TuxCards - News//Improvements in Detail (V 1.2) TuxCards - News

Welcome to TuxCards Version 1.2

Finally, it is time to release version 1.2 of TuxCards - The Notebook for TuxFreaks.

What has happened in between?

Besides the development of new features, TuxCards did appear within several magazines:

  • linux User, (German Edition), Sep. 2003
  • Linux Magazine (English Edition - Canada), Oct. 2003
  • Linux Magazine, "World Freesoft Collection" (Japanese Edition), Dec. 2003
  • easy Linux, (German Edition), Feb. 2004
  • Linux Format, issue no. 54 (UK magazine), June 2004

The development of this release took much more time than was planned. I believe stability and reliability are two of the most important goals for software production, hence a lot of time was spent improving the code underneath the visible application.
Now, I am proud to present a good featured and stable TuxCards 1.2.

Thank you to everyone who has reported ideas or hints on how to simplify the usage of TuxCards. Even though "picture import" is not done, most of the wanted features are included.
I am especially grateful for the people who showed me on how to encrypt data.

Every week at least two dozen messages arrive with suggestions, bug reports and gratitude. I am very sorry that not every email could be answered, yet.

Now, what is new in 1.2?

A lot of minor changes provide an easier overall usage of TuxCards. For details look at "Improvments in Detail"; here are some key features:

  • Entry History. It does work like a history within a web browser; the last visited entries are remembered.
  • Encryption using MD5 and BlowFish. The encrypted data is stored using Base64 encoding.
  • Selection of information format (rtf, txt) for newly created entries.
  • Inplace renaming of entries within the tree.
  • Customized line break mode. Keys for creating a new line or new paragraph within the editor may be selected.
  • Much better paste algorithm for pasting text within the editor.
  • Improved HTML export.
  • Several new keyboard shortcuts.
  • Nice Look & Feel (supporting keramic style and customizable icons)
    An alternative set of icons may already be downloaded from www.tuxcards.de.
  • Increased overall stability.

If you come up with an idea on who to make the usage of TuxCards even easier, if you know of a feature that you would like to see within a further version or if you created a wonderful iconset for TuxCards don't hesitate to mail to tuxcards@gmx.net.

Enjoy TuxCards,
Alexander Theel

]]> Improvements in Detail (V 1.2)

Detailed Feature List and bugs that have been removed:

  • Entries
    • The information format (rtf, txt) of new entries can be selected at creation time.
    • If a new entry with an empty name is created, a dialog box asks wether the user really wants to asign an empty name.
    • History function which remembers the last selected entries.
      Keyboard shortcuts: ALT+Cursor Left, ALT+Cursor Right.
    • Encryption of entries with secure algorithms: MD5 and BlowFish. The encrypted data is stored using Base64 encoding.
    • Bug removal within expired notes dialog. In a certain case an endless loop was executed.

  • Tree
    • Inplace renaming of entries with F2.
    • Accessing context menu via keyboard.

  • Editor
    • Improved paste algorithm. Text that is selected with the mouse (i.e. within another program, xterm, etc.) may be inserted into the editor.
    • Shortcuts for bold (CTRL+B), italic (CTRL+I), underline (CTRL+U), select all (CTRL+A).
    • Customized line break mode. Keys for creating a new line or new paragraph within the editor may be adapted in the options dialog.
      Thus CTRL+Enter may be used for generating a new paragraph or a new line within an existing paragraph.

  • I/O
    • Size of file written to disk is decreased by usage of CDATA sections within the XML output.
    • HTML export does write the files of the individual entries within a separat directory.
    • HTML export: If entries with identical names exist, files with the same name were produced, thus one file was overwritten by another one. This does not happen any more.
    • HTML export: Indentation within the tree-html-file has been decreased. Now, the view of trees with large entry names is much more beautyful and easier to read.
    • HTML export: If an entry name did include the character '/' which is not valid within filenames, then the HTML export of that entry did not work properly.

  • GUI
    • Included support for keramic style.
    • Customizable icons. The toolbar and menu icons may be exchanged at will. Simply, enter a directory within the options-dialog where your icons are located and restart TuxCards. Doing so, one icon or all icons may be exchanged.
      The following formats are supported: xpm, png, jpg/jpeg, bmp, xbm, pnm, mng.
      Icons with the following file-names and one of the file-endings above are searched for:
      "fileopen", "filenew", "filesave", "fileprint", "exit", "addTreeElement", "changeProperty", "delete", "lock", "unlock", "find", "redo", "undo", "editcut", "editcopy", "editpaste", "text_bold", "text_italic", "text_under", "text_color", "text_left", "text_center", "text_right", "text_block", "upArrow", "downArrow", "back", "forward".

  • Misc
    • Stability improvement, a great number of NULLPTR checks has been inserted.
    • Before searching, the currently edited entry is saved within the internal database. Thus, changes within that entry that would result in different results when searching are recognized.
    • Shortcuts - for word count (CTRL+W), date insertion (CTRL+D), time insertion (CTRL+T), searching (CTRL+F), switching between tree and editor (F5) - are added.
    • The toolbars may be hidden. This reduces screen footprint.
]]> Keyboard Actions

Hotkeys within TuxCards

CTRL+S Save
F5 Change Keyboard Input between 'tree' and 'editor'

ALT + Cursor LEFT History Backwards
ALT + Cursor RIGHT History Forward

CTRL+W Word Count
CTRL+D Date Insertion
CTRL+T Time Insertion

CTRL+F Find / Search


Within the tree (left side):
INSERT Insert a new Entry
DELETE Removes an Entry
F2 Inplace Renaming of the current active Entry
MENU (The menu key is located just left to the right CTRL-key.)
Pops up the context menu.


Within the editor (right side):
MENU (The menu key is located just left to the right CTRL-key.)
Pops up the context menu.

CTRL+ENTER / RETURN - classical mode for inserting a simple linebreak
- modern mode for inserting a new paragraph

ENTER / RETURN - classical mode for inserting a new paragraph
- modern mode for inserting a simple linebreak

CTRL+X Cut
CTRL+C Copy
CTRL+V Paste

CTRL+Z Undo
CTRL+Y Redo

CTRL+A Select All

CTRL+K Kill whole Line

CTRL+B Bold
CTRL+I Italic
CTRL+U Underline

]]> Requirements

Requirements:

You certainly need to use qt3.x.x. If you want to use RTF, I personally recommend to install qt3.0.5, at least. Since qt3.0.4 does have a bug in formating linebreaks.

I strongly recommend to use qt3.1.1 or above since the copying of text between notes has improved a lot.

]]> To come in Version 1.3

What is planned for version 1.3?

  • Be surprised!

If you want to stay up to date, I can inform you as soon as the next release is available. Just send an email with the subject "subscribe" to tuxcards@gmx.net.

]]> Donations

TuxCards 1.2 is published as Donationware

You may use it freely and without charge as stated within the GPL.

Do you like TuxCards and you want to enable the development of new features? Or do you want to ensure a high quality of future releases or simply compensate for ftp-server costs? Then you are welcome to donate EUR 5 to the author. (At your wish US$ 5 or an equivalent amount in your currency.)

Please, use www.tuxcards.de/donations.html for a secure donation via internet.

Or simply send a letter with your amount to

Alexander Theel
Am Trommlerbusch 24 d
02708 Loebau
Germany

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