The upcoming Twistpad 2.1, will support the new Taskbar tabs feature of Windows 7:


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There are a couple of limitations due to the fact that Twistpad is a MDI applicaion:
- Previews are a bit blurry, this is due the old API used to take a screen-shot of the MDI Childs.
- There is no peek when hovering the previews. again MDI related.

Hopefully this will be improved in the future.

Also note the Breadcrumb navigator on the file browser which totally replaces the tool from version 1.x2.0:


No ETA at the moment, but should be this month.

Here's a round up of the new features offered by the upcoming Twistpad 2.0 (a beta preview is available for download for registered user's).

This version is a totally free upgrade to existing customer's. Thank you for your support!

Split Editing


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The long waited possibility to edit two locations in the same document e now available, either horizontally (traditional split) or vertically (a must for wide monitors)

Use it as a browser



Twistpad now supports go backforward using the standard alt backforward key combination's (using this combination, also insures that keyboard's or mouse's, with browser back forward extra buttons, will work in Twistpad)

Each time a specific action is performed, a drop marker is dropped at
the current location, so you can easily go back (it works like a stack, and a virtual index controls the current back-forward position.

A drop marker will be dropped under this conditions:
- Before a jumping to a find location
- Before pasting text
- Before jumping to functions
- Before any Go To action
- A Mouse-click that moves the cursor 10+ lines from current position
- Set manually

Color Themes


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Twistpad 1.x would allow almost all editor colors to be customized, however, it would be difficult to switch between a dark scheme to a light scheme, because it would require the syntax colors to be manually updated. Twistpad 2.0 now offers a set of syntax constant's that can be easily changed thus making switching colors a breeze. You can also save your own themes for easier retrieval.

Dock Windows and the keyboard



Dock windows are now easily accessed via keyboard, now longer requiring using the mouse when in auto-hide state. Direct shortcuts are now set out of a standard installation and, when using Enhanced Switch they will be always a keyboard press away

More Dock Windows improvements


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Snippets are now displayed in in a tree structure, making it more ergonomic and intuitive to browse for snippets. The Function dock window as also been improved, and now the current function is highlighted in the list.

Regular expressions improvements



Find dialogs now show an additional menu common with regular expressions expressions constants for quick retrieval. Also, replacing now supports replace templates.

Windows Vista / Seven Optimization


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There were some issues in Twistpad 1.x when running in Windows Vista (and Seven) Mostly have been fixed, making using Twistpad 2.0 in Vista or Seven, with the default theme, a better a more native experience.

Even more stuff...

Transparent selections, new format text command, Function list accessible from the toolbar, Number highlighting are some more examples of new features introduced for version 2.0, which we feel it will be a welcome addition to Twistpad.

Just downloaded the Windows 7 RC1 publicly made available by Microsoft, and installed it (in a real environment, not in a virtual machine, so that Aero is available).

I took this opportunity to test all our applications, and, without testing every function, everything is working fine, and there were no problems whatsoever.



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Please note DeskTask 1.1 beta 3 (connected to Outlook 2007 with SP2) and the development version of Twistpad were used in the tests, but it should be no problem with the current public versions.

Any problem you may have with any of our applications running in Windows 7, don't hesitate to post in our forums. Thanks!

Due to a high volume of spam, comments in the blog will be suspended. any query regarding blog posts, can be made in the forum.

Thanks.

No more pessimist news regarding the new version of DeskTask.

Yes, thanks to the help of Holger Lembke the problem regarding the German version of Outlook is now solved.

DeskTask 1.1 beta 3 is available to download at our forums.

Most likely this will be the final beta, and a final or RC version will follow soon.

Difficult times for me to decide on the final version of DeskTask 1.1. Don't get me wrong, DeskTask beta is out, now fully supporting Windows Vista, however a small change in the function to retrieve data from Outlook, and the German Outlook version no longer gives the right results. (the normal USA version works properly)

Without resources, I don't have a German version to test, neither any other language, it's difficult to give support for DeskTask running in every Outlook edition.

The problem arose with the new option to show an indicator of the current task in calendar, simply adding this, DeskTask, running on the German Outlook, fails to filter the current days to show ahead in the calendar.

The options I have
- a) Remove the new option
- b) Ship DeskTask 1.1 final with the new option, and without German Outlook support
- c) optionally (user decision) disable this option for German outlook
- d) Make two versions (one global and on German (without the option))

I'm tempted for option c, but this is like a Pandora Box, after that, there could be a lot of small options to insure DeskTask works on all language editions of Outlook, something I don't want to do due to lack of resources on this matter.

-> Twistpad 1.64 final will be out soon.

-> Twistpad SDK along with samples are being finalized, we apologize for
the delay about this.

-> We are working on MemInfo 2.0 to be released, more on that later

-> Been dealing with DeskTask with Vista on my new shiny notebook, and
there is really no way that a window can be pinned to the desktop and be
transparent at the same time. Will have to find a workaround that survives
the "Show Desktop" command for Vista systems.

For non registed user's, here is the list of changes in the public beta 1 release of Twistpad.

* Added a "Import and Export Settings" command to backup the current settings or import settings previously stored.
* Added a new encoding format, "UTF-8 Without Signature" to save files in UTF-8 format, without the Signature at the beginning of the file
* Added an option to automatically detect UTF-8 Encoded files without signature
* Compare is now a non-Modal window, allowing editing in the main window while the compare window is opened and available for reference
* Added a refresh button in compare window to re-compare the loaded files
* Added a go-to line command in the compare window
* Added a Open Files command in the compare window to open a set of files to compare
* Compare can now be displayed horizontally (optional)
* Improved Check for updates dialog when a new version is found. Release date and change history are now displayed.
* Improved Window organizer (command "Windows" ), search is now possible, as well as more information is displayed
* Added an option to reactivate dialog box's which have the "don't display this again" option
* Added a "Display" sub-menu to the Edit Menu, with common persistent editor display options
* Long Menu's can now be scrolled with Mouse-Wheel
* Chevron wrap of toolbars now show vertical commands with label instead of horizontal icon only commands
* When Invoking the Replace dialog, the "In selected text only" check box is now set by default if selected text is found in the active document and the selection is more that one line
* Added a "Copy As HTML Code" Command, which makes the current selection with syntax highlight copied as HTML code
* Added a default file syntax to be applied when selecting the new file command
* Added an option to display Indentation guides in the editor.
* Added an option to choose the indent guide and tab display color
* Scroll hint now shows the range, and the current procedure if available.
* When setting the tool menu, if the tool path does not exist or is invalid, the menu item will be disabled with a notification that it was not found
* Pressing SHIFT+ENTER in the find bar will make the find bar invoke a go-to line number (if a valid number is entered)
* Added a real time preview (as option) in the Go To dialog for instant jump to a line
* Added a "Reset" Shortcuts command to Customize dialog to reset all shortcuts to default.
* Shell icon (in status bar) can now be dragged into other applications like in Windows Explorer to open/copy current document
* MDI child window caption now displays the title as defined in the option "Include last document folder(s) in tab display"
* Files copied in Windows Explorer can now be opened when pressing the Paste Command, or create a new document with the file path list.
* Added a fixed "My Documents" item to the favorites menu of the File Browser
* Added Icons to favorites menu of the File Browser
* Improved documents tab display when using high-color icons
* Fixed : Help Shortcut was not available when the Goto and FindReplace dialog had the focus
* Fixed : When using CTRL+UPDOWN the cursor did not stay visible
* Fixed : Sentence case would not work if all letters in the selection were upper case
* Fixed : Outline block would not collapse if the cursor was under the block (when using the command "Collapse Current Block" )
* Fixed : when using the find bar, the search term would not be saved in the history list
* Fixed : When using a shortcut to stop macro recording, this shortcut would be recorded, thus would be impossible to playback the macro
* Fixed : if closed minimized, Twistpad would start minimized on the next session
* Fixed : Some issues with Multi-Monitor setup's
* Fixed : Option "Paint Beyond Right line" was not restored between sessions if selected
* Fixed : Templates defined in syntax files, located in user folder, where not applied if set in the syntax template
* Fixed : Bookmarks dock window was not hidden when using the Full Screen command
* Fixed : Internal workspace file (for reload last workspace) would appear in the Reopen Workspace menu
* Fixed : Find dialog will now adjust the position after a FindReplace action if over the found selection in the editor.
* Fixed : Reverting a document would not update the encoding format
* Fixed : Long menu's no longer cover the Windows taskbar
* Fixed : Replace count (when using Replace all) was not shown under specific circumstances
* Fixed : If Twistpad was closed, and a macro recording was executing, an illegal operation would be raised
* Updated Help File
* Updated HTML Template
* Other minor Bug Fixes and internal tweaks

Just read a nice post by Jeff Atwood (of the Coding Error blog) regarding programming fonts for use in IDE's/programmers editors.

Well worth a visit to see for yourself how each font Jeff selected looks like in an editor.

Block Selection

Block (rectangular) selections are available in Twistpad by pressing the [ALT] key on the keyboard and select the text with the mouse.

Alternatively you can make a block selection only using the keyboard. Press the [SHIFT] and the [ALT] key, and use the arrow keys to make the selection you wish.



Copying the block selection text to the clipboard, and pasting will make the pasted text be aware that the it must be pasted in block, aligning with the current text.

Formatting functions like uppercase, comment/uncomment and indent block will only be applied to the block selection and not to the line like a normal selection.

Please note that block selection is not available when the editor is in word wrap mode.