Knowledge Article: Best Practices for Using MoversSuite

 

This knowledge article helps you go through some of the best practices for using MoversSuite and how you can avoid some common mistakes for a smoother experience.

 

1.  Avoid Invalid Characters

 

One of the very common user mistakes that has been recorded, is the use of certain characters which the application considers to be invalid. For example, using an apostrophe in an address is allowed in MoversSuite but because MoversSuite is integrated with other disparate systems, this special character can cause issues.

 

Similarly, in the Document Management module, when there is a comma in the name of a file, it can not be downloaded from the MoversSuite API Service. In fact, the comma becomes a "%2c" in the URL (the URL encoding for a comma), which does not allow you to open the URL for downloading the document. For example, this link, http://server/api/documents/1/Smith, Bob.jpg?download=true would be redirected to http://server/api/documents/1/Smith%2c Bob.jpg?download=true stopping it from opening.

 

Commonly Used Invalid Characters

 

Following are some of the commonly used invalid characters along with their reason for prohibition in Windows filenames and MoversSuite.

 

Character

Reason for Prohibition

/

Used as a path name component separator in Unix-like, Windows, and Amiga systems. (For as long as the SwitChar setting is set to '/ ', the DOS COMMAND.COM shell would consume it as a switch character, but DOS and Windows themselves always accept it as a separator on API level.)

The big solidus (Unicode code point U+29F8) is permitted in Windows filenames.

\

Used as the default path name component separator in DOS, OS/2 and Windows (even if the SwitChar is set to '-'; allowed in Unix filenames, see Note 1).

The big reverse solidus (U+29F9) is permitted in Windows filenames.

?

Used as a wildcard in Unix, Windows and AmigaOS; marks a single character. Allowed in Unix filenames, see Note 1.

The glottal stop ʔ (U+0294), the interrobang ‽ (U+203D), the inverted question mark ¿ (U+00BF) and the double question mark (U+2047) are allowed in all filenames.

%

Used as a wildcard in RT-11; marks a single character. Not special on Windows.

*

Used as a wildcard in Unix, DOS, RT-11, VMS and Windows. Marks any sequence of characters (Unix, Windows, DOS) or any sequence of characters in either the basename or extension (thus "*.*" in DOS means "all files". Allowed in Unix filenames, see Note.

See Star (glyph) for many asterisk-like characters allowed in filenames.

:

Used to determine the mount point / drive on Windows; used to determine the virtual device or physical device such as a drive on AmigaOS, RT-11 and VMS; used as a pathname separator in classic Mac OS. Doubled after a name on VMS, indicates the DECnet nodename (equivalent to a NetBIOS (Windows networking) hostname preceded by "\\".). Colon is also used in Windows to separate an alternative data stream from the main file.

The letter colon (U+A789) and the ratio symbol (U+2236) are permitted in Windows filenames. In the Segoe UI font, used in Windows Explorer, the glyphs for the colon and the letter colon are identical.

|

Designates software pipelining in Unix, DOS and Windows; allowed in Unix filenames, see Note 1. The dental click ǀ (U+01C0) is permitted in Windows filenames.

The single quotes ' (U+0027) and ’ (U+2019) and curved double quotes “ (U+201C) and ” (U+201D) are permitted anywhere in filenames, *see Note 1.

Used to redirect input, allowed in Unix filenames, *see Note.

Used to redirect output, allowed in Unix filenames, *see Note.

.

Folder names cannot end with a period in Windows, though the name can end with a period followed by a whitespace character such as a non-breaking space. Elsewhere, the period is allowed, but the last occurrence will be interpreted to be the extension separator in VMS, DOS, and Windows. In other OSes, usually considered as part of the filename, and more than one period (full stop) may be allowed. In Unix, a leading period means the file or folder is normally hidden.

,

Allowed, but treated as separator by the command line interpreters COMMAND.COM and CMD.EXE on DOS and Windows.

;

Allowed, but treated as separator by the command line interpreters COMMAND.COM and CMD.EXE on DOS and Windows.

=

Allowed, but treated as separator by the command line interpreters COMMAND.COM and CMD.EXE on DOS and Windows.

Allowed, but the space is also used as a parameter separator in command line applications. This can be solved by quoting the entire filename.

 

NOTE (*):

While they are allowed in Unix file and folder names, most Unix shells require specific characters such as spaces, <, >, |, \, and sometimes :, (, ), &, ;, #, as well as wildcards such as ? and *, to be quoted or escaped:

 

five\ and\ six\<seven (example of escaping)

'five and six<seven' or "five and six<seven" (examples of quoting)

 

2.  Setting the Display in MoversSuite

 

A general problem usually reported by MoversSuite’s customers (using Windows 10) is that they get to see a weird display in MoversSuite. It is usually because the screen scaling is not set to 100%. EWS Group recommends that if you experience scaling problems with the MoversSuite application keep the size of your application to 100% and change the resolution as desired.

 

On Windows machines, you can verify and/or update the display settings as follows:

1.    Right-click somewhere on your desktop and select Display Settings

2.    Set the Change the size of text, apps, and other items to 100%.

3.    Click on Apply to save the changes.

4.    Click on Advanced display settings.

5.    Make changes to the Resolution as needed.

6.    Click on Apply to save the changes.

Close the screen by pressing the X in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

 

The following blogpost lets you set the display to 100% scaling:

 

https://www.lifewire.com/using-windows-10-display-scaling-4587328

 

3.  Installing the Latest Windows Updates

 

Despite allowing your system to install automatic windows updates, there is always room for some minor software updates which can be done by the users, manually. You can verify that the latest Windows Updates have been installed in your system by visiting the following link:

 

https://carleton.ca/its/help-centre/manually-check-and-install-windows-updates/

 

RELATED TOPICS:

Document Management

MoversSuite API Service