Latest News and Updates from Just Great Software

PowerGREP 5.3.5 – 18 January 2024

PowerGREP 5.3.5 is now available for download.

This release fixes one bug that was introduced in PowerGREP 5.3.4.  It caused sequences to be aborted with an access violation error during or after the first step in the sequence.

AceText 4.2.3 – 10 January 2024

AceText 4.2.3 is now available for download.

AceText 4.0.0 introduced the Options|Dark Theme menu item that lets you switch AceText between the standard (white) Windows theme and AceText’s new dark theme.  If Windows itself is using its dark theme when you run AceText 4 for the first time then AceText defaults to its dark theme.  In AceText 4.2.0 we introduced a bug that caused AceText to use light colors for its tabs and clip tree when AceText defaulted to its dark theme.  This has been fixed so the dark colors are initialized correctly on first run.  The fix does not automatically restore the correct colors if you upgrade from 4.2.x to 4.2.3.  If your copy of AceText uses the dark theme with light colors for the tabs and clip tree then you can fix this by using the Options|Dark Theme menu item to switch to the light theme and then again to switch back to the dark theme.  Toggling the theme toggles the colors if you haven’t changed them from the defaults.

AceText can write RSS feeds if you add a folder to a collection and change the folder’s kind to RSS feed writer.  All clips you put inside the folder are written to the RSS feed.  Click the Settings button to tell AceText to write the RSS feed to a file or to upload the feed via FTP.  FTP upload was broken in AceText 4.2.0.  This functionality has now been restored.

AcePure is an AceText feature that removes all clipboard formats except plain text from the clipboard.  If you have copied some text from a web browser, for example, you can use AcePure to paste the text into a word processor without using the fonts and other formatting from the web page.  On the Hotkeys page in the Preferences you can configure AcePure to paste the text on the clipboard directly into the active application.  Even if you disable the hotkey itself, you can still invoke AcePure by right-clicking AceText’s icon in the notification area on the Windows taskbar.  Doing so no longer makes AcePure paste the text on the clipboard into AceText.  (Right-clicking AceText’s icon makes AceText the active application.)

AceEdit is an AceText feature that lets you use the Clipboard tab in AceText to edit text in another application.  Pressing this hotkey makes AceText simulate a copy command in the active application and then activate itself to show the copied text on the Clipboard tab.  When you’re done editing the text you can send it back to the other application by pressing the AceEdit hotkey again or by clicking the AcePaste Now button on AceText’s toolbar.  Completing the AceEdit operation this way was previously broken.  This has been fixed.  Switching away from the Clipboard tab or AceText itself no longer automatically completes AceEdit.

PowerGREP 5.3.4 – 9 January 2024

PowerGREP 5.3.4 is now available for download.

This release brings a bunch of minor fixes.

On the Action panel, several action types have a “target file creation” option that you can use to write search matches to file as they are found during the action.  When you use this option you get an additional “between collected text” option that lets you specify if any text should be written between the search matches.  The options that put different text between matches found in the same file and matches found in different files did not work correctly with “list files“, “file or folder name search“, and “file or folder name collect” actions.  These actions can only find one match per file.  To solve this, PowerGREP now shows a reduced set of “between collected text” options for these action types.

When using the “target file creation” option you can tick the “collect headers and footers” to write extra text and the start and end of the target files.  You can additionally tick “expand placeholders” to enable certain match placeholders and path placeholders in the headers and footers.  The placeholders were correctly highlighted as such on the Action panel.  But they were not always substituted correctly in the target files.  For “list files“, “file or folder name search“, and “file or folder name collect” actions the placeholders remained as literal text.  For “search” and “collect data” actions, path placeholders such as %FILE% worked correctly but match placeholders such as %ACTIONDATE% were replaced with nothing.  Now, all placeholders work correctly for all action types.

The “file formats to convert to plain text” configuration on the File Selector panel determines whether and how PowerGREP converts files in proprietary formats to plain text when it needs to search through them.  This configuration equally affects how the Editor panel opens files.  This lets you open a file on the Editor panel to see exactly which text PowerGREP searches through.  Some configurations treat certain file formats such as Microsoft Office and OpenDocument Format files as compound documents.  Technically, these files are ZIP files containing XML and other files.  The “compound document” option tells PowerGREP to search through the raw contents of the XML and other files inside the document file, while still treating the file as a single file rather than as an archive.  In this mode, the Editor panel cannot open Office files directly.  It can only show the contents of one of the XML or other files inside the document file.  If you try to open an Office file directly while its being treated as a compound document the Editor panel now clearly explains that you either need to use the File Selector panel to select a file within the compound document or change the file format configuration to have PowerGREP convert Office files to plain text.

On the File Selector panel, you can mark the Editor node with the green tick to have an action process the contents of the Editor panel directly, even if those contents weren’t saved to file.  When you do so, PowerGREP now highlights the search matches that it found on the Editor panel.

The Import button on the File Selector panel lets you import a file listing.  You can select one or more text files in which PowerGREP should look for paths to files or folders to be included in or excluded from the next action.  The option “custom regex to split file” now works correctly.  The “paths relative to this folder” option now works correctly when the paths need to be relative to the root folder of a drive.

DeployMaster 7.3.0 – 4 January 2024

DeployMaster 7.3.0 is now available for download.

This release adds support for Windows 11 version 23H2 otherwise known as the 2023 Update.  You can now select this version on the Platform page if you want to restrict your installer to specific Windows 11 versions.

DeployMaster 7.1.0 added the option to specify the full path to signtool.exe on the Media page to have DeployMaster run signtool.exe to sign the installer.  We added this because DeployMaster’s built-in code signing (which calls the code singing functions in the Windows API) is unable to find Extended Validation (EV) code signing certificates stored on certain USB tokens such as the SafeNet USB token.  But DeployMaster’s built-in code signing does work with EV certificates stored on certain other USB tokens such as the Sectigo eToken.  We’ve updated the documentation to explain that to sign with an EV certificate stored on a USB token, you can first try to specify only the subject name of the certificate on the Media page.  If that works it’ll save you the hassle of installing the Windows SDK just to get signtool.exe.

Version 7.3.0 now allows you to use a code signing application other than signtool.exe.  To do so, specify a full command line (full path to the .exe plus command line parameters) to run that code signing application instead of the path to signtool.exe.  You have to use the placeholder %FILE% on the command line to represent the file to be signed.  DeployMaster checks whether you added %FILE% to the command line to distinguish between a full path to signtool.exe and a full command line to another code signing application.  If you omit %FILE% then DeployMaster assumes the path points to signtool.exe and adds the command line parameters that signtool.exe expects.  When you add %FILE% to the command line DeployMaster does not add any command line parameters.  It only replaced the %FILE% placeholder plus six optional placeholders.  %DESCRIPTION% represents the name and version number of the application specified on the Project page.  %URL% is the application URL specified on the Project page.  %SUBJECT% is the subject name of the code signing certificate specified on the Media page.  %PFX% is the path to the PFX file specified on the Media page.  %TSURL% is the time stamping service URL selected on the Media page.  %PWD% tells DeployMaster to ask for a password.  It will do so the first time it needs to run a specific command line to sign a file.  DeployMaster will remember the password until it needs to sign with a different command line.

The list of time stamping service URLs on the Media page has been updated and expanded.  The services higher in the list were faster and/or more reliable in our tests that those lower in the list.  Your experience may vary depending on your location and the time of day you build your installers.  DeployMaster remembers the time stamping URL that you select as a global preference.  If you select a new URL then that is used for all future builds until you change it again.

HelpScribble 8.3.2 – 17 November 2023

HelpScribble 8.3.2 is now available for download.

HelpScribble’s HelpContext property editor now supports Delphi 12 Athens and C++Builder 12 Athens.  HelpScribble’s installer will automatically install it if it detects that you have Delphi 12 Athens or C++Builder 12 Athens installed.  HelpScribble’s HelpContext property editor can assign HelpContext properties to controls in VCL applications and Multi-Device applications.

HelpScribble’s documentation has been updated to explain that Windows 11 fully supports HTML Help and does not support WinHelp at all, just like Windows 10.  HelpScribble itself required no changes to support Windows 11.

A bug has been fixed that caused HelpScribble to show a “list index out of bounds (0)” error when closing HelpScribble or switching to another application.  It only happened after using the spell checker and you used one of but not both of the Learn and Learn Replace buttons in the spell checker since first downloading the spell check dictionary.  These buttons add words to the user word list.  The Learn button adds words to be considered as spelled correctly.  The Learn Replace button adds words to be automatically replaced with other words.  You can edit the list of learned words and replacements via the Word List button in the spell checker.

Back in version 8.0.0 we gave HelpScribble a fresh coat of paint by way of new toolbar icons.  Since then the buttons with arrows in the Browse Sequence Editor had their arrows pointing the wrong way.  We’ve flipped them back in the right direction now.

RegexMagic 2.13.1 – 16 October 2023

RegexMagic 2.13.1 is now available for download.

RegexMagic now officially supports .NET 7, Boost 1.83, Java 21, Python 3.12, and Ruby 3.2.  These regex flavors are unchanged compared with previous versions.

RegexBuddy 4.14.1 – 16 October 2023

RegexBuddy 4.14.1 is now available for download.

RegexBuddy now officially supports .NET 7.0, Boost 1.83, Java 21, Python 3.12, and Ruby 3.2.  These regex flavors are unchanged compared with previous versions.

RegexBuddy now correctly emulates that the JGsoft flavor which is used in our own products PowerGREP, EditPad, and AceText is the only one that correctly matches a Unicode grapheme with \X when it is used inside a lookbehind.  Java always fails to match \X when it’s inside a lookbehind, possibly causing a negative lookbehind to succeed.  All other flavors either don’t support \X at all or don’t support lookbehind at all or treat \X as an error inside lookbehind because they don’t support tokens that match a variable number of characters inside lookbehind.

The behavior of \G differs between regex flavors.  With some flavors it matches at the position where the previous match ended or at the start of the string if there is no previous match.  With other flavors it matches at the position where the current match attempt began.  The difference is important when the previous match was zero-length.  Some flavors advance one character through the string after a zero-length match was found before starting the next match attempt.  Then the end of the previous match and the start of the current attempt aren’t at the same position.  RegexBuddy 4 has always correctly emulated this when highlighting matches and listing matches on the Test panel.  But the Debug panel sometimes showed different results.  This has been fixed.  The Debug panel now correctly shows how \G behaves in your selected regex flavor regardless of whether you’re debugging a single match attempt or all match attempts.  If you debug a match that is highlighted on the Test panel then the match attempt on the Debug panel takes into account what the preceding match was on the Test panel.

RegexBuddy now correctly handles conditionals inside lookbehind for the flavors that allow this.  The direction of the conditional (lookahead or lookbehind) does not change when it’s inside another lookbehind.

EditPad Lite 8.4.2 – 21 July 2023

EditPad Lite 8.4.2 is now available for download.

The editor’s performance while scrolling the text has been improved.  You’ll particularly notice this if you have a mouse with a stepless scroll wheel.  The editor will now keep up with the wheel no matter how fast you rotate it.

Various minor bugs and issues have been fixed.  Edit|Delete Line now properly deletes the last line in the file when the cursor is after the last line break in the file.  When customizing the palette in Options|Configure File Types|Colors and Syntax, the color pickers are now restricted to solarized, harmonized, or monochrome colors when editing such palettes.  The Editor: Control Characters color is now applied to control characters that are visualized as IBM PC glyphs or Unicode control pictures when using a complex script text layout (just like it already was when using a left-to-right text layout).  Help|Create Portable Installation now copies over the lists with learned words and learned replacements for each selected spell checker dictionary.

EditPad Lite 8 is now available in Dutch, English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.  Many thanks to our users who helped us to update these translations.  If you’d like to help with making EditPad Lite 8 available in your own language, please email us.

EditPad Pro 8.4.2 – 21 July 2023

EditPad Pro 8.4.2 is now available for download.

The editor’s performance while scrolling the text has been improved.  You’ll particularly notice this if you have a mouse with a stepless scroll wheel.  The editor will now keep up with the wheel no matter how fast you rotate it.

Several fixes were made to the Extra|Compare Files feature.  Lines highlighted as added or removed now use the text color specified in the palette instead of the plain text color when the file doesn’t have a syntax coloring scheme.  The dialog for selecting the file to compare with now automatically widens the Full Path column in the list of files when you widen the dialog and no longer allows you to make the dialog so small that there is no space for the comparison options.  If the only difference between the two files is that blank lines were added or removed then option to “ignore added and removed lines” now triggers the message “The files are identical, except perhaps for differences you have selected to ignore” instead of displaying a comparison with no actual differences.  Comparing two files with “ignore added and removed lines” turned off and then comparing them again with the option turned off now removes the file comparison marks from blank lines in the original files when highlighting changes in the original files.  Loading a file was saved with comparison info and then edited or truncated outside EditPad Pro to make the comparison info incomplete is now loaded without the comparison info instead of failing with an access violation error.

Various minor bugs and issues have been fixed.  Edit|Copy as HTML or RTF no longer adds double line breaks to the HTML or RTF when you copy CRLF line breaks from a file using one of the JSON syntax coloring schemes.  Search|Find on Disk now correctly opens or adds files in which only zero-length regular expression matches can be found.  Edit|Delete Line now properly deletes the last line in the file when the cursor is after the last line break in the file.  When customizing the palette in Options|Configure File Types|Colors and Syntax, the color pickers are now restricted to solarized, harmonized, or monochrome colors when editing such palettes.  The Editor: Control Characters color is now applied to control characters that are visualized as IBM PC glyphs or Unicode control pictures when using a complex script text layout (just like it already was when using a left-to-right text layout).  Help|Create Portable Installation now copies over the lists with learned words and learned replacements for each selected spell checker dictionary.

EditPad Pro 8 is now available in Dutch, English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.  Many thanks to our users who helped us to update these translations.  If you’d like to help with making EditPad Pro 8 available in your own language, please email us.