2.60
- New: Added ability to compress feature data into a modified Planet 3.0 format (.fc2 files) - up to 1/10th of original size!
- New: If .ent/.att files are not present, but an .fc2 is, Planet will automatically extract features from the .fc2, create the .ent, .att, index the map, run the queries and save the map. Maps can now be distributed by only providing the .map and a .fc2 file, which is between 1/10th and 1/6th of the size.
- Enhancement: Table name quoting for ODBC through ADO driver.
- Bug fix: secondary maps not warning about >5000 entities when opened by trial versions.
- Enhancement: Maps now saved right after being indexed - even by Explorer and trial versions with large maps.
- Bug fix: improvements to user security dialog box.
- Enhancement: Option to disable deletion of data records.
- Bug fix: option to display label in tag.
- Enhancement: drag-and-drop saved locations.
- Enhancement: alphabetical sorting of saved locations. Thanks to Claus Riding.
- Bug fixes: improvements to attribute select and locate by attribute functions when using filters.
- Bug fix: multiple SHP export when feature classes are different types.
- Bug fix: specifying RGB values for font colors. Thanks Erika!
- Enhancement: displays can now be set to be drawn after the labels, making it possible to use "blank hatches" or masks with labeling.
- Enhancement: the label can now be set for dislay in the tag.
- Enhancement: features can now only be selected if the assigned style has some element visible at the current scale.
- Bug fix: fixed loss of styles after opening properties window for a feature group.
- New: creating buffers to left or right side of a line (only works properly in projected coordinate systems).
- Enhancement: multiple MrSID images are now automatically placed in correct location.
- New: export structure - create a text file representing the structure of a map project: all views, displays, feature classes, etc.
- Enhancement: added new Garmin waypoint types.
- Enhancement: copy-to-clipboard function for selected coordinates in Edit tab.
- Enhancement: the result from calculate area/perimeter/centroid is also placed on the clipboard.
- Major bug fix: version 2.50 changed the version number of maps when saving without upgrading, rendering some maps unusable; maps will now keep their version number unless you upgrade them with Tools->Maintenance->Compact thorough.
- New: labels can now be stored with feature geometry for extremely fast labeling.
- New: point features can now optionally be drawn only if their labels can be displayed - no more unlabeled points if you don't want them.
- New: label prioritization gives you the ability to determine which labels should be dropped in favour of labels of other layers when conflicts occur.
- New: export selections or feature classes to Google Earth as KML/KMZ files.
- Enhancement: improved hatching & the ability to create custom hatches.
- New: created separate editions - Cartographer, Professional & Enterprise
- New: creation of Macromedia Shockwave Flash images (SWF).
- New: cascading deletes - option to delete database records when deleting features.
- Enhancement: improved Garmin USB interface.
- New: subdivision function for polygons.
- Enhancement: improved SDE import and some Oracle support.
- Enhancement: various improvements to selection of features when clicking on the map.
- New: MrSID image support.
- Enhancement: support for multiple reports per table - reports are now sub-items of tables (like detail tables) and can be dragged and dropped between tables.
- Fixed: problem with searching long numeric keys.
- Enhancement: transparent colours in shape and patterned pens. Thanks Jens Schacke.
- Enhancement: batch capturing of GeoTiff images.
- Enhancement: Points to Text feature copy, using keys as text. Thanks Gert.
- Enhancement: additional Garmin waypoint types.
- Fixed: saved location problem with floating objects and field selection in inset tables.
- Fixed: mapbook printing with floating objects.
- New: "screenline" selection mode. Draw a line or polyline to select all features that intersect it.
- New: floating objects can now be viewed and manipulated in design mode (e.g. duplicated / copied between maps). Thanks to the "Canadians" - Johann & Nick.
- New: measure button for measuring distance/direction with rubberband-like function. Thanks to Sanet Eksteen.
- New: specify user-defined style for selections in a project (caveat: slows down rendering of a large selection!). Last one to ask for this was The Professor.
- New: reports - generate reports based on tables already defined in Planet (experimental, no manual and not supported at this point!). Thanks to Carel Olivier and Patrick Grehan for their patience, testing and fabulous reports proving it really does work.
- Enhancement: implemented additional Garmin protocols.
- Fix: most nodes can be reordered in design view. Thanks Carel, Patrick.
- New: scheduled regeneration of thematic queries (by time of day and day of week). Thanks Carel.
- New: current date function for inset text (floating object or print frame) through $shortdate or $longdate keywords. Thanks Jens.
- Fix: empty feature class now synchronizes correctly. Thanks Gert.
- Enhancement: further translation into German. Thanks Jens.
- New: coordinate export to WKB format BLOB fields.
- Fix: fixed entering direction in D:M:S format. Thanks Gert.
- New: info tab in OCX.
- New: database import can be scheduled for a specific time on specific days of the week.
- Enhancement: database import fields and parameters are remembered for quick re-imports.
- Fix: pens using shapes now working properly.
- New: pens using shapes can specify "end-caps" with various options for example ability to have measurement-like arrows pointing outwards.
- New: basic interface translated into German and Afrikaans.
- New: Garmin routes upload and additional protocols implemented.
- New: Garmin USB support (experimental).
- New: shape fills and shape pens.
- Change: RLE compression over TCP connections.
- Fix: "frames" button in View Properties now opens "Select print frame" window. Thanks Gert.
- New: Oracle support.
- New: .map files can be saved as text format "template" files for version control and diffs. Thanks Waldo.
- New: calendar button for date input. Thanks Patrick Grehan.
- Fix: GPS speed reading. Thanks TGIS.
- Fix: width/height input for symbols when maintaining aspect ratio. Thanks Jens Schacke.
- New: i18n (internationalization) and beginning German and Afrikaans translations. Many thanks to Jens for the German translation.
- New: new content type for print frames: page references.
- Fix: fixed timeout problems with Garmin units on serial comms.
- New: orientate function to align symbols and text with closest line feature. Thanks Gaby.
- New: create bounding rectangles function.
- Fix: print frames when printing mapbooks.
- New: synchronization of map edits through MySQL database (allows multi-user editing). Thanks to TGIS for extensive testing.
- New: started development on new "network" feature type - experimental.
- New: mapbook printing. Thanks Ancel, Gaby.
- New: SDE link.
- New: SDE compressed binary and OGC WKB import options.
- New: legend and displays tab in OCX.
- New: importing of OGC WKB data and SDE binary shapes.
- Change: check-for-updates now uses a URL to a list of files instead of a list of files saved in the map.
- Fix: fixed PostgreSQL connection.
- New: added SQL option for lookup tables.
- Change: right tabs cannot be closed and "lost"
- Fix: D:M:S coordinate entry bug. Thanks Gert Botha.
- New: help menu extension with plugins.
- Fix: fixed GPS functionality to work in OCX.
- New: Planet can connect to TCP server to open maps (instead of network file sharing).
- Fix: attribute select on external feature classes. Thanks TGIS.
- New: plugin can be specified to execute at startup (opening of map)
2.32
- Bug fix: Similarity topology now excludes entity relationships where one or more coordinates are further than the specified buffer.
- New feature: export interpolated Z values for points based on set of input (spot) z-values triangulated and trilinearly interpolated.
- New feature: Attribute import/export for Epanet INP files.
- New feature: Z value (from attribute table) export to 3D DXF.
- Improvements to create table wizard.
- New feature: Uploading and downloading to/from Garmin GPS units (recent models): Waypoint up & download, tracklog download, route up & download.
- Behaviour change: when tagging, the most likely-to-be-relevant entity is selected by choosing the smallest entity at the cursor. Ie. point symbols will always be selected if there is also a line at the same position, lines within polygons and smaller lines/polygons within/on top of lines/polygons.
- New feature: When scaling features, each feature can now be scaled around its own centroid to shrink/expand an entity in-place. Choose "each entity" option for scale origin selection.
- Important change: Map labelling change: line features will now be labelled with the text centered on the line if the font style has the (default) center vertical alignment. To keep labelling off-line, change the vertical text alignment to bottom or top (labels will be placed top and bottom aligned with a slight preference for the vertical alignment as indicated).
- Minor bugfix: Fixed division by zero when creating floating text without text. Thanks Professor.
- Several important behavioral changes to edit/capture function.
- Fixed create new entity/duplicate bug - Thanks Johnny.
2.31
- New feature: "Sum" button will display total values when there are more than one record for the current selection, changes to the total will be distributed amongst records in proportion to the size of the features (area or length)
- New feature: Fields marked as "position fields" will have the centroid entered automatically for new records (Thanks to Patrick Grehan)
- Minor change: when selecting a new feature with no record in database, jump to first field - otherwise stay at current field (Thanks Patrick)
- New feature: GPS marker's colour can be customized
- New feature: GPS has new "protocol" - simulated (random) travel, this allows you to practise the GPS operation without being in the field or connected to a GPS
- New feature: Planet can now read EPANET input files and write EPANET map files (Thanks Cor Langhout for your patience!)
- Bug fix: DXF text export caused "invalid" DXF file errors (Thanks Ciska)
- Minor change: Automatic updating now works correctly through a basic authentication proxy server
- New feature: Planet can now smooth polylines using the Catmull-Rom method to ensure the new polylines still go through all existing points
- New feature: Planet can now create relief polygons from a set of points with altitudes or a TIN, Planet can also create a TIN from altitude points
- Minor bugfixes relating to checking for internal polygons (islands), snapping and DBF indexing
- Bug fix: reverse datum transformation was actually doing forward transformation (i.e. WGS84->Cape was going the wrong way). Many thanks to Henk Wolmarans. Also added Cape feet and Cape roods as per Henk's factor of 0.31485557516.
- Create new table now works in the table properties window.
- Drag-dropping one or more queries onto group of queries of another map now works correctly
- Fixed shapefile creation bug (Thanks Ciska)
- Fixed field display width bug in info screens.
- Made DBase cursor read-only for a uni-directional cursor (so that table isn't locked exclusively).
- Fixed zoom to scale. (Thanks Johan van Rensburg)
- Fixed key field combo positioning bug.
- Fixed selection of invisible entities in a group.
- Centroid calculation fix for polylines (centroid is now exactly halfway along the polyline).
- Added read-only setting for tables.
- Fixed label of key combo using empty field display label.
- Fixed small bug found by Sanet: setting TableDirect on open ADO table caused error.
- Fixed invalid floating point operation when floating objects are displayed in the OCX.
- Minor change: When copying a table to another map, Planet will search for "Map link" and "Connection name" in the other map and assign them to the table. If a database connection is not found the first one will be used.
- Tags with database values no longer read in the whole dataset with subsequent locates, a query is now used.
- Client datasets no longer require an open cursor (this was slow with large Access tables)
- Fixed containment select bug: GetEntitiesIn changed to GetEntitiesAt for overlapping (larger) polygon.
- Added "PluginCanvas" content type for print frames, allowing a custom plugin DLL to draw on the map. Todo: floating objects.
- When tagging new entites, random tags will be omitted so that a maximum of 30 tags is displayed on the map.
- View tabs now behaves more predictably with hierarchical views.
Also, when opening a map where the first view has children it won't
decend down into its children anymore.
- Removed restriction on number of selections, now limited only by available memory.
- Cusom plugin DLLs can now create hierarchical menus within the Planet menu system.
- Fixed 30 character limit to plugin modules' names (for hierachical menus based on names)
- Added PluginCallbackProc for calling a plugin function at regular intervals.
- Contaiment & proximity select greatly improved.
- New: Added "Duplicate" function on view tab popup menu and in
design mode.
- New: selections may now be inverted.
- Fixed AV when changing the order of style elements.
- Fixed snapping bug on polygons.
- Fixed coordinate string formatting problems (esp D:M:S)
- Fix grayscale TIFF where White is 0 and Black 255 (still need to do for tiles) (Thanks Dawie)
- Fixed shape export bug - text and angles were not exporting.
- Added option to export point features as single point shps instead of multipoint.
- Fixed AV when table create is cancelled. <>Added supernode option to network topology.
- Fixed an Attribute select bug. (Thanks Sanet Eksteen)
- Zooming while measuring distance. (Thanks Dawie van Vuuren)
- Pie/bar labels are now displaying "Display label" of fields. (Thanks Sanet)
- Fixed rotate bug. (Thanks The Professor)
- Fixed shape export DBF creation bug. (Thanks Sanet)
- NEW: Automatic updating of map and software components from http server. (Tools->Updates->...)
- Fixed translate by direction/distance.
- Fixed attribute select on Dbase tables. (Thanks Sanet)
- Added: filters on Dbase tables and filter wizard for attribute locate.
- Fixed range query to show correct counts/% when data values are rounded. (Thanks Nikki Scott)
- Fixed problems with Dbase indexes. Planet now warns that it is not possible to have indexes on fields longer than 100 characters. Previous versions of Planet created bad NDX files in some cases (automatically generated index on key field). Please delete your .NDX files so that Planet can regenerate them.
- New: MS SQL server built-in driver (not ADO/ODBC). Basic interaction (view records, post changes) with common field types seems to work.
- ADO driver used to be heavily optimized for Access 2000. These optimizations can now be turned off for use with other databases, e.g. MSSQL Server.
- Fixed problem with lookup fields defined for existing fields longer than 20 characters. (Thanks Ciska Engelbrecht)
- New: keyboard shortcuts for plugin modules.
- Fixed: problems with displaying and printing grids.
- New: grids can now be labelled with their coordinates and a style used for the grid lines and text.
- Fixed attribute select on SQL query. (Thanks Vincent Kars)
- Changed: SQL queries are now opened in "uni-directional" mode when applicable, speeding up operationson large SQL result sets. (Thanks Vincent)
- Fixed E00 import to work with point coverage labels that refer to a polygon id even though there are no polygons.
- Fixed problems with printing ECW to some HP printers. (Thanks Thea & Hettie)
- Fixed locality map not updating when changing views. (Thanks Johan van Rensburg)
- Fixed "Delete identical keys" function.
- Layers of a group query do not act as separate select queries anymore. This caused problems when activating "properties" or regenerating one of the layers. (Thanks Sjoerd Houwing)
- Added Tools->Refresh tables to close all tables so that the latest content can be fetched from the server without closing the map first.
- Added "refresh" and "Record # of N" for master tables.
- Added "limit records" for master tables.
- Fixed "map" button for master tables.
- Filtering and sorting on master tables now works better for MySQL tables but hasn't been tested with Access and doesn't work with dBase.
- Security issue fixed with compact. (Thanks Johan van Rensburg)
- When adding "style element" (pen,fill,font,symbol) to a group style, it can optionally be assigned to all "child" styles of the group style. (Thanks Johann van Schaik)
- Fixed problem with importing MIF/MID without specifying a table. (Thanks Philip Malan)
- Style elements may now be dragged between styles of different maps.
- "Select" button added to the toolbar for attribute/proximity/etc selects.
- Fixed problems with "wizard" in attribute select. (Thanks to "The Professor")
- Proximity select now works if more than 50 entities were selected to start from.
- Optimal route selection through selected links, provided network topology is available on a link feature class and a node feature class.
- Create buffers! This long awaited feature is still experimental though and makes extensive use of Planet's union algorithm which still has a few problems. (Begged for by Sanet Eksteen).
- Fixed bug with "Open" and "Execute" options under "Tag" tab of "Display properties". (Thanks to Richard Kaufholz)
- Fixed behaviour or "Capture point" (pushpin) mode to capture single point entities. To capture multi-point entities, use "Capture" (pencil) mode on point features. (Thanks Dawie van Vuuren)
- Added capture options "Redraw when done" to disable redrawing and "Update queries" to disable updating of thematic queries when capturing. (For Thea & Hettie who were capturing millions of dots on top of orthophotos)
- Print preview to normal view switch bug fixed. (Thanks Nikki Scott and Ciska Engelbrecht)
- Correct image is now being used when panning in print preview with frames. (Thanks Gaby van Wyk)
- Fixed floating text that did not display when moved away from top-left corner on Windows 98/95. (Thanks Nikki Scott)
- Fixed JPEG floating images that did not always print depending on the scaling of the images. (Thanks Ciska)
- Corrected problems with saving as or copying bitmaps to the clipboard. (Thanks Ciska)
- Save as / Copy to clipboard now produces the page as it would be printed if in "Print preview". I.e. print frames, resolution. (Thanks Ciska)
- Locality map prints again. (Thanks Johan van Rensburg)
- Locate by attribute now works much better. Typing the first few letters of a string value in the "Search for" box to get a list of values that starts with the entered letters. Hit enter to accept the highlighted value. (Thanks Dawie van Vuuren)
- Fixed problem with posting changes to a record after an image was loaded which caused a locate on a record already being edited resulting in an error message when you save. (Thanks Dawie)
- Random colours for group queries are now produced according to three options: soft tones, dark tones, high contrast.
- Print frames may now be copied between maps. (Thanks Ciska)
- Added "Duplicate" feature for print frames. (Thanks Ciska)
- Added "limit to 50 (default) records" in "Table properties" window's "Test" tab. (Thanks Vincent Kars)
- Cancel button in User login dialog does not produce "Invalid username/password" error anymore. (Thanks Vincent)
- Printing orthophotos to A1 or A0 previously required hundreds of megabytes of memory. This has been reduced to only a few. (Thanks Guus Huls)
- Previous versions allowed maps to be opened and saved by older versions causing loss of components, for example the new chart queries. From now on Planet will warn you about this before saving. (Thanks Gert Botha)
- Added "Duplicate" feature for thematic queries.
- New! Pie queries (Beta). Pie queries are generated similar to group queries based on values found in a single database row that matches the key of a point feature. The radius of pies may also be controlled by the value of a field, e.g. "Total_population". (Repeatedly asked for by Ciska and Sanet Eksteen)
- New! Bar queries (Beta). Even simpler than pie queries. Like pie queries, the legend contains explanations of the colours (the field names) and behave exactly like the layers of a group query. (Thanks Sanet for examples)