dLSoft Newsletter - March 1998 Contents New Product - dFont Developer's Kit dLabel-16 (3.9) and dIndex-16 (3.3) hiccup Year 2000 compliance The dLSoft Web sites dLabel-32 printer problems over? New algorithm for Code128 and EAN-128 barcodes dBarcode-2D update -------------------------------------- 1. New Product - dFont Developer's Kit The dFont Developer’s Kit contains a DLL which can be called from most Windows programming systems. It accepts the character string you wish to turn into a barcode, and returns the characters needed to print that barcode in one of the dLSoft Barcode Fonts for Windows. In programmable applications barcodes may be created automatically from appropriate data fields. Inserts start and stop characters and check digits where required. The very simple source code for many examples is included (for Visual Basic, Delphi, Visual FoxPro, Access and Excel) so that developers can copy directly into their applications to automate barcode creation within minutes. For details see our Web site -------------------------------------- 2. dLabel-16 (3.9) and dIndex-16 (3.3) hiccup Last autumn we released versions of these programs which were Year 2000 compliant. Unfortunately they were not Month 1 compliant, and advanced dates beyond January 1st rolled over to month 13!! We apologise for this minor problem - nobody's perfect. Users who thought they had upgraded to these Year 2000 compliant versions may download the latest versions from the web site, which are dLabel-16, v 3.91 and dIndex-16, v 3.31. -------------------------------------- 3. Year 2000 compliance The following dLSoft products have been designed to be Year 2000 compliant: dLabel-16 version 3.91 and later dLabel-32 version 4.10 and later dIndex-16 version 3.31 and later No other dLSoft products carry out date manipulations directly. All dLSoft products which have date-related capabilities obtain date values from the host computer's operating system. It is the user's responsibilty to ensure that any computer using dLSoft software correctly reports dates beyond the year 2000. -------------------------------------- 4. The dLSoft Web sites DL Technology uses 2 web sites (www.dlsoft.com - maintained by DL Technology, and www.btinternet.com/~dltech - using the BT Internet system). In principle the content is identical on each. We have recently given the sites a face lift, but we are reluctant to include all the latest fancy bits, because of the time taken for fancy pages to download. Comments from visitors to the site would be most welcome in helping us judge how well our sites are performing. If you do send in a comment it would be particularly helpful if you could include the time of access and your country (or specify GMT). -------------------------------------- 5. dLabel-32 printer problems over? Ever since the launch of dLabel-32 we have had problems reported by users who obtained printers which were released after dLabel-32, particularly some of the new HP printers. Symptoms were printer information not being saved correctly in style files, dLabel crashing when opening the Print dialog, or even crashing on startup (when it investigates the default printer). Unfortunately it is impossible to test modern software with all possible printers, particularly hardware which is not available when a product is released. However, we now believe that the improved safeguards built in to dLabel-32 version 4.15 will handle the newer printers and invite anyone to try out the latest testware version available on our web sites. -------------------------------------- 6. New algorithm for Code128 and EAN-128 barcodes The latest versions of our products which create barcode pictures (ie. dLabel, dIndex and all variants of dBarcode) now include an algorithm which may be used to create the shortest barcode symbol of the 128 variety, including all type changes determine automatically. This algorithm may be turned on by using the Extra2 parameter dBarcode can be instructed to provide the control codes automatically by checking the EXTRA2 checkbox in applications, or setting the flags parameter bit DL_FLAG_EXTRA2 (bit 5 of the flags variable) or BarCode.Extra2 in the VBX. In this case no control codes should be provided, although an initial Start A or Start B code may be given if it is desired to force the symbol to start in a particular code type. Users should note that if this option is chosen then the barcode produced may not appear identical to a sample obtained from another source - although it will scan to produce the same characters. -------------------------------------- 7. dBarcode-2D update dBarcode-2D (all varieties) has been updated to fix the bug which prevented some ASCII codes working correctly. Users may obtain the latest version from our web site. All users qualify for a free upgrade, so if your registration codes don't work, e-mail us for replacement codes. -------------------------------------- You have received this e-mail because you subscribed to our newsletter. You may unsubscribe at any time by sending an e-mail with the subject UNSUBSCRIBE to dltech@dlsoft.com End