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-
- Font Gander Pro Version History
- Hugh Johnson, Semplice Software
-
-
-
- 1.0 - 1.0.2 Limited-release versions. Mostly changes to documentation
- and a few last-minute bug fixes.
-
- 1.0.3 First fully approved public release. Still no Kagi payment
- mechanisms.
-
- 1.0.6 No substantial changes to the program, but Kagi is finally
- available so a new release is warranted. The new version
- number is bumped up a couple of notches to help avoid con-
- fusion with the original Font Gander (sans Pro), which was
- distributed in versions between 1.0 and 1.0.5.
-
- 1.0.7 Added "Mimic Type Reunionâ„¢ Sorting" option to the prefs.
- This came after months of head-banging frustration, trying
- to find a way to keep "B Garamond Bold" right next to "I
- Garamond Italic" on the menu and on the printouts - that
- sort of thing. Gander's method of shuffling fonts in and
- out of memory makes this difficult if not impossible to
- achieve by any conventional means, but if you have a well
- organized font collection (as you should), this filename-
- based sorting scheme can be just as good.
-
- 1.1 The new file-based sorting preference seemed to beg for a
- corresponding upgrade to the plug-ins (i.e., those built
- by Gander Quill), to recognize a new keyword that prints
- suitcase file names similar to font names. So, we dipped
- back into Gander Quill, added the "<FILE>" keyword, also
- added "<PAGE>" for good measure, and just happened to spy
- a potentially nasty bug that could have caused problems
- when keywords were used in text boxes holding more than
- 255 characters (fixed). Taken together, the improvements
- to both Gander Pro and Gander Quill seemed to warrant a
- major new version number.
-
- 1.1.1 Prettied-up Gander Pro's long-neglected prefs dialog and
- whipped up a quick band-aid fix for Gander Quill's cos-
- metic problem with Greg Landweber's "SmoothType" system
- extension. The SmoothType problem remains, but it's not
- as noticable most of the time, and either way, it never
- did affect printing (to the best of my knowledge).
-
- 1.1.2 Well, it turned out I could do a little better than file-
- based sorting in my attempt to mimic Type Reunion. It's
- now called "Family-Based" sorting - a step away from a
- trademark infringement even though it's a step closer to
- the goal. Still can't sort family members very nicely, to
- make sure Roman comes before Italic for instance, but the
- members do hang together without regard to which suitcase
- they're in. Again, it's very hard to do these things when
- the resources are not memory-resident. Stay tuned.
-
- 1.1.3 Fixed the magnifier window so it can't go part-way off-
- screen in grid mode. It now appears wholly on whichever
- screen the mouse-click occurred on. Also added tab key
- selectability to the font menu. Typing the tab key moves
- you down one item on the menu; a shift-tab moves you up.
- This will help users of TypeTamerâ„¢, which currently seems
- to have a bug that disables menu items in groups of 32.
- These users can tab through the disabled items normally,
- and as always they can temporarily override TypeTamer by
- holding down shift when they select from the menu. The
- initial reports of the TypeTamer problem gave me a bit of
- a scare because it sounded like it may have been caused
- by metacharacters - namely the "(" character - in Post-
- Script font names. Gander was adding the PostScript names
- to the menu as part of the new "Family-Based Sorting".
- Although it turned out that this was not the problem, it
- is still a potential problem, and so PostScript names
- will no longer be displayed on the menu. Sorry.
-
- 1.1.4 More cosmetic improvements to the Preferences dialog.
- Also made the grabber-hand/magnifier switching more com-
- patible with multi-button mice and trackballs.
-
- 1.2 Added the ability to customize the strings in Gander
- view. Is that worth a major version number increase? I
- don't know, but a rose is a rose is a rose.
-
- 1.2.1 Minor facelift to the custom strings dialog. No changes
- other than that, but the new Font Gander Pro Website
- <http://home.att.net/~BHuey> calls for a new release with
- appropriate documentation revisions.
-
- 1.2.2 Fixed an annoying problem with the registration algorithm
- and lifted the restriction on "Include Natives" in print-
- ing when "Family-Based Sorting" is active.
-
- 1.2.3 Limited release, partial bug-fix (see next entry).
-
- 1.2.4 Fixed rare startup bugs in both Font Gander Pro and Gander
- Quill, and synchronized version numbers of both programs.
- Added "metered cursors" to Gander Quill, to facillitate
- more accurate placement of guides.
-
- 1.2.5 Limited release, partial bug-fix (see next entry).
-
- 1.2.6 Fixed a Gander Pro bug that caused some printing errors
- to go unreported. Print jobs would terminate with a beep
- and nothing more. Fixed a Gander Quill bug that caused
- bombs when picture objects containing text were rendered
- into thumbnail picts during the "Build Plug-in" process.
- Also added spinning cursor so that long builds aren't
- mistaken for freezes. In addition, made overdue changes to
- Gander Pro's documentation, to incorporate these revision
- improvements into the main text, and beefed up the online
- "Help..." window. It's now an actual, genuine scrolling
- text, good enough to replace the Quick Start guide.
-
- 1.2.7 Minor changes to the documentation (no-cost registration
- for licensed users of the Rascal edition of Font Gander).
-
- 1.2.8 Added printer-tweaking button to the Prefs dialog. So far,
- the only tweaking function it offers is to limit the size
- of print spool files, to get around problems with certain
- misbehaving device drivers. Also 'sanitized' the plug-ins,
- which had been 'tainted' with page-setup data from a beta
- tester's printer. This may have been causing problems for
- people whose printer drivers don't re-initialize the setup
- fields correctly. Added several new layouts (in Gander
- Quill format) to the distribution package, and improved
- the documentation. Last but not least, changed the sound
- effect that accompanies the "About" box, so that it will
- no longer attract gadwallers to your duckblind.
-
- 1.3 Limited release. This should have remained in beta, but
- we got cocky and thought we were all done making changes
- to the main program while we turned our attention to
- Gander Quill. Quill's changes kept requiring re-tweaking
- of Gander Pro, however. This is one of the hazards of
- having two programs so tightly interdependent.
-
- 1.3.1 This should have been 1.3.0. Lots of changes. Outwardly,
- Gander Quill accounts for most of them, with a sudden
- massive increase in the number of keywords it handles.
- One-hundred and ninty-nine keywords, believe it or not.
- (That's counting all the stylecode variations to print
- internal PostScript font names and outline file names.)
- But Gander Pro itself now has much improved internal code
- for handling printer defaults, and faster menu sorting,
- and a few other significant but geeky improvements. It's
- more ready than ever for more changes to come.
-
- 1.3.3b2 I've been ignoring betas in this list but this one made
- a bit of a splash, and caused some confusion because of
- our sudden decision to bump up the version number before
- going final. So this evolved directly into version 1.5
- (see next entry).
-
- 1.5 Major, major internal improvements, and a new marketing
- channel to make purchasing easier than ever. I finally
- got rid of every last remaining smidgeon of assembly
- code, allowing me to lift the 720-dpi limit on printer
- resolution, and to vastly improve memory management
- during printing. Also lifted the limit on the number
- of plug-ins that can be loaded at any one time (63 was
- plenty already, but this was easy to do). Also improved
- font sorting & searching, fixed a nagging little System
- 8 bug, and made several further enhancements to Gander
- Quill. All that, plus instant online payment options
- at my website, linked directly to Software Unboxed. It
- all seemed to demand a nice big round version number.
-
- 1.5.5 Major problems printing non-installed fonts with some
- printers have been solved. The new routines use more
- spool-file disk space than ever before, but they're
- absolutely necessary due to the increasing popularity
- of the offending printers. And besides, gigabytes are
- getting cheap these days. The "Printer Tweak" button
- in the prefs allows users to revert to older routines.
- Also, fixes to Gander Quill & plug-ins, with Quill now
- synchronized at version 1.5.5.
-
-