Release Notes

• Casual dependencies upgrades and alignment.

As you may have noticed, we have been pushing out many updates to our tools and libraries lately, so a summary of the key things you can gain by updating is in place.

Support for newer type firewalls (MITM)

New firewall setups are coming to many companies, so we had to be the bridge to get the open-source frameworks to work inside these protected networks. Tools and libraries have been updated, and we have documentation here and here.

VS Code extensions

Support for our new Python logging is now built into VS Code, and several smaller improvements and supports for Python developers have been added.

There is a dependency helper that highlights and helps you update your dependencies to new versions. Just hover over the dependencies, and you will see the versions available.

The full changelog is worth following if you want to keep up with the updates.

Setup Utility, Worker, and RCC

The latest version of Setup Utility adds new checks to identify potential blockers for Windows RDP setups. It adds a lot of new information coming from RCC diagnostics for the firewall setups and testing.

For the Worker, we would like to draw your attention to Cloud Workers specifically. Many are still running their processes on the older Ubuntu containers, so a kind reminder to update to the new Cloud Workers.

We have not seen any problems arising from this change, but switching to the new one has fixed a few cases. We also have the latest Worker (v7.1.3) in the Cloud Worker (early access), so you can always test the next upcoming Cloud Worker by using that one.

• Library RPA.PDF (#1102; rpaframework-pdf 7.3.0):
• Keywords HTML to PDF and Template HTML to PDF now support parameters margin and working_dir. Latter can be used to set directory for example image files referenced in the HTML content.
• Keyword HTML to PDF can be given a single HTML string to create single page PDF or list of HTML strings to create multi-page PDF.

• Add regular expression support for RPA.JavaAccessBridge library locators by updating java-access-bridge-wrapper package to the version 1.0.0.

  • Update selenium package to the version 4.13.0.

For the past three weeks, we have been working hard on finding a solution to easily use Python and open-source tools inside corporate networks that follow the pattern of man-in-the-middle or Transparent HTTPS firewalls.

Without going into the details, this is what has been causing the different SSL error cases. We've seen many companies switching or updating to this model as providers like PaloAlto, Sophos, Zscaler, etc. are all marketing this functionality.

The first version of a guiding document can be found in our docs-site. All of our templates are now also updated to the required levels.

👉 The call to action is: Update your dependencies This requires Python 3.10 and the specific version of pip that you can find in the docs and templates.

These updates enable Python implementations to use the OS-specific certificate store to validate HTTPS traffic. This should mean that the certificates provided by the firewall are valid, as it is standard practice to have IT update the certificate stores.

We've also worked hard to reduce the number of web domains you need to whitelist in your firewalls. For those using Selenium, the web drivers for the browsers now come via the robocorp.com domain, which cuts some six domains off the list.

In Setup Utility and RCC related to this we have added TLS checks to the diagnostics to help out in finding these cases.

We are not yet done, as there are still open-source tools and cases that do not enable us to fix all cases, but this is a big step forward.

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1091; rpaframework-core 11.2.0):
  • Display the used webdriver and browser versions in the logs. (#1078)
  • Support profile usage with Edge in IE mode as well. (#1079)
  • Warn when maximizing the browser in headless mode and offer help. (#1075)
• Reminder: You can disable webdriver-manager SSL checks during downloads by setting WDM_SSL_VERIFY=false in the environment.

• Library RPA.Cloud.Google (#1092; rpaframework-google 8.1.0): Add possibility to send HTML email by adding html parameter for Send Message keyword.

• Library RPA.Robocorp.Storage: Internal fix for the updated asset API upload URL and ability to set the RC_DISABLE_SSL env var in order to disable SSL checks when operating on assets.

• Library RPA.JavaAccessBridge (#1087): Fix problem with Select Window By Title keyword, which caused all but full title match to fail to select window successfully.

• Enables system certificate store usage with truststore automatic injection. Minimum versions for this to happen are Python 3.10.12 and pip 23.2.1. (#1083)
• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1084; rpaframework-core 11.1.0):
  • Fixes webdriver caching when attempting previously downloaded executable reuse and latest release version retrieval optimization.
  • Use Robocorp controlled secure sources for querying and downloading webdrivers. Base URL to whitelist: https://downloads.robocorp.com/ext/webdrivers/ – set RPA_EXTERNAL_WEBDRIVERS to any value if you want to default to the previously used external sources (#1080)
  • Ability to take into use a 64bit webdriver version for IE on a 64bit Windows system by setting RPA_ALLOW_64BIT_IE to any value. (by default the 32bit version is used as that’s the recommendation provided by Selenium)

• Library RPA.Cloud.Google (#1082; rpaframework-google 8.0.0):

• Add new keywords for Google Sheets

  • Copy spreadsheet
  • Create spreadsheet
  • Delete sheet
  • Generic spreadsheet batch update
  • Get all sheet values
  • Get spreadsheet basic information
  • Get spreadsheet details
  • Rename sheet
  • To column letter

• Repurposed keywords

  • Copy sheet (now will copy a sheet within a spreadsheet)
  • Create sheet (now will create a sheet within a spreadsheet)

⚠️ Breaking changes in the Sheets keywords. All actions/properties related to a whole spreadsheet will use spreadsheet name and sheet will be used to indicate a single sheet in a spreadsheet. This is to be consistent with Google API naming.

24 Aug 2023

• Library RPA.Cloud.Gmail (#1057; rpaframework-google 7.1.1):
• Fix mimetype handling in overall and for Excel documents in Send Message keyword. (#994)
• Improve token handling in authentication flow.

26.0.3 - 24 Aug 2023

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium: Properly show webdriver errors in case the initial default is not found in PATH.

26.0.2 - 24 Aug 2023

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1069): Use an already existing webdriver found in PATH if present. Only if such a default expected executable isn’t found, a newly cached one will be downloaded and used. (affects all supported browsers)

• General update on all packages (#950):

• All packages will be taking into use the latest robotframework version (6.1.1).

• The minimum Python version is set to 3.8.

• All new package versions are listed below.

• rpaframework-assistant 3.0.0 (additional release note included below)

• rpaframework-aws 5.3.0

• rpaframework-google 7.1.0

• rpaframework-openai 1.3.0

• rpaframework-pdf 7.2.0

• rpaframework-recognition 5.2.0

• rpaframework-windows 7.4.0

• Library RPA.Assistant (#1068; rpaframework-assistant 3.0.0):

• Fix Add Date Input validation and return value as Date object instead of a string.

• Add Python examples for every keyword.

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1059): Fix webdriver management and automation issues related to Edge in IE mode. Updated Portal example: https://robocorp.com/portal/robot/robocorp/example-ie-mode-edge

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1058):

• Fixed options passing with Firefox. (when a binary location is specified)

• General improvements to RPA.*.Application libraries (#1055):

• All: Better error handling (COM -> runtime), improved generic docs and troubleshooting guiding, fixed document closing (if was closed already) and app open/quit management, improved warnings and logging, file paths are tested for existence when operating on documents and raise errors in their absence.

• Excel:

• Removed deprecated parameter tabname from Add New Sheet. (use sheetname)

• Save Excel As raises when there’s no workbook open. (use Open Workbook first)

• Outlook:

• Removed deprecated keywords: Send Message (use Send Email) and Wait For Message (use Wait For Email).

⚠️ Breaking changes in the Application libraries listed above.

• Library RPA.DocumentAI.Base64AI (#719):

• Fix signature matching API.

• Better documentation and errors.

• Library RPA.PDF (#1051; rpaframework-pdf 7.1.6):

• Make the reader parameter optional in the Save PDF keyword.

• Fix PDF fields retrieval, value decoding and setting. (#872)

• Library RPA.Salesforce (#1003): Add keywords Auth with connected app and Execute APEX.
• Library RPA.Email.ImapSmtp (#1054): Fix handling of To, Cc and Bcc fields in Send Message keyword.

• Library RPA.Robocorp.Storage (robocorp-storage 0.3.2): Fix bug when retrieving assets containing spaces in their names.

• Library RPA.Browser.Selenium (#1035; rpaframework-core 11.0.5): Fix chromedriver download issues with Chrome 115 and over.