M.R.P. Collection Manager - Revision History
This document lists the major enhancements and bug fixes that have been made to the M.R.P. Collection Manager. Not every change made to the program is listed here; only those that are of significant interest to the user of the software. This list is in reverse chronological order, with the most recent updates listed first.
The current document is intended merely to point out what has been changed in new versions of the software. Please consult the User’s Guide (accessible from the program) for full descriptions of the program’s features. The User’s Guide is updated whenever a new feature is added to the system.
Version 2.1.8 (12/19/2011)
The ability to format text (italics, underlining, bold, jump-to links, special hyperlinks, etc.) has been extended so that these formatting choices can be applied to all text fields. Previously only long text fields (those represented by multi-line editing boxes in the data-entry/editing window) supported, via a right-mouse-button-click options menu, these formatting choices. Now short text and one-line text fields also have these formatting choices available through the same options menu. Since text formatting don't apply there, non-text fields (numeric, currency, dimension, date, or image/audio/video), as well as short text fields associated with a picklist (and therefore shown as a drop-down list in the data-editing window) do not have these formatting options.
Version 2.1.7 (12/14/2011)
Further refinement to the bug fix put in in Version 2.1.3. It was still possible to lose X-link and P-link information when switching between collections. This bug should now be fully quashed.
Version 2.1.6 (12/9/2011)
Add the ability to format the text that is shown in the extended-information, footnote-style hyperlinks (the so-called X-links). Previously formatting codes had to be manually edited in. Now there is an options menu that works just like the options menu in the data-entry/editing window, that lets you select text and then change formatting by right-clicking to bring up an options menu.
Version 2.1.5 (12/8/2011)
Added support for bold and bold+italic text styling, in addition to the previously-available options of italics or underlining. Like italics and underlining, these new formatting choices are accessed via the options menu (right-button mouse click) applied to a section of selected text in a multi-line text field in the data-entry window.
Version 2.1.4 (12/7/2011)
Added a web-site creation capability. Using a wizard (similar to the report generation wizard added with release 1.1.19), users can quicly produce a web site consisting of one page per collection item plus an index page. The contents of the web pages is controlled by choices made in the wizard. The intent of this feature is to provide a simple mechanism that will allow collectors to share their collection with others, while them full control over what parts of their collection and what pieces of information about collection items they want to make public.
Version 2.1.3 (11/23/2011)
Fixed a bug that was introduced in Version 2.1.1: The X-link and P-Link information could, in some situations, be dropped when writing a collection back out to file.
Version 2.1.2 (11/21/2011)
Add a new option for Item Details display: Centering of thumbnails when labels for the field have been suppressed (by having the field's name parenthesized). Previously, thumbnail images would always be alligned at the left edge of the Item Details display when an image field's name was being suppressed. This wasn't necessarily the most visually pleasing presentation. So now there is the option of having thumbnail images centered horizontally (just as they are in the thumbnail banner on the List View). This option is specified via a new preference on the Item Details tab of the Preferences dialog.
Version 2.1.1 (11/11/2011)
Note: The major version number of the M.R.P. Collection Manager has been bumped from 1 to 2 at this point. This reflects the completion of the set of changes introduced over the last 3+ months (from Version 1.1.32 onwards). Taken together, these comprise a substantial enhancement to the product, and that is now reflected in the version number.
Introduced the ability to create a collection from an Excel spreadsheet or a tab-delimited ASCII text file. Previously, if the user wanted to create a collection based on an external data set, he or she would have to manually create a new (empty) collection, making sure that the field names in the created collection exactly matched the field names in the external spreadsheet or text file. The user would then have to import the external data into the newly created collection. Now this can be accomplished in one step: The program will create a new collection whose fields match the external data and will import the data at the same time. This greatly simplifies the process of making new collection databases from external data, as well as making the process much less error-prone.
Added the ability to export just the current subset when creating a download file for Collectroid.
Version 1.1.42 (11/3/2011)
A minor improvement to the functionality added in the prior version. The change makes it easier for the user to know which fields will get overwritten by a Paste fields operation.
Version 1.1.41 (11/2/2011)
Added the ability to copy and paste multiple fields in the data adding/editing environment. This is intended primarily for the situation where you are adding multiple new records and some of the fields will have identical values in all of the new records. Rather than have to re-type the values for these particular fields in each record, you can now fill in the values in the first record, copy (as a group) the values of the fields that are to be replicated, and then easily fill in all of these fields at once on a subsequent record by clicking a Paste fields button.
Version 1.1.40 (11/1/2011)
Added a capability for deleting multiple records at one time. Previously records had to be deleted one at a time, with a confirmation prompt with each record. Now there is a "multi-record delete" mode toggle choice on the Edit menu. If turned on, you can select multiple rows (with the typical-for-Windows conventions of <Ctrl>-click to toggle a single row and <Shift>-click to select a block of rows). This can be immediately followed by selecting Delete from the Edit menu and the set of selected rows will be deleted (after a single confirmation prompt).
Version 1.1.39 (10/29/2011)
Provide the option, when exporting data (either to Excel or to an ASCII file), to retain formatting codes. Previously, formatting codes (such as those indicating italics, underlining, or hyperlinks) were automatically stripped out. Now you have the option of retaining the codes. This option is useful if you plan to subsequently re-import the data back into a Collection Manager database, since you normally would want to retain the formatting information.
Version 1.1.38 (10/28/2011)
The interface for defining a collection's Image Directory has been completely redesigned. The new interface tries to provide much more assistance to the user in helping them to set up an Image Directory.
A number of small bugs were fixed in various areas, and a few user interface enhancements were added.
The name of the product was very slightly changed. It is now the M.R.P. Collection Manager (notice the periods after the three letters at the beginning). This was done because the previous first word ("MRP") was too easily mis-read as "MAP", particularly since the company name is MapRecord Publications.
Version 1.1.37 (9/29/2011)
Support has been added for incorporating links to audio or video files into data records. The "image" data type has been expanded (now it is called image/audio/video), and any audio or video file that can be played by the Windows Media Player can be linked to in an image/audio/video field, just as one has always been able to link to image files. While images will still be displayed as thumbnails, audio or video files will turn into hyperlinks: "Play media (audio)" or "Play media (video)". In addition, a new special link type ("M-links", for "media link") allows you to turn arbitrary text in a record's text fields into a hyperlink which will play audio or video if clicked on. A number of small bugs and infelicities were also fixed in this version.
Version 1.1.36 (9/20/2011)
Fix a bug that was introduced in a recent revision (1.1.34), relating to file-name selection when creating a new file or creating a file for export. This bug could cause a filename of simply the single character "0" to be created, instead of the appropriate user-specified filename. Users who are running versions 1.1.34 or 1.1.35 should definitely upgrade to version 1.1.36 (or the most recent version).
Version 1.1.35 (9/4/2011)
Fix the layout algorithm for Item Details so that lines are not broken in the middle of words that contain multiple fonts. For example, if the word FIRST was present, with the first letter set to use large-font style, the code would previously have been willing to split the word after the initial F. Now this will not happen, and the code will treat this mixed-font word as a single non-breaking entity, and the layout algorith will appropriately insert a line break before the entire word, rather than mid-word between style-change segments.
Version 1.1.34 (8/27/2011)
Further modification to the Collectroid support. Because of Java VM limitations on memory size, out-of-memory errors are likely to occur if the user has chosen to download full-resolution images. Therefore the support has been modified so that if full-resolution images are downloaded, thumbnail images are downloaded as well. The thumbnails are used by Collectroid and the full-resolution images are passed to Android Gallery. This gives the best of both worlds, access to the full-resolution images (in Gallery) and quick display and no memory problems within Collectroid.
Version 1.1.33 (8/26/2011)
Modification to the Collectroid support. User now has the option of downloading images in full-resolution format (rather than as a thumbnail). This goes along with a change to Collectroid that allows user to view images in higher resolution using the Android's built-in Gallery photo-viewing application.
Version 1.1.32 (8/1/2011)
Added support for Collectroid, an Android app that is a companion to the M.R.P. Collection Manager. The support in the M.R.P. Collection Manager consists of a new item on the File menu: Export for download to Collectroid. This menu choice will produce a single export file, containing all the data for the current collection, along with thumbnails of the collection's images. (A dialog gives you the choice of how complete the inclusion of images should be, letting you specify no images, one image per record, all images, or just those images that have been added or updated since the last export for Collectroid.)
As a separate application, Collectroid is not documented here. The Android app (available for free download from Android Market) includes its own User's Guide.
Version 1.1.31 (7/4/2011)
Fixes for a couple of small bugs.
When editing long text fields, inserting special links or rewrapping the text to fit sometimes resulted in lost paragraph breaks (i.e. two consecutive newlines). This was particularly liable to happen if the total length of the text was small.
If the remembered name of a collection differs from the name as stored in the XML file for that collection, update the remembered name using the XML-file-based name. (The remembered name is displayed in the collection window title bar and in the list of collection in the “Manage Collections” window.)
Add an extra confirmation when the user tries to cancel out of creating a collection at the last step (when being prompted for the filename of the new XML file). Inadvertently cancelling this file-selection dialog caused the user to lose all the collection-definition work, so be sure that’s what the user really wants to do.
Version 1.1.30 (5/31/2011)
Two new formatting styles have been added for multi-line text data: superscript and large font. These are applied in exactly the same way that italic and underline are done, by selecting the desired text (in a multi-line text editor field in the add/edit data window) and then right-clicking to bring up a context menu. The two new styles have been added to this menu.
Display of data in the list view has been improved, by removing the display of formatting code characters. Both the codes used to signal text styles and jump-to links, and the longer codes used for special hyperlinks, are no longer displayed. Consequently, the text displayed in the list view now better matches the text displayed in the item details view.
Searching, sorting and subsetting had a number of bug fixes made, related to the presence of extended characters (for example, accented characters and ligature characters such as Æ). Searching and sorting now use a more flexible approach, so that near matches (text strings that differ only in minor ways, such as the presence or absence of an accent) will be considered as matching. For example, a search for the text string general will find not only the English general or generalist, but also the French générale. Enclosing a search string in double-quotes (″general″) in the search dialog will force a precise search, in which case the word générale will not be considered a match. Also, any search string that itself contains any extended characters (such as accented characters) will cause the search to be done in precise mode (so searching for généralwill find générale but will not find general).
Version 1.1.29 (4/5/2011)
Bug fix for an Excel import bug. Trying to import very large Excel spreadsheets would sometimes fail, due to an out-of-memory kind of error. This bug has been fixed.
Version 1.1.28 (1/3/2011)
Support has been added for installing and running the M.R.P. Collection Manager from a USB flash drive (thumb drive).
Fixed bug with definition of the Image Directory when restoring a collection in “copy” mode. The definition of the directory is now done as a relative path name, rather than a full path. This is particularly desirable for the flash drive case (since the drive letter can change each time a flash drive is plugged into a computer’s USB port).
Version 1.1.27 (1/1/2011)
Add support for drag-sliding of image window contents, as an alternative to using the scroll-bars to move the image around.
Version 1.1.24 (9/6/2010)
Added a new kind of special hyperlink: a record-jump link that allows you to have arbitrary text as the visible text in the hyperlink.
Version 1.1.23 (8/17/2010)
Added the “thumbnail banner”, so that images can (optionally) be seen at the top of the window in list view mode.
Added three kinds of special hyperlinks, two that take you to a URL in your web browser and a “footnote” style hyperlink, that displays extended information in a popup-area at the bottom of the Item Details window.
Version 1.1.21 (9/22/2009)
Added support for copying, in addition to restoring, from a backup up copy of a collection.
Version 1.1.20 (6/23/2009)
Added built-in backup support, for easily backing up and restoring a collection and its images.
Version 1.1.19 (5/29/2009)
Added support for printing compact formatted reports.