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Version 1.1 is a service release of AmigaWriter. Many customer requests were fulfilled and problems that customers
experienced were addressed and fixed.
The new features of 1.1 include:
- Improved printing
- Font substitution table
- Multi-assigns for font directories
- Bubble-Help control
- Complete localisation
- Better interaction with the StormScreenManager
Furthermore extensive testing was performed on some add-ons for AmigaWriter. Since AmigaWriter takes advantage
of AmigaOS concepts as much as possible, Aminet and other FW/SW sources are already offering useful additions for
AmigaWriter:
- The TrueType font engine "ttf.library" works very well with AmigaWriter,
enabling AmigaWriter to use every TrueType font that is available.
- Most DataTypes work with AmigaWriter, only some very old DataTypes may cause problems.
This enables you to use JPEG, TIFF, PNG and even EPS images in your documents.
- TurboPrint will be detected and utilized if installed on your system (see below).
- The MagicMenu tool only works with AmigaWriter when used in "non-blocking
mode". This is (according to the MagicMenu documentation) a problem of MagicMenu in its emulation of Intuition's
menu handling.
Details on the new features:
Improved Printing
If CyberGraphX or Picasso96 is installed on your computer, graphics will always be prepared for printing using
24 Bit RGB for optimum quality. The actual printer output will be performed according to the printer driver you
are using:
- TurboPrint will print using 24 Bit RGB color.
- Workbench printer drivers and Studio Professional II drivers will print using 4096 colors.
In order to reach optimal printing speed all printer output is performed from Fast-Mem. If CyberGraphX or Picasso96
are installed no Chip-Mem at all will be used for printing. This speeds up both printing preparations (quicker
memory access, larger image cache) as well as the actual printing (quicker memory access).
AmigaWriter is very fast at printing. This speed is owed to special optimizations which show their advantage especially
at high resolutions. However, one special optimization that recognizes print lines that are only using black and
white colors will fail for printers that are using separate ink cartridges for black/white and color printing.
The optimization might cause these printers to request the respective other ink cartridge in the middle of a page.
This problem can be remedied by using an appropriate printer driver or by setting an environment variable called
AWPRINT to the value NOBW. Setting this variable causes the black/white optimization to be switched off. Use the
following CLI-command to turn off the optimization:
setenv AWPRINT NOBW
The following command can be used to permanently save the status of the environment variable so that it is set
correctly right after your computer boots up:
copy ENV:AWPRINT to ENVARC:
This environment variable can also be of use when printing uses too much ink, causing the page to become too
wet in the process. In that case you should, however, always print your documents using the Greyscale or Color
setting, even if only printing black and white text.
Unfortunately disabling this optimizations means that printing can take up to twice as long.
Font substitution table
The "AmigaWriter:Settings/" directory contains a file called "FontTable". This file contains
font substitution settings. If a font is not found when loading a document, that font will automatically be replaced
by the "CG Triumvirate" font. The original name of the font will be preserved in the document, only the
screen display will use a different font. This prevent accidental changes to the document. When returning the document
to its author, he will find his document unchanged.
The font substitution table can be edited using a text editor. Each line represent one font substitution:
"<Font name>" <Style> -> "<Replacement font>"
<Style>
The font names must be enclosed in double quotes. <Style> can be R, B, I or BI. The Style (Regular, Bold,
Italic or BoldItalic) controls which style of a font will be replaced by which style of the replacement font. I.e.
it is possible to replace a regular style with a bold style.
Multi-Assigns for font directories
If an assign (e.g. FONTS:) is selected as a font directory, AmigaWriter will now search all directories the assign
points to, not only the first.
Bubble-Help control
Every project window now contains a small button in the top right corner which can be used to toggle Bubble-Help.
If the button is pushed in, Bubble-Help is active.
The key combination Shift-Help can also be used to switch Bubble-Help on and off at any point in time.
The user interface of AmigaWriter was changed so that every important gadget now has a Bubble-Help text assigned
to it. The Bubble-Help will be extended and completed in the future.
Completed Localization
The localization of AmigaWriter has been completed. The internal language of the program is now english. Haage&Partner
maintain an extensive network of translators so that localizations for a variety of languages will become available
soon.
The alignment character for decimal tab stops, the hyphenation character and the hyphenation language are now determined
by the language settings of your computer. AmigaWriter's hyphenation algorithm currently supports English, German,
French, Italian and Spanish. In case you have set your system to use a different language than you want to use
for hyphenation (e.g. if you are using an english GUI in Germany), you can use the LANGUAGE Tooltype to select
the desired language. Permitted values are Locale (for the normal behaviour described above), English, Deutsch,
Francais, Italiano and Espanol.
Improved interaction with the StormScreenManager
The StormScreenManager has been reworked and improved. AmigaWriter can now request a list of all open screens and
all screens defined using the StormScreenManager. This list is available in the program preferences, allowing the
user to select the desired screen. As soon as AmigaWriter is re-started it will automatically open the requested
screen and use it for all program operations.
Haage&Partner are striving to establish the open product StormScreenManager (the source code is freely available)
as a standard for managing screens.
Bug-Fixes and small improvements
- Auto-Backup did not handle the file icon (.info file) correctly.
- Improvement of busy-mouse behaviour, especially on slower machines.
- Greatly improved memory management. This can be best noticed when working on documents which are more than
500 pages in size.
- The new memory management also fixes a bug that lead to stability problems.
- Lengths/Sizes/Angles etc. can now be entered without specifying a unit. The previously used unit will simply
be re-used and all new input will be interpreted as being of that unit.
- Much more reasonable application of the "underlined" attribute. Underlinines are now only located
under the text and will not extend to the left or right border of the box anymore.
- Up to now moving a tab stop on the horizontal ruler meant that all settings for that stop such as dot leaders
and alignment character got lost. This bug is now fixed.
- Decimal tabs now act a lot more reasonably if no decimal character is found in the text: The text will simply
be right-aligned to the tab stop.
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