Bookshelf 5.2 Release notes for Windows
Windows Bookshelf 5.2 changes (also applies to the Coursesmart and Evolve eBooks release):
Bookshelf 5.2 is a major technology update on the Windows side. The User Interface was completely rebuilt using Windows Presentation Foundation. This is somewhat similar to what we did on the Mac side a few years back when we moved from Carbon to Cocoa. Moving onto this technology provides us a solid foundation for adding new features and accessibility support. The plan is for the Windows version to catch up to the Mac on accessibility in the next release cycle (Bookshelf 5.3).
There are improvements under the hood to the code. I hope that the improvements show in a more robust Bookshelf with fewer "strange" things happening and easier/faster to debug when they do occur. A couple of the new features, like search suggestions would have been incredibly hard to do (elegantly) with the older technology used in Bookshelf 5.1.5.
Updated to use .NET 3.5 SP1:
Improved start up performance Improved application
performance * New WebBrowser control
Installer changes:
* Display the full installer UI for the .NET installer to provide
better feedback on the potentially long prerequisite install of
.NET 3.5 SP1. The installer UI is suppressed if the Bookshelf
install is run in silent mode.
UI technology conversion from Windows Forms to Windows
Presentation Foundation (WPF):
Hardware accelerated UI Improved keyboard control. For
example, split positions can be adjusted via the keyboard.
Improved tab behavior Improved visibility of UI components
to accessibility tools - Removed third party UI component for
menus and tool bars.
- Fewer custom controls
* Flexible layout in most windows. This means that the UI will
gracefully handle different length text that is common when
Bookshelf uses a language other than English for the text.
Image Window:
* When the image is larger than the view, the image can be
drag-scrolled around by holding the left mouse down on the image
and moving the mouse.
Notes Window:
* Spell check. Feedback on this feature is appreciated. It uses a
general windows spelling dictionary so it may have a hard time with
the specialized terminology found in some books.
Search improvements:
Auto complete based on the contents of the books that are being
searched better handling of multi word quoted terms more
consistent results in the bookshelf window between the hits
reported in the book list and the list of hits in the "inside book"
column more consistent results in the book window between the
hits reported in the table of contents and the hits highlighted in
the chapter text
Reflowable book options moved from the preferences dialog to the
book window, where they are more discoverable:
Text resizing is done through menu options and toolbar
buttons Column view columns can now be resized by direct
manipulation in the book window
Store related:
* Show a dialog offering to download recently purchased books that
have not been downloaded when the user does a license update.
Interoperability:
- Hide quoted text - Links to within the book that are copied
to other applications are now http based rather than vbk based.
This improves compatibility with other applications, most notably
Microsoft Word, that do not recognize vbk: links. It also allows
for better integration with Bookshelf Online. User data and
preferences are now separate for the different brands of
Bookshelf.
Full list of search fixes:
The search algorithm ignores punctuation when processing quoted
terms. However, the Dash, TOC, and picture book highlighting code
did not. They all use regular expressions now to match what the
search code does. (VSTBS-1695)
Multiple hits are now
handled properly by the TOC search result display code. The
excerpted text (if truncation is needed) is still centered on the
first hit, but any other hits that are visible in the excerpt are
also bolded. (VSTBS-1695) The counts of "inside books" hits in
the bookshelf window should always match the counts reported in the
results column now. (VSTBS-1695, VSTBS-1995) The "author and
title" portion of a bookshelf search now only matches whole words,
which is what inside book searches do too. Partial word matches
often lead to a lot of weird irrelevant hits. Show "inside
book" hits in the bookshelf search for books where the search term
was found in the title / author. We still show the book with no
"inside" hits if there aren't any hits inside the book. But don't
let the fact that the term was in the title punish the user by
preventing the book from being searched. Book search rewritten
to handle multiple quoted phrases correctly. Previously, the search
code would treat the first quoted phrase as a quoted phrase and the
remaining quoted phrases as individual words. The new code is
faster for quoted phrase searches too. * Fix for a problem where
search results are not highlighted in text when contained in
certain elements such as answer groups. (Partial fix for
VSTBS-1384) This should fix the problem for most normal kinds of
text, but not for inline objects such as fractions or MathML.
Other misc smaller fixes:
Detection of Windows 7. Used by logging and user-agent.
Bookshelf uses a different mechanism (Pipes) to pass startup args
to a currently running version of the app. Updated the
description string for the app. Can be seen when running the Task
Manager. Fixed image resources where a couple windows showed
the CourseSmart images with the VitalSource Bookshelf brand.
The print indicator was removed from the DRM panel because it
is handled more gracefully with the print preview dialog. Sort
notes by book order was broken in the Dash book window.
(VSTBS-2002, VSTBS-1514) If "show outline" is on, and a book is
open, book order for notes was broken in the "inside books" view in
the bookshelf window. When an outline number in Dash is too
long and collides with the book text, truncate it and reveal the
full outline number with a tooltip. (VSTBS-1902) Fixed a bug
where titles with no author show a related items submenu with every
title in the license as having the same author. Right clicking
on a hyperlink in a reflowable book now shows a "Copy link URL"
option in the contextual menu. (VSTBS-1406) Fixed a bug in the
notes upgrade code, for importing notes data from a version of
Bookshelf prior to 4.8. It was broken in 5.0 or 5.1 when the
database code changed. Added a contextual menu option for
unsubscribing to an entire user in the Bookshelf window source
list. (VSTBS-2015) Fix problems where sometimes notes created
in Bookshelf Online can't be found in the book when they are synced
to the desktop application. Add a contextual menu to table of
contents items in the book window to copy either title text or
links. Also, allow drag and drop of the text. Menu text change:
"Activate New Content..." is now "Redeem Code..." Add an extra
5 pixels of spacing inside of Dash section boxes when the box has a
border line around it. This really improves readability.
(VSTBS-2028) TOC elements and figures dragged to custom groups
work again. (This was broken in 5.1.) For links to items
inside books, badge the figure or TOC icon onto the book cover. -
Hide quoted text - * Fixed a crash that could occur when selecting
non-ascii characters and choosing to search for the selected text
using a web search engine (such as Google) from the contextual
menu. (VSTBS-2055)
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Android Support Module
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Getting Started with VitalSource Bookshelf
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VitalSource Bookshelf Online Support Page
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VitalSource Bookshelf How-To
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VitalSource Bookshelf: Troubleshooting
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Contacting Technical Support
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VitalSource Bookshelf Release Notes
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Accessibility
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Bookshelf Touch (iOS App)
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Using a Redemption Code Card to Activate Your VitalBook
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Help Topics
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Requirements
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OS X