Northeast Data Corp. - ActiveX Controls for Windows developers.

Version 2.0 - November 1997

Fixed problem with Advanced Printing Functionality failing under VB 5.0 EXE builds on Windows 95.

Added the VFPRefresh method. This method is required for Visual FoxPro 3.0x users only. Microsoft has confirmed that Visual FoxPro contains a bug that does not properly send the Refresh dispatch to any OLE controls.Instead, VFP re-routes calls such as ThisForm.Olecontrol1.Refresh to its internal Refresh procedure.

Added ability to populate the control from the clipboard. If the clipboard contains a CF_DIB, the image control will allow the user to paste that data into the control.

All LZW Functionality is now FREE! Reading and writing GIF image files is free as well as reading LZW compressed TIFF files. All other image compression or decompression requires a license from Northeast Data Corp.

A problem was discovered by Michael Dyer in the advanced printing functions. Device contexts could be leaked in certain situations. This would cause GDI and HEAP resources to be lost for each print.
1-bit TIFF decompression was accelerated. 1-bit TIFF images should all decompress much faster now. This change can be seen in CCITT group 3 and group 4 TIFF images.
Image stretching on Windows 95 was corrected. A difference was discovered between NT and Windows 95 during testing where images were not correctly displayed on Windows 95 when their fit types were either horizontal or vertical fit.

A problem was discovered in the GIF library. Decompression of GIF files with less than 5 bits per pixel caused the library to generate exception faults.
A problem loading incomplete GIF files was fixed.
A problem was discovered by Chris Hopkins in the JPEG library. Certain JPEG files contina invalid Start Of Scan lengths (SOS). The bug was fixed by bypassing any additional bytes reported by the SOS length field that are not expected. Not bypassing these bytes results in images that look washed-out.

A problem was discovered by Al Cattani in the GIF library. Some GIFs are generated as 5-bit per pixel gray scale. These were not displaying when loaded in the NED Image OCX.
Problems were discovered by Jaap Van Der Kreeft in the JPEG library. Certian JPEG files that were generated incorrectly would cause the NED Image OCX to exception fault or display bad images. The exception fault was fixed by removing the memory mapped file code and moving to JPEG6. Another error was found in not handling 8-bit gray scale images correctly. These were fixed. The NED Image OCX now tries to decompress JPEG files in a try/catch sequence in case ofther color space varients are introduced.

There are bugs in some of the printer drivers that are distributed with Windows 95 and Windows NT. Specifically, using an Epson Stylus Color printer with the printer driver distributed with Windows NT only allows for printing with 16 colors. Printing with the Epson Stylus Color printer with the printer driver distributed with Window 95 does not print at all. To print with the Epson Stylus Color printer under Windows, your users should use the Windows 3.11 driver available from Epson. The 1.06 or 2.03 driver included with the printer works fine and prints in True Color. If you have a doubt about the NED Image ActiveX control print quality, first check to see if any updated drivers are available from the printer manufacturer. If you are still having problems with color printing, please make sure you have configured your printer driver for color

Northeast Data Corp

Charlotte, NC

nedatacorp@carolina.rr.com