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-
- What's New in TCU V3.2?
- =======================
-
-
- Karl Keyte Phone: +(49) 6150 2499
- Gross-Gerauer Strasse 10
- D-6108 Weiterstadt e-Mail: Network KKEYTE@ESOC.BITNET
- Germany Bix kkeyte
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- History: TCU 1.0 Limited release with basic menu functions. No windows
- or forms. Had the name C_MENUS.
- TCU 2.0 Added pop-up menus and form entry.
- TCU 2.1 New functions to forms including new forms compiler,
- also included pull-down menus. Only links with the new
- Turbo-C++ compiler.
- TCU 2.2 Re-introduced support for Turbo-C compiler after missing
- modules were located which caused v2.1 to fail with TC2.0.
- Added continuation line facility in form source files,
- and corrected a number of minor bugs.
- TCU 2.3 Field selection and function key support in forms. New
- functions to get information on forms and fields.
- All memory models (except TINY) supported. The initial
- release of version 2.3 was missing an internal function
- which was required for SMALL and COMPACT memory models.
- TCU 3.0 Added window support functions. Modified the form field
- verification and function key hander interface to allow
- full manipulation of the form under edit from the handler
- function. Forms Compiler changed to generate relocatable
- object modules which may be linked with applications
- directly. Forms linked in this way are loaded with the
- new 'load_image_form' function.
- TCU 3.01 Include file TCU.H was amended to allow compilation under
- C++ prototype rules. No functional changes whatsoever.
- TCU 3.1 Bug fixes. Added titles for forms and notices. User mouse
- mode toggling. New form field type, BUTTON, plus support
- for button handlers. Confirmation prompt windows added to
- notices subsystem. Enhanced error checking in the forms
- compiler, plus support for repeated form blocks for
- table-like forms.
- TCU 3.2 Bug fixes. New function names for all services with the
- facility to use the old ones if required. Idle loops added
- for background processing. Functions added to support full
- form record manipulation. New form mode and support for
- blinking foreground colours. Improved string field input
- templates. Keypress handler functions.
-
-
-
- IMPORTANT: If you use the RTL library supplied with Turbo-C V2.0 rather than
- Turbo-C++ V1.0x, you MUST also link to the supplied library
- TCU_CPP.LIB which provides functions referenced in TCU.LIB but
- unavailable in Turbo-C V2.0. In addition, all compilation and
- linking with the Turbo-C Utilities must be performed with the
- WORD ALIGN option set ON. Failure to do so will result in
- incorrect operation of the program.
-
-
-
- The following changes have been made since TCU Version 3.1
-
-
- Bug Fixes
- ---------
-
- o Range checking in 'put_field' was not blocking illegal limit values
- with floating point type fields.
-
- o Pop-up menus with more than 16 options would not allow the selection
- of options > 16 either by keyboard or mouse.
-
- o Large data memory models did not force the confirmation of pulldown
- menus selected with hot-keys.
-
- o Cancelling form entry with ESC or CNTL/C, Fn-Keys, etc. was not
- preventing the update for the form in version 3.1.
-
- o If the field under edit in a form is updated in a function handler, the
- value is lost when the field pointer is moved to another field. This
- has been corrected by offering an additional function key handler
- return code which requests the update-in-place of the current field.
-
- o Calls to 'put_field' inside a field verification function could cause the
- system to lock-up because of recursive verification. Verification is now
- disabled for calls from within a verification handler.
-
- o Selection of a button field in a form did not verify the previous field
- before executing the button handler function.
-
-
-
- Changes & new features
- ----------------------
-
- o An installation program has been provided which will install TCU in a
- user specified configuration. The source for the installation program is
- provided with the delivery to serve as an additional example of TCU
- application programming.
-
- o All functions now provided use the 'tcu_' prefix. In addition, all upper-
- case constants defined in TCU.H a prefixed with 'TCU_'. The old naming
- convention may be optionally used, though it will be discontinued in the
- future.
-
- o Idle processing has been added to enable the application to perform
- activities while a keypress or mouse click is pending. Three new
- functions, 'tcu_set_idle_loop', 'tcu_save_environment' and
- 'tcu_restore_environment' have been added to support this new feature.
-
- o Functions 'tcu_form_record_size', 'tcu_write_formrec' and
- 'tcu_read_formrec' have been added to support easy manipulation of whole
- form records.
-
- o A new form mode has been added to allow escape keys (ESC, CNTL/C, PgUp
- and PgDn) to be enabled and disabled for a given form.
-
- o The form object is now passed to help functions together with the field
- ID so that the function is able to use the 'tcu_get_field_id' function in
- order to check the field ID against a named field.
-
- o Added support for blinking foreground colours.
-
- o Added string hashing function for rapid table look-ups.
-
- o Enhanced string field input templates by allowing user-specified fixed
- format templates to be used.
-
- o Changed the button selection strategy so that a single click on a button
- with the mouse selects the button regardless of whether the cursor is
- already in that field. Selection with the keyboard remains unchanged.
-
- o Three new field modes added to the form source definition in line with
- the options available in 'tcu_set_field_mode'. The modes are 'Confirm',
- 'NoEcho' and 'NoEdit'.
-
- o Pulldown menu selection has been modified so that a pulldown may be
- selected without clearing the previously selected menu.
-
- o Added the EDITFIELD facility to the forms (& forms compiler) to allow
- specification of colour attributes during actual field edit.
-
- o Added user defined key handler functions with the two new services
- 'tcu_set_user_key_handler' and 'tcu_get_user_keypress'.
-
- o The current TCU version number is described by the constant _TCU_version.
-