MICROGDS 8.0.3 RELEASE NOTES January 2006 ============================ MicroGDS 8.0.3 contains a number of fixes. It is provided as a patch to your MicroGDS 8.0 installation. The patch will upgrade any of MicroGDS 8.0, 8.0.1, and 8.0.2. It will not work on a machine that does not already have 8.0 installed; nor will it work on a machine which has already had MicroGDS 8.0.3, or any later patch, installed. It should not be used on the Japanese version of MicroGDS. This readme document is cumulative, that is, it documents all changes since MicroGDS 8.0. The changes which are new since MicroGDS 8.0.2 are in a section below. PROBLEMS WITH MSP FILE EXTENSION -------------------------------- The supplied .msp file is a Microsoft Installer Patch. We have encountered some machines where the .msp file type has been set to "Microsoft Paint", so double-clicking MGDS8to803.msp has started up a paint program! If this happens, run the patch installer by typing the command: msiexec /p mgds8to803.msp FRENCH AND GERMAN LANGUAGE SUPPORT ---------------------------------- MicroGDS 8.0.2 contains German language support, and MicroGDS 8.0.3 adds French language support. Users of French and German who have previously run an English version of MicroGDS 8.0 on their computers, and then saved Settings, are likely to find that registry entries clash and cause a problem. The workround is to use regedit to delete the product specific keys before installing MicroGDS 8.0.3, that is, delete one of: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Informatix\MicroGDS\MicroGDS Compact 8.0 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Informatix\MicroGDS\MicroGDS Compact3D 8.0 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Informatix\MicroGDS\MicroGDS Plus 8.0 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Informatix\MicroGDS\MicroGDS Pro 8.0 By default, the MicroGDS installer will install the appropriate language libraries based on your computer's language setting. However, if the language is not recognised or MicroGDS is being installed by a user with a different language setting, the default behaviour can be overridden by running the installation from the command line. For example: msiexec /i "D:\mgds8to803.msp" LANGUAGECODE=xx replacing the xx with FR for the French version, DE for the German version, and EN for the English version. If you are patching an installed version of MicroGDS 8.0 and find the wrong language has been installed, you will need to remove the MicroGDS installation and install from the command line as above. EDUCATIONAL LICENCES -------------------- After applying the patch, users with educational licences will have to reset their licence details. To do this: Log in as Administrator Start MicroGDS On the licence dialog box, change the licence type to Educational (e.g. Compact,Educational) Click OK Exit from MicroGDS PROJECT TEMPLATES ----------------- File->Preferences->Multi-user allows you to add or remove templates from the set available when creating new projects. If you have removed or replaced either of the two templates supplied as standard with MicroGDS, upgrading to 8.0.2 will undo your changes. You will need to repeat the changes. READING DWG FILES ----------------- Internally, MicroGDS uses a toolkit supplied by OpenDWG to read DWG files. New releases of this toolkit become available from time to time. When MicroGDS 8.0 was released, we incorporated two different versions of the OpenDWG toolkit. The later version was needed for AutoCAD 2004 support; the earlier version was retained for other AutoCAD versions as it had received wider field testing. Since version 8.0 was released, some customers have provided us with DWG files which crash the older version of the toolkit but work with the newer version. In version 8.0.1 we have therefore provided a "back door" mechanism which allows you to instruct MicroGDS to always use the newer toolkit when reading DWG files. If you experience a crash when reading a DWG file and would like to try the mechanism, please contact us for further instructions. IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES BETWEEN MICROGDS 8.0.2 AND MICROGDS 8.0.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------- MicroGDS 8.0.3 includes support for the French language. We have identified and fixed certain circumstances when MicroGDS could crash due to a timing issue between the main program and the separate threads for drawing and snapping. All known reports of this problem occurred when running a Cadlink application. Another problem has been resolved which could occur in a linestyle, charstyle, lightstyle, or material combo box when entering full width Hiragana or Katakana Japanese characters. IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES BETWEEN MICROGDS 8.0.1 AND MICROGDS 8.0.2 ---------------------------------------------------------------- The API function CadCurPriBreak could cause MicroGDS to crash. Very small black symbols are now correctly drawn as black dots. Linestyle fills in colours other than "Neutral" now export correctly to AutoCAD. Upside-down text, drawn in a phase with a charstyle override, now export successfully to DWG format. Filled linestyles with offsets now display correctly within a mirrored instance. SVG export now handles mirrored raster photos correctly. Rolling the mouse wheel to zoom in or out did not work in some locations when working with a rotated window. Rotated True Type Text, drawn on a faded phase, could be drawn in a slightly incorrect position and/or incorrectly clipped. Construct Graphics from Photo, when used on sectioned 3D models, could cause a crash under some circumstances. The behaviour of offset and thickened lines at vertices where the line primitive "doubles back on itself" has been improved. IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES BETWEEN MICROGDS 8.0 AND MICROGDS 8.0.1 -------------------------------------------------------------- MySQL (using the ODBC driver) now works with external attributes. Saving and re-opening in XML format could alter the file Origin. Oracle External attributes can now return a summation result. Output space styles could appear different between "printer rasterises" and "mgds rasterises". Construct>Revolve could create "negative" solids. Plotting could fail if the drawing filename was between 61 and 68 characters long. Using Backspace in the Trim command could sometimes cause a crash. Exporting a Project to a MAN file did not preserve database links. The Environ program sometimes didn't work with flyout toolbars. The origin of the TICK symbol (197) in SYMBOL.CV7 was slightly displaced. The "Trace Spaghetti" command could crash in some conditions. Print file size became very large when drawing hidden line views with View->Hide Options->Show Smooth Edges->Partial. An external attribute that linked to itself could cause a crash. Linestyle symbols could be drawn incorrectly when used on a mirrored primitive seen through a photo. Query Path Length could sometimes measure the wrong way around a closed path. Linestyle fills sometimes worked incorrectly with mirrored loops. Trace Spaghetti was failing with "too many points" when the number of points was not actually too many! Rasterising plots in MicroGDS did not always clip symbols properly. MicroGDS could loop if given an invalid 3DS file. Output Space gradient fill linestyles did not always fill to the correct positions. Filled symbols in linestyles did not always fill properly when used as part of an object drawn through a phase inclusion list. In OS Mastermap translation the following style was misnamed: "scatteredNonconiferousTreesAndScatteredConiferousTreesPattern". Crashes reported when reading some DWG files (see "Reading DWG Files" above). Construct Graphics from Text could misbehave when used with a CV7 font where the CV7 symbols were themselves drawn in a linestyle using symbols. Construct Lines from Photo used on a Clump drawn with a symbol linestyle could cause a crash. Raster fill drew 8 bit raster files with the wrong colours. Closing the trace command with Ctrl+Enter did not work correctly in certain geometry configurations. Trace Spaghetti dialog did not accept multibyte characters. Problems creating layers in Jet 3.5 data in the Japanese locale. CadCreatePolygon did not return an error code in some circumstances where it should have. Using the line command to create primitives with >4095 vertices could cause a crash. CONTACTING US ------------- You can visit our web site at: http://www.microgds.co.uk Or you can contact us at: email: info@microgds.co.uk TRADEMARKS ---------- MicroGDS is a registered trademark of Informatix Inc.