MCBase software:
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Revision history
Website contents: copyright © 1993-2011, Harry Doldersum.
Februari 28th, 2000 - Updated version 2.5a to V2.5b: a maintenance release.
All implementations (XT, AT and Protected Mode (= DPMI).
- While testing the new functions in MCBaseUtilities (the MCBase V3.x add-on functions) for data export to previous versions, we found that the virtually unlimited line lengths available in the memo's of MCBase V3.x could cause a problem for MCBase V2.x's memo routines, when memo data is exported back from V3.x to V2.x. (Since the MCBase V2.x memo editor is limited to display a line length of 256 characters maximum).
This potential problem has been resolved, by enabling MCBase V2.x's memo routines to splitup these long lines into a suitable length.
- In the Protected Mode release V2.5, a new feature was introduced to enable users to invoke an external ascii editor for memo editing. Unfortunately, this was only tested on genuine MS-DOS and Windows V3.x systems - therefor it remained unnoticed that, under Windows95/98/NT, swapping to the external editor could result in an error.
To avoid problems, this option is now only available if MCBase has been executed with the "/DS" startup switch (introduced in release V2.4b), also used to enable MCBase's "Dosshell" command.
Unreleased - Updated version 2.5 to 2.5a: a maintenance release.
- Changed the text in the "Edit/add and album" dialog, with field "Artist name": when adding a new album, this field would say "Currently no album selected" instead of "Currently no artist selected". Also changed the "Edit/add a category" dialog, where the field label "Category" was misspelled as "Catagory".
August 27, '98 - Updated version 2.4b to 2.5: a new release - Protected Mode version only.
- Added functionality to the "Protected Mode" version of MCBase (distributed as "MCB_X86P.EXE") to be able to use an external ASCII editor for memo editing. Any (ASCII) editor will do.
A user can configure which editor he/she would like to use and select which databases should be using it, by stating these preferences in a newly added configuration dialog, which can be accessed using the menu command "Memo editing".
Background info: MCBase's built in editor is limited to a (memo) file size of 64Kb, due to it's internal structure - this memo size limit is not related to the memofield itself. When using an external (ASCII) editor for memo editing, the (memo) file size is not an issue.
IMPORTANT: this modification is not implemented in the XT and basic AT compatible versions of MCBase (there is not sufficient memory available under these circumstances) - therefor, these are now not updated and remain at version 2.4b for the time being.
June 1st, '98 - Updated the MCBase utilities to V2.4b also.
- When the MCBase executables were recompiled, a patch had been included to solve the Borland Pascal compiler's timing routine error "Runtime error 200 at ...", that occurs on systems using a 200MHz processor (or faster). Since the MCBase utilities hadn't been altered, they had been left out, when recompiling the MCBase executables. These utilities still carried a version number earlier than V2.4b. Because of this, these utilities did NOT receive the patch to solve the error mentioned.
With this update of june 1st, the utilities are now upgraded to V2.4b also and are therefor suitable for computers with 200MHz(+) processors. All archives, bearing the utilities, are now updated. The version number for the entire MCBase package is still V2.4b and has not been altered, since the utilities are now set on V2.4b also.
May. 16th, '98 - Updated version 2.4a to 2.4b: a maintenance release.
- When adding a new record to the database system, while carrying the relations on to this new entry, the contents of the Release date field will be transferred also.
- Used under MS Windows95, the "DosShell" command (temporary access to the MS-DOS system prompt) could cause an error. To eliminate problems, this menu command has been disabled by default. On MS-DOS and MS Windows V3.x, a user can activate the command by executing MCBase with the /DS startup switch. So that's: MCBASE /DS [enterkey]
- A separate HTML file has been added to the package. When opened with an Internet browser, this simple page will enable a user to reach us (or our website) directly.
- The formatted versions of all the documentation files, previously stored in the file MCB_WP5.LZH (now MCB_WP.LZH) are now available in 2 formats, stored in the same archive:
- a) WordPerfect 6.x format (.DOC) using WP's HyperText features, where applicable.
- b) Rich Text Format (.RTF).
Mar. 24th, '97 - Updated version 2.4 to 2.4a: a maintenance release.
- Eliminated an error that could disable the "select" button in the "Edit/add an album" dialog after the "Album Edit mode" button in the Browse dialogs had been used.
Feb. 15th, '97 - Updated version 2.3e to 2.4: a new release.
Following changes and improvements have been made:
- The behavior of the Find dialog has been extended with a "preset" function, to (when one or more data dialogs are already present on the desktop) display that record from a database, that was either most recently focussed or most lightly to be needed. (This is depending on the instance that invoked the Find dialog). This provides a timesaver when, for example, a user wishes to reselect the same record again, in both editing and browsing.
- When using the Find dialog with the "Browse" options, all browsing is now based on alphabetical order. (For reasons, that have now escaped me, I had used a non-alphabetical approach in previous versions).
Also, the Find dialog's preset option is used during browsing, to automatically find the first valid match for a selected item.
- An additional button, called "Album edit mode", has been added to the "Browse an album" dialog, that enables a direct connection between this dialog and the "Edit/add an album" dialog. This allows you to switch freely between browse and editing functions on album record level, while carrying the currently browsed album with you to it's edit dialog. Together with the already existing "browse/edit" functional switch on song record level, editing your collection is now more flexible and productive than ever.
- Normally, MCBase checked the FILES=xx statement in your config.sys during initialisation to verify that the setting is sufficient to open all databases, indexes and other user files. Recently, a user reported that this wasn't enough for his specific configuration: it still could occur that MCBase would crash on a runtime error # 4: "Too many open files". Therefor, an errorhandler routine has been added, to respond to these cases. MCBase still won't be able to run without a proper FILES=xx setting, mind you: this routine merely takes care of a more graceful shut down.
Also, this initialisation check on the FILES=xx setting in your CONFIG.SYS file could cause problems on systems using MS-DOS's multi config option: only the first appearance of FILES=xx would be read by MCBase's routine. Since adding the errorhandler made this check obsolete anyway, the check has been removed from the MCBase executable. (It is still being used in the installation utility, however).
- Minor changes to the utilities GenMCB and MCBCnvrt, mostly related to the above.
- Last modification to be mentioned, is the change of the ascii text file extensions. Up until now, all files related to MCBase documentation have had an extension of ".MCB" in order to express that relation to the user. Since this can disturb the process of opening these files with utilities like Windows' Notepad and such, all ascii text files now have the extension ".TXT" instead.
- Note: The WordPerfect versions of the documentation files now carry the ".DOC" extension.
- Apart from the above modifications, a new order taking service has been added, who's also capable of accepting ONLINE orders through their (!secure!) Internet website pages. You can find all the relevant information in the file ORDER.TXT. In case you would like to go to their page now, their URL is available at this link.
Dec. 20th, '96 - Updated version 2.3d to 2.3e: a maintenance release.
- Minor change: a dialog box has been added, to draw the users attention to the ORDER.MCB file, where the pricing and order info can be found. Also, some minor modifications were made on the documentation and support files.
Sep. 14th, '96 - Updated version 2.3c to 2.3d: a maintenance release.
- Major changes to the ordering information: a new (lower) registration price (US$30) and a new distributor for the United States (who is able to deliver from stock) have been added: Pik A Program Inc. in New York, NY. As a result of this, the registration and order information has now been removed from the manual file and has been relocated to the file ORDER.MCB (a copy of this file, in WordPerfect version 5 format, has been added to the MCB_WP5.LZH archive (see below) for your convenience). Also a small modification to the disclaimer and a minor program modification have been made.
May 7th, '96 - Updated version 2.3b to 2.3c: a maintenance release.
- Minor modifications to the license agreement.
Mar. 23rd, '96 - Updated version 2.3a to 2.3b: a maintenance release.
- Improved picklist functionality: under (very) rare circumstances, it could occur that a picklist opened without showing it's data.
- Also added a new registration agent: Kelly Data GmbH in Germany. (See our orderform for full details).
Mar. 5th, '96 - Updated version 2.3 to 2.3a: a maintenance release.
- MCBase's manual and revision document, which has always been included as a disk file, are now available in two file formats: in plain ASCII text format and in WordPerfect version 5 format. As always, the ASCII version is installed in the MCBase directory, while the WP version of these files are stored on the MCBase Master Disk, in the archive file MCB_WP5.LZH. (You may use included LHA archiver utility to extract the documents from the archive).
- Also made some minor extensions to the registration key system.
Feb. 14th, '96 - Updated version 2.2 to 2.3: a new release.
- Improved the background functionality with which the memo editor dialog is closed: under circumstances, it could occur that not all record selection commands were re-instated when closing the memo-editor in an unexpected manner.
- Improved browse dialog functionality: when editing records, picked from the browse dialog, it might occur that the user deletes an entry. Since the browse dialog resides on the desktop during these edit functions, it will still contain that record (therefor: still available for selection). If this record is re-selected, you will now be given a message concerning the records "deleted"-status.
- When (re-)invoking a browse dialog it will contain the valid records only. (Undeleting a record is, of course, *always* possible with the main edit dialogs (until the record is physically removed by the "pack"-function)
- In the protected mode version, memory usage for one of the browse dialogs has been modified: now the picklist dialog for "browse for songs by title" also uses virtual memory, like all "edit & add..." picklist dialogs. (The other browse dialogs still use ram memory only, since it is faster). Motivation was, that (while browsing a large database set) one could run out of memory on systems with only 2Mb EMS/XMS memory.
- Modified the behavior of the "Device access error": it is no longer a fatal error.
Nov. 23rd, '95 - Updated version 2.1 to 2.2: a new release.
- The "Browse for ..." picklists in the Protected Mode version (MCB_X86P.EXE on your MCBase Master Disk) are now controlled and loaded by index, instead of filtering the entire database set for the matching data. On larger databases, this results in a tremendous improvement on data access time.
Due to memory shortage, this approach cannot be implemented in the MCB_XT and MCB_AT executables.
Note: MCB_XT is a version for (fast) XT-systems, MCB_AT is a version for AT-systems with less than 2Mb RAM memory on board).
- Also solved a problem with the picklists eventhandler, that appeared to be unable to handle some special keys while focusing on the picklist contents.
Nov. 6t, '95 - Updated version 2.0a to 2.1: a new release.
- Due to modifications in the default behavior of the dBase access routine library (HALCYON, by Griffin Solutions), the FIND dialog would no longer position itself at the nearest match, when an exact match could not be found, but positioned itself at the end of file instead.
The FIND dialog is now restored to it's documented behavior: to position itself at the NEAREST MATCH, when an exact match is not found.
- Apart from the above, the default file search mask for the editor object has been changed from "*.*" to "*.TXT".
- Also an additional button has been added to the Browse dialog, called "Song edit mode", that enables a direct connection between the "Browse a song" dialog and the "Edit/add a song" dialog. This allows you to switch freely between browse and editing functions on song record level, while carrying the currently browsed song with you to it's edit dialog. This is very helpful, while editing songs that are related to each other in some way: once they are collected in a browse option's picklist, editing is just a mouseclick away.
- Unfortunately, the layout of the configuration file MCBASE.CFG needed to be changed, in order to further accomodate the ability to store desktop objects in the configuration file. The user will therefor need to create a new configuration file.
Then there also were some minor modifications.
Oct. 10th, '95 - Updated version 2.0 to 2.0a: a maintenance release.
- Minor modifications to the PACK routines, the picklist dialogs and the documentation.
- Added hotkeys to the memo selection dialogs, used by the various "Browse..." options.
- Added a routine to check (the first appearance of an) "FILES=xx" setting in CONFIG.SYS. If the setting is found to be to low, you will be notified about this, after which MCBase terminates operation. (If MCBase is UNABLE to locate your CONFIG.SYS file, you will receive a warning message about this, after which MCBase will continue operation).
Aug. 17th, '95 - MAJOR NEW RELEASE.
- Release of the new MCBase V2.0: a fully event driven, mouse controlled, object oriented, dBaseIII+ compatible, relational-to-the-max, windowing database management system, with handy dialogs, to set your personal configuration preferences. The only REAL database system for the music collector.