Release notes for MECCA 2000 version 3.04.  Aug/15/2003


Fixes/Updates:

1. Minor fix to Combine (combining file), so that it cannot be
   re-entered when it is waiting for a pick on the registration corner
   (combinefile.tcl).

2. Minor menu label change (from "Done ..." to "Exit ...") for Patterns
   and Change functions, to make the pop-up menu labels consistent with
   other drawing functions (patterns.tcl, modify.tcl).

3. Re-label "Depth Order" sub-menu to read "Exit Depth Order" (from
   "Done Depth Changes"); entering depth-order now also automatically
   pops up the depth order sub-menu (modepth.tcl).

4. Fixed minor problem when exiting Move by clicking the Move button
   (when it is in the active, depressed state): it did not remove its
   pop-up menu (move.tcl).

5. When scaling, entering a value in X scaling factor box also sets
   the Y scaling factor in the dialog, but the latter was not properly
   set internally, resulting in occasional cross-scaling.  This has been
   fixed (m2kbin).

6. Fixed minor error in generating viewable PDF: if Ghostscript encountered
   any error, the PostScript file and a temporary work file were left behind
   (print.tcl).

7. The ps3form program has been updated to look into EPS section, to
   extract font definition (bracketed by %%BeginResource and %%EndResource
   pairs) found in the section: because a Level-3 "form" cannot include any
   font definitions.  Previously, the program skipped entire EPS sections
   (ps3form).

8. Fontbank "Limousine" (limou/n) font had no lowercase letters, causing
   X11 Type-1 font rendering to seg fault.  The uppercase letters are now
   duplicated in the lowercase half (limou.tgz).

9. Version 3.0 release migrated to use Tcl 8.3.4, which internally
   stores string data with UTF-8 encoding.  The m2kbin program did not
   account for this, so it was composing UTF-8 strings (e.g. data in
   entry boxes or textboxes) directly, and characters in the range
   128 -- 255 were not handled correctly, this has now been fixed.
   Note: m2kbin currently only supports single-byte characters, whose
   codes conform to standard IBM PC keycodes ISO8859-1 (ref.: see the map
   file M_FONTS/fontinfo/stdrom).

10. When printing text that contains special space (thin-, en-, and
   em-space), the text is output in segments containing printable letters,
   with the special space separating the segments.  In so doing, typdrv did
   not accumulate segment length properly, especially when the text was
   composed with kerning on.  This problem is now fixed (typdrv).

   NOTE: this fix has a side effect: where a plain space is side-by-side
   with a special space character, before this fix, one of them appears to
   have been ignored when printed; with this fix, they both are counted.
   Customers are warned that old job files containing such sequence of plain
   space next to a special space character, will now print differently!

11. Fixed a bug in text compose engine where it sometimes inserted kerning
   code for extended characters such as those space commands (galeyc, m2kbin).

12. A problem in the user interface that prevented changing only the
    vertical text size has been fixed (text.tcl, m2kbin).


New/Modified:

1. Added EAN-13 barcode, a super-set of UPC (ean2.tgz, m2kbin, typdrv,
   mk_allfonts, mk_x11fonts, mkolg_all, mkolg, barcodes.tcl, ean13.tcl,
   tclIndex, barcodes.menu, EAN-13.menu, barcodes.ini.ean).

2. Copy function now provides "set line weight" options, similar to its
   "spot color density options": set final copy line weight, or set a
   per-step percentage increment.  When using the "set final copy line
   weight" option, please remember to include unit specifier -- e.g.,
   "5p" for 5 points -- to avoid surprises. (m2kbin, copy.tcl).

   IMPORTANT NOTE: when setting per-step line weight scaling with negative
   percentage value (lines progressively thin down), components may end up
   having zero line weight.  Users are advised to use the "Zero-Weight"
   Visible/Invisible feature in Window Modes, to obtain accurate visual
   proof.

3. Similar line weight adjustment has also been added to Rotate/Scale, but
   it is effective only when making copies.  Existing "Scale Line Weights"
   option still functions as it has been; and if it is selected, the new
   line weight scaling options are disabled (m2kbin, xform2.tcl).

4. Added arrow-key window panning under "win-cen" (set window center)
   function in the zoom group.  After activating "win-cen", pressing any
   of the four arrow keys will pan the drawing window in the indicated
   direction, by one full window (width or height); pressing the Enter key
   afterwards will finalize the window position (keycoords.tcl, m2kprocs.tcl).

5. The "Project -> Open" dialog now can use a customizable menu file to
   populate "File type:" drop-down list.  For details, please see the file
   "/usr/mecca/menus/open_types.list.sample".  Similarly, the sample file
   "/usr/mecca/menus/cmbn_types.list.sample" can be used to make a customized
   list for Combine (m2kprocs.tcl, combinefile.tcl, open_types.list.sample,
   cmbn_types.list.sample).

6. Per-separation notes have been added to Parts (separation specs): each
   sep now can have an attached note up to 255 single-byte characters
   (parts.tcl, m2kbin, typdrv, gpcdump, dwgvupd10, addpartdims, prtgraf).

7. Added two immediate mark-up commands: \SF^ and \RF^ (galeyc, m2kbin).

   The SF command saves font, style, foreground/background colors,
   H and V point sizes, plus any additional leading value.  A subsequent
   RF command restores these saved font attributes.  For example:

	\sf^ \cf ti^\b^ This is in Times-Roman Bold\rf^
	and hereafter back to whatever font in effect before
	the CF Ti.

   (spaces in the above text are for illustration purpose only).

   These commands can stack, for example if "current font" is CO N,
   then:

	\sf^\cf ti^This is in TI/N,
	\sf^\cf pa^\b^ now we're in PA/B,
	\rf^ here go back to TI/N,
	\rf^ and now back to CO/N.

   Please also note the use of SF at the start of mark-up here: a
   subsequent Change-Font done in MECCA 2000, say, to GE/B, will
   cause the "and now back to CO/N" to change.

   Notes:
   a. When using MECCA 2000 interactive text input, SF/RF are effective
      only within one paragraph -- i.e., saved font information is not
      preserved across paragraph boundary.

      This limitation is absent from batch compose.  However, please
      keep in mind SF only saves a subset of font information; hence
      in the case of SF...Px...RF, the RF does not recover all font and
      format values in effect prior to the Px command, so using such a
      sequence will more likely cause confusion. 
  
   b. An RF command without a prior matching SF, will cause that RF
      command be removed from the mark-up text.

   c. SF and RF may be more useful in automated mark-up text generation
      or modification (i.e., mark-up data generated by software), than
      they are when manually preparing the mark-up data.

8. Composing text files that originated from certain platforms that insist
   on marking end-of-line with CR NL (instead of just one NL) now should be
   easier: the carriage-return character is automatically ignored.  Also,
   on these platforms text files may be created to begin with the 3-byte
   sequence 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF, marking the file as using UTF-8 encoding.  This
   BOM token is now recognized and removed, the file content then converted
   from UTF-8 to ISO8859-1.  Note: the updated executables "exptxt" and
   "prepcomp" require Tcl 8.3 run-time library libtcl83.so to be present
   (exptxt, prepcomp, text.tcl).