Program Changes

Program enhancements, changes, bugs and fixes to the master software are carried out by GenRe support following the traditional programming approach. Changes to master software should have no adverse impact on existing applications. In many cases, they improve and add features for building applications.

At the application level, changes are carried out by users at anytime. In case of applications downloaded from this website, GenRe support will fix bugs as they identified.

We intend to continually improve GenRe Software, to refine existing features and add functionalities. The changes are provided to production users as soon as the changes are available, via a separate production support website. The version of the system available from this website is also updated at least once a month. All changes are posted on this page.

March 22, 2010

The latest version of GenReSoftware.zip includes fixes to issues listed on February 25th as well as other minor bugs identified thereafter.

PAST ISSUES

February 25, 2010

Designer programs for data entry and spreadsheets. When a field's tab number is (1) temporarily removed and then (2) a red (assigned) tab number is clicked in order to find out the field that uses it, the program aborts and returns to data entry program without applying the changes. Recourse version is to refrain from (2) after (1). The bug has been fixed and the change will be included in the next version of GenReSoftware.zip.

The group command button is automatically disabled when used in conjunction with some dimension commands. It has been made consistent by letting the user decide when to disable the command.

Removing tab numbers from from individual fields works but not for a group of fields. The recourse is to remove tabs one by one. The bug has been fixed and the change will be included in the next version.

Spreadsheet designer program. False error message "field error" comes up when moving fields relative to (left of, right of, above or below) other fields. Spreadsheets have 155 fields. This happens when the other field is 101 to 155. Recourse is to click on and ignore the message. It will not show in the next version.

So far, the intermittent problem reported on December 28, 2009 has not re-occurred. Software is faster and seems to be okay on 64-bit Windows 7 operating system.

February 12, 2010

All highlighted (green) changes are now included in the latest version of GenReSoftware.zip.

January 22, 2010

Following the January 16th fixes, the document and picture organizer programs have also been fixed to show all 50 instead of the first 6 check boxes only.

January 21, 2010

The auxiliary pictures of pictures program retain their original aspects even if their dimensions are correctly reset by the pictures designer program. This minor bug has been fixed. The change will be included in the next version of GenReSoftware.zip.

Pictures designer program: moving a group of pictures. When the group-move button is highlighted, it allows you to move pictures about the screen and without having to do it individually. The only way to de-activate the group button is to close the designer and open it again. This minor bug has been fixed.

The enquiry program has been fixed to show all 50 instead of the first 6 check boxes only.

January 16, 2010

All highlighted (yellow) changes are now included in the latest version of GenReSoftware.zip.

The time window for data entry, spreadsheet, documents and pictures program has been expanded from 16 hours to 24 hours.

Data entry programs activate up to 50 check boxes however batch programs such as cross-reference or copy files may only show the first 6 check boxes. The programs have been fixed to show all active checkboxes.

Cross reference programs should have an option to compute for average amounts. This option was inadvertently omitted but has now been included

The demo version is restricted to adding, modifying and reporting files with 20 records only. It has been eased to allow modification to and reporting of files with 100 records. Spreadsheets are unchanged.

January 12, 2010

The data entry, spreadsheet, documents and pictures programs have been modified to write time to files in hhmmss format. Currently, it is written in hh:mm:ss format.The changes will be included in the next version of GenReSoftware.zip to be made available next month.

January 8, 2010

The first 5 items listed on December 28th have now been included in the latest version of GenReSoftware.zip.

With the year changing to 2010, the extract instructions of the sample spreadsheet have been modified to pick up data from year 2009 rather than the "current" year.

Work is in progress with respect to the 6th item. There is still no resolution to the intermittent problem.

December 28, 2009:

The following changes will be implemented next month:

1. Minor improvement. When the designer module (of data entry, pictures, documents and spreadsheet programs) is closed, the user will now confirm that it is okay to apply the changes to the program, otherwise the changes are ignored. Currently, the module closes and automatically applies the changes.

2. Minor improvement to spreadsheet designer module. The group command will now hide a group of cells in one click. Currently, objects are hidden by clicking on them individually.

3. Minor bugs fixed. Labels are created successfully just like text reports and charts. However, the message is "report is not created". This is wrong. The message has been changed to "report is created".

Printing multiple pages of labels. The last page is not cleared. For example, if there are 30 labels to a page and the last page prints 20 labels only, the remaining 10 slots still contain data from penultimate page.

4. Minor improvement to command editor modules. When adding the first instruction and step number is not entered, it defaults to step 1 but sometimes step 2000 is incorrectly assigned. Currently, this problem is detected only at the point when all instructions are applied. The module will now give a prior warning if the step to be added is 2000.

5. Minor improvements to grid modules. When totals are specified, the print formats are available for numbers and amounts only but not for alphabetic fields. Restriction will be relaxed to allow print formats for alphabet fields that contain amounts and numbers. In addition, formatted totals will be displayed as soon as the grid is flipped back from design to execute mode.

Typo error: when data entry program is closed and a grid is still active, the current message is "Close this program even if grid is still be running?". Be is taken out.

6. Minor enhancements. A new program, GenReDataFormats, will be created. Data entry and print formats are needed for non-alphabetic fields. For example, if date is entered as 123109, then the entry format is mmddyy. If it is to be displayed or printed as Dec-31-2009, then the format is mmm-dd-yyyy.

Current programs specify formats for individual fields.The new program will make designing efficient by automatically assigning default formats to amounts, numbers, dates and times.

Intermittent Problem Under Investigation

When a screen is closed, the link back to main menu is lost. Whenever this occurs, use Control-Alt-Delete keys to activate the Windows Task Manager, delete all GenRe processes and login again. Because of GenRe's simple database structure, and its modules try to link back only when processing is completed, the files should be unaffected.

Two plausible reasons to this problem: (1) most likely a program bug - the trace mechanisms in the affected module is still inconclusive to confirm this as a bug and (2) there is outside chance it is PC memory fragmentation, as this seems to occur whenever internet access is on. It is recommended, for those PCs with smaller memory, to disconnect from internet when using GenRe.

December 18, 2009:

The bugs have now been fixed ahead of schedule. The new programs are included in the latest compressed file, GenReSoftware.zip. If you downloaded a previous version and created your own programs and files, downloading the new file will overwrite your system. Let us know if you wish to upgrade only those programs that have changed, so we can provided you with the link.

Previous Posting:

Just like any large software, GenRe will have problems and bugs. The main difference is that we have the ability to fix most of them relatively quickly, by imbedding 5-digit trace codes on all modules.

There are a number of minor bugs including cloning programs that use their own files as drop down lists and indexing a group of pictures using the select-specific-file-name option. These are going to be fixed by January, 2010.

Reporting Program Errors and Bugs

Please use the Maintenance Menu>Utilities Menu>Diagnostic File to document and report program bugs to info@genresoftware.com.

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