Softpedia >Windows >Science / CAD >qtGrace >  Changelog

qtGrace Changelog

What's new in qtGrace 0.2.3 Beta

Aug 23, 2013
  • This release contains only some minor bug fixes and a few improvements.
  • I added a 'Fit'-button below the page-zoom-slider to adjust the page-size to fit the window-size.
  • I added options for selecting sets with odd or even set-ids in the set lists and an option to select and copy odd or even lines in the spreadsheet-editor. The print-command (like 'lpr') is now saved in the users preferences file (qtGrace_Settings.ini) for users who do not use lpr or who want to use more complicated commands with options regularly.
  • I also tried to improve the support for non-ascii-characters in file-names and file-paths. I tested it a bit and it seems to work, but feedback on this is always welcome.

New in qtGrace 0.2.2a Beta (May 16, 2012)

  • Only small changes in ps-driver and in the determination of the file-path and file-extension for the print-setup-dialog (now the complete path is always used for print-to-file).
  • Changes in 0.2.2: I reactivated the '-free' option at startup. Somehow I forgot to reactivate this feature during my initial development phase. (By the way: Using this option will deactivated the page-zoom-slider.)
  • Changes in the last version involuntarily but effectively deactivated the Immediate-update feature.
  • I removed this bug (Immediate-update should work again.).
  • In previous version the string-justification-selector often returned invalid justification ids.
  • I changed this: The string justifications are now as they should be (i.e. if you give a viewport-coordinate for placing a string then this coordinate will be at the point indicated by the justification selector icon in relation to the whole strings bounding box).
  • I added a key-shortcut: "Crtl+1" will reset the page-zoom-slider to '1.0'. I added an experimental support for character sets that are not Latin. In the preferences dialog in the Extra-preferences you will find now a Combo-box to select the available file-encodings on your system.
  • This setting is used to interpret the project files in order to use characters for example from cyrillic or chinese fonts. (I have not tested this very extensively, because I do not understand any language that uses non-latin-characters - sorry - feedback welcome.)
  • The default setting is the 'System'-setting - which means "use the default encoding currently used by your operating system".
  • I also included an experimental startup-option: '-QtFonts'. If you start QtGrace with this option (i.e. 'qtgrace -QtFonts') the font selectors will change their behavior.
  • The label on the left side saying 'Font:' will change to a command button and pressing on it will display fonts that are available for use with the Qt-drivers (This should include most of the fonts available on your operating system.
  • This is not restricted to the T1-fonts in the QtGrace-folder.). These fonts are only used for printing when Qt is used.
  • This is the case for the display/screen, for using the native printer dialog and printing to 'jpg', 'png' and 'bmp' files.
  • The T1-standard-fonts are used for printing on all other devices (like 'ps').
  • At the beginning the combo-box will only show the standard fonts supported by the original Grace. If you want to add other fonts: click on the command button saying 'Font:' and select a font from the font dialog of your operating system (usually the font size can be selected here as well, but this setting is ignored at the moment).
  • When using the '-QtFonts'-option the Font-Tool will be considerably slower (I hope to improve this in future releases).
  • Using the Symbol-font will not have the same effect as it has with the T1-fonts: In T1 the Symbol-font contains the greek letters (only). In the Qt-fonts every font contains the greek letters (but not at the same positions as the latin-letters).
  • That means if you want to use the QtFonts and latin and Greek letters at the same time you have to enter the unicode-numbers of the Greek letters or copy and paste the letters from the Font tool. PLEASE NOTE: To actually use Qt-Fonts activate "Use device fonts" in the PageSetup-dialog!
  • I can not guarantee that all special font commands like "\s", "\S" or similar will work all the time (due to differences between UTF-8 and Ascii).
  • Using the LaTeX-shortcuts will also be unreliable while using QtFonts because the character positioning has been optimzed for T1-fonts.

New in qtGrace 0.2.2 Beta (May 3, 2012)

  • I reactivated the '-free' option at startup. Somehow I forgot to reactivate this feature during my initial development phase. (By the way: Using this option will deactivated the page-zoom-slider.)
  • Changes in the last version involuntarily but effectively deactivated the Immediate-update feature. I removed this bug (Immediate-update should work again.).
  • In previous version the string-justification-selector often returned invalid justification ids.
  • I changed this: The string justifications are now as they should be (i.e. if you give a viewport-coordinate for placing a string then this coordinate will be at the point indicated by the justification selector icon in relation to the whole strings bounding box).
  • I added a key-shortcut: "Crtl+1" will reset the page-zoom-slider to '1.0'. I added an experimental support for character sets that are not Latin. In the preferences dialog in the Extra-preferences you will find now a Combo-box to select the available file-encodings on your system.
  • This setting is used to interpret the project files in order to use characters for example from Cyrillic or Chinese fonts. (I have not tested this very extensively, because I do not understand any language that uses non-latin-characters - sorry - feedback welcome.)
  • The default setting is the 'System'-setting - which means "use the default encoding currently used by your operating system".
  • I also included an experimental startup-option: '-QtFonts'. If you start QtGrace with this option (i.e. 'qtgrace -QtFonts') the font selectors will change their behavior. The label on the left side saying 'Font:' will change to a command button and pressing on it will display fonts that are available for use with the Qt-drivers (This should include most of the fonts available on your operating system. This is not restricted to the T1-fonts in the QtGrace-folder.).
  • These fonts are only used for printing when Qt is used. This is the case for the display/screen, for using the native printer dialog and printing to 'jpg', 'png' and 'bmp' files.
  • The T1-standard-fonts are used for printing on all other devices (like 'ps'). At the beginning the combo-box will only show the standard fonts supported by the original Grace.
  • If you want to add other fonts: click on the command button saying 'Font:' and select a font from the font dialog of your operating system (usually the font size can be selected here as well, but this setting is ignored at the moment).
  • When using the '-QtFonts'-option the Font-Tool will be considerably slower (I hope to improve this in future releases).
  • Using the Symbol-font will not have the same effect as it has with the T1-fonts: In T1 the Symbol-font contains the greek letters (only). In the Qt-fonts every font contains the greek letters (but not at the same positions as the latin-letters).
  • That means if you want to use the QtFonts and latin and Greek letters at the same time you have to enter the unicode-numbers of the Greek letters or copy and paste the letters from the Font tool.
  • PLEASE NOTE: To actually use Qt-Fonts activate "Use device fonts" in the PageSetup-dialog! I can not guarantee that all special font commands like "\s", "\S" or similar will work all the time (due to differences between UTF-8 and Ascii). Using the LaTeX-shortcuts will also be unreliable while using QtFonts because the character positioning has been optimized for T1-fonts.

New in qtGrace 0.2.1 Beta (Feb 29, 2012)

  • Support for csv-import

New in qtGrace 0.2 Beta (Feb 29, 2012)

  • Page-zoom, selecting multiple graphs for zooming, reactivating pipes (non-Windows-systems)

New in qtGrace 0.1.9 Beta (Nov 29, 2011)

  • This update (as usual) fixes some bugs. I have rewritten the spreadsheet-editor (again) because I wanted it to be more efficient and more reliable than the version in 0.1.8. As a drawback: every cell that is selected will automatically switch to editing mode. Apart from this everything should be ok. I also removed a bug that prevented the axis-labels to be shown in the dialogs if a project file is loaded via double-clicking on the file. This bug could also occur if project files are imported via "import ascii" or by drag and drop or if example files are opened. If someone spots this bug (axis-labels not shown in dialogs, bug shown in main window) please let me know and tell me what you did (especially: how did you load your data into QtGrace). Thank you. I have activated the transparency of the background for printing into png- and jpg-files. If you unselect "Fill" in the plot-appearance dialog the background will be transparent (alpha-channel=0). As I wrote before: this applies only for printing in files (for eps-/ps-files this should have worked before since the driver is different). I included an option in the print-setup-dialog: "Don't reposition Graph(s)". If this option is activated and the page size is changed QtGrace tries to keep the size and position of the Graphs in pixels. For a better understanding: Grace/QtGrace internally uses the viewport-coordinates to position all objects and determine the sizes. These coordinates are relative! This means the absolute size of all objects change in relation to the smaller dimension of the page size (if the larger dimension is changed, nothing happens; if the smaller dimension is lowered, then all objects become smaller, if the smaller dimension is increased, all objects become bigger). This is the main reason, why the font-sizes in Grace/QtGrace behave differently from other applications and no simple relation exists (see below). The option "Don't reposition Graph(s)" prevents the resizing and repositioning of the graphs (and only of the graphs; it does not interfere with objects or the fonts). The size of the graphs measured in pixels remains the same (absolute coordinates are used temporarily instead of relative ones). I do not (!) recommend to use this option. Use arrange graphs instead! I you really need this option: tell me and I will try extending the use to fonts and objects.

New in qtGrace 0.1.8 Beta (Sep 29, 2011)

  • bug fixes;
  • several improvements;
  • addition of color management;
  • filling the area between sets;
  • rotation of boxes and ellipses

New in qtGrace 0.1.7 (Jul 13, 2011)

  • This update fixes some minor bugs (qtgrace not closed immediately if command-line-option '-hardcopy' is used; if sets are loaded with the option 'NXY' only the last set is recognized by the undo-function).
  • The major improvement this time is the addition of the copy / paste and drag / drop functions.
  • It is now possible to copy selected sets into the systems clipboard (as text separated by tabs; the decimal separator is always '.', if you are using a localized version of your operating system on which ',' is the decimal separator you have to replace the '.' by ',' by yourself at the moment - sorry).
  • The other direction is also possible: copy data from a different application like OpenOffice or Microsoft Excel into the clipboard and then paste the data into qtgrace.
  • You may also drag files or text-data into qtgrace (dragging data from qtgrace outwards is not possible - use copy and paste instead).
  • Warning: Some shortcut keys have been changed: In order to use Crtl+Z for Undo I used Alt+Z for Zoom. In order to use Crtl+V for paste-operations I used Alt+V for viewport.