From alchemyreply0991 at mindworkshop.com Sat Dec 9 10:25:34 2017 From: alchemyreply0991 at mindworkshop.com (Alchemy Mindworks) Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2017 10:25:34 -0500 Subject: [Newsletter] Announcements from Alchemy Mindworks Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20171209102534.02d2f4c0@localhost> _______________________________________________________________________ THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC POSTING FROM THE ALCHEMY MINDWORKS UPDATE MAILING LIST UNSUBSCRIBE: http://mindworkshop.com/mailman/options/newsletter _______________________________________________________________________ Contents: 1. Announcing Screen Saver Construction Set 8 2. Announcing Presentation Wizard 8 (Second Notification) 3. Graphic Workshop Professional 8 Revision 3 (Additional Notification) 4. Graphic Workshop Professional - The Book (Second Notification) 5. Replying to this Message and List Removal _______________________________________________________________________ A tale more terrifying than last-minute seasonal shopping!!! http://www.stevenwilliamrimmer.com/lizardland.html (The paperback edition also makes a perfect gift for friends and family members who gave you socks last year.) _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ 1. Announcing Screen Saver Construction Set 8 _______________________________________________________________________ Screen Saver Construction Set 8 has been released. We've refined the internal architecture of Screen Saver Construction Set 8 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 Screen Saver Construction Set 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 building extensive screen savers. The updated architecture will also allow us to add new features to Screen Saver Construction Set 8 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 runtime to make it quicker and more memory efficient. - Adds some new functionality to the ANIMAL language. - Screen Saver Construction Set 8 will optionally import most of the configuration items of an existing Screen Saver Construction Set 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 Screen Saver Construction Set 8 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. - 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 Screen Saver Construction Set 8. 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 Screen Saver Construction Set 8 from: http://www.mindworkshop.com/scspro.html#download ........................................................................ UPGRADES If you registered or upgraded a registration for Screen Saver Construction Set 7 on or after April 1, 2017, you?re welcome to a free upgrade to Screen Saver Construction Set 8. If you registered or upgraded a registration for Screen Saver Construction Set 7 prior to April 1, 2017, you can upgrade to Screen Saver Construction Set 8 for half the cost of a new single-user license. When you first run Screen Saver Construction Set 8, it will check to see if you have a registration for Screen Saver Construction Set 8 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 Screen Saver Construction Set 8's menu bar. You can also visit the no-cost upgrade page directly at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/scskey.html and the upgrade order page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/upgrade.html _______________________________________________________________________ 2. Announcing Presentation Wizard 8 (Second Notification) _______________________________________________________________________ Presentation Wizard 8 has been released. We've refined the internal architecture of Presentation Wizard 8 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 Presentation Wizard 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 building extensive applications. The updated architecture will also allow us to add new features to Presentation Wizard 8 that were impractical or genuinely impossible under version 7. ........................................................................ WHAT'S NEW The changes in version 8 include: - Adds the logic to build electronic greeting cards. Long, long ago when the world was new and personal computers weighed about as much as the people who used them, Alchemy Mindworks created an application called Electronic Greeting Card Construction Set. As its name no doubt cleverly implies, it created electronic greeting cards, which could be e-mailed to your friends and family, or downloaded from web pages and other on-line media. For reasons too eldritch and arcane to deal with here, Electronic Greeting Card Construction Set never made it into the new millennium. We've always liked the idea of what it did, however, and with a bit of slightly tricky object manipulation ? that you'll never have to deal with directly ? you can enjoy all the functionality of Electronic Greeting Card Construction Set and none of its original limitations through Presentation Wizard itself. See the discussion of Electronic Greeting Cards in the Reference section of Presentation Wizard's manual. Also, be sure to click on the example electronic greeting card in your Programs -> Alchemy Mindworks -> Presentation Wizard 8 menu. Keep an eye out for Hazmat, the twenty-five-pound monster squirrel. - 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 runtime to make it quicker and more memory efficient. - Adds some new functionality to the ANIMAL language. - Presentation Wizard 8 will optionally import most of the configuration items of an existing Presentation Wizard 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 Presentation Wizard 8 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. - 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 Presentation Wizard 8. 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 Presentation Wizard 8 from: http://www.mindworkshop.com/prspro.html#download ........................................................................ UPGRADES If you registered or upgraded a registration for Presentation Wizard 7 on or after April 1, 2017, you?re welcome to a free upgrade to Presentation Wizard 8. If you registered or upgraded a registration for Presentation Wizard 7 prior to April 1, 2017, you can upgrade to Presentation Wizard 8 for half the cost of a new single-user license. When you first run Presentation Wizard 8, it will check to see if you have a registration for Presentation Wizard 8 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 Presentation Wizard 8's menu bar. You can also visit the no-cost upgrade page directly at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/prskey.html and the upgrade order page at: http://www.mindworkshop.com/upgrade.html _______________________________________________________________________ 3. Graphic Workshop Professional 8 Revision 3 (Additional Notification) _______________________________________________________________________ Graphic Workshop Professional 8 has been updated. This release: - Addresses a few more issues that crept into the initial release of Graphic Workshop Professional 8. - 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. - Addresses an issue which prevented the Abort button in the Progress window from being recognized when Graphic Workshop was processing large numbers of high-resolution JPG files under some builds and configurations of Windows (if there was a penguin within 1500 meters of your house, possibly.) - Fixes a bug in e-Paint UltraLight that caused the floating tool and settings palette windows to become unselected during drawing in some circumstances - see the above reference to the proximity of a penguin. - Improves the JPG reader. - Updates several functions in the GWS Camera screen capture application. - Updates Archive Manager. - Addresses a potential security issue. 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 ........................................................................ 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. Graphic Workshop Professional - The Book (Second Notification) _______________________________________________________________________ We've been contacted frequently of late to ask if there was a hard-copy reference available for Graphic Workshop Professional. This is the sort of thing that makes the people responsible for the Alchemy Mindworks web pages certain they should have used much larger type, possibly with blinking text enabled. We'd prefer they didn't get any funny ideas like this into their heads. For everyone who missed the initial announcement about the Graphic Workshop Printed Reference - an absolute brick of a book with everything there is to know about Graphic Workshop printed, bound, indexed, illustrated and distributed by Amazon - we'd like to take this opportunity to announce it again. Please see: http://www.mindworkshop.com/gwsprint.html For everyone who's ever encountered the existential horror of a web page with blinking text, we'd like to reassure you that the HTML blink attribute is now deprecated, and is supported by few if any current web browsers. _______________________________________________________________________ 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.