Version 4.0.0
Update released May 2024
- See the new help topic "BMV 4.0" for better detail
- Improved navigation. All windows now have much improved Right-Click popup
dialog to quickly navigate to related information (e.g. magaizne for a given
page), or the "last viewed" of a given type. These are stored as persistent
properties, so if you stop/restart BMV, a simple right-click, view "Last..."
will return you exactly where you left previous session.
- There is now a "Show Page Thumbnails" for list/search pages, similar to the
thumbnail viewing for a given month. This now allows VISUAL viewing of the
matching pages for a search or other content.
- Complete redo of Print logic, using newer code recently added to CanDB. Now
internals so much simpler printing to image/file, can now support splitting into
N smaller PNG files for large content, or group into multi-page PDF document.
- New content cataloged as Canning Companies, Advertisements, and Sponsors.
These are grouped pages of existing content or for many, new digital images.
- New format of the "Year" display. Since most publication have only produced
six issues per calendar year, the old format of 4 columns x 3 rows of smaller
cover images displays too small. New 4.0 default format is 3 columns x 2 rows
of much larger images. Quick right-click option to toggle formats for either
user preference or viewing older publication years.
- New Tools -> Options dialog to provide some user configuration control.
- Content update. Latest Foam Matters, Rainier and BCCA
- Some optimizations based on tools JProfiler and Sleak.
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Version 3.2.3
Update released February 2024
- Content update. Latest Rustlings, Foam Matters and Rainier newletters.
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Version 3.2.2
Update released October 2023
-
Added "Tools -> Choose Content" dialog. This allows a user to select/unselect
given magazine content if not interested in viewing. This does NOT remove any
data, just hides the unchecked magazines from most menus, views, and check for
updates. It is simple to change your mind and just re-check content.
- Fixed bug where scroll bars might not get properly resized/appear when switching windows.
This was most notable when viewing individual page thumbnails for a magazine with
lots of pages and then switching to thumbnail view for magazine with fewer pages.
It was possible the scroll bar was NOT getting resized/appearing.
- Fixed bug where some dialogs could have N instances opened (e.g. Tools -> Register).
The intent has always been just one instance open for any given dialog.
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Version 3.2.1
Update released September 2023
- Content update. Latest Rustlings, Foam Matters and Rainier newletters. BCCA
content now available through end of 2022.
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Version 3.2.0
Update released June 2023
- Added American Brewer content to the BMV! The Hagley Digital Archive has a
large quantity of digital content, of which includes digital scans and PDFs of
almost 30 years of the publication American Brewer. I asked for permissions to
include content 1935-1942 (years covering the Beer Can) and received a quick
"YES" reply, only requirement to include citation to the source of the content.
Absolutely, and thus BMV version 3.2
- Added citation/links to source of the digital content, or at least the
publisher's web page. These are "live" HTML references, so not only displayed
by BMV, but just click on them to open browser for the given location. The
citation information is now shown on multiple BMV windows as well as when
printing to printer or file PNG.
- Added couple of missing months of Rainier Brewings news letters
- Fixed mouse wheel scrolling. I broke this when adding mouse wheel listener
for the "Print Preview" dialog.
- Fixed several bugs with less used features. Resizing individual page window
now properly recalculates scroll bar height. When looking at a "list" window,
e.g. Search, Features, etc, if filtering by specific magazine, now will print
only the filtered content, not the original list.
- While updating help topics, I realized that older BMV used to support
keyboard mnenomics (e.g. Alt F). Re-added this feature.
- BMV 3.2 main Index.dat and all monthly TOC.dat files are no longer
compatible with previous BMV versions due to extra citation data. If someone
does a "Check For Updates" and updates to 3.2 without "automatic restart"
(added in BMV 3.1.1) or run the BMV-UPDATER.exe (on Windows platforms) the
previous software will fail to load the files.
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Version 3.1.2
Update released June 2023
- Fixed issue with loading individual page thumbnails and user clicking
Back/Fore/Prev/Next before all images loaded. BMV does not store individual
small images for each page, so when showing a thumbnail it needs to get the full
page image and scale it down to appropriate size. This is not instant, and
why a separate thread is used to update display as each image is loaded. For
older versions of BMV, you can see this by clicking on the thumbnails button,
watch start loading, and then click Back before finished. If you use Forward
to return, BMV was not resuming the loader thread where last left off.
- Last round of full code review. Tighter handling of "need layout" and
tweaking of widget layouts. Reviewed and minor updates to the help topics.
Fixed data inconsistencies with some search keys
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Version 3.1.1
Update released June 2023
- Yes another update release but since very re-familiar with code all BeerComp
reviewed, all layouts now exactly how I want them, and fixed issues with the
BeerBrowser objects able to calculate correct width/height pixels. Now all
displays have correctly sized (and visible if necessesary) scroll bars.
- Now can do "Check For Updates" with auto restart, no more need for
BMV-UPDATER.exe once 3.1.1 is installed. The new logic is BMV runs a non-GUI
Java program which sleeps three seconds, main BMV.exe exits (releasing all
locked files), updater wakes up and renames any temporary files, and then will
auto start BMV.exe! Nice and clean.
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Version 3.1
Update released June 2023
- Semi-major update. Reworked the logic for marking a given window as "needs redraw".
All Java classes now follow consistent updating of layout. Gone is some of the
annoying screen flashing (e.g. on View Search Results would redraw all the
radio buttons EVERY time). Not perfect, but this version just feels smoother.
- Return of a feature I must have broken in 3.0 rewrite. Now, just hitting the
Space bar will have BMV do the "next/prev logical action". For example, if on
search results 1..25, just keep hitting the space bar to cycle through the set
of matches, jumping to page, jumping back to search on next item, repeat. There
is just one place in BMV where might be necessary to type a space character and
that still allows them.
- Added two new features, "Tools -> Show Content Statistics" and
"Tools -> Show Author Statistics". BMV generator was modified to
keep track of unique authors and their contrbutions. I think a nice addition!
From these dialogs it is possible to fire off actions to other windows.
- Fixed issue of BMV not re-opening in Maximized mode if that is what the
user was in when BMV previously exited. While the upper left screen location was
correctly being saved as (0,0) and the size correct display bounds, you
can't actually reset full sized by width/height, but must put the window
in Maximized mode! I did not know about this until just a few days ago...
- Reminder the website registration information was reworked. If BMV shows
"Not Registered" please do so again. Apologizes but easier than for me to
merge server data.
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Version 3.0.4
Update released May 2023
- Updated content for most recent issue of Foam Matters and Rustlings
- Fixed small bug with resizing the main window. If various composites had
already been displayed (e.g. magazine, years, table of contents) and then
the main window was resized, using the Back/Forward buttons were just
re-displaying their composite with same size as previously, so possibly
buttons/content were not visible, or extra padding to the right.
While another resize of the window would fix display, BMV now detects the
main window being resized and will automatically re-layout the widgets for
all composites as necessary.
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Version 3.0.3
Update released May 2023
- Fixed issue with opening custom BMV file format. Was not closing the Java
FileInputStream object, leaking a file descriptor for each .bmv file opened.
While not a noticeable problem on Windows, on MacoOS a lock was maintained
on the file preventing any Check For Updates overwrite.
- On MacOS the updated app script, and Linux shell script, must have execute permissions.
The paths to bmv.sh and BMV.app/Contents/MacOS/BMV were not registered as executables,
thus were not getting execute permissions if Check For Updates changes.
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Version 3.0.2
Update released May 2023
- Fixed issue with storing "last remembered screen location" with negative numbers.
For reason unknown, Windows returned (-8,-8) for fully maximized display.
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Version 3.0.1
Update released May 2023
- Updated content for all provided news letters through May 2023
- Added BMV-UPDATER.exe which allowes for updates to BMV.exe itself
- Fixed annoying bug of always scrolling back to top during Back action
- Now detects download of new magazine content to reload month/page images
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Version 3.0
Update released August 2020
- Updated content for all provided news letters through spring 2020
- Added Tools -> Accelerators for user defined menu/keyboard accelerators
- Replaced core Elcipse-RCP framework with my own custom over SWT
- Now baselines Java 8 such that can again support Mac
- Removed embedded Java packages, user must install if not already there
- Added Linux support (at least RHEL and Centos)
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Version 2.4
Update released May 2017
- Updated content for all provided news letters through May 2017
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Version 2.3
Update released November 2016
- Added Foam Matters content. Thanks to Clayton Emery for scanning back issues
and providing PDF content.
- Updated content for all provided news letters through November 2016
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Version 2.2
Update released January 2016
- Added logic to work around BCCA requirement that content must age for at
at least two full years before made available digitally. While agreement
prevents actual BCCA magazine pages made available, I am fully in my right without
violating copyright to post derived works of table of contents and search keys.
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Version 2.1
Update released March 2015.
- Added "Check for Media" menu command. Some collectors don't have high speed
internet access and this option allows for easy install with BMV content from
DVD. Recommendation is to install from DVD all content at the time the DVD was
created, and then use the "Check for Updates" feature to download deltas from
the internet.
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Version 2.0
Major rewrite released June 2014.
- Switched from Swing to SWT. While the display of the user interface has
deliberately been retained, the internals have had major GUI changes. The
BMV look and feel should be much closer to any application running on a given
operating system. BMV 2.0 is still fully backwards compatible with previous
versions.
- Redo of the BMV packaging. Gone is the entire setup process. In its place
is a much simpler single zipped file of which the user just needs to extract
into any folder of their choice.
- Introduced new "Tools -> Check For Updates" to allow BMV to update itself
from web site, as well as ability to selective download magazine content. Many
users probably no longer need to install from DVD.
- Replaced the fixed 12, 14 and 18 point font menu items with full Preferences
control. All aspects of BMV can now be fully user configured as to font sizes,
styles, and colors.
- Start of "View -> In Memoriam". Sadly too many of our hobby are passing on
- Addition of the Miami Valley Guzzelette and thumbnails of Merry Bocksters
Goatzette. Full content for the Goatzette should be available by end of summer
2014
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Version 1.3
Upgrade version released February 2014. Changes from earlier BMV packages:
- Fully working "Tools -> Install Magazine Update" so should now be
possible to release/download monthly magazine updates
- Now includes update of Rustlings through 2013, Keeping Tabs (BCCA) and
Fortune (Time-Fortune)
- Mouse wheel scrolling much improved with larger scroll increment
- Added Tools menu items to adjust base font size to 12, 14 or 18 point.
Some windows can adjust dynamically if you change fonts. For full effect
you will need to exit/restart BMV after changing a font base
- The "View -> Search" window now opens with the search text box with focus
so you can start typing straight away.
- Testing on Windows 8
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Version 1.2
Upgrade version released March 2012. Changes from earlier BMV packages:
- Now includes full Beer Cans Monthly (BCM) and Brewery Collectibles (BC)
content approved for distribution per the BCCA. Hopefully inclusion of the
BCCA's own Beer Cans and Brewery Collectibles will follow
- Some minor changes to the Welcome and About help topics
- Now able to view the README, COPYRIGHT, and LICENSE files from the viewer
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Version 1.1
Upgrade version released August 2011. Changes from earlier BMV packages:
- Upgraded from Java JRE 1.4 (2004) to JRE 1.6.0 build 25 (May, 2011). I
was impressed though that software written back in 2003 on a Windows XP machine
for the most part ran just fine eight years later on a Windows 7 machine
- Support and testing on Windows 7 and Windows Vista
- Major improvement to the search engine in that it now allows partial
search keys. For example, if I am searching for "altes", any of the input text
of "al", "alt", "alte" or "altes" will now find relevant matches. This makes
it much easier to type just the characters "eig" instead of the full word
"eigenbrots". Previous versions required the full key word.
- Clean up of some menu structure, gone are the long cascading menus with
each year, each month
- Updated HTML help topics
- Full Rustlings content up to Jun/Jul 2011
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Version 1.0
First production version, initially released at the 2006 Canvention. Minor
cleanup based on Rusty Bunch member testing, with the following changes:
- First release with Mac OS X (10.1 or later) support
- Redesigned the magazine table of content indexing. This version now
uses a persistent generated index key for each magazine/month, one that
will be constant between new DVD releases. Previous versions would
require a full set of new search data files with each release, preventing
incremental downloads or month-to-month magazine installs.
- Added install/patch functionality to allow install of new monthly
magazine content (e.g. able to install a new month of Rustlings after the
DVD was originally created). This will allow registered users to keep
their BMV content up-to-date.
- Full table of contents and search keys for Beer Cans Monthly,
Brewery Collectibles, and Can-O-Rama, even if individual magazine content
not allowed by the BCCA to be distributed
- Search logic to allow for search keys to either span multiple pages
of a given article (default) or to only match if all keys are
found on the same physical page
- Fixed several bugs with the search logic reporting "matches" when
three or more keywords specified but not all of the keys were actually
found
- Minor packaging changes to move Table of Contents to a separate
folder, making it easier to package media with some content removed
- Re-designed the DVD label to include an awesome Hop Gold, Town
Club and Silver Springs photo (with permission from Ed Scoglietti)
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Version 0.4
Fairly major feature additions, internal program changes, as well as bug
fixes. Binary data files from previous versions are not compatible with
this release, and beta testers are requested to uninstall prior versions
and do a clean install. Plan is for this version to become the 1.0
production release unless major issues are discovered during next round
of beta testing.
Some of the changes in this version include:
- Full table of contents and search keys for each and every page of
each and every issues of Rustlings!!!
- Some persistent configuration (e.g. window size, location, tool
bar location, zoom level, ...) so viewer feels the same with each stop and
restart
- Bookmarks features similar to web browsers, with persistent store
to local disk
- Page thumbnails, being able to view small images of all pages for a
given month. This gives a nice overview of all pages and helps that search
where you remember "kind of what a page looked like" but can't remember
the specific text/magazine/month.
- Improved search logic allowing for matching keyword within body of
article, title of article, AND/OR author. Previous versions only allowed
a single matching selection. With this change you can now search for
something like "adamowicz top ten" and choose to match author name AND
within article title, allowing for finer filtering options.
- Basic "Print Preview" (one page only). At least gives a good idea
what a display will look like prior to printing.
- Much improved display of individual pages. Previous versions used to
load JPEG data into memory and make another in memory copy resized to
the correct zoom level. This version now loads the JPEG and simply draws
it to the scaled size.
- Most files are now proprietary BMV file format instead of raw JPEG.
This will help prevent someone taking all the many hours of labor into
this project and possibly using for another purpose, and hopefully
will help remove some "intellectual property" concerns. Files can
still be printed but are still subject to publisher's copyright.
- Scrolling from month to month is now much faster. Each month now
has a pre-generated 400 pixel height cover page image which can be
blasted directly into memory instead of needing to read/resize.
- Updated help files, README.html, COPYRIGHT.html, LICENSE.html
- Updated the setup process to allow install of multiple "/diskN"
content
- First version which supports DVD packaging
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Version 0.3
Version demo'd at Blue/Gray 2006. There were some bug fixes and minor
feature additions from the previous version but no copies of this
version were distributed. All beta testing is an upgrade from version 0.2.
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Version 0.2
Most known issues from version 0.1 have now been fixed, as well as
many new features added. Version 0.2 now includes a professional
setup process, a floating viewer toolbar, better navigation and default
buttons, redesigned product packaging, more complete help topics, and
much improved printing support. Plus, over 5,700 pages of Rustlings,
1,897 pages of Beer Cans Monthly, 440 pages of Brewery Collectibles, and
most all BCCA cover pages!!!
There are still some minor display issues (e.g. some characters in an
author's name may get chopped in the featured articles display) but the
few of these easily worked around by resizing the window slightly larger.
While mouse scrolling and arrow keys now properly handle all displays, the
arrow keys sometimes temporarily stop working (likely a focus issue).
There is still an unfixed issue with scaling images larger than default,
especially up to 200% zoom level. I have occasionally encountered Java
"out of memory" errors even though I am fairly certain not out of memory.
Still debugging this, but likely a rarely used feature and I may simply
remove ability to zoom above default display resolution.
There are still a number of magazine issues which need search keys and
table of content, and I will be working on these leading up to Blue/Gray.
Each magazine issue takes a fair amount of time for key generation, but
will do what I can. The hope is that version 1.0 available by spring of
2006.
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Version 0.1
Proof of concept release, distributed to several Rusty Bunch members
prior to creation of the Rusty Bunch Rustlings archive.
Copyright © 2003-2024, Randall Karasek, All Rights Reserved
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