Amiga Plus 1995 #3 & #4/Amiga Plus CD - 1995 - No. 3 and 4.iso/pd-listen/fish-komplett/history

Text File | 1995-07-20 | 24KB | 577 lines

Listed in reverse-chronological order, the following text details changes
made to KingFisher, KFServer, and RexxFisher since their initial public
release with version 2.1:


v2.9    3-Apr-1995

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    KINGFISHER will no longer add of junk to the end of a custom
    display format.

    KFSERVER now reports an uptime of 0 seconds as "0s" rather than a
    null string (oh, my, the Earth moved!) (yawn)

    Fixed Error-By-1 on correcting VersionLinks that point into a
    region of records that are being deleted.  Also included the
    Previous Link in the check (only the NextLink was checked before.)

    Removed a bug that prevented ONDISK index files from working.  It
    is now possible to specify if a database index is to be used as an
    INRAM index (fastest) or ONDISK (no overhead in memory!)


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    KINGFISHER now adjusts its gadget proportions according to the
    screen size.  A medium resolution (such as 640x200) display will
    now present less stretched gadgets.

    Some images replaced with nicer ones, and colors (especially the
    4th (usually blue) color) cleaned up.

    When running under Kickstart 3.0 or later, the KingFisher logo in
    the About window will now be displayed in up to 16 shades of gray.
    The image will be remapped to provide the best color fidelity
    available from Intuition's free/shared pens.  An 8-color screen is
    not the best, but a 16 or even 32 color screen (can provide quite
    excellent reproduction!)

    The text formatting routines finally handle paragraph and field
    indentations properly!  Default format cleaned up and improved.

    Added a \- symbol to the format parser, which fills the rest of the
    line with a dashed line (------------...) and then inserts a
    newline as if \n was given.

    Added a \N (uppercase version of \n) to function as a conditional
    newline that is added only if the preceding line is not already a
    blank line.

    The 'author' field is now handled as a "verbatim" field, meaning
    that linefeeds in the field are treated as real newlines instead of
    soft returns.

    Added option capability to the @{field} specifiers.  Options are
    specified BEFORE the name of the field, and enclosed in []'s such
    as:
        @{[f]author}
        @{[0>]description}
    Available options at this time are:
        f,v    Force Flow or Verbatim Mode.
                In Flow Mode, the presence of a newline in
            the file is treated as a blank space would, and
            only a \n sequence is regarded as a newline
            (paragraph break.)  This produces word-wrapped
            paragraphs, where the end of a paragraph is
            explicitly indicated with a \n sequence.  The
            DESCRIPTION is usually handled in Flow Mode.
                In Verbatim Mode, a newline in the file is
            treated the same as a forced paragraph break from
            the presence of a \n sequence.  The AUTHOR field is
            usually handled in Verbatim Mode.
                By default, all fields are treated in flow
            mode, except for:  reference, address, email, docs,
            run, stored-in, and author.
                If you wish to add the "contents" field to
            the display, specify it as @{[v]contents} -- the
            option set [v] forces KingFisher to use verbatim
            mode instead of the default flow mode.
        0,1    How many lines to be placed between paragraphs.
            By specifying '0' in the option set, you can remove
            the blank lines that KingFisher inserts between
            paragraphs (in the description field, for example.)
        |,>    Force non-indented or indented paragraphs.  By
            adding '>' to the option set (in the description
            field, for example) you can add an indentation at
            the start of paragraphs (all, except the first);
            this is especially useful in combination with a '0'
            (see above) to improve readability.  Try it!
                @{[0>]description}

    The frames for the Browse and Search gadget groups are now set to
    the same height.  This makes for a somewhat cleaner appearance.

    The search expression gadget will now adjust its size to a
    combination of extra wide and very narrow characters, weighted
    towards the proportionally wider ones.  This allows the window to
    be sized narrower while maintaining a sense of the current font's
    size requirements.

    The Listview scrollers are now adjusted in width to whatever font
    is selected for the window.  This is _much_ nicer with large fonts;
    the minimum size is 16, no matter what.  The formula is 2/3 of the
    font size, so that any font sized above 24 will bring the adjust-
    ment into play (i.e. a font size 30 will use a scroller width of
    20.)


v2.8    6-Mar-1995

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    KINGFISHER will now properly handle EQUAL and NOT EQUAL comparisons
    in expressions.  These did not work until now because of a trailing
    newline in the field data.

    Case sensitivity in search expressions is now implemented properly.

    Improved expression evaluation speed somewhat.  Fixed minor bug in
    evaluation routine that may have been responsible for failures to
    find some information.

    Will no longer disable all relevant browsing and motion gadgets
    when attempting to step one record past the end of the database,
    leaving only the keyboard (left-arrow key, for example) available
    to move one record backward and "recover" the use of the gadgets.
    Why did I not find this earlier?  Why did nobody ever report this?

    Will no longer place the .INDEXINFO= tag within the markers when
    writing records to the clipboard.  This was an nasty error on my
    part that would make it impossible for KFServer to properly handle
    clipboard input.  A very embarrassed "Sorry!"

    Properly updates the VersionLinks after adding new fish to the
    database.

    Now properly updates the QuickIndex when adding new fish.  This was
    a very dreadful omission in the code for which I do apologize!  My
    thanks to Dean Ridgway for making me aware of this problem.

    When opening a KingFisher Release 1 database, and the index is
    found to be a Release 1 index, KingFisher Release 2 will perform an
    on-the-fly conversion of the Release 1 index into a Release 2 index
    located in RAM.  This has always been the case, but there was a
    very unfortunate mis-computation of index-size that could result in
    error messages and some junk at the end of the index.

    When hitting the close gadget while scanning a directory tree, the
    program will no longer lock up (it previously attempted to block a
    window that was already blocked; although officially supported,
    this does seem to cause trouble...)

    REXXFISHER's RF_OBTAIN command now returns the proper values when
    using the PVER and NVER options.

    KFSERVER's I/O handlers and indexing operations were rewritten from
    the ground up to streamline their operation and eliminate a number
    of strangenesses that grew there over time.  Many problems should
    be fixed now: occasional case sensitivity to the ".name" identifier
    and serious problems with (re)indexing operations involving the
    QuickIndex and partitioned databases.

    Should now be able to find files in the root directory of a volume
    (or logical assignment.)  This was a bug in SAS' dirwalker.c (for
    those interested, the problem is with walkdir(): appending a '/' is
    done only when the last character is not already a ':' or '/' but
    the offset tested is the character BEYOND the last one, so it will
    ALWAYS append the '/' to produce bogus names like: "SYS:/foo/KF.pi"


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    KINGFISHER can now use DOS Patterns (i.e. "#?(foo|bar)#?" in search
    expressions.  This is indicated in an expression with the use of
    the '#' operator (as opposed to =, !=, <=, >=, $, ...)  Example:
        name # "#?(foo|bar)#?"

    No longer activates its window if KingFisher's screen is not the
    active one.  This permits starting KingFisher in the background
    (perhaps with a hotkey) without having to "fear" that while you're
    typing something the console will get yanked away from your active
    window.  Likewise, KingFisher will not active the windows it opens
    (when a search completes, for example) if its main window was
    inactive.

    Also supported now is the option to sort links by their associated
    version number.  This means that if a CD-ROM contains version 1.0,
    2.0, 3.0, 1.2, 1.5, 1.9, and 3.1 the VersionLinks will be ordered
    to allow you to scan: 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 1.9, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 regardless
    if this means moving forward or backward through the database!
        Notice that some programs use rather ill-constructed
    version numbers, such as 1.02 (which is handled as 1.2) since the
    two version numbers (before and after the dot) are not fractions
    but whole numbers.

    REXXFISHER experienced the same improvements and bug fixes to the
    search engine as KingFisher did (they share the engine code.)

    RexxFisher's version number upgraded from 1.11 to 2.8 to make the
    versions less confusing with respect to KingFisher and KFServer.

    New command to select a specific record without actually retrieving
    its data.  This is quicker than an RF_GETFISH, yet the RF_OBTAIN
    command can still be used to obtain index-related data:
        RF_SELECT fishnumber

    KFSERVER now informs a client program if it cannot open a database
    file.  It is then up to the client to retry the operation based on
    possible user-feedback.  This is implemented to prevent the server
    from blocking.  You can (if you absolutely must do this) force the
    server to block and present a message without involving the client
    by setting the following in the KFServer.prefs file:
        SUPPRESS-REQUESTERS=NO
    The value defaults to YES.

    Now actually removes deleted records from the database, eliminating
    the chance that subsequent additions followed by reindexing scans
    into only half-overwritten junk.  A side-effect of this is that a
    Reindex operation following a Delete operation will NOT recover any
    records.  Delete is now permanent!

    Now performs a sanity check on an inRAM index (but not onDISK)
    before loading.  This produces a meaningful diagnostic and prevents
    confusing errors later.

    When a database is opened multiple times (perhaps by multiple
    clients) the the first client is the only one who has the right to
    modify the database.  This prevents multiple clients attempting to
    alter the flags, for example.  This mechanism will be improved in
    the future to permit implicit individual record locking.


v2.7    19-Jan-1995

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    KINGFISHER now properly calculates text layout in the About Window.
    Until now it failed to make use of available space the way it was
    meant to, especially with large fonts.

    System Requesters now open up on KingFisher's screen even if it is
    a custom screen, rather than bringing the Workbench to the front.

    While adding fish, a response of "No" was synonymous with "Cancel."
    Needless to say, this was not the way it was intended.

    If the server terminates while KingFisher is in the middle of an
    operation during which it may not check for an exit signal from the
    server, it will no longer attempt to re-start the server in order
    to continue the operation in progress.

    KFSERVER had a bug in kfcSETPOS command that caused the index entry
    of the PREVIOUS record to be addressed (for inRAM index.)


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    KINGFISHER now (optionally) frames related gadgets with recessed
    borders to group gadgets visually.  The option is available from
    the PREFERENCES/Display menu.

    Added ability to switch SmartRefresh/SimpleRefresh option from the
    PREFERENCES/Display menu.  This used to be only available through
    the tooltypes or the KingFisher2.prefs file.

    'Build VersionLinks...' command now scans the database QuickIndex
    and builds a new set of version links.  This was an O(n) algorithm
    in KingFisher 1, but is now, regrettably, O(n²) because KingFisher
    2 can no longer make the easy assumptions about the database that
    KingFisher 1 could make.

    The PREFERENCES/Display submenu now uses check marks to indicate
    which (if any) of the 'Load Custom Format...' and 'Show all fields
    in record' choices is the current one.  This is an issue only with
    the Display Format option, as the print and export formats have no
    special dual option, and their presence or absence is easily noted
    by the enable/disable status of their respective 'Drop...' options.

    Now adds the START/STOP markers to the clipboard because it is
    easier to remove them instead of having to manually add them.  The
    .INDEXINFO item is also added for maximum future compatibility.

    With the Search Result window's new menu item "Copy to Clipboard,"
    all records in the Search Set are copied to the clipboard, each
    separated with proper START/STOP markers to make their separation
    easier.

    The UNREGISTERED version of KingFisher now requires user action to
    clear the initial About window to encourage reading of the text;
    it will no longer go away as it used to with a timeout.  The
    REGISTERED version is not affected by this change.

    REXXFISHER can now truncate a database at the current record.  To
    prevent accidents, the command can be given a parameter that
    specifies the exact number of records that you expect to be deleted
    by the operation.  If the parameter is provided but does not match
    the number of actual records that would be deleted, then the call
    will fail and no truncation will take place.  Omitting the value
    will by-pass this safety measure.
        RF_TRUNCATE    [ records ]


v2.6    02-Dec-1994

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    KINGFISHER did not make REVERSE searches based on QuickIndex any
    faster than they were in version 2.4.  This has been corrected.
    Please note that the QuickIndex and SearchMasks are not currently
    compatible and cannot be used together.  This will be improved in
    a future release.

    Two problems involving severely trashed, and mysteriously vanishing
    text (Reconstruct database index...) in menus have been corrected.

    Fixed a memory re-allocation bug that was responsible for producing
    trashed items in the DBInfo list and other related problems of this
    sort.

    When the registered version is run without the NOOUTPUT option, it
    no longer claims to be freely distributable.  Bit of an oversight!

    KFSERVER now returns the intended values for a kfcSELECTDATABASE
    command.  Previously, the values returned by the command were not
    handled properly, although no immediately adverse effects came of
    that.

    Improved creation of new databases.  New databases should no longer
    come up as read-only databases when they are first created, nor
    should there be any problems now adding data to a newly created
    database.  Unconditional error messages have now been guarded with
    a verbosity level check, so the server will be less prone to ramble
    on about the things that are and are not happening.

    System Requesters are no longer suppressed.  At one time this was
    meant to prevent the server from blocking in case that an unmounted
    volume was accessed, but this inadvertently disabled the server's
    ability to serve databases stored on off-line (unmounted) volumes.

    A bug was fixed involving detection of Read/Write status of a
    database.  A database whose primary index file is stored in the
    root directory of a logical or physical volume (i.e. in DF0: or
    in KF2:, as opposed to a subdirectory DH0:Database/) would not be
    able to determine the status and assume Read-Only ability.


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    KINGFISHER now supports the clipboard.  Writes current fish to the
    clipboard; Appends one or more fish from the clipboard.  Clipboard
    currently fixed to unit 0.

    The Center Window option now immediately centers the window on the
    current display when activated.  The window will be re-centered
    when the size is changed, and the option is automatically turned
    off when the window is repositioned.

    A new option in PREFERENCES/DISPLAY is available to display all
    fields in a record.  This uses the custom display mechanism and can
    be turned off by dropping the custom display formed by this option.

    Can now select larger fonts (previous version seemed to be limited
    to size of 24 pixels or less, at least on my system.)

    KFSERVER now reports total uptime and bases percentage of use on
    the total time the server was USED rather than the client's total
    connect time (which eventually led to 0% used when the server was
    idle.)

    REXXFISHER now has the ability to add all fish from a file to the
    current database, as well as affect the previous and next version
    link values in the index.  The new commands are:
        RF_ADDFISH    'filename'
        RF_SETVLINK    PVER fishnumber | NVER fishnumber


v2.5    05-Nov-1994

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    Explicitly quoted string constants in expressions are no longer
    affected by the TRIM BLANKS setting which shaves off blank spaces
    in expressions to avoid mistakes with blanks at the end of strings.


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    The QuickIndex feature now deserves its name:  It has been sped up
    so it can search 4500 records in a mere second (the exact speed
    depends on how many matches are produced and need to be processed.)
    Unlike the QuickIndex that was part of KingFisher 1.x, this
    QuickIndex feature is a) fully automatic and b) not limited to
    substring searches (i.e. you can search "name$king & ~name=kingcon)
    which was possible with KingFisher 1 only when not using the quick
    index.

    The expression syntax has been enhanced to permit a shortcut:
      field op ( value | value & value ^ value )
    is equivalent to:
      field op value | field op value & field op value ^ field op value
    Thus:
        name$(king|aqua|fish)
    Is the same as:
        name$king | name$aqua | name$fish
    The portion in ()'s may contain multiple levels of parentheses to
    prioritize the evaluation order:
        name$(fish&(king|net|sticks))
    represents:
        name$fish & ( name$king | name$net | name|sticks )


v2.4    01-Nov-1994

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    If the KFServer is shutdown, all clients (such as RexxFisher and
    KingFisher) are now sent break signals instead of exit messages.
    This is more reliable and less prone to lost resources.

    Improvements made to handling user-interaction while adding records
    to the database.

    Once again, the $VER: tags have been fixed.  The fact that the type
    identification ("EVALUATION COPY"/"REGISTERED") left an illegal
    white space in the string caused further problems.  This time the
    identification (EVALUATION/REGISTERED) has been moved to AFTER the
    date portion.  Even though this is still not recommended practice,
    so many programs used this method to append copyright or other
    text, that Commodore made special arrangements to support it; this
    is significantly more compatible than adding non-numeric letters to
    the version number.


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    New menu command to reconstruct damaged or lost index files.  This
    command is NOT named "reindex" to avoid possible misunderstandings
    about its purpose.  Using "Reconstruct database index" causes the
    loss of all existing version links and individual record flags, so
    it is not a function to be used casually.

    Additional interface features added for more keyboard control
    (tabbing between Main and Search Result windows, for example.)

    KingFisher now recognizes if a search expression references only
    the field upon which the QuickIndex is based.  In such cases a
    search is at least twice as fast as before.  Further speed-up is
    scheduled for a future version.

    Documentation has been rewritten with AmigaGuide V39/V40 features
    in mind.  If running under 2.x, the Installer will alter the .guide
    to make it readable with earlier versions of AmigaGuide.

    New Installer script permits partial installation and upgrades to
    be performed.



v2.3    05-Sep-1994

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    Corrected several problems involving access to an empty database
    that would a) produce a variety of complaints, some even completely
    incorrect assertions, b) not properly ghost relevant gadgets, and
    c) produce potentially misleading or bogus values for the numeric
    (fish/disk) gadget.

    Potential problem removed involving an improperly terminated node-
    context table for the AmigaGuide interface.  This may have caused
    improper, unreliable, or unresponsive functioning of KingFisher's
    HELP system.

    Compatibility problem resolved with the Fish/Disk cycle gadget,
    which inadvertently used a NULL font pointer.  This caused GadTools
    to use the system default font but could confuse system extensions
    that enhance cycle gadgets to produce pop-up lists, instead.

    Formatting problem solved which would not properly terminate the
    formatted output.  This affected both KingFisher and RexxFisher due
    to shared code.

    Selecting an expression from the Search Expression History window
    will now cause the selected item to be moved to the top of the
    list.


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    New menu command to edit a format file using external editor.  File
    notification will be implemented in the next release.

    AmigaGuide is now opened on demand only.  This preserves RAM when
    the help system is not needed and delays the need to insert a disk
    with the .guide file if this file is kept off-line on a floppy, for
    example.

    Now supports pointing at a gadget with the mouse and pressing HELP.
    This completes the implementation of context sensitive help.

    Displays are now handled with SIMPLEREFRESH; KingFisher takes care
    of its own refreshing, which means that Intuition no longer has to
    maintain a backup bitmap in case an obscured portion of the window
    needs "repair" (thus reducing RAM requirements!) and speeding up
    the moving of KingFisher's windows, especially on deep screens,
    such as 256 color displays.
        If you prefer the older method, place SMARTREFRESH into the
    tooltypes or change the REFRESH entry in the .prefs file to SMART.

    Now allows selection of any font from the system to be used for
    menus, requesters, display, etc.  This functionality may be later
    expanded to a set of three or so separate fonts for various parts
    of the interface.

    Starting with Kickstart V38 (2.1) KingFisher now allows you to
    select a custom screen mode, complete with size, number of colors,
    and autoscroll.  For V37 (2.04) it is necessary to construct the
    .prefs entry manually.  This is detailed in the documentation for
    that menu command.



v2.2    14-Aug-1994

    »»» BUG FIXES:

    Fixes a bug with adding records to the database.  Symptom: new
    records would show up blank and would, in fact, have only the 5
    character (field identifier) string ".name" in them.

    Also fixed another bug with adding records to a database from which
    records had previously been removed (Delete Fish); the new records
    would be always appended to the database instead of placed in their
    proper location (overwriting old, unused data) while the index
    would indicate the position the records should have occupied.  The
    result was apparently corrupted information.
        It is safe to delete all records starting with the first
    "bad" one and then re-adding them.

    The Version Tags ($VER:) in KingFisher and KFServer have been fixed
    to be Style Guide compliant.  It appears that V40 software (KS 3.1)
    is more lenient than V37/V38 with respect to spaces in the program
    name.  This was required to make the 'DoPatch' script/tool work.

    A problem was corrected with the 'DBInfo' entries in the .prefs
    file where bogus information was stored to the entries.  Editing
    the KingFisher2.prefs file and removing all lines beginning with
    'DBInfo=' will assure that these bogus entries will not interfere
    with normal operation.  As more databases are added and the need
    arises to maintain last-position for them all, KingFisher will
    reclaim the space used by the oldest (possibly bogus) items, so
    there is not real need to modify the file and remove bogus entries.


    »»» IMPROVEMENTS:

    The promised speedup to the searching with masks has now been
    implemented.  This may be dozens, if not hundreds of times faster
    than a previous search.  Once you have setup various flags, you may
    be able to build a Search Set at blinding speed!

    A new option in the Global Preferences causes KingFisher to always
    open its window in the center of the display when you start the
    program.  This is useful especially when KingFisher's window opens
    on public screens of varying resolutions and might otherwise end up
    being pushed about to suit varying resolutions; with the new Center
    Main Window option on, you can rely on it always appearing in the
    center.

    KingFisher now recognizes the 'Help-File' entry in the .prefs file,
    which specifies the name of the .guide; the default for this entry
    is "KingFisher2.guide"; without path, AmigaGuide will look for this
    file in several places, including the default directory.

#EOT