Surfulater Version 2.00, Build 0.0 Release Notes - 13 December 2006

This release continues with more new features and enhancements and moves Surfulater to Version 2. Updates include enhancements to the Tab Bar, a new "Add Links to files..." command, the ability to drag files from Windows Explorer and drop them on Articles as Attachments or Links, the ability to attach and link to multiple files at once, a new Clipboard Hotkey lets you append content to articles, the ability to specify the folder for Surfulater files, new UI Themes, code optimizations, bug fixes and more. All in all a great new release to wrap up a great year. Read on for complete details.

**See the latest Blog post for more information on this release.

What's New

• Knowledge Base Tabs can be rearranged using drag & drop.
• The Tab for the current Knowledge Base now has a [x] button which enables you to close it, like IE7.
• The Knowledge Base Tab Bar includes a new [x] button. Click on this to close the current Knowledge Base.
• The Knowledge Base Tab Bar includes a new drop-down list which enables you to select a Knowledge Base. Click on the Down Arrow image at the right end of the bar.
• Knowledge Base Tabs have a new right click context menu when appears when you right click on a Tab. This enables you to Close, Open and create a New Knowledge Base. See Knowledge Base Tab Bar in the Help.
• The new Add Links to Files... command lets you add links to files on your PC. It has the same user interface as "Attach Files..." and is quicker and simpler than using Ctrl+K with selected text in edit mode. Add Links to Files... is on various context menus, the Article menu and has a new Toolbar button. You can now also drag and drop files from Windows Explorer as mentioned next. See Attaching & Linking Files to Articles in the Help.
• You can now drag and drop files from Windows Explorer on to the Attachments field of an Article or Folder record in the content window. A context menu lets you choose between attaching the selected files (storing them in your Surfulater KB), or adding links to the files on your computer. Multiple files can be selected in Explorer and dropped on to the attachments field. See Attaching & Linking Files to Articles in the Help.
• Attachments and Linked to Files now include an image before the link, so you can see whether the link is an attachment or not. Also hovering over these links uses different colors and removes the underline. This is controlled by new styles in the Crisp.css and Classic.css Style Sheets. If you haven't modified these style sheets then delete them and Surfulater will create the latest versions the next time it starts. These files are located in: C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater\Content Styles
  Note: These enhancements will only be visible for newly attached files, not existing ones and only if you delete or update the current style sheets.
• Multiple Knowledge Bases can now be selected and opened in File|Open.
• A new Clipboard Hotkey has been added which enables you to append the contents of the Windows Clipboard to the main field of the current article. The Hotkey is set using View|Preferences. See Appending content to Articles in the Help.
• The View|Preferences dialog has been updated to include several new options.
• You can now specify the Folder that is used for Knowledge Bases, Send To|HTML file and Send To|MHT file. This enables you to use a drive & folder other than My Documents\My Surfulater. File|Open and File|New start with this folder selected. See Data Folders in Preferences in the Help.
• The Knowledge Tree New Folder command now has a shortcut key Ctrl+F12. The New Folder command can also now be added to the main Menu or a Toolbar using Customization.
• The Keyboard right-click context menu key now works in the Knowledge Tree. Pressing this key behaves as if you had right clicked on the currently selected tree item, and gives you access to its context menu.
• Content window context menu|Append Clipboard to Field now scrolls to the bottom of the field, so the newly appended text is visible.
• Six new UI Themes have been added including Office 2007 themes. Some of the new themes change the Title Bar to match the theme. View|UI Theme changes the theme. The UI Theme Toolbar has been updated. See User Interface - UI Theme in the Help.
• More updates to work with Windows Vista.
• Surfulater's CPU use has been further reduced, when it isn't the active application.
• All 'Send To' output has been optimized and its size reduced.
• The list of most recently used Knowledge Bases on the File menu has been increased from 6 to 10.
• All Folder and Article Templates have been updated to include a new 'BodyField' attribute. This identifies the field to append content to for the new 'Append To Article' Clipboard Hotkey. See Appending content to Articles in the Help.
• Several new Help topics have been added and others updated.

What's Fixed

• Send To|HTML Files works correctly again when the HTML file is displayed in Mozilla Firefox. Thanks to Ike Washington for reporting this.
• Send To|HTML Files and MHT File works correctly again when Content Filters are enabled. Content Filter settings are not used with Send To.
• Content e-mailed from Surfulater displays correctly again in Thunderbird and The Bat!
• Pressing Enter or Escape when editing Knowledge Tree items no longer makes a beep sound.
• When IE7 is being used, the Thumbnail image that Surfulater creates for new articles, now only includes the web page, not the entire IE7 application window.
• All "New Article" menu items now use 'A' as their shortcut key.
• View|Preferences now lets you enter a Hotkey which is already set in the Preferences window.
• Clipboard Hotkeys no longer work (capture content) when View|Preferences is open.
• Fixed an error in an Article Template which prevented xxx.Surfulater files from being valid XML.
• The outline rectangle that is displayed when a field has focus is now removed when Print, Print Preview, Copy (selection) and Select All is used.
• Adding articles with the Knowledge Tree in "Show all Folders Expanded..." or "Show/Hide Articles..." modes could cause a subsequent crash. This has been fixed with thanks to Jai Kasturi.
• Adding articles via. a Web Browser now expands the articles folder, if it or one of its parent folders is collapsed.
• The XML DTD for new Knowledge Base files has been updated to include nbsp and NBSP entities to help ensure Knowledge Base files pass XML validation. Thanks to Justin Dunlap and Perry Mowbray.

Surfulater Version 1.99, Build 2.0 Release Notes - 12 October 2006

This release addresses issues which prevented Surfulater from working correctly if IE7 was installed, updates the Firefox Extension for Firefox V2 and fixes some other problems.

What's New

• The Surfulater Firefox Extension has been updated to work with Firefox Version 2, RC2. Download and install it from the Surfulater Download page.

What's Changed

• Text in the Implementation field in Code Snippet articles now wraps around if it is too wide to fit in the content window. Previously such text didn't wrap and a horizontal scroll bar was displayed.

What's Fixed

• Attachments now open if IE7 is installed.
• Fields that can be expanded and collapsed, such as "Text" in the Web Article template, now work correctly if you have IE7 RC1 installed. Thanks to Melissa Morgan for reporting this.
• Clicking on the "Knowledge Tree" link in a collapsed Folder in the content window could cause Surfulater to crash. This was reported in the V1.99, B1.0 release by Perry Mowbray, but turned out to be an old problem. Many thanks to Perry for his help with this.
• Right clicking in the new gap between articles in the content window would display an error, which it shouldn't have and is now fixed. Thanks to David Wengier for reporting this.

Surfulater Version 1.99, B1.0 Release Notes - 7 October 2006

Most changes in this release are ongoing internal updates to pave the way for new and enhanced future capabilities. In particular the Style Sheets used to control the content window display can now be edited and new ones added. Color Themes have been removed from Knowledge Base files and all HTML Templates have been updated, and changed slightly. Some other changes include resolving issues when running Surfulater on a Non-Administrator Windows Account. A range of bugs have also been fixed.

What's New

• Content Window templates have changed as follows:
  • Collapsed Folders no longer include the "Folder" label.
  • Expanded records with Labels and Pencils hidden, now display a narrow band down the left edge if the record.
  • Collapsed Folders and Articles Titles now change color when you hover over them.
  • Collapsed Articles no longer allow editing of their Titles, nor include the Creation Date. Instead they include the Reference field, along with the Title. This delivers more useful content when articles are collapsed.
  • The "Note" template has changed. A column has been added down the left margin and the edit pencil has been moved there. This pencil is not hidden by the Content Elements|Show Edit Pencils filters. In fact Content Elements don't effect this template.
• View|Style Sheet has been renamed to View|Content Color Theme and now places a tick besides the current theme. See: Content Styles & Color Themes in the Help.
• The Toolbar button used to select a Content Color Theme now uses a drop down menu for selection.
• Color Themes now use a central file Color Themes.xml instead of being stored in each Knowledge Base. This file located in C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater
• View|Content Styles has been added. This lets you choose between various HTML Style Sheets which control the styles used in the content window. See: Content Styles & Color Themes in the Help.
• The Style Sheet used in the Content Window is no longer hard coded in Surfulater. New Content Style files are located in: C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater\Content Styles Two styles are currently available. Classic, which is much the same as what has been available until now and Crisp, which uses thinner lines to separate HTML elements. All CSS styles have been updated, and many new ones added. New styles control things like the font used for Headings. This gives a more consistent look to captured Web content and helps to resolve problems where some content was displayed with fonts which were quite large. It also gives you complete control over the look of content, should you feel inclined to create your own Style Sheets. See: Content styling and templates for some background reading and Help Topic Content Styles & Color Themes in the Help.
• You are now prompted for confirmation when removing a folder. This was a Forum request by Varian Shepherd.
• The Surfulater XML Clipboard Format (SXCF) now allows a folder to specified and optionally created. See this Forum post.
• Various changes have been made to help prepare Surfulater to run on Microsoft Windows Vista.

What's Changed

• Article|Send To now uses the new Content Style Sheets instead of its own Style Sheet, SurfulaterSendTo.css
• Right click in the Content Window below the last article no longer displays the Color Themes context menu.
• The Application folder is no longer used as a temporary folder for Thumbnail images when content is captured from your Web Browser. The Windows Temp folder is now used for this. SXCF developers need to change their code to match.
• The Templates Patch file, Surfulater.SurfulaterPatch, New KB starter file EmptyKB.Surfulater and Master Messages file SurfulaterDNAA.master.xml have all been moved from the Application folder to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater
• The Help file Help.Surfulater has been moved from the My Documents\My Surfulater folder to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater
• Several files have been moved from the Installer Setup program and into Surfulater.EXE. This enables Surfulater to self heal when one of its files get accidently deleted and also helps pave the way for the Free Surfulater Reader program.
• See also What's New and What's Fixed.

What's Fixed

• The message complaining that there is no Knowledge Base open when you capture content and Surfulater isn't running has been fixed. This issue was introduced in the last release.
• Collapsed Folders in the content window no longer disappear when Labels and Pencils are hidden.
• The default images used for Folders in the Knowledge Tree can now be set. See this Forum post for details.
• Article|Send To now uses the selected Color Theme. Previously it always used the Default theme (style).
• Adding new content from your Web Browser or the Windows Clipboard now works correctly, if an Article is being edited at the time.
• Use Help|View ... then closing Surfulater before the Web Browser displays the page no longer causes Surfulater to crash. Thanks for Brigg Thorpe for reporting this.
• Deleting a Folder now correctly updates the Content window.
• Fixed a problem with History List usage.
• Fixed a problem where deleting a 'See Also' link appeared to delete it, but didn't. Thanks to Varian Shepherd for reporting this.
• Using Cut and Paste across Knowledge Bases would leave Surfulater in a state where subsequent actions could cause it to crash. Thanks to Varian Shepherd for his help with this.
• Copying Unicode text from PDF Documents et al. now works correctly. Thanks to Sidney Whitehead for raising this.
• The file that Surfulater uses to log any errors is now located in the C:\Documents and Settings\[User Account]\Application Data\SAIG\Surfulater\Logs folder. This resolves a problem for folks who use Surfulater from a Non-Administrator Windows Account. Crash Report files are now also placed in this folder. Thanks to Jørgen Ibsen for raising this.
• A problem with the Surfulater Error Log file not always being included in Crash Reports has hopefully been fixed.

Older releases notes are available in the Surfulater Help, Release Notes section.

__________________
Neville Franks,
Author of ED for Windows and Surfulater