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Release notes for Smile 2.6
Home page Release notes for Smile 2.6  
New in 2.6.9
More power
  • When applied to a graphic window, save now makes a document of the type implied by the file extension (.bundle, .pdf, .png etc.), and the as parameter is now optional.
  • New application's property «class LOCA», returns the currently active language.
  • LineTo nows starts from the current point if there is one, otherwise it starts from the first point in the argument list.
  • New PolyLine graphical command, always starts from the first point in the argument list.
  • New implementation of the SmoothLineTo graphical command, now makes a smooth curve of any shape (previously, worked only on curves left to right or reverse).
  • New activated event, sent to a window when it comes to front.
  • New deactivated event, sent to the front window when another window comes to front.
  • XMLSetAttribute no longer removes the attribute when given an empty string as its argument.
  • New XMLRemoveAttribute command, removes an attribute.
  • New XMLSetIndentString, sets the string used to indent the text rendition of an XML document.
  • New Open huge files item in the Scripts menu, to view and search (as ASCII) arbitrarily large files.
  • New toolbar item in the Unicode windows to select the new line character (CR or LF).
  • New customizable URL protocol: a URL starting with "smile://&method=submit" will send HandleSmileSubmit(theURL) to Smile. By default, this does nothing, and you write your own HandleSmileSubmit handler in a library.
More comfort
  • The introductory PDF manual for Smile (Smile - Getting started) is now available in Spanish, thanks to Pescados Software.
  • More helper items in the contextual menu for controls in a dialog in edit mode.
  • The contextual menu in a dialog is now available in running mode (by default, the contextual menu in a dialog in running mode is empty).
  • New Cycle through windows item in the Window menu.
  • New Drawing palette item in the Window menu, a palette to help using the graphic library.
  • New Install libs browser item in the Scripts menu (available by courtesy of Daniel Siret), installs menus in the current window to help working with libraries, which can emit palettes.
New SmileLab features in 2.6.9
  • New SampleAppFortran77 sample project (included in the download), shows how to have AppleScript interact with a FORTRAN code.
  • New fill color property for a view3D (now you can make a 3d scene over a transparent background).
  • New resamplematrix command, reduces a large data array into a smaller one.
Bugs fixed in 2.6.9
  • Several commands in the XML Suite would leak memory, this is fixed.
  • pick in in widgets would not work as documented, this is fixed.
  • The «class VaOE»:true mode for dialogs (sends click only when a field loses focus) is now fully functional.
  • Error bars would not accept to be set dynamically, this is fixed.
  • PlistNewChild now appends the new child after the existing ones by default.
  • paragraph index was confused when the first paragraph would be empty, this is fixed.
  • The Help system would not open if the default browser was not set, this is fixed.
  • The string returned by the backup command could include unreadable characters, this is fixed, backup now returns correct UTF-8.
  • Saving a graphic window as a bundle (saves all objects) would in some cases not store properly all the data, this is fixed.
  • Making in the same view a GLObject (for instance, a 3d curve) and a GLUTObject (for instance, a sphere) would result in graphic anomalies. This is fixed.
Known features and caveats for 2.6.9
  • A last-minute bug was introduced in the Information dialogs for data visualization objects (open with ctrl-click on a data graph). As a consequence, the draw button may not be fully functional when live update is not checked. When draw does not work, click twice the live update check box to refresh the window.
  • When you zoom in a curve and if no point of the curve lies in the selected rectangle, and if either of the next points (left or right) is too far (more than 10,000 pixels), the plot may display erroneous information. To fix that condition, add more points to the too sparse curve.
  • The Light settings dialog (edits the light's position in a 3d view) forces the light's distance to infinity, even if you did set the light's distance to a finite value before. You can download a new version which fixes that bug by clicking here. Once downloaded, expand the archive and move the new Light settings file into the following directory, where it should replace an older file.
        /Applications/Smile.app/Contents/Resources/More stuff/
  • Due to recent changes in the rendering of GL graphics in Panther, you may observe oddities in the onscreen color rendering, depending on the monitor you are using. This will be fixed in a future release.
  • Due to minor features in Apple's MLTE (Multilingual Text Editor), which are still present under Panther, the Unicode window displays cosmetic glitches, namely the vertical scroll bar may get confused. We kindly press Apple that they fix that in MacOS 10.4.
New in 2.6.5

More help

  • New Smile documentation section in the web site.
  • New Help system, includes the hypertext documentation for Smile (with sample scripts, sample files, examples), text documentation, links, and a new contextual help menu. Customizable. For instance, you can add your own links, you can index and document your own libraries. Instructions and a script for indexing a library are provided.
  • New Search online docs with Google menu command, directs you to the online documentation pages fitting best your request.
More power
  • Smile now supports unlimited multiple Undos - whence a new Redo menu item.
  • New Unicode text editor (previously present in an experimental implementation). Handles UTF-8, UTF-16 and ASCII. The styled text editor remains, independently.
  • New XML Suite, a maybe more powerful implementation of the DOM (Document Object Model) than the tools that you could use so far. Implements XPATH and XSLT.
  • New plist Suite. Now you can easily make and use ultra-fast associative arrays (aka lookup tables). The plist Suite is able both of handling regular p-list files such as Preference files, and of making and using smarter, AppleScript-aware p-lists where you store transparently all AppleScript quantities.
  • New encode64/decode64 commands, convert between any AppleScript type and base64.
  • New escapeURL/unescapeURL commands, convert strings to and from URL's (converts '%20' etc.)
  • New Handle applescript:// URL protocol option in the Preferences dialog, enables Smile to handle the 'applescript://' URL's, which let you import a script at a click in a hypertext document.
  • New smile: URL protocol, enables Smile to import scripts and to open documentation files at a click in a hypertext document.
  • New Copy Smile URL to clipboard command in the User scripts, makes the current selection into a "smile:" URL.
  • Pressing ⌅ in a Unicode window now checks the XML syntax.
  • Pressing ⌘⌅ in a Unicode window now checks the validity of the XML with respect to the DTD.
  • New print verb. Prints a graphic window (thus, any graphic or any PDF page). You can adjust the print settings and skip the print dialog.
  • New ufind text (searches Unicode text) and uchange command, Unicode text replacing command. If the in parameter is a file, uchange does change the file (the change command remains as it used to be: it returns the changed text in that circumstance).
  • New starting at option for the text search-and-replace commands, making it easier to work on arbitrarily large files.
  • New widget element in the graphic windows, with scriptable mouse down, drag and mouse up, and adjustable shape, size, and colors.
  • New customizable toolbar in text windows, Unicode windows and graphic windows, supporting buttons, pop-up menus and text display.
  • New contextual pop-up menu in the toolbar of the Unicode window: displays the keys for a .plist, the usual dictionary entries for a .sref, etc. You can program your own pop-up menus.
  • You can now hide, disable and show a checkmark in front of any menu item, using the enabled, checked and visible properties.
  • You can now hide and disable any menu, using the enabled and visible properties.
  • The RS232 class was deeply improved. You can now work in canonical mode (read line by line), and you can subscribe an object to be notified when some input is available in the serial port.
  • The Delcom USB Board class (handles digital I/O) now lets you subscribe an object to be notified when some change occurs in an input line.
  • The Delcom USB Display class (drives a digital display) now lets you also control the sound buzzer of the device.
More comfort
  • Welcome to the users from the Netherlands! Smile is now localized in Dutch.
  • ⇧⌘E now also expands handler names from libraries - provided the library was indexed.
  • The Enhanced Find dialog now accepts ⌥↩ and ⇧⌥↩ to enter RC and LF, respectively, and a new item in the Recent strings menu lets you enter Tab.
  • New Go to line ... menu command, intended to help when debugging an XML file. ⌘L is now the shortcut for Go to line.
  • The Enhanced Find dialog is now resizable, so you can adapt the height of the text boxes to the circumstances.
  • Now you can open the Find dialog whatever the kind of the front window.
  • Smile's display when a script generates a very long error message was improved: Smile now displays more characters, including a significant fraction both of the beginning and of the end of the error message.
  • After having performed a search in a folder with the Enhanced Find dialog, you can now open all the files where a match was found by "running" the whole text of the Search result window.
  • New Open Finder's selection menu item. Opens the selected file(s) normally. ⌥ and ⇧ switch the menu item to:
  • Open Finder's selection as text (reads the file as ASCII) and:
  • Open Finder's selection as Unicode (reads the file as UTF-8 or UTF-16).
  • The display of the result in the Console is now limited to the first 10,000 characters (the value is adjustable).
  • New Dialog menu, visible when a dialog in edit mode is the front window.
  • Smile now comes bundled: its "blessed" folders are now inside the package.
New features of SmileLab
  • Smile now computes in double precision. However your older, single precision arrays of real remain compatible.
  • New GLName element in the view3D, displays a string in 3-d space.
  • New GLUTobject element in the view3D, for displaying cones, cylinders, disks, rings and spheres in 3-d space.
  • New commands to manipulate arrays of numbers: extractarray changearray insertarray.
  • New QuickHistogram command in QuickPlotLib.
  • New xaxis format and yaxis format properties for plots (plot view and chart view), sets the format of the scales using a C format string, for example .4g.
  • Curves now support error bars.
  • New Cformat command to make a real number into a string using a C format string.
  • New text formats settings section in the Plot view Info dialog and in the Planar view Info dialog.
  • You can now tilt the scales of the axis of a plot to any angle.
Bugs fixed in 2.6.5
  • ⇧⌘F was broken in windows targeting an application. This is fixed.
  • The User Scripts menu would not accept file names longer than 32 characters. This is fixed.
  • Following the change in the formats for the icons, the contextual menu of the Icon Holder control was not fully functional. This is fixed.
  • navchoose folder and navchoose object did not support a without multiple files option. This is fixed.
  • When performing a replace all occurrences in all files in ..., the Enhanced Find dialog now opens only those files which actually change, so it may be much faster.
  • Smile did not handle properly Services. This is fixed.
  • The Print menu did not work correctly on graphic windows. This is fixed.
  • list files would resolve symbolic links. This is fixed.
Known features and caveats for 2.6.5
  • Because of a minor feature in XMLLib, there are circumstances where Smile's XML engine does not support trailing Tab characters (Tab characters after a closing tag) in an XML file. If the XML engine's commands behave oddly, check that the file does not have any trailing Tab character (search for the regular expression \t+$).
  • Under Mac OS 10.2 the CR LF sequence (a line termination used by Windows) is rendered as two new lines. This is fixed in Mac OS 10.3.
  • Under Mac OS 10.2 the UTF-16 files stored as Low-Endian (a format used by Windows) do not open correctly. This is fixed in Mac OS 10.3.
  • Since the new Go to line menu item was given the standard shortcut ⌘L, the Output to Console command changed its shortcut to ⌥⌘L.
  • In previous versions you used to type ⌘Z to "redo" an "undone" action. Now, type ⌘Z to Undo, ⇧⌘Z to Redo.
  • The enabled property of a control is now saved with the object: in most cases this will ease your work, but it may bite you if you counted on the opening phase to enable your control.
  • A few cosmetic glitches and some rare minor inconsistencies of Quartz PDF may be observed under Mac OS 10.2. All which are known are fixed in Mac OS 10.3.
Release notes for the previous versions of Smile
The release notes for the previous versions of Smile are available in a separate page.
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