This document describes the changes from Cumulus 1.1 to the new 1.2 version. It assumes that you are familiar with Cumulus. If you have not used Cumulus 1.1 before, you may want to read the “Read Me” file instead of this one.
This document contains the following sections:
Upgrading from Cumulus 1.1 or 1.0
New Features
- Full-size Preview
- Filters
- Cataloging
- Searching and Sorting
- Miscellaneous Changes
- Bugs Fixed
Installing the Cumulus 1.2 server upgrade differs from the initial installation procedure described in the manual:
1. Make sure that there is a properly installed Cumulus 1.0 or 1.1 on your hard disk.
2. Create a new folder on your hard disk and name it “Cumulus 1.2” or something similar.
3. Copy the Cumulus application and the “File Filters” folder from the Client floppy into this folder. Be sure not to rename “File Filters” or Cumulus will be unable to load the filters therein. (You may, however, put the filter files into the same folder as the Cumulus application, dispensing with the “File Filters” folder.)
4. Launch Cumulus 1.2. You will be asked to locate your existing copy of Cumulus. Do so and click “OK”. Cumulus 1.2 will read the serial number from your old copy and continue to launch normally.
5. If you are using Cumulus in a multi-user setting, enable client access by selecting the Cumulus icon, choosing “Sharing…” from the Finder’s File menu, and checking the “Allow remote program linking” option.
6. If you wish, you can now remove your old copy of Cumulus from your hard disk.
7. Make sure that all copies of Cumulus•Client are updated at the same time (see “What’s New”) on the Client floppy disk). Cumulus 1.2 requires Cumulus•Client 1.2 and cannot be used with older versions.
We strongly recommend against using Cumulus 1.2 filters with Cumulus 1.1. While they are partly compatible, a variety of problems may occur. Similarily, you should not try to use version 1.1 filters with Cumulus 1.2. While they are generally compatible, some will not enable Cumulus to display a full-size preview. Other problems may also occur.
Opening your existing databases with Cumulus 1.2 for the first time will bring up the following dialog:
Click “OK” to have Cumulus update the database structure and make it fully usable with the new version. (Depending on the size of the database, updating the structure may take a while.)
Cumulus 1.2 contains several new features described below. Most of them were added in response to suggestions and requests from customers. Your feedback and suggestions help us to continually improve Cumulus and we are always delighted to hear from you.
Cumulus can now display cataloged images as full-size previews in addition to the familiar thumbnail view. Any cataloged image that is available online—even QuickTime movies—can now be viewed at its full size. You can even zoom in to examine details closely.
To display the preview of any image, select the image in the catalog and choose “Preview” from the Record menu. Note that the image file must be accessible online in the same way that it must be for the “Edit Image File” command. See the discussion of that command in the Client manual for details.
The preview can take one of three forms, two of which are very similar: object image, pixel image, or movie.
Object images and pixel images are displayed in a resizable window. If the screen is too small to display the entire image, scroll bars let you move around and see all the parts.
Cumulus lets you copy images, and this is the only difference between an object image and a pixel image: Cumulus allows you to copy parts of pixel images but only entire object images. If you move the cursor over a pixel image preview, it changes to a crosshair, allowing you to select a rectangular area. If you do so, choosing the Copy command from the Edit menu will copy just that selection. Choose “Select All” from the Edit menu to select the entire image. Moving the cursor over an object image does not change its shape—it remains an arrow. Choosing “Copy” always copies all of an object image.
Movies appear in the so-called standard movie controller, the functions of which are described at length in the QuickTime documentation. See the graphic below for a short summary.
Cumulus lets you also copy all or part of a movie. To do so, make sure that the movie is in Pause mode. Position the slider at the start of the scene you want to copy, hold down the shift key and position it at the end. The part of the slider bar corresponding to the selection turns black. You can then choose “Copy” from the Edit menu as usual.
Regardless of the type of image previewed, Cumulus can reduce or enlarge the preview display. To do so, choose “Zoom In” or “Zoom Out” from the Edit menu.
To reduce potential for confusion during setup, Cumulus now expects filters to be either in the same folder as the application or in a subfolder of that folder named “File Filters”. Filters in other locations are ignored. If Cumulus cannot find any external filters, it displays a warning alert.
The TIFF and EPSF filters are not integrated with the application anymore. Instead, they are provided as external filters. This allows us to update them more easily.
Where possible, filters now contain more descriptive names that are shown in the Find dialog (e.g. “FHD3 (FreeHand)” instead of simply “FHD3”).
Cumulus now remembers whether the “Skip image files already in catalog” setting is selected or not and doesn’t automatically revert it to be selected anymore. This is especially important for drag-and-drop cataloging where no dialog is displayed before cataloging.
An improved algorithm is now used to determine whether an image already exists in the database.
The list of images that could not be cataloged or were not cataloged because they already existed in the database can now be saved as a text file, providing you with a reference in case you want to examine them.
It is not possible any more to catalog edition files; you must subscribe to them. Cumulus will display an alert to this effect whenever you try to catalog an edition.
Cumulus now supports international characters properly for searching and sorting (e.g. searching for “role” now also finds “rôle”).
You can now search for parts of words in all text fields. E.g., searching for “base” may find records containing the words “debased” or “database”. In the image name, file name and volume name field you can even search for strings straddling word boundaries. Searching for “ed to” may turn up “declined to” or “red Toyota”.
Cumulus 1.2 supports partial entries in text fields of the Find dialog. Pressing the tab key expands the string entered in the text field to the first entry in the corresponding pop-up menu containing the string entered. You may, for example, enter “paint” as a file type to look for. When you press tab, Cumulus expands this to “PNTG (MacPaint)” the first, in fact only, file type containing “paint”. Expansion works only in text fields in the Find dialog that have a pop-up menu attached to them.
You can suppress the warning alerts when cutting or deleting records by holding down the option key as you do so. It doesn’t matter whether you choose the Cut or Clear commands from the Edit menu or press command-X or the delete key.
Some error messages have been rephrased to provide more information.
Getting images from other applications, such as Photoshop, via an adapter was until now only possible on a client Macintosh when the client had access to the image file. Now this is also possible if only the server may access that file. In that case, the server offers to send the client a copy of the image file.
Some other minor changes, mostly cosmetic.
Restoring records that contain status or keywords having been deleted in the meantime doesn’t produce an error anymore.
The number of connected clients is now calculated correctly.
When using Cumulus with System 7.1 (but not older versions of System 7), high quality thumbnails would sometimes not be better than low quality ones. This has been fixed.
Status names may now also contain the special characters “( ; ^ ! / < -” without causing the Status pop-up menu to look funny.
