What's new in Sticker 3.1.1
Apr 25, 2016
- This release fixes a bug in the previous release when double-clicking a group in the preferences window to show its properties.
New in Sticker 3.1.0 Final (Apr 25, 2016)
- This release fixes an incompatibility with the Avis router that caused an error when trying to change presence groups.
New in Sticker 3.1.0 R.C. 2 (Apr 25, 2016)
- This release updates Windows and Gtk interfaces by updating the packaged SWT framework to to the latest 3.2.2 release. It also updates the Java 1.4 JRE packaged for Windows to a more modern Java 5 JRE.
New in Sticker 3.1.0 R.C. 1 (Apr 25, 2016)
- Reduced CPU usage on Mac OS X from unusable levels to below 10%. Further reductions await improvements to SWT's animation timer support.
- Updated to SWT 3.1. SWT 3.1 significantly improves support for Linux, Solaris and OS X and this update fixes various bugs on both platforms, including truncated text in combo boxes on OS X.
- Added full application menu support for OS X, including support for accelerator keys for the Preferences command and other common commands.
- The docking default location has been changed to the top of the screen on OS X so it appears under the main menu. This works better than at the bottom, which is often used by the dock.
- The currently active presence status is now shown as checked on the status menu.
- Reduced the sensitivity of Sticker's "idle detection" logic to reduce likelihood of mouse jitter affecting accuracy.
- Now tries to use a shortened version of the local domain in the default user name if available e.g. "user@dsto" rather than "user@sticker". If a domain is available, it is also suggested as a presence group default.
- Fixed a bug that was hiding subscribed "personal" groups in the preference window.
- The Windows installer no longer installs Sticker as a startup item for all users, just the local user.
- The Escape key no longer exits Sticker.
- Message actions "Beep" and "Mark read" can now be negated (i.e. can specify "Do not beep" and "Mark unread").
- Added "Copy Message" command to ticker context menu.
- Disabled auto hide for Gnome. Will be re-enabled when it's implemented.
- Improved the order and naming of message actions.
- Fixed error when using a scope combined with "*" for Elvin connections.
- Fixed problems with launching the system default browser for opening attachments.
- The "Online People" window is now titled "People Online" for consistency.
- The Messages Window and message composition dialogs now appear as top-level windows on Windows and Gnome (they are now visible in the taskbar).
- Fixed problems with presence status sometimes showing Sticker as offline when in fact it is connected. This often occured after a server restart.
- Now executes a full reconnection cycle if disconnected for more than 30 seconds. This works around various reported but intermittent errors that seem to be due to the auto-reconnection logic in the Java Elvin SDK.
New in Sticker 3.1.0 Beta 2 (Apr 25, 2016)
- Fixed serious bug that would cause Sticker to silently fail to start after changing the user's nickname. This was caused by a corruption of the preferences file: Sticker 3.1b2 will automatically fix this error and will no longer fail silently if a similar situation occurs in future.
- Fixed error in group subscription logic that would cause it to miss pure ticker v3.0 messages (ie messages without backwards-compatible v1.0 fields).
- Fixed bug in message handling where messages with no explicit version tag were assumed to be v3.1 (now assumes 3.0).
- Upgraded to latest Elvin client library with fix to HTTP tunnelling support: previous release ignored port number.
- Added X-NNTP-Host: "fake" and "Timeout" fields to newsgroup replies.
- Changed icon for secure messages to a small padlock.
- When running a second instance with the same home directory, the second instance will no longer attempt to save preferences, avoiding potential preferences file corruption.
- Fixed broken "raw" key IO feature to support importing keys from clients such as xtickertape.
- Fixed secure messaging error introduced by person-to-person secure messaging feature. Sticker 3.1b1 allowed holders of a public key to post securely to a group secured with the corresponding private key.
- Fixed various errors in source code API documentation.
New in Sticker 3.1.0 Beta 1 (Apr 25, 2016)
- Lots of usability improvements: reorganised order of items in preferences, improved checking of settings in dialogs, clearer hint text, improved error/warning messages.
- Added new "Never Scroll" ticker scrolling mode plus fast expiry option.
- Improved virtual presence: better buddy support, tabbed Online Users dialog, ticker notifications when users on/offline.
- The message dialog is now much smarter and displays immediate warning and hint messages just above the Send/Cancel buttons, eg when sending to an offline user, unsubscribed group, etc.
- Improved messages window: paperclip icon on messages with attachments, red star on unread messages, hide read messages option, optional "flat" chronological view.
- Improved secure messaging: secure group setup can now be done entirely from the Security area on the group properties window, secure person-to-person messaging by exchanging public keys is now supported.
- New administration options: can now specify template config files that provide local settings. Various user interface control options are provided: eg to lock-down ID changes and group subscriptions.
New in Sticker 3.0.0 Final (Apr 25, 2016)
- The messages window now shows all known subscribers to the currently selected group. People that appear to be typing a message are shown with a special icon.
- All panels in the message window are now resizable.
- Added "Copy Message" and "Copy Conversation" commands to message window.
- Major changes to message database. Compaction is now longer done while Sticker is running, as this could occasionally trigger corruption (compaction is now done at startup). Further improved integrity checking of message database and upgraded database backend to latest release. Fixed bug that could cause all messages to disappear during compact. Fixed bugs in handling rollback of database errors, especially during compacting.
- The main window can now be resized when undocked by dragging leftmost edge.
- Added support for "muting" messages on the ticker for selected presence status settings as a way of reducing distraction while working.
- Saved message lifetimes can now be set from the group properties window.
- In auto hide mode, Sticker no longer pops down when creating/replying to a message or opening the message in the Messages Window.
- Tweaked layout of attachments editor used on ticker message composition window.
- Elvin service disconnects/reconnects and general warnings are now displayed as notices in the ticker rather than as popup dialogs to avoid grabbing focus.
- Elvin HTTP tunnelling can now be configured via an "Advanced..." button.
- Various improvements to clarify preferences panels layout, descriptions, etc. Removed "Other" page and moved controls to the "Ticker Messages" page.
- Fixed bug in detecting when a Window full-screen application is running, which would result in Sticker sometimes popping up over a screensaver.
- Various improvements to preferences handling backend to reduce frequency of preferences file saving.
- Profiled to verify performance and ensure no memory leaks over prolonged usage.
- Improved logging control: can now specify "quiet" (no logging), "normal", "verbose" and "veryVerbose" (full tracing).
New in Sticker 3.0.0 Beta 2 (Apr 25, 2016)
- Improved auto popup. On windows, Sticker no longer pops up when it gets focus, stopping it from annoyingly bobbing up and down when there are only a few windows open. Also tweaked management of window z-ordering so that Sticker does not sometimes slide over the taskbar.
- Sticker no longer pops up over Windows fullscreen applications.
- Fixed precedence errors in advanced groups by using brackets correctly.
- Fixed error with negation in advanced groups.
- Added option to turn off falling animation on scrollers and force messages to always scroll.
- Added option to specify a custom command to open attachments.
- Group properties can now be accessed from the User Properties group list and from the left hand tree in the Messages Window.
- Default window placements improved. New message windows appear stacked left to right above/below scroller, messages windows cascade from middle of screen.
- Sticker no longer crashes on startup if the message database is corrupt. It also detects when another instance may be using the message database, which is a common cause of corruption.
- Sticker now notifies if the Elvin connection goes down and correctly refreshes presence information when the connection is re-established.
- Sticker now exits cleanly on system shutdown.
- Added support for system suspend/resume in Windows: appropriate presence status changes are now broadcast.
- Added "Hide Conversation" and "Delete All Messages" commands.
- Improved message deletion options in the Messages Window. Now allows multiple groups to be selected and messages to be deleted using their previously set expiry settings.
- Added automatic message database compaction and automatic old message deletion to reduce problems with monster message databases.
- Sticker now only expands to the fill width of the primary monitor on multi-monitor Windows systems rather than covering the entire virtual desktop.
- Fixed attachments editor at the bottom of the new message windows.
- Added option to change location of messages database.
- Fixed bug in the setup wizard that stopped scopes or "*" being specified for the Elvin connection.
- Advanced groups now support "\" in match text correctly.
- The scroller preferences editor no longer allows all scrollers to be deleted.
- Advanced groups now handle empty subscription text without generating spurious syntax errors in the log.
- Falling animation now stops more smoothly.
- Can now subscribe/unsubscribe from a group's properties window.
- Fixed saved messages corruption bug triggered when a reply is made to a different group.
- Now warns when attempting to send a message when not connected to Elvin.
- Added option to allow pressing Enter in the message window as a shortcut to send the message.
- Sticker now longer pops down when opening an attachment.
- Fixed bug where scroller colour schemes were not updated if the scrollers were previously re-ordered.
- Fixed bugs triggered when handling groups with same name but differing cases (eg Chat vs CHAT). Case is no longer significant for chat or news groups.
- Fixed error in status "last changed" in the User Properties window.
- Improved delete confirmation messages.
- Auto hide is now turned off by default on non-Windows platforms. While autohide works on these platforms, it is complicated by the fact that some window managers won't activate the untitled Sticker window and hence won't allow it to be manually popped up.
- Built using the most recent SWT/JFace 2.1.1 release.
New in Sticker 3.0.0 Beta 1 (Apr 25, 2016)
- Native GUI: Sticker 3 is based on the Eclipse SWT toolkit rather than Swing as used in Sticker 2. SWT is based on the operating system’s native toolset, meaning Sticker 3 looks and acts like a native application and supports Windows XP and GTK themes plus display enhancements such as ClearType.
- Reduced memory requirements: The switch to SWT plus streamlining and simplifications of the backend result in Sticker 3.0 requiring approximately half the memory of Sticker 2.3.
- Windows native release: For Windows users, Sticker 3.0 is available as standalone EXE that does not require a Java runtime and has significantly lower memory requirements. The existing cross-platform distributions are still fully supported.
- No scrolling messages: Well actually it does scroll, but much less so than before. Scrolling can be irritating, and Sticker 3 tries not to generate distracting movement unless something is actually changing. When a new message arrives on a blank ticker it now "drops" it in from the right and comes to a stop on the left where it sits until expired or deleted. Subsequent messages, up to the point where the ticker is full, do the same, forming a stationary stack of messages. When the ticker is full, it starts scrolling as usual, with the ticker tape display wrapping so that all the space available on the ticker is used for message display. The dropping action still gives a brief movement cue for each new message, but the display settles down immediately afterwards.
- New scroller features: messages that are unread (i.e. haven't been replied to, or deleted, or otherwise "touched") are highlighted with a shadow. The message text no longer fades as it ages since this can make the text hard to read; instead the red "new message" star over the icon fades. Messages that are not visible are not subject to expiry, meaning short-expiry messages arriving on a long tape won't be deleted before display.
- Auto hide: In the spirit of being less intrusive, Sticker 3 has an "auto hide" option that causes the scroller to slide out of the way when not in use. When a message arrives, or Sticker becomes the active application (eg is Alt-Tabbed to), it slides back into view. On Windows there is now a taskbar menu for when the Sticker is not visible.
- Improved message archiving: Sticker 3 uses a micro object database for storing messages, which allows for large archives to which messages can be added, retrieved and removed from very quickly. As well as improving performance, messages can be indexed by their read/unread status and received time, allowing flagging of unread messages and global expiry of old messages. All messages are now stored in a single file rather than one file per group.
- No popup toolbar: While the popup toolbar seemed like a good idea at the time, it's true to say that many people find it annoying, including the author. In its place, Sticker 3 uses a context menu on the scroller plus a control menu with application options.
- Better self-customisation: Sticker 3 remembers much more of the way you’ve set up things, such as window sizes, column widths, etc.
- Improved scroller and message display customisation: Sticker 3 has a number of pre-set scroller colour themes, each of which has its own optimised message colour schemes for normal, highlighted and "lowlighted" messages. This allows message actions that change message appearance to do so intelligently regardless of which scroller the message ends up on.