What's new

Version 3.60

April 26th, 2023

  • Improved Support for Executable Actions
    If you specify a local executable as a failure action, you can now specify a full command line including arguments in a single command.

  • Updated to .NET 472
    Updated to a more recent version of .NET to account for some OS interaction issues with Windows 10+.

  • Fixed Installer and Download Links
    Fixed download links on the Web Site and in the application to point to right download location. Installer has been updated to properly place desktop, start menu and and uninstall links.

  • Added support for HTTP Verbs on requests
    Added support for all HTTP Verbs in addition to previous GET and POST operations only.

Version 3.50

December 10th, 2013

  • Updated the Web UI to more modern interface
    Updated the Web application to use a more user friendly UI. Fixed a few small UI related bugs in the Web interface. The Web interface can now also more reliably start and stop the Web Monitor Windows service.

  • Added Chocolatey Installation
    You can now install Help Builder through Chocolatey by using "cinst WestwindWebMonitor" if you have Chocolatey installed. Chocolatey is a great tool for easily installing a host of Windows system, utility and developer tool installations. For more info on Chocolatey see: http://chocolatey.org/.

  • Fixed various installer bugs
    Fixed issue with 64 bit installs failing on first startup.

Version 3.43

Feb. 20th, 2011

  • Add Option to ignore Certificate Errors on HTTP Requests
    Added a global configuration option - IgnoreCertificateErrors - that will ignore certificate errors on HTTP requests to the server. This option is global due to some restrictions in the runtime environment so it has to be applied to all sites rather than to individual sites.

  • Updated to .NET 4.0
    To improve performance and provide better startup suppport and running off a network the codebase has been moved over to .NET 4.0. This should allow launching Web Monitor off a network share now without any special configuration.

  • Small Bug Fixes
    Fixed various issues in the Web Administration interface related to invalid updates. Fixed TreeView display issue where the display would scroll incorrectly. Improved display for large lists of items.

Version 3.40

Mar. 17th, 2010

  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes Fix various bugs in log entry creation code that would write duplicate log entries. Update Web Service Installation to more smoothly create IIS site. Fixed Action failure error reporting so failed actions now report failures into the log file for better tracing.

Version 3.40

Nov. 19th, 2009

  • Add support for providing HTTP Headers You can now specify HTTP headers for HTTP requests which allows more flexibility to monitor custom applications and Web Services that might require special headers in order to return active responses. Added new topic to demonstrate how to monitor Web Services.

  • Add support for sending emails using SSL/TLS As more and more email servers require use of secure connections, the Web Monitor mail client now allows using SSL/TSL in the mail server configuration.

  • Native support for 64 Bit Machines Web Monitor now installs as a native 64 bit operation under x64 versions of Windows.

  • Several small Bug Fixes Fixed an issue in the installer that made the application installer fail to load. Fixed up bug with the registration form that caused denial of access on some machines even when given correct registration code. Fixed a startup bug that erroneously polled sites immediately after startup instead of waiting for the initial timeout. Fixed a bug in email logging. Removed manifest file which potentially causes problems on some locked down environments. Fixed tree display issue with focus not properly selecting nodes on right clicks. Fixed field save where data of the current input field might not be saved in some situations. Updated Web Service.

Version 3.35

Jan 10th, 2009

  • Email Logging Added Added support for an email log file that can be used to trouble shoot email issues should email sending fail. The email code itself has also been updated to fix a few connection level issues.

  • Updated Web Interface Updated the Web Interface to bring on par with recent additions of features in the front end. Ensured that Web UI renders well with Mozilla style browsers.

  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes Fixed but with sending email to mobile devices (emailAddress with * at end). Several issues related to occasional email crashes are fixed. Added additional top level error trapping and logging. Added additional 'fail-safe' error trapping and logging features that should avoid rare crashes that previously occurred.

Version 3.30

Oct 4th, 2008

  • Codebase moved to .NET 2.0 Web Monitor now uses .NET 2.0. Internally this has allowed for some small user interface improvements and better startup performance and smaller memory footprint. Both the desktop/service application and the Web application have been moved up to .NET 2.0.

  • Terminal Services Detection Web Monitor can now detect when running under Terminal Services and present a less resource intensive user interface by reducing the UI color scheme used.

  • Many minor bug fixes and UI Enhancements This update includes many minor tweaks and fixes in the user interface and logging functionality.

  • Updated Support for Regular Expressions in Content Search You can now use Regular Expressions for searching for content inside of the returned HTTP response. There are a number of options on how to search the content either using plain strings or RegEx expressions, and using either matches or non-matches.

  • Added support for Failure Treshold and Retry Web Monitor now allows you to set a failure treshold, so that if a request fails, the request is retried in a specified number of seconds. Only if the second request fails is a notification sent out or action executed. First failures are marked as tentative and are logged but don't cause notification and actions to occur.

  • Sorted Site List The SiteList now sorts into Alphabetical order by default. Inactive items are sorted to the bottom. In addition, an optional SortOrder can be set in the configuration file to prioritize sites. A sort order value greater than 0 overrides alphabetic order and sorts higher values to the top. A new Site Sorter dialog has also been added.

  • Additional AddIn Events We've added a couple of new AddIn Events: OnValidateResponse() which can be used to implement custom HTTP response checking to fail or approve a request and OnSendMail() which can be used to override how emails are sent or to activate notification via some completely different mechanism.

  • Updates to the User Interface There have been a number of enhancements to the user interface of the Site Manager. The New Site entry form is no longer modal, and you can now immediately test a Site from this form. The POST data form has been updated to be easier to use and several context menu options have been added in various places to make common tasks more easily accessible.

  • Web Server Front End Configuration Simplified We've simplified the Web Server configuration in order to run the ASP.NET front end to the Web Monitor Service. The Web Front End allows you to edit sites and configurations and view the log files via an ASP.NET based Web front end.

Version 3.20

May 22nd, 2008

  • .NET add-in support You can now easily extend Help Builder's functionality by creating an Add-in in .NET. The add-in can listen to events or be activated from the Web Monitor as a straight executed extension.

  • Added support for POST Request data for Site checks You can now add POST data for requests hitting a site. POST data can be specified via the Site configuration entry form and you can specify a raw POST buffer and content type.

  • User Interface Enhancements The user interface has been redesigned with new menu controls and a more consistent feel throughout the application. Most options now are hotkeyed and choices are generally more visible and obvious.

  • Logging enhancements The Log view has been enhanced to provide a more visually pleasing look as well as providing additional information. Every failure captures full response data now. The Error Log now allows viewing error detail which shows the full response data as well as the full error information and expected result all in a single HTML result form.

  • Email Port support for Mail Server Previously it was not possible to configure the email port for the server. You can now use mailserver.net:2525 style syntax to configure mail server ports other than 25.

Version 3.0

  • Windows Service Support You can now run Web Monitor as a Windows Service. You can install/uninstall the service through the configuration interface and start and stop the service. Your options for running Web Monitor at startup now are: No Auto Launch, Launch in Windows Taskbar (interactive), Windows Service (no User Interface). The service installs/uninstalls based on these options.

  • Much improved Logging Web Monitor now creates two logs - an error event log, which logs only Site errors and failures, and an optional detail log which logs every single request and its response. Both logs now use standard XML files that can be easily parsed and imported and be viewed over the Web. There is also a new Log Viewer that lets you quickly browse and administer the logging activity.

  • Web Monitor Web Interface Web Monitor can now be completely accessed remotely through a Web Interface. In combination with the Windows Service you can now change default and site configuration options remotely and start and stop the monitoring service. You can also view the error and detail logs remotely to get a quick glance of activity of the monitor. The configuration form now includes an auto-configuration option that configures the Web interface with no-touch configuration right through the Web interface.

  • Reduced Memory Footprint In this version we've reduced the memory footprint of Web Monitor considerably. A typical logging session now runs at around 4-6megs of memory usage most of the time for the Windows Service and around 5-10 megs for the desktop application.

  • Web Monitor API improvements The Web Monitor API has been separated out of the main Web Monitor application so you can now call directly into this API as to perform logging operations if you choose.

  • HTTP Check optimizations There have been a number of tweaks and tuning operations to make the process of checking the site and reporting errors smoother in the User Interface. A number of little UI bugs have been ironed out as well. All of this results in a much cleaner and smoother operation with less impact on the environment.

© West Wind Technologies, 2023 • Updated: 04/26/23
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