MICROGDS 9.0.2 RELEASE NOTES January 2006 ============================ MicroGDS 9.0.2 contains a number of fixes. It is provided as a patch which will upgrade both MicroGDS 9.0 and MicroGDS 9.0.1 installations. It will not work on a machine that does not already have 9.0 installed; nor will it work on a machine which has already had MicroGDS 9.0.2, or any later patch, installed. It should not be used on the Japanese version of MicroGDS. PROBLEMS WITH MSP FILE EXTENSION -------------------------------- The supplied .msp file is a Microsoft Installer Patch. We have encountered some machines where the .msp file type has been set to "Microsoft Paint", so double clicking MGDS9to902.msp has started up a paint program! If this happens, run the patch installer by typing the command: msiexec /p mgds9to902.msp EDUCATIONAL LICENCES -------------------- After applying the patch, users with educational licences will have to reset their licence details. To do this: Log in as Administrator Start MicroGDS On the licence dialog box, change the licence type to Educational (e.g. Compact,Educational) Click OK Exit from MicroGDS PROJECT TEMPLATES ----------------- File->Preferences->Multi-user allows you to add or remove templates from the set available when creating new projects. If you have removed or replaced either of the two templates supplied as standard with MicroGDS, upgrading to 9.0.2 will undo your changes. You will need to repeat the changes. IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES SINCE MICROGDS 9.0.1 ------------------------------------------- We identified a timing problem which could cause a crash, typically when a CadLink application was deleting data. This has been corrected. Object Get, when moving an object from one layer to another, could sometimes incorrectly fail to copy Object applicability properties. Drawing hatched linestyles when seen "end-on" could cause a crash. A problem which could cause a crash when offsets were incorrectly typed to the trace command has been fixed. A situation was found in which "hover-snapping" failed to reset the current position for the purpose of relative distances. Under some circumstances, MicroGDS produced a screen rather than printer resolution enhanced metafile in either Window>Export>EMF or Edit>Copy, Paste>Special>EMF Under some circumstances Construct->Trace->Spaghetti could find the "wrong" polygons. The "Insert symbol" list in the New/Edit Text dialog box did not work with Japanese characters. A case was found where Construct->Array->Path, repeating an object around a curve, created the copies in the wrong place. You could crash MicroGDS by starting the Line or Oline command with two hits in exactly same place followed by "Backspace". Cutting & pasting an apostrophe in the text editor could convert it to "&apos" DWG/DXF/DWF Export: - Exporting a document that has a photo referencing an external document now reads the style info from the external document. - Under some circumstances the position of exported text could be slightly offset. - Exporting a window referencing a window that in turn referenced a window could fail if the last window was deleted. - Invisible phases were sometimes not being exported to DWG. - Exporting to DWF now works in black and white if requested, and is more tolerant of slightly stretched, filled text. - We had a case of export to DXF failing with "Invalid group code" handling a multiple-line text primitive. - If you managed to create MicroGDS dimensions in which a line primitive was referenced by two text primitives (by injudicious copying), export could fail with "null object pointer". - We fixed an occurrence of "error getting normal to graphics" which could arise when units were larger than mm . - Vertical text in fonts like MS Gothic and MS Mincho could be the wrong size on export. DWG/DXF Import: - Under certain circumstances dimensions could be rotated. This is now fixed. - MicroGDS could error if supplied with a blank linetype name. - If a paper space view was a long way from the origin it could cause the resulting print layout view to display a different area of the model. - In certain circumstances instance processing was performed incorrectly resulting in a crash. - Importing nested blocks as assemblies could translate Autocad non-constant attributes as object level rather than reference level. IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES FROM MICROGDS 9.0 TO MICROGDS 9.0.1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes the phase colour listbox in the Window Editor did not update correctly. Drawing the labels on snap guides caused a small "memory leak", which over a long enough session could cause a crash. Plotting with the "Rasterise within MicroGDS" option could create a spurious line down the edge of the plot. Copying an instance with no set layer in which to create it could cause a crash. Dimension Arc Length did not properly honour Set Name settings. The sequence ^() in a text primitive is now correctly drawn as a ? symbol. The following DWG/DXF import problems have been fixed: - Some files could cause negative value dimensions to be created. - We discovered a case where a corrupt DWG file could crash MicroGDS. - Vertical text using Japanese @fonts was not handled correctly. The following DWG/DXF export problems have been fixed: - Vertical text using Japanese @fonts was not handled correctly. - The positioning of exported text has been modified slightly, to better adjust for the differences between the way AutoCAD and MicroGDS represent text size and position. - Blocks corresponding to linestyle endmarks are now created at the right size. KNOWN PROBLEM PREVENTING APPLICATIONS FROM RUNNING -------------------------------------------------- There are certain conditions which will cause the installer to fail to register the COMDLG32.OCX library. This will manifest itself in an error saying that the library is missing when starting one of the sample applications. In order to correct the problem, you will need to register the library by hand: 1) start up a Command Prompt 2) enter the command regsvr32 %SystemRoot%\system32\comdlg32.ocx MICROGDS 9.0 CADFILER AND GDI+ ------------------------------ MicroGDS 9.0 uses the Microsoft GDI+ library extensively. As a result we recommend that Cadfiler programs which call the metafile functions (CF...MetaFile) must start up GDI+ before doing so, and close it down afterwards. If in doubt, include the startup and close down calls anyway as they are harmless if GDI+ is not otherwise used. See the example C++ code below. This problem does not occur when developing .NET programs (e.g. C# or Visual Basic.NET). // Declarations and headers needed #include using namespace Gdiplus; static ULONG_PTR gdiplusToken; // keep this between startup and shutdown // Before using any Cadfiler functions, initialize GDI+ { GdiplusStartupInput gdiplusStartupInput; const Status s = GdiplusStartup(&gdiplusToken, &gdiplusStartupInput, NULL); // Check s==Ok here } // After using all Cadfiler functions, shut down GDI+ GdiplusShutdown(gdiplusToken); CONTACTING US ------------- You can visit our web site at: http://www.informatix.co.uk Or you can contact us at: Informatix Software International Ltd 509 Coldhams Lane Cambridge CB1 3JS United Kingdom telephone: +44 (0)1223 246777 fax: +44 (0)1223 246778 email: info@informatix.co.uk TRADEMARKS ---------- MicroGDS is a registered trademark of Informatix Software International Limited.