Release Notes

Version x.2.1.16

Localisation

• A French language pack has been included in this release.
• Some corrections have been made to the German language pack available from http://nobox.de

Tool Tips

• New "bubble" form Tool Tips have been included.
• Tool-Tips have been extensively reworked to permit more flexible forms and richer content.
• Background colour of tips can be changed using the colour button on the properties tab.
• Text colour of tips can be changed using the colour button on the properties tab.
• Outline colour of tips can be changed using the colour button on the properties tab.
• Font size of tips can be changed using the numeric "spin" control on the properties tab.

Undo-Redo

• Undo-Redo has been debugged in this release and some problems resolved.

Linking

• Linking and Back/Forward navigation of the linked Mind Maps has been debugged and a problem correctec.

Text Handling

• New grab-handles are to be seen on free text blocks.
• The text block can be tilted by dragging the new grab handles.
• The text characters can be slanted by dragging the new grab handles.
• Text is now added automatically in response to typing on a branch without embellishing text or a picture block without any child text, with the effect that one can usually just select an element and type text in. (Previously one had to add in a text element by hand.)

Resources

• Extensive internal refactoring has been achieved to reduce the run-time space taken up by HeadCase.

Search

• Regular expressions have been added to the search options.
• A painting problem with the buttont on the search options has been corrected.

Version x.2.1.15

Private internal release

Version x.2.1.14

Localisation

• The first localisation pack has now been included and HeadCase is a multilingual package. Languages supported in this version are English and American. Language support is achieved through text files in the Translations directory with self-evident file names, so users can incude their own language packs based on Latin character sets as wished. Language packs will be incorporated as available and as requested, except German for which contractual restrictions with a reseller apply.

Incremental find

• The File menu now contains the Windows-standard "Find" and "Find Next" items.
• The use of find opens a Find toolbar at the lower edge of the application window.
• Find functions incrementally, which is to say that it seeks occurrences while the user is typing and does not use a modal dialogue.
• Find currently supports forward and backward find, wrapping at the end of the file, case-sensitive and case-insensitive search and findig of text in Tool Tips as well as the Mind Map.

XML Linkage from Help

• The default Help Mind Map "archive.ecb" now includes an MRU (most recently used) pane and a common tasks pane. These are linked with XML commands which can be viewed in the file source.

Playspaces

• HeadCase now supports the concept of a "Playspace", or group of files to be opened and saved as a batch. The default Playspace is "default.ecp" and it contains the identities of the files open during the last session. This Playspace is opened by default when HeadCase is started.
• Items on the File menu allow the user to open and save their own Playspaces, in order to organise their work in batches of files.

Picture handling

• Bugs in the loading and displaying of picture files and metafiles loaded from the clipboard have been corrected. It should now always be possible to paste in clip art from common office software collections and also to load and display supported image formats from files.
• A bug in the export of metafiles has been corrected. This bug prevented export to a Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF) and also printing. These now function as expected.
• Bugs in the handling of basic shapes dragged in from the Clip Art Gallery have been corrected. These led to odd behaviour such as BOIs being added from the wrong location and the main picture failing to paint. These have now been corrected.

Version x.2.1.13

Private internal release

Version x.2.1.12

Anti-aliasing

• An urgent fix to the "averaging" anti-aliasing code introduced in the last version has been made. The smoothing did not work on 16-bit and 8-bit colour displays and introduced unwanted colour shifts. This has been corrected.

Internal

• Some internal bugs have been fixed which have implications for stability.

Version x.2.1.11

Styles Gallery

• Copying of user-defined styles to the Style Gallery is now possible. The context menu on a branch now contains an entry "Pick up Style". This causes the style to be stored in a style-definition file in the root of the Styles directory. Renaming and organisation of the new styles can be done in Internet Explorer. Changes will be reflected the next time HeadCase is started.

Painting and Anti-Aliasing

• New "averaging" anti-alias paint introduced to smooth out "jagged" branch shapes
• Bug from last version fixed where fragments of other Mind Map elements were painted into the background as an element was dragged.

Clip Art

• A bug in the previous version relating to the painting of the Basic Shapes has been corrected. This gallery now paints correctly.

Version x.2.1.10

Resource management

• Leaks and resource management issues fixed

Spare parts directory

• Positioning errors in Spare Parts components fixed.

Version x.2.1.9

Style gallery

• A new group has been added to the Analyst tree labelled "Style gallery."
• The group represents the structure of the directory "Styles" in the installation path.
• The items in the directory are complete formatting styles which can be applied to HeadCase branches.
• Selecting a sub-directory in the group causes a ClipArt gallery to be displayed containing pictorial representations of the styles.
• The styles can be applied to the current branch by double-clicking their picture.
• The styles can be applied to an arbitrary branch by dragging the picture onto a branch.

Clip Art gallery

• Multiple interrelated bugs in the ClipArt directory have been corrected. These related to recognising the current directory and led to pictures becoming invisible, the wrong picture being selected, etc. This behaviour has been corrected.

Spare parts directory

• A bug in the "Thought" element has been corrected. This involved the failure of the faded fill to paint when the element is first added. It now paints immediately.
• A bug in the "Brainstorm" element has been corrected. When adding this element, it did not recognise its parent element, causing it to refuse deletion and to paint its stem to the wrong location. This behaviour has been corrected.

Drag-Draw behaviour

• When the software is newly installed on a clean machine, missing registry entries caused the drag feedback to persist on the canvas, causing a region to fill up with dashed lines. This behviour has been corrected.
• When the "Number of Zigs" property of the Backdrop was reduced to zero, it could produce a crash. This behaviour has been correctd.

Backdrop Component

• Left-right reversal of right-hand teeth corrected.

Version x.2.1.8

Clip Art

• Improved capability to drag files and directories in to the ClipArt directory of the Analyst Tree. Drag operation runs on a background thread so as not to halt HeadCase and displays an animated dialogue to indicate activity.
• Improved dragging from the ClipArt gallery to a Mind Map, including several releated bug fixes.
• ClipArts can now be pasted in from Microsoft Office applications and from the MS Office ClipArt dialogue directly.

Drag Draw

• Mouse cursor hint for drag-draw improved to better afford "drawing".
• Shape of path of new branch being dragged (solid line) or indicated (dotted line) changed to fir the shape of the branch that will actually be created.

New Features

• "Spare Parts" directory on Analyst tree containing useful groups of preformatted components. Current small selection includes group brackets with a textual "tail" and a "Note". Items can be dragged in from the tree or browsed and then dragged in from the gallery on the Advanced tab.
• New "backdrop" embellishment to provide a background for text with various jagged and scalloped edge shapes.

Version x.2.1.7

Drag Draw

• A drag threshold has been added to Drag Draw behaviour, so that one has to drag the arrow a short distance before the operation is interpreted as a drag-draw.
• Drag-draw response has been added to the central node so that BOIs can be added by drag-drawing

Clip Art

• Clip Art Gallery now accepts dragged files and directories; new Clip Art can be dragged into the current gallery directory and is displayed immediately
• Clip Art nodes on Analyst Tree now accept dragged files and directories; new Clip Art can be dragged into the current gallery directory and is displayed immediately
• Clip Art galleries are opened properly even when the current Mind Map is in a locked state. If a Clip Art is selected and activated when the Mind Map is locked a new Mind Map is created with the Clip Art as its central image.
• Evolvon entries on Analyst tree nodes now respond consistently to activation; evolvon can be added and replaced by clicking the node and double-clicking the image in the gallery
• Icons on Clip Art nodes of Analyst Tree reviewed and improved

Context Menus

• New context menu on Mind Map elements labelled 'Undo Formatting'. This command returns branches and text to a basic default state.
• New context menu on Mind Map elements labelled 'Advanced...'. This command opens the Properties tabs.

Fade Properties

• New Fade Profile window added to replace the numeric spin buttons. The spin buttons are still present and can be displyed by selecting them using the Tools button.

3D Embellishment

• A new grab handle has been added to the 3D embellishment; when a 3D text or other shape is selected, the vanishing point can be dragged around using the "circle-cross" handle

Echo Embellishment

• A new grab handle has been added to the Echo embellishment; when a 3D text or other shape is selected, the vanishing point can be dragged around using the "circle-cross" handle

Version x.2.1.6

Shell Extensions

• Content of a HeadCase Mind Map can be viewed in Windows Explorer in Thumbnail view
• Content of a HeadCase Mind Map can be viewed as a text outline in Windows Explorer by hovering the mouse over the file and viewing the Tool Tip
• Content of a HeadCase Mind Map can be exported directly to various outline formats in Windows Explorer using the file's context menu
• Content of multiple HeadCase Mind Maps can be merged into a single outline in Windows Explorer using the files' context menu

Colour Dialogs

• Standard Colours tab reworked. Tab now includes a colour map as well as the standard HTML colours
• Colour Map displays a crosshair indicator to show the location clicked. This indicator can be moved using the arrow keys to select a new colour.
• Behaviour of favourite colours corrected. Favourites are now persistent.

Clip Art Gallery

• Clip Art gallery can now be scrolled up and down using the mouse wheel.
• Clip Art gallery can now be zoomed in and out to show larger or smaller thumbnails using the mouse wheel and Control key.
• Shapes and pictures in the Clip Art gallery can be dragged directly onto the canvas.
• Shapes and pictures in the Clip Art gallery can be clicked and then "painted" on the canvas with the mouse.

Shapes

• A new selection of basic shapes has been added. These shapes appear in the Clip Art gallery when a picture block with a basic shape is selected.
• Shapes are stored in an XML format and can be augmented without re-releasing HeadCase
• The basic shapes can be viewed directly and dragged into the canvas by clicking the "Basic Shapes" sub-node on the "Clip Art" node of the Analyst tree.
• Shapes can be altered on the canvas by embellishing them with a "Tweaker" embellishment and then pulling the verices about, like text blocks.
• Shapes can be embellished with fill, outlines, 3D effects and so on just like text blocks.
• A selection of "voice bubble" shapes is included which paint a bubble stalk back to the parent.

Multiple Selections

• New keyboard shortcuts for multiple selections: Control-Arrow key align the selection, e.g. Control-Right arrow aligns selected items to right
• New keyboard shortcuts for multiple branch selections: Control- < and Ctrl - > decrease and increase overall spacing respectively
• Keyboard response improved - navigating with arrow keys moves the selection to the associated neighbours of the "dominant" menber of the selection. This is useful for escaping accidental multiple selections.

File Formats

• HeadCase Mind Maps can now be exported to GIF images using the File...Export menu.
• When HeadCase Mind Maps ae exported to a web page the image format is now GIF.

Important Bug Fixes

• Arbitrary repositioning of child branches when parent branches are formatted has been suppressed
• Free Text Blocks can now be correctly Control-dragged into the Mind Map structure