History of STGuru


STGuru 5.1 (December 2013)

1. [Unicode conversion: Fixed the bug that some Unicode-specific characters couldn't be properly converted] Fixed the bug that some Unicode-specific characters couldn't be properly converted during conversions between UTF-8/Unicode/Unicode BE.

2. [Documentation updates] Various updates of documentation.

3. [Word Adjustment Engine: cumulative update of the word adjustment libraries] The word adjustment libraries have been relatively complete. However, we are still improving them in details gradually.
 

STGuru 5.0.1 (November 2013)

1. [UTF-8 CHS-CHT Conversion: Set whether to use BOM file header when the output code is UTF-8] Now when converting a file or a directory, if the target file encoding is UTF-8, you can set whether the BOM file header is used.  You can set it in the Unicode tab of the Options dialog box. Options are (1) Use BOM header, (2) Do not use BOM header, and (3) Same as source (only in conversion from UTF-8 to UTF-8).

2. [Bug fixes in various functions] Fixed quite a few bugs, such as the following, in various functions.

    a) Find/Replace: If the find word appears multiple times in the same paragraph, not all of them were counted when you clicked the "Find Count" button.

    b) Handle Redundant Lines: After you have removed redundant lines, the status of the current file opened in the edit area was not marked as "changed", so the "Save" function could not be activated. If you exit at this time, the file would exit directly with no changes saved.

    c) Software Activation: STGuru could not be activated through regular procedure in certain Windows 7 systems (especially some workstations in a corporate network). A workaround is provided for this situation.

    d) Directory Conversion: In a directory conversion, if the source and destination codes are both Unicode/Unicode BE, source files in Unicode/Unicode BE would be copied as is to the destination directory, rather than being converted as expected.

3. [Trial Editions: Character count/file size limit doubled in clipboard conversion and file conversion] Within the 30-day trial period of the trial editions, the original character count limit for one-time conversion was 40 KB for all conversions. It was noticed the size of XML version exported from Word files involving some specific formatting can easily exceed 40 KB, even when there are just a few words. Since this version, within the 30-day trial period, the trial editions will keep the one-time conversion characters limit on edit area conversion as 40 KB, but in clipboard conversion and file/directory conversion, the limits will be doubled, so 80 KB for each clipboard conversion and also 80 KB for each file in file/directory conversion.

4. [Clipboard conversion: Dialog box could be optionally kept after conversion is complete] For convenience of frequent clipboard conversion users, now a "Close dialog box when conversion is complete" check box is provided in the Clipboard Conversion dialog box.  You can decide whether to close the dialog box when conversion is complete. If the check box is checked, the dialog box will not exit when conversion is complete, so you can perform the next clipboard conversion directly and conveniently.

5. [Clipboard conversion: Optionally lock Windows clipboard and prompt accordingly during clipboard conversion] By default, the Windows has only one system clipboard shared by all clipboard operations in the whole system all the time. To avoid interference and conflicts between the clipboard conversion you have started and any other clipboard operations, such as the cut, copy, and paste of text, graphics, files, etc. during the conversion, now STGuru provides a "Lock Windows clipboard during clipboard conversion" option. You can find it in the Conversion tab of the Options dialog box. It is enabled by default. For time-consuming clipboard conversions, you will see eye-catching flashing text that prompts you about this during the conversion. The text is different when this option is enabled or disabled.

6. [Word Adjustment Engine: cumulative update of the word adjustment libraries] Cumulative update and perfection of word adjustment details.
7. [Installation package: Unicode encoding is employed for better compatibility] Unicode encoding is employed in installation package to better suit various operating systems. Now the installation packages of the two Traditional Chinese Editions (trial and full - their installation language and documentation language are Traditional Chinese, while UI languages are Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and English) can be properly installed in Windows in Simplified Chinese or English. In such cases, however, the working UI language is still the language of respective operating system. Though the Simplified Chinese Editions can also be properly installed in other language versions of Windows, they can only be used properly in Simplified Chinese Windows. This is the design.
8. [Other updates, revisions and perfection] Other miscellaneous updates, revisions and perfection on programming, interface and documentation.
 

Taobao (Alipay) payment options (January 2013)

Taobao (Alipay) payment options for STGuru has been updated. Now RMB payers can use them to order or update licenses!

 

STGuru 4.5.2 (January 2013)

1. [File/Folder Batch Conversion: bug fix] Fixed the bug that an error occurred when adding or editing an entry.

2. [Word Adjustment Engine: cumulative update of the word adjustment libraries] Cumulative update and perfection of word adjustment details.

3. [Word Adjustment Engine: Correcting Repeating Items] Expanded the Correcting Repeating Items dialog box. If the "Before Adjustment" part of more than one entry is identical due to reasons such as manual editing of a library file, after the library is loaded and upon its self-verification, this dialog box will pop up.

 

STGuru 4.5.1 (December 2012)

1. [Code Detection: Improved the speed of detecting large files] The speed of code detection on large files has been improved. As this feature is integrated in dialogs/modules such as File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion, File/Folder Character/Word Count and Open from Explorer, this improvement has in turn improved the fluency of these modules when manipulating big files.

2. [File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion: Integrated the function of file/folder statistics] Two Count It buttons were added, one to the right of source path and another to the right of the destination path. When the path points to a text file or a folder, you can retrieve its character/word/line details with such a button.

 

STGuru 4.5 (December 2012)

1. [Keep the original character in CHS-CHT conversions between two Unicode-family (UTF-8/Unicode/Unicode BE) code types if there is no valid conversion result] The core code set for Simplified Chinese is GBK and the core code set for Traditional Chinese is Big5. Some very rare Chinese characters may only appear in the GBK code set or only in the Big5 code set and have no counterpart in the other set. Previously, such a character will be converted to a box (□) during a CHS-CHT conversion to indicate that it has no valid counterpart in the other Chinese variation. From this version on, however, if the source and target codes are both Unicode-family (UTF-8/Unicode/Unicode BE) codes, the original character will be kept as the conversion result. This is possible because all Chinese characters are included in the Unicode code set, so Unicode could be used to process and display all Chinese characters. In other cases (the source or the target code is GBK or Big5), because no counterpart exists in the other code set, or because of different conversion mechanism, such a character will still be converted to a box (□). If you do not like this feature, you can disable it in the Options dialog box (menu: Tools > Options > Conversion).

2. [Word Adjustment Engine: cumulative update of the word adjustment libraries] The word adjustment libraries have been relatively complete since 2010. However, we are still improving them in details gradually.
3. [Word Adjustment Engine: word adjustment mode and glossary mode] The word adjustment system could also be used as a glossary management system. When you select "Glossary mode" in the word adjustment interface, the instruction text in the UI will change accordingly to as "Term" and "Explanation and Notes". By default, when you change a library to glossary mode, its status of being applied will be canceled (because glossaries are not supposed to participate in word adjustment); when you switch to word adjustment mode, you will be prompted to apply this library (again).
4. [Word Adjustment Engine: maximum number of final fix libraries changes from three to six] So the user can use three of them in building project glossaries (glossaries are not supposed to be applied so they can avoid participating in word adjustment), and the other three will be used in final fix.
5. [Word Adjustment Engine: improved system word adjustment packs] Added the Basic pack and the Hong Kong Traditional Chinese pack. So now eight system word adjustment packs are provided in the software's installation package. The Basic pack enables users to convert individual Chinese characters properly without converting words composed of multiple characters, so it can properly convert 面 in 面包 and 面对, but will not convert 软件 to 軟體. The Hong Kong Traditional Chinese pack contains only a few items. It is a pilot pack provided as a container only and we have no plan to expand it recently. Interested and experienced Hong Kong Traditional Chinese users can expand the pack by themselves if they wish. Names and descriptions in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and English are provided for each of the 8 system packs (Default, Basic, Science/Tech, IT, Windows, Hong Kong Traditional Chinese, Literary and History/Geography), the proper one displayed upon corresponding UI language.
6. [Word Adjustment Engine: other improvements] Expanded the UI of Word Adjustment Pack Manager. Now the UI's size and the proportion of the upper and lower areas (word adjustment pack list area and pack description area) can be tuned at any time.  Fixed the bugs that when the "Before Adjustment" part of an entry is only one English character long or starts with an English semicolon ";", this entry could not be saved.
7. ["Baidu Post Assistant" renamed to "Chinese Characters to Decimal/Hexadecimal Unicode Codes"] The original function was used to post on Baidu Tieba in Traditional Chinese. Baidu canceled the mechanism later, and the function by STGuru was also canceled. However, some users may still need to convert Chinese characters from GBK/Big5/Unicode to Unicode in decimal/hexadecimal codes, so we kept the module and renamed it to the current name after necessary reform and improvements.
8. [Batch Replace] The two system macros "Page Cleaning for Simplified Chinese (GBK)" and "Page Cleaning for Traditional Chinese (Big5)" have been optimized with regular expressions. Now they have less instructions, but are faster and more powerful.
9. [Documentation updates] Documentation updates that reflect recent software updates.
10. [Other revisions] Some other minor bug fixes and improvements.
11. [Other important revisions] In progress...
 

STGuru 4.3 (November 2011)

1. [Batch Conversion: File System Utilities] Added the third type of commands for batch conversion - File System Utilities, including Run Program, Open, New, Cut, Copy, Paste, Create Shortcut, Delete, Rename/Move and Properties. These commands can help senior computer experts perform auxiliary file system operations when doing batch conversion. Most users do not need to use these commands.
2. [Word adjustment interface] Now you can resize the conversion library editing interface, so you will have a wider view when editing a library with a lot of entries.
3. [Other revisions] Several other minor bug fixes and improvements.
 

STGuru 4.2 (September 2011)

1. [Batch Replace: Cut, Copy and Paste] Added Cut, Copy and Paste to the Batch Replace dialog box. These operations all support multi-select operations and can be of great convenience for bulk editing of the batch replace package. These functions can also be executed via the context menu of the instruction list.
2. [Batch Conversion: Minor improvements] Make column width suitable automatically when adjusting the width of the Batch Conversion dialog box; other bug fixes and improvements.

 

2011 SPECIAL OFFER: Over 30% OFF! FOR ALL MAJOR STGURU PRODUCTS!

Since the recent price drop on the RMB prices of STGuru Standard Edition series products in China, we now continue to cut down the prices of ALL STGURU PRODUCTS. Over 30% price cuts are offered for STGuru Simplified Chinese Edition, Standard Edition and Golden License!

STGuru Standard Edition: $59->$39!

STGuru Golden License: $199->$139!

Don't hesitate! Buy STGuru Now!

 

STGuru 4.1 (August 2011)

1. [Improvements on Batch Conversion]

a) Enhanced batch conversion's general process control. Previously STGuru can only control the pause, continue and stop operations of the current task (command), but cannot interfere with the general progress. Now you can pause, continue or stop the overall progress with the general control panel on the upper right corner of your desktop, and separately or concurrently, pause, continue or stop the current task with dialog box or progress bar for it in the middle of the desktop.

b) The type of the current task, such as "Set conversion pack", "Convert file", "Convert folder", is displayed in real time on the general control panel on the upper right corner of the desktop.

c) In Batch Conversion's main window, the detailed current status information of the path(s) of the currently selected command (e.g. pack path in a "Set Conversion Pack" command or source and destination paths in a "Set File/Folder" command) is added to the command description box.

 

STGuru 4.0 (August 2011)

1. [Key new feature: Batch Conversion] A batch conversion pack can be seen as a macro made up of conversion/setting commands and can convert a list of files and folders with separate conversion settings continuously. You can separately specify conversion pack(s) in any one or multiple steps, and can separately specify source/target paths, directions and conversion options for each round of file/folder conversion. This feature can be of great convenience for those who often need to convert files and folders through multiple rounds with different settings in each round.

   * You can find this feature under the "Code Conversion" menu. Its shortcut key is Ctrl+Shift+B.

   * Each macro (batch conversion pack) has macro properties (such as title, author, version, description, path…) and a list of commands. There are two types of commands - "Set Conversion Pack" and "Convert File/Folder". You can decide via an option to recover the original conversion pack in the current instance of STGuru after a batch conversion is complete.

   * You can further decide whether to convert a file or a folder in a "Convert File/Folder" command. If you need to convert a folder, you can have a new option by specifying which you can overwrite the target folder, if it already exists. This option can help a batch conversion that has many commands run smoothly without being prompted in the mid.

   * You can manage commands in the list individually or in batch, such as Add, Delete, Modify, Cut, Copy, Paste, Move Up, Move Down, and you can set or cancel the Apply status of any command. A command not Applied will be kept in the list, but will be skipped during the batch conversion. Multi-select operations are supported for all commands except for Add or Modify.

   * Drag and drop of files and folders are supported. You can drop multiple files/folders into the command list at a time. When a conversion pack is dropped, STGuru adds a Set Conversion Pack command automatically; when a text file or a folder is dropped, a Convert File/Folder command (with the "Result in new..." option UNCHECKED, so the conversion result will be saved directly in the original location) is added. You can also drag and drop a conversion pack or another file/folder when editing an individual command for the same result. This feature requires Windows 2000, XP or 2003, but is not supported by Windows Vista or 7, because Windows Vista and 7 no longer support drag and drop.

   * There is an "Edit Source File" button in the dialog box by clicking on which you can open the source file of the current batch conversion pack and edit it directly. When  you save changes after editing, STGuru will prompt you to upload changes into the dialog box. This feature is convenient for you to edit a big command list freely and in detail.

   * The UI can be resized, and when it is resized, the layout of controls in the UI, the width of the description column and the length of the description text will also be optimized automatically. This adds big convenience for those who use large screen monitors.

   * You can save a satisfied pack as a plain-text file, and can load any previously saved pack.

2. [Microsoft Office Documents conversion pack] 4 个 Microsoft Office Documents libraries were added to all system conversion packs shipped in STGuru installation package, with 2 libraries in the direction CHS to CHT and other 2 in the other direction. They are applied by default. These libraries can convert the fonts MingLiU and PMingLiU to SimSun in a CHT to CHS conversion, or back from SimSun to MingLiU in a CHS to CHT conversion. You can add conversions between other fonts based on the provided formatting when necessary.

3. [Renamed the Blank pack to Basic pack] The file name is also changed from blank.stcp to basic.stcp. This pack supports Base Libraries, so it is not completely blank and was therefore renamed.

4. [Bug fix: Exceptions in regular expressions] There could be a crash when a user operates with a wrong regular expression. Exception handling was added to fix the crash.

5. [Other improvements and bug fixes] Fixed the bug that when adjusting the Apply status in the Batch Replace UI, the first line could not be adjusted, and the last selected line was unselected. Other improvements and bug fixes.

 

Significant price drops in the RMB prices of STGuru Standard and Golden Editions in Chinese mainland (June 2010)

CPI remains high in Chinese mainland in recent years. However, to encourage local and international users in mainland to use STGuru Standard Edition - the edition of STGuru specially designed to run in various language environments, we decided to buck the trend and benefit our users by significantly reducing the RMB prices of STGuru Standard Edition series licenses - Standard License, Golden License and so on!

 

STGuru 3.5.3 (June 2011)

1. [System language requirement: detection of operating system language, respective suggestions] In a Chinese operating system, the performance of STGuru's CHS-CHT conversion engine can be fully assured. In a non-Chinese operating system, however, the splitting of individual Chinese characters from a Chinese string could fail sometimes, which may further cause a few unrecognizable characters in the conversion results. Now after STGuru is launched and before its first CHS-CHT conversion, it will detect operating system language; if the language is not Chinese, it will optionally prompt user and provide some suggestions.

 

STGuru 3.5.2 (May 2011)

1. [ChS-ChT conversion: Reverse Conversion Direction, Switch Paths] For ease of use, Reverse Conversion Direction buttons were added in the Edit Area Conversion, Clipboard Conversion and File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion dialog boxes, and a Switch Paths button was added in the File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion dialog box.

2. [Regular expression: bug fixes and improvements] Fixed the bug that search results could be wrong when the collection metacharacter "(exp)" appears in a regular expression search string. Improved the part of documentation related to regular expression; added instructions for 7 common metacharacters and added an example.
3. [Batch replace: Apply and Not Apply] Added two commands: "Apply" and "Not Apply". They can be used to modify the Apply status of one or more instructions in the list in bulk. The two commands can be carried out by clicking respective new buttons in the Batch Replace dialog box, or via respective menu commands in the list's context menu.

4. [Left-right layout: modified icons] Adjusted the icon images of the Show/Hide Left/Right Edit Area buttons when the main UI is in left-right layout. Previously, the up-down pattern is used on the buttons in both cases when the main UI is in up-down layout and in left-right layout. Now the up-down pattern is used when the main UI is in up-down layout, and the left-right pattern is used when the main UI is in left-right layout.
5. [Documentation update] Besides the part on regular expression, the following were added to FAQ: alternate procedure for converting Microsoft Word documents, how to activate STGuru when a new computer has been put into use, how to convert a text/file with mixed CHS and CHT content.

 

STGuru 3.5.1 (March 2011)

1. [Improvements and bug fixes] Fixed some small bugs; minor improvements:

   * Improvement: Appended shortcuts after Clipboard Unicode conversions between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

   * Bug fix: In the Batch Replace module, during a Move Up or Move Down operation, selected items haven't been ensured to be always visible...fixed.
 
 * Bug fix: In Batch Replace Item Editor, the Go Up and Go Down buttons could not work properly...fixed.

 

STGuru 3.5 (March 2011)

1. [Important feature upgrade: Find/Replace and Batch Replace now support standard regular expressions] Since this version, Find/Replace and Batch Replace support standard regular expressions. The powerful combination of batch replace and regular expression brings you peak experience as a text editing master. Regular expression is a highly professional technology. It can bring you great convenient if you spend a while to learn its basics. For advanced users, we have several select online regular expression tutorials in the help topic Find and Replace for you to learn from. 
2. [Batch Replace: Multi-select operations, context menu] Now you can select multiple find/replace entries at a time to delete, move up or move down. Besides, a context menu is added when you right click the list. It supports Add, Delete, Modify, Move Up and Move Down.
3. [New shortcut keys: Clipboard  Unicode conversions between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese] Two shortcut keys are support for convenient and fast Clipboard conversion from Unicode Simplified Chinese to Unicode Traditional Chinese and vice versa:

   Clipboard Conversion - Traditional Chinese (Unicode) to Simplified Chinese (Unicode): Ctrl+Shift+I

   Clipboard Conversion - Simplified Chinese (Unicode) to Traditional Chinese (Unicode): Ctrl+Shift+O

4. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Data update.
5. [Baidu Post Assistant: bug fix] Fixed the bug that there was no line feed(s) when both the options Hexadecimal and "Also convert English alphanumeric characters..." are used.
 

STGuru 3.3 (September 2010)

1. [A Dream of Red Mansions - Anasoft A & Anasoft B] We found there hadn't been a fully Big5-compatible version of A Dream of Red Mansions, so we launched an project to offer electronic versions of this novel where the Traditional Chinese part could be fully Big5 friendly. We started with a Traditional Chinese version and a Simplified Chinese version we found on the Internet. It is finally available to go public after months of meticulous work. There are two final packages - Anasoft A and Anasoft B (they are different in details), each with 5 versions - Simplified Chinese (plain text in GBK), Traditional Chinese (plain text in GBK), Traditional Chinese (plain text in Big5), Simplified Chinese (delicately typeset PDF) and Traditional Chinese (delicately typeset PDF). You can choose from these 10 versions based on your own preferences. Besides, we provided download for the conversion pack used in preparing the electronic versions with which you can fully convert between the 3 plain-text versions in each package. New users in STGuru can also learn how to prepare your own conversion pack by analyzing the Red Mansions conversion pack. Please visit A Dream of Red Mansions - Anasoft A & Anasoft B for details.
2. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Important data update at the core character libraries as well as the listed word libraries during the preparation of Red Mansions electronic versions and conversion pack.
3. [Word adjustment engine: other improvements and bug fixes]

a) Fixed the bug that the libraries in Simplified Chinese are always applied after loading.

b) Fixed the bug that previous search-for words in the pack-scale Search a Word module were not all saved in the history list.

c) Added a "Search for Word" history list to the library-scale Word Search module. Up to 50 different previous search-for words can be stored and easily recalled from the list.

4. [Important new feature: Character Occurrences] The Character Occurrences function can be found under the Tools menu. It can be used to find out all the Chinese and non-Chinese characters appearing in a text together with the occurrences of each character in this text. The data can be sorted naturally (by character values in the Unicode Character set), or ascending or descending by occurrences. It can be very helpful for professionals highly concerned about linguistic quality of their documents. Usually no more than 4,000 different Chinese characters are used in even a long Chinese document. If you sort the result naturally, single-byte English digits, letters and punctuation marks will appear first, then double-byte Chinese characters, including punctuation marks, common Simplified Chinese characters and Traditional Chinese characters, and uncommon characters, will be listed separately later. If your document is a pure Chinese document and if there are "unwanted" single-byte English characters, uncommon characters or unrecognizable characters in this document, you will easily locate them in the result. If you sort the result by occurrences, you may very possibly find, in the low-frequency section, some characters that you do not expect in you document (such as typos). With the result at hand, you can locate the real problems in the text by the full-text find (Find/Replace) feature of STGuru or any other text processor and fix them accordingly.
5. [Baidu Post Assistant: important improvements]

a) Fixed the bug that some character combinations can cause unrecognized characters on Baidu Tieba.

b) Added a new option so you can optionally change English digits, letters and punctuation marks to scripts. They were kept, rather than changed to scripts, in previous versions. Sometimes Baidu rejects long numbers, such as phone/mobile numbers. This option can help on this problem.
6. [Greatly reduced the prices of update licenses] To reward our patrons, we greatly reduced the prices of update licenses. Now old clients can buy an update license (with additional 3 years of updates) at only about 60% of the respective new license: Update License Now!

 

STGuru 3.2.5 (July 2010)

1. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Important data update based on mass conversion tests, including update of 10-20 characters in the very core and the revision/addition of 100+ entries in the word adjustment database.
2. [Greatly reduced the prices of update licenses] To reward our patrons, we greatly reduced the prices of update licenses. Now old clients can buy an update license (additional 3 years of updates) at only about 60% of the respective new license: Update License Now!

 

STGuru 3.2 (April 2010)

1. [Support for non-admin user accounts] Due to the restriction of non-administrator user accounts from accessing many disk files and entries in the Windows Registry, in previous versions, our products were not allowed to run without administrator's permissions. To enhance the experience of some users that frequently use non-admin accounts on Windows, from this version on, this product begins to support non-admin users. However, Windows' restrictions on non-admin users would not be removed simply because we support this type of user account. Please only operate on files or registry entries you have privilege on. You are still suggested to use our product with a user account with administrative permissions.

2. [Enhanced support for Windows Vista/7] Better compatibility for Windows Vista/7.

3. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Updated the conversion libraries at kernel and external levels.
4. [Feature update: file/folder character/word count] Improved the File/Folder Character/Word Count module. The size of the interface was reduced and is now more convenient. Fixed the bug of wrong statistics on 4+ GB files.

5. [Function improvement: Glossary Mode] STGuru's word adjustment module can be conveniently used on glossary management. In this update, we added a new option Glossary mode in the library editor. When it is checked, key interface strings will be changed to those for glossary management ("Before Adjustment"->"Term"; "After Adjustment"->"Explanations and Notes"; "Notes"->"Comments"), so this UI is more visual for those that use STGuru as a glossary manager. This option is available only when the library is a custom final fix library (Custom FF Library).

6. [Multiple other improvements and bug fixes] Including

a) Edit area color editor: When the color of a hidden edit area was changed in previous versions, the color block of that hidden area will show up. Fixed.

b) Word fix entry editor: Tabs and line feeds at the head or tail of the before/after adjustment words were not detected as special blank spaces. Fixed. Besides, an indicator was added at the bottom right of this dialog box so user can know this dialog box can be resized by dragging here.

c) File/folder conversion dialog box: File status detection could not detect files of 4+ GB in size. Fixed.

d) About dialog box: Layout resized. Now it is spatial and cozy.

e) Other improvements and bug fixes.

 

STGuru 3.1.6 (March 2010)

1. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Important data update based on mass conversion tests, including update of 10-20 characters in the very core and the revision/addition of 100+ entries in the word adjustment database.
2. [Documentation updates] Updated FAQ on the issue of unrecognized characters in conversion; updated the instruction for the Traditional Chinese tool for Baidu Tieba; updated Extra Notes for Word Adjustment.
3. [Bug fixes and updates] Some other bug fixes and updates.
 

STGuru 3.1.5 (January 2010)

1. [New feature: reminder sounds] Added reminder sounds when CHS-CHT conversions or character/word count is complete. The default sounds are wav sounds.  You may also change a reminder sound to a midi music if you like. A midi music is longer. It can be stopped by a mouse move. You can set a threshold time in seconds since which a reminder sound is activated, so only longer conversions or counts are reminded.
2. [Word adjustment engine: data update] Updated the conversion libraries.
3. [Word adjustment engine: functional bug fixes] Fixed the bugs of big memory usage (sometimes "out of memory") and wrong time and progress indicators when converting extra-large files.
4. [Word adjustment engine: interface improvements] Conversion is not allowed when the language-code combinations for the source and target are the very same. This is explicitly reminded in highlighted text since this version; other interface improvements and bug fixes.
5. [Improvement in installation] When updating to a new version, there might be an error prompt that an existing DLL could not be overwritten. This problem has been solved and you will have a smooth update.
6. [Documentation updates] A new document Practical STGuru Conversion Walkthrough is published in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese (it could be found at http://www.speedy7.com/cn/stguru/video); updated the help documentations in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese version based on localization standard; updated Extra Notes for Word Adjustment - a document in Simplified Chinese that you can find in the STGuru group in the Start menu.
 

STGuru 3.1.3 (October 2009)

Some important functional updates so our clients can use this product more conveniently:

1) Enhanced experience for full version users before activation. Now, in the first 7 days after a registered user downloads and installs the full version, even before he/she activates it, the user is immediately entitled to access the full features of this product without limitation! Therefore, the user can start working with STGuru without any limitation immediately and happily right after he/she gets the full version, and has a comfortable 7-day period to activate it.

2) Now you can add blank space(s) around the phrase before and after word adjustment. This feature is useful for localization experts who occasionally may need to convert between English and Chinese phrases - they may need to keep a space at each side of an English word even if the whole text is a Chinese one, while usually there is no space between Chinese characters in the same text. This feature can be further furnished in the next version.
3) Fixed the bug that sometimes the reported size of files copied during a directory conversion is inaccurate.
 

STGuru 3.1.2 (September 2009)

1. [Bug fixes] Fixed the bug that the profile Open from Explorer cannot be properly saved as well as some other profile-related bugs; fixed some bugs in the Advanced Word Adjustment dialog box.

2. [Video Training Courses] Some short video training courses on the basics and some advanced topics of STGuru have been published at http://www.speedy7.com/cn/stguru/video. Only Simplified Chinese edition is available at this time.

 

STGuru 3.1.1 (August 2009)

1. [Interface updates] In Baidu Post Assistant, description text is now presented with an edit box so users can copy/paste it easily; in the Advanced Word Adjustment system, as the software has long been converting text in much more code pairs than the original GBK vs. Big5, the codes corresponding to Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese in the descriptions and pack names were changed from GBK and Big5 to CHS and CHT.

 

STGuru 3.1 (August 2009)

1. [New function: Baidu Post Assistant] Traditional Chinese characters in the posts/articles posted onto Baidu.com's Tieba (forum) and Zhidao (know-how) are automatically converted to corresponding Simplified Chinese characters by the Baidu system, so you cannot post articles including Traditional Chinese characters on Baidu Tieba or Zhidao exactly as the originals by usual means. Baidu Post Assistant can help you fix this trouble by first converting a text including Traditional Chinese characters into special codes that Baidu can recognize. After you post the codes onto Baidu, the final post/article will appear exactly as the original text. You can paste/edit your source text into the "Source text" area or use Unicode format text in the clipboard as the source. The assistant will do the conversion job. Then you can paste and submit the codes to Baidu for the result you want to see.

2. [Function adjustment: Batch Replace] The command Batch Replace was added to the upper and lower "Edit" menus so you can call it conveniently. Originally this feature is accessible only after you open the Find/Replace dialog boxes and enable replace.

3. [Word adjustment engine: bug fix - add/paste entries] In the previous version, when a new entry was added or pasted and the "before adjustment" phrase was very short, an endless loop may occur. This bug was fixed.

 

STGuru 3.0 RC (July 2009)

A lot of updates and improvements on details were included in this update. We believe this level of lifting is very meaningful, so they were updated first.

The new features of batch file/folder conversion and batch file/folder word count are on the schedules for the next 1 or 2 updates. The main objectives of them can mostly be realized by combining different functions of existing features, so features with such special names are postponed. Those in need of batch conversions can place all files and folders in one folder and then convert this folder by the feature File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion (in which non-text files will be skipped; only text files will be converted). Users of the Standard Edition can use the command line feature to do the same job – you can do "batch conversions" by making multi-line (so multiple commands one after another) batch (script) files and then run these batch files to realize batch conversion the command-line way. If you need to count a group of files and folders at a time, you can copy them to one folder and count this folder, or you can drag them together to the File/Folder Character/Word Count dialog box – these files and folders will be counted one by one automatically until every thing is done.

1. [UI improvement: optimization for large screens] There have been little PC users that still set screen resolution to 800x600 pixels or lower. The starting resolution in the current market for major applications is 1024x768, while a lot of other computer users have bought large-screen monitors and work with obviously higher resolutions. In this update, we raised the minimum resolution to 1024x768 and lifted STGuru users’ large screen experience in various approaches.

* The minimum screen resolution was raised to 1024 x 768. Now, the areas of File/Folder Character/Word Count, Advanced Word Adjustment, File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion dialog boxes and the message dialog box where there is a large message text were enlarged, so you need at least an 1024x768 resolution to use their full UIs. It’s really meaningful to enlarge dialog boxes. They can now show more useful information and in a more comfortable way. Besides, some other UIs have also been enlarged to some extent.

* Multiple optimizations for large screen users. Typical optimizations include:

* The buttons Profile Operations, New, Always on Top and Exit are displayed in the left toolbar at left-right layout (at the bottom of the source toolbar) when the screen is large enough. In the previous version when the left-right layout was first available, these buttons were not available in the left-right layout, but only at the right end of the source toolbar in an up-down layout.

* The Edit Word Adjustment Library dialog box can be maximized, and there is no upper limit for its size when resizing. So more information can be contained and displayed when we edit an entry with this dialog box.

2. [Key feature upgrade: file/folder character/word count] A major upgrade of this feature made it a mature one since this version:

* More file formats to support: This feature only supported ANSI, GBK and Big5 in previous versions. Now it supports more mainstream file formats such as UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode. This means all text formats in general meaning have been supported by this feature.

* Comprehensive status detection: Automatic detection on major text formats – ANSI, GBK, Big5, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE is supported, so before a real character/word count occurs, you will be able to know the code, language, file size and last modification time of the target file.

* Path list and histories: Now, you can keep a list of counted file and folders. Besides, you can set the days before which the statistics of files/folder before can be kept. The maximum number of paths in this list and the days parameter can be set in a corresponding tab in the Options dialog box. You can find recently counted paths directly in the list, and their statistics will be displayed directly. No recounting is necessary.

* Optimization of statistical parameters: Added "Counted" time. If a file or folder has been counted, you can compare the "Counted" time in the statistics with the "last modified" time in status detection message to decide whether a recount is necessary. Besides, notes were added after "Paragraphs" and "Lines". They are now "Paragraphs (natural lines not including blank lines)" and "Lines (natural lines including blank lines)" respectively, so we can have a clearer understanding of these parameters.

* Drag and drop counting and multi-path counting: From now on, you only need to drag paths into the character/word count dialog box to count them. If a path has been counted, you will see a prompt dialog box in which you can choose to display the original data or recount this path. You can also drag multiple paths into the word count dialog box in a time, and they will be counted one after another until everything is OK. When counting is complete, you can check the statistics of all the files and folders counted just now in the path drop-down list.

3. [Improvements and updates in the ChS-ChT conversion engine]:

* [File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion] Status detection: The UI of this module has been improved. Now, status detection messages for the source and the target paths are available. When the source or target path is a valid file or folder, you will see real-time detection information for the path. If it is a file, the message includes code, language, file size and last modification time. If it is a folder, its status as a folder will also be displayed. If the detected information (such as file or folder, code, language, etc.) of a path is not compatible with the current conversion settings, the status text under this path will become eye-catching blue.

* [File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion] Drag conversion: Now, you can drag a file or folder into the file/folder conversion dialog box to convert it. The dragged-in file will be displayed in the source path box automatically. The software will detect and display its status information such as code, language and the "From" conversion direction will be set to be compatible with detected code/language automatically.

* [File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion] Display of conversion pack name: The current conversion pack name is now displayed on the button to select conversion pack, so you can see the current pack name before deciding whether a change is necessary.

* [File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion] Other modifications: Multiple other modifications and improvements on the UI and conversion procedure.

* [Edit Area Conversion and Clipboard Conversion] Display of conversion pack name: The current conversion pack name is now displayed on the button to select conversion pack, so you can see the current pack name before deciding whether a change is necessary.

* Improvements on the conversion engine: Fixed some bugs in the conversion engine, such as there might be repeating text in the result when converting some texts, and it was extraordinarily slow when converting some large texts/files.

* Conversion packs: Now, when you click a conversion pack file in the Windows Explorer, the software will open this pack in the Advanced Word Adjustment dialog box, waiting for further actions. In previous versions, if a pack was already the default pack, the software will only prompt you for that, rather than opening it for editing. The settings can be made in the Options dialog box. The new default setting make it convenient for users interested in using the conversion pack management system as a term management system, or those with heavy pack editing requirements.

4. [Function improvement: left-right layout] Improved the software on issues related to this feature and fixed some relevant bugs.

* Now, when the layout is left-right, the original texts "Upper", "U", "Lower" and "L" connected to the up-down layout in the UI will be changed to "Left", "L", "Right" and "R" respectively.

* The four auxiliary buttons originally available at the end of the source toolbar only when the layout is up-down are now also available at left-right layout when the vertical screen resolution is 900+ and there is really enough space for them.

* The default layout in the last version when the program is newly installed was left-right. Now it has been changed back to up-down.

* The settings to decide left-right/up-down layout have been added to the profile system. The default setting on this is still up-down for all system profiles.

5. [Other improvements and updates]

 

STGuru 2.9.5.RC (March 2009)

1. [Important new feature: left-right placement] In addition to the original up-down placement of the two edit areas, now we have the new left-right placement. This feature is provided for users interested in editing two documents in a left-right layout. The words "Upper" and "Lower" (e.g. in "Upper Edit Area", "Lower Edit Area") in the documentation and UI strings of this software haven't been changed, because there are too many of them. The core function has been stable now. Follow-ups may come next step by step.

 

STGuru 2.9.3 (March 2009)

1. [Bug fixes: Directory/Site Conversions] Fixed some small bugs emerged since new language+code combinations were added, when detecting source codes; some new codes haven't been detected; some detection errors were wrongly reported, path name conversion hasn't been applied to some newly added pairs; code packs haven't been applied to path name conversions.

 

STGuru 2.9.2 (March 2009)

1. [Revision: Handle Redundant Lines] When the setting Ignore single blank lines is applied and when multiple non-blank lines are removed, the blank lines next to them may be left to form block(s) of continuous blank lines. Since this version, repeating blank lines of such source are merged

 

STGuru 2.9.1 (February 2009)

1. [Revision] This version is a revised version over 2.9. It fixed some bugs and improved program, interface and documentation.

 

STGuru 2.9 (February 2009)

As a leader in professional Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversion, STGuru marches ahead without company all the time. Version 2.9 is a revolutionary one. It provides a key feature (command line) and upgrade other two (perfect conversion in the Unicode character set + full range of conversion in file/directory conversion) together with a variety of many other important improvements.

1. [Key new feature: Command line] This is a feature dedicated to STGuru Standard Edition. It is not provided in other STGuru editions. It provides the critical high-end feature of real-time, dynamic conversion for developers, site owners and other computer geeks.

   * You can convert files and folders via command line. It supports the conversions between any possible language+code combinations - Simplified Chinese (GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE) and Traditional Chinese (Big5, GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE), with a total of 9*8=72 pairs.

   * By writing multiple lines of command line commands into a batch file, you can realize batch conversion of files and folders in random combinations.

   * You can set and adjust conversion packs in real time.

   * Instructions, sample batch program, sample text files for conversion are provided. A command line-related tab is added in the Options dialog box.

2. [Key feature upgrade: Full range of conversions for File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion - Unicode\Unicode BE related conversion are supported] Since full range of conversions are provided in Clipboard Conversion, they are now realized in File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion. It supports the conversions between any possible language+code combinations - Simplified Chinese (GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE) and Traditional Chinese (Big5, GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE), with a total of 9*8=72 pairs.

3. [Key feature upgrade: Perfect conversion for the Unicode code set] Unicode code set is the currently prevailing code set. It is bigger than the GBK code set and it contains the latter. Some Unicode characters cannot be found within the GBK code set. Since STGuru jumped out of the GB2312 code set and used the GBK code set many years ago, today, it jumps ahead and embraces the Unicode code set. We have improved the conversion engine and it now supports perfect Unicode conversions for pairs between UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE in Clipboard Conversions and File/Folder/Directory/Site conversions. Now, these conversions are executed based on the brand-new Unicode conversion engine.

   * The perfect Unicode conversion mechanism helps you realize perfect conversions for documents in Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint formats and many other major document formats. You can realize it simply by saving these documents as XML files and convert these XML files with STGuru's file/folder conversion in the pairs between Simplified Chinese (UTF-8) and Traditional Chinese (UTF-8).

4. [Many important interface improvements for you to be happier using this application] Various major improvements have been performed on the interface:

   * Cut/Copy/Paste are added to the word adjustment manager. You can do these operations on entries across libraries or even packs.

   * A context menu is added to the word adjustment pack list.

   * More to explore...

5. [Documentation update] Updated documentation for all the features added or modified in the last one year.

6. [Many other improvements] Many other improvements on program and interface.

 

STGuru 2.8 (September 2008)

Updates on this version focus on user interface improvements, so existing major functions are clearer, and easy to understand and use.

1. [UI improvement: important new buttons were added to the main toolbar] 4 new buttons were added to the upper toolbar: "Edit Area Conversion: Simplified Chinese (GBK) to Traditional Chinese (GBK)", "Edit Area Conversion: Traditional Chinese (GBK) to Simplified Chinese (GBK)", "Edit Area Conversion" and 'Clipboard Conversion". Conversions between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese within GBK are among the most common operations STGuru users may take, while after the buttons for "Edit Area Conversion" and "Clipboard Conversion" have been added to the toolbar, all the three major conversion groups have appeared on the toolbar (the other is "File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion") which provide great convenience for users of Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversions.

2. [UI improvement: "Set Code Conversion Pack" buttons were added to major conversion dialog boxes] "Set Code Conversion Pack" buttons were added to the "Edit Area Conversion", "Clipboard Conversion" and "File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion" dialog boxes. Some new users have no idea that they can and should use different conversion packs on different topics. These buttons were added to remind the users of the availability and for their convenience to choose from various packs.

3. [UI improvement: improvements on color settings] As most users are more comfortable with black text in white background, the default color scheme for the software has been changed to black text with white background for both edit areas. Besides, there were in-depth improvements on the Color dialog box. Now there are 4 templates for each edit area (so 8 in total for both areas). The first of the 4 is black text and white background; the second is the default color combination for previous versions of STGuru for old users to choose from; the third and fourth can be customized. Users can click a color template to quickly assign color scheme to the upper or lower edit area. Besides, the color schemes on the two edit areas and the 8 templates can be copied/pasted from one to another freely.

4. [UI improvement: page cleaning macros] 3 page cleaning macros are provided by STGuru to clean articles in English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese respectively (they can be called from within the Batch Replace dialog box). These macros can efficiently clean and reorganize messed text into clean text compatible with formal writing conventions in English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, respectively. The titles and descriptions for these macros were in English only in previous versions. Now we set these three page cleaning macros as system macros and place them at the first three positions on the macro list of the open batch replace macro popup menu. Besides, titles and descriptions for all UI languages are assigned for them, so when the UI language is English, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese, their titles and descriptions are in English, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese, respectively. We hope these improvements can help STGuru users to be aware of the existence of these handy macros and feel comfortable in understanding and using them.

5. [UI improvement: notes in the word adjustment entries can be searched for] The word adjustment system by STGuru not only can be used to manage proper word adjustment packs (so proper word adjustment schemes) for different types of conversion projects, but can also be used as an excellent term management system and manage a pack of relevant terms, expressions and notes for each translation project. The system allows you to add and edit notes for each entry. In the previous versions, users could only search in the parts words before and after adjustment in the search modules for pack and for library. Now new search in options were added, besides searching in different combinations of words before adjustment and words after adjustment, you can also search in notes only, or search in the whole entries including notes.

6. [Documentation expansion: illustrations on Microsoft Word conversion] Some users complained that the text description on the procedure of conversion for Microsoft Word is not that visual, so we made a picture guide with detailed illustrations on all moves throughout Microsoft Word conversion. A link to these illustrations can be found at the end of the question on word conversion within STGuru FAQ. You can click this link to read them.

 

STGuru 2.7 (August 2008)

1. [Coming new feature and licenses: Command Line Licenses] In response to the requirements of some developers and site owners, we are about to release a group of command line licenses in early October. These one-computer licenses are realized based on STGuru standard installation packs (the command line feature is not to be included in normal STGuru licenses; it requires a command line license). The basic 3-year standard command line license will include standard features of STGuru Standard License as well as the command line feature. Its promotion price will be somewhat higher than the price of STGuru Standard License. Besides, we will also provide 10-year standard license and super license for super computer owners.

2. [Important new feature: character count, word count, paragraph count and line counts for Simplified and Traditional Chinese (text in edit area)] You can now also count characters, words, paragraphs and lines - the same as in Microsoft Word - in File Properties. The key statistics have been meticulously polished to be identical to those by Microsoft Word. Now, even without Word installed on your computer, you can count with STGuru characters (all/ANSI = file/text size), characters (all/supporting double-byte characters), characters (no spaces), characters (with spaces), words (all), words (single-byte characters), words (double-byte characters), paragraphs and lines. When the code language of the edit area is Simplified Chinese (GBK), the statistics are same as those by Simplified Chinese version of Microsoft Word, while when the code language of the edit area is Traditional Chinese (Big5), the statistics are same as those by Traditional Chinese version of Microsoft Word. You can also produce a report in pure text by the Text Report button after counting is complete. This function can also be called from under the Tools menu.

3. [Important new feature: character count, word count, paragraph count and line count for Simplified and Traditional Chinese (for a text file or text files under a folder)] This is a brand new feature you can find from under the Tools menu. You can select a file or a folder on the disk. If you select a file, the file will be counted; if you select a folder, all text files in this folder (including those in all levels of its subfolders) will be counted. STGuru will detect whether a file is a text file, and based on which, it counts text files and ignores non-text files. The report of statistics includes characters (all/ANSI = file/text size), characters (all/supporting double-byte characters), characters (no spaces), characters (with spaces), words (all), words (single-byte characters), words (double-byte characters), paragraphs and lines for each text file and, at last, their totals. Besides, the language version of each text file (Simplified Chinese - GBK, Traditional Chinese - Big5 and English) will be detected and attached. If a file is in Simplified Chinese or English, the statistics will be the same as those counted by Simplified Chinese version of Microsoft Word, while if a file is in Traditional Chinese, the statistics will be the same as those counted by Traditional Chinese version of Microsoft Word.

4. [Important function improvements: Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversion] Multiple internal improvements: fixed the bug that there may be errors when converting UFT-8 text in short lines in some special format; other bug fixes; expanded, revised and improved the word fix libraries. Multiple improvements on the engine.

5. [Important new feature: transparent, draggable main window] You can find this new feature from under the View menu. With this feature, you can set the transparency of the main window (from fully opaque to fully transparent), and can set the main window to be draggable (with a draggable window, except for the active interactive components such as menu bar, command buttons, and edit area(s) with text, you can press the left button of the mouse at any position of the other part of the window, including status bar, blank areas on a toolbar or a blank edit area to drag the main window freely around on the screen). With a semi-transparent window, you can monitor the working of other programs on the screen (such as watching a Flash movie on a video site, waiting for the response of some one while chatting on MSN), and reading or editing relevant text at the same time. This feature also helps you edit information one against another (such as writing down the text on an image) more conveniently. With the new draggability, you can drag STGuru more conveniently.

6. [Function adding/improvement: Profile Management] Transparency and draggability were added to be part of the profile. Besides, to effectively make use of this new feature, a new system profile "Transparent Sticky Note" was add, which differs with the original "Sticky Note" in that it is a transparent, draggable sticky note. To fully use the text and background color of the lower edit area, the new sticky note uses the lower edit area as its edit area.

7. [Important function improvement: Find/Replace, Batch Replace] There were many important improvements on Find/Replace and Batch Replace. Some old and deeply hidden bugs were dug out and fixed.

8. [Improvements: glossary management wizards] Multiple revises and improvements on the three glossary management wizards - Sort Lines, (Operating) Redundant Lines and Chinese-English Glossary Management - Merge, Split, Swap. For example, progress data is shown on the title bar of the main window during large data operations. Some other minor improvements.

9. Various other modifications and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.6 (February 2008)

1. [Major function improvement: Chinese-English Glossary Management] The program can now smoothly operate connected word pairs in the same line both in the source and the target glossary.

2. [UI improvement] Revised the English in program UI, document and web pages; other UI improvements.

3. Multiple other bug fixes, updates and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.5 (January 2008)

1. [Important function improvement: Unicode Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversion] Previous versions of STGuru did not support the conversions of pure Unicode characters that have no mapping peers in GBK or Big5. Since this version, STGuru begin to support the conversions of several common pure Unicode marks (such as copyright mark ©, registered trademark ®, trademark ™ and list entry mark•, etc.) within Unicode Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese conversions and Unicode Traditional Chinese to Simplified Chinese conversions.

2. [Important documentation update] A new appendix item "A.2 Word Adjustment Engine Customization Walkthroughs" was added in User's Guide. It provides detailed walkthrough on how to make custom word adjustment packs, how to make custom word adjustment libraries and how to handle entries; some contents previously added only in the Chinese versions of User's Guide were also added in the English version; there are also multiple other in-depth modifications in documents and web pages.

3. [Program modifications and improvements] Modifications and improvements on many minor problems in the program that haven't been located in the previous versions.

4. [UI revision] Various fine revisions on the English UI. Some revisions on the Chinese UIs.

5. Various other modifications and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.5RC2 (November 2007)

1. [UI improvement: added a button to adjust edit area proportion] Added a button on the lower toolbar to adjust edit area proportion. You can click it to open the "Proportion Between Edit Areas" dialog box. Then you can adjust the proportion swiftly and precisely with the Up/Down arrow keys or the Page Up/Page Down keys on your keyboard. When you are satisfied, press the "Return" key to confirm, or press the "Esc" key to cancel.

2. [UI improvement: added 4 accelerator keys] Added 4 accelerator keys: Edit Area Conversion (Ctrl+Q), Clipboard Conversion (Ctrl+J), File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion (Ctrl+W) and Adjust Edit Area Proportion (Ctrl+L).

3. [UI modification: UI improvements] Multiple other revisions and improvements on the program's UI.

4. [Important function improvement: multi-line modification pairs in the code conversion engine] In previous versions of STGuru, the word pairs are true pairs of words/phrases - only one line of text can be used for the word before modification and the word after modification. Now you can set both the "word before modification" and the "word after modification" as multi-line text. The best place to apply this feature is the custom libraries in a custom pack. It can help you realize high-precision final modification or modification of a big block of text at a time.

5. [Important function improvement: multi-line notes for word modification pairs] Now you can provide multiple lines of notes for each word pair. The notes can be in GBK or Big5. The system can recognize the code automatically.

6. [Documentation updates] Various in-depth updates for documents and product web pages.

7. Various other modifications and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.5RC (October 2007)

1. [Major function update: improvements on Edit Area Conversion] In the previous versions, only several pairs of conversions were supported. An edit area conversion panel is available in this version, which supports the conversions between any possible language+ANSI code combinations - Simplified Chinese (GBK and UTF-8) and Traditional Chinese (Big5, GBK and UTF-8), with a total of 5*4=20 pairs. Besides, the user can choose from different sources (text or selected text in the upper edit area), from different targets (the upper or the lower edit area, or the clipboard). For users' convenience, shortcuts for the most commonly used edit area conversion pairs are still kept in a submenu popping up at the bottom of the Conversion menu.

2. [Major function update: improvements on Clipboard Conversion] In the previous versions, about 20 pairs of conversions were supported. An clipboard conversion panel is available in this version, which supports the conversions between any possible language+code combinations - Simplified Chinese (GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE) and Traditional Chinese (Big5, GBK, UTF-8, Unicode and Unicode BE), with a total of 9*8=72 pairs. For users' convenience, shortcuts for the most commonly used clipboard conversion pairs are still kept in a submenu popping up at the bottom of the Conversion menu.

3. [Major function update: improvements on File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion] In the previous versions, it was called "File/Site Transfer". The current name is used to help users identify the nature of this function. Only conversions between Simplified Chinese (GBK) and Traditional Chinese (Big5), and between Simplified Chinese (UTF-8) and Traditional Chinese (UTF-8) were supported in the previous version. In this version, pairs between any possible language+ANSI code combinations - Simplified Chinese (GBK and UTF-8) and Traditional Chinese (Big5, GBK and UTF-8), with a total of 5*4=20 pairs, are supported. If a file to be converted is a web page with embedded language ID, the language ID will also be properly converted, so the converted page can show properly in the specified language.

4. [Function improvement: conversion for special formats such as Word, Excel, etc.] A special command was added in the Conversion menu which directly opens the instructions on how to convert documents of special formats.

5. [Function update: Conversion menu] The menu was renamed to "Conversion" from "Transfer", and was simplified to be clear in a glance. Only major functions are listed in the first level submenu - Edit Area Conversion (panel), Clipboard Conversion (panel), File/Web Page/Directory/Site Conversion, Conversion for special document formats and Advanced Word Adjustment. A popup menu is provided at the bottom which lists 20+ most commonly used pairs for edit area conversion and clipboard conversion.

6. [Major function improvement: increased speed for UTF-8-related conversions] Previous versions of STGuru converted to/from UTF-8 slowly or even seemed to stuck when it was a large file or a large block of text. This issue was fixed in this version, and the conversion speed for big files/text is also fast.

7. [Function updates: code conversion engine] Multiple updates and improvements on code conversion engine and word adjustment libraries.

8. [Major function improvement: increased speed for Replace All] In previous versions, Replace All in the find/replace dialog box worked slowly when the text size is huge. The function was optimized in this version, and operates fast except that you choose "Match whole word", which requires more time for its complexity.

9. [Important new function: Batch Replace - Page Cleaning] Three "page cleaning" macros (for English, Simplified Chinese in GBK and Traditional Chinese in Big5) were included in the installation pack. You can use one of these packs in the drop-down menu by clicking the "Open" button in "Find/Replace" (dialog box) -> "Batch Replace" (dialog box). The file "page clean.txt" is for pure English text, while other two files are for basically full Chinese text in GBK and Big5 respectively (they are not suggested to be used for English and half-English, half-Chinese text). Performing page cleaning on English or Chinese (GBK or Big5) text with a respective macro can help you clean and normalize punctuations, spaces, tabs, line breaks under standard language/page conventions promptly.

10. [Major function update: improvement on Vista compatibility] Multiple compatibility updates for the Vista operating system. Some were fixed, others, which cannot be fixed due to Vista's special nature, are prompted with instructions and alternatives when they appear.

11. [Document/web page update] Document/web page updates.

12. [Price change] The price of the standard/golden license was raised to a proper level.

13. Other modifications and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.1 (July 2007)

1. [Major improvement: conversions for special file formats] Provided general guidelines and specific procedures or advices on the conversions for special file formats such as Word, Excel. After you have been familiar with these procedures, except for the time necessary for basic conversions, you can convert a file in any of these special formats at professional quality with only 1 additional minute. For more details, please read relevant items in Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

2. [Major improvement: boosted conversion speed for large files] Previous versions of STGuru converted slowly or even seemed to stuck when it met some super long single lines (such as when there is a long line of dozens of thousands of characters). It was fixed in this version, and the conversion speed for big files with sophisticated structure has been significantly improved.

3. Some other bug fixes and improvements.

 

STGuru 2.01 (May 2007)

1. [Updates: product updates] New version auto-detection and download is supported in our past versions. Now we change it into an option, so a user fond of and fairly experienced in some specific version can keep using that specific version without being prompted day and day to update when a newer version is available. This option is only for a registered user using a full version.

 

STGuru 2.0 (May 2007)

1. [Updates: code conversion] Multiple updates and improvements on code conversion engine and word adjustment libraries.

2. [Updates: glossary management wizards] Multiple updates and improvements on the three glossary management wizards - Sort Lines, (Operating) Redundant Lines and Chinese-English Glossary Management - Merge, Split, Swap.

3. [Updates: find/replace/batch replace] Multiple updates and improvements on find/replace and batch replace.

4. [Documentation updates] Added description on how to perform Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversions for access database and Trados TM files (see the Chinese help); multiple other documentation updates.

5. Multiple other updates and improvements.

 

STGuru 1.9 (July 2006)

1. [Major updates: code conversion] Multiple major improvements related to the code conversion engine:

a) The speed in code conversion has been nearly doubled by applying new techniques.

b) The simplest code conversion pack 'blank' was added. It supports simple and fast code conversion.

c) Multiple bug fixes and improvements on file/site conversion.

d) Multiple bug fixes and improvements on the Advanced Word Adjustment dialog box and the code conversion pack management module.

e) Improvements on code conversion options - optional conversion for file paths during site conversion. The original setting is optional conversion between GBK and Big5 for the full paths. Now we have changed it to convert the relative paths only. And there are three options now: No conversion, conversion between GBK Simplified Chinese and GBK Traditional Chinese, and conversion between GBK and Big5.

2. [Other bug fixes and improvements] Many other bug fixes and improvements:

a) Fixed the bug that payment through China PayPal cannot work after China PayPal's recent service changes. Full verification and revision were made for all URL links in all relevant web pages and documents.

b) Multiple improvements on file saving procedure.

c) Multiple bug fixes on the three line/glossary related wizard modules - Sort Lines, (Operating) Redundant Lines and Chinese-English Glossary Management - Merge, Split and Swap.

d) Multiple other minor bug fixes and improvements.

 

STGuru 1.8 (June 2006)

1. [Major update: STGuru Code Conversion Pack] Multiple improvements related to STGuru Code Conversion Pack:

a) Assigned a special file extension for STGuru Code Conversion PackConversion Pack - ".stcp", and registered it in Windows. Now the user can load an STGuru Code Conversion Pack file ("xxx.stcp") simply by double clicking it in the Windows Explorer. Three different options (Just exit, continue to open STGuru, and continue to open the Advanced Word Adjustment dialog box) are supplied after the pack has been loaded.

b) User can now open or switch between STGuru Code Conversion Packs from under the upper File menu.

c) Multiple improvements to the Advanced Word Adjustment and Word Adjustment Pack Manager dialog boxes.

2. [Licensing Adjustment] Free update period has been adjusted to 3 years, and the price for Simplified Chinese edition has also been adjusted. STGuru has now been a mature product, the new price and license can be of great help for its long time stable development, so the developer can focus on developing and improving the product, and users can keep receiving updates at sound pace.

3. [Bug fixes] Fixed many minor other bugs in the program.

 

STGuru 1.8 Beta 2 (For registered users only) (May 2006)

1. [Major new function: code conversion] "Apply" option can be set for each "Before Adjustment"/"After Adjustment" word pair. Now for each "Before Adjustment" and "After Adjustment" word pair, you can set an option to decide whether to apply this pair in actual procedure of word adjustment. The default value is apply. If you disable this option, then this word pair will still be kept in your library, but the pair will be omitted in the actual word adjustment procedure.

2. [Update: code conversion] There have been updates on both core character libraries and core word adjustment libraries.

3. [Bug fix: helper] Fixed some minor bugs in "Batch Replace" and the three glossary related wizards.

 

STGuru 1.8 Beta (For registered users only) (May 2006)

1. [Major update: code conversion] Major update for word adjustment libraries. There have been major updates on both core character libraries and core word adjustment libraries. Conversion quality has been significantly improved in details.

2. [Major new function: code conversion] Now STGuru supports file/site conversions between UTF-8 Simplified Chinese and UTF-8 Traditional Chinese.

3. [Major new function: code conversion] Now STGuru supports clipboard conversions between UTF-8 Simplified Chinese and UTF-8 Traditional Chinese, and between UTF-8 and Big5/GBK.

4. [Bug fix: code conversion] (Clipboard conversion) Fixed the bug involved in some Unicode-related conversion.

5. [Major new function: edit] Batch Replace - in the find/replace dialog box, you can find the button "Batch Replace", which leads you to this revolutionary new function. You can, in one click, perform a series of replace operation for unlimited number of find/replace pairs in predefined order. You can set four independent options for each pair - Apply, Match Whole Word, Match Case, and Use Special Characters. You can save each batch replace configuration to a batch file for long term use. This is not only a great tool for text editing, but also of great additional help for code conversion between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

6. [Major new function: tool] Three important glossary related wizards are now under the Tools menu - Sort Lines, (Operating) Redundant Lines and Chinese-English Glossary Management - Merge, Split, Swap. Try them for details by yourself.

7. [Bug fix: helper] Fixed the bug that sometimes full edition cannot open at very start in certain computers with special hardware configuration.

8. [Bug fix: helper] Fixed the bug that sometimes it runs into error when trying to create User Data Directory, and sometimes you cannot move User Data Directory in Options dialog box.

9. Some other minor bug fixes and improvements.

 

STGuru 1.5 Beta 5 (August 2005)

1. Major updates on word adjustment libraries.

 

STGuru 1.5 Beta 4 (June 2005)

1. Numerous important updates in the character library core and general-purpose word adjustment libraries. From version 1.5 Beta 1, we have been improving the general-purpose libraries step by step, now the core part of this major updates series has been complete. According to our plan, after some additional implementation and enhancement in the next version, the whole series will be completed, then we will release the formal v 1.5 final version.

2. Added Science and Technology pack (Science_Tech), 4 science and technology related libraries were added to both GBK->Big5 and Big5->GBK library lists.

3. Improvement on the word adjustment libraries in total.

4. Improvement on profile system. For those profiles that only open the upper edit area, when the user opens the lower area after applying one of these profiles, the lower toolbar would not appear in previous versions, but it will appear in default since now.

5. Error path prompt text in File/Site Conversion dialog box was changed to color text.

6. Fixed the bug that sometimes registration module of the full version sometimes would go into error.

7. Some other bug fixes and improvements in UI and menu.

 

STGuru 1.5 Beta 3 (May 2005)

1. Numerous important updates in the character library core and general-purpose word adjustment libraries. The quality of general-purpose conversion has been much better than before. The update in general purpose libraries will still continue in future editions.

2. Optimization of all adjustment libraries in a whole.

3. Fixed the bug in installation that the default installation folder for a newer version may be directed to the installation folder of an older version if there is an older version still not uninstalled in your system.

4. Added several file types (".asp", ".jsp", ".htx", ".php") in language code auto-detection and conversion when converting web pages.

5. Some other minor bug fixes, refinements and updates in program, UI and documentation.

 

STGuru 1.5 Beta 2 (February 2005)

1. STGS (STGuru Web Site Edition) released - this is an ActiveX version of STGuru. Web masters can use it to realize real-time Simplified Chinese - Traditional Chinese conversion at professional quality.

2. Now user can open current document by an external program. This is a function similar to "Preview" in a web page editor, or "Run" in a software development tool. You can open current document by the default program associated with its file type by pressing F5, or open it by a custom program by pressing Ctrl+F5. So after you have modified a web page in STGuru, you can press F5 to preview the result in your default web browser.

3. When STGuru found some language pack should be installed, it will no longer download the language pack from web site, but will call the operating system directly to install required language pack.

4. We have compressed the installation pack, so it has been smaller, suitable for fast download.

5. We have moved our product homepage to http://www.speedy7.com/cn/stguru/index.html.

 

STGuru 1.5 Beta 1 (January 2005)

1. STGuru Web Site Edition is about to release - Welcome to know more about it and order in advance.

2. Major update for general-purpose word adjustment data (update 2-1). The quality of general-purpose conversion has been much better than before.

3. Update on IT-related word adjustment data.

4. Code-sensitive in paste and drop - When you paste or drop some text in GBK or Big5 to a blank edit area, if STGuru can recognize the code of the text as GBK or Big5, the display language of this edit area will be automatically adjusted to show the text in proper language.

5. Added 6 convenient Unicode-related conversion buttons on upper and lower bar - 3 pairs of most often used ANSI-Unicode conversions related to current upper/lower text or languages are provided for convenient use. Accelerator keys are provided for these 6 most-often-used commands.

     Ctrl+Shift+S / Ctrl+Shift+D : Selection/Text in Upper/Lower area ->Unicode

     Ctrl+Shift+U / Ctrl+Shift+C : ANSI (Upper/Lower language)-> Unicode

     Ctrl+Shift+A / Ctrl+Shift+N : Unicode -> ANSI (Upper/Lower language)

6. User can edit color for text or background in upper or lower edit areas separately (menu command: View->Edit Color)

7. Extra notes in producing final fix libraries (only available in Full Version) - some characters or phrases should be decided depending on context. This article provides a list of such characters and phrases with explanation.

8. Some other minor bug fixes and refinements.

 

STGuru 1.4 (November 2004)

1. Fixes for some bugs related to accelerator key operations.

2. In-depth refinement for IT related word adjustment libraries and some general purpose word adjustment data. Now the IT-related libraries can be seems as mature.

 

STGuru 1.4 Beta (November 2004)

1. Support word adjustment for "Simplified Chinese"/"Traditional Chinese" conversion within GBK.

You have a choice to use it or not. User can switch on or off it at the "Code Conversion" page in the "Options" dialog box. Since it is useful for most people, this feature was set on at default. Code conversion between GBK "Simplified Chinese" and GBK "Traditional Chinese" is a very important function. Two new accelerator keys were assigned for these functions (Ctrl+Shift+F and Ctrl+Shift+J).

2. Various Unicode-related conversions as part of clipboard conversions.

On an NT/2000/XP OS, the data you copied from a web page, or editing in notepad, and text your are operating on for some Unicode-enabled program are Unicode data. sometimes you found data copied from a web page on XP into STGuru changed into ????. This is because what you copied is neither GBK/Big5 nor other pure ANSI text, they are Unicode data. STGuru began to support Unicode-related conversion since this version as part of clipboard conversion. Two classes of such conversions are supported:

2.1 Unicode "Simplified Chinese" <-> Unicode "Traditional Chinese"

2.2 Unicode/Unicode BE <-> GBK/Big5/UTF-8.

3. Great improvements on the data structure for the word adjustment engine.

3.1 Some adjustment on the core character libraries so word adjustment engine can work better based on the new core.

3.2 Great efforts have been spent on word adjustment libraries on both general topics and IT related (especially network-related) topics. Quality in such quality has been greatly improved. The improvements for general topics will continue in next release.

3.3 4 new libraries - IT3, IT4 for both GBK and Big5 were added as regular components of word adjustment libraries shipped in the installation pack.

4. Many minor improvement and bug fixes for word adjustment pack and other dialogs within the series of word adjustment management dialog boxes.

4.1 Two new elements were introduced and saved in a word adjustment pack - pack directory and GBK/Big5 direction. The pack directory was automatically set as the parent directory of a pack. Now when you copy a pack folder to another place, all custom final fix libraries within the directory can still be recognized after the move. The GBK/Big5 direction of save as part of a pack and remember next time you open it.

4.2 You can now change apply/not apply flag for a library by right-button context menu within the main word adjustment dialog box, rather than changing it only after you opened a dialog box.

4.3. Various bug fixes and refinements for the engine, such as fix for the problem sometimes it won't work or crashes when you are moving down or up a library, or when editing a pack; the title is not correctly when you are doing a GBK S-T conversion etc.

5. Special characters support and other improvements on find and replace functions:

5.1 Special Characters support - Now user can use some special characters in a find or replace operation by applying the option of "Use Special Characters" in the find/replace dialog. Now you can use Windows carriage return (^p), a UNIX carriage return (^n), tabular character (^t) or any ASCII characters (1-255) in Decimal or Hexadecimal format within your find and replace operations. Please read Find and Replace in User's Guide for details.

5.2 Other bug Fixes and refinements for find-next related operations.

6. A specialized file properties dialog and better controls on file with read-only/hidden/system attributes:

A specialized file properties dialog box has been used. So the information can be neat in the new dialog. In addition, you can read and modify the read-only/hidden/system/archive properties of current file on this dialog box.

Usually a read-only/hidden/system file is protected by the operating system from being changed. Now after you have modified a read-only/hidden/system file by STGuru, you will be prompted and have a choice to save changes to this file.

7. Bug fixes for various stability and compatibility problems in various versions/modules of the program, and on various kinds of operating systems.

8. Improvements and updates on documentations.

9. A new license - Golden License has been supported.

With a standard license of STGuru, you are required to activate it with an activation code based on the registration code and a machine code. The new Golden License is suitable for team users. It will work on Standard Version of STGuru only. The license holder can activate and use the full version of the standard version of STGuru on at most 5 computers concurrently. Its super registration code is enough to activate the program, there is no need to go through the registration code + machine code -> activation code -> activation procedure, and the user can change machine at any time as long as the total count of activated program can be kept within 5. Please read How to Buy a License for STGuru for more details.

 

STGuru 1.3 Beta 1-Beta 2.1 (September 2004)

1. First public release. STGuru was created based on MLEditor. It kept and enhanced the features related to Simplified Chinese (GBK) and Traditional Chinese (Big5) code conversion, and set it as the major goal of this program in the future.

2. User Data Directory support. User will be advised to save all important user data files under the new User Data Directory, which is outside of the installation directory of the product. So important user data can be kept during product update or after the product was uninstalled.

3. Refinements in program, UI and documentations.

 

STGuru 1.0 - 1.2.x (May 2003-August 2004)

STGuru is professional multi-language text editor.