Media Share 9/MEDIASHARE_09.ISO/print/both45.zip/HISTORY.DOC

Text File | 1992-07-02 | 12KB | 208 lines

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  REVISION HISTORY OF SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE'S BOTHSIDES TEXT FORMATTER
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                           CHANGES FROM 4.1

BOTHSIDES HIGHLY OPTIMIZED.  NOW SMALLER, MUCH FASTER!
    Instead of adding new features, this release of BothSides has been
gone over with an eye to optimization.  The processing time has been
greatly diminished.  This will only be noticeable when processing to
output files as the printer itself becomes the bottleneck in terms of
speed when sending output directly to the printer.
    The EXE file is now considerably smaller as well and will load and
run faster.

TWO PROBLEMS FIXED
    When processing FF delimited files an extra line was being added
to the output files due to the addition of an extra Carriage Return
and Linefeed sequence being appended to the formfeed character (ASCII
12).  This has now been fixed.
    Another problem was fixed when a printer control code sequence was
specified which changed the horizontal size of the output.  BothSides
mistakenly printed the margin BEFORE the control code sequence when
printing the first line.  This would cause the margin spaces to be
unaffected by the changes effected by the control string.  This had
the effect of either pushing the text over or pulling it left of the
margin.  The control codes are now sent prior to the margin spaces.
    Our sincere thanks go to registered users David Tucker of
Jacksonville, FL and to Dan Grumbles of Whittier, CA for their
patience and assistance in correcting these problems!

AUTOMATIC OPTION ENTRY RESTORED
    When BothSides checks a file for formfeeds it now enters its
findings as the default answer in the option edit field.  This was the
case in the early versions of BothSides, but had been changed to hold
the previously entered value.  Several users complained about this and
we listened.

FILE SELECTION BOX KEY LIST IMPROVED
    The File Selection Box Key List has been made simpler to
understand.  There was ambiquity in the way the current Sort status
was displayed.  If sorting is ON, it displays "S=Turn Sort Off" to
tell you that pressing the "S" key will turn it off.  Before it just
said "S=Sort On".  Some were understandably confused by this as it
seemed to imply that Sorting was ON, when indeed the user was being
told to press "S" to turn Sort ON!

                           CHANGES FROM 4.0

SELECT FILES FROM POP-UP FILE SELECTION BOX!
   We added a pop-up File Selection Box from which the document file
may be selected.  In the previous versions, you had to know the
document's file name to enter it into the entry field.  Now if you
press ENTER when the field is empty or while it contains a wildcard
file specification containing the "*" or "?" characters, a box will
pop up containing all of the file names meeting that specification.
The files may be presented in sorted or original order by toggling
with the "S" key. Just use the arrow (cursor) keys to highlight the
desired file name and press ENTER.  In the REGISTERED version you may
also press the SPACEBAR to view the contents of the highlighted file
and browse through it.

DOS SCREEN NOW RESTORED WHEN PROGRAM EXITS!
   The REGISTERED version now restores the original DOS screen upon
exiting the program.  The SHAREWARE version does not do so because it
is necessary to remind the user of his obligation to register.

                           CHANGES FROM 3.5

MARGIN SETTING FAUX PAS CORRECTED
   We corrected a profoundly stupid error in the margin setting which
made its debut in 3.5.  Instead of putting the specified margin only
on the odd pages (which would push the text away from binder holes) we
put the margin also on the even pages which has the effect of pushing
the text toward the binder holes!  We are sorry about this and have no
idea what came over us but see we had this small gas leak, and the
seal on our microwave was defective, and we suspect that our neighbor
is beaming ELF waves into Ken's head and...

WORKS WITH LASER PRINTERS -- SPECIFY NUMBER OF LINES PER PAGE
   You can now specify the actual number of lines per page to format
the text instead of just 66.  This means that BothSides will now work
with Laser printers as you can set the number of lines per page to 59!

DOCUMENT NAME AND TITLE NO LONGER SAVED BETWEEN RUNS IN REG'D VERSION
   The registered version no longer saves the document and title
information between runs of the program, as its not likely that these
would ever need to be the same.  Most users said it was more of a
hassle to clear the edit windows, so this version corrects this.

                           CHANGES FROM 3.4

   In previous versions, BothSides only examined the first 66 lines of
the text file in order to determine whether the file was formfeed
delimited. It now checks up to the first 200 lines.  By using your
word processor to insert the page breaks, you can use BothSides to
print as many lines per page as you wish.  For example, you can enter
the control code sequence which causes your print to print 8 lines per
inch and have your word processor insert page breaks every 88 lines.
This way you can have 88 lines per page.  If you were to try this
before, BothSides would report that there were no page breaks as only
the first 66 lines would be checked.  While you could still format it
with the "FF" option, it was confusing.
   BothSides now has the capability to accept a value for a left
margin. This is good for documentation files (such as this one) which
are shipped with no left margin to conserve space.  Specifying a left
margin allows room for binder holes which otherwise would pierce
through the text.

               CHANGES FROM 3.3 -- BUG FIX, TEXT CHANGES

     This version corrects a bug which occurred when sending the
output directly to the printer with the 66 line unformatted option and
using the title "None" (which causes a footer to be printed without a
title).  The program would print the odd pages using the 66 line
unformatted option, but when the even pages were being printed, it
would switch suddenly to 66 line formatted.  This only happened with
this particular set of circumstances and went undiscovered until now,
probably because most persons specified a title.  We are very sorry
for any inconvenience this may have caused.
     In addition, we changed the wording on some of the screens for
clarification.  These and all previous changes are largely the result
of the comments and suggestions of the users of BothSides.  If you
have ideas which could make it a better product for everyone, please
let us know.  We listen.

              CHANGES FROM 3.2 -- REGISTERED VERSION ONLY

     Several of the supporters of BothSides have made suggestions
about the operation of the program which have resulted in the
following changes. Since they were registered users who made these
suggestions, we felt it was they who should benefit from them.  For
that reason, and to encourage user support we are making these
additions available in a special enhanced version which you will
receive when you register BothSides for the low price of only $15.00.

1.)  The ESC key now backs you back through each of the user entry
fields instead of quitting the program.  To quit, you now press ESC
until you have backed out of the entire program.  This will allow you
to change your mind and return to a previously entered field to make
changes.

2.)  All of the settings are saved for future use.  This should make
the task of entering control code strings etc. a little easier.  Just
press Alt-C to clear the field if the default answer is not the one
you prefer. The answers are saved to the file: BOTH.CFG in the same
directory in which BOTH.EXE resides.

3.)  When running BothSides from the command line, the printer control
code string saved in BOTH.CFG will be sent to the top of each of the
two files. Previously, there was no way to send a control code string
from the program using the command line method of running BothSides.
To change the control code string, you must run BothSides without
arguments and enter the control codes into the specified edit field.
When you exit the program, the control code string with be saved to
BOTH.CFG.

4.)  This version now offers the option of speeding up the display of
the opening information screen which is displayed when no command line
arguments are specified.  In the normal display, the lines of text are
fed up from the bottom of the screen one at a time for a special
effect.  This may become annoying after a few times.  If you would
like the screen to print instantaneously, just rename BOTH.EXE to
another file name of your choice.  We recommend BOTH.COM, since it
will run just the same and you will still be able to use the same
command syntax when running it.  Don't worry about renaming an EXE
file with a COM extension.  All EXE files contain the letters "MZ" at
the very beginning of the file which tell DOS to load it as an EXE
file.  Be aware that if you have a copy of BOTH.COM in the same
directory as BOTH.EXE, BOTH.COM will always be run as DOS will always
run the COM file before an EXE file of the same name.
     CAUTION: The new name cannot have the sequence "BOTH.EXE" within
it as in for instance, "NEWBOTH.EXE".  Neither can the path to the
renamed version contain this sequence, (ie. D:\BOTH.EXE\BOTH.COM,
admittedly very unlikely) as the program checks for the existence of
this sequence of characters in its program segment prefix upon
startup.
     Some people seem to like the way the opening screen works, so we
didn't want to remove it completely.  We could have used a command
line option, but that would be tedious.  Renaming the file seems to be
the best alternative.

    CHANGES FROM 3.2 -- COMMON TO SHAREWARE AND REGISTERED VERSIONS

     We changed the input routines in the edit fields to make them
conform to conventional line input routines.  Now use DEL, BS
(backspace), INS, ALT-C (clear line), ALT-R (restore previous clear).

     Trying to print to a single sheet fed dot matrix printer never
did work well before.  Now when you specify that the program should
pause between pages and you are printing unformatted text using the 66
line option with page numbers, the program will adjust the lines per
page from the normal 58, down to 54 to allow for the generous top and
bottom margins used by single sheet printers.  Printing formfeed
paginated and 66 line formatted files will probably not work on any
but laser printers as the printer must be able to print to all 66
lines of the page.  There may be dot matrix printers able to do this,
but we are not aware of any.  You can still print to single sheet
printers using these other methods, but the footers, headers, top and
bottom margins will probably be misindexed.

     To prepare the printer for either of the 66 line methods, you now
position the printhead to the very top line of the page.  This will
make the process much easier in our opinion and leave less to chance.
Since the program won't be able to determine the size of the header or
top margin in FF formatted files, you will have to position the
printhead to the line where the text will be printed to index the TOF.