SUPPORT : BBEdit : Archived Release Notes : BBEdit 4.5.3 Release Notes
This page documents all feature enhancements and bug fixes included in the BBEdit 4.5.3 maintenance update.
- The popup submenu for the "Ends With" option in the Find dialog is now sorted such that the suffixes appear in alphabetical order.
- You can now control whether files opened via BBEdit's built-in FTP client (the "Open from FTP Server..." command) appear on the "Open Recent" menu. The '"Open Recent" Lists FTP Files' setting is located in the "Services" panel of the Preferences dialog.
- Turning this switch off will provide for greater security in classrooms and other situations in which multiple users may have physical access to your machine.
- If you are updating from a previous 4.5 release of BBEdit, this option will be turned off.
- When remembering recently-opened FTP files, the passwords stored in the recent-file preferences are now scrambled. Although this won't protect against a determined attack, it will guard against a casual attempt to find your passwords by inspection of the BBEdit Preferences file.
- When comparing files, BBEdit's differences engine will no longer report "moved N lines from A in <old> to B in <new>". Instead, moves will now be reported as pairs of "extra lines in" differences, which is generally more usable, particularly when the source and destination locations are widely separated.
What's Fixed in BBEdit 4.5.3
The following reported problems have been fixed in BBEdit 4.5.3:
- the HTML "Image" tool will no longer insert a "LOWSRC" attribute in situations where there is no corresponding low-res image file.
- the "Open from FTP Server" dialog now properly re-activates the file list when the progress dialog has been up.
- BBEdit now properly re-enables its menu titles when the "Open from FTP Server" dialog has been dismissed.
- fixed a bug in the HTML substitution processor (used by the HTML "Document" and "Update" tools) which would cause it to insert random text into processed documents.
- fixed a bug which would cause BBEdit to crash when attempting to edit a file that had just been examined with a multi-file compare, but was not in the pair of files most recently compared.
- fixed bug which would cause BBEdit to crash when selecting a file for multi-file searching after having received the alert that the preferences file was damaged or in use.
- in some situations, BBEdit would insert an incorrect number of spaces when typing a Tab key with "Auto-Expand Tabs" turned on, or would report a "spaces per tab" setting differing from reality when bringing up the "Font&Tabs" dialog. Version 4.5.3 corrects this problem.
- The manner in which BBEdit images runs of "space" characters when printing has been changed, in order to provide more accurate alignment of columns.
What was New in BBEdit 4.5.2
The following minor enhancements are new as of BBEdit 4.5.2:
- Support for Unicode text files has been added. If version 1.2 or later of the Text Encoding Converter is installed, BBEdit can read and write files containing text encoded with the Unicode character set. The File Options popup in an editing window's status bar contains two additional options: "Encode as Unicode" and "Swap Bytes". If the TEC is installed, "Encode as Unicode" indicates whether the file is saved as Unicode. If "Swap Bytes" is indicated, then the byte ordering of the Unicode characters is reversed when the file is saved. (This is useful for reading and writing files for use by Windows.) "Save as Unicode" and "Swap Bytes" have also been added as options in the dialog that comes up when you click the "Options..." button in the Save As dialog.
- the C function scanner now recognizes the "import" directive (used by Objective-C).
- the Java function scanner now lists abstract and native methods. They'll show up in the function menu italicized, and will be suppressed if you turn off "Show Function Prototypes" in the "Function Popup" section of the Preferences dialog.
- The "Flatten Hierarchies" switch has been added to the Find Differences dialog. When this setting is engaged, BBEdit will flatten out folder hierarchies and compare the two linear lists of files. This is sometimes useful, but if there are multiple instances of one file name at different levels of the hierarchy, it can cause BBEdit to compare mismatched pairs of files. (This is, in fact, the way that older versions of BBEdit behave.) If "Flatten Hierarchies" is turned off, BBEdit will preserve enough information to accurately compare files in the folder hierarchies. This is essential when comparing Web sites (which often contain, say, "index.html" at multiple points in the hierarchy) or source code trees, which likewise can have duplicate file names throughout the hierarchy.
- The "FTP" plug-in, which is used to provide the "Open from FTP" and "Save to FTP" commands, has been significantly reduced in size.
- files which are opened from or newly saved to an FTP server will now be remembered on the Open Recent menu.
- The Find Differences dialog has been changed; the "Other..." items on the popup menus have been replaced with "Other..." buttons in the dialog. This has two benefits: first, this approach works better with Mac OS 8 because of the new "sticky" menus, and second, you can now use a key equivalent for choosing the items to be compared: Cmd-N for the new item, and Cmd-O for the old one.
- syntax-colored documents are now printed in color, subject to the new "Print Color Syntax" setting in the "Printing" section of the Preferences dialog.
- the performance of the Cut Lines Containing and Copy Lines Containing plug-ins has been substantially improved.
- A change has been made to BBEdit's application framework which should significantly reduce observable flicker and redrawing when switching between windows.
- When the "Find Differences" command is in the process of filtering or pre-comparing files, you can now cancel the process.
- The "Open Scripting Dictionary" command has been added to the Scripts menu. Choosing it will ask your designated script editor to open up BBEdit's script dictionary.
- files opened from FTP servers are now dealt with correctly in the Find Differences dialog. The window's name now appears in the popup menu, and if such a file is selected, the FTP path will appear in the file path display.
- reworked UI in Differences results windows; the buttons are now centered and have a horizontal orientation that reflects the left/right relationship between old and new files. There are also key equivalents available for Apply To New and Apply To Old buttons.
- The Un/Comment Plug-In will now preserve the selection range of the text it is commenting or uncommenting.
- in the Find dialog, there's a popup for quickly choosing a suffix to use for "Ends In" when matching file names.
- when splitting a window, the relative scroll position of the two panes is left unchanged. (Previously, both panes would be scrolled to the same location.)
- Cmd-S in the Preferences dialog now equates to the "Save" button.
- In all dialogs with edit fields, Cmd-A now correctly does a Select All on the active edit field. This necessitated changes in some command-key equivalents. In the Hard Wrap dialog, "Indent All Lines" is now Cmd-I. In the Find dialog, Wrap Around is now Cmd-W, Entire Word is now Cmd-E, and Extend Selection is now Cmd-I.
- search folders (as presented in the Folder popup in the Find and Find Differences dialog, and the "Search Folders" section of the Preferences dialog) are now sorted alphabetically by name.