Current Focus - ArsClip

The Popup window code is getting reworked a little bit at a time in the current tests. The code for this part of the program has grown large and needs better designs to be maintainable. There are three main parts of the code: position calculations, drawing, and interaction.

The position calculations have already been reworked. This code determines the size and placement of each menu item, each icon, and the entire Popup window itself. Drawing and interactions require this information to work.

The drawing routines are still being changed. There are many settings that are only specific to the main Popup window that are being made more generalized. Code that directly accesses the Configuration window is being removed. This ensures that the Clip Menu isn't affected by settings designed only for the Popup window.

The interaction routines updates are the same as the drawing routine updates. The changes for this part are also not yet complete.

The Clip Menu - ArsClip

The current Public Beta replaces an old window, the Clip Menu. In previous versions, this window was reworked several times for better usability. It needed to be replaced long ago, but it required a large amount of work. This task was delayed almost indefinitely. Now, the Clip Menu uses the same window that the main Popup uses.

The old Clip Menu broke how Explorer Compatibility mode works. The type of window it used required keyboard focus, which makes some tasks in Explorer windows difficult or impossible. In the last official version, the Clip Menu was disabled in this mode. More users than expected used the Clip Menu in this case, so the time was spent to correctly fix the issue.

The changelog for Test 5 looks small, but many things have changed behind the scenes.

More Delays - ArsClip

The above is delaying the next Public Beta test of ArsClip. The Clip Menu is being is being replaced with the same window ArsClip uses for the Popup window. The problem is that I never finished reworking the Popup code to be general use. Once again, a lot of old code is being replace with clean and simple code.

While the current test is about 95% finished, it's not polished enough for a beta release. I'm also looking at previous choices made for the Clip Menu to see if anything needs to be changed.

New JScript Engine - ArsClip

The internal JavaScript engine in ArsClip has been replaced. The old engine used the shell command for executing a script file. Communication between the script and ArsClip was complicated and had many failure points. The new engine connects to JScript directly without using the command shell and can also add its own objects to the language for simple two-way communication.

The final result is simpler code and even faster execution. Adding new features is also trivial, so future expansion is possible.

Currently, JavaScript allows advanced user to add functionality to Permanent Clips without having to update the program. To reach a larger audience, more example scripts need to be available in the program. I'm now collecting from user to include in the program. For example, one user needed to do some date-math to paste yesterday's date. This is a good general usage script that can be included.

Current and Next Beta - ArsClip

The beta testers a very good job catching issues for v5.20 of ArsClip. The current beta v5.21 is mostly small tweaks and another rework for JavaScript support. The previous design for JavaScript support allowed for data to flow mostly in one direction, from the script to ArsClip. This means that data can only be sent to the clipboard by the script. The JavaScript redesign adds a "getCurrentClipboard" function so that data can also be retrieved from the clipboard.

In the next Public Beta, some old and low-priority issues are going to be resolve. The Edit Clips/Macros window has an issue with the History tab. The Popup Clips list isn't updated to reflect realtime changes. This means that it would either show old data or error out when used if the window is left open. The Global Hotkey uses an index reference the Permanent Clip to execute. This means that all hotkeys have to be re-made every time a Permanent Group. While this is not a common routine, it's still a bad design.

There are currently no new features planned for the next beta, so I'm open to ideas.

Next Beta - ArsClip

The next Public Beta of ArsClip is delayed. I'm working on a synchronization issue with JavaScript support that is taking longer than usual.

Release Plans - ArsClip

My website was moved to a new server a few weeks ago, to fix the downtime issues that were occurring. The server has been very fast and stable, but hasn't had any heavy load. To test this, a new Rename Master version was released this week.

The current plan is to release ArsClip v5.20 officially next week. While no further Release Candidates are expected, this will allow plenty of time for any last-minute fixes. After release, 5 days are going to be reserved for fixing any undiscovered critical issues. Version 5.21 will either be a quick-fix release or a Public Beta with new features, depending.

Feature Freeze - ArsClip

No new features are being added to the current Public Beta version of ArsClip. Only bug fixes will be addressed.

Since quite a bit has changed in the program, the testing period will be for longer than usual. A lot of really old code was refactored, so there are many combinations to test.