Re: PrintFIX PRO v1.1; Whats New?
2006-05-17 by CDTobie@aol.com
Someone had requested an overview of changes between PrintFIX v1.0, and PrintFIX v1.1. Here is the official list of changes (largely thanks to Dave Miller): PrintFIX PRO 1.1 Update Notes 5.16.06 - Installers, applications, and support files run localized in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. Installers are now much larger due to the presence of multi-lingual help files. - There is a new Tools menu with Delete, Export, Calibrate, Average, and Measure commands (Calibrate and Measure have been moved here from the Preferences dialog). - A new Tools:Delete command brings up a dialog that shows a list of all .xml files in either the PRO or PLUS folder, as appropriate. The user can select any file in the popup, then click on the Delete button next to it to delete the file. - A new Tools:Export command brings up a dialog that shows a list of all .xml files in the PRO folder. You can select any file in the popup, select either Lab or Density, and then hit OK to begin export to a tab-delimited text file. The results are stored in a .txt file in the Export subfolder of the Data folder. - A new Tools:Average command lets you take a pair of existing measurement files and average them together to form a new measurement file. PFP will only let you combine files which contain the SAME number of measurements. The resulting averaged file will be stored in either the PRO or PLUS subfolder in the Data folder, whichever is appropriate for how the PFP application has been serialized. The Average command is not enabled in Demo mode. - A new Tools:Measure window will now let you Export measurements either as Lab or Density values. A button in this dialog lets you name a file for export output; it will be created in the :Data:Export folder. Once you select a file name, the radio buttons let you select what kind of data (Lab or density) values will be written to the file as measurements are taken. After you take each measurement, the Lab or Density value (whichever flavor is currently selected) is written into the export file. Clicking Done will dismiss the measurement window and also close the export file, if one has been opened. Measure is always disabled until the spectro has been calibrated. - New "Full Sheet" checkbox option on all Quadrant Print screens lets you print these images larger, rather than 1/4 size. The print preview image is higher resolution when using "Full Sheet". (Note: it will take longer for PFP to create print previews when "Full Sheet" is enabled on that screen). - Printfix PRO now remembers and restores the rendering intent setting that you choose in the Print Preview screen. - Added Command keys (1, 2, 3) for Target window to allow fast switching between display modes (Pure/Split/Measured) using the keyboard, rather than the Mode popup. - Added "Don't show again" checkbox variation for several new alerts which are used in special situations. - Updated the prerasterized Target files for better scaling onto letter and A4 sheets. - General improvements to the workflow in and around the "Read Patches" screen: - Black cal has been removed from the Tools:Calibrate command sequence. Calibration is only on white, from both the main wizard UI and the Tools menu. - Updated the "Media Setting Check" image so that the color patches are slightly more square and photo content is more tightly cropped. - Improved the scaling and positioning of images in the 4 "Quadrant" views as well as "Full Sheet" mode. - The PrintFIX PRO app will no longer accept accented characters (or non-English characters, in the Japanese, Korean, S.Chinese and T.Chinese versions) for PROFILE NAMES. This improves profile compatibility. If you enter such a character in the profile name, PrintFIX PRO will alert you and will not accept the profile name. NOTE: this restriction applies to profile names only. You can use any characters you like for the names of measurement files. ************ OSX only ************ - Uses better drawing (smoother graphics and fonts) in certain situations while displaying the full-sized Print Quality Check, Media Setting Check, Target, and Print Preview windows. Drawing is faster (not smoothed; this is the same as in the PFP 1.0 release) in the following situations: - While the Target window is open and being used for measurements. - While using the arrow keys to move the cursor in a window. - While dragging and resizing a window. For non-English systems, smoothed drawing allows non-English characters to display properly in text labelling of the assorted preview windows. "Non-smoothed" drawing is faster, but may replace some non-English characters with ?'s. - The installer no longer puts an alias to the PrintFIX PRO application on the desktop. Instead, it adds the PFP application icon to the Dock. (NOTE: This Dock item won't be visible until you Restart; or log out of your OSX account and back in again). - The installer no longer puts an alias to the PrintFIX PRO help file index onto the desktop. Instead, it creates an alias called "PrintFIX PRO Help" (in which "Help" is translated based on the installation language) into the main PrintFIX PRO application install folder on your hard drive). You can copy this alias anywhere you like and/or manually insert it in the Dock). ************ Windows only ************ - Now installs an updated "signed" driver for the spectro. Please make sure that you restart your system after the first install of 1.1. You may be prompted by the Hardware Wizard afterwards to locate the driver files. You should be able to let it search for the driver; it should find it automatically on your hard drive; you can also manually locate it in the "DCSC Driver" folder in the PrintFIX PRO application folder. - More stable while starting up, when attached to certain Windows printers. Resolved problems with communicating with printer drivers on some non-English systems. - Fonts are drawn larger, and easier to read. (Overall point size and appearance more closely match the OSX version). - Fixed a problem which caused PrintFIX PRO to exit with an error when launched on certain non-English systems. C. David Tobie Product Technology Manager ColorVision Business Division DataColor Inc. CDTobie@... www.colorvision.com