WPI Change Log
v2.11, released 11/29/2007 (wpilib v1.05)
- WPI now supports the internationalization of numbers and units
of measure. Specific internationalization changes:
+ WPI no longer assumes "." as the numeric decimal point. Instead
when decimal point tests must be made, WPI reads appropriate data
from the Windows regionalization database. It should be noted that
WPI does _not_ support a multi-character decimal point. Nonetheless,
changes made with this release should permit users in Germany, for
example, to specify fractional numeric values using "," (a comma)
as a decimal point.
+ When WPI creates a picture caption string from prefix text and a
numeric suffix, a prefix that includes a trailing decimal point
character from the user's current locale (e.g., a comma in
Germany) has been added to the list of special caption delimiters.
See the caption help documentation for more details.
+ Configuration user interface now allows specification of WPI physical
layout parameters in inches (default), centimeters, or millimeters.
+ To accurately support conversion between the aforementioned units,
various physical WPI layout parameters are now stored in a more
precise format within the Windows registry. Consequently, v2.11
WPI WILL REVERT TO DEFAULT PHYSICAL LAYOUT PARAMETER VALUES until
new values are saved via the WPI Configuration UI. The list of
affected parameters is as follows:
page width and height, portrait margins, landscape margins
+ New script syntax:
units {cm | mm | inches}
- wpilib.dll and wpi.exe now include embedded Windows versioning
information (i.e., version readable via Windows Explorer properties tab).
- Use of WPI's "Run" [Script] dialog box no longer crashes the
application if the Browse button is pressed in the presence of an
empty text entry box. Regression introduced in WPI v2.09 (shows just
how much this feature is used).
- Numeric suffix text box once again tests input validity (this test was
mistakenly removed in v2.09--that test wasn't very good anyway).
- Fixed bug where selected files stored in a disk's root partition
(e.g., e:\mypic.jpg), were passed to Word with too many path
delimiters (e.g., e:\\mypic.jpg). Fortunately, most versions of
Word accepted the misformatted filenames.
- The "Add table grid lines" check box and Portrait/Landscape Document
Style option controls once again update exact row/col values
(functionality inadvertently removed in v2.06).
- Text controls that beep when bad data is entered now use the Windows
asterisk WAV sound (i.e., no more inaudible beeps from the PC speaker).
- WPI scripting no longer prevents the command "save as html <docpath>"
from being passed to Word 97. This script command will now elicit a
Word 97 runtime error rather than a WPI scripting error. This is a
roundabout way of saying that further Word 97 support has been removed.
- WPI's HTML documentation layout and appearance improved.
- VB source filenames are now a bit more descriptive.
- WPI now uses GPLv3 as its license.
- Some BUGLIST entries marked as "will not fix".
v2.10, released 9/10/2004 (wpilib v1.04)
- I've dropped support for Office 97. WPI may or may not work with
this version of Word, but I don't know. Office 97 is now 4 revs
"old" when compared with Office 2003. If an upgrade to a newer
revision of Word isn't feasible, stick with wpi v2.09 .
- Ditched the crude VB 6 install tool (which doesn't work very well
on Windows XP). Now using Jordan Russell's Inno Setup installer.
- Ditched support for installing VB runtime during progam installation.
I should have never ever provided this capability in the first place.
v2.09, released 8/26/2003 (wpilib v1.04)
- Correct duplicate main screen shortcut keys.
- Added shortcut keys for some main screen menus:
Run => Control+R
Browse => Control+B
Favorites => Control+F
- If WPI's Run dialog box is active and a directory path is specified
instead of a script file path, then clicking the Run/Browse buttons
launches a Windows common open dialog box that facilitates browsing
in the specified directory. This feature is modeled after similar
behavior exhibited by the Windows Run dialog box.
- New main screen Edit menu commands and canonical Windows shortcuts:
Copy Ctrl+C
Cut Ctrl+X
Delete
Paste unsorted Ctrl+V
Paste sorted ascending
Paste sorted descending
Select All Ctrl+A
With the exception of "Select All" and "Delete", these new menu
commands move _text_ to/from the Windows clipboard from/to the
Selections control. Delete, copy, and cut only manipulate _selected_
file path(s) within the Selections control. It should be noted that
clipboard pasting provides yet another WPI data entry mechanism
(enhancement suggested by Nelson Leung).
- A right mouse click in the Selections Control or main screen form
area now launches a popup menu that includes all Edit menu commands
except "Configuration".
- Now possible to append a graphics/picture filename to the WPI caption
string (enhancement sugged by John Reffner). Only the leaf filename,
stripped of its suffix, is utilized. Filenames are split into
distinct words via several delimiters:
+ spaces (e.g., c:\temp\My Mom.jpeg).
+ underscores (e.g., c:\temp\My_Mom.jpeg). This split is
only available when a new "Filename Split At Underscore"
option is checked.
+ mixed case transitions (e.g., c:\temp\MyMom.jpeg). This split
is only available when a new "Filename Split At MixedCase"
option is checked.
In each of the examples listed above, WPI appends "My Mom" to the
derived caption string.
This new feature is integrated with WPI's existing captioning features,
such that a complete caption string is created like so:
caption = optional prefix + optional suffix + optional filename
The upshot is that it's now possible for WPI to create on the fly,
object-specific captions.
- Scripting language additions (see help file for full details):
caption append filename {on|off}
caption split underscore {on|off}
caption split mixedcase {on|off}
- Configuration screen changed to allow startup specification of the
three new parameters associated with filename captioning.
- Script parsing was originally coded for case insensitive token
recognition. Too bad it didn't work. I ripped the broken code out
because fixing it added a lot of bloat. Scripting reserved words are
consequently case sensitive and must be lower case (as is the case
with most modern computer languages).
- When a script is running and WPI is visible, show hourglass cursor
and name of running script in WPI title bar.
- New features and their consequent increase in screen real estate
now render WPI pretty much unusable when desktop display settings
specify large fonts and any screen resolution below 1024x768 (e.g.,
800x600, VGA). Sorry about that.
v2.08, released 7/20/2003 (wpilib v1.03)
- Scripting language additions (see help file for full details):
break page
kill word {save|discard}
goto bof
goto eof
line down
open {doc|document} <filepath>
save as {doc | html | rtf} <filepath>
save {doc|document}
start word
These changes, requested by Georgia Morgan, facilitate:
+ appending data to existing documents,
+ specification of document names (via save as), and
+ limited control of Word's cursor.
- Script parsing streamlined for faster execution.
- WPI tested extensively with Office XP. No problems noted.
v2.07, released 11/10/2002 (wpilib v1.03)
- Config user interface now includes a Browse button that permits the
user to graphically select an initial Working Directory path.
- Config user interface now warns user if s/he specified an invalid
Working Directory path.
- Added File->Run menu selection which allow user to interactively
select and run a script. Last 10 scripts are remembered for
future selection.
- WPI now remembers the last 10 folders visited via the Browse or
Favorites buttons. These 10 folders may be accessed from the
"File->Recent Folders" menu selection and purged via
"File->Purge Recent Folders".
- WPI's help is now html-based--displayed by Internet Explorer. Note
that the help is _not_ in Windows help format.
- The configuration screen frame caption "After Insertion" was changed
to "Post-Insertion" to match the corresponding main screen frame.
which produces a a simpler command mnemonic for scripting.
v2.06, released 7/23/2002
- Within the Browse/Favorites (Common Open) dialog boxes, a bug existed
such that the user-specified list of file types could only be
selected once. Fixed.
- File Sorting is now case insensitive, which matches the semantics
of the Windows file system. I'm surprised no one complained about
this bug.
- Added File->Open->Browse and File->Open->Favorites menu selections
(which do the same thing as the Browse and Favorites buttons).
- It's now possible to drag and drop files from Windows Explorer into
the WPI Selections control. Drag and drop filenames are first sorted
in accordance with WPI's "File Sorting" options and then added to the
Selections control.
- Simple scripting added, which facilitates automated control of WPI.
See the help file (bottom of file) for documentation.
- The frame caption "After Insertion" was changed to "Post-Insertion",
which produces a a simpler command mnemonic for scripting.
- The frame caption "Column Height" was changed to "Row Height",
which is the proper notation for that parameter.
- Nontrivial code cleanup, particularly with respect to margins,
paper width, and paper height settings.
v2.05, released 8/12/2001
- Fixed problem where it wasn't possible to switch from a sectioned
document to a nonsectioned portrait or landscape document (user gets
a OLE runtime error). This is new behavior for Office 2K (not a
problem with Office 97).
- added version number to wpilib.dll and made it accessible from
wpi's about dialog box.
- File selections are now stored in a listview instead of a listbox.
The former control includes a horizontal scrollbar, the latter
does not.
- Show hourglass cursor when sending files to Word.
- Bug fix: if the File Types string (Configuration dialog box)
included more than one file specification (e.g., *.png;*.wmf), the
last spec was always ignored by the Browse/Favorites buttons.
Problem caused by fence post error in wpilib.dll .
- When autofit row height is selected _and_ a "precede" caption is
specified, prevent Word from "squeezing" a caption on one page and
drawing the picture/graph on the next (longstanding bug).
v2.04, released 7/30/2001
- I was notified that the new file selection UI added in v2.02 has a
problem. If files A, B, and C are selected in that order, they will
be opened in a Word table in this order: C, B, A. This behavior is
an artifact of the mechanism by which the win32 common open dialog
box presents multiple file selections to the user. As it turns out,
the dialog box always stores the last selected filename at the front
of a list of multiple files. This behavior isn't desirable when
selecting objects (e.g., data plots) that are sequentially ordered
via time/date stamps embedded within filenames. Workaround: added
a new wpi UI control that allows users to sort selected filenames in
ascending or descending order. Bug reported by Russ Miller.
- Enable "Clear Selections" button if number of selected files >= 1.
Previous test was > 1. (Homer Simpson says, Doh!)
v2.03, released 4/12/2001
- I was notified that v2.02 causes a fault in Office 97. Sigh. I
rebuilt wpi using the Word 8.0 Object Table (aka Word 97) and
successfully tested the executable with Office 97 on Win98, Office 2K
on WinME and Office 2K on Windows 2K. Many thanks to Chris De Cock
and Peter Braeckman for the bug report.
v2.02, released 2/20/2001
- Forms and their controls are now screen resolution-independent. Tested
at all screen geometries except VGA.
- Users can now resize all forms except the "about" dialog box.
- The Configuration form is now wide, not tall (works better on
low resolution geometries).
- WPI's file selection UI has changed substantially. The folders,
files, and drives controls are gone. In their place are two new
buttons which invoke a Windows common open dialog box that either
browses an initial folder of the user's choice, or else browses the
contents of the Windows favorites folder. The former folder is set
via WPI's configuration form, the latter folder is established by the
host operating system. Bear in mind that Windows Explorer supports
an "Add to favorites" menu selection that permits the user to create
shortcuts to frequently visited folders. Thus, WPI can now be used
to quickly navigate to any directory that's accessible via a
"favorites" shortcut.
- Noticed during testing that left- or right-aligned captions caused
inserted pictures to be left- or right-aligned as well (blech). WPI
now centers each picture within its table cell, regardless of the
caption alignment selection.
v2.01, released 7/28/2000
- Added "Help => View License", which displays the full text of the GPL.
- Added option that affects caption alignment.
- Added option that affects cursor placement following picture
insertion completion.
v2.00, released 7/9/2000
- Uses OLE Automation to talk with Word. Should be a _lot_ more
reliable than previous versions of wpi. Unfortunately, as a direct
consequence, wpi is now _incompatible_ with office 95.
- Can now insert pics in an existing table (just move the cursor into an
empty table cell prior to transferring pics).
- MS Word Path text entry box has been removed from the config menu (no
longer necessary now that wpi uses OLE).
- The logic that tests whether or not to add a space between a caption
prefix and suffix has been fixed so that a space is added _unless_
the last char of the prefix is one of these:
space, period, or hyphen
The previous logic looked fairly brain damaged (to me).
<v1.x release notess elided...>
v1.00, released 11/10/98