Release Notes for Realm Works® Version 1.0.1086.246 (BETA)
NOTE! This new build is a
Beta release and entirely optional. As a Beta release, there are numerous changes in this build that may have problems we have not uncovered through our internal testing. You are welcome to continue using the previous build, and you are encouraged to do so if you are uncomfortable making use of a Beta release.
NOTE! If you utilize this Beta release and run into problems with it,
you can safely downgrade to the previous version (build 245) – but not to earlier releases. To downgrade, simply download the old version and install it over this Beta version. All of your data will remain intact between the two versions. Of course, you’ll be limited to the capabilities of the older version.
There is now full support for running as a 64-bit application. If your computer supports 64-bits, the product will automatically run in 64-bit. There is nothing special that needs to be done, as this is all handled automatically under the covers. The following implications exist with this change:
- A wide range of crash and related problems have been obviated with the switch to 64-bit, primarily centering on out-of-memory situations and the cascading effects of low memory. This will most often been seen in conjunction with the use of lots of images, especially with smart images.
- For those of you who tried to mitigate the memory limitations under 32-bits by removing a bunch of fonts from your system, you should now be able to put those fonts back, if you like.
- The installer is still a little stupid about the switch to 64-bit. Normally, a 64-bit application is installed into a different location than a 32-bit application, and that’s done correctly on a fresh install. However, if you install this version over the existing 32-bit version, the 64-bit version is simply installed over the 32-bit version instead of into the correct location. Everything works smoothly, but this is something we still need to clean up – i.e. migrating the entire installation to the proper folder when going from 32-bit to 64-bit.
All content creation now channels through the “Create New Content Element” form for consistency of operation. This has the following implications:
- Use of the “Quick Create” mechanism via <ctrl-Q> and the “Create” button in the upper left of the product is unchanged. Both of those still bring up the same form as always (this one).
- The “Create New” option for creating new top-level content elements was removed from the navigation pane Tools menu. The <ctrl+shift+N> keyboard shortcut that accompanied this menu option now presents the “Create New Content Element” form with the appropriate content type pre-selected.
- All of the “+” buttons within the navigation pane now present the “Create New Content Element” form with the appropriate content type (and category when available) pre-selected. The separate form that lists all the available categories has been eliminated and replaced with this standard form.
- Within this form, there is now an “info” button to the right of the category dropdown that displays a description of the category currently selected.
- Within this form, there are now three action buttons that can be performed. In addition to the previous “Create” and “Create and Edit in New Tab” options, there is now a “Create and Edit in Current Tab” option. This yields the same behavior as using the “+” button within the navigation pane to create a new topic or article.
- Within the “Advanced” region of the form, a number of revisions have been made:
- The “Views” setting is now persisted across runs of the product.
- The “Assign Tags” grouping has been replaced by two separate groupings with different behaviors.
- The “Special Tags” grouping displays the “Utility: Empty” special tag, as before. However, the setting of this behavior is now persisted across runs of the product. In addition, the behavior of when the tag is auto-assigned is now configurable via a droplist, allowing it to be performed for all new content or only when creating new content without immediately editing it (i.e. the first of the three action buttons on the left).
- The “Auto Assign Tags” grouping lists the various tags that have been separately configured as “auto assign”. For the current topic/article, these tags can be toggled on/off collectively or individually. There is also an “info” button at the top of the grouping that identifies where the “auto assign” behavior can be configured.
The navigation pane for topics and articles has been completely rewritten using a totally new mechanism. There are a variety of changes and implications that accompany this replacement, including the following.
- The bug where the navigation pane simply cut off the list of items after a few thousand has been eliminated.
- The loading time of the navigation pane is dramatically improved, especially with large realms.
- Switching between tabs is vastly more efficient now, especially with large realms.
- There is now an option to expand a topic/article and all of its children via the right-click menu within the navigation pane.
- Only a single icon is now shown for categories within the various groupings in the navigation pane.
- When the topic hierarchy is very deeply nested, a horizontal scrollbar now appears at the bottom of the navigation pane that allows shifting right/left to view the names of the nested topics.
- The expand/collapse buttons are now highlighted when the mouse hovers over them.
- The vertical spacing between items in the navigation pane has been increased a tiny amount.
The following additional minor enhancements and changes were introduced in this release:
- The auto-accept behavior when creating embedded links is now disabled for bulk scans across multiple topics/articles. Users can override this behavior by explicitly opting in via a new checkbox on the confirmation form. However, we strongly recommend you don’t enable auto-accept, as the results could be way more than you want, unless you are extremely careful with your use of auto-accept.
- Within the reveal history, generic snippets that possess a label now show that label within the history report.
- When editing a text-based snippet, the right-click menu now includes a “Select All” option, which can be triggered via the <ctrl+A> keyboard shortcut.
The following additional issues and problems were addressed in this release:
- Crashes involving the “Utility DLL” have now been fixed.
- Tooltip text when displaying relationships in the transitions pane is now consistent. All comprises/belongs relationships now identify the correct directional nature of the relationship (e.g. Master vs. Minion). This is done by keying on the “/” separator within the name. If a user-defined relationship does not include a “/”, the entire name is shown.
- The assorted “info” buttons aren’t nearly as glaring as they used to be, which should be less distracting on the eyes.
- Inbound links from a topic to the containing smart image where the topic is pinned now show their name more appropriately. When information is not provided via the pin, suitable details are pulled from the topic itself.
- Fixed three separate crashes that could occur under different conditions when a topic was being rebuilt, such as when switching tabs or changing the topic’s state in a fundamental way.
- Fixed a crash that would occur under the right conditions when saving a topic.
- Fixed a crash that would occur during automatic link detection when the user clicks one of the buttons in the dialog quickly while the form was still doing its processing.
- The dialog that prompts old accounts for missing birthdates, postal codes, and the like no longer appears when trying to login, as that’s now handled via other mechanisms.
- Fixed a crash that would occur under specific conditions when refreshing titles within the Player View Window after a topic was saved.
- The “hot tracking” of the mouse within the Manage Categories and Mange Tags areas is no longer sluggish.