Release Note (Version 2.8)


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 MS Word conversion] Some users complained that the text description on the procedure of conversion for MS Word is not that visual, so we made a picture guide with detailed illustrations on all moves throughout MS 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 MS Word - in File Properties. The key statistics have been meticulously polished to be identical to those by MS Word. Now, even with out Word installed on your computer, you can count with STGuru characters (all/ANSI = file/text size), characters (all/supporting double-byte characters), characters (no carriage returns, no spaces), characters (no carriage returns, 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 MS 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 MS 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 carriage returns, no spaces), characters (no carriage returns, 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 MS Word, while if a file is in Traditional Chinese, the statistics will be the same as those counted by Traditional Chinese version of MS 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.

 

Past and Future

STGuru keeps improving. There will be new minor update every 1-2 months, or less, and major update 1-2 times a year. Please visit STGuru Homepage for the most recent version of this product regularly. If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to write us:

 

service@speedy7.com

 

History

If you like to know the history of this product, please read:

 

History of STGuru

 

Recent Plan

1. Further update for word adjustment engine so it can be better and up to time.

2. Code conversion related technical improvements.

3. STGuru is both a conversion tool and a text editor, more professional features as a text editor will be added in future editions.

4. More conversion options, especially Unicode-related conversions.

5. Improvement on user interfaces so it can look better and can be used more fluently and comfortably.

6. Improvement of the whole program so it can be more stable, smoother and more intelligent -- Though user may not find it on the first sight, we believe there are still many minor hidden bugs to be fixed, and many minor functions can be improved, so the program can be used more comfortably - more stable, smoother and more intelligent..

7. Your suggestions and bug reports - any suggestions and bug reports are welcome. Please send it to:

 

service@speedy7.com