Printer's Apprentice 8.0 - Font management software for Windows XP & Vista Version History Copyright © 2006-2008 by Bryan T. Kinkel and Lose Your Mind Development ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Latest version can always be found on http://www.loseyourmind.com Direct download: http://www.loseyourmind.com/zipfiles/prnapp80.zip Purchase Printer's Apprentice via secure web page: https://secure.avangate.com/order/checkout.php?PRODS=1429446&QTY=1&SRC=PA80 Printer's Apprentice FAQ http://www.loseyourmind.com/pa80faq.asp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 11/04/08 - - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.25 - Installer version 8.00.0033 - Fixed a problem with saving the configuration file. Under some circumstances, it could become corrupt and this would lead to all sorts of problems. 10/27/08 - - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.24 - Installer version 8.00.0032 - Fix for a "divide by zero" error 10/23/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.23 - Installer version 8.00.0031 - Fixed a bug with the Edit>Copy Font List command. If there are no fonts selected in the currently selected tab, the application would crash. - Compare Fonts tab - fixed a problem that resulted in an IndexOutofBounds error. - Compare Fonts tab - as you navigate in a font list, the Compare Fonts tab now automatically scrolls so the selected font is at the top of the list. - Compare Fonts tab - added some code to reduce flicker. - Compare Fonts tab - fixed a bug that caused the Compare Fonts tab to not draw fonts correctly. This happened under a very specific set of mouse moves. - Removed a line of code that referred to the Arial font. This could cause a crash if Arial is not installed on the system. - Added additional error checking for TrueType fonts that have slightly invalid string tables. This would result in the font not being displayed in the Font Files tab. 10/17/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.22 - Installer version 8.00.0030 - More information about this release can be found our our blog http://blog.loseyourmind.com - Support for different character sets. You can change the character set using the Options dialog. The current character set is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the title bar in the main display window. - The printed Character Sets now respect the current character sets. So if, for example, Cyrillic is selected in the Options dialog box, the printed Character sets will default to Cyrillic. You can also change the Character Set using the Options tab on the Print dialog box. The current set name is printed on the upper hand corner of the printed output. - The Multiple Character window has been reworked and is much faster in terms of redraw and resizing speed. - You can now display a grid of up to 20x20 characters in the Multiple Character window. - Font file name is now displayed in the title bar of the display window. - Fixed a "path is of illegal form" bug on startup. This would happen if the Fonts section of the registry contained an empty key. - We changed our ecommerce provider. Product purchase links in the application and help file have been changed from Regsoft to Avangate. 9/30/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0021 - Installer version 8.00.0027 - Fixed a bug with an expiration date in the software. 9/25/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0020 - Installer version 8.00.0026 - Fixed a start up bug - If the Print Spooler service was not started, Printer's Apprentice would crash with an "The RPC server is unavailable" error message. - Fixed a bug that could cause italic fonts to not print correctly if thier internal "italic" flag was not set correctly. - Added a much-needed scroll bar to the Sample Text tab. - Added a "Don't show this message again" checkbox to the message box that appears when attempting to print both TrueType and Postscript based files. - Several menu items were missing status bar help. 9/10/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0019 - Installer version 8.00.0025 - 19th public release - Fixed the Print command on the Font Groups context menu. It was not hooked up to trigger the Print dialog box. - Fixed a problem with the Help file. It was not initially showing the Index. - Fixed a drawing problem with the Sample Text tab. With some fonts (Brush Script MT) the left side of the text would be clipped off. 9/06/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #18 - Installer version 8.00.0024 - 18th public release - The prnapp.exe and setup.exe files are now digitally signed with our software publishing certificate. See http://blog.loseyourmind.com/?p=100 for more information. - Added new "Check for New Version" entry on the Help menu. - When the Font Compare tab is selected, Select All and Select None operations are much faster. I eliminated much of the flicker and scrolling that occurred. - Added operating system & service pack info to error handling dialog box & report. - Added "Need Fonts" entry to the Help menu. This links to a list of font resources on our web site. - Added the font embedding status to the Font Information tab and Font Information sample sheet. - Added additional code that fixes the "object not set" error in the cShItem segment of the tree view control. I was never able to replicate the error, so let me know if you run into this again. - Added error handling code for "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection." error in the Font Compare tab. - Fixed an inconsistency on the Font Files & Font Groups right-click context menu. "Deselect" is now labeled "Deselect All." 8/14/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #17 - Installer version 8.00.0023 - 17th public release - Added the ampersand (&) character to the Characters > Symbols menu - Fixed a problem with the color selectors at the bottom of the screen. The default colors were set to use Window system colors for text and background rather than Black & White. - Select > Deselect menu relabeled as Select > Deselect All - Fixed a problem with ampersand characters not displaying correctly in the Sample Text tab. - Fixed a problem with disappearing text in the Sample Paragraphs tab of the Options dialog box. 7/28/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #16 - Installer version 8.00.0022 - 16th public release - Additional work in the treeview control to eliminate the "This window has already been registered as a drop target" error. 7/27/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #15 - Installer version 8.00.0021 - 15th public release - Fixed a bug in the font reading routines that caused the software to ignore symbol and dingbat fonts. - Fixed a bug that caused Printer's Apprentice to crash on startup if Verdana was not installed. - Fixed an "object reference not set" error when using the Font Files tab on Vista 64 systems. - Added initial support for A4 paper size to the catalogs. (We still need to tweak the sample sheets for A4.) 7/25/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #14 - Installer version 8.00.0020 - 14th public release - The uninstall routines now use improved file management functions and should be more reliable. - Fixed a problem with the status bar selection count number not being updated after fonts are uninstalled. - Fixed a bug in the Select > Font Name menu that caused it to simply not work. 7/22/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #13 - Installer version 8.00.0019 - 13th public release - Fixed a problem with the interaction between the font reading engine and the Windows API that caused the application to not load on 64 bit Windows Vista systems. Printer's Apprentice would crash with an "object reference not set" error. - When reading fonts from folder or font group, the blue progress dialog no longer floats on top of all other application windows. - Fixed an error with the treeview control. On occasion it would generate a "This window has already been registered as a drop target" error. 7/15/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #12 - Installer version 8.00.0018 - 12th public release - Included an additional debugging symbols file (prnapp.pdb) file in this release to produce more verbose error messages. - Fixed a bug in the Font Files tab that caused font read operations to crawl - Fixed a problem with the color pickers in the lower right hand corner of the screen. The "More Colors" button on the drop-down did not work. - Added additional error checking and bug fixes to the configuration read/write operations. This should eliminate the "The process cannot access the file 'C:\Documents and Settings\janharris\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\prnapp.exe.config' because it is being used by another process." errors that pop up occasionally. - Fixed an "InvalidArgument=Value of '0' is not valid for 'index'" error in the Font Groups and Font Files tabs. This happened when clicking Copy To Folder, Move to Folder, etc, when there are no fonts in the list, and then clicking Cancel in the Copy dialog. - Added a message box alert if you try to do a file operation (Copy Fonts, Move Fonts, etc) in the Font Files or Font Groups tab when there are no fonts in the list. 7/12/08 8.0 - Beta #11 - Installer version 8.00.0017 - 11th public release - Fixed a bug (introduced in Beta 10 code) that caused uninstalled fonts to not display correctly 7/11/08 8.0 - Beta #10 - Installer version 8.00.0016 - 10th public release - Added a second pass of font enumeration to address problems with where an installed font can't be associated with its font file. This should hopefully eliminate all cases of fonts listed with an "unknown" font file in the Install Fonts list. 7/9/08 8.0 - Beta #9 - Installer version 8.00.0015 - Ninth public release - Fixed a variety of issues that caused Printer's Apprentice to crash on startup. - Added additional error checking, etc to startup routines - Added a more robust error reporting system, implemented as uemanager.dll. - Fixed a problem with copy/move/etc items being disabled on the context menu. - Fixed a problem with the Copy Font function that prevented fonts with the Read Only attribute set from copying correctly. 6/27/08 8.0 - Beta #8 - Installer version 8.00.0014 - Eighth public release - Added Search function to the Help file. - Added new "How To Copy Characters Into Applications" section into Help file. - Added ability to change printed footers from the Options screen. - Fixed some cosmetics on the Options screen. - Fixed "The path is not of a legal form" error when using File|Print All Fonts in Folder. - Fixed "Splitter Distance must be between Panel1MinSize and Width - Panel2MinSize" error. This happened if you shrunk the main window to a very small size, exited and restarted the application. - Fixed "Generic GDI+ errors" in the print engine. In some cases, if the Windows GDI does not like a font, it was crashing the print routines. - Fixed a problem with Edit>Copy Character on the mutliple character tab. It was copying the wrong character to the clipboard. - Added "Family" column to the font lists. This can be turned on and off using the View menu. - Fixed a problem with the Font Files folder tree - when clicking the nodes it sometimes caused an "object not set" error under Vista. - Fixed a problem with the Delete key triggering the Delete Fonts/Uninstall fonts functions at inappropriate times. 6/16/08 8.0 - Beta #7 - Installer version 8.00.0013 - Seventh public release - Added new "3 Up Catalog" - Several minor bug fixes. - Fixed problem with flickering text on the the Sample Text tab under Vista - Additional fixes for "unknown" fonts under Vista 5/16/08 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0012 - Sixth public release - Help file has been expanded lots of new content. Please refer to the help file for step-by-step "How To" information and details about font groups, etc. - Many minor bug fixes - Now supports font file management - you can move font files around the file system. - Functions for copying / moving fonts can be found on the Edit menu, the toolbar and on right click popup menus - Now supports font groups - Functions for copying / moving fonts to and from groups can be found on the Edit menu, the toolbar and on right click popup menus - Default font group folder is c:\documents and settings\user\\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\Font Groups - Font group folder can be changed through the Options dialog box - Added "Explore Font Group folder" to Tools menu - Application now uses Vista styled "Task Dialogs" rather than old Win32 MessageBox functions for conveying alerts to the user. - Edit|Copy will copy a single character or sample text to the clipboard in both text and HTML format. - Edit|Copy with the keyboard tab selected will copy an image of the keyboard layout to the clipboard. - Edit|Copy Font List will copy a text list to the Clipboard. A dialog box prompts you for which columns to include, etc. - File|Save Font list also uses the same options dialog box as Edit|Copy Font List 4/2/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0011 - Fifth public release - Fixed expiration date problem 2/5/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0010 - Fourth public release - Fixed a problem where PA would not load on systems where the OS date formatting was set as DD/MM/YYYY. - Fixed a problem where PA would only read in only the first 500 installed fonts. - This version has entries for Copy and Move on the Font Files context menu. But theses features don't work yet and lead to an "Under Construction" dialog box. 1/30/08b - 8.0 Technology Demonstration (refresh) - Installer version 8.00.0009 - Third public release - Fixed a bug on the font files tab where fonts in sub folders were not being read. 1/30/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0008 - Third public release - "Select None" on menus has been relabeled "Deselect" with a Ctrl-D hotkey. - Hotkeys are now labled on context menus. - Additional feedback on splash screen as main form is loaded. - Fixed a bug with installing then printing fonts. Newly installed fonts would not print correct. Thanks to MicheleN for pointing this out. - Added code to automatically scroll and select the most recently added font in the Compare Fonts tab. Thanks to MicheleN for the suggestion. - The folder tree on the Font Files tab now has a context menu that appears when you right click. The menu has the following items: Refresh, New Folder, Rename Folder, Delete Folder, Open Folder and Properties All of the menu items should work. 1/16/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0007 - Second public release - Several new printouts are included in this release Character Set 1 Character Set 2 Keyboard Layout Keyboard Catalog Catalog 2 The previous beta included entries for the Keyboard Catalog and Catalog 2. However, the associated page definition files were not included in the setup.exe package and not installed. If you selected either of those two catalogs, it resulted in an error. This has been fixed for this release. - Fixed a problem with font management - under certain cirumstances, the app would hang after the font was installed/uninstalled. If other running applications do not react to the SendMessage(WM_FONTCHANGE) message, then PA would hang. I changed the call to use a timeout. This improves the install/uninstall speed as well. - Fixed a problem with TrueType/OpenType outline detection code. In some circumstances, an OpenType .otf file would be incorrectly seen as a TrueType icon. The wrong icon would display in the font lists. - Fixed a problem with the Compare Font tab. Doing the following steps would result in this error: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: InvalidArgument=Value of '-1' is not valid for 'index'. 1. Click the Font Files tab and navigate to a folder with several fonts. 2. Click the Font Compare tab. 3. Select several fonts using the check boxes. Select one of the fonts so it is highlighted in the Font Compare tab. 4. Click the Refresh button in the toolbar. - The logging feature is now enabled for the Font Install & Uninstall dialog boxes. - Printer's Apprentice logs are now stored in the following folder: %userprofile%\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\log - You can quickly jump to the log folder by selecting "Printer's Apprentice Logs" on the Tools menu. - Fixed various minor bugs in the font install/uninstall engine. - Fixed the text and typos in a few message boxes. - Fixed a problem with the Print dialog. If you use the Windows Classic visual style under Windows XP, then the dialog box would crash with a "no visual styles defined" error message. - Pressing F1 while in the Options dialog will open the appropriate Help system page. - Some menu items on the Help menu now lead the proper web page instead of a "Page not found" error. "Help>License and Pricing Information" menu item now leads to a temporary placeholder page on our web site. "Help>Online Order Form" now leads to our order form at Regsoft.com. "Help>Online Order Form - PayPal" now leads to our PayPal order form. 12/11/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0006 - First public release 12/05/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0005 - Includes updated help file 11/13/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0004 - Initial internal release - * Implemented * Main user interface, menu and options dialogs Font install and uninstall routines and dialogs Print engine and XML based catalogs & sample sheets Several font sample sheets and catalogs (not all the catalogs and sheets from previous versions are implemented yet) * Not Implemented * Font groups Font file management (move & copy font files) Print outs such as ANSI charts and a few catalog styles Font Registry editor Help file contains nothing but topic stubs