Java Psion Link / News: Recent posts

Ok, so I didn't quite manage to release alpha 5 when I was hoping - my uni project and exams got in the way.

I have done some more work since then, as I currently have a several days gap before my last exam. I have mainly been working on the XML conversion code. In particular I have moved over to using some of Java's code to serialise Java objects into XML (using java.bean.XMLEncoder/XMLDecoder). This is making my life _much_ easier. So much easier in fact that I have just successfully converted a Psion Word document, with formatting, to XML then back to Psion Word with no loss of formatting. It can't handle embedded objects yet, but this is a big step.... read more

Seeing as I'm now on holiday from university again, I've had some time to get some more work done. I've rewritten a lot of the conversion code and have a much better GUI for this now. I have also fixed a bug that sometimes caused a disconnection of the link, when it shouldn't have.

Other new features include conversion of Record files (uncompressed ones only) to and from sounds files (e.g. .wav, .au), conversion of Sketch files to and from gif, png and jpg. There is also basic conversion of Word files from txt, html and rtf (currently very little formatting is retained).... read more

Features a few bug fixes and more importantly now handles backups from multiple machines correctly and allows restoring from backup (at last).

Well JPL been due for a new release for a while and seeing as I'm not going to be any less busy soon I thought now was as good a time as any.
This version generally behaves very well, but there may be some odd behaviour, because I haven't had the time to go over everything. Please mail me if you get anything odd happening.

John

Ok, as usual I haven't managed to get a release out. I was planning on getting something released before I went to Uni, but I haven't quite got there yet...

However I have just upgraded to MacOS X, so that should help a bit. The next version probably won't be tested/released for MacOS 9, as it's too much hassle and I suspect most Mac users have upgraded already - for those who haven't there are always the earlier releases.... read more

Just updated the source files to use the LGPL licence. This is because I have had some interest in JPL being used as part of other programs, that are not GPL'ed.
My view that is that if other people use the code in that way they are more likely tofind bugs with it and fix those bugs, thus making JPL better.

In other news I have fixed a couple of bugs:
zip backups were sometimes confusing zome zip programs. This meant that they were extracting files with names like System\data\jaslkj... Rather than putting things into relevant directories. Otherwise all the data was still there.
Hidden files were being uploaded by JPL. e.g. MacOS X files like .DSStore etc. Now I check whether a file is "hidden" before uploading it.

Just a quick note to say JPL is still being developed. Just being a bit disorganised as of late. The good news is I now have broadband, so once I set up CVS again I'll get some code uploaded, and hopefully do a new release too.

Beyond that JPL will probably be changing to the LGPL license, to allow people to use it as a library without their code having to be made GPL'd. This is because I've had interest frmo several people about this, and I figure the more developer types using the code, the more chances of finding and fixing bugs.... read more

New version uploaded, which should work fine. Also fixed a minor bug that meant JPL wouldn't work if swing was not present (Whoops).

Looks like in my haste to get alpha2 out I may have messed up the binaries! I'll try and get some new ones out soon, so if in the meantime you download alpha2 and it doesn't work then it may well be my fault! Try alpha1 instead or for the intrepid there is always the source code.

cheers,
John

The second alpha has finally been released. Lots of new features and therefore potentially more bugs.
However it does seem to run very well and I haven't encountered any major problems yet.. As usual I'm more than happy to hear from people about this.

p.s. This version has some support for Ducth and French, however this support is incomplete; some pieces of text will appear in english as they have not been translated yet.

Ok, still here. Hopefully should have a new release ready soon. Also I'll try and update the website soon. The biggest trouble is that my network setup is "less than optimial". i.e. My development system is not connected to the net, so uploading things involves a bit more effort than I'd like.
Anyway ...

Things to look forward to in the next release:

Backups - full and incremental
Partial Dutch and French language support
Bug fixes
Drag files into window to upload
File conversion (Sketch and Word)
Some other stuff... read more

Ok, just checked in some new stuff.

First off thanks to Wim Poland we now have 95% Dutch support. Meaning that if you run JPL in the Dutch locale (ie on a Dutch computer), most of the text etc should appear in Dutch! Not all of it, as JPL is changing a fair bit, but enough to make a difference. If people want other languages supported, I will gladly help by sending them the file to translate. Or they can get the file "jplres.properties" from CVS.... read more

Started adding localisation support, so that JPL can run in other languages. Most of the text in JPL is now being retrieved from resource files (jplres.properties). This means that is should be easier to provide resource for different languages.
Anyone who wishes to do some tranlation for me should contact me (lilspikey) for more details. It's all done using java.util.ResourceBundle and java.text.MessageFormat, so you might want to look at the api files for those, fo rmore information.

Just done some work to allow JPL to use AWT _or_ Swing. JPL uses a intermediate class to do this, called "JPLToolkit". This class attempts to load the swing version first, if it can't find it or swing isn't installed it will use the AWT version instead. Simple really.
This was done as AWT is not very nice under Linux (it uses motif) and swing actually looks better. However, because I still have MacOS 9, we couldn't move completely to Swing.

Released JPL 2.0 alpha 1. Gives you the chance to try out "Print via PC" and generaly benefit from a bit more stability.
Lots more stuff to be added, yet. In particular backups and file conversion.
Jon is working on the backups at the moment and has done a fair bit.
I (John) have started work on file conversion and should have a Word to HTML4.0 converter up and running quite soon.

Ok, well now hopefully we'll manage to get some work done ;^)

Version 2.0 is coming along quite well. Once I figure out how to use sourceforge properly I'll upload the latest source.
John