NoteLab / News: Recent posts

NoteLab Version 0.2.1beta1 Changelog
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Summary
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This version of NoteLab is a beta release of version 0.2.1.
It contains support for annotating PDF documents as well
as exporting PDF documents. The rendering system has
also been greatly improved to allow smooth annotation of
PDF documents. In addition, now when exporting the
current document to an image, if the current document is
too large, each page of the document is exported to its
own image.

NoteLab Version 0.2 Changelog
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Summary
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This version of NoteLab was given the release number 0.2, a dramatic increase
from the previous 0.1.5 release, because it has many major improvements over
that release. Some of the more noticable changes are listed below.

* Improvement: Added full screen suppot.
* Improvement: Implemented a nonvolatile rendering method which makes
writing much more responsive and improves stroke apperance.
* Improvement: The icon set is now based on the Tango Desktop Project's
Tango icon set.
* Improvement: The Nimbus look and feel is now used as the default look
and feel.
* Improvement: The toolbars can now be hidden to give more room for writing.
* Improvement: The writing canvas now has an eraser mode. As such, one
can quickly remove strokes without having to enter editing
mode.
* Improvement: By holding down the button found on the side of the
stylus, the current operation is inverted. If one is writing,
by holding down the side button, the stylus will instead
act as an eraser. If one is selecting text, holding down the
side button will cause the stylus to unselect text.
* Improvement: Added a "--currentDirectory" command line argument which sets
the directory from which open and save dialogs start from.
* Improvement: Added an option to the debug menu to show the current value for
each user defined setting.... read more

NoteLab Version 0.1.5 Changelog
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Summary
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* Improvement: Greatly improved the performance of scrolling the canvas.
* Improvement: Improved the way strokes are rendered when they are selected.
* Improvement: Changed the toolbar icon size from 20 pixels by 20 pixels
to 16 pixels by 16 pixels.

* Bug fix: Fixed a bug in the rendering system. Now strokes are rendered
much smoother than in previous versions.
* Bug fix: Fixed a bug where strokes would not be resized correctly

NoteLab Version 0.1.4 Changelog
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Summary
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* New: Added cut, copy, and paste functionality for entire pages.
* New: Added the ability to edit page properties for many pages at a time. (see 1)
* New: Added the ability to import NoteLab or Jarnal documents into the current session.
* New: Now the extent to which stroke smoothing is done can be edited graphically.
* New: Added progress bars which show the progress of saving, exporting, printing, and
opening sessions.
* New: Added .command scripts for Mac OS X systems.
* New: Now the startup scripts for Mac OS X systems set the dock icon and name. (see 2)... read more

Like all note taking applications designed for Windows operating systems, the "press and hold" feature of Windows reduces NoteLab's performance. The document at the link below describes this problem and how to remedy it.

http://java-notelab.sourceforge.net/windowsPressAndHold.html

NoteLab Version 0.1.3 Changelog
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Summary
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* New: Added stroke smoothing through interpolation (see 1)
* New: Added full antialiasing support
* New: Created a new toolbar widget for the canvas toolbars
* New: Added support for SVGZ (compressed SVG) images (see 2)
* New: Added unit scaling (see 3)
* New: Added canvas locking (see 4)
* New: Added a status bar (see 5)
* New: Added the ability to mark command line arguments as deprecated
* New: Added a development debug menu... read more

The NoteLab 0.1.2 release is a major release. The biggest improvements are stroke smoothing and cut/copy/paste functionality. However, there have been many improvements (see below).

NoteLab Version 0.1.2 Changelog
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Summary
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* New: Added stroke smoothing
* New: Added cut/copy/paste functionality
* New: Added select all and unselect all icons for un/selecting all strokes
* New: Added a show current page icon
* New: Added a safety feature to prevent accidentally overwriting existing documents
* New: Now canvas toolbars are scrollable
* New: Completely redesigned NoteLab's logo... read more

I thought I would mention that on Microsoft Windows systems when the uninstaller is run it will finish with 99% or 100% but will report an error. This error states that the NoteLab_<version> folder cannot be deleted. The uninstallation was in fact successful. However, Windows won't let NoteLab delete the directory to which it was installed because NoteLab is currently using that directory. ... read more

The problem with the NoteLab 0.1.1 installer has been fixed. The problem was caused by spaces in the filename of the jar file from which NoteLab was installed.

The NoteLab version 0.1.1 jar file has been updated to include the fix to the installer.

Therefore if you download the NoteLab version 0.1.1 you'll have the most current code. Also if you have previously downloaded version 0.1.1 and the installer did not work, redownload version 0.1.1 for the fixed installer.

It appears that the NoteLab 0.1.1 installer randomly cannot find the jar file from which it was executed. As such the installer will fail saying only that it cannot find the specified file.

If this problem occurs you can run NoteLab by first extracting the downloaded jar file. To do this change the extension of the file from .jar to .zip. Then extract the file as you would extract a zip file. ... read more

NoteLab version 0.1.1 has been released. With this version a graphical installer and uninstaller have been developed to greatly improve the ease of installing and uninstalling NoteLab.

Also, version 0.1.1 has support for reading Jarnal files. These files have a .jaj extension.

Version 0.1.1 is distributed in an executable jar format. When this jar file is executed the installer is opened.

Version 0.1final marks a major release of NoteLab. With this version, stroke selection has been greatly improved. First a new box selection tool has been added. With this tool a rectangular region of a page can be selected to select all of the strokes entirely inside the rectangular region. As with previous releases the hand selection tool can be used to select single strokes.

Second the stroke selection has been greatly optimized. That is only regions of the screen that have to be redrawn are actually redrawn when strokes are selected, moved, resized, or deleted. This makes the selection, moving, resizing, and deleting of strokes much more responsive.... read more

NoteLab 0.1rc3 has been released. This release fixes a memory leak in the undo-redo system. As such the system now only stores the last 25 actions done by the user. If no such limit was set, the undo-redo system would, over time, use more and more of NoteLab's memory, decreasing performance. Thus the limit was placed to maintain the performance of NoteLab in general. In addition, 25 actions seems to be good for most needs.

The major work for the implementation of user preferences has been completed. That is with this new system users can specify, for example, custom pen and paper settings that are loaded when NoteLab starts.

This also allows for a graphical way to modify things such as the amount of memory NoteLab is allowed to use. This in turn can be used to improve NoteLab's performance.

As such, users will be able to take advantage of an easy to use graphical interface without having to resort to modify startup scripts.