Changelogs

Drawing export improvements and fixes

1.18.0 (2024-12-06)

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Drawing exports support Dark Mode, improved font handling, and more readable labels

There have been a number of improvements to exporting the drawing! First, if your app is in Dark Mode, JPG and PNG exports will now export dark versions to better reflect your app (you can revert to the old style by temporarily changing your app to Light Mode in your User Settings). Printing and SVG exports will still use a white background for better compatibility with those use cases.

The dynamic label colours from previous updates are now handled nicer in the exports as well, ensuring labels on Gear Groups and Text Boxes are readable no matter what colour mode the export is in.

And finally, all exports now embed the font size and custom fonts that GearConnect uses, to ensure your exports look just like how you see it in the app. This fixes the issues reported that on some complex gear, the port labels would overlap and become difficult to read once exported.

Improvements

  • Added toolbar items and more features to the main menu bars to make them easier to access
  • Updated the Export menu in the File Menu to better organize the options
  • Updated the naming of several items to be to be more consistent across the app such as:
    • Renaming Connected Device to Connected Gear
    • Renaming Your Reports and Report Browser to My Reports
    • Renaming Library to Library Browser
    • Renaming Gear Browser to My Gear
    • Renaming Properties Display to Gear Properties
    • Renaming Port Type to Connector
  • Improved the number of times an unsaved change is triggered after a manual save
  • In Reports, any cell that has 'NA' in it, will now be grayed out / disabled to indicate it is not editable

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a rare edge case when creating a new project while an existing project was already opened, the app was not updating the URL with the new project code, causing the old project to re-open after navigating to Report
  • Fixed amplifiers saying Profile instead of Power Mode in the General Settings
  • Fixed amplifiers without power modes not saving

Arrow key control over the drawing

1.17.0 (2024-11-21)

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Arrow keyboard control of the drawing

To give easier control over moving around the drawing, you can now use the arrow keys to pan around. This makes navigating the drawing while on a laptop much easier. You can also hold down Shift while using the arrow keys to pan even faster.

When a gear item is selected, the arrow keys will instead be used to move the gear item around the drawing (in increments based on your grid size). The Shift shortcut for faster movement applies to moving gear items as well.

Hitting Esc will now deselect your current gear, making it easier to jump back into panning the drawing around using your arrow keys.

Gear Groups and text boxes support new colour updates

We have extended the same colour updates we made to gear and connections in our previous release to other drawing items. The label of Gear Groups will now be set to either black or white depending on your app theme (Light or Dark mode) for improved readability. The Secondary Colour will be used to set the border of the group, like with gear.

Similarly, for text boxes, the Secondary Colour will affect the border as well, but the text colour is set depending on three main factors:
  • If the text box is set to an opacity over 60% (the default is 85%) then the label colour will be set based on the background colour of the text box
  • When under 60% opacity, it will base the colour on your app theme, same as Gear Groups
  • If you have manually set your own text colour from the text box toolbar, that colour will be used instead of the above two options

Improvements

  • Selecting gear in My Gear will now center the drawing on that gear item, making it easier to find the gear you are looking for
  • Keyboard shortcuts are now displayed in right click and menu items for easier reference
  • Updated some large dialog windows like the Version History and Gear Ports dialogs to open from the top or side, to make them faster to access
  • Updated the layout of the Keyboard Shortcut dialog slightly

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed being able to open Version History several times; only one window can now be opened at a time

Updates to labels and secondary colours

1.16.0 (2024-11-11)

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Updates to primary, secondary, and label colours

One of the most requested improvements was better readability of the default colours used for labels, along with improvements to how and where the secondary colour was used in projects. We are pleased to announce improvements to both of these features!

First, labels on gear and connections will now either be black or white, depending on the background colour they are on. This means you no longer need to manually manage label readability through the secondary colour option.

As such, the secondary colour is now used to control the border colour of your gear and your connection labels. By default, it will be a slightly brighter version of your primary colour but you may change it to anything you like. If you want to revert it back to the default, a new button next to the secondary colour allows you to 'Base on Primary Colour'. This is accessible from either the Layer Manager or the edit colour dialog when right clicking on a gear or connection.

Please note that these changes will go into effect on new items in your drawings. Existing items will update to this new colour system as you interact with the project or the next time you update your colours. The first save of an existing project after this update may take a little longer than usual as the colours are updated.

Dataton, ioversal, VYV, Modulo Pi, Pixelhue, Shure, Yamaha, and more items added to the default library!

We have added over 100 new library items, most of which have been direct requests. Check out the updated library in the app, with the highlights being:
  • Dataton WATCHPAX
  • ioversal Vertex
  • VYV Photon and Tachyon
  • Modulo Pi Kinect, Player, and more
  • Pixelhue F, P, and Q series
  • Yamaha DM series
  • Shure Axient Digital, ULXD and related accessories

Improvements

  • When the background sync runs, it now handles non-destructive changes automatically, only prompting you if it cannot safely resolve a sync conflict
  • You can now choose to ignore errors when manually importing a project; this can be useful to allow the project to load, and then run a server sync once opened to clean up any project issues

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed older projects not importing when they used categories or signal types that have been depreciated; they are now upgraded to their new versions during the import
  • Fixed the following ports from missing unique colours in the drawing:
    • RS422
    • Hirose 10 Pin
    • Phoenix 10 Pin
    • All PowerCONs
    • All NEMA ports
    • Stage Pins
    • Socapex

1.15.2 (2024-11-08)

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Improvements

  • A new project hard load option has been added; this will bypass loading the project from your most recent version history and instead load the latest version of the project directly from the server
    • Activate it via the new 'Hard Load Project' button on the Projects Page or by holding CTRL when clicking on a project
    • Note that this will be slower compared to the default load option but this can be helpful in the event of any compatibility issues with the most recent version history

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a rare edge case that could prevent a project from upgrading to the latest app version when brand new gear was used in the project, but a version history was not saved, and then the project was re-opened

1.15.1 (2024-11-05)

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Improvements

  • Added TTL Sync as a signal type
    • It is compatible (with a signal warning) with Framelock signals
  • Added Antenna Cascade as a port category