From alchemyreply0991 at mindworkshop.com Sat Oct 28 09:51:05 2017 From: alchemyreply0991 at mindworkshop.com (Alchemy Mindworks) Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2017 09:51:05 -0400 Subject: [Newsletter] Announcements from Alchemy Mindworks Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20171028095105.02acf558@localhost> _______________________________________________________________________ THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC POSTING FROM THE ALCHEMY MINDWORKS UPDATE MAILING LIST UNSUBSCRIBE: http://mindworkshop.com/mailman/options/newsletter _______________________________________________________________________ Contents: 1. Announcing Animation Workshop 8 2. Announcing The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 3. Graphic Workshop Professional 8 Revision 2 (Additional Notification) 4. Animation Tools Bundle Updated 5. Replying to this Message and List Removal _______________________________________________________________________ Guaranteed not to be deleted from history! http://www.stevenwilliamrimmer.com/darkmatter.html (...even if something goes horribly wrong and you are.) Now available in a deletion-resistant paperback edition. _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ 1. Announcing Animation Workshop 8 _______________________________________________________________________ Animation Workshop 8 has been released. We've refined the internal architecture of Animation Workshop to make it faster, more memory-efficient and better able to take advantage of the functionality of Windows 7, 8 and 10. While most of the seriously cool changes embodied in Animation Workshop 8 are "under the hood," users of the latest release will notice that it's noticeably quicker, especially for functions that call for significant system resources, such as rendering large or complex animations. The updated architecture will also allow us to add new features to Animation Workshop that were impractical or genuinely impossible under version 7. ........................................................................ WHAT'S NEW The changes in version 8 include: - Improves the solid color selection buttons throughout the application with a quick palette selection window - just hold down the Shift key on your keyboard when you click to select a color to see it. There's a complete discussion of this window and how it interacts with the primary Colors window in the section of the Reference document that deals with Color Selection. - Updates the file handling logic for the Tiles fill type to make the whole works quicker and more memory efficient. - Implements several significant improvements to the rendering engine to deal with object precedence inconsistencies in version 6 and 7. - Fixes a big that caused the document windows to display a spurious error message in some circumstances if a user clicked below the block list. - Improves the color-reduction logic used by the Export to GIF functionality to produce more realistic exported GIF animations. - Animation Workshop 8 will optionally import most of the configuration items of an existing Animation Workshop 7 installation, if there's one on your system, eliminating the need to restore your preferences by hand. It will also remove your earlier software for you if you like. - Hardens the library interface underlying Animation Workshop to make it more resistant to tampering. Sadly, the tampering in question appears to originate with some third-party security applications... which our lawyers would really prefer we didn't name. - Updates a number of user-interface issues throughout the application. - Addresses a number of GDI and performance issues that software developers never really stop meddling with. - Updates the documentation. We'd like to take this opportunity to express our sincere regrets for the minor bump in the price of Animation Workshop. In our defense, it's been about a decade and a half since it last changed. Bookkeepers may not be the most irresistible force in the universe, but they are the most relentless. You can download Animation Workshop 8 from: http://www.mindworkshop.com/clock.html#download ........................................................................ UPGRADES If you registered or upgraded a registration for Animation Workshop 7 on or after March 1, 2017, you?re welcome to a free upgrade to Animation Workshop 8. If you registered or upgraded a registration for Animation Workshop 7 prior to March 1, 2017, you can upgrade to Animation Workshop 8 for half the cost of a new single-user license. When you first run Animation Workshop 8, it will check to see if you have a registration for Animation Workshop 7 on your system. If it finds one, it will display a window to tell you which of the foregoing upgrade options is applicable. Click on the Upgrade button to visit our web page and request or order an upgrade. The upgrade window can subsequently be accessed through the Help > Upgrade Manager > Upgrade from Previous Version of Animation Workshop. You can also visit the no-cost upgrade page directly at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/anmkey.html and the upgrade order page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/upgrade.html _______________________________________________________________________ 2. Announcing The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 (Second Notification) _______________________________________________________________________ The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 has been released. We've refined the internal architecture of The Ultimate Screen Clock to make it faster, more memory-efficient and better able to take advantage of the functionality of Windows 7, 8 and 10. While most of the seriously cool changes embodied in The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 are "under the hood," users of the latest release will notice that it's noticeably quicker, especially for functions that call for significant system resources, such as running complex animated clocks. The updated architecture will also allow us to add new features to The Ultimate Screen Clock that were impractical or genuinely impossible under version 7. ........................................................................ WHAT'S NEW The changes in version 8 include: - Adds solar transitions functionality - The Ultimate Screen Clock can determine the precise times of sunrise and sunset based on your location. It will tell you when sunrise and sunset occurs for pretty much anywhere on Earth - select Calendar -> Solar Transitions from the right-click menu. It will also display a graphic in most of the digital clock styles, right below the date, to indicate the current state of the sun. We hasten to add that this feature can be disabled - see the discussion of Solar Transitions in the Reference document of the Manual for more. - Adds the Sun and Moon clock style, which - perhaps not surprisingly - does something cool with the aforementioned solar transition logic. It has one face during daylight hours, and a different one at night. The faces are drawn from classic nineteenth-century acid etchings. - Updates the digital transitions rendering logic of the clock engine, which has allowed us to... - Adds a digital transitions version of the popular Flip style in which the vanes of the mechanical clock are animated, and visibly drop as the digits change. - Adds a digital transition version of the equally popular Tubes style. The totally retro neon-tube digits cycle through their states every time a number changes, just like they would have back when computers were the size of Nebraska and had less processing power than a programmable toaster. Note that some of the new clock styles reside in the by now slightly elephantine archive of additional clocks, available at The Ultimate Screen Clock web page. You'll need to download and install it separately to experience the full magnificence of this version. There is, of course, no additional cost for doing so. Currently tipping the scales at about 200 megabytes, the contents of the additional clock archive were just too large to include in their entirety in the primary installer. - Fixes a number of issues in the Days Until, Days between and Days Since windows. - Improves the metrics and hence the appearance of several of the existing clock styles. - Improves the reliability of the Net Time feature. - The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 will optionally import most of the configuration items of an existing The Ultimate Screen Clock 7 installation, if there's one on your system, eliminating the need to restore your preferences by hand. It will also remove your earlier software for you if you like. - Hardens the library interface underlying The Ultimate Screen Clock to make it more resistant to tampering. Sadly, the tampering in question appears to originate with some third-party security applications... which our lawyers would really prefer we didn't name. - Updates a number of user-interface issues throughout the application. - Addresses a number of GDI and performance issues that software developers never really stop meddling with. - Updates the documentation. We'd like to take this opportunity to express our sincere regrets for the minor bump in the price of The Ultimate Screen Clock. In our defense, it's been about a decade and a half since it last changed. Bookkeepers may not be the most irresistible force in the universe, but they are the most relentless. You can download The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 from: http://www.mindworkshop.com/clock.html#download ........................................................................ UPGRADES If you registered or upgraded a registration for The Ultimate Screen Clock 7 on or after March 1, 2017, you?re welcome to a free upgrade to The Ultimate Screen Clock 8. If you registered or upgraded a registration for The Ultimate Screen Clock 7 prior to March 1, 2017, you can upgrade to The Ultimate Screen Clock 8 for half the cost of a new single-user license. When you first run The Ultimate Screen Clock 8, it will check to see if you have a registration for The Ultimate Screen Clock 7 on your system. If it finds one, it will display a window to tell you which of the foregoing upgrade options is applicable. Click on the Upgrade button to visit our web page and request or order an upgrade. The upgrade window can subsequently be accessed through the right click > Upgrade Manager > Upgrade from Previous Version item of The Ultimate Screen Clock. You can also visit the no-cost upgrade page directly at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/clkkey.html and the upgrade order page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/upgrade.html _______________________________________________________________________ 3. Graphic Workshop Professional 8 Revision 2 (Additional Notification) _______________________________________________________________________ Graphic Workshop Professional 8 has been updated. This release: - Addresses a number of issues that crept into the initial release of Graphic Workshop Professional 8. - Hardens the library interface underlying Graphic Workshop to make it more resistant to tampering. Sadly, the tampering in question appears to originate with some third-party security applications... which our lawyers would really prefer we didn't name. We urge all users of Graphic Workshop Professional 8 to install this upgrade, and any users of earlier versions to consider upgrading as quickly as possible. You can download Graphic Workshop Professional 8 from: http://www.mindworkshop.com/gwspro.html#download Should this be the first you've heard of Graphic Workshop Professional 8, please see the original announcement for it at: http://mindworkshop.com/pipermail/newsletter/Week-of-Mon-20170911.txt ........................................................................ UPGRADES If you registered or upgraded a registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 7 on or after March 1, 2017, you?re welcome to a no-cost upgrade to Graphic Workshop Professional 8. If you registered or upgraded a registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 7 prior to March 1, 2017, you can upgrade to Graphic Workshop Professional 8 for half the cost of a new single-user license. When you first run Graphic Workshop Professional 8, it will check to see if you have a registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 7 on your system. If it finds one, it will display a window to tell you which of the foregoing upgrade options is applicable. Click on the Upgrade button to visit our web page and request or order an upgrade. The upgrade window can subsequently be accessed through the Help > Upgrade Manager > Upgrade from Previous Version item of Graphic Workshop Professional 8's menu bar. The Graphic Workshop Professional no-cost upgrade key offer ends on November 30, 2017. You can also visit the no-cost upgrade page directly at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/gwskey.html and the upgrade order page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/upgrade.html _______________________________________________________________________ 4. Animation Tools Bundle Updated _______________________________________________________________________ The popular Alchemy Mindworks Animation Tools Bundle has been updated to include GIF Construction Set Professional 8, PNG MNG Construction Set 8, Animation Workshop 8 and e-Paint 8. Get all four of these essential animation applications and save $40.00. Please see our e-commerce page at: https://www.mindworkshop.com/orderform.html The Animation Tools Bundle can be found at the bottom of the SOFTWARE section. _______________________________________________________________________ 5. Replying to this Message and List Removal _______________________________________________________________________ This message has been sent from an unmonitored address - please do not reply to it. To remove your address from this mailing list or to change your address, please visit our web page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/update-list.html Removal requests will be processed instantly. ....................................................................... If you have questions about this list or any Alchemy Mindworks products, please contact us at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/email-alchemy.html You can contact us by telephone at (705) 789-5238, and by snail-mail at Alchemy Mindworks, L10 C8 Brunel, Huntsville, ON P1H 2J3, CANADA. **************************************************************************** Copyright (c) 1998 - 2017 Alchemy Mindworks. All rights reserved. Use no hooks.