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W hat's New

This page lists the history of new features added to WildView, along with the details of changes, enhancements, and bug fixes. WildView version 1.0 was released on 22 June 1997.

Version 1.3 (released 18 October 1997)
  • New!  ­  A new control module, WVPanelMail, has been added to WildView. The WVPanelMail module allows you to add a "pop-up" email window to a WildView panel set that enables a user to send email messages. The module can send email using SMTP or using a CGI program.

  • New!  ­  A new applet parameter named loadMsg has been added. The loadMsg parameter allows you to display a default or custom text message while the WildView applet is loading.

  • New!  ­  A new applet parameter named appletBg has been added. The appletBg parameter allows you to define the applet background "fill" color used during page scrolling or when the applet is covered by another windows and then exposed (see the applet documentation for details).

  • New!  ­  A new applet parameter named warn has been added. The warn parameter allows you to disable the logging of warning messages generated by the applet (error messages are always logged).

  • New!  ­  Two new parameters have been added to the WVPanelFx module that allow you to specify delays when using the loop attribute. If looping is enabled, then the fLoopDelay can be used to define a delay that occurs at the end of the forward portion of the loop (first frame to last frame), and the rLoopDelay can be used to define a delay that occurs at the end of the reverse portion of the loop (last frame to first frame).

  • New!  ­  A new parameter named preLoad has been added to the WVPanelImage module, and the module's image loading behavior has been changed. Previously, an image was always loaded asynchronously: this allowed the WildView display to initialize faster, but with the result that in certain situations the image would be drawn on the display a portion at a time (instead of all at once). Also, in some complex WildView displays, Netscape Navigator 3.x sometimes had problems loading the image. WildView will now by default load all images entirely during initialization; however you can override this behavior by using the new preLoad parameter. If preLoad is set to false, then the image is loaded asynchronously as it always did in prior versions. Also, the preLoad parameter can be assigned a "timeout" value in seconds. This allows you to give the image a maximum time in which to load during initialization. If the image takes longer than the timeout specified, then the image will still continue to load, but the WildView initialization process will not wait for the image to finish loading before it continues with the initialization process.

  • New!  ­  A new documentation page has been added that describes how to enable and view the Java log in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The Java log is extremely useful for debugging your panel sets.

  • New!  ­  Two sophisticated new WildView examples have been added (actually three if you count the example included in the documentation for the new WVPanelMail module). The new examples are titled "Catalog Browser" and "HelpDesk."

  • Enhancement  ­  The modules that allow you to load a new panel set (e.g. WVPanelHScroll, WVPanelTeletype, WVPanelTimer, WVPanelTrigger, WVPanelTypewriter, and WVPanelVScroll) will now accept a loadMessage attribute. The loadMessage attribute allows you to specify a text string that will be displayed on a single line in the center of the applet display area while the next panel set is loaded.

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelText module has been re-written in order to improve performance. The functionality of the module has not been changed, with the exception that the initTrigger parameter has been removed since it is no longer required (text displayed by the module is now created synchronously instead of asynchronously).

  • Enhancement  ­  The "target" attribute of the WVPanelURL module can now be set once instead of specifying the same target each time that the "url" attribute is changed. Now, once a target is set (either in the <PANEL> tag or by sending a trigger to the panel), the target remains in effect until another target is specified, or until the target is cleared by setting it to a value of "none."

  • Enhancement  ­  A number of internal enhancements have been made to the WildView applet and modules that could possibly improve performance on some platforms.
Version 1.2 (released 29 August 1997)
  • New!  ­  A new graphics module, WVPanelFx, has been added to WildView. The WVPanelFx module allows you to generate animated special effects transitions between images created with the WVPanelImage module and/or text created with the WVPanelText module. There are twelve basic effects available (which can be combined): Beam, Crash, Down, Evaporate, Fade, Glare, Left, Right, Shatter, Twirl, Up, Zoom.

  • New!  ­  Four new WildView examples have been added (actually five if you count the example included in the documentation for the new WVPanelFx module). The new examples are: "WildAdBanner the Third," "EMailBar," "Headlines," and "OfficeNews."

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelImage module now supports additional alignment options for the align attribute.

  • Enhancement  ­  Any module that is able to send a <TRIGGER> can now optionally send the trigger to multiple panels (previously, a trigger could be sent to only a single panel).

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelText module now supports a new initTrigger attribute. The initTrigger attribute allows you to send a <TRIGGER> to one or more panels once the initial text has been drawn in a WVPanelText panel (text is drawn as a background process, so it is not immediately available when the panel is initialized).

  • Enhancement  ­  A new applet parameter named useCache has been added. This parameter can be used to enable or disable the caching of panel sets by the browser. The parameter defaults to true if it is not specified, so if your WildView display is designed to dynamically check the server for updates, then make sure that you set the useCache parameter to false in your applet tag. See the applet documentation for more details.

  • Enhancement  ­  The <SET> tag can now be used with the WVPanelTimer module. The <SET> tag enables you to change panel sets by loading a new panel set to replace the currently loaded panel set.

  • Enhancement/Bug Fix  ­  A new optional attribute named "hidden" has been added to the WVPanelImage and the WVPanelText modules. Setting the attribute to true prevents a panel based on either of these two modules from being drawn. This new attribute was added to work around a problem some implementations of Java have if an image has an x or y coordinate that places it offscreen (i.e., outside of the viewing area).

  • Bug Fix  ­  A problem that caused the applet to hang in certain situations when the <SET> tag was used with a stop=true attribute has been corrected.

  • Bug Fix  ­  Fixed a "thread leak" problem.

  • Bug Fix  ­  Netscape Navigator 4.02 has a serious bug that will crash the browser if a WildView display that uses the WVPanelTypewriter module is run. Release 1.2 of WildView contains code to work around the Navigator bug.

  • Bug Fix  ­  The Java Virtual Machine in Preview Release 2 of Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a few problems that effect WildView. Release 1.2 of WildView contains code to work around all known problems with the Internet Explorer Preview Release 2.
Version 1.1 (released 20 July 1997)
  • New!  ­  A new control module, WVPanelTimer, has been added to WildView. The WVPanelTimer module allows you to send a pre-defined sequence of triggers to other panels (with an optional delay between triggers) beginning either when the WVPanelTimer panel is initialized, or beginning when a specified activation event occurs. The trigger sequence can be played continuously, or a specified number of times. An example of the use of the WVPanelTimer module is its use in combination with the WVPanelImage module to create simple animations at frame rates of up to 10 frames/second.

  • New!  ­  Four new WildView examples have been added (actually five if you count the example included in the documentation for the new WVPanelTimer module). The new examples are: "Son of WildAdBanner," "WildMenu," "Animated Map," and "Wild Web Slide Show."

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelTrigger module can now send multiple triggers to multiple panels for multiple mouse events. In version 1.0, the WVPanelTrigger module could only send a single trigger to a single panel for a single mouse event.

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelImage module in version 1.0 of WildView required that a GIF or JPEG image file be specified for each WVPanelImage panel in a panel set. In version 1.1, you can now reuse an image in a WVPanelImage panel, provided that the image has previously been loaded by a WVPanelImage panel in the same panel set. This new feature can significantly improve the load time of panel sets that use images.

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelText module has a new attribute ("align") that can be used to vertically align the static text displayed by the module.

  • Enhancement  ­  For the modules that support the <SET> tag (used to load a new panel set), a panel set number can now be specified for the panelSet attribute as an alternative to specifying the panel set file name and path. The panel set number corresponds to the number that is part of the panelSetXX parameter name in the applet tag.

  • Enhancement  ­  The "Navigation Bar" example was re-structured to take advantage of the enhancement to the WVPanelTrigger module.

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelURL module can now load multiple URLs with specific targets. Previously, the module only supported loading one URL when a mouse click occurred.

  • Enhancement  ­  The WVPanelHScroll, WVPanelTeletype, WVPanelTimer, WVPanelTypewriter, and WVPanelVScroll modules support a new <LOAD> tag. This tag allows panels based on these modules to load one or more URLs with specific targets. Previously, the only module to support loading a URL was the WVPanelURL module.

  • Change  ­  In version 1.0, if there was not at least one panel definition with a clock attribute specified, then the clock value for the display defaulted to zero. This resulted in nothing being drawn in the WildView display. In version 1.1, the clock value will default to 100ms if no panel in a panel set specifies a clock attribute. This ensures that the WildView display will be drawn.

  • Change  ­  If any panel in a panel set had a width or a height of zero in version 1.0, then the panel would be ignored and an error would be logged. Since some control modules do not require the width and height attributes to be specified, WildView will now issue a warning to the Java log or console instead of ignoring the panel.

  • Bug Fix  ­  The WVPanelHScroll panel ignored a <WAIT> tag that was placed before the first character of text to be scrolled. This problem has been corrected.
Copyright © 1997 by Modern Minds, Inc.