STE Version 3

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger
19 Oct 2010 04:58. Edited 2 times. (Edit, Permalink)

Well, about 3 months ago I unveiled the second iteration of STE, and less than 24 hours later had to release v2.01 to fix a bug! Since then, it's been three long months and now I have another release for you all.

The highlights

If you have a scroll down and look at the length of that change-log, I can almost guarantee you'll just come straight back up here again to get the quick-and-dirty list instead. This time, there really is a lot to read!

  • Completely new file structure for 'STE' files
  • Menu items completely rearranged, some removed
  • Settings dialog cleaned up, some components removed
  • The previously useless 'statistics' dialog has undergone a facelift, and is now called Page Meta Data
  • STE gives you more useful information in some situations
  • Completely new (and fairly basic for now) search feature!
  • Much better integration with the operating system for Mac OS X owners!
  • A few additional keyboard shortcuts
  • Bug fixes, and other minor changes

Complete list of changes

Version 3.00 (19 October 2010)

New features:

  • Changed structure of STE file format to use XML
  • New option Deselect (Ctrl+E) in Edit menu
  • The Page Meta Data (aka. Statistics) dialog has been completely re-written
  • Re-wrote all API operations to use APIv2 methods
  • After exporting a page, STE will tell you if the page was auto-renamed by Wikidot.
  • A new Search feature (Ctrl+F) that allows you to search the document!
  • GUI improvements for Mac OS X owners:
    • Takes advantage of the Mac menu bar to provide a more natural experience
    • A more suitable application name is shown in the Mac toolbar ("STE" instead of "Text Editor")
    • Grow Box added to the bottom-right corner, for resizing the window
    • And STE now uses the 'Brushed Metal' look and feel that you may be used to seeing in various iApps, such as iTunes and iChat!

Layout changes:

  • Rearranged position of components in Network and Wikidot API tabs in Settings dialog
  • Added labels for text fields in settings dialog
  • Tools menu removed
    • Settings moved to Edit menu
    • Statistics moved to Edit menu, renamed to Page Meta Data
    • Line wrap and Clear status bar menu items removed completely

Keyboard shortcuts:

  • New keyboard shortcut F6 for Page Meta Data dialog
  • New keyboard shortcut Alt+F4 to exit the program
  • New keyboard shortcut F10 to select the File menu

Bug fixes:

  • Overwriting existing pages using API was slow due to redundancy. Optimised code, and now this is now up to 5x faster!
  • Fixed regression where automatic adding of file extensions stopped working
  • Import dialog now correctly detects and displays the site / page meta data

Minor changes:

  • Added tsangk to the "About STE" dialog, for his suggestion to use an XML file format
  • Settings dialog button text changed from "OK" to "Apply"
  • Removed the 'username' field from the Wikidot API tab. Only API key is required now

Download

You can grab the latest copy of STE from the download page.

Screenshots

The new labels in the settings dialog

ste-3-settinglabels.png

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wdavatar?user=tsangk
tsangk

19 Oct 2010 05:14. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
WOW! Redo and Undo are in Chinese on my computer (:

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

19 Oct 2010 05:18. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)

WOW! Redo and Undo are in Chinese on my computer (:

Huh, that's cool. Was it doing that before?

I can't think of any changes that I have made to intentionally make it do that, it must just be picking up the locality/language settings you have on your computer.

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

19 Oct 2010 10:43. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Here is a list of change requests I worked on for this release: http://editor.wikidot.com/cr:_start/tags/3.00

I could swear bcammo posted screenshots of STE on Mac, and mentioned how it's not acting like a native application. But I can't find those threads :S Wanted to put them into the list above and mark as done.

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wdavatar?user=titen96
titen96

20 Oct 2010 03:28. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Thanks for this release it mustve been hard adding all of those features and correctong bugs right?

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

20 Oct 2010 04:01. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Some of them I added a while ago, almost 2 months ago. Some I added within the last couple of days.

I spent one whole afternoon and night trying to get progress bars working, but I need to use multi-threading to make it work, which I've never done before, and I never got it working properly. Will have to try again some other time.

Which feature do you want the most, that STE doesn't have yet?

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

20 Oct 2010 23:45. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Awesome!! About to download it.

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 00:04. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Got it working without problems froopi?

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 00:29. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
I double clicked on the STE-3-00.jar and it just opens up another folder with fonts and your license

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 00:34. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Even when I open the file in the command prompt it still does the same thing

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 03:52. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
You need to associate it with the JRE.

1. What operating system are you using?

2. And what are you typing into the command prompt? To launch from cmd, open up the folder STE is in and type this:

java -jar STE-3-00.jar

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 04:00. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Also, check this: Installation

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 05:22. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
I downloaded it and it says the JRE is already on my computer, and I'm operating in Windows

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 05:23. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Thank you for that last post about the command prompt, it works now :)

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 05:26. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Just in case, can you put the command prompt text in the installation, just in case another person like me has trouble with this. ;)

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 05:36. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
You shouldn't have to use the command prompt. Double-clicking it should work, but I suspect the JRE isn't in your class path or something. I'll investigate and let you know how to fix it.

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 05:49. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Which version of Windows? Try this:

  1. Find the file STE-3-00.jar
  2. Right-click it and select "Open with…"
  3. Click on the "Browse…" button
  4. Find "javaw.exe" in your JRE's bin folder. (Not java.exe — it must have the 'w' on the end.)
  5. Choose that file, and it should make all JAR files work on a double-click from now onwards.

My 'javaw.exe' is located here, but yours might be slightly different:

C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

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wdavatar?user=tsangk
tsangk

21 Oct 2010 05:49. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Alternatively, create a BATCH script for Windows and BASH script for unix systems. Include in the zip as a runner (:

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wdavatar?user=bcammo
bcammo

21 Oct 2010 06:48. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
So I've been using STE v3.0 on Mac OS X for the last couple of days, and it is all working well. The first time I used it, it took a while to open up, but since then everything has worked a treat. Using the API, pages save a whole lot faster now - it's great!

A couple of points:

  • when a page is exported to a non-autonumbered category, I get the message below. I'm not sure if this is meant to happen or not?

Wikidot page saved!
Page auto-renamed to 'null'.

  • In the menu bar, it still says TextEditor, not STE.
  • you said you had added the 'brushed metal' look, but I can't see where that is? Is it under the buttons.
  • How did it already know my API key when I first opened it? Sneaky little STE…

If any of these are worthy of a change request let me know and I'll make them.

Great job Shane,

Bryce

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 07:03. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Just figured everything out, I feel dumb now after figuring that easy process out haha.

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 07:04. Edited 1 times. (Edit, Permalink)
How can I load our CSS theme, what would be the "http://" of it? … which is also a dumb question

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 07:10. Edited 1 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Bryce:

Haha ;-)

All of those first 3 are worthy of posting in the tracker. The first one is definitely a bug and I've noticed it myself, but forgot to report it.

The things that I promised would appear for Mac OS X users that aren't working I'll have to look into - so consider them to be a bug as well. I've read that apparently, Apple can't make up it's mind about what level of control they want to give to Java developers… they keep changing not only what options are available (e.g. setting 'brushed metal' appearance) but they have also been changing the method names repeatedly.

As for knowing your API key - that's because you entered it into a previous version of STE. Perfectly normal, sneaky STE ;-) It remembers it on a per-user basis, so someone logging into a different account on your Mac won't see it pre-filled for them.

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 07:15. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Froopi:

Just figured everything out, I feel dumb now after figuring that easy process out haha.

So my suggestion to use javaw.exe worked? I'll need to put that into the installation page then! Thanks.

How can I load our CSS theme, what would be the "http://" of it? … which is also a dumb question

Unfortunately, the CSS parser built into STE isn't very good. I'd recommend just using the default URL for the address. If you want to see what it looks like though, your URL is http://www.ps3index.com/local--theme/index-css-base/style.css - just don't expect it to look anything like your website! :) That's why the 'open in browser' button is there.

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 07:24. Edited 1 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Understood, and thank you for your help, I will be posting ideas also :)
- The first Idea I have is maybe adding more modules to the "Modules" bar, this way its less links to click, especially if anyones browser is down. Unless STE doesn't work offline, does it though?

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

21 Oct 2010 08:02. Edited 1 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Sorry for posting this here but on my site when im on the administrator page my css theme isnt showing up when i press edit

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

21 Oct 2010 09:27. Edited 1 times. (Edit, Permalink)

The first Idea I have is maybe adding more modules to the "Modules" bar, this way its less links to click, especially if anyones browser is down.

Missing toolbar buttons & modules was a forum thread, but I just moved it into the issue tracker instead. You can rate that page up, and let me know which modules you want first :)

Unless STE doesn't work offline, does it though?

Yes, it works offline. Just no import/export (obviously). Eventually I hope to get preview working offline too.

You can save and load files straight to your desktop… so, if you have no internet, start creating pages on your computer and then export them back to your wikidot site when you connect again. (e.g. while travelling somewhere, you can use STE on a laptop)

As of this version (3.00) the application now allows you to save meta information about pages to your computer - it remembers the parent page, tags, page name, etc. that you set in the "Page Meta Data" dialog (press F9).

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

22 Oct 2010 07:58. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
When I'm use parent page, it has some bugs and an unknown error pops up as well. When I do the same process on wikidot, using my regular site editor, it works fine

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

22 Oct 2010 08:34. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Please create an issue in the tracker for that - and post screenshots to help me understand what the problem is.

Thanks :)

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wdavatar?user=matt-gentile
Matt Gentile

22 Oct 2010 19:34. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Sure :)

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wdavatar?user=leiger
leiger

26 Oct 2010 08:18. Edited 0 times. (Edit, Permalink)
Doesn't look like you've created the tracker page.. which means I can't fix it :S

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