:

User registration/signup in FotoWeb 8.0

The user signup functionality has been completely redone in FotoWeb 8.0. Learn all about the improvements.

Video support is completely redone and much improved in FotoWeb 8.0

FotoWeb 7.0 supports video playback using browser plugins like Quicktime, Silverlight, and Flash. These technologies are discontinued in FotoWeb 8.0 and will gradually stop working in FotoWeb 7.0 as browsers deprecate plugin functionality.

FotoWeb 8.0 has an audio/video transcoder built in, making virtually all video formats playback in browsers without requiring additional plugins. The new transcoder is far superior, works on all browsers and devices, and is future-proof as it can transcode most formats into something that will be playable in the future.

FotoWeb can also be licensed with an additional audio/video module, which supports key frame extraction and navigation, and advanced playback controls.

FotoWeb 8 uses a global folder for locales and templates

Starting with FotoWeb 8, FotoWeb uses global locale and template files from the Server Settings folder rather than the per-site files from Site Settings\SITENAME as was the case with FotoWeb 7. This may affect some sites where text is customized using locale files.

What's needed if using customized locale files or templates?

Customization of this kind is generally not supported in FotoWeb 8.0.

However, you can still have a Locales and/or Templates folder in the Site Settings\SITENAME folder for individual sites. If this folder exists, then it will be used instead of the global one, and it can be customized.

Every time FotoWeb is updated, this folder will be deleted, and a backup will be created as a ZIP file. You have to restore the changes you made in the locale files and maybe merge them with changes made by FotoWare in the new release. If customization was done to fix a bug without waiting for a hotfix, and the bug has been resolved in the new version, then nothing needs to be done.

This is not much different from what it was before, except in older version of FotoWeb, the folder was not deleted but overwritten with the default, global locale files. Either way, an update of FotoWeb restores all customization to the default, so practically, nothing has changed.

If a new site is deployed, it will no longer have a Locales and a Templates folder by default. You can create one by copying the global Server Settings\Locales or Server Settings\Resource Templates folder to the site folder.