** Change History of DVIM72-Mac ** (reverse chronological order)
v. 1.8.1
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Fixed a bug in the custom WDEF (window definition). The only effect of this bug that I know of is that it sometimes caused the upper corners of the screen to be gray instead of the usual black.
v. 1.8
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Added more event-handling during printing. For instance it is now possible to bring the page-preview window to the front during printing. It is also now possible for printing to continue while in the background under MultiFinder.
When using spooled printing, the dialog now says ╥Now Spooling╙ while spooling, and ╥Now Printing╙ when printing, instead of saying ╥Now Printing╙ during the whole process.
It is now possible to change printer resolution (but not font resolution) without restarting the program.
v. 1.7.1
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Fixed a bug introduced in 1.7 that prevented one from changing resolution.
v. 1.7
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Added a FlushVol after anything is written to the console, to make sure the log file will be up to date in the event of a crash.
Removed the .dvi-err log files, since they duplicated information in the console log file.
In the Configure->Printing Options dialog, I added ╥Use Driver Defaults╙ radio controls for paper feed and printing method. This is for greater compatibility with non-ImageWriter printers. The WriteMove printer, in particular, uses a paper feed setting other than hand or fanfold.
Freed some memory at the beginning of the fatal() routine, to make it more likey that an out-of-memory error will lead to a peaceful exit rather than a crash.
v. 1.6
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Previously, if you tried to print when the console window was frontmost, the application hung. I have fixed that by re-implementing the console with my own routines rather than the THINK C console library routines.
v. 1.5
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I split the Configure dialog into 4 dialogs, invoked from a new Configure menu. The main reason was to make room for specifying font resolution and printer resolution separately.
PICT file \specials are now allowed. The picture is scaled so that it will be the same size as on the screen, independent of printer resolution.
The dialogs now support cutting and pasting, and allow the Cancel button to be invoked with command-period, escape, or tilde.
When the driver puts band data into the print record, DVIM72-Mac uses the band size for printing. For instance on the ImageWriter, it prints 32 rows of dots at a time. Previously, 32 was used as a default for printers that put 0 in the band size parameter. Now the value 3600 is used, meaning that the whole page should be printed at once.
v. 1.4
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Improved the performance of cancelling printing with command-period.
You can now keep an eye on free memory with an optional window. There is a new check box in the Configure dialog that selects this option.
There is also a new option to use the system heap for font memory when the application heap runs low.
v. 1.3
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A bug in handling of multiple copies has been fixed.
In spooled mode, the Draft radio control in the print job dialog is now disabled. At 72dpi, Best is also disabled. This change involves looking for radio controls named "Best", "Faster", and "Draft", so it will not work for foreign-language systems. However, you can fix this by using ResEdit to change the values of the 'STR ' resources numbered 700, 701, 702 to the local equivalents of "Best", "Faster", and "Draft". (It's a good thing I'm not trying to *sell* this software, or I'd never get away with stuff like that.)
Certain printing errors now bring up an explanatory alert instead of just an error code.
v. 1.2
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The previous version had a call to Color Quickdraw, which caused a bomb on machines that did not have Color QuickDraw. That has been corrected.
There was also a minor change in the way SF dialogs are centered on the screen.
v. 1.1
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The past few versions had a bug which, when used with some *non-ImageWriter* drivers, caused the program to go into an infinite loop. In detail: DVIM72-Mac prints the image in strips, and used a certain parameter in the print record to determine the depth of the strip. But for some drivers (such as MacPrint for the DeskJet) that parameter is zero. Now I check for that condition.
I also fixed a bug that caused an incorrect position to be recorded for the page window if it were never shown (i.e., if you ran the program, changed your mind, and quit without printing anything.)
I have rearranged some of the printing code, and added a "Page Setup╔" menu item. These changes will probably be irrelevant to ImageWriter users, but may help those with other printers.
v. 1.0
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Does the version 1.0 mean that the program is in a final, stable form? Of course not. I just ran out of numbers smaller than 1.0.
I now use a standard printing job dialog (whose appearance depends upon the printer selected in the Chooser) rather than my own dialog. This is intended to enhance device-independence. I have eliminated the start-up check that an ImageWriter has been selected, since the job dialog will show you which driver is in effect.
The Configure╔ dialog no longer has a "Skip print dialog" check box. Instead, I have added a "Just Print╔" menu item.
There is now a beachball cursor instead of a watch cursor, which rolls when a page is being computed. There are some times when the Printing Manager has control and I haven't been able to get the beachball to roll, however.
The positions and sizes of the windows are remembered when you quit. The next time you start, they are restored, so long as they are entirely on the screen.
v. 0.9b9
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The one-dot kludge for draft-mode printing introduced in the previous version has been replaced by a technique of printing the bitmap in strips. I have also introduced an option for spooled printing. Although spooled printing is probably less efficient for an ImageWriter, it is probably more device-independent. Therefore, if you're trying to use DVIM72-Mac for a printer other than an ImageWriter, try spooled mode first. As another attempt to help those with weird printers and drivers, I added an "Other" resolution option. I rearranged the Configure dialog to fit these new items in.
There was another minor change for A/UX compatibility.
Also simplified the code for the font path. No big deal.
v. 0.9b8
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There is a bug in draft-mode bitmap printing, apparently in the ImageWriter driver or the Printing Manager, which makes printing fail at 144dpi if the top .8 inches or so of the image is blank. The printer prints a digit, does a line feed, and stops. This can also occur at 72dpi if the page is completely blank. The "fix" in this version is to put one dot at position (0,0) in the bitmap.
While trying to diagnose the problem above, I put in a window which displays the bitmap just before it gets sent to the printer. I decided it was kind of cute and left it in. What do you think? By the way, both this new page preview window and the console window are movable and resizable, even though they don't have grow boxes.
I also changed the memory management, replacing malloc() calls by NewPtr() calls.
v. 0.9b7
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Fixed a bug that made the font folder button fail if the folder was not on the startup disk. Also fixed an event-handling bug that affected DAs not running under DA handler.
v. 0.9b6
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Mostly minor changes to the user interface. The most significant thing is that the Configure dialog now has a popup menu that selects the formats by which to search for fonts. For instance, if all of your fonts are in one folder, with magnification indicated in the file extension as in "cmr8.72pk", then it is enough to check just the "cmr8.72pk" item. The other items assume that your fonts are arranged in subfolders according to magnification. The last three have the subfolder name separated from the font name by a slash rather than a colon; these are intended only for A/UX. (Does DVIM72-Mac run under A/UX? Beats me. Try it and let me know.)
v. 0.9b5
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Now instead of filling in the Configure dialog's font folder path by hand, you click a button which brings up a Standard File dialog.
v. 0.9b4
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Fixed a bug that caused printing to be much slower than necessary.
Also, the page image bitmap is now part of an offscreen GrafPort; this has little or no effect on present performance, but will make it easier to add \specials in the future.
v. 0.9b3:
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A 300dpi option has been added. I have not tested this myself, for lack of an appropriate printer. If you try this, you should jack up the application's MultiFinder partition to a megabyte or so.
More error checking has been introduced.
v. 0.9b2:
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The notes accompanying version 0.9b claimed that you needed to put linefeeds in the texfonts.sub file. That was incorrect.
A fatal error now puts up an alert box, so you at least get to read the error message before the program quits.
At program start, the program checks to make sure that you have selected the ImageWriter resource in the Chooser, and warns you if not.