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What's new:

8.3.3 released -- last update: 12/10/2004 {03:31:38 PM}

fix to 'tab' in dialogs problem on MacOS X.
upgrade to AlphaTcl 8.0 final release (lots of fixes!)
corrected 'winNames' during closeHook call (and added tests to developer code)
fix to backSpace at beginning of document.

8.3.2 released -- last update: 12/07/2004 {03:41:50 PM}

update to latest AlphaTcl (8.0)
various cosmetic dialog improvements (thanks Craig)
search dialogs accepts cmd-i/r to toggle checkboxes
corrected selected-text-background colour
made win-xp theme the default on Windows XP.
improved tabbing in dialogs
fix to 'getTextDimensions'
added colour-saving to the rememberWindows package
fixed some rare dialog problems
some dialogs fixes
statusPrompt throws Cancelled error on Escape
fix to handling of some aspects of the main menu names
fix to cmd-key shortcuts in dialogs
better line-numbers in margin (Cmd/Alt-F11)
clean up of some preferences
fix to small dialogs problem
fix to errors in 'gotoLine' dialog.
added support for '-separator' to the 'dialog' command
improved menu/feature help handling, which makes for faster prefs dialogs.
more infrastructure for upcoming full tile/theming support

8.3 released -- last update: 11/17/2004 {01:20:59 PM}

update to latest AlphaTcl (8.0)
very large number of fixes, improvements. Please see the release notes in Alphatk.

8.3fc9 released -- last update: 04/22/2004 {07:16:50 PM}

update to latest AlphaTcl
better getTextDimensions implementation
implemented zapNonPrintables
fit to 'mtime' implementation
found a good workaround for tkdnd problems with unmapped widgets to make for prettier dialog creation on Windows

8.3fc8 released -- last update: 04/19/2004 {09:53:41 AM}

update to latest AlphaTcl
on MacOS X executable, update to Tcl/Tk 8.5a2.
added support for list/tab-selected multi-page preference dialogs
fix to rare multi-page dialog problem
fix to mode-specific 'wrap' handling bug introduced in 8.3fc7
ensure column indicator is updated when deleting

8.3fc7 released -- last update: 04/08/2004 {10:22:49 AM}

fixed distribution builder to ensure C# mode is included
cleaned up handling of status-bar popups
moving up/down vertically preserves horizontal position
better core-AlphaTcl wordWrap separation - each window now has a 'wrap' setting which can be set through 'setWinInfo wrap '
cleanup of obsolete commands
better handling of case-(in)sensitivity in keyword colouring
update to latest AlphaTcl
more robust regModeKeywords for case-insensitivity
fix to colouring on last time in shell-style windows, under some circumstances.
cleaner handling of wrap, mode, encoding, platform popups
'saveAs -f name' now automatically uses the destination encoding
fix to popup menus in dialogs on MacOS X.

8.3fc6 released -- last update: 03/30/2004 {11:40:32 AM}

update to latest AlphaTcl, major cleanup of preferences dialogs underway, and simplification of help menu.
fix to 'dialog ... -m ... -n {}' for empty page names.
better statusPrompt handling
improvements to 'alert' and 'buttonAlert'

8.3fc5 released -- last update: 03/20/2004 {12:01:04 PM}

update to latest AlphaTcl, many hooks/window-attribute related improvements.
improved colouring robustness
more consistent search dialog.
'mode' and 'wordbreak' are now 100% window-specific, which fixes some rare cosmetic glitches.
'mode' split into bindtags and colortags for each window.
added ability to time Alphatk startup for future optimisation.
bindtags, colortags are both lists.
added support for multiple sets of tag-based colouring keywords for any window.
text::color, text::hyper etc all take optional '-w '
more robust colouring of multi-line comments.
implemented 'deleteModeBindings'
added support for 'bindingList $tag'
added further key-bindings (: _ @ etc), fixing a problem on X11 - thanks for the bug report
further fixes to default window geometry setting.
small fix to 'wrapText' at end of window.
added experimental support for modeless dialogs with results callbacks
improved undo/redo of 'replace' operations (window scrolls to show position)
fixed a bunch more key-bindings
better status-bar content management (when trying to display very long pieces of information).
improved 'select' to take multiple from-to argument pairs to allow rectangular selection.
fix to colouring in split windows ('wordbreak' error)

8.3fc4 released -- last update: 02/02/2004 {10:01:01 AM}

update to latest AlphaTcl, should be very robust.
fixed 'distanceToScreen' bug reported (thanks)
on MacOS X, more text widget improvements and font rendering improvements. Alphatk should now properly support rendering and editing (as opposed to just loading/saving) a much broader range of encodings and charsets.
more robust handling of status-bar popup menus
added optional number argument to 'lookAt'
added support for dndWinHook and dropping of files into Alphatk windows (when using tkdnd -- only currently available on Win/Unix).
simplified dnd, using unified interface for all types.
drag'n'drop editing now routes through smartPaste (or other paste-override packages) as appropriate.
correct getGeometry -s implementation, and fixes to moveWin, sizeWin to act accordingly.
fix to edit/new problem with window name starting with '-'.
better window geometry handling.
more moveWin/sizeWin cleanup.
made checkbox geometry handling auto-sizing - should result in a few of the global dialogs being nicer.
'dialog' can now handle multiple multi-page/pane elements in a single dialog.
overhaul of editing-window<->AlphaTcl interactions, particularly during window creation. Much better separation between core and AlphaTcl.
no longer assume '~' exists, fixing reported bug.

8.3fc3 under development -- last update: 11/16/2003 {08:09:07 PM}

fix to rare problem with interactions between dialogs, focus and new windows.
update to latest AlphaTcl
better tclpro/tcldevkit support
on MacOS X lots of improvements to the text widget (from Tk 8.5a0), including smooth scrolling and correct handling of tab stops in some strange cases.
fix to multiple page up/down not always returning to same place in window.
on MacOS X fixes to scrollbars (correct size, better interaction).

8.3fc2 under development -- last update: 11/11/2003 {04:55:26 PM}

updated to latest AlphaTcl
added transparency information to version control gifs.
small fix to 'print' on MacOS X.
drag-and-drop fixes with split panes.
better font and metric handling in 'dialog'
better getTextDimensions and getThemeMetrics implementations.
'remember windows' package can be configured to remember the position and size of each window
corrected MouseWheel bindings in listboxes (thanks Craig)
corrected MouseWheel bindings in text widget.
fix to 'setFontsTabs'
dialog in-place setting fixes (abbreviation)

8.3fc1 under development -- last update: 10/28/2003 {11:11:49 AM}

updated to latest AlphaTcl
added support for 'TM' char to stop menu form conversion.
added modes for VB, Verilog, and Windows Batch files.
'dialog' fixes to allow forward looking -tags
added icons to version control popup (thanks Bernard)
fix to contextual menus in split panes.
added '-listitem' to the 'dialog' command, and the ability to make a multi-page dialog controlled by a listitem.
some minor fixes to menu construction in rare cases.

8.3b4 under development -- last update: 10/13/2003 {03:43:32 PM}

Update to latest version of AlphaTcl, fixing various bugs
some colouring improvements
better re-using of the package cache.
improvements to 'replace' as an atomic operation, including better handling in colouring, undo, redo etc.
better 'revert' implementation.
fix to 'pos::fromRowCol'

8.3b3 under development -- last update: 09/09/2003 {02:21:57 PM}

improved macro recording, and binding reporting (thanks Craig).
when only status window is present on MacOS X, don't use sheets for dialogs.
fix to 'close' so doesn't quit Alphatk when there are no windows.
added preliminary scaling support for higher-resolution displays (e.g. 120dpi)
made proper distinction between user-applied colours (text::color) and syntax-colouring.
better font style support added to Alphatk.
fix to binding specification overlaps between Bind and Menu.
some refactoring of syntax-colouring and other window-view code so they do not depend on implementation details of the text widget.
fix to potential global variable pollution caused by flag-menus
fix to colouring of windows after, e.g., 'revert'.
'wordBreakPreface' preferences are now irrelevant to Alphatk. It does not need them.
fix to 'paste' under certain error conditions.
better 'display' and 'insertToTop' implementations.

8.3b2 released -- last update: 08/21/2003 {03:19:36 PM}

clean up to certain dialog code, enabling 'Escape' to cancel more dialogs.
substantial AlphaTcl upgrade with large number of Alphatk-specific issues resolved.
small 'replaceText' fix to problem introduced in 8.3b1
fix to command-key error in dialogs like 'Report A Bug'
made 'select' behaviour closer to Alpha 8/X's.
inverted 'M' and '{}' to accord more closely with Alpha.
fix to titlebar-popup menu (alt-right-click on Windows)

8.3b1 released -- last update: 08/14/2003 {11:56:59 AM}

more robust startup, particularly on Windows/Unix.
better float handling
beginning of update-in-place for Win/Unix builds.
updated to latest AlphaTcl, fixing many small bugs, adding XHTML support.
better handling of 'catSig'
further refinement to tabbed-window implementation
added 'soft' as a further word-wrap option
cleaner paragraph filling
better 'characterInsertedHook' implementation to cope with hard and soft wrapping.
added support for short window names to all '-w ' flags. This is slightly slower, though.
fix to bug with split-windows are focus-restoration, which particularly affected incremental searches.
fixed bug in dialog return values with '-l' for embedded listpicks
automatic copying of marks etc when splitting a window.
added synchronicity capabilities to TeX mode when interacting with Yap or Xdvi. This works in both directions, and is also known as 'forward' and 'inverse' search between the source (.tex) and destination (.dvi) file.
fix to error when editing files on MacOS X on non-HFS/HFS+ volumes.
better paragraph::fill and replaceText implementations to avoid unnecessary window scrolling.
fixes to some rare problems with positions in searching and paragraph filling
fixes to macro-recording (thanks Craig).

8.3d7 released -- last update: 07/17/2003 {06:38:41 PM}

partial revamp of window-handling code, paving the way for more flexible windowing concept (e.g. tabbed windows).
better closeFloat dimming
NoteBook fix to bwidgets extension which is distributed with Alphatk.
added first implementation of tabbed windows. Use the 'File --> Use Tabbed Window...' menu item to explore this.
much better torn-off menu positioning (thanks to tips on comp.lang.tcl)

8.3d6 released -- last update: 07/03/2003 {02:09:42 PM}

better handling of split-windows (esp. scrolling, lock-clicking etc)
added preliminary support for highlighting during incremental searches
on MacOS X fixed some focus problems when using the status bar
workaround a TkAqua bug with checked menu items.
ensure status bar isn't hidden when it has grabbed the focus (even if 'hide status bar when in background' is set).
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl fixes, and latest Tcl, Tk where appropriate.
handle status bar hiding in background when status bar is under menus on Windows/Unix.
better handling of tear-off menus (and 'floatShowHide'), particularly mode-dependent ones.
removed support for '-copyto' from 'dialog' command, since it is handled more generally by '-action'.
much cleaner implementation of -action, -dnd.
double-click followed by selection will select words not characters.
'Return' in a large entry field in a dialog will not trigger the default button.
fix to downcase region (thanks Gilles)
colour fix for labelframes in TkAqua.

8.3d5 under development -- last update: 06/02/2003 {12:09:56 PM}

improved command-line support: e.g. 'alphatk +10 file.txt' will open 'file.txt' in alphatk and go to the tenth line.
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl, fixing a large number of small problems, and providing support for Alphatk based installers.
fixes to drag-n-drop and 'set...' dialog interactions
better file type/creator manipulation on MacOS X.
changed default from 'Discard Changes' to 'Save' when closing a dirtied window
added somewhat better support for torn-off main menus and their deletion with 'Close Float'
fix to url::execute
better handling of apple-events and use of 'AlTk' creator code in the AlphaTcl library.
ability to specify a small font for popup menus on MacOS X.
on MacOS X, upgraded to very latest Tcl/Tk for a variety of fixes, some quite important.
fix to opening of files with file::openAny on MacOS X
when used on the command-line, directly throws an error if a file doesn't exist.
fixed a bug in the latest Tk 8.5a0, which caused significant memory leaks in Alphatk when rebuilding any menus (menu clones were never cleaned up).
upgrade to tcllib 1.4
further fix and streamlining of code to set type/creator/permissions in a platform/filesystem specific way
fix to rare problem in save/saveAs when the underlying file had disappeared and Alphatk was told to save again with the same name.
removed some obsolete (Tcl < 8.4) code, since we now require that version.
added better ability to use Alphatk as a command-line tool --- see the "Alpha Manual" -> "# The Command Line" section of documentation.
fix to starkit and starpack distributions of Alphatk (which were broken since version 8.3d3). Starkits and Starpacks should not contain another copy of the mk4tcl extension -- if it is loaded, everything breaks.

8.3d4 under development -- last update: 05/07/2003 {06:05:15 PM}

added ability to query for all monospaced fonts
added '?-w win?' to more commands, including saveAs
cleaner updating of packages file
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl.
fix to split window problem (with select and copy).
better implementation of 'float' and 'unfloat', and more consistent with Alpha 8/X.
fix to setting file type/creator for new files on MacOS X
enhanced 'dialog' command to allow popup menu selection to adjust other dialog entries. Makes the search dialog 'pattern' handling rather simpler.

8.3d3 available -- last update: 03/31/2003 {11:55:30 PM}

'switchTo' works correctly (thanks Daniel) so that, e.g., when typesetting, the foreground/background options work as desired.
workaround TkAqua bug with balloon help
various AlphaTcl fixes.
fix to one more 'Enter' keybinding issue.
added '?-w win?' support to many more commands, and refactored various pieces of Alphatk's core.
fixes to errors thrown with 'Bind LaTeX accents' in TeX mode.
'pos::math' can accept no extra arguments, for agreement with Alpha 8/X
added Mk4tcl to Alphatk distribution.
added rudimentary support for setting 'enscript' command line flags when running on Unix (use 'Page Setup').
updated [version] string for better Alpha 8/X agreement.

8.3d2 available -- last update: 03/03/2003 {12:07:57 PM}

fix to 'Enter' keybinding issues.
on MacOS X dropping of files onto Alphatk at startup and while running should now work for one or multiple files.
correct handling of dead-keys on MacOS X (for typing accented chars)
added 'hideStatusBarWhenInBackground' preference (Windows pref dialog) - this is useful on MacOS X, but less so on Windows, Unix, since there one can drag'n'drop files on the status bar to open them.

8.3d1 available -- last update: 02/25/2003 {02:23:15 PM}

Tcl/Tk 8.4 now required.
upgrade AlphaTcl to version 8.0d1
improved syntax colouring of /* ... */ comments further.
improvements to tkcon interaction.
added simple 'xml' mode, including interaction with the 'starDOM' viewer. If you have 'tdom' installed, this includes parsing of your xml to generate keywords for colouring and completions as well.
C# mode added.
fix to binding problem with '{' '}' on X11.
large number of fixes to AlphaTcl
correct handling of mode-specific font-sizes, and of openHooks on new windows.
fix to startup bgerror confusion if the user pressed cursor keys too early
wrapParagraph/wrapRegion fix (thanks Ralph).
fixed some contextual menu problems introduced with another fix.
variety of OS X-specific fixes to TkAqua.

8.2 released -- last update: 01/30/2003 {10:19:29 AM}

fortran mode improvements (both colouring and file marking)
better syntax colouring of multi-line comments.
added tkcon support by default.
better Java/C++/C mode indentation

8.2fc7 under development -- last update: 01/28/2003 {03:33:04 PM}

upgrade to latest tcllib and AlphaTcl libraries, including large number of minor bugs reported over the last few weeks.
fix to display of line-numbers in the margin when a window is shown with wrapped text.
further fixes to AlphaTcl library
cosmetic improvements
fix to 'breakIntoLines' which fixes certain wrapping problems in HTML mode.
fix to setting tabs of newly opened windows when tabSize preference is anything other than 8. Thanks to Jean-Eric Pin for the report.
upgrade to latest Tcl/Tk bug fixes in standalone executables.
updated Readme
added support for "Page Setup" and "Print" dialogs under Windows, which allow much more control over printing.
extended 'Remember Windows' package to remember the mode and tab size of windows for which they are manually adjusted. This can be turned off in the Remember Windows preferences page.
added ability to print current selection only (again Windows only). (NB: Colour printing is not yet supported)
show/hide status bar as Alphatk is used and not.
fix to some problems with split windows and new tabsize/drag code.
some refactoring of text widget component of Alphatk to improve robustness.
added .tar support to vfs code
fix to Tcl tracing code, and fixes to core Tcl.
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl (7.6)
fix to syntax colouring related to deleting comments

December 24th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2fc5, fc6 under development

smoother startup sequence, and more responsive updating of gui
slight improvements to drag'n'drop on Windows.
better handling of startup splash screen and user-interaction
small improvements to hyper text handling
drag'n'drop inside and between windows now works well with both 'move' and 'copy' actions (use Control key to copy).
'display -w' and 'select -w' no longer force a 'raise' of the window. This only really impacts Diff mode, which should be improved as a result.
added '-labelframe' switch to dialogs. Used by some preferences.
better handling of bindings and the status bar, especially when the status bar gets the focus
moving status bar from bottom of screen to menubar works properly when the user has saved a modified menubar geometry.
better binding lists
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl.
'bindingList' goes inside prefixChar bindings.
small fix to drag'n'drop code.

December 17th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2fc4 under development

much better functionality as a standalone executable on Windows (dropping of files onto the icon, etc) -- it really works well now!
various AlphaTcl fixes and improvements - upgrade to AlphaTcl 7.6b1
Tk.framework distributed with Alphatk supports icons in the menubar on MacOS X 10.2 only.
support for drag'n'drop of text into and out of editing windows on Windows (and possibly also on Unix, since it uses the same tkdnd library). Currently only 'drag as copy' is available (as opposed to dragging text to move/cut it).
more robustness in certain code areas.

December 5th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2fc3 under development

Put preferences in $env(HOME)/Library/Preferences on Mac OS X (instead of in $env(HOME)/.Alphatk-v8 as previously)
some minor fixes to operations as an executable under Windows.
update to latest AlphaTcl library
better colour scheme recognition on Windows.
several cosmetic improvements to Alphatk on Windows.
more robust handling of menu bindings
Alphatk behaves better as a starkit/standalone executable.
fix to building certain complex menus (particularly TeX mode).

November 25th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2fc2

various keybinding fixes, for foreign keyboards, particularly in latex mode.
fix to right-click-drag scrolling of windows: colouring is now updated and line-number margins are also scrolled (note: on Windows/Unix this requires you to hold down shift as well) - thanks for the bug report.
better handling of international keyboards which should avoid all the annoying keybinding errors we see. May still need a few tweaks, but the basic problem is solved in a much more satisfactory way.
added optional arguments -w -font -fontsize -tabsize to 'setFontsTabs'
fixed handling of regexp-sensitive quote characters and syntax colouring, so you can, for example, use '$' as a quote character in latex mode, with: regModeKeywords -a -s green -q \$ \$ TeX {}
updated tclAE, vfs, Memchan extensions for MacOS X.
MacOS X. On Jaguar, the enclosed Tk.framework contains Unicode font handling/rendering (thanks Benny) and a native alert dialog (thanks Mats), and multiline text widget search routes (from me!). These changes will eventually propagate to the official Tk distributions.
routed bgerrors through AlphaTcl's error handling mechanisms.
changed killWindow syntax to ?-w win? to agree with Alpha 8/X.
some fixes to operations (so they have no effect) when no window is open

November 15th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2fc1 released!

approx 20% speed up in syntax colouring (and more may still be possible)
fixed a number of key-binding problems with some of the newer modes/menus.
fix to horizontal scrollbar overlapping last line of text in a window.
added support for '-tab' argument to 'dialog', for example: dialog -b OK 220 260 280 280 -tab {meeny meeny miney moe} 2 10 298 240 \ -w 300 -h 300 \ -n meeny -b "button on meeny" 20 20 200 40 \ -n miney -b "button on miney" 20 20 200 40 \ -n moe -b "button on moe" 20 20 200 40 (this requires that you have Iwidgets available to Alphatk).
cleaned up some of dialogs code
further colouring cleanup and enhancement
added support for preliminary tip113 implementation to speed up searching in windows (at least 5x faster than before at marking large files), added '-all' flag to 'search', but will throw an error on older Tcl/Tk.
double-clicking on braces/parentheses/quotes now selects the text to the matching pair (or for quotes the nearest other quote).

October 16th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2b13 released!

fix to rare problem in backwards searches near end of window, as shown up by 'New With Content' in HTML mode.
small balloon help fix on Windows.
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl.
some support for single-quote colouring. Example added to matlab mode (regModeKeywords -a -q ' ' green MATL {})
improvements to colouring code, which should be somewhat faster now.
better hooks implementation which fixes some problems with recursive calling of hooks, particularly regarding the Open Windows menu.
MacOS X: correct keybindings in electric menu (and others).
fix to some small Tkaqua issues.
fix to rare problem with interactions between different modes tabSize preferences.
small fixes for MacOS X.
core Tk fixes for MacOS X for standalone release there (dead keys, key bindings in menus in particular).
fix to describeBinding for keys 1,2,3 etc, under some rare circumstances.
fix to some rare keybindings in a few modes.
upgrade to latest AlphaTcl, fixing a variety of encoding problems, and adding improved encoding support on a mode-dependent basis.
various version control improvements
MacOS X: some fixes to TkAqua.
better handling of hooks for AlphaTcl popups of all kinds.
updated Alphatk for new titlebar hooks.
added support for TclPro debugger, which is now included with Alphatk. This should work out of the box on Windows. On Unix or other platforms you will need to have the 'parser' package compiled and available.
better handling of multiple interpreters and 'grabs' in dialogs.
fix to 'delete' with rectangular selection present.
actually include TclPro debugger code in .zip (previously only in .kit or .tar.gz due to archiving problems).
better balloon help for popup menus on MacOS X.

September 9th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2b11 released!

various linux-specific fixes.
numerous MacOS X fixes (balloon help, keybindings)
replaced uses of tcl_platform(windowingsystem) by alpha::windowingsystem to accord with recent changes to Tk.
upgrade to AlphaTcl 7.6d7 (big updates to TeX, Bib modes)
various osx-specific fixes.
add tkdnd to Windows distribution.
fix to runalpha.bat, runalpha.tcl on Windows (thanks Ted)
fix to error being thrown when clicking on red-dot to save a window which hasn't previously been saved (thanks Holger)
bunch of small fixes to various platforms
contextual menus and command-double-clicking work on OS X.
variety of key-binding improvements (esp for key pads)
better control over encodings popup menu, and better documentation of encodings.
balloon help now works properly on MacOS X.
option-left/right and various other key-bindings now work on OS X.

August 20th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2b10 released!

use 'Option' for rectangular selection on MacOS X.
upgrade to AlphaTcl 7.6d6
added 'winNames -fnocount'
can now drop files on Alphatk, etc, on MacOS X.
open file dialogs in home directory, if no window is currently open.
some fixes to launching of applications and app::isRunning on OS X.
removed empty eventHandler and specFromPathName definitions.
small fix to using cursor keys to abort a status-line search.
implement 'switchTo' for MacOS X.
added 'permissions' and 'executable' switch to the file-info popup
on unix, when saving files, permissions are retained.
entire vertical scrollbar shown on split windows on MacOSX.
better selection colouring (foreground and background) on MacOSX.
better handling of application and help menus on MacOSX.
small fix to 'describeBinding'
fix to unusual interaction between status prompts and querying of current selection.
'aspell' spellcheck support added for unix/win/macosx.
fix to http hyperlinks (and url::execute) on MacOS X.
fix to 'float'
added support for 'platform' menu in status bar. Sets the eol of the current window.
background and foreground colours are remembered and used for new windows.
saveAs -f forces deletion of any pre-existing file.
smoother status bar handling of popups.
autoSave only saves windows which exist on disk.
status-bar location fixes for MacOS X
key-capture fixes for MacOS X
proper nameFromAppl implementation for MacOS X (many thanks to Bernard, Daniel and Jon for this and associated file type/creator and launch functionality).
some fixes to Aqua-tk (tk::PlaceWindow, key-event processing) for better operation on MacOS X.
fix to 'upcaseWord'
improved coreKeyPrompt and status::prompt, allowing use of navigation keys.
lots of MacOS X fixes, and some streamlining of application-selection
workaround for Tk slowdown-problem with scrolling
MacOS X: recompile allowing large numbers of menus.
upgrades to AlphaTcl library.
fix to startup 'splash screen infinite loop' issue on MacOS X.
allow user-configurability of window icons on Windows OS (see 'Windows' prefs dialog).
added a 'wrap' popup menu in the status bar: you can now set mode-dependent wrap preferences of none (no wrapping), 'wrap' (automatically insert newlines as you type), 'soft-char' (visually wrap long lines for display, but don't actually insert newlines in the text), 'soft-word' (like soft-char, but only visually wrap at word-breaks).
shortened menu name to AlphaDev (not Alpha Developer).
fix to broken contextual menu in last couple of releases.
fix to focus handling with nested dialogs.
updated getFileInfo for MacOS X.
bunch of improvements for better interoperability on OS-X, and some Windows minor fixes too.
standalone version available for MacOS X.
code folding extended to Java, TeX modes, in addition to C, C++, Tcl.
fix to rare problem in 'edit' when duplicates exist, but original doesn't.
cleanup of colouring code -- all colouring information is now stored away in ::tw::${mode}::
pairs of hyperlinks which overlap/touch are now handled correctly.
upgraded to AlphaTcl 7.6d3
more independence for enhancedTextWidget.
further enhancements to code folding.
cleanup of syntax colouring and separation of interface. Fixed a new problem with 'saveAs' setting the mode information incorrectly for colouring of a window.
fix to 'setFontTabs' dialog, and 'chooseFontTab'
lots of AlphaTcl improvements, including much better Web browsing in WWW menu (can handle frames now).
added special corner elements to windows on Windows OS.
changed tearoff flag value to 0 by default.
better support for international keyboards.
changed style of torn-off marks menu.
updated to AlphaTcl 7.6d5
various small fixes and improvements for Mac OS X.
more MacOS X fixes (you can now capture output from TeX runs, etc).
small fix to setFontsTabs dialog.

May 8th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.2d2 released!

added support for 'the mark' -- yank, exchange point and mark etc. (thanks Craig, Mark).
provided user-control over balloon help delays (see Prefs->Help).
first implementation of rectangular selection. This work using the mouse only, when holding down the 'Alt' key. Note that the procedure 'selectLimits' returns just the first and last selected position. Use 'selectSegments' to get a list of all selected segments.
fix to bug on MacOS X with setting of platform key-bindings.
removed bad duplicate killLine
better handling of split windows and 'text_cmd'
much more consistent handling of Text vs AlphaStyle bindings, which also means better wrapping of long lines. Enhanced text windows no longer use 'Text' bindings at all.
fix to 'otherPane'
update of text_cmds along line of 'text_cmd' change already used.
fix to problem when deleting to 'maxPos', which could show up as bugs in 'comment::Line' on the last line, amongst other procedures (reported by Joachim -- thanks).
balloon help more robust to strange registrations. Also force the highlightthickness to be zero.
lots of small changes which should make things run better on MacOS X.
fix to problem with update and moving of status bar on the fly.
early prefs (e.g. status bar position) now saved in a more consistent fashion. A side-effect is a temporary loss of the old value of these preferences (just set them again and all will be fine).
contextual menus now supported. Right-click now mapped to contextual menu and Alt-right-click is the path popup (which used to be accessed with right-click).
editing of remote Wiki pages
fixed some odd line-ending issues, and the root cause of the problem in supersearch.
better indentation in C, C++, Java modes.
fix to saveAs of read-only windows not properly enabling the window.
suspendHook is called at appropriate times -- this should work pretty well, except when native dialogs are brought up, when Tk can't capture the fact that it hasn't lost the focus.
allow balloon help to be turned off completely.
various improvements primarily for MacOS X.
added 'TclAE2.0' distribution for use on MacOS X.
improved positioning of cursor after 'undo'
built in dialogs respond to alt/cmd-keypresses.
better 'select' and 'getPos'
fix bug in 'Menu' wrt submenus which use an icon (e.g. the new AppleScript menu).
printing fix (blank lines)
further improvement to 'text_cmd' and 'text_cmds' so they apply to the correct windows, even when new windows are in the process of being created. This means that all the 'pos' related commands will return correct values at all times (and fixes a very rare infinite loop when performing batch searches).
'oneSpace' fix which fixes problem with electric left brace.
fix bug with '#' bindings on Unix.
much, much better handling of hypertext links.
wiki mode and uploading of Wiki pages much better.
better colouring of \"
added basic 'TAGS' support.
better status bar handling when not visible.
added '-mode' option to 'edit'.
editing of TIPs now works.
Alphatk needs Tcl 8.1.1 (8.1 is not enough). This has been true for some time, but now Alphatk explicitly throws a startup error if Tcl is too old.
added '-w' to lineStart, nextLineStart, posToRowCol, etc.
moved some code to new file "alpha_positions.tcl"
further pos:: improvements
added 'Memchan' to the distribution for use by vfs.
small fix to 'Menu' with multiple columns and duplicate items.
overhauled handling of encodings for greater robustness (fixes at least one known bug in which the Windows menu could become corrupted).
small 'rectangular selection' fix.
fix to 'bindingsList' (which fixes a problem with dialog::getAKey).
fix to possible infinite loop in fill paragraph.
exposed 'ctrl-alt-w' as 'fold' in the edit menu. Only works in Tcl, C and C++ modes at the moment. If you have feedback on how folding should work, please send it to me (or discuss on the alphatcl-developer mailing list).
added versions of icOpen and icGetPref from Craig.
enhanced getWinInfo to agree with Alpha 8.
don't bother trying to colour extremely long lines properly.
activateHook can't be called recursively any more. Makes for saner behaviour in some strange circumstances.
overhaul to AlphaTcl startup sequence, unifying some differences between Alphatk and Alpha 8/X.

Feb 11th, 2002 -- Alphatk 8.1 available!

removed stdout messages during startup
added better Unix installation instructions
fix to bad split window problem just introduced.
exposed automatic wrapping to AlphaTcl, and improved it (this is now in the proc 'characterInsertedHook').
added check for another copy of Alphatk running (on Windows anyway) and an alert to the user.
row/col updated when switching windows.
fix to 'replaceText' to agree with Alpha
correct positioning after 'characterInsertedHook'.
split window and getWinInfo 'split' fix
tk divert hooks work with split windows
various minor fixes, updated to AlphaTcl 7.5 (final)
fixes to a variety of seldom-used editing functions (thanks Craig)
fix to dimmed menu items with shortcuts
fixed 'other pane' functionality.

Dec 17th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.1fc1 available!

fix to minor problem with backwards matching of quotes
better updating of row/col indicator in status bar.
updated to AlphaTcl 7.5fc2
small fix to mismatched quote error messages.
click on the 'row column' indicator to use 'goto line' dialog
next/prevLine have better behaviour with selection.
further separation between core alphatk and the enhanced text widget
various dialogs etc improved by Craig.
better handling of when status indicators are visible.
small fixes to popups and some more cleanup. Also fix dup window bug introduced a few days ago.
fix to problem with windows with empty mode.
'getChar' improvement

Nov 26th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.1b3 available!

third beta release of Alphatk 8.1
some fixes with vfs and filesets.
'rememberWindows' package only remembers info for file windows, and also ignores trailing <2> etc for duplicates.
now colour portions of windows revealed due to resizing.
better colouring when deleting large blocks of text.
refactored colouring code so it is more robust, easier to understand and copes better with multi-line comments.
optimised some of the colouring code so it's at least 10% faster.
much better, cleaner implementation of matchIt and various searching routines for balanced braces etc.
'undo' returns cursor to correct position (off by 1 in recent releases)
overhaul of window splitting. No more functionality right now, but much easier to extend in the future.
somewhat better drag and drop.
fix to minor bug in initial brace finding for 'balance'
fix to broken electrics stuff due to 'mark names' not working.
minor fix to 'undo' positioning.
better drag'n'drop onto the status bar.
updated to AlphaTcl 7.5fc1
fix to certain at bottom of screen not scrolling the window.
fix to 'search' messing with old \w strings.
removed 'trace' button from status bar, since we have the alpha dev menu.
added ability to access tkcon from Alphatk.
updates to AlphaTcl library (7.5b3 now).
better handling of mode-specific vs global bindings, particularly for mode-menus which are made global and would previously perhaps not have correct bindings because they were setup too early.
improved balloon help to deal with nested subwindows properly.
uninstall is more thorough.
fixes to regModeKeywords and colouring for more flexibility
fix to setRGB
much better handling of recolouring when triggered by, e.g., the Tcl mode prefs dialog.
colours are now completely defined in AlphaTcl.
colouring improvements to split windows.
updated to AlphaTcl 7.5b2. Numerous small improvements.
fix to insertText so 'insertText -w' isn't wrongly interpreted.
'undo/redo' move the cursor and ensure the changed region is displayed.
some improvements from Craig (thanks!)
fix for mode bindings vs more-specific global bindings difference to Alpha.
fix to problem in regModeKeyords when a mark contains spaces, and to ensure proper recolouring of the window.
some improvements to dialog, listpick dealing with selection and key-bindings. You can now use 'return/tab/shift-tab' as expected in a dialog. If you want literal return/tab to be entered, then add the 'control' key.
added alt-x/c/v bindings in dialogs.
vcs, marks, funcs menus are now both built and controlled entirely from AlphaTcl.
use hooks for mode menu so it is controlled from AlphaTcl.
dimmed menu item creation fix (bug#360)
most encoding menu support moved to AlphaTcl.
Alphatk should startup ok even if stdout/stderr don't exist.
alpha_procs.tcl no longer necessary.
moved more encoding stuff to AlphaTcl.

Sept 16th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.1d2 available!

An early release of Alphatk 8.1d2 is now available. The changes so far:

main features of Alphatk 8.1 are now at least partly implemented. Will now focus on getting those features complete. These include: line numbers in windows, keyboard macros, drag'n'drop support (using the tkdnd extension) in dialogs, better encoding support.
improved text::color
the newly updated WWW menu provides excellent 'lynx-like' web browsing within Alphatk (thanks Craig!).
fix to v. rare colouring problem which could particularly occur in latex mode.
colouring will work more effectively for non-frontmost windows.
improved storage of hypers in window so they are correctly cleaned up.
updates to AlphaTcl library
beginnings of support for keyboard macros (only a handful of commands are recorded at present, however).
to make way for improvements in the editing window, split that code into two pieces, and made better separation between 'generic editing code' and alphatk specific code.
'select' tries to ensure the entire selection is visible. This means multi-line browse windows work much better, but could potentially have some negative side-effects.
greater sharing of standard AlphaTcl key bindings.
killWindow now does an 'update' if it needs to bring another window to the front, which fixes a rare problem with switching, killing and saveAs'ing windows.
Alt F11 (or Windows menu) now toggles a new margin display of line numbers. In the future this margin may be used interactively (e.g. to set breakpoints, etc).
better display of line/column information in status bar.
partial implementation of icGetPref on windows.
better colouring of last line in window
bit of a directory reorganisation
updates to tkdiffControl, etc, and removed tkdiff.exe, since the standalone script works fine.
using Tcl 8.4a3 and the vfs package, Alphatk can now start up from a .zip archive of all the AlphaTcl libraries.
lots of AlphaTcl changes, many to improve Alphatk.
fixed case insensitivity issue so startup is improved from a vfs.
on MacTk, with Tk 8.4a3 we need to update our use of unsupported1
macros improvements
when a window changes mode we update bindtags list.
fix to statusConfigure broken in recent release.
better floating menu handling
reversed the 'open a duplicate/go to existing' dialog.
better menu column wrapping in 'Menu'
ftp package now distributed with Alphatk.
fixed rare bug in 'prompt' (thanks)
dialog offsets can be positive.
better drag'n'drop (using tkdnd) and significant AlphaTcl improvements.
dialog command more robust.
work around dnd bugs in multi-page dialogs.
reversed priority of Alpha vs AlphaStyle bindings. Fixes one common problem, but must check whether it introduces others.
note that various ctrl-z/x/c etc bindings have gone in this release. alt-z/x/c are the defaults on that front.
better handling of encodings, especially wrt installers etc.
re-enabled ctrl-z/x/c/v for standard operations on Windows. (although note that Alphatk supports alt-z/x/c/v as an alternative which does not conflict with emacs-emulation).
better interaction with MikTeX. Use: C:\Apps\Alphatk\runalpha.bat "%f" -line %l as your YAP command line, and set the additional tex flags to '--src' for this to work. You may also need to edit the runalpha.bat file.
slightly better dnd workaround in dialogs code.
fixed bug in dialogs with password entry side-effects

May 16th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0 available!

Alphatk 8.0 is now available. A variety of small bugs have been fixed since the 8.0fc4 release. Work will now commence on a variety of new features for 8.1.

April 27th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0fc4 available!

Alphatk 8.0fc4 is now available. From the change log:

float and unfloat are implemented. (try shift-alt-F)
fix to Menu when it contains an item called Menu which isn't actually a sub menu.
getfile takes the new -types flag.
added '-l' flag to dialog for list items.
updated AlphaTcl to 7.5d11

April 12th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0fc3 available!

Alphatk 8.0fc3 is now available. From the change log:

cut and copy when selected in the Edit menu now work (thanks for the bug report!).
also made 'paste' independent of Tk's core tcl routines.
improved application dialogs again, up to AlphaTcl7.5d6
fix to rare problem in 'saveAs'
implemented 'other pane'
getGeometry, sizeWin, moveWin can now take window short names.
console named more usefully, various AlphaTcl fixes.
windows menu and submenus are more useful.
'edit' actions external to Alphatk have their encodings checked, which should now allow files with non-ascii character-names to be sent to Alphatk.
AlphaTcl up to 7.5d8, including all fixes from 7.4.2
HTML, CSS modes and documentation up to version 3.1
quit works better if extremely early in startup process.
long menus should wrap better.

March 28th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0fc2 available!

Alphatk 8.0fc2 is now available. From the change log:

better application selection dialog
now up to AlphaTcl 7.5d4; various fixes over 7.4.1.
fix of rare infinite loop in HTML mode.
fix for 'describe binding' with shift vs non-shift keys (e.g. '>' in html mode).
small improvement to 'prompt' dialogs.
implemented wrapText.

March 5th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0fc1 available!

Alphatk 8.0fc1 is now available. This version can now automatically recognise Unicode files (for opening or saving), and allows you to resize the main menubar. There are also numerous minor fixes, and an updated AlphaTcl library. From the change log:

added unicode and encodings help file.
simplified some dialogs code, beginnings of support for tabbed dialogs.
slightly better dnd support (dragging a file onto the status bar or menu bar should work on windows and unix). Note that most of the menu bar is a native-menu on windows, and therefore won't accept these kinds of drags. All of this requires 'tkdnd'.
AlphaTcl up to 7.4.1 (final release).
beginnings of support for a control-bar in the left margin (allowing things like line-numbers, debugger breakpoints etc. to be displayed).
added row/col display to status bar
ordinary clicking in the red 'modified' status indicator saves the window (as well as ctrl-clicking which worked before).
better implementation of the popup mode/encoding menus and the position indicator

January 8th, 2001 -- Alphatk 8.0b3 has been released!

Alphatk 8.0b3 has been released and is available immediately. This version contains a significantly more robust AlphaTcl library, which is now at version 7.4fc4. Filesets and editing of remote files are very stable now.

November 28th, 2000 -- Alphatk 8.0b2 has been released!

Alphatk 8.0b2 has been released and is available immediately. This version contains numerous small enhancements and bug fixes over 8.0b1, and all users are recommended to upgrade.

November 6th, 2000 -- Alphatk 8.0b2 prerelease available!

A prerelease version of Alphatk 8.0b2 has been made available. This version adds support for scripted documents (using the latest version of TclKit only), and is therefore available as a single file 'alpha.bin' as well as the usual .zip/.tar.gz archives. It also adds a mode for editing python files, and fixes a couple of small problems. The added support of scripted documents means you can now edit the contents of .zip files directly from Alphatk (this ability is available by default in the standalone scripted-doc version, or in the usual archived version if you have the Mk4tcl and vfs packages installed)

October 26th, 2000 -- Alphatk 8.0b1 has been released!

Alphatk 8.0b1 has been released and is available immediately. This version contains many improvements since the 7.3 release, including better support for smaller screens, and more user control over the gui layout. Go to the downloads page to get it. It requires Tcl/Tk 8.1 or newer.

August 8th, 2000 -- final version of Alphatk 7.3 released.

This is the first full public release of Alphatk, the premier scriptable cross-platform editor for HTML, Java, Tcl, C++, TeX, Perl and other languages. It will run on any platform for which Tcl/Tk versions 8.1 or newer are available (i.e. most Unix platforms, Windows 95/98/NT/2000, and MacOS).

Alphatk 7.3 or 8.0 have a retail price of US$40, and are available immediately. To use Alphatk, you must purchase a license to Alphatk through Kagi's online services.

1997 to August 2000 -- Alphatk in development

Alphatk was in development for a few years, in two parts: as a re-implementation of a set of interfaces originally defined by the MacOS-editor 'Alpha', and as a set of cross-platform changes to the Tcl code which comes with Alpha leading to the 'AlphaTcl' library of code which is now shared by Alpha and Alphatk.