身ale history ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Version 2.7 since Version 2.6 -------------------------------- - Editing binary files didn't always work quite well when bytes were deleted - Change made in finding the INF file (including key!) In Version 2.6 since Version 2.5 -------------------------------- - Bugfix: Editing of the last line of a file - You can now instruct 身ale to create a patch program using the command line: Just insert '-P prgname.prg' in the command line when starting 身ale. 身ale then creates a patch program that modifies the left file in the topmost window to match the right file. (Available only in registered version) In Version 2.5 since Version 2.4 -------------------------------- - Bugfixes: Patch program generator Last byte of a file couldn't be edited Changing the font using an external font selector Find function Position display in editor - After registration the options and the key are saved to disk (EGALE.INF) In Version 2.4 since Version 2.3 -------------------------------- - A button in the "Display..." dialog offers the choice of decimal or hex line numbering. - The order in which the various columns are displayed in binary mode can be altered with popups in the "Display..." dialog. To enter numbers in hexadecimal form into the "Save list..." and "Jump..." dialog, use the '$' prefix. (see manual) - Editor: 'Transfer' function: In binary mode, you can input the number of bytes or characters that are to be copied starting from the cursor position. - If a binary file didn't fit into the memory, it could happen that no alert box was shown. - A single patch program can now patch more than one file. To generate such a patch program, just select an already existing patch program when using the "Generate patch program" function and then select "Attach". Attention: Patch programms generated with older 身ale Versions cannot be 'extended'. - The info line wasn't correct after starting 身ale. - bugfix: Unix text files / LF lines - Icons in 2, 16 and 256 colours are added in resource files. I wish to thank Raymund Hemmerling who designed them. In Version 2.3 since Version 2.1 -------------------------------- - Combining a binary file and a text file in one window is not possible any more - Some hints added in the "patch program" dialog - Monochrome resolutions: the divider bar looks now better than before after scrolling In Version 2.1 since Version 2.0 -------------------------------- - If there's not enough memory to load files, they can be compared. The position of the first difference is displayed. - Font dialog has improved - EGALEPAR.PRG (see manual) - Bugfixing - Optimizing In Version 2.0 since Version 1.6 -------------------------------- - 身ale can now also load a single file. This enables you to analyse and alter files very simply. - Find: Effective immediately 身ale indicates the position of the found (matching) search string within a line. The line will be scrolled horizontally if necessary so that the found string is visible in the window and then a shrinking rectangle pinpointing the string will be displayed briefly. This also works for wildcard searches. - Press '0', '2' or '4' to set the subdivision lines (pairs, fours) without having to 'enter' the 'comparison mode' dialog. - Find: Entering the search string 'as ASCII values' one can add 'B', 'W' or 'L' to the values (also '.B', '.W' or '.L'). ﾉgale expands the values to full words or longs: 1994.L results in (noted in hexadecimal form) $000007CA 1994.W results in $07CA 1994.B results in $CA (shortened to a single byte!) - Starting 身ale: Pass '-b' as an additional parameter to load files in binary mode. - Starting 身ale: Press the [Shift] key down whilst calling 身ale to load files in binary mode. - You can control the display of tabulator stops in text more clearly: a) Each tab stop displayed as the tab ASCII 9 character (clock), with no filling of intermediate positions. b) Tabbed line portions filled with tab ASCII 9 characters. c) Tabbed line portions filled with spaces. Selection can be made in the 'Display...' dialog (registered users only). - Changes to restrictions for unregistered users. - One can now also perform mouse actions in untopped (background) windows by additionally pressing the right mouse button. As a consequence the one-line equalisation will only be triggered when the right mouse button is released. - The window titles now have a space before and after the text, giving an aesthetic improvement under some configurations. - Info line in binary mode: The long value (L:) is also displayed in hexdecimal form. The word value is also easy to read. - 身ale can now display single files in a window (in addition to the existing double file windows) - Files can be moved between windows using a drag & drop mouse action in combination with the [Shift] key. During the move the file is automatically iconised. The following options are available: - Windows containing two files (double windows) can be divided into two single file windows by drag & dropping one file onto the desktop. - Files can be exchanged between two double file windows by drag & dropping the desired file over another double window. - A file can be added to a single file window (changing it into a double file window) by drag & dropping a file onto a single file window. - Files can be swapped over, left to right and vice versa, by drag and dropping either file over the other one in the same window. Consequently the 'Swap' option in the 'File' menu has been removed. - After loading two files, the cursor is automatically set to the first difference (or first similarity depending on your optional settings). - The window size now depends on the size of the file(s) loaded. - An asterisk is displayed preceding the filename in the window header of any window displaying a file which has been altered. - A new save option has been added. Using the existing 'Save as' option the file is saved in its original format. Using the new 'Save list' option a dialog appears offering a choice from three options: - Saving parts of the file - Creating a list of differences or similarities - Creating a patch program - Iconification implemented: An iconified window is reduced to a minimum size and displayed as an icon instead of the actual window contents. To Iconify a window: Use the mouse together with one of the following keys: - [Alternate]: Iconifies the window - [Control] or [Shift]+[Alternate]: Iconifies all 身ale windows into a single icon window. - [Shift]: Iconify all 身ale windows, each with indivual icons Instead of clicking on the Closer button, you can press the [Space bar]. To restore an iconified window, simply click on it! ICFS, the Window iconify utility, is supported. Editor: - One can now jump with Shift-Left arrow to the start of the line, Shift-Right arrow to the end. - One can now position the cursor with the mouse. - With binary files one can now also edit complete words or longs. There is a corresponding selection facility for this in the 'Editor' dialog. Bug fixes: - Switching on the decimal- or hex-mode in the editor and then activating 'OK' led to the undesired result that the display could not be changed back, so that one found the converted numbers in the text (only for text files). - Problems arose when loading files with fewer than 2 characters in text mode. - Single character marking (All, Insertions, First target) improved. - Graphic error (1st cursor mark, 2nd dialog) in 'Find' removed. - The 'Find' function in some circumstances located strings in lines that had been deleted, positioning the cursor in the following on-screen line. - After a wildcard search the cursor was often positioned one line too low. - When loading and converting ASCII 0 (NULL) characters the small 'ｳ' instead of capital 'ｲ' is now used as it is easier to distinguish from numerical zero '0', specially in print-outs. - During saving of the list of differences between files, if one of the lines had been inserted and therefore an entry was output for it, the 'With relevant lines' option was ignored. Now the relevant line that is opposite to the insertion is also output. - Several display errors with tabs and horizontal scrolling removed. - After a failed one-line equalisation caused by lack of buffer space 身ale no longer reacted to mouse actions. - The ST-GUIDE call now also works under MultiTOS. - In some circumstances problems arose with the window after switching on the info line. In Version 1.6 since Version 1.52 --------------------------------- - 'Ignore: Caps=l.c.' ('Comparison mode' dialog) did not work (only in the registered version). - With some font sizes the height of the emphasis markings differed greatly from that of inserted dummy lines. - During automatic line equalisation, the number of differing lines instead of the number of identical lines was displayed, which naturally resulted in hopelessly high values. - If ASCII 0 (NULL) characters are found while loading text files, 身ale used to convert them to ASCII 1 (up-arrow). Now the program asks to what characters NULLs are to be converted. The choice lies between a space, a tab advance or the 'ｳ' character. - In one-line windows one now finds a marker line extending to the right from the end of both text lines. Thus one can see where text lines really finish and discover any trailing spaces etc. - Corrected error in emphasising individual characters for 'Insertions'. - Added facility for jumping to the ends of lines being edited with [Shift]-[left/right arrow]. - Pop-up in 'Display' dialog offers choice of converting tab characters in text to spaces or to ASCII 9 ('clock') tab-characters, or not. - Planned for the next version (if users fulfill their registration obligations): Loading of single files for alteration and analysis. In Version 1.52 since Version 1.5 --------------------------------- - Small, unimportant corrections. - The various emphasis options (only available in the registered version) gave rise to problems. In Version 1.5 since Version 1.26 --------------------------------- - 身ale can now display differences etc. in colour. The colours can be set in the newly added 'Colours...' dialog. One can select colours for the unmarked lines, for those to be marked, for single character emphasis and for the inserted dummy lines. If the special colours, i.e. all colour settings except for the standard text colour, are to be used, then one should select the 'Coloured' button in the 'Emphasis...' dialog. * Access to this dialog is only available to registered users. - ARGV is now supported during parameter passing. (Unfortunately only alternative desktops and the GEM-desktop of MultiTOS support passing of several file paths!) - 3D-display of the window dialogs is supported (naturally only from AES 3.40 up, i.e. TOS=>4.02 or MultiTOS). - For file loading 身ale now proceeds more intelligently: The file selector can after all always suggest a file. If a window was closed previously then, for the first file of a window, the first file of the closed window is preselected. If the user loads this file, then the second corresponding file will be also recommended. If however the user selects another file, then this will also be pre-selected for the second time which provides visual confirmation of the previously selected file. - The last two file names used will be stored with their paths in the INF file. - Binary files are now be loaded much faster and no longer occupy memory equivalent to five times their length. - When loading text files only 4 additional bytes per line are needed, and loading is also much faster. - Loading in (preparation!) of text files speeded up. - After loading two files they are compared throughout. If they're identical 身ale reports this and offers a chance to select a different file. - Automatic line equalisation is much faster, especially noticeable with large files. Setting the 'maximum number of lines for a 'gap' to a low value now increases the speed somewhat, in contrast to earlier versions! In addition there is a new parameter. I recommend it's set to '1'. It ensures that frequently encountered blank lines are not used for 'Find next' during line equalisation. 身ale can now also start line equalisation from the cursor position, not just from the beginning of the file. The 'Default' button sets reasonable standard values for all fields. Furthermore during line equalisation a moving bar is displayed to show you how much 身ale has already 'equalised'. The number of blank lines inserted and differences found to date are also shown. At the end of automatic equalisation 身ale sounds a happy chord in a major key. * Automatic line equalisation is only available to registered users. - Manual equalisation (right mouse button) is much faster, especially for binary files. - A dialog now appears here giving information about how many lines match at the found position, since specially with binary files one often finds individual matching of frequently occuring characters. Thus from the dislayed number of found correspondences one can choose whether to equalise or whether 身ale should continue its search. - For automatic line equalisation one can now select a keyword file, which ensures that the process will be carried out only on lines containing one of these keywords. Handy for, e.g. GFA Basic sources (in LST format). - The 'Next difference'/'Next equal line' function is much faster: With normal text files it is considerably faster, for binary files the speed increase is in the order of 1000 times faster! - If desired, one can select in the 'Comparison mode...' dialog for leading numbers in a line to be ignored, which is useful for instance in comparing instructions and similar files in which the chapter and section numbers have been changed. * Access to this dialog is only available to registered users. - 身ale can optionally display an information line in the window. This shows the word and long-word values for binary files, or line length for text files, for the lines under the cursor (separately for both files). For this the 'Info line' button in the 'Display...' dialog must be switched on. * Access to this dialog is only available to registered users. - You can now select for each window its own font. For this a new Pop-up in the 'Fonts...' dialog permits a choice whether the following selections are to become standard values used by 'all file windows', 'all 1-line windows' or only the 'topmost window'. - One can now insert or delete several lines simultaneously. For this in addition to pressing the [Shift]+[Insert] or [Shift]+[Delete] keys one also holds down the [Control] key. A dialog appears into which the desired number of lines can be input. - The information dialog (file statistics) has been extended slightly and speeded up. - File editing Much requested, finally implemented: You can now also alter the files being worked on. The new 'Edit' menu is used for this. Besides the known functions 'Insert line' and 'Delete line' it also includes 'Insert text line', whose dialog is used to key in the contents of a line to be inserted at the cursor position, and 'Edit text line' which permits alteration of the text in one of the files at the cursor position. You can also call up these functions with the keyboard shortcuts [Shift]+[I] (insert text) and [Shift]+[C] (edit text). If you use the left [Shift] key for this then the left-hand file will be edited, and the right [Shift] key operates on the right hand file. With the useful 'Transfer' button one can simply copy a line from one window to the other. Alterations are saved along with the file when 'Save as...' is used. * This function is only available in the registered version. - Files can now be saved with their changes, explained in the 'Save as...' dialog and manual. * This function is only available in the registered version. - The display for the 1-line window will be in the mode selected in the 'Emphasis...' dialog. For unregistered users this basically corresponds to the 'all' marking. - Information about insertions and deletions can now also be saved and reloaded ('Save/load status log' in the 'Edit' menu). If one saves such a status file (file extension '.EGA/.EGB') under the same file name as the associated file but using the '.EGA/.EGB' extension in the 身ale directory or in the same directory as the file, then it's loaded automatically when the file to be compared is reloaded. - 身ale can now save a list of all differences or correspondences ('Save list...' menu entry in the 'File' menu). - The patch function (also in the 'Save list...' menu entry) creates a program that can alter a source file so that it corresponds to the target file. - The 1-line window (opened by double clicking on any line) is now available to unregistered users. - Unregistered users can take a look at the 'Save file...' dialog following the 'Insert/Edit text line' function, but cannot exit it with 'OK'. - Due to its large number of functions 身ale now costs 20 DM (10.00 Sterling). This isn't a lot of money and with so many extra features available to registered users it's now more important than ever to register. This will ensure the future development of 身ale and make me very happy. Thanks ! (For 6.00 Sterling) you can obtain a key that works with v1.26 or earlier versions which can subsequently be upgraded to v1.5 for 5.00 Sterling. Bugfixes: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - In text files there were problems inputting ASCII values using the 'Find...' function. 身ale did everything, except what it should have done! Now fixed. - [Control]+[(] works again. - When loading a program file and answering 'Yes' to load the file in binary mode, 身ale didn't! Now fixed. - Text files are now checked to make sure the line lengths do not exceed 32,000 characters. - With more than 6 opened windows there were problems with the display of the window menus, now fixed. - The Keyboard shortcuts of the window menu entries in the 'Window' menu now work. - Window dialog called using a keyboard shortcut were not movable, now fixed. - 身ale no longer uses a line A call to switch off the mouse. - 1-line window made larger, so that the gadgets are displayed clearly. - Emphasis in the 1-line window wasn't correctly applied during horizontal scolling when 'Ignore leading spaces' was switched on. - 'Mark single characters' ('First target', 'All') revised with respect to tabs and ignoring spaces. - Other minor fixes. - The INF file is upwards compatible; the optional settings are now saved as well. Planned for the next version: ----------------------------- - Appreciable speed-up of the line equalisation process by using Assembler-Boyer-Moore routines for searching text lines. In Version 1.26 from Version 1.1 -------------------------------- - A number of small points and fixes which need not be listed. - One can now use GDOS fonts for the display. For this a "Fonts" menu entry has been added. UFSL is supported. - 身ale can now sub-divide displayed files with faint lines at 2 or 4 line intervals. This can be activated with the PopUp in the "Display" dialog (only available for registered users). This is particularly useful for binary files to indicate word or longword boundaries. - The new 'Window' menu lists all loaded files (or windows). By selecting the relevant menu entry one can bring the corresponding window to the front, let it disappear again and also bring it back onto the screen. - With 'Search/Next difference' or '/Next identical line' one can now also jump to the next inserted portion. - The output speed has been increased slightly. - Sideways scrolling or moving the scroll bar now uses an optimised redraw function so that only the most necessary parts of the screen will be redrawn, leading to an appreciable increase in speed. - The whole redraw operation has been optimised, so that there should now be no superfluous redrawing in the window. Equally, partial redraw of the window has been appreciably speeded up. - 身ale now understands VA_START. Useful with GEMINI running under multitasking systems. - If only one file name has been passed to the application or only one file matches the passed wild-card, a file selector will appear for choosing the second file. - From now on there is a horizontal slider. Thus one can also view long lines that do not fit in the window side by side to compare them with one another. - Pressing [Escape] can make one file occupy the full width of the window. A second press changes this display over to the other file. - With a double-click on a line one can now open an extra 1-line window in which the clicked on line from both files is displayed stacked (one above the other). - A further double-click in the extra window uses the line number of the 1-line window to position the cursor on the same line in the main window. - If one selects an executable file to load, a dialog will identify it as such and ask whether it should be loaded as a binary file. - If one selects the same file (in the same path) twice an alert-box query will appear, asking for confirmation. - The file selector for loading the second file into the window now comes up with a) the correct path and b) the file name of the first file loaded. This is particularly useful as a reminder when making a series of comparisons! - If one discards a window then the file selector for the next load process will come up with the last-loaded files (and their paths) pre-selected. - The 'Help' dialog has been revised. - With some TOS versions, clicking on the grey portion of the vertical scroll bar and holding it down for page-wise scrolling could make the slider 'race' downwards without re-drawing the windows, so one couldn't see one's place. This has now been corected. - 身ale now understands WM_UNTOPPED of WINX. - With [Shift]-[Control]-[Q] one can now quit the program while saving all the settings in the EGALE.TMP file. At the next re-start this will be loaded in place of EGALE.INF, and then deleted. - A simple UNDO-function has been implemented which can reverse the last change made to the file (insert/delete line). In Version 1.1 as compared to Version 1.0 ----------------------------------------- - Many small bugfixes. - 'Find' dialog improved: Visual fit files<->windows. - No screen-saver dialogs under Mag!X any more. - Several redraw-errors (new WINX) removed. - In binary comparisons the values are now also shown as binary numbers. - Error in the statistic function (short files) removed. - Many more lines can now be inserted (min. 1000 per file, previously 30 for text files). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1th Nov.1994 To be continued... **************************************************************************** * * To all users who have not yet registered: * ----------------------------------------- * * Please do not forget to register the program in your name. * The author is open to requests and ideas for extensions and * improvements to 身ale. Perhaps something can be done for you * if a feature should have still been omitted. * * For UK registration please send the printed out registration * letter (Dialog 'About 身ale...' -> 'Info' -> 'Registration'), * a stamped, self-addressed envelope and 10 cheque, PO or cash to: * Joe Connor * 65 Mill Road * Colchester * CO4 5LJ * England. * * Users outside the UK can alternatively transfer 20 DM to: * David Reitter * Bank A/c: 0229 773 * BLZ(German bank sort-code): 550 700 40 * Deutsche Bank Mainz * * Please include your name and the reason for the credit! * * Postal address * -------------- * Albinistr. 10 * 55116 Mainz * Germany ============================================================================