v4.06 Release Notes

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Changes included in release 4.06:

Added the following floss/thread categories with color values:

Appleton Crewel and Tapestry Wool
Coats Puppets
DMC Cebelia Crochet
DMC Color Variations
DMC Light Effect
DMC Linen
DMC Perle Cotton
DMC Tapestry Wool
Finca Mouline
Finca Perle Cotton
Needlepaints
Paternayan Crewel, Persian, and Rug
Added the following floss/thread categories without color values:

Olympus
Needlepoint Silk
Rainbow Gallery, Encore, and Elegance
Dinky Dyes, Silk, and Cotton
Crescent Colors
Durak Polyjet, Polysoft, and Visco
Isafil
Gutermann
Stranded by the Sea
Changed to paste the symbol font attributes when pasting a color into the palette of another design.
Fixed problem that would result in the inability to change the symbol settings for a palette entry.
Fixed TrueType mode of text entry tool that caused font to be illegible if anti-aliased text were selected as the Windows default.
Fixed undo of font attribute change.
Fixed problem that would occur if two windows were opened for the same design, and then a selection was made in one of them.
Fixed problem where the specialty stitch menu would extend off the side of the screen.
Fixed problem in Trial version for Standard level where ‘Show in Palette’ caused the stitches to be highlighted.
Fixed missing ‘Update’ and ‘Save copy as’ menu items for OLE embedded patterns.
(ME Add-on) Added new hoop types for JEF and PES.
(ME Add-on) Added support for stitch-out of petite stitches.
(ME Add-on) Changed to allow stitch limits for Tajima file type.
(ME Add-on) Changed anchor stitch method.
(ME Add-on) Fixed problem where backstitches sometimes did not connect exactly along hoop boundary.
(Layout) Added layout option for deleting the current layout.
(Layout) Fixed problem where layout table would duplicate the notes field when a usage column were used.

Changes included in release 4.05:

Added warning if no stitches are specified for the 'First Set' of a specialty stitch. With no stitches in that set, the stitch is invisible.
Added the display of the number of items found in the Copy from Library dialog box.
Added support for opening and saving-as the PixelHobby Designer Lite file format.
Changed saving to v3 format to force V4 BS lines styles to be the V3 solid line style.
Changed zoom by selection feature to allow a smaller selection area to be choosen. Previously, any size less than 10x10 pixels was be treated as a click instead of an area selection.
Changed to use the pattern folder when saving palettes.
Fixed problem that caused stitches to be deleted when removing colors from a selection. This would only occur if the Overlay Stitches when Pasting option were turned off.
Fixed problem that caused a white line to appear between all stitch positions when the gap between stitches option was turned on and a non-white fabric color was selected.
Fixed problem that caused some warning message boxes to appear behind the splash screen when the program opened.
Fixed problem that caused the scroll bar in the Copy from Library dialog box to not update when the Items to Show selection was changed.
Fixed problem that caused multiple warnings to be shown when closing the importing window if too few of symbols were available. This problem could have potentially caused a crash.
Fixed backstitch handles to be square for the1280x1024 screen resolution case.
Fixed problem that caused symbols in the metafiles in the layout feature and in the exporting feature to be distorted in their widths. This seemed to be more of a problem caused a particular LCD monitor.
Fixed problem when changing the size of the fabric. In some cases when changing the size of a design containing specialty stitches the specialty stitches would be deleted from the re-sized design.
Fixed problem that caused the specialty stitch editor to not draw the non-selected layers of the stitch correctly. Instead they were typically omitted.
Fixed metafile exporting for the solid view that caused very thin gaps between the stitches.
Fixed problem where changes to color names of palette colors were not saved.
Fixed problem that caused underlay image to be shifted.
Fixed problem where the underlay would shift when tracing over it.
Fixed problem where specialty stitch drop-down list would appear on the wrong monitor of a multi-monitor system.
Fixed problem where dialogs would appear on the wrong monitor in multi-monitor system.
Fixed problem with the display thickness selection for the 5-strand thickness.
Fixed problem in the stitch-edge outlining feature that caused outline to always be enabled if a specific color were chosen for the outline color.
Fixed problem that caused colors to be duplicated in the palette when pasting from another running instance of the program and from an identical palette.
Fixed problem that caused re-draw problem when dragging of a selection that caused auto-scrolling.
(ME Add-on) Fixed exporting of backstitches by the machine embroidery feature. In some cases, a portion of the backstitches which crossed between hoopings would be stitched behind the other stitch types instead of on top. The portion of the stitch that was beneath the other stitches was limited to that part crossing the first row/column of the hoop.
(Layout) Added support for showing placeholders for charts in layout view. A menu item called Chart Placeholders is now available in the View menu of the Layout window. When selected, the display of a chart is replaced with a box. This makes the re-draw time of the layout much quicker. This feature is useful when your chart is very complex/large and you need to add a large amount of text.
(Layout) Fixed the Save as new template option of the Layout view. In some cases the current layout did not get saved correctly.
(Layout) Fixed problem that caused selection of palette color to change back to previous selection when the layout view was selected.

Changes included in release 4.04:

Added support for TrueType fonts using the Text Entry tool. Any installed TrueType font can be used with the text entry tool. The selected font is converted into full or petite stitches automatically.
Added support for pasting text from other applications when using the Text Entry tool (via Ctrl-v or Edit-Paste).
Added support for TIF CMYK and TIF 8-bit grayscale files when exporting a chart as a graphics file.
Added strand selection for French Knots.
Added 25 new stitched fonts for the text entry tool.
Added 50 new clipart designs.
Added the date and time as an option for the header/footer information.
Added short-cut keys for choosing the snap-to mode for backstitches. Ctrl-1 selects snap to corners while Ctrl-2 selects snap to corners and midpoints.
Added several new line styles for backstitches (for the symbolic view).
Added support for several thread/floss types: FUFU, Kingstar, Olde Willow Stitchery, and Rainbow Gallery Splendor. Revised Brother colors to use the actual color identifiers used by Brother.
Changed Copy from Library dialog box to be resizeable and faster when redrawing a full page of items.
Changed flood fill tool to be faster when filling large designs that contain many back or straight stitches.
Changed handling of grid line thickness when exporting. Previously the settings that were used depended upon the type of file being created (ie. WMF/EMF files used the printing settings, while all other types used the display settings). The Printing settings are now used for all types of exported files.
Changed the color selection dialog box that is used for picking colors. This dialog box allows the display of the selected color using the current color management settings. Previously, when color management were enabled, it would be hard to know exactly how the color would appear when actually used in the design.
Changed the Grid Alignment feature (of the Importing feature) to only undo the alignment (and not other changes such as cropping) when the Undo button is clicked.
Changed to auto-disable grid numbering when grid line display is disabled.
Changed default grid line colors to be lighter.
Changed rendering of charts to take advantage of 32-bit graphics features on Windows 2000 and Xp. This removes limits on backstitch lengths (such as when printing on 11x17 sized paper at high resolutions).
Changed the Edit-Copy As-Bitmap command to maintain the same backstitch width as is shown on the screen.
Changed the default for major grid thickness for printing/exporting to be 0.504pt. This works better for exporting when the DPI is 300. With a lower setting, there is no distinction between minor and major lines.
Changed the font preview for stitched fonts of the Text Options box to only show one row of characters. This makes it easier to see very small fonts.
Changed the drawing of French knots to be one pixel lower in the grid square.
Changed to handle more than 65535 backstitches/French knots/specialty stitches.
Optimized the handling of specialty stitches. Previously, designs that contained a large number of specialty stitches would take a long time to draw/print/select/etc.
Optimized Text Entry tool to speed-up the processing time when using the horizontal centering option and when deleting characters. Also reduced the time need to open the Text Options dialog box.
Optimized RAM memory usage per pattern.
Fixed problem that would occur if a palette change were made while entering text.
Fixed graphics exporting problem that would sometimes result in the save-to folder being the 'library' folder.
Fixed RTF creation (graphics exporting/ME exporting/layout exporting) to save the 'Print Layout' view as the default view that should be used when the RTF file is opened in other programs such as MS Word. Also fixed the saving of the background color in the RTF file. Previously the background color would be black.
Fixed problem with the freehand selection tool that would result in the selection being cleared. (This would occur if the selection were made beyond the 500th stitch position.)
Fixed problem that caused the symbol for a bead to be either excessively large (Win95/98/Me) or excessively small (on on Win 2000/Xp) when using a character to represent the bead in the symbolic view, and after changing the default symbol font. The problem occurred in the pattern information for the design, but not the chart.
Fixed Set Library Name short-cut key usage to be Ctrl-i instead of Ctrl-a.
Fixed problem with highlighting feature that caused only the backstitches to be shown using the hightlight color. (This problem was introduced in 4.03).
Fixed problem with the graphics file exporting feature that caused a black band to be displayed on the right edge of the exported image.
Fixed problem with the undoing of palette changes via the Palette Changes dialog box that would result in changed colors not being un-done.
Fixed problem that caused the Save for New Patterns option of the Page Setup dialog not to work.
Fixed problem that would cause a very small gap between stitches when printing in the solid view with the grid disabled. This apparently only occurred on Windows 2000 and Xp systems.
Fixed problem when undoing the deletion of an under/overlay image. Previously, the size would not be restored correctly.
Fixed outlining effect used around quarter and petite stitches when in the solid view and when stitches are selected.
Fixed problem that would cause an error message when a design were printed or previewed. This problem would be triggered if the notes in the Pattern Maker information contained a CR character without a following LF character.
Fixed problem that caused the display of non-rectangular stitch sizes to be square.
Fixed problem with the freehand selection tool that in some cases caused stitches to be lost after selecting, rotating, and then moving the selection.
Fixed problem with the freehand selection tool that would result in part of a selection not being redawn after scrolling the pattern window up and then down again. This problem would only occur while the selection was being drawn.
Fixed problem that caused only part of a selection containing either a vertical or horizontal backstitch to be shown when moving the selection. The actual movement of the stitch would be done, however.
(Layout) Added option for the floss/thead ID table column to allow the disabling of the strand count for blends.
(Layout) Added options for the alternate floss/thread table column to control how the alternate color is chosen (ie. via tables and/or calculated color matches).
(Layout) Added the support for copy and pasting tables and charts. This makes it much easier to clone a table or chart without having to re-specify each setting.
(Layout) Added support for saving default settings for charts and for each type of table column.
(Layout) Changed handling of tables in layouts to automatically repeat the table heading when a table wraps to the next column.
(Layout) Changed handling of sections with multiple columns to not auto-balance the contents of the columns when the next page begins a new section.
(Layout) Changed to auto-repaginate in more cases. Previously, after certain commands the page layout would need to be repaginated in order to correctly reflect the changes that were made. The lack of repaginating would cause confusion as to the result of the command.
(Layout) Changed to display a status bar which shows the section, page, line, and column corresponding to the cursor position.
(Layout) When editing a table in an RTF file created by exporting a layout (or the basic pattern information), MS Word would crash. This was caused by there being a MERGEFILE field in the RTF file. Changed the exporting of information to RTF to omit that field.
(Layout) Fixed problem that would result in the chart being duplicated after printing or print-previewing a layout. In some cases the duplicated chart would be replaced by a small square.
(Layout) Fixed problem that would cause the wrapping from one column to the next to be premature.
(Layout) Fixed problem that made it difficult to enter numbers for the block width/height for a layout chart.
(Layout) Fixed the alternate floss/thread table column to also show the alternate color info for the colors used by a blend.
(Layout) Fixed problem that would result in a completely white screen being shown after zooming-in (completely), scrolling to the bottom of a layout, and then zooming-out (completely).
(Layout) Fixed problem that would result in the displayed page height being smaller than actual after selecting the Select All command, and then deleting.
(Layout) Fixed the default location used when exporting the a layout to an RTF file.

Changes included in release 4.03:

Fixed problem where the wrong font would be used for the printing of the Pattern Information and/or pattern layout. This problem only occurred when using the program on non-English versions of Windows.
Fixed problem that caused the displayed grid lines of the Grid Alignment page of the importing wizard to be shown misaligned even though grid alignment was successful. This problem would typically occur if the image being aligned were zoom-out after aligning the grid or if grid alignment were done without first zooming-in on the image.
Fixed conflict between moving palette colors and using the new multi-selection feature. To move a palette color, please press the shift key and the ctrl key while clicking and dragging a color.
Fixed problem with the cross-referencing feature that caused the provided cross-referencing files to be ignored. As a result, all cross-referencing was being performed by direct color matching.
Fixed crash that could occur in some cases when importing using only the underlay mode.
Fixed problem that caused symbols with character codes greater than 0x7f not to be displayed for Korean, Japanese, and Chinese versions of Windows XP.
Fixed problem that caused the centering of text to be slightly shifted to the left when using the centering option of the text tool.
Fixed problem in the layout feature that caused the symbol column not to be updated correctly if multiple rows were needed for one or more colors of the table.
Fixed problem in the layout feature that caused user-changes to some of the overlapping options to be ignored or to be mishandled.
Fixed problem that caused the pattern regions that were marked by the user to not be saved correctly.
Fixed problem that prevented a design from being scrolled to the right automatically, when the main window was in the maximized state.
Fixed problem that caused graphics exporting to crash if an invalid folder were specified.
Fixed problem that resulted in the scroll bar of the Palette Properties color list being incorrectly initialized when the Palette Properties window was resized.
Fixed problem with information view that would cause color boxes to become missing after scrolling the information window a few times.
Added support for Color Management. When enabled, and when you have installed suitable color profiles for you monitor and printer, the color display and printing should be much more consistent from machine to machine. In addition, this feature supports soft and hard proofing. This feature is not available for Windows 95 or NT.
Changed Grid Alignment to show as part of the mouse pointer which of the 3 marking points should be marked next.
Changed Undo Grid Alignment button to not undo cropping.
Changed the selection of the alternate background color to default to the floss color.
Changed the default palette.
Changed the tracing mode of backstitch tool to make it easier to draw straight lines.
Improved the display of underlay/overlay bitmaps. Previously, the color would look poor when the pattern were scaled to a low percentage.
Revised help information to include an example of importing an existing chart by tracing it. Revised/added the colors for the following floss/thread/bead types:

Anchor(R)
ARC Poly
ARC Rayon
Au Ver A Soie, Soie d'Alger(R)
Brother(R)
Caron Collection, Antica
Caron Collection, Impressions(R)
Caron Collection, Rachel
Caron Collection, Watercolours(R)
Caron Collection, Waterlilies(R)
Caron Collection, Wildflowers(R)
Danish Flower Thread
DMC(R)
DMC(R) Machine Embroidery
DMC(R) Rayon
Eterna Silk(TM) MiniTwist
Eterna Silk(TM) Silk Twist
Eterna Silk(TM) Stranded
The Gentle Art, Sampler Threads
The Gentle Art, Simply Shaker
Ginnie Thompson Flower Thread(R)
Isacord
Janome
J&P Coats
Madeira(R) Poly Neon
Madeira(R) Rayon
Marathon Poly
Marathon Rayon
Mettler Silky Sheen
Mettler Poly Sheen
Mettler Embroidery
Needle Necessities, Empress Silk
Needle Necessities, Empress Silk, OD
Needle Necessities, Floss, OD
Needle Necessities, French Wool, OD
Needle Necessities, Madras
Needle Necessities, Opalescence
Needle Necessities, Pearl 5, OD
Needle Necessities, Pearl 8, OD
Needle Necessities, Spring II, Solid
Needle Necessities, Spring II, SD
Needle Necessities, Velour 18, SD
Robison-Anton Polyester
Robison-Anton Rayon
Sulky(R) Rayon
Weeks Dye Works(TM)
Kreinik Blending Filament
Kreinik Braid, Very Fine (#4)
Kreinik Braid, Fine (#8)
Kreinik Braid, Tapestry (#12)
Kreinik Braid, Medium (#16)
Kreinik Braid, Heavy (#32)
Kreinik Cable
Kreinik Cord
Kreinik Ribbon, 1/8"
Kreinik Ribbon, 1/16"
Kreinik Japan, #1
Kreinik Japan, #5
Kreinik Japan, #7
Kreinik Ombre
Kreinik Silk Bella(TM)
Kreinik Silk Mori(TM)
Kreinik Silk Mori, Milkpaint(TM)
Kreinik Silk Serica(TM)
Mill Hill(R) Glass Seed Bead
Mill Hill(R) Antique Glass Seed Bead
Mill Hill(R) Petite Glass Seed Bead
Mill Hill(R) Frosted Glass Seed Bead
Mill Hill(R) Crayon Seed Bead
Mill Hill(R) Pebble Glass Bead
Mill Hill(R) Magnifica Glass Bead

Some of the above types are variegated, overdyed, or composed of material that is extremely difficult to display using a single color representation. For those types the provided colors are only intended to serve as a placeholder for the actual color. It is important that you rely upon sample cards of the actual colors when choosing colors from those types.
(ME Add-on) Added support for Elna XPressive (*.emd) and Viking (*.vip) format.
(ME Add-on) Changed alignment stitch generation to include another point for the alignment stitches. The extra point is in the middle.
(ME Add-on) Changed thickness of hoop lines to be a fixed width.

Changes included in release 4.02:

Fixed problem where the wrong font would be used for the printing of the Pattern Information and/or pattern layout. This problem only occurred when using the program on non-English versions of Windows.
Fixed the importing of old Palette files.
Fixed problem with the importing of a underlay graphic into a selected region.
Fixed problem with 1280x1024 resolution that caused the grid squares to be rectangles instead of squares.
Fixed problem with Paste Into Selection that caused some quarter stitches to be omitted in the pasted area.
Fixed problem with background tool of Importing that caused some of the selected background area to 'leak' into the non-background area.
Fixed graphics file exporting to ignore the current viewing percentage and always assume 100%.
Fixed problem that would cause some of the colors of a floss/thread brand to be omitted from the list of available colors.
Added support for the multiple selection of palette colors when editing the palette options. Press shift to select a range of colors or ctrl to add colors to the group of selected colors. Palette changes are then applied to all of the selected colors. You can right click on a color and select Select All if you want to make a change to all color options.
Added a way to see a list of changes that have been made to a floss list. These changes are relative to the floss list files that are provided with the program. This makes it easy to see if your palette has been affected by opening a file. You can also undo changes that have been made. To use this feature, close all patterns, right-click on a color within the Colors page of the Palette Options bar, and then select Show Changes.
Added option to show colors in the Palette Options bar using a larger box. Right-click a color and select Large Color Swatches to turn on/off the larger size.
Changed the Find box of the Colors page of the Palette Options bar to find using an exact match. To enable the way it worked before where it would find close matches, right-click the Find box and click Find Using Exact Match to turn-off exact matching.
Changed Usage Summary list to allow sorting by any of the columns. Just click a column heading to sort by it. Clicking again reverses the sort order. You can also locate the colors corresponding to a item in the usage list by selecting the color in the list, and then clicking the Show Use in Design button. This will cause that color to become the selected color of the Palette Bar, and also for the highlighting feature to be turned-on for that color.
Changed OLE to honor centering mark on/off selection.
Changed to remember the settings of the options at the bottom of the Stitch menu between uses of the program.