AlbumEasy revision history

V4.5.0 (June 2023 - Current version)

• New: PAGE_SET_VERTICAL_POS command for setting the vertical drawing position on the page from which point all further output will begin.
• New: ALBUM_STAMP_SETTINGS_SAVE and ALBUM_STAMP_SETTINGS_RESTORE commands to save and restore the various settings used when drawing a stamp.
• New: ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_ASPECT_RATIO command to enable or disable images from retaining their original aspect ratio when being drawn.
• New: ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_NEW_SETTING_PCNT similar to ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_NEW_SETTING, however, this command accepts percentage values when scaling images inside stamp boxes.
• New: STAMP_FOOTER_TXT_ALIGN command to adjust the alignment of the left and right text items under a stamp box.
• New: STAMP_FOOTER_TXT_PAD command to adjust the amount of space between the stamp box and the text under the box.
• New: STAMP_ADD_RT_TRIANGLE and STAMP_ADD_PENTAGON commands to add Right Triangle and Pentagonal shaped stamp boxes.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_CROP_MARKS command to place crop marks at the page corners to act as cutting guides when the physical paper size is larger than the page.
• Enhancement: PAGE_START_INFO now accepts an additional optional parameter that increments the page count.
• Bug fix: Attempting to include a PAGE_BACKGROUND_IMG in an informational page defined by PAGE_START_INFO resulted in an error, this is now fixed.

V4.4.0 (Oct 2022)

• New: PAGE_QUADRILLE command for placing a grid on the page. Grids may cover the whole or part of the page.
• New: COLOUR_PAGE_QUADRILLE command for setting the colour of the quadrille grid lines.
• New: PAGE_ADD_BOX command for placing boxes anywhere on the page. Boxes may be angled to accommodate envelopes or long strips of stamps.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_MARGIN_TXT command for adding vertical text in the page margins.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_MARGIN_TXT_PAD and COLOUR_ALBUM_MARGIN_TXT commands for adjusting the position and colour of the vertical text in the page margins.
• New: $INCLUDE command for including one album text file in another.
• New: $DEFINE, $UNDEFINE, $IFDEF, $ELSE, $ELSEIF and $ENDIF conditional commands for including or excluding parts of the album file.
• Enhancement: Column mode has been improved so that it is now possible to specify the column widths independently along with independent left and right column padding.
• Enhancement: New optional PAGE_TEXT_PARAGRAPH_START parameter for setting the right margin padding independently from the left.
• Enhancement: New optional PAGE_RULE_H parameter for setting the right margin padding independently from the left.
• Enhancement: Mouse hover in the "Available Fonts" dialogue box displays the full path to the font files.
• Enhancement: As of Windows 10 build 1809, Microsoft introduced a user-specific fonts folder as the default destination for installing new fonts. This is now supported transparently by AlbumEasy.
• Bug fix: Album files names that included international characters now generate PDF files with the correct international characters in the file name.
• Bug fix: Stamp box borders that were set to a blank style, remained blank even after the sides were enabled unless they were first set to solid. Now fixed.

V4.3.1 (Jan 2022)

• Bug fix: AlbumEasy V4.3.0 was incorrectly reporting an error for some JPEG format image files in stamp boxes.

V4.3.0 (Jan 2022)

• New: ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_GREYSCALE_ON and ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_GREYSCALE_OFF commands to enable or disable the display of images in greyscale.
• New: ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_HIDE and ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_SHOW commands to hide or show images.
• New: PAGE_START_INFO command starts an informational page. These are pages that may be used as a title page or to provide additional information that is not intended to be part of the printed album.
• New: The STAMP_BORDER_STYLE command now includes a style to specify which edges of the stamp box are drawn.
• Enhancement: The ALBUM_PAGES_HEADER and ALBUM_PAGES_FOOTER commands now accept multiple lines of text
• Enhancement: The ALBUM_PAGES_TITLE command now accepts an optional vertical spacing value to set the amount of space after the title.
• Editor enhancement: The functionality of the find dialogue has been improved, The search string now defaults to any selected text or else the word under the cursor.
• Editor enhancement: The Find dialogue now supports Search and Replace.
• Bug fix: The PAGE_START_GROUP was not handling double-quote characters correctly under some circumstances. This has now been fixed.

V4.2.1 (Dec 2020)

• Bug fix: Text inside the stamp box was being incorrectly centred by the STAMP_ADD_IMG command when the box included both text and an image.

V4.2.0 (Dec 2020

• New: STAMP_ADD_HEXAGON and STAMP_ADD_OCTAGON commands for hexagonal and octagonal stamp boxes.
• New: PAGE_BACKGROUND_IMG command adds a background image to the page.
• New: PAGE_START_GROUP_BEGIN and PAGE_START_GROUP_END commands to define a group of commands that are output at the start of each new page.
• New: TEXT_LINE_LEADING command to adjust the leading or spacing between the lines of text in a multiline text item such as a paragraph.
• New: PAGE_VSPACE to add vertical spacing between elements on the page.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_HEADER and associated commands for placing text into the top margin of the page in a similar manner to the existing ALBUM_PAGES_FOOTER commands that operates on the bottom margin.
• New: COLOUR_ALBUM_DECORATIVE_BORDER to set the line colour for decorative borders.
• Enhancement: STAMP_ADD_IMG now supports placing both text and images simultaneously inside stamp boxes.
• Enhancement: Added configuration options to disable the prompt to save the album when generating an album and to also disable the prompt when exiting the application.
• Bug fix: The ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_SETTING command has been replaced by the ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_NEW_SETTING to correct a calculation error. The old command has been retained for backwards compatibily.
• Bug fix: Image files names that included international characters could sometimes generate an error on Linux and Mac operating systems - now fixed.
• Bug fix: SaveAs on MacOS was not always functional. Now fixed.

V4.1.0 (Oct 2019)

• New: Apple MacOS is now a fully supported platform along with Windows and Linux
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_FOOTER_PAD used to adjust the spacing between the page border and text in the page footer.
• New: STAMP_BOXES_ADJUST_SAVE and STAMP_BOXES_ADJUST_RESTORE commands to temporary disable the STAMP_BOXES_SIZE_ADJUST
• Enhancement: The STAMP_BORDER_STYLE command now accepts a BLANK parameter to create a frameless stamp box.
• Enhancement: As of this release AlbumEasy will automatically detect and convert a range of Unicode formatted text files. This includes the formats supported by Windows Notepad and other text editors.
• Bug fix: Justified text generated by the PAGE_TEXT_PARAGRAPH_START command, that contained some international characters, could lose characters at line beginnings - fixed.
• Bug fix: Truetype font file extensions are no longer case-sensitive. Previously only files ending with .ttf or .ttc extensions were usable. While files with .TTF and .TTC extensions were ignored.
• Bug fix: The ALBUM_AUTHOR and ALBUM_TITLE commands now support internationalised text.

V4.0.1 (June 2019)

• Bug fix: Text paragraphs - Under certain circumstances, the last word on a line was being duplicated and repeated as the first word on the next line.

V4.0 (June 2019)

• New: AlbumEasy now includes a built-in text editor with syntax highlighting. The editor can be disabled for users who prefer to use an external editor.
• Enhancement: Improved language support - Unicode (UTF-8) support has been expanded to now include support for the majority of world languages including Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc.
• Enhancement: Improved font support - a much wider range of TrueType fonts are now supported by AlbumEasy
• New: PAGE_TEXT_PARAGRAPH_START and PAGE_TEXT_PARAGRAPH_END commands for adding large paragraphs of text. The text can be left or right aligned, centred, or fully justified.
• New: The STAMP_ADD_TRIANGLE and STAMP_ADD_TRIANGLE_INV commands now accept an optional apex parameter to allow for the creation of trapezium (flat top or bottom) shaped stamp boxes.
• New: CORNER style has been added to the STAMP_BORDER_STYLE command. This can place one or more small corner markers in place of a frame.
• New: COLOUR_STAMP_BACKGROUND command to set the background colour inside stamp boxes (rectangular stamp boxes only).
• New: STAMP_INNER_BORDER command add support for double frame-line stamp box borders (rectangular stamp boxes only), along with associated COLOUR_STAMP_INNER_BORDER and STAMP_INNER_BORDER_STYLE commands.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_FOOTER command has been added for inserting text into the page footers.
• Enhancement: PAGE_COLUMN_START now accepts an optional value which can be used to set the padding between columns.
• Enhancement: Much improved help organisation and text.
• Bug fix: Fixed the incorrect column vertical spacing for a second group of columns if it appeared immediately after the previous group of columns in column mode.
• Bug fix: Previously pressing File Open, and then cancelling would disable the Generate and View-PDF buttons.

V3.9.1 (Nov 2018)

• Enhancement: The PAGE_TEXT, PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE and PAGE_TEXT_RIGHT commands now accept an optional vertical space parameter.
  Obsoleting the PAGE_TEXT_VSPACE, PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE_VSPACE and PAGE_TEXT_RIGHT_VSPACE commands which should no longer be used for new albums, and have only been retained for backwards compatibility.
• Enhancement: The ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER command is now an identical replacement for the ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER3 command which has been obsoleted and only retained for backwards compatibility.

V3.9 (Oct 2018)

• New: PAGE_COLUMN_START, PAGE_COLUMN_NEXT and PAGE_COLUMN_STOP commands to split a page into vertical columns for added flexibility when laying out pages.
• New: STAMP_ADD_OVAL command for creating oval and circular stamp frames.
• New: ALBUM_TITLE and ALBUM_AUTHOR commands to set the title and author attributes of the PDF document. These attributes, visible only in the PDF file properties, have no effect on the printed output.

V3.8 (Sept 2018)

• New: ALBUM_PAGES_DECORATIVE_BORDER command for adding predefined or custom decorative borders around the page.
• New: TEXT_CHAR_SPACING command to adjust the inter-character spacing of text.
• New: STAMP_BORDER_STYLE command to set dotted or dashed border for stamp boxes.
• Enhancement: The STAMP_ADD command syntax has been simplified and can now included multiple lines of text inside and below the stamp. As a result the STAMP_ADDX and STAMP_ADDX_IMG commands are no longer required. The STAMP_ADDX and STAMP_ADDX_IMG commands as well as the old STAMP_ADD syntax have been retained for backwards compatibility. It is recommended however for new albums that the new STAMP_ADD syntax is used instead.
• Fixed: Incorrect command examples in the help file colours page.
• Fixed: Problem that prevented the help text from being printed for some Windows users.

V3.7 (Feb 2018)

• New: Wizard for creating an initial album.
• New: Print button added to the help browser for printing help topics.
• New: STAMP_BOXES_SIZE_ADJUST command to adjust the size of all stamp boxes
• New: STAMP_HEADING_PADDING command to adjust the space between stamp headings and stamp boxes
• New: COLOUR_.. / COLOR_.. commands for setting the colours of various elements on a page. Examples can be found in the Colours.txt sample album file.

V3.6 (Jun 2017)

• Enhancement: STAMP_ADD_IMG & STAMP_ADDX_IMG commands now take an optional NO_FRAME parameter allowing for images to be drawn without a frame.
• Enhancement: ALBUM_PAGES_DATE command take optional text strings to be output before or after the date.
• Enhancement: ALBUM_PAGES_NUMBER command now takes optional text strings to be output before or after the page number, and can also include the total page count.
• Enhancement: Warnings are now issued when a numeric value is expected but a non-numeric character is found.

V3.5 (Jan 2017)

• New: "Recently used files" toolbar button.
• New: PAGE_RULE_H command for drawing horizontal lines.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_NUMBER command for inserting the page number in the footer.
• New: ALBUM_PAGES_DATE command for placing a date in the footer.
• New: PAGE_TEXT_RIGHT & PAGE_TEXT_RIGHT_VSPACE commands provide support for right justified text.
• Enhancement: PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE & PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE_VSPACE commands now provide support for multiple lines of text
• Bug fix: The PAGE_TEXT_VSPACE & PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE_VSPACE commands spacing was incorrectly calculated. This has now been fixed.
• Note: a sample file called NewExamples.txt which illustrates the usage of the new commands can now be found in the examples directory. This file is updated with additional examples for each new release.

V3.4 (November 2016)

• New commands:STAMP_HEADING and STAMP_HEADING_VA to display headings above stamps.
• A SteinerExample.txt album file included in the examples folder. This illustrates the use of the new STAMP_HEADING command for producing pages similar to the Steiner pages for those who would like to supplement their Steiner albums with custom pages.
• Improved readability of application main and help screens on newer high-DPI (high resolution) displays.

V3.3 (May 2016)

• Added new commands:PAGE_TEXT_VSPACE and PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE_VSPACE.
• Added a "View" toolbar button to open the generated file directly in the PDF viewer.

V3.2 (January 2016)

• Added support for running AlbumEasy as a command line application from the console.

V3.1 (January 2016)

• Images may be included within stamps via the STAMP_ADD_IMG, STAMP_ADDX_IMG and ALBUM_STAMP_IMG_SETTING commands
• A new border command has been provided; ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER3 which allows for the placement of a single, double or triple line border around the page. The new command should be used in preference to the existing ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER as it corrects a spacing bug which existed in the older command which has been retained for compatibility with existing album data files.

V3.0 (November 2013)

• Support for international character sets and a less restrictive choice of fonts - to add these features required a complete rewrite of AlbumEasy.
• New commands:ROW_ALIGN_MIDDLE, STAMP_ADD_BLANK, STAMP_ADD_DIAMOND and STAMP_ADD_TRIANGLE_INV
• Internal architecture has been improved to simplify adding new commands in the future.
• Open source - the source code is now freely available.

V2.3 (July 2006)

• Added PAGE_START_VAR and STAMP_ADD_TRIANGLE commands.

V2.2 (April 2006)

• Added ROW_ALIGN_TOP and ROW_ALIGN_BOTTOM commands. These specify whether a row of stamps with unequal heights, should be aligned on the top or bottom edge.

V2.1 (October 2005)

• Fixed the font encoding, now supports European characters with accents and diacritical marks.

V2.0 (September 2005)

• Added GUI versions for both Windows and Linux. The Windows version has a standard installation program.
• Added an additional command; STAMP_ADDX which allows for two lines of text under each stamp.

V1.0 (May 2005)

• Initial version.