Exclamation 1.0b21 Release Notes
Exclamation 1.0b21 is substantially complete and can be used in development and production environments. This page describes the important changes in this beta release, along with the major issues that will be addressed in upcoming releases.
If you have any questions about Exclamation or if you encounter any problems with this release, see the Beta Feedback and Support section for information about contacting Ten League Boots.
Changes in Exclamation 1.0b21
- Content In Box & Out Box folders provide a respository for "asset" files (e.g., images, movies, audio files, PDF files) in an upcoming release of the Exclamation Site Editor (aka Content Editor). This allows asset files to be managed as content (rather than as handcrafted files in the Site Design).
- Project menu > Configure > Files & Folders identifies the new folders.
- Content menu > Open In Box Folder opens the In Box folder in Finder (Mac OS X) or Windows Explorer (Windows).
- Project menu > Copy Handcrafted Files copies Out Box files into the Preview folder, which is analogous to copying handcrafted files from the Site Design into the Preview folder.
- Site Design menu > Edit Design opens an Adobe GoLive "site" file, the Site Design home page, or the Site Design Template Tree folder. This sequence of alternatives enables a Site Design to be authored in GoLive, Dreamweaver or other HTML editors. (Note: Microsoft FrontPage is not supported due to its incompatabilities with standard HTML.)
- Dreamweaver internal files are ignored in an Exclamation Site Design. These internal files include the Library folder (Library items), the Templates folder (page templates), lock (.lck) files on Windows, and temporary files (for preview-in-browser).
- Copy Handcrafted replaces Preview files that are locked (Mac OS X) or read-only (Windows).
- Preview menu > Clear Preview Folder deletes all folders on Mac OS X. Previously, hidden Finder files would stop some folders from being deleted.
- Mac OS X disk image includes an Application folder alias to simplify installing the Exclamation application.
Changes in Exclamation 1.0b20
- Exclamation Projects open more quickly due to an improved cache file format. This change has two side-effects affecting existing Exclamation Projects:
- Existing sites must be re-built and re-uploaded.
- If the advanced "Report suspicious files" preference is enabled, all files in the Preview folder will be identified as suspicious the first time the Project is opened.
- Web Site menu > Copy URL copies the URL of the selected file to the clipboard.
- A "rescan folder" button appears in the Content, Design and Preview panels. (This feature was present in the previous release, but the button was often not visible due to a UI bug.)
- The Edit Design button is enabled in whenever the template tree folder exists. If a specific Site Design editor is detected (e.g., Adobe GoLive, BBEdit), that editor is launched; otherwise the root folder of the template tree is opened in Finder (Mac OS X) or Windows Explorer (Windows).
- Publish Engine activity messages now appear in the Publish Engine window on Windows NT/2000/XP.
- Exclamation tracing is queued before before Preferences are restored (which determines whether the trace should be displayed).
- A Registration progress dialog is displayed while a serial number is being validated.
- Exclamation file name extensions are now only .exproject, .excd, .extd and .excache (hidden). Older extensions like .10proj, .cd and .td are no longer supported.
- Bug fix: Log windows and dialog boxes no longer refuse to close (a Beta 19 bug on Windows NT/2000/XP).
- Bug fix: Double-clicking a Project file successfully launches the Exclamation application. (a Beta 18 bug).
Changes in Exclamation 1.0b19
- New "Movies Demo" project: The sample Exclamation Project has a completely new content editor, and the five Site Designs have a new look.
- Site Design switching: The actions performed when switching to a new Site Design are reported in the Message Log.
- Project menu > Clear Message: A Web designer can now clear testing messages before releasing a project.
Changes in Exclamation 1.0b18
- Project window: The main Project window has a new look, with separate areas for activity messages (below the toolbar) and folder/files counts (below the folder/file lists), and file display buttons above the folder/file lists.
- "Build Site": In the Project menu, "Build Site" replaces "Make All Pages," reflecting that it both copies handcrafted files and generates pages. The toolbar button is now "Build Site," which is enabled if the Site Design is 100% handcrafted.
- Publishing performance: Page generation time is substantially reduced for sites with many large data files.
- Keyboard shortcuts: The Copy Handcrafted, Make All Pages, Upload Selected menu items now have keyboard shortcuts.
Product purchase & activation
Exclamation uses the eSellerate® service to manage software purchase and activation from within the application.
The Exclamation Designer Demo is activated by "purchasing" a demonstration license for $0.00.
Special Beta features
This Exclamation beta release includes some features that will be modified or removed in the Exclamation 1.0 general release:
- Exclamation "Advanced" options: Exclamation's "Preferences" and "Project Configure" dialogs have an "Advanced" panel of options to adjust aspects of Exclamation behavior for testing and for investigating problems.
The only Advanced options users should adjust on their own are the "Synchronous Upload" and "Debugging Windows" preferences. Other Advanced options should not be changed except in consultation with a Ten League Boots support representative.
- Expiration: This beta release expires sixty days after the initial activation.
Limitations
Some Exclamation features have limitations on their use.
- The length of a file name of an HTML Template or Template Declaration is limited to 31 characters. [g207]
- A Project Description (in the "Project" panel of "Project Configuration") cannot include a carriage return. [g3]
- The FTP "Keep connection alive" feature does not work with some FTP servers. [g58]
Note: The light gray codes are references to our internal problem tracking system.
Windows-only
- Exclamation menus do not support keyboard traversal (i.e., typing a letter to select a menu or menu item). [g139]
- The first time Exclamation runs, it determines the latest release of the Java Run-time Environment (JRE) installed on the system. Exclamation continues to use this JRE release even if a newer release is subsequently installed. Exclamation can be reconfigured to use a newer JRE. [g272]
- In Exclamation's Advanced Preferences, enable the "Debugging windows" option.
- In the Window menu, select the "Publish Engine" window.
- Click "Stop" to temporarily stop the Publish Engine.
- Select a new JRE (java.exe).
- Click "Start" to restart the Publish Engine with the new JRE.
- Close the Publish Engine window.
Incorrect Behavior
Some Exclamation features do not work as intended.
- Clear Web Site in the Web Site menu currently clears the history of uploads to the Web site, but it does not delete the actual files and folders on the hosting service. Similarily, obsolete files and folders are not deleted from the hosting service. [g306]
- With some FTP servers, a login failure due to an invalid FTP username or password may cause the Exclamation application to crash. [g106]
- Attempting to upload an empty file will cause an "Upload to Web" to hang. [g196]
- Some lengthy file lists initially have no vertical scroll bar. Selecting an item in the list will cause the vertical scroll bar to appear. [g9]
- Exclamation may copy some HTML Templates into the site Preview folder. Although these Templates are erroneously considered to be handcrafted files, they are used correctly for making pages. This problem can be avoided by using the "matching" names for the Template and the Template Declaration (TD) files (e.g., sample.html & sample.td -or- sample.html & sample.html.td). [g16]
Windows-only
- Exclamation may encounter an occasional Java "OutOfMemoryError" exception using the J2SE JRE 1.4.2 release on Windows. If you have this release installed, upgrading to the JRE 1.4.2_07 release will fix this problem.
<http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html>
If JRE 1.3.1 or 1.4.1 is installed, you do not need to upgrade.
Note: To determine which JRE release is installed on your system, check the C:\Program Files\Java\ (or \Javasoft\) folder.
- When the Exclamation application is running, double-clicking on an Exclamation Project file (or dropping a Project file on the Exclamation application file) launches a second instance of Exclamation, which is standard Windows behavior.
The two applications will work independently but not cooperatively, resulting in some undesirable results. For example, changes to Exclamation preferences do not apply to both instances, the Window menu does not show all open Project windows, and closing one instance will stop the Publish Engine from being used by the other. [g329]
- Upload to Web sometimes hangs in the middle of uploading a large file. This problem can be avoided by selecting the "Synchronous upload" option in Advanced Preferences. [g209]
Beta Feedback and Support
Ten League Boots is very interested in your comments about any problems you encounter in learning and using the Exclamation product—incorrect application behavior, errors in the documentation, features that are hard to understand, Web site design challenges, .... We'd also like to hear about features that you find especially useful, and capabilities you'd like to see in future releases.
Please email your comments to
using the "Send Feedback..." item in Exclamation's "Help" menu.
If you are reporting an application bug, please include the following information:
- Exclamation version number (from the "About Exclamation" box)
- Exclamation Edition: Publisher or Designer
- Host operating system (e.g., Mac OS X 10.6.8, Windows XP Pro SP2)
- Java version number
Preserving a copy of your Exclamation Project folder may be helpful in reproducing a problem. Duplicate the entire Project folder in order to preserve invisible Exclamation files. Please do not send your Project until it is requested by a Ten League Boots support representative.
