32-bit ACE Client version history 2.4.2 2/12/2000 1 - Added support for an icon in the system tray. This option is located in the Preferences window. 2 - Added some new things for increased web support. 3 - Added a new API command called WCITF:. This command stands for Write Client Info To File. It writes the number of groups, number of pages, page names, group names, button captions, button position info and button visible info to a file. ACE may use this in the future for web interface support. You may also be able to use it for your own purposes. The file is in standard INI file format. See api32.txt for details. 4 - Fixed a problem in the startup code that causes the client to be visible when started via COM (it should have not been visible). If started via COM (web page, for example), the client will appear only in the system tray. ---------------- 2.4.0 2/4/2000 1 - The client is now an EXE server, which means it supports a COM interface. 2 - Added properties and methods to the COM interface to allow access to client info. This is needed for the new WEB interface provided by ACEC-ASP.DLL. ----------------- 2.2.6 1/21/2000 1 - The client now appends an ASCII 1 to HV data that it forwards to one of its serial ports. ----------------- 2.2.5 1/14/2000 1 - Added a feature to move the mouse when displaying caller id info in a popup window. This is intended to exit a screen saver so you can see the popup window. If you have a password configured for your screen saver then this will cause the password window to be displayed. 2 - Added support for having a HomeVision compatible device connected to a client serial port. New options for this feature can be found on the SERVER tab of the Serial Port Config window and in the HomeVision Config window. See the on-line help file for full details. 3 - Added support for having data received on any client serial port forwarded to ECS on the ACE Server PC. This option is enabled on the SERVER tab of the Serial Port Config window. 4 - Updated the help file. ---------------- 2.2.3 10/30/99 1 - Fixed a bug with the SHELLEX api command when the client was being run under Win2000. 2 - Added 2 new api commands for setting the date and time on the client. These commands are: TIMESET: and DATESET:. See api32.txt for details. ---------------- 2.2.1 10/11/99 1 - Fixed a problem with the Outline setting for buttons not being saved. However, the only way to enable the outline for a button is to use the BTNPIC api command and set the Button Style value to 2 (Win 3.x style). Adding the Button Style setting to the Button Config window is under consideration. 2 - Fixed a problem with re-sizing the tab at the bottom of the main window when restoring the main window to its normal size after being maximized. This only applies if the NEW method of re-sizing is enabled. 3 - The installation now includes the latest version of DAO350.DLL (3.51.1608.0). --------------- 2.2.0 10/4/99 1 - This version is the first one compiled with VB6 SP3. It requires MDAC 2.1. MDAC requires DCOM. NT4 includes DCOM. Win98 usually includes DCOM. Win95 does not include DCOM. So, if you are running Win95 you will have to download and install DCOM from the link on the ACE web page. If running Win98 you might also have to install DCOM. Follow the links on the ACE web page to download these components. The README.TXT file has detailed installation/ugrade instructions. 2 - The ace-c.ini file in the Windows folder must be renamed to ace-c32.ini. If you have been using the 16-bit client then don't delete the ace-c.ini file. The 16-bit client will continue to use ace-c.ini and the 32-bit client now will use ace-c32.ini. This allows the 16 and 32 bit clients to maintain different configurations and use different BDF's. 3 - Fixed a problem with loading a background picture when changing groups. ACE now looks in the directory specified for background pictures that you setup in the Preferences window. It used to look in the directory specified for button pictures. If you are using background pictures you may have to move your picture files or change the path specified in the Preferences setup window. 4 - Fixed a problem with setting the HomeVision communication timeout period. 5 - Fixed a problem with the RESTART api command. The RESTART command now requires the file ACE-RST2.EXE to be in the same folder as the 32-bit client executable. ACE-RST2.EXE is now included in the client installation. --------------------- 2.1.5 9/14/99 1 - Fixed a problem that could crash ACE if in the Serial Command Configuration window and you clicked OK without adding any commands. ------------------- 2.1.4 9/2/99 1 - Fixed a problem that would crash the client if the Serial Port Monitor window was minimized. 2 - Added support for larger fonts in the MSG window that is displayed by the MSGx series of API commands. The font size is set on the GENERAL tab of the Preferences window. 3 - The WASS (winamp song selector window) now has a larger area to display song titles. 4 - An ADD button has been added to the Button Config window that allows you to specify more than 1 API command for a button. Clicking the ADD button places an ASCII 1 at the end of the API command string. You can then enter another API command. The ADD button is only visible on the ACE tab if you are configuring a Client or Server API command. --------------------- 2.1.3 7/26/99 1 - When using the NEW re-size option, the tabs at the bottom of the main window will be re-sized one final time after everything else on the main window has been re-sized. This is to make sure that the tabs are the correct size for some users experiencing a problem with the tabs being too wide and not being able to see some of them since they go out of the main window. 2 - The logic for updating each button's appearance when changing pages/groups has been changed in order to speed things up when changing pages/groups. When changing pages/groups: If a button is ENABLED or configuration mode is active then the button will update as it always has (no change in this case). If a button is NOT ENABLED and you have the option checked to "Hide un-configured buttons" then the button will not get updated with any of its appearance properties (since it will not be visible anyway). This is the case where you should notice a speed increase, especially if you have a lot of buttons on the current page/group that are not enabled. If a button is NOT ENABLED and you have the option un-checked to "Hide un-configured buttons" then the button will get updated with a limited number of its appearance properties so that it will appear as a blank button. This should provide a small speed increase. If configuration mode is active then there will be no speed increase. Since there are many ways to configure buttons I may not have tested every possible combination. To see if everything is working as it should on your system start by changing to different pages/groups and see that all is well. Then enable configuration mode and see if all is well. Finally, change to different page/ groups while in config mode and then exit config mode. ------------------- 2.1.2 7/5/99 1 - The maximum number of characters allowed in an API command assigned to a button has been changed from 140 to 500. The Button Config window will now warn you if you enter an API command longer than this value. If you are running into this limit because you are displaying a long message, you may want to consider placing the message in a text file and using the VIEWFILE API command to display it. 2 - The Button Config window now allows you to specify ToolTip text. This text is displayed if you hover the mouse cursor over the button. 3 - A new API command, BTNTIP, has been added. This command sets the tooltip text for a button. See api32.txt for details. 4 - Updated the help file. 5 - The 32-bit client now supports the following commands that used to only be supported by ACE-32. ACE-32 still supports these commands, but it is no longer necessary to run ACE-32 in order to execute these commands. ACE-32 is still required for WinAMP support. VOL32: main volume MUTE32: main mute WAKEUP: wakes up a pc from either power down mode or from a screen saver WAVVOL32: wav device volume WAVMUTE32: wav device mute AUXVOL32: aux (line) device volume AUXMUTE32: aux (line) device mute CDVOL32: cd devicevolume CDMUTE32: cd device mute IMAGE: display a graphic image file IMAGECLOSE: close the graphic image display window MICVOL32: mic volume MICMUTE32: mic mute MOUSECLICKL: mouse click left button MOUSECLICKR: mouse click right button MOUSECLICKM: mouse click middle button MOUSEMOVE: mouse move ------------------- 2.1.1 7/3/99 1 - Added an entry on the DIRECTORIES tab of the Preferences window to specify the location of picture files used as background pictures. 2 - The Button Config window has changed to allow for the configuration of the new button features. The help file has been updated to include the new features. 3 - The CUSTOM tab in the Group Config window now lets you specify a picture file to display as a background for each group. 4 - Several changes have been made to how picture file names are loaded from a BDF and saved to a BDF. This is in an attempt to easily allow a BDF to be used by different clients on different PC's. Please make sure you configure the directories in the Preferences window before configuring buttons and API commands. 5 - The help file and API32.TXT have been updated. 6 - There is now a 31st button (button 30). This button is always hidden, but re-sizes along with the other buttons when the main client window is re-sized. ACE uses this button to return a button to its normal size when it is no longer sized to the picture. You can also use this button in the BTNSIZEC API command if you wish. 7 - ACE should now re-size buttons correctly when changing pages and groups. --------------------- 2.1.0 6/21/99 1 - Fixed a problem with the UNLOCKPG command that could crash the client. -------------------- 2.0.9 6/19/99 1 - Fixed a problem with the size of the tabs if you had more than 14 groups. 2 - Fixed a problem with the ECS INVERT option. 3 - Fixed a problem with a button caption changing to the last value from ECS when the client is re-started. 4 - When the BDF is first loaded when the client starts, the client will now replace the path for each button picture with the path specified in the Preferences window on the Directories tab. This allows you to copy a set of BDF's from one PC to another and each PC can have the button picture files under a different path. The one "gotcha" here is that the client will not use the button picture path that you specify in the Preferences window until you re-start the client. If you change this path a message will be displayed reminding you to re-start the client so that the new path is used. --------------------- 2.0.8 6/12/99 1 - The ACE Client now correctly detects if it is running on WIndows NT or not. 2 - The WINTOP and WINNORM commands can now be used for the toolbar and album cover windows too. See api32.txt for details. 3 - The WinAMP Album Cover functionality has been slightly changed. When the "display album covers" option is enabled, nothing has changed. When this option is disabled, pictures will be displayed if the album cover window is already open and the album cover window will NOT close when a song does not have a picture. Thus, when the "display album covers" option is enabled, ACE will automatically open and close the album cover window. Otherwise, you will have to open and close it yourself. 4 - You can now specify multiple passwords for a button. To do this, simply separate each password with a comma and don't use any spaces. For example, to have 123 and *2* and 456 as passwords for a button, enter this string in the password field in the Button Config window: 123,*2*,456 5 - The NEW method of re-sizing is back. Let's see how it works now with the buttons not in windowless mode. It may not work right until you press the RESET button in the Preferences window, re-boot the client and then re-enabled the re-sizing feature. 6 - Added 3 new api commands that allow a Page and/or Group to be locked. The commands are: LOCKPAGE, LOCKGROUP and UNLOCKPG. See api32.txt for details. 7 - A new parameter, PERM, has been added to the BTNPIC, BTNMQ, BTNTRANS and BTNSHAPE commands. Setting this to a 1 will save the command's parameters to the BDF, making it a permanent change. See api32.txt for details. 8 - The BTNPIC, BTNMQ, BTNTRANS and BTNSHAPE commands now stores their values for each button separately. Thus, setting a picture on button 0 on page 0, group 0 will cause that picture to be on the button only when page 0 and group 0 is active. Any other page and group will not display the picture. So, you can now have a different picture on the same button for various pages and groups. Also, the new Button Config window is almost ready that will allow you to easily configure all of the new button options without using api commands. 9 - The BTNPIC, BTNMQ, BTNTRANS and BTNSHAPE commands now work if you are not on the page and group specified in the command. This means, for example, that you can assign a picture to a button on a page and group that is not being displayed. Then, when you do go to that page and group, the picture will be there. 10 - A problem has been fixed that caused the album cover not to change when the picture file was not a BMP file. 11 - Fixed a problem that could lock up the client if you right-clicked a button to bring up the Button Config window. ------------------- 2.0.6 6/8/99 1 - All buttons have been changed from "windowless" mode to "window" mode. Windowless mode consumes less resources, but may have been causing some of the re-size problems. So, it has been disabled for the time being. This causes the buttons to flicker a little more when re-sizing the main window. Let me know how re-sizing works now. 2 - There is now a separate option in the Button Config window for using a custom font size for each button. In the past, if you elected to use custom colors for a button, you also ended up using a custom font size whether or not you wanted to. The two options are now independent. 3 - The BTN api command's "use custom colors" parameter has changed so it can support the new ability to specify custom colors and custom font sizes independently. See api32.txt for details. 4 - The api32.txt file is now a complete list of all supported api commands. Since some parameters may be different between the 16-bit and 32-bit clients, make sure you use the api32.txt file only for the 32-bit client. The commands new to the 32-bit client are grouped together so that it is easier to see what commands are new. ------------------- 2.0.5 6/4/99 1 - The main client window is now re-sized the exact same way as the 16 bit client. The "new" method is not available in this version. Let me know how this works. If you were using the new method, you must start this new client, open the preferences window and change to the old method, click the RESET button and then restart the client. When the client restarts, open the preferences window and enable button resizing. 2 - The buttons have been changed to a different style that has some neat capabilities. But, before I get too excited and implement them, I want to see if the new style works like the old style. The one feature I removed for this new button is the Pressed Background Color. Thus, when you click a button, it will not change to a different color as long as the mouse button is held down. Instead, this button provides a visual pressed look. The background color feature is still available on this new button if you all decide it is desired, but I don't think it is needed. If it is not needed than that is one less thing to store/load/save in the BDF. Let me know what you think about no background color. Also, since I am still learning about how to use these new features, I may not be able to change the background color (even though the capability exists) because of something else I need to do with the button. ------------------- 2.0.4 6/1/99 1 - The button font size is no longer changed when re-sizing the main window and using the new re-size option. 2 - A problem was fixed that caused buttons using a custom font size to be set to the global button font size whenever the main window was re-sized using the old re-size option. 3 - A problem was fixed that caused the client to lock up after receiving an api command from HV. --------------------- 2.0.3 5/31/99 1 - The ACE Client will no longer complain about not having an exported HV schedule file when you open the Button Config window and you are not using HV. 2 - Made a change to the new method of resizing that will hopefully get rid of the error 380 crash. 3 - The WinAMP album cover window will now automatically open (if you have the option enabled to display album covers) when an album cover filename is received. If no album cover picture file is found for the current song, the album cover window will be closed. It will open again once a song is played that has an album cover picture file. If you want to display a special album cover picture when there is no picture available, then put this special picture file in the default music file directory that has been specified in ACE-32. The file MUST be named NOIMAGE.BMP or NOIMAGE.GIF or NOIMAGE.JPG. Since ACE-32 will find this file, it will be sent to all ACE Clients for display and the album cover window will not be closed. --------------------- 2.0.2 5/29/99 1 - Changed the way ACE resizes the tabs at the bottom of the main window. Some users had problems with this tab not being sized properly. ACE now handles the re-sizing of the tabs since the re-size control seemed to have a problem with it. If you were having tab size problems, I am hoping that this will fix it. You may also have to click the RESET button in the Preferences window and then restart the client in order to start fresh. 2 - Added an option in the Preferences window to choose between the new main window re-sizing method or the old method. This is mainly for debugging purposes so that users having a problem with the new method can revert to the old method and still use the new client. The old method will not re-size things when the window is maximized. You must re-size the window yourself to fit the entire screen. This is the way it has always been, I'm just reminding everyone. --------------------- 2.0.1 5/19/99 1 - Added a caller id feature that allows a picture to be displayed for each caller. This requires version 1.9.6 or later of the ACE Server. The only setup in the client for this feature is to position the window that will be used to display the picture and to specify what directory the picture files are in. This is done from the DISPLAY tab and the DIRECTORIES tab in the Caller ID Announce Options window. The directory can be on the client pc or on a mapped network drive. See the 1.9.6 section of sver.txt for info on setting up the server to be able to send pictures. 2 - Fixed a problem that prevented the Toolbar button captions from wrapping if the text was too long to be displayed on 1 line. 3 - The Network Monitor window is now re-sizable. --------------------- 0.0.2 5/16/99 1 - Fixed a problem that caused other windows (WASS, WinAMP Control, etc.) to open behind the main client window if the other window was opened from a button press. --------------- 0.0.1 5/15/99 1 - Initial beta release