Image Markup Tool blog

The release plan calls for a new option to copy the schema to the same location when saving a file. We already have a generic Preferences dialog (for app interface changes), and a Web View Preferences dialog (with only one item); I've decided to replace the latter with a new Settings dialog which will contain both the Web View option and this new one. I created the dialog box; now I need to find an icon for it (some sort of Configuration/Settings/Options icon), and build that into the dll. Then I can implement the new functionality.

Rewrote the XSLT to create the Web view, and tested it. In the process, I found a couple of small inconsistencies in file handling (basically inadequate error-trapping), and fixed them.

Fixed these bugs.

Import/export from DocBook is now working. Next is the Web View code, which will be a little easier because it's all one way.

Wrote and tested the file loading converters (XSLT) for versions 1.0 through 1.6, converting old files to the new IMT 1.7 format so they can be loaded.

Next is the DocBook stuff and the Web View output code.

Rewrote i/o code in the app, and it will now save and reload the new format successfully. However, there's an error when importing an old file for some reason. That'll need debugging tomorrow.

The final release of P5 has some new elements in the transcr module which can replace the use of SVG in IMT files. This will make life much simpler, so I will be converting the application over to this new format for version 1.7. The first stage in doing this was to generate a schema from ROMA, and to write a conversion file (in XSLT) to get us from version 1.6 files to the new output format. I've now done that, and sent a sample file to Conal T, who's one of the prime movers in the facsimile proposal, to see if he's happy with the structures I'm using.

Once I get the OK on this, I can move forward with the conversion. These will be the steps:

• Create the rest of the conversion XSLT files, to handle older IMT version files.
• Create a range of sample files in the new format.
• Rewrite the application file-reading code to read in the new format.
• Test the read capabilities.
• Rewrite the file-saving code so that it produces the new format.
• Test round-tripping files carefully.
• Rewrite the Web View output code so that it works with the new format.
• Rewrite the DocBook import/export code to do the same thing.
• Update the documentation.
• Build and installer.
• Test, test, test...
• Release.

Paolo Cutini reported one bug when sending in his latest translation file (which I included in t new installer build and posted); and I found another when checking his. They're both cosmetic:

• The Hint properties of TSpinEdit controls are not written back to the control when they've been translated, and the translation file is loaded. This is probably related to the fact that they're strings, not WideStrings; the hard solution would be to create a TTntSpinEdit which uses WideStrings, and the soft solution would be to disable hints on those controls, and make sure that their associated labels have good hints.
• If you load a translation file, then restart the app, then go back to the Preferences screen and clear the translation file, the original English is not restored. That's because the BackupAppRef in which the original English texts are stored is not created unless you go to the Preferences screen and load another translation; we need to create one when the app starts up, before another interface is loaded, and use that when reverting to "no translation file".

These are documented on the app's bugs page, and this is set as a task for November (the next scheduled release).

All day on this -- completed the thumbnail functionality, documented it, updated help and tutorial, built and tested installer, updated Website, updated source code archive, and announced the release to the TEI list. In the process, killed my machine with Delphi, and updated the NVidia driver in an attempt to stop it happening again. Long day...

After some research, I discovered that saving to PNG format would require the TPNGImage library, as well as an additional unit posted here. That's not too big a hurdle, but TPNGImage is not licensed under a standard open-source licence; it just has some simple terms and conditions. I'm not sure whether it's compatible or not with MPL 1.1, so I'm deferring the feature which would save thumbnails to PNG for a future version.