Printer's Apprentice 8.1 A font manager for Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista & XP Version History Copyright © 2006-2016 by Bryan T. Kinkel and Lose Your Mind Development ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Latest version can always be found on http://www.loseyourmind.com Direct download: http://www.loseyourmind.com/PrintersApprenticeSetup.exe Purchase Printer's Apprentice via secure web page: https://secure.avangate.com/order/checkout.php?PRODS=1429446&QTY=1&SRC=PA81 Printer's Apprentice FAQ http://www.loseyourmind.com/pa80faq.aspx Printer's Apprentice Blog - All the latest news, progress reports and development notes http://blog.loseyourmind.com Printer's Apprentice on Twitter - News and updates, via Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/loseyourminddev ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 8/22/2016 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.36.1 - Installer version 8.1.36.1 - FIX: Fix for "System.OverflowException" bug on the Character Set tab - FIX: Updated the code signing certificate in prnapp.exe. 3/24/2015 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.35.1 - Installer version 8.1.35.1 - FIX: Updated the code signing certificate in prnapp.exe. 12/1/2014 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.34.1 - Installer version 8.1.34.1 - FIX: Fixed a bug where Type 1 fonts were not properly added to the Registry when running on a 64 bit OS. 1/24/2014 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.33.1 - Installer version 8.1.33.1 - NEW: Added "Font Vendor" column in font lists. - NEW: "Select by Font Vendor" in the Select and font list context menus. - NEW: Added textbox below Font Files/Font Groups so you can navigate directly to a folder. - NEW: Options > Font Files - new checkbox to force Printer's Apprentice to rebuild the font cache. - UPDATE: Improved code extracts vendor name from font files with more accuracy. - UPDATE: When you add or edit a folder or Font Group, the folder in the treeview is now automatically selected. - UPDATE: Font Files tab - last folder viewed is saved to the config file only if is a local folder. - UPDATE: Added 48 points to the "Font Sample Size" dropdown in the Font Catalogs section of the Options dialog. - FIX: Fixed problem with extra characters being displayed on the some keys in the Keyboard window. - FIX: Fixed problem with keyboard window not displaying properly when non-US keyboard is the only one installed. 2/8/2013 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.32.1 - Installer version 8.1.32.1 - NEW: Improved support for Windows 8. - NEW: "Warn before uninstallng Windows fonts" feature now supports all fonts that ship with Windows 8. - NEW: Added Font Registry Editor to the Tools menu. - FIX: Fix for "object not found" error in prnapp.cFontRegistryCacheType1.get_pKeyCount(). - FIX: Fix for "object not found" error in prnapp.ctlInstalledFonts.FontEnumerationFinished(). - FIX: Fix for "Value of X is not valid for 'Value'..." in prnapp.CtlCharMap.ScrollToSelction(). 5/3/12 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.28.1 - Installer version 8.1.28.1 - NEW: Support for higher sceeen DPI settings. No more clipped text, etc. Includes high-resolution icons and other cosmetic changes. - NEW: Redesigned splash screen. Redesigned progress dialogs for reading font folders. - NEW: Redesigned shareware splash screen. - NEW: Redesigned Options dialog. - NEW: Font display in main window includes a new header with the font name, file name and file size. There is also a line of text indicating the specific installed/not installed status for the font. - NEW: Added column to the lists on the Font Files and Font Groups tabs indicating the installed status of the font. Installed fonts have a small Windows symbol in the column. - NEW: Can change the size of the ASCII/Unicode values on the Character set chart. - NEW: If you click in the text area on the Single Character or Sample Text tab, you can use the mouse wheel to change the font size. - NEW: Support for non-US keyboard layouts in the Keyboard tab and printed font catalogs/sample sheets. The Printer's Apprentice keyboard will also update when a new keyboard is added or selected using the Windows Language bar. - NEW: Font samples are now anti-aliased wherever possible. - NEW: Improved borders on various progress screens. - NEW: Added license key recovery link on "Enter License Key" screen. - UPDATED: The help file has been updated with new information about the main window and the Options dialog. - CHANGED: Options for Unicode and character set are now contained in a single dropdown below the font display. - CHANGED: Removed "Drop Shadow" checkbox from the bottom of the Single Character and character set screens. It is now in the "Font Viewing" section of the Options dialog. - FIXED: Fixed a crash that could occur if you selected a ZIP file in the Font Files font groups tab. - FIXED: Bug in A4 paper size was not working correctly for some drivers. - FIXED: Under certain circumstances, creating a font group and renaming it resulted in a "system.io.DirectoryNotFoundException". - FIXED: A variety of issues that could pop up when navigating between fixed and removable drives in the Font Files tab. - FIXED: Fixed a crash that would occur if you selected File|Print All Fonts In Folder while an invalid removable drive was selected. - FIXED: Under certain circumstances, selecting the Help > Check for New Version menu trigger an "entry point TaskDialogDirect was not found" error. - FIXED: Many other minor bugs and issues. 2/3/12 - 4/23/12 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.21.1 - 8.1.21.27 BETA - These were all internal beta testing versions. 07/13/11 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.20.1 - Installer version 8.1.20.1 - NEW: The Font Files tab now remembers the last folder you were browsing and selects this folder the next time you restart Printer's Apprentice. - NEW: Speed improvements in the routines used to read uninstalled TTF/OTF/PFM files in the Font Files tab. - NEW: When the product loads, it now queries our web server for the latest pricing and promotions. - NEW: Various cosmetic changes to the shareware splash screen and panels used throught the software. 06/03/11 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.19.1 - Installer version 8.1.19.1 - NEW: Added Upper/Lower/Mixed Case toggle to Sample Text tab. - FIX: Fixed up code to ensure default Font Groups folder is created. This was n not working in some cases on Windows 7. - FIX: Font Groups folder now defaults to My Documents rather than Application Data. - FIX: Added additional intelligence to whether or not the progress dialog is displayed when reading files on the Font Files tab. When "Read sub folders" was checked, the progress dialog would always display. It now only displays if there are sub folders or the total number of fonts in the folder is over the threshold. - FIX: Added error checking code for "ArgumentOutofRangeException" errors when when reading files in the Font Files tab. 03/08/11 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.18.1 - Installer version 8.1.18.1 - FIX: Updated several pages in the help file. Options section, etc. - FIX: If the the tabTextSampleText key in the prnapp.exe.config file got corrupted or included too much data, Printer's Apprentice would crash with an overflow error. This has been fixed. - FIX: Added status bar help prompts for a few menu items that were missing. - FIX: In certain cases, OpenType files with hyphenated names would not show up in the Install font list. This has been fixed. 11/29/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.17.1 - Installer version 8.1.17.1 - NEW: Character Set tab has been redesigned to show the entire Unicode character set for those fonts that support them. - NEW: Character Set drop down in the Options dialog box now inludes Unicode. - NEW: Installed Fonts with non-Western character sets are now displayed. - NEW: When launching the Windows Character Set application via Tools > Character Set, Printer's Apprentice will attempt to open it with the current font selected. - NEW: Added Twitter feed to the Help menu. - NEW: Added "Minimize to system tray" checkbox to the Options dialog. - FIX: In the Compare Fonts / Font List tab, if you enter "@fontname - some text" in the Sample Text dropdown, the list will render "Arial Bold - some text" properly. Rather than "@fontname - some text." - FIX: Custom sample text on the Compare Selected Fonts and Font List tabs is now saved and restored properly when closing and restarting Printer's Apprentice - FIX: Copying text from the "Sample Text" textboxes on the Font List, Compare Selected Fonts and Sample Text tabs now works correctly when using Edit > Copy menu. - FIX: Updated some URLs in the Help file. - FIX: Improved drawing on the trackbar on the bottom of several tabs. - FIX: When using checkboxes and the Font List view is selecting, moving from folder to folder would cause the first font to always be checked. - FIX: Font Files & Font Groups lists, cosmetic fix on blue label at the top, now trims paths properly. - FIX: Dialog that pops up when reading a folder of fonts, now properly trims long file paths using ellipsis characters. - FIX: Dialog that pops up when reading a folder of fonts, now properly hovers over the main window. It won't get lost in the stack if you accidentally click the main window. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6/24/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.9.10 - Installer version 8.1.9.10 - FIX: Crash on when font files cannot be accessed. - FIX: Added ESC key support to About and Check for New Version forms. 06/08/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.8.10 - Installer version 8.1.8.10 - This version uses a new installer. Instead of the setup tool built into Visual Studio, we are now using Advanced Installer Professional from Caphyon Ltd. - Added new behavior for Windows 7. By default, fonts set as "hidden" in the Windows 7 Control Panel > Fonts window will also be hidden in Printer's Apprentice. A new "Show fonts hidden by Windows 7" checkbox in the Options dialog can override this behavior. If fonts are hidden, but visible in Printer's Apprentice, then the Installed Fonts tab will show them in grayed out text (just like the Windows 7 Fonts folder). - Added protection for Windows system fonts to prevent accidental uninstallation. If you try to uninstall a font that ships with your version of Windows, Printer's Apprentice will alert you to the fact with a new dialog box. This can be turned off using the new "Warn before uninstalling Windows fonts" checkbox in the Options dialog. The list of fonts shipped with each version of Windows can be found at the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/product.aspx - Uninstalling fonts - Under Windows 7 and Vista, some fonts are protected by the OS through the TrustedInstaller account. These fonts cannot be uninstalled, even by an administrator. If a font is protected by this account, it is now noted in the log_uninstall_fonts.txt file. - Startup speed has been improved. The software now uses a background task to read the fonts installed. - The Character Set tab has been optimized so there is not so much flicker present when resizing the main Printer's Apprentice window. - Options set on the Print dialog, such as Catalog, Sample Sheets, etc are now saved and restored when you reopen the Print dialog. - Added additional information to install fonts and uninstall fonts logs for debugging purposes. - Fixed a problem with printing catalogs of Postscript based fonts. The rendering engine was not drawing the lines of text property. - Updated the Help file. The Options reference section is now up to date. - Fixed the "Check for New Version" dialog so it no longer appears in the Windows Taskbar. - Fixed an Object Not Found bug in the Copy Fonts dialog. - Fixed a bug that could lead to an "Length of argument 'String' must be greater than zero." crash on startup. 2/10/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.0007 - Installer version 8.1.0007 - Additional fixes for "Font Verdana/Tahoma does not support the style Regular". If either of these two fonts are not installed, Printer's Apprentice will now display a nicer dialog box and prompt the user to make sure the fonts are installed. I have tried to eliminate all references to Verdana & Tahoma from the application. However Visual Studio 2005 development environment has a nasty habit of adding references to whatever your current system fonts are. 01/20/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.0006 - Installer version 8.1.0006 - Minor bug fixes. 01/05/10 Printer's Apprentice 8.1.0005 - Installer version 8.1.0005 - Printer's Apprentice 8.1 works great with Windows 7. There are many cosmetic enhancments in the application for better integration with both Windows 7 and Vista. - Printer's Apprentice now queries the system to determine the correct font used for drawing dialog boxes. This font is then used to render the various screens in Printer's Apprentice. In most cases this is Segoe UI. - New Menus & Colors tab on the Options dialog. On this screen you can change menu, toolbar & icon styles. You can also change the color of the accent bars used across the top of the main screen. - Font Files and Font Groups tabs use a new tree control. This should eliminate the "object not set" errors that could pop up with the old control. The old control, exptreelib.dll & .pdb, will be replaced with the new logicnp.folderview.dll when you run the Printer's Apprentice setup program. - Added a "Make New Folder" button to the Copy / Move Font to Folder dialog box. - Added a "Make New Group" button to the Copy / Move Font to Font Group dialog box. - Fixed a bug with installing Type 1 fonts. If the registry key SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Type 1 Installer\Type 1 Fonts did not exist, then the install would fail. - When installing multiple fonts, and one or more of them is already installed, a dialog box would popup showing you the number to be installed and the number already installed. This now uses a message box with Yes/No buttons instead of just OK. - Fixed a bug in the OpenType font reading routines. Some fonts were being ignored if they had invalid strings in the OTF NAME table. - When no font is selected, the Character Set and Keyboard tabs no longer display a font. This is more consistent with the behavior of other tabs. - Fonts that are in use, locked by Windows or protected by file permissions often cannot be uninstalled. Additional text has been added to the "0 Fonts were uninstalled" message box explaining why fonts can't be uninstalled. 10/13/09 Printer's Apprentice 8.0.34 - Installer version 8.00.0057 - Updated the web links to various pages at loseyourmind.com. - Improved startup splash screen. - Various minor fixes. 8/03/09 Printer's Apprentice 8.0.33 - Installer version 8.00.0056 - Minor cosmetic fixes and typo corrections. - Additional coding to make Windows Fonts folder path determination error proof. In some cases the API method was failing. - The code-signing certificate embedded in the prnapp.exe file has been updated and renewed. 7/06/09 Printer's Apprentice 8.0.32 - Installer version 8.00.0055 - Added speed improvements when reading fonts using the Font Files and Font Groups tab. Information such as the font name, etc is now stored in a fontcache.xml file located in the all users\application data\Printer's Apprentice folder. For more information about this feature, see the following blog entry: http://blog.loseyourmind.com/?p=158 - Fixed a problem with Arial in pstaskdialog.dll. If Arial was missing, PA would crash when a messagebox was displayed. - Added a new message box warning about PFM and PFB files not being in the same folder. This appears after reading a folder and one or more TrueType fonts don't have matching PFM & PFB files. This messagebox can be disabled after the first viewing. - Added a fix for a crash in the print engine. If the print job was deleted from the spooler before PA was done creating the document, then PA would crash. - Print dialog box - Fixed abug that caused the pages to be redrawn twice when changing the Sort By or Sort Order radio buttons. - File > Print All Fonts In Folder - Fixed a bug that prevented the progress dialog from being displayed properly. - Column headers now have arrows to indicate sort order - Added full screen toggle mode 5/20/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.31 - Installer version 8.00.0050 - Fixed a bug that caused font files to not be copied from readonly media such as CDs & DVDs 4/24/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.30 - Installer version 8.00.0049 - Removed "Could not create startup log file" message box. This could be triggered by starting two copies of the software quickly in succession. - Fixed a bug - if you started Printer's Apprentice with the Character set tab initially selected and immediatly selected Edit>Copy, the software would crash with an Index Out of Range Exception. 4/02/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.29 - Installer version 8.00.0048 - This version includes support for printing Adboe Type 1 fonts and OpenType fonts that have Postscript-based outlines. - When trying to print Postscript based fonts, you will no longer receive the "Printer's Apprentice cannot print Postscript fonts" dialog. - Fixed a bug that would cause the application to crash if Printer's Apprentice was blocked by a firewall when trying to access the Internet. - Fixed a "file not found exception" in cTypeOneInfo.vb - Fixed a problem with the display of the ANSI/Unicode codes in the upper right hand corner of the Character Set tab. The codes were not displaying properly based on the settings in the Options tab. 2/23/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.28 - Installer version 8.00.0044 - This version includes a reworking of the Font Compare tab. There is a new "Font List" tab. This automatically lists all fonts in the current folder using the font itself. The "Compare Fonts" tab has been renamed "Compare Selected Fonts" and displays only the fonts that you have selected. - Added the ability to change the display order of tab in the main UI via the Options dialog. - New icons for the some of the tabs in the main UI - Added a warning prompt to the File|Properties menu if you have more than two fonts selected. This prevents you from accidentally opening a lot of Properties dialogs by accident. - Added hotkeys for the Copy to Folder, Move to Folder, Copy to Font Group and Move to Font Group menu items. - Fixed a bug that caused the font display colors to revert to their initial settings after opening the Options dialog. - Additional error checking put in place in the Tools > Control Panel and Tools > Character Map menus. The application would fail if control.exe or charmap.exe could not be found. - Cosmetic changes in the shareware splash screen - Typographical corrections in the help file. 1/20/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.27 - Installer version 8.00.0036 - Stability fixes through out the application. - Removed options for "form fade in / out" for snappier performance. - Improved rendering & error checking on the Sample Text tab. Word wrap is now working correctly. 01/02/09 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.26 - Installer version 8.00.0035 - Fixed a problem with the application crashing on the Print dialog box if the Verdana font is not installed. - Fixed a problem where the Print dialog would crash with an overflow error. This was happening with fonts that have invalid ascender & descender information. - Fixed a problem where the app could crash if your font groups folder was invalid or missing and you tried to copy a font file to a group. There is now an additional check in place and a dialog box will notify you if the font groups folder is not specified. - Fixed a bug on the Print dialog box. If you had one or more sample sheets selected, then changed the printer, the application would print a single sheet with some "please select something to print" text on it. Thanks to BD for helping track this one down. - Added a check to make sure the currently selected printer is valid in the Print menu option. If a detached printer was selected, the software would crash with a "settings to access printer are invalid" message. - Fix for for the Sample Text and Font Compare tabs. The were not drawing non-ANSI characters correctly due to an invalid declaration of the Win32 TextOut() function. - Fixed a bug in the Move to Font Groups command. It was not working correctly for Adobe Type 1 fonts. Thanks to DM for pointing this out. - Fixed a System.IO.FileNotFoundException bug in the font enumeration routine. - Enhancement to the Edit>Copy command when the Sample Text tab is selected. If some text is selected, then only the selected text will be copied. Otherwise the entire contents of the Sample Text textbox will be copied. - The Multiple Character tab now has a right-click context menu. If you click a character in the grid, you will get a popup menu with Zoom and Copy Character commands. Zoom will load the character in the Single Character tab. The Copy Character command copies the character to the clipboard. - Improved the load speed on the Copy/Move Fonts dialog box when copying a large number (1000+) fonts. - Font list on Copy/Move Fonts dialog box no longer freezes when copying many fonts. - When finished uninstalling fonts, the next available font in the list is selected instead of the first. - Added a "Select by Family" function to the Select menus. - Various stability improvements. - Additional "no spyware" text in the About > Warrenty tab. - Additional helpful text in the exception dialog. 11/04/08 - - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.25 - Installer version 8.00.0033 - Fixed a problem with saving the configuration file. Under some circumstances, it could become corrupt and this would lead to all sorts of problems. - When copying/moving a font to a font group, added code to make sure the font groups root folder is valid. A message box gets displayed if the folder is missing or invalid. 10/27/08 - - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.24 - Installer version 8.00.0032 - Fix for a "divide by zero" error 10/23/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.23 - Installer version 8.00.0031 - Fixed a bug with the Edit>Copy Font List command. If there are no fonts selected in the currently selected tab, the application would crash. - Compare Fonts tab - fixed a problem that resulted in an IndexOutofBounds error. - Compare Fonts tab - as you navigate in a font list, the Compare Fonts tab now automatically scrolls so the selected font is at the top of the list. - Compare Fonts tab - added some code to reduce flicker. - Compare Fonts tab - fixed a bug that caused the Compare Fonts tab to not draw fonts correctly. This happened under a very specific set of mouse moves. - Removed a line of code that referred to the Arial font. This could cause a crash if Arial is not installed on the system. - Added additional error checking for TrueType fonts that have slightly invalid string tables. This would result in the font not being displayed in the Font Files tab. 10/17/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0.22 - Installer version 8.00.0030 - More information about this release can be found our our blog http://blog.loseyourmind.com - Support for different character sets. You can change the character set using the Options dialog. The current character set is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the title bar in the main display window. - The printed Character Sets now respect the current character sets. So if, for example, Cyrillic is selected in the Options dialog box, the printed Character sets will default to Cyrillic. You can also change the Character Set using the Options tab on the Print dialog box. The current set name is printed on the upper hand corner of the printed output. - The Multiple Character window has been reworked and is much faster in terms of redraw and resizing speed. - You can now display a grid of up to 20x20 characters in the Multiple Character window. - Font file name is now displayed in the title bar of the display window. - Fixed a "path is of illegal form" bug on startup. This would happen if the Fonts section of the registry contained an empty key. - We changed our ecommerce provider. Product purchase links in the application and help file have been changed from Regsoft to Avangate. 9/30/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0021 - Installer version 8.00.0027 - Fixed a bug with an expiration date in the software. 9/25/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0020 - Installer version 8.00.0026 - Fixed a start up bug - If the Print Spooler service was not started, Printer's Apprentice would crash with an "The RPC server is unavailable" error message. - Fixed a bug that could cause italic fonts to not print correctly if thier internal "italic" flag was not set correctly. - Added a much-needed scroll bar to the Sample Text tab. - Added a "Don't show this message again" checkbox to the message box that appears when attempting to print both TrueType and Postscript based files. - Several menu items were missing status bar help. 9/10/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.00.0019 - Installer version 8.00.0025 - 19th public release - Fixed the Print command on the Font Groups context menu. It was not hooked up to trigger the Print dialog box. - Fixed a problem with the Help file. It was not initially showing the Index. - Fixed a drawing problem with the Sample Text tab. With some fonts (Brush Script MT) the left side of the text would be clipped off. 9/06/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #18 - Installer version 8.00.0024 - 18th public release - The prnapp.exe and setup.exe files are now digitally signed with our software publishing certificate. See http://blog.loseyourmind.com/?p=100 for more information. - Added new "Check for New Version" entry on the Help menu. - When the Font Compare tab is selected, Select All and Select None operations are much faster. I eliminated much of the flicker and scrolling that occurred. - Added operating system & service pack info to error handling dialog box & report. - Added "Need Fonts" entry to the Help menu. This links to a list of font resources on our web site. - Added the font embedding status to the Font Information tab and Font Information sample sheet. - Added additional code that fixes the "object not set" error in the cShItem segment of the tree view control. I was never able to replicate the error, so let me know if you run into this again. - Added error handling code for "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection." error in the Font Compare tab. - Fixed an inconsistency on the Font Files & Font Groups right-click context menu. "Deselect" is now labeled "Deselect All." 8/14/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #17 - Installer version 8.00.0023 - 17th public release - Added the ampersand (&) character to the Characters > Symbols menu - Fixed a problem with the color selectors at the bottom of the screen. The default colors were set to use Window system colors for text and background rather than Black & White. - Select > Deselect menu relabeled as Select > Deselect All - Fixed a problem with ampersand characters not displaying correctly in the Sample Text tab. - Fixed a problem with disappearing text in the Sample Paragraphs tab of the Options dialog box. 7/28/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #16 - Installer version 8.00.0022 - 16th public release - Additional work in the treeview control to eliminate the "This window has already been registered as a drop target" error. 7/27/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #15 - Installer version 8.00.0021 - 15th public release - Fixed a bug in the font reading routines that caused the software to ignore symbol and dingbat fonts. - Fixed a bug that caused Printer's Apprentice to crash on startup if Verdana was not installed. - Fixed an "object reference not set" error when using the Font Files tab on Vista 64 systems. - Added initial support for A4 paper size to the catalogs. (We still need to tweak the sample sheets for A4.) 7/25/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #14 - Installer version 8.00.0020 - 14th public release - The uninstall routines now use improved file management functions and should be more reliable. - Fixed a problem with the status bar selection count number not being updated after fonts are uninstalled. - Fixed a bug in the Select > Font Name menu that caused it to simply not work. 7/22/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #13 - Installer version 8.00.0019 - 13th public release - Fixed a problem with the interaction between the font reading engine and the Windows API that caused the application to not load on 64 bit Windows Vista systems. Printer's Apprentice would crash with an "object reference not set" error. - When reading fonts from folder or font group, the blue progress dialog no longer floats on top of all other application windows. - Fixed an error with the treeview control. On occasion it would generate a "This window has already been registered as a drop target" error. 7/15/08 - Printer's Apprentice 8.0 Beta #12 - Installer version 8.00.0018 - 12th public release - Included an additional debugging symbols file (prnapp.pdb) file in this release to produce more verbose error messages. - Fixed a bug in the Font Files tab that caused font read operations to crawl - Fixed a problem with the color pickers in the lower right hand corner of the screen. The "More Colors" button on the drop-down did not work. - Added additional error checking and bug fixes to the configuration read/write operations. This should eliminate the "The process cannot access the file 'C:\Documents and Settings\janharris\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\prnapp.exe.config' because it is being used by another process." errors that pop up occasionally. - Fixed an "InvalidArgument=Value of '0' is not valid for 'index'" error in the Font Groups and Font Files tabs. This happened when clicking Copy To Folder, Move to Folder, etc, when there are no fonts in the list, and then clicking Cancel in the Copy dialog. - Added a message box alert if you try to do a file operation (Copy Fonts, Move Fonts, etc) in the Font Files or Font Groups tab when there are no fonts in the list. 7/12/08 8.0 - Beta #11 - Installer version 8.00.0017 - 11th public release - Fixed a bug (introduced in Beta 10 code) that caused uninstalled fonts to not display correctly 7/11/08 8.0 - Beta #10 - Installer version 8.00.0016 - 10th public release - Added a second pass of font enumeration to address problems with where an installed font can't be associated with its font file. This should hopefully eliminate all cases of fonts listed with an "unknown" font file in the Install Fonts list. 7/9/08 8.0 - Beta #9 - Installer version 8.00.0015 - Ninth public release - Fixed a variety of issues that caused Printer's Apprentice to crash on startup. - Added additional error checking, etc to startup routines - Added a more robust error reporting system, implemented as uemanager.dll. - Fixed a problem with copy/move/etc items being disabled on the context menu. - Fixed a problem with the Copy Font function that prevented fonts with the Read Only attribute set from copying correctly. 6/27/08 8.0 - Beta #8 - Installer version 8.00.0014 - Eighth public release - Added Search function to the Help file. - Added new "How To Copy Characters Into Applications" section into Help file. - Added ability to change printed footers from the Options screen. - Fixed some cosmetics on the Options screen. - Fixed "The path is not of a legal form" error when using File|Print All Fonts in Folder. - Fixed "Splitter Distance must be between Panel1MinSize and Width - Panel2MinSize" error. This happened if you shrunk the main window to a very small size, exited and restarted the application. - Fixed "Generic GDI+ errors" in the print engine. In some cases, if the Windows GDI does not like a font, it was crashing the print routines. - Fixed a problem with Edit>Copy Character on the mutliple character tab. It was copying the wrong character to the clipboard. - Added "Family" column to the font lists. This can be turned on and off using the View menu. - Fixed a problem with the Font Files folder tree - when clicking the nodes it sometimes caused an "object not set" error under Vista. - Fixed a problem with the Delete key triggering the Delete Fonts/Uninstall fonts functions at inappropriate times. 6/16/08 8.0 - Beta #7 - Installer version 8.00.0013 - Seventh public release - Added new "3 Up Catalog" - Several minor bug fixes. - Fixed problem with flickering text on the the Sample Text tab under Vista - Additional fixes for "unknown" fonts under Vista 5/16/08 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0012 - Sixth public release - Help file has been expanded lots of new content. Please refer to the help file for step-by-step "How To" information and details about font groups, etc. - Many minor bug fixes - Now supports font file management - you can move font files around the file system. - Functions for copying / moving fonts can be found on the Edit menu, the toolbar and on right click popup menus - Now supports font groups - Functions for copying / moving fonts to and from groups can be found on the Edit menu, the toolbar and on right click popup menus - Default font group folder is c:\documents and settings\user\\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\Font Groups - Font group folder can be changed through the Options dialog box - Added "Explore Font Group folder" to Tools menu - Application now uses Vista styled "Task Dialogs" rather than old Win32 MessageBox functions for conveying alerts to the user. - Edit|Copy will copy a single character or sample text to the clipboard in both text and HTML format. - Edit|Copy with the keyboard tab selected will copy an image of the keyboard layout to the clipboard. - Edit|Copy Font List will copy a text list to the Clipboard. A dialog box prompts you for which columns to include, etc. - File|Save Font list also uses the same options dialog box as Edit|Copy Font List 4/2/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0011 - Fifth public release - Fixed expiration date problem 2/5/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0010 - Fourth public release - Fixed a problem where PA would not load on systems where the OS date formatting was set as DD/MM/YYYY. - Fixed a problem where PA would only read in only the first 500 installed fonts. - This version has entries for Copy and Move on the Font Files context menu. But theses features don't work yet and lead to an "Under Construction" dialog box. 1/30/08b - 8.0 Technology Demonstration (refresh) - Installer version 8.00.0009 - Third public release - Fixed a bug on the font files tab where fonts in sub folders were not being read. 1/30/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0008 - Third public release - "Select None" on menus has been relabeled "Deselect" with a Ctrl-D hotkey. - Hotkeys are now labled on context menus. - Additional feedback on splash screen as main form is loaded. - Fixed a bug with installing then printing fonts. Newly installed fonts would not print correct. Thanks to MicheleN for pointing this out. - Added code to automatically scroll and select the most recently added font in the Compare Fonts tab. Thanks to MicheleN for the suggestion. - The folder tree on the Font Files tab now has a context menu that appears when you right click. The menu has the following items: Refresh, New Folder, Rename Folder, Delete Folder, Open Folder and Properties All of the menu items should work. 1/16/08 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0007 - Second public release - Several new printouts are included in this release Character Set 1 Character Set 2 Keyboard Layout Keyboard Catalog Catalog 2 The previous beta included entries for the Keyboard Catalog and Catalog 2. However, the associated page definition files were not included in the setup.exe package and not installed. If you selected either of those two catalogs, it resulted in an error. This has been fixed for this release. - Fixed a problem with font management - under certain cirumstances, the app would hang after the font was installed/uninstalled. If other running applications do not react to the SendMessage(WM_FONTCHANGE) message, then PA would hang. I changed the call to use a timeout. This improves the install/uninstall speed as well. - Fixed a problem with TrueType/OpenType outline detection code. In some circumstances, an OpenType .otf file would be incorrectly seen as a TrueType icon. The wrong icon would display in the font lists. - Fixed a problem with the Compare Font tab. Doing the following steps would result in this error: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: InvalidArgument=Value of '-1' is not valid for 'index'. 1. Click the Font Files tab and navigate to a folder with several fonts. 2. Click the Font Compare tab. 3. Select several fonts using the check boxes. Select one of the fonts so it is highlighted in the Font Compare tab. 4. Click the Refresh button in the toolbar. - The logging feature is now enabled for the Font Install & Uninstall dialog boxes. - Printer's Apprentice logs are now stored in the following folder: %userprofile%\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\log - You can quickly jump to the log folder by selecting "Printer's Apprentice Logs" on the Tools menu. - Fixed various minor bugs in the font install/uninstall engine. - Fixed the text and typos in a few message boxes. - Fixed a problem with the Print dialog. If you use the Windows Classic visual style under Windows XP, then the dialog box would crash with a "no visual styles defined" error message. - Pressing F1 while in the Options dialog will open the appropriate Help system page. - Some menu items on the Help menu now lead the proper web page instead of a "Page not found" error. "Help>License and Pricing Information" menu item now leads to a temporary placeholder page on our web site. "Help>Online Order Form" now leads to our order form at Regsoft.com. "Help>Online Order Form - PayPal" now leads to our PayPal order form. 12/11/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0006 - First public release 12/05/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0005 - Includes updated help file 11/13/07 - 8.0 Technology Demonstration - Installer version 8.00.0004 - Initial internal release - * Implemented * Main user interface, menu and options dialogs Font install and uninstall routines and dialogs Print engine and XML based catalogs & sample sheets Several font sample sheets and catalogs (not all the catalogs and sheets from previous versions are implemented yet) * Not Implemented * Font groups Font file management (move & copy font files) Print outs such as ANSI charts and a few catalog styles Font Registry editor Help file contains nothing but topic stubs