Visual Thought 1.1 Release Notes
15 March 1995


Welcome!
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Welcome, and thanks for purchasing Visual Thought, the premier
multipurpose drawing and diagramming tool for UNIX systems.  You can
use Visual Thought to create many kinds of drawings: software
diagrams, flowcharts and other kinds of flow diagrams, org charts,
network diagrams, business graphics, illustrations for documentation,
and much more.

Installation and Licensing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Complete instructions for installation and licensing are provided in
the "Installation and Licensing Guide" booklet accompanying the CD-ROM.

Please feel free to send e-mail to vthought@confluent.com or call us
at 415-586-8700 or 800-780-2838 if you ever have any questions while
installing or licensing Visual Thought.

Support
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you or your organization purchased Annual Support Contracts for
Visual Thought, we always stand ready to answer your questions or fix
your problems.  Send e-mail to vthought@confluent.com at any time or
call us at 415-586-8700 or 800-780-2838.

Usage Notes
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This section lists a few brief usage notes that we felt were important
for you to know.  For a complete discussion of Visual Thought's
features, please refer to the "Visual Thought User's Guide."

* Getting Acquainted

We recommend choosing the Options->Examples... menu item and running
the GuidedTour example, which uses Visual Thought documents to provide
a complete overview of how to use Visual Thought.  If you leave the
GuidedTour Overview slide iconified on your screen it can serve as a
hyperlink help system.

* Entering Text in Objects

Manipulating text in Visual Thought objects can be done quickly and
simply.  Here are shortcuts that you will want to use:

- To enter text into an object, double-click on it from Select mode.

- To move the text edit focus from object to object, type Tab,
  Shift-Tab, or the Ctrl key plus any of the four arrow keys.

- To exit Text mode and revert to Select mode at any time, press Esc.

* Entering Text in Dialogs

Most Visual Thought dialog windows have text fields, into which you
can type text.  To enter text in a text field, first click in it to
move the keyboard focus to the field, then type.  To tell Visual
Thought that you are finished typing, it is important to press Return
or Tab.

Changes Since Version 1.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In version 1.1, we've fixed a number of bugs and made a few
enhancements, but primarily, the intent behind this release is to
support Solaris in addition to SunOS.  We've documented the changes
between the 1.0 and 1.1 releases in the remainder of these release
notes.


Summary: Runs only on SunOS

Visual Thought 1.0 ran only on SunOS 4.1.x systems.  It now runs on
both SunOS 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x.


Summary: Crash when the last point is deleted while creating a connection

While creating a connection, the Delete or Backspace keys can be used
to delete the most recently added point.  Visual Thought crashed if
the last point was deleted in this manner while the mouse button was
down.  A crash no longer occurs in this case.


Summary: Crash with X11 BadPixmap error for rotated text without Stroke or
         Fill

Visual Thought occasionally crashed with an X11 BadPixmap error when
drawing rotated text in an object with Stroke, Fill, and Shadow turned
off.  A crash no longer occurs in this case.


Summary: Crash with broken pipe for invalid print command or printer

Visual Thought crashed with a broken pipe if a print failed.  This
crash could occur if an invalid print command was specified with the
-printcmd command line argument or if an invalid printer was selected.
A crash no longer occurs in this case.  Normally, an alert notice will
be displayed indicating a print failure.  However, due to system
limitations, the alert notice may not appear and the only notification
of the failure will be error output to the shell used to run Visual
Thought.


Summary: Crash saving PostScript or images to an invalid path

Visual Thought crashed if an invalid path was specified in the file
chooser used to save PostScript from the Print dialog or to save
PostScript or a GIF image with File->Export.  A crash no longer occurs
and a warning alert notice is now issued in this case.  An alternate
path may be specified in the file chooser after the alert notice is
dismissed.


Summary: Crash printing or saving PostScript with insufficient disk space

Visual Thought crashed if insufficient disk space was available while
printing or saving PostScript to a file.  A crash no longer occurs and
a warning alert notice is now issued in this case.  Information
regarding the file system with insufficient space may be output to the
shell used to run Visual Thought.


Summary: Crash changing fonts in font chooser after applying to rotated text

Visual Thought crashed if various sequences of font selections were
made with the font chooser after changing the font of rotated text.  A
crash no longer occurs, but the example display of the font in the
font chooser may be incorrect.  The display problem will be fixed in a
future release.


Summary: Sound Editor hangs if the selection changes during play

The Sound Editor became unresponsive to user controls if the object
selection was changed while the Sound Editor was playing a sound.
This also caused the Sound Editor to retain control of the audio
device, making it unavailable to other applications.  The Sound Editor
will now display the sound attached to the new object selection, but
continue playing the original sound to completion.


Summary: Interface controls unusable with large window fonts

Some user-interface controls (.e.g., buttons and lists) were
unavailable or difficult to use if a large default font was specified
when Visual Thought was started.  This is typically caused by an entry
of the form "*font:" in the X resource data base.  This problem has
been minimized for reasonable font sizes (i.e., 12 and 14 point) and
will no longer occur by default.


Summary: No alert displayed when the audio device cannot be opened

An alert notice was not displayed if the audio device could not be
opened.  This problem is unlikely in SunOS 4.1, but can occur quite
easily in Solaris 2, where the user logged into the console owns the
audio devices and is the only user with read and write permission.  An
alert notice is now displayed if the audio device cannot be opened.


Summary: Scrolling of a View incorrect after printing

The most recently focused View was displayed incorrectly when it was
scrolled after printing a document.  The View is now displayed
correctly in this case.


Summary: Resize of a shape changes size incorrectly with grid snap on

The size of an object was changed incorrectly in some cases when the
resize was performed with grid snap on.  The size of the object is no
longer changed incorrectly in this case.


Summary: Toggling object selection slow when many objects are selected

Toggling the selection of objects (i.e., with Ctrl-click) was very
slow when many objects were already selected.  There should no longer
be any noticeable delay in this case.


Summary: Tool accelerators (1-6) made inactive by popping up menus

The tool accelerators (1-6) became inactive when menus were popped up
in the View, but outside the drawing area.  The tool accelerators now
remain active in this case.


Summary: Text edit cursor is invisible over dark fill colors

The cursor used in Edit mode for the Text tool was black with no
border.  It could not be seen over an object filled with a dark color.
The text edit cursor has been changed to black with a white border.
It is now visible over any fill color.


Summary: No deletion of text character to left without BackSpace keysym

If the BackSpace and Delete keys were both mapped to the Delete
keysym, both keys would delete the character to the right of the
cursor.  Both keys now delete the character to the left of the cursor
in this case.

By default, the BackSpace and Delete keys generate BackSpace and
Delete keysyms (symbolic key identifiers), respectively.  This default
behavior can be verified with output of the form:

  % xmodmap -pk | egrep 'BackSpace|Delete'

    50 0xff08 (BackSpace)
    73 0xffff (Delete)

This indicates that the BackSpace key (keycode=50) is mapped to the
BackSpace keysym (0xff08) and the Delete key (keycode=73) is mapped to
the Delete keysym (0xffff).

In Visual Thought, the BackSpace keysym deletes the character to the
left of the cursor and the Delete keysym deletes the character to the
right.  Sometimes, users map both keys to the same keysym to achieve
consistent behavior in various applications.  This caused Visual
Thought to unexpectedly delete characters only to the right of the
cursor if both keys were mapped to the Delete keysym.


Summary: Alert notices covered by initial startup windows

Some alert notices generated during startup were displayed before the
four initial windows, causing the alert notices to be covered by the
initial windows until the user pressed a key or a mouse button.  All
alert notices are now displayed after and above the initial windows.


Summary: Underline and strikethru printed incorrectly

Printed underlines and strikethrus did not always extend exactly to
the end of the affected text.  Printed underlines and strikethrus now
align with the end of the affected text.


Summary: Could not restore multinational characters from saved documents

Multinational characters (i.e., character codes 128-255) saved in
documents were not restored when reading the documents on SunOS 4.1.x.
These characters are now restored properly.


Summary: Could not print some multinational characters

Some multinational characters (i.e., character codes 128-255) could be
entered in an object's text, but could not be printed.  All
multinational characters can now be printed by specifying a value of
"latin1" for the encoding preference.  The encoding preference can be
specified by adding "-encoding latin1" to the command line (e.g.,
vthought -encoding latin1) or by adding "vthoughtx.encoding: latin1"
to the X resource data base (e.g., by adding it to the file ~/.Xdefaults).


Summary: Additional translations from X11 to PostScript fonts

The following additional translations from X11 screen fonts to printed
PostScript fonts were added:

  X11                             PostScript
  ---                             ----------
  *-avantgarde-*-i-*              AvantGarde-*Oblique
  *-avant garde-*-i-*             AvantGarde-*Oblique
  *-itc avant garde-*-i-*         AvantGarde-*Oblique
  *-itc avant garde gothic-*      AvantGarde-*
  *-courier-*-i-*                 Courier-*Oblique
  *-helvetica-*-i-*               Helvetica-*Oblique
  *-itc zapfchancery-medium-i-*   ZapfChancery-MediumItalic
  *-itc zapfdingbats-medium-r-*   ZapfDingbats


Summary: Open dialogs and menus not updated for documents opened during
         Revert and Attachment activation

Open dialogs and menus (e.g., Grid, Arrange->Grid->ShowGrid) were not
updated to reflect the properties of a document opened as a result of
Revert and activation of an Attachment.  Open dialogs and menus are
now updated properly in these cases.


Summary: Failed commands not identified in alert notices

Commands that Visual Thought attempted, but failed, to execute were
not always identified in the displayed alert notice.  Failed commands
are now always identified in the alert notice.


Summary: View ruler indicators show the object size after object creation

After creating an object, the size indicators were sometimes shown in
addition to the cursor position until the cursor was moved.  The extra
size indicators are no longer shown in this case.


Summary: View ruler indicators not updated until first cursor movement

When creating an object with grid snap on, the View ruler indicators
continued to show the initial cursor position, rather than the object
bounds snapped to the grid, until after the first movement of the
cursor.  The initial cursor position is no longer shown in this case.


Summary: Opening the About dialog changed fonts in other dialogs

Opening the About dialog sometimes changed the font face from bold to
medium for labels and text fields in other dialogs.  This problem has
been fixed.


Summary: Right portion of Edit menu button unresponsive in Sound Editor

The right portion of the Edit menu button in the Sound Editor did not
respond to button clicks for the Motif look-and-feel.  The entire Edit
menu button now responds to button clicks.


Summary: Could not read documents identified as written by other products

A document being read was considered invalid unless the program and
version keywords in the header section of the document were "vthought"
and "1.0", respectively.  These keywords are now ignored and should be
used to identify the program that generated the document.


Summary: License failure for missing key files difficult to diagnose

License failures caused by missing or invalid license key files were
difficult to diagnose because it was not possible to determine which
directory was being searched for these files.  The license directory
is now included in the alert notice describing this type of license
failure.


Summary: Default window font controlled by X resource data base

The default font used for user-interface controls (e.g., buttons and
lists) was controlled by entries of the form "*font:" in the X
resource data base.  Specification of certain font families or sizes
through these entries caused some controls to be unavailable or
difficult to use.  This problem has been fixed by overriding the
default font from the X resource data base with a default font of 12
point Helvetica.  This can be overridden by specifying the command
line options "-font <name>" or "-font family:<name>-size:<value>",
where <name> and <value> are the font family and size, respectively.


Summary: Bad display of controls on monochrome monitors

User-interface controls were invisible or difficult to distinguish on
monochrome monitors.  Special color schemes are now used to provide as
usable an interface as possible for monochrome.


Summary: New monochrome preference for monochrome displays

The monochrome preference has been added.  Specifying the monochrome
preference draws all dialogs using only black and white.  Dithering is
used to represent gray scales in some cases.  The monochrome
preference can be specified by adding "-monochrome" to the command
line (e.g., vthought -monochrome) or by adding "vthoughtx.monochrome: on"
to the X resource data base (e.g., by adding it to the file ~/.Xdefaults).
The monochrome preference can be turned off in the X resource data
base by specifying "vthoughtx.monochrome:".


Summary: New encoding preference to print ISO-8859-1 characters

The encoding preference has been added.  Specifying a value of
"latin1" for the encoding preference corrects printing of characters
in the ISO-8859-1 character set with codes greater than 127.  This
option should only be used if it is necessary to print these
characters, as it may affect printing performance and could
potentially fail on some printers.  The encoding preference can be
specified by adding "-encoding latin1" to the command line (e.g.,
vthought -encoding latin1) or by adding "vthoughtx.encoding: latin1"
to the X resource data base (e.g., by adding it to the file ~/.Xdefaults).
The encoding preference can be turned off in the X resource data base
by specifying "vthoughtx.encoding: standard".


Summary: New nosoundalert preference to disable alerts for no audio device

The nosoundalert preference has been added.  Specifying the
nosoundalert preference disables the alert notice that normally
appears if Visual Thought starts up and the audio control device
cannot be accessed.  This condition normally occurs if the audio
device does not exist or the user does not have read and write
permission for the audio device.  The nosoundalert preference can be
specified by adding "-nosoundalert" to the command line (e.g.,
vthought -nosoundalert) or by adding "vthoughtx.nosoundalert: on" to
the X resource data base (e.g., by adding it to the file ~/.Xdefaults).
The nosoundalert preference can be turned off in the X resource data
base by specifying "vthoughtx.nosoundalert:".


Summary: Customer information has been moved

The customer information has been moved from
vt-1.0/sunos-4.1/config/license.txt to license/customer.txt.


Summary: The examples and palettes directories have been moved

The examples have been moved from sunos-4.1/examples to share/examples
and the palettes have been moved from sunos-4.1/palettes to
share/palettes.


Summary: Volleyball misspelled in Party example

Volleyball was misspelled in the bottom right corner of the Party
example.  The spelling has been corrected.
