JGsoft Newsfeed

Updated: PowerGREP 4.0.5

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0700

PowerGREP 4.0.5 is now available for download. This release fixes several issues we missed in the 4.0.x releases last month.

Since version 3.3.0 PowerGREP has been capable of searching through .zip files that are stored inside other .zip files. What PowerGREP did not handle correctly until now is .zip files stored inside a folder inside another .zip file. Those were completely ignored unless you manually expanded the .zip inside the folder inside the other .zip in the File Selector.

New in version 4 is the ability to import file listings from text files in the File Selector. A bug in this feature caused PowerGREP to lock up completely if the file listing included the root of a drive such as C:\ for a local drive or \\SERVER\SHARE\ for a network drive. Now PowerGREP handles those correctly. For drives to be recognized, the trailing backslash is required.

Also new in version 4 is the ability to use the IFilter system to decode files in proprietary formats for which PowerGREP does not have built-in decoders (or to replace the built-in decoders). This is the system that Microsoft designed to allow Windows Search to handle such files. PowerGREP 4.0.4 (this release only) had a bug that caused a "string list does not allow duplicates" error when PowerGREP checked the availability of an IFilter for a particular file type for the second time. It should do this check only once. The option "use IFilter to decode the compound document into plain text" in the Archive Formats section in the Preferences was partially broken in all 4.0.x releases. This option caused compound documents such as Office 2007 files to be treated as binary files when an IFilter was available for them and the option "decode binary files using IFilter" was turned on in the File Formats section of the Preferences. Now the option "decode binary files using IFilter" is ignored for compound documents.

If you have already purchased PowerGREP 4, you can download this update for free.
Upgrade from PowerGREP 2.x or 3.x to 4.x.
Buy PowerGREP now.
Complete Version History.

Updated: PowerGREP 3.5.8

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0700

PowerGREP 3.5.8 is now available for download. This is a free minor update for PowerGREP 3 users who haven't upgraded to PowerGREP 4 yet. PowerGREP 4 users can also download PowerGREP 3.5.7 if they need to run PowerGREP on Windows NT4, 98, or ME which PowerGREP 4 no longer supports.

Updated: AceText 2.1.8

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0700

AceText 2.1.8 is now available for download. This version brings a number of minor fixes and improvements.

AceText allows you to customize the way it interacts with specific applications on the Applications tab in the Preferences. That can be useful if AceText's default behavior doesn't work very well with a particular application. Unfortunately, there are restrictions in Windows that make it impossible for AceText to access certain processes (applications). When AceText can't access the active process or the process owning the clipboard, the Applications tab in the Preferences now indicates the reason. If a process is running with elevated rights while AceText is not, (administrator) appears. You can make it possible for AceText to access that application by running AceText as administrator too. If you're running AceText on a 64-bit version of Windows, (64-bit) appears for 64-bit applications. The Windows system separates 64-bit and 32-bit applications. Until Embarcadero releases a 64-bit version of their Delphi compiler, we can only produce 32-bit versions of AceText. AceText does run just fine on 64-bit Windows and can paste into 64-bit applications without any restrictions. Only configuring application-specific behavior doesn't work.

The spell checker now uses a better default position when AceText is shown on the right hand monitor on a dual monitor system. The spell checker no longer disappears behind AceText if you switch to another application and then back to AceText while the spell checker is visible.

Pressing Ctrl+F now focuses the search box. Ctrl+F starts the search if the search box already has keyboard focus. On Windows Vista and Windows 7, the Open and Save dialog boxes in AceText now use the new style introduced with Windows Vista. Deleting clips now selects the next clip instead of the first clip. Moving clips up and down no longer causes (harmless) access violation errors. AceText no longer keeps a needless lock on files that it fails to open, such as files that aren't valid AceText collections.

If you have already purchased AceText, you can download this free update for free.
Buy AceText now.
Complete Version History.

Updated: EditPad Lite and Pro 6.6.2

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0700

EditPad Lite and Pro version 6.6.2 are now available for download.

Running EditPad as administrator under Windows Vista and Windows 7 is now more reliable. Instances with administrator rights show (as administrator) in the caption bar. When EditPad Pro checks for a running instance to be reused, it now takes into account whether than instance is running as administrator or not. Running EditPad as administrator only reuses an instance that is running as administrator. Running EditPad without administrative privileges only reuses an instance that is not running as administrator. This means that you may get two separate EditPad windows even when you're not using the /newinstance parameter or the View|New Editor command. The New Editor command starts a new instance with the same privileges (or lack thereof) of the current instance. If you have two running EditPad instances and one has administrator privileges and the other does not, you'll now get two EditPad icons next to the system clock if you've enabled that feature in Options, Preferences, System. The tooltip of the icon of the elevated instance shows (as administrator).

Running EditPad as administrator is the only way that you can use EditPad to modify files in protected folders such as c:\Program Files. If you don't run EditPad as administrator, EditPad opens files in protected folders in read only mode. If you try to save them anyway you'll get "access denied" errors when trying to save the file.

EditPad's display routines have been optimized to repaint less of the screen while typing into a file that uses syntax coloring. This improvement will be noticeable on systems with limited graphics power. The search feature is now smart about literal line breaks in regular expressions. Literal line breaks are inserted into the Search box with Shift+Enter, as opposed to typing \r\n. Literal line breaks now match a line break in any style (Windows, UNIX, or Mac) rather than only a Windows-style line break as in previous versions of EditPad. The behavior of literal line breaks in plain text searches is unchanged. Those match the file's dominant line break style.

Two serious bugs were fixed. Saving a file larger than the huge files threshold under a new name no longer corrupts EditPad's view of the file if parts of the file after the first insertion or deletion in the file were swapped out to disk when saving. The file was always saved correctly even in previous versions of EditPad. Only EditPad's view of the file was corrupted. Disabling both options to preserve file status in the Files preferences no longer triggers an access violation in the Maintain List item in the Reopen submenu of the File menu. Match highlighting disappeared when a file's file type changed (by saving it under a new name or selecting a file type in the Options menu) until you either changed the search term or switched to another file. Sometimes EditPad would crash when editing a file in this situation.

Several other minor bugs were fixed as well. You can find a complete list in the version history on EditPad's web site.

If you already purchased EditPad Pro 6.x.x, you can download this minor upgrade for free.
If you have EditPad Pro 4 or 5, you can upgrade to version 6 at a special price.
Buy EditPad Pro now.
Download EditPad Lite.
Complete version history.

Updated: RegexMagic 1.0.5

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 18:00:00 +0700

RegexMagic is a brand new product from Just Great Software. Its purpose is to make it easier to create regular expressions. While it serves the same purpose as RegexBuddy, its approach is totally different. As such, RegexMagic will certainly not replace RegexBuddy. Rather, it aims to serve the need of a different group of people. Some will wish to use both RegexBuddy and RegexMagic at the same time.

RegexMagic 1.0.5 is now available for download. This release fixes one bug that we missed in version 1.0.4. Loading a formula from a library did not properly update the Match panel, causing access violation errors if you tried to access something on the Match panel.

Tips & Tricks: Outlining Text Files with Leading Dots

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:50:54 +0700

A prospective customer asked if EditPad Pro had the ability to create an outline of text files like another editor he had used before. In that Editor, putting a dot (which normally goes at the end of a sentence) at the start of a line turned that line into a heading. Two dots at the start of a line creates a second-level heading. Up to six dots can be used in that editor for six levels of headings. The editor can show a tree with the headings in a sidebar. Text in the actual file can be folded under its headings.

That sounds exactly like what EditPad Pro's system of file navigation schemes is designed for. So I created a file navigation scheme that builds an outline based on the number of dots at the start of each line, with no limit to the nesting level. To use this file navigation scheme, select Options, Configure File Types in EditPad's menu. Select the file type you want to outline in the list. To outline .txt files, choose Text Document. On the Syntax & Navigation tab, click the Download button under the drop-down list with file navigation schemes. Find the "outline using leading dots" scheme in the list and click the Install button. Then click Close. Installed schemes are not automatically put to use. To use it, select "outline using leading dots" in the file type configuration screen after closing the download screen. Turn on the "add automatic folding points from the file navigation scheme" option and click OK.

Now, whenever you start a line with one or more dots, that line becomes a foldable heading. If you click the square with the minus symbol in it, all text up to the next heading at the same level is hidden. Temporarily hiding parts of the file you're not working with makes it easier to keep an overview of the file's structure. To work the other way around, select Fold All in the Fold menu. Then you can expand the headings you want to edit.

To get the tree view in a sidebar, simply open the File Navigator via the View menu. Click on a heading in the File Navigator to scroll the file to make it visible. Shift+Click on a heading to select the heading plus all the text up to the next heading at the same level.

Updated: EditPad Lite and Pro in Danish

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:00:00 +0700

Thanks to the hard work of Jørgen Larsen, the latest versions of EditPad Lite and Pro are now available in the Danish language. If you have previously purchased EditPad Pro 6, you can download the Danish version (or any other language version) with the user ID you already have. If you're using EditPad Pro 4 or 5, you can upgrade to version 6 at a discounted price.

As a small company, we do not have the resources to translate our software into many languages. We therefore rely on volunteers to make the translations for us. If you would like to translate EditPad into your language, please send a note to the EditPad technical support address.

Updated: DeployMaster 3.3.0

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0700

DeployMaster 3.3.0 is now available for download. This release brings improved compatibility with Windows 7.

Windows 7 includes a new "feature" called the Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA), which attempts to determine if an application needs to be run with certain compatibility options enabled that make Windows 7 behave more like Vista or XP. If an application has "install" or "setup" in its name, the PCA treats it as an installation program and may display a "this program might not have installed correctly" window after the application closes. Occasionally, this screen appears after a setup program created with DeployMaster 3.2.0 or prior or its uninstaller completes its task, even though DeployMaster 2.8.1 and later were already fully compatible with Windows 7. As of DeployMaster 3.3.0, both the setup program and the uninstaller include a manifest that states they are compatible with Windows 7. This effectively disables the PCA and its false warning. To disable the PCA in your own setup programs, all you need to do is to upgrade to DeployMaster 3.3.0 and rebuild your setup program. There are no settings that you need to change.

The way DeployMaster saves its language files has been improved. A bug that caused DeployMaster to not always save changes you made on the Language tab has been fixed. The language files are now stored in the application data folder under your Windows user profile. On Windows Vista and 7 the folder is c:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\JGsoft\DeployMaster and on Windows NT, 2000, and XP the folder is c:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\JGsoft\DeployMaster. Windows 95, 98, and ME don't have user profiles, so language files are saved into c:\Windows\Application Data\JGsoft\DeployMaster. The reason for this change is that Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not allow you to modify files in c:\Program Files (where DeployMaster used to save its language files) unless you run the application with elevated rights. When upgrading from a previous version to DeployMaster 3.3.0, the installer automatically moves over all your language files to the new location. You won't notice the files have moved unless you go look for them (e.g. to edit them with a text editor).

A bug related to 3rd party setups was fixed. DeployMaster 3.2.0 added the ability to automatically skip 3rd party setups if no download link is specified and the 3rd party setup is not embedded in the setup.exe and not placed in the same folder as your setup.exe. If the last 3rd party setup was one to be skipped, Proceed and Abort buttons would remain visible for the remainder of the installation process, causing an error if the user clicked them. DeployMaster 3.3.0 properly removes the buttons when they are no longer needed.

If you have already purchased DeployMaster, you can download this free update for free.
Buy DeployMaster now.
Complete Version History.

Windows 7

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0700

Microsoft has released Windows 7 to the general public last week, so it's time to make the Just Great Software products compatible with Windows 7. Beyond testing them, all we really had to do is update our web pages to announce support for Windows 7. While the new (at the time) security features in Windows Vista broke a lot of applications that worked fine on XP, Windows 7 doesn't seem to break any applications that were updated to work correctly under Vista. At least this is true for the latest versions of AceText, DeployMaster, EditPad Pro, HelpScribble, PowerGREP, RegexBuddy, and RegexMagic. So we won't be releasing any new versions to add Windows 7 support. If you have the latest version, you're good to go. All our products are compatible with all editions (32-bit and 64-bit) of Windows 7.

Updated: RegexBuddy 3.4.1

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0700

RegexBuddy 3.4.1 is now available for download.

RegexBuddy 3.4.0 showed gray or black squares instead of the toolbar and menu icons on Windows 98, ME, and 2000. This made the toolbar buttons difficult to identify, even though they still worked and still showed their popup hints.

RegexBuddy's emulation of the limitations imposed by PCRE, Perl, and Python on lookbehind is now more accurate. Only the JGsoft and .NET flavors allow all regex features to be used inside lookbehind. Java allows alternation and finite repetition ({n,m} quantifiers). PCRE allows alternation of fixed-length strings only. Python and Perl allow alternation of fixed-length strings that must all have the same length. All other flavors supported by RegexBuddy do not support alternation at all.

Atomic groups as the first token inside a needless non-capturing group lost their "atomic" property when testing your regex on the Test panel, causing RegexBuddy to find matches when it shouldn't. POSIX equivalence classes for characters other than plain A to Z such as [[=à=]] are now indicated correctly on the Create panel and highlighted correctly in the regular expression. Since RegexBuddy is not a POSIX system, such equivalence classes only match the character itself on the Test tab when you select a flavor that supports them (Tcl, POSIX, and GNU flavors).

If you have already purchased or upgraded to RegexBuddy 3, you can download this free update for free.
If you own RegexBuddy 2, you can upgrade to version 3 at a special price.
Buy RegexBuddy now.
Complete version history.

Updated: HelpScribble 7.7.7

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 18:00:00 +0700

HelpScribble 7.7.7 is now available for download.

The only change in this release is that HelpScribble's HelpContext property editor now supports Delphi 2010 and C++Builder 2010. HelpScribble's installer will automatically install it if it detects that you have Delphi 2010 or C++Builder 2010 installed.

There are no changes to the help system in Delphi 2010 and C++Builder 2010 compared with the 2006, 2007, and 2009 versions of Delphi and C++Builder. Even the move to Unicode in Delphi 2009 has no impact. If you're migrating from older versions, follow the Delphi and C++Builder instructions on HelpScribble's web site.

If you don't use Delphi or C++Builder, you can continue using HelpScribble 7.7.6.

If you have already purchased helpscribble, you can download this update for free.
Buy helpscribble now.
Complete version history.

Updated: JGCSCSE 3.1.4

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +0700

If you own EditPad Pro 6, PowerGREP 3, RegexBuddy 3, or RegexMagic, you can now download version 3.1.4 of the JGsoft Custom Syntax Coloring Scheme Editor. With this tool you can adapt the syntax coloring in these applications, and even create new schemes for previously unsupported programming languages and file formats.

When using EditPad Pro 6.5.0, if you click the Edit button in Options, Configure File Types, Syntax & Navigation to edit a syntax coloring scheme that is supplied with EditPad Pro, the scheme editor will now save that file type into your user profile folder instead of into the folder where EditPad Pro is installed. The reason is that on Windows Vista and Windows 7, applications cannot normally save files into c:\Program Files. If a scheme with the same file name exists in the user profile folder and in the application folder, the scheme in the user profile takes precedence. Portable installations of EditPad Pro do not use the user profile folder. They save all schemes into the same folder as EditPadPro.exe on your removable device.

Updated: JGFNSE 1.1.4

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +0700

If you own EditPad Pro 6, you can now download version 1.1.4 of the JGsoft File Navigation Scheme Editor. This is the tool that you can use to create your own file navigation schemes. You can select them in Options, Configure File Types, Syntax & Navigation. A file navigation scheme is needed to bring the File Navigator in the View menu to life.

When using EditPad Pro 6.5.0, if you Edit button in Options, Configure File Types, Syntax & Navigation to edit a file navigation scheme that is supplied with EditPad Pro, the scheme editor will now save that file type into your user profile folder instead of into the folder where EditPad Pro is installed. The reason is that on Windows Vista and Windows 7, applications cannot normally save files into c:\Program Files. If a scheme with the same file name exists in the user profile folder and in the application folder, the scheme in the user profile takes precedence. Portable installations of EditPad Pro do not use the user profile folder. They save all schemes into the same folder as EditPadPro.exe on your removable device.

New: Regular Expressions Cookbook

Wed, 27 May 2009 18:00:00 +0700

Regular Expressions Cookbook, written by myself and Steven Levithan, is now shipping. The book covers the regular the regular expression flavors .NET, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PCRE, Python, and Ruby, and the programming languages C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and VB.NET. After a quick introduction, the book starts with a detailed regular expression tutorial which equally covers all 7 regex flavors. That chapter is followed by a detailed guide how to implement regular expressions in your source code, again covering the 8 programming languages equally. These chapters too are presented in cookbook format. You can easily pick out the task you want to accomplish when creating a regular expression of your own, and when you want to do something with a regex in your source code. While there's some repetition, particularly in the programming guide, because of our goal of equal coverage, the benefit is that you can easily skip the parts on programming languages you're not interested in, in true cookbook style.

The remaining chapters, over half of the book, present real-world problems, and how to solve them with regular expressions. These problems range from very simple problems and everyday regex tasks, to some complex problems that stretch the limits of what you can do with regular expressions, but show how a regex-based solution is often much quicker than doing the same in procedural code, particularly if you only need to do the job once. All the real-world problems also have solutions for all regex flavors. A few solutions add procedural code to make up for missing regex features, such as JavaScript lacking lookbehind. The book does not cover regex flavors with limited features such as the venerable POSIX standard. We didn't want to put those flavors on the cover and then disappoint readers by saying "can't be done with this limited flavor" for half of the recipes in the book.

If you use regular expressions with the latest versions of PowerGREP, EditPad Pro or AceText, you can use pretty much any of the regular expressions presented in the book. These products use a custom regex flavor that is a fusion of the features found in the flavors covered in Regular Expression Cookbook. RegexBuddy 3 emulates all the flavors in the book. Older versions of these products are based on PCRE 4, without Unicode support.

Regular Expression Cookbook targets people with regular expression skills ranging from zero to upper intermediate, who want to learn about regular expressions for the first time, or sharpen their skills to become experts. Except for the chapter on programming languages, most of the recipes in the book don't require programming skills to implement the solutions in EditPad Pro, PowerGREP, or any other text editor or search tool that uses one of the book's regular expression flavors. The programming chapter assumes you're familiar with all the basic features and syntax of your programming language, but it doesn't assume you've ever used regular expressions in your source code.

Order Regular Expressions Cookbook from Amazon.com. Free shipping to the USA.

Order Regular Expressions Cookbook from Amazon.co.uk. Free shipping to the UK.

Order Regular Expressions Cookbook from Amazon.fr. Free shipping to France and Belgium.

Order Regular Expressions Cookbook from Amazon.de. Free shipping to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.

More Generous Upgrade Policy

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:00:00 +0700

Previously, the upgrade policy for Just Great Software products was free minor upgrades for the version that you purchased (without a limit in time), and free major upgrades up to 3 months after your purchase. The 3-month period coincided with our 3-month money-back guarantee.

Now, the upgrade policy is still free minor upgrades for the version that you purchased (still without a time limit), but free major upgrades for up to 12 months after your purchase, instead of only 3 months. The 3-month money-back guarantee remains unchanged.

This change in policy is retroactive. If we were to release a major upgrade tomorrow 23 April 2009, anybody who purchased the product on or after 23 April 2008 would get the major upgrade for free.

What is also unchanged is that if you get a major upgrade for free, you also get all free minor updates that follow the major upgrade, just like people who purchase the major upgrade or buy the product for the first time do. And if we release a major upgrade less than 12 months after you buy a major upgrade, you also get the next major upgrade free, as people who buy the product for the first time do.

All in all, this makes the Just Great Software upgrade and money-back policies some of the most generous in the software industry, short of giving it all away for free.