OpenMCDF / News: Recent posts

Development of OpenMcdf, bug tracking, support requests will continue on github platform with OpenMcdf github project. Releases will be synchronized on sf site. Many thanks to all users and developers that with their contribution have enanched the quality and the performance of this software.

OpenMcdf 2.0 Beta 1 release is out !
OpenMcdf should perform better and is now fully compliant to Red Black tree implementation allowing for file with ten of thousands items.
It runs also on Mono platform and targets .net framework v4.0.
Many thanks to all people who is keeping send advices and bug reports.

OLE property reader is still 'work in progress' but a demo/testing release wil be soon be available.... read more

Last commit to the SVN development branch of OpenMcdf has introduced a new feature, a more "native" approach to Compound File items.
By using extension methods, compound streams can be consumed by client software as IO.Stream objects, allowing developers to better integrate them into existing .net scenarios where software tools expect this common type of interface.
Extension methods mechanism will allow compound streams and storages to better adapt themselves to specific usage environments: I'm thinking specifically about OLE properties, Thumbs.db files...... read more

Red-Black trees have been integrated in 2.0 branch. This change allows OpenMcdf to handle very large structures with thousands of directory items keeping good performances on items retrieval. Technically speaking, RB-tree are self-balancing binary search tree that guarantees searching in O(log n) time vs the O(n) time (worst case) in unbalanced trees.
Microsoft specifications does not force balanced tree implementation but this change will improve search performance in the worst case.
Worst case could be encountered when adding an already sorted set of items like an alphabetically sorted list of stream items in a storage.... read more

Sorry for the long pause in project updates and bug fixing. SVN Trunk has been updated with the last bug fixes from the 1.5.4 branch.
'Official' Release will follow in a short time.
Rel. 1.5.4 Should be the last 1.x release: I'm currently planning new features to introduce in the 2.0 development branch.
Please, if you have any suggestion or advice, add a feature request as openmcdf sf tracker item.... read more

OpenMCDF1.5.3 has been released:

-The sample viewer has been improved with a new hex editor allowing changes in streams at byte level;
-Performance has been enhanced when reading structured files with one or little more items in structures tree by using a specific method for this activity;
-OpenMCDF and the sample explorer have been tested on Mono platform in a Unix environment (Ubuntu).

If you need support or you want to report a bug please use Project tracker / forums.... read more

Relese Candidate 1 is out !

Please note that main library namespace has changed to 'OpenMcdf' according to project official name. Features highlighted in the previous news item have been incorporated.

Have fun with this new release !

Regards,
Federico

Happy New Year ! OpenMCDF has been updated with some interesting feature in the SVN 1.5.0 branch, the new development target for the next weeks. A new 'Update mode' commits only changed sectors to underlying stream or file in order to enhance write performances. A new lazy loading method reduces memory consumption for reading operations and recycle of released free sectors has been introduced. You can also get partial stream data from a given offset avoiding the need for a complete load of streams !
Have fun with OpenMCDF ;-)
Federico

Added support for version 4 of Compound File Format specifications (4096 bytes for sector) and a compliant removal feature. A new 'Compress Space' method has also been added to support deletion of unallocated sectors after removal operations.
Download and try it from SVN repository http://openmcdf.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/openmcdf/branches/1.4.2/ !
Thank you for supporting OpenMCDF !
Federico

This update fixes 'Remove' feature previously unavailable because of its (wrong :( ) internal access modifier.
A final note: I've found out that also MSWMM files (Windows Movie Maker projects) are compound files ! So you can use them to do some experiment with OpenMCDF. Bye !

Version 1.4 is near to be released.
You can get the latest sources from SVN repo (branch/1.4) and test the 'remove storage and streams' feature. Documentation has also been added. Some work still needs to be done but the development branch can be actually be considered in a RC status.

The 'remove stream' and 'remove storage' are currently under working and will be included in the release 1.4 of OpenMCDF