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UPDATE from Developer, Dated August 15, 2004 All work (as previously detailed below) on the evolutionary Cool Page version 3 has been stopped, and work on a radical new Cool Page version 4 has begun. Cool Page version 4 will be a complete rewrite so we can accomplish revolutionary increase in functionality. Cool Page version 3 and earlier was programmed in object oriented C++ code, on top of Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). Cool Page version 4 is being rewritten in object oriented C# on top of platform independent .Net. Our strategy will combine the use of best of Microsoft's massive .Net efforts, with the best open source efforts, to deliver a Cool Page which will rival the best web page editors (e.g. FrontPage, PageMill, NetObjects Fusion, and Dreamweaver), which run on ALL COMPUTERS (including Macintosh, Linux, etc), and which will retain and further extend Cool Page's unique ease of use and direct editing metaphor. A key advance of .Net is we can do OOA (Object Oriented Applications) instead of OOP (Object Oriented Programming). This means that it will be easy for any programmer to extend Cool Page. Also the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of version 4 will be programmed completely in xHTML, thus leveraging the browser on each platform Cool Page will run. This will make version 4 portable to all types of computers, and make it easy for any one (even not a programmer) to customize the GUI of Cool Page. Note that the Developer of Cool Page is currently also working on a radical solution to the spam problem faced by the world, and as this progress is completed over the next 2 months or so, this will free up more time for Cool Page version 4 development. All features that were added to Cool Page version 3 will also be included in version 4, with many other additional new features planned: (1) Ability to import existing HTML pages and edit them (2) FlexCanvas(tm), an automated ability for pages designed in Cool Page to format to the width of the browser window. (3) Stylesheets (where you give names to groups of formatting and can change instance in one edit) (4) Hierarchal Grouping, where Groups can be grouped. When ungrouped, the sub-Groups have not been destroyed. (5) DSEffects.com will be providing exciting new animated Flash Effects to augment the existing Java effects (DS Applets). (6) More extensive text formatting options. (7) Static Image and font effects, such as brightness, drop shadow, rotate, etc. (8) More pre-programmed script options for PageGoo(tm), the Events feature. Etc. More on "FlexCanvas". "FlexCanvas" is somewhat similar to Galaxy concept: http://www.byte.com/art/9709/sec8/art1.htm, except that the determination of what is a "spring" and what is a "strut" is automatic and scalable via a slider a user can drag. Also the algorithm and output is designed for HTML compatibility. The whitespace is not marked up by the user. The user merely drags+drops as they do now in Cool Page. Then the algorithm automatically finds the stretchable space and encodes the HTML such that they page will stretch to other browser window sizes automatically and in an expected and predictable manner which maintains the "exact layout experience". It is a revolutionary algorithm which should hopefully enable the best of both (exact layout and hand-coded HTML) simply by dragging and dropping! More on "OOA". The Developr thinks this is what Microsoft had in mind with COM and ActiveX, but their approach was too granular at the programming level and not granular enough at the user level. In other words, an "OBJECT" should be something meaningful to user at a granularity which is meaningful to user. Instead of plugging XLS documents in DOC documents as COM did/does. We do it at object level. And instead of programming various classes with all their multitude of dependencies (DLL hell!) the dependencies will be well-defined by the OBJECT interface as declared by the programmer. Developer has chosen C# + .Net because it supports these concepts (Assemblies and Reflection) with cross-language and operating system capability. Now we just have to design the best paradigm for application OBJECTs. The concept is to develop a minimal set of GUI and OBJECT concept which can then be extended in sub-GUIs which are specialized to the each type of OBJECT. Think of the simple button on CP toolbar for changing the layer of an OBJECT. Unlike Word, which has "Send to Front", "Send to Back", etc.. the CP button is smart enough to know if there are other objects behind of in front and then it rotates towards front and then to back for each click on. But only one simple button needed. That way improvements (upgrades) are more granular at the OBJECT level, so one can pick and choose what they want without the "all or nothing approach" to advances. For example, to support new image effects, there Image OBJECT would be updated. But people could choose NOT to upgrade the Image OBJECT while upgrading some other OBJECT type. Addon object upgrade vs. entire product upgrade granularity... - Shelby Moore III CEO and Chief Programmer 3Dize.com |
Changes Made So Far Version 3.0 (in progress...more to come...) 175. Added SetObjectData() and GetObjectData() to the Cool Page API section. Also increased the maximum number of parameters for API calls, such as SetObjectFiles(), to 24 from 10. This will enable easier plugin programming and more sophisticated plugins, due to ability to store the plugin data separate from the html. This eliminates requirement of parsing of html by plugin. Plugins are now advised to delay SetObject*() calls until <body onunload> event. 174. Unicode (unicode.org) is used for extended character sets (> ascii 128) when Compatible Browsers set to version 4.0 or higher, to insure that extended characters sets are always visible in visitor’s browser, regardless of which language or font settings the visitor has configured in their browser. Examples of extended characters are those inserted using Special Character , Windows CharMap utility, or accented characters on international Latin derivative language keyboards. Note this improvement does not address the more complex issue of creation of pages with symbolic fonts and “non-latin” (“non-western”) derived international character sets, which do not have the standard extended ascii mappings. Thus, Hebrew, Asian, etc. markets are still not properly addressed with this improvement. PRO 173. When (and only when) Visitor Resize is checked (is on) and Border is not checked (is off) for Frame Sets, a small amount of transparent (background color shows) spacing will appear between frames so that invisible resize bar can be selected with mouse. Previously Visitor Resize was always forced to off (not checked) when Border was off (not checked). There is currently no way to set the background color for the Frame Sets, which will only show when such transparent spacing is used, except by editing the html code produced. The background color of frames have always been editable in COOL Page. PRO 172. When (and only when) Border is checked (is on) for ALL frames in a Frame Set, then the border will be slightly wider as normally expected for that browser. When Border is on (checked) for only some of the frames, then (as in previous versions of COOL Page), the border is made narrower than normal, so that other frames (without borders) will not have spacing in between them. MST 171. Added Tree Menu plugin to new Menu folder of Objects window. This exciting new plugin provides a highly customizeable, hierarchal tree menu integrated with COOL Page. An example appears on http://coolpagehelp.com, and in the new User Manual included with COOL Page. This Tree Menu is free for use in all levels of Cool Page, but only Cool Page Webmaster removes the “Cool Page” link from bottom of menu, and enables the Window setting of the Tree Menu. As far as we know, at time of release, this is the only user configureable Tree Menu in the world which is 100% compatible with search engines (they can follow the links in menu), has customizeable styles, can set different icon per item, is instaneously fast even with 1000s of items, and correctly reflows surrounding content and generates/removes scroll bars when expanded/contracted. In most cases, the speed of transfer (load) of this Tree Menu over (slow) connection is faster than other Tree Menus, because although the html is larger, it is highly compressed (80+%) by the compression built into the modem, and because other Tree Menus depend on large amount of Javascript which is not usually as compressible. Version 2.72 170. For 4.0 or greater Compatible Browsers setting (the default setting), Text Boxes now automatically and dynamically resize themselves in the vertical dimension to fit the text content. 169. Added keyboard text selection to Text Box. 168. Now possible to select a word without selecting the trailing space in Text Box. 167. Text Box operations, mostly notably text selection with mouse, are now faster. In the most common case where there are many small Text Boxes on a page, text selection may be many times faster and more responsive. Even for a single large Text Box, expect significant improvement no less than 25% faster. This improvement does not cull unnecessary redraws (on future todo list), thus the more text per Text Box will offset some of the gains of this speed improvement. 166. Right-click context menus for Copy, Cut, Paste, Open In New Window, etc., are now available when editing a plugin Object. See Extend COOL Page capabilities for more information on plugins. Context menus are still not available when clicking the page background, because it does not make sense to View Source, Add to Favorites, etc.. on a plugin. Also the accelerator keystrokes for Copy, Cut, Paste are still not supported. Version 2.71 165. Added SetPersistentString() and GetPersistentString() to the Cool Page API section. This will enable “set once” registration keys and other improvements in plugins. 164. Updated the \Flash\Flare objects in Objects window. 163. Added \E-Commerce\Shopping Carts\Pageville shopping cart, \Button\Pageville and \Clip Art\Pageville to Objects window. 162. Our “Web Search” has been removed, because the service no longer functions. Users should delete the “Web Search” from their old web pages. It is easy to add a web search for any of the popular search engines using HTML Object. FREE 161. “Web Search” is no longer forced on pages made with FREE version. 160. Removed the Host = Cool Page because we are no longer selling hosting. We wish to affiliate with many different hosts and will not play favorites. Only very popular hosts will be listed in Publish. Those using Host = Cool Page should contact EzHoster for instructions, as we transfered all our hosting customers to them. 159. Removed the Host = digiweb.com because their web site is no longer functioning. 158. Marked the Host = geocities.com choice in Publish as not free, because GeoCities (Yahoo) no longer allows FTP upload (required by Publish) for free accounts. Using Publish with a free GeoCities account will now fail. If you were using GeoCities.com, we suggest you change to another free host listed in Host, and re-Publish your web site pages. Or you may use Export and then upload your files manually using GeoCities’s online file manager. Or you may purchase the GeoCities Plus hosting to continue to use Publish. Note, we are not affiliated with GeoCities and we do not advise which Host you should use. 157. Window is no longer modified when changing Link, except when Link begins with #. STD 156. Paid versions no longer force popup on Link to coolpage.com. Removed the “Link3Dize()” Javascript popup function from all paid versions. Note the hidden link (not popup) to coolpage.com remains for FREE and Standard only. 155. Replaced Host = EzHoster with Host = virtualave.net as the default Host in Publish, because EzHoster is no longer offering free hosting and we are phasing out our partnership with EzHoster. 154. Added Host = attbi.com choice in Publish, because @Home customers have been reclaimed by AT&T Broadband division. 153. By default, number of Undo levels saved is 100, instead of unlimited. Saving more than 100 levels was creating huge multi-MB files. For users who need more levels, they can increase in Preferences. 152. Fixed the html that was produced for Repeat Count and Volume for background sounds. 151. Removed the Host = nbci.com choice in Publish, because nbci.com no longer offers free hosting. NBCi.com suddenly without sufficient warning announced they would no longer offer hosting as described on following web page, and they are terminating all free hosting accounts effective June 15, 2001: If you were using NBCi.com, we suggest you change to another free host listed in Host, and re-Publish your web site page. |