**** GBM Portable release 3.20.0041 – July 2007
This is a production release.
There are no known issues that would interfere with the successful operation of
the system, but development is ongoing and updates will be provided to respond
to user feedback. Please advise Exa-Min immediately if problems are
encountered.
Please be sure to install
the new edition of the GBM Mobile Manager for Portable (install via the Forms
Editor menu item on the installer) to access the new Forms Exporter.
Components
·
GBM Portable build – 3.20.0041
·
GBM Mobile Manger for GBM Portable
build - 4.10.0050 (Version 4.10.0.81)
- Includes Portable (forms) Exporter build –
3.20.0041
·
GBM
·
GBM Admin Console – 1.01.0004
·
MapInfo MapXtreme 2005 - V6.6
Outstanding work items
· Custom Forms
The following features are
not currently supported in custom forms. They will be added in subsequent
releases to match the feature set provided in GBM Mobile.
§ Pictorial pick lists are not yet implemented
§ Photographs and cameras are not yet supported
Known issues and warnings
Significant Issues
· GPS
§ When connecting a GPS unit through Bluetooth, it is currently necessary to specify the COM port to be used by the Bluetooth device. Use a port number between 1 and 20 as these are the only ports searched by the GPS auto-detect function. The default port on some Fujitsu tablets is port 40, which cannot be accessed by the current GBM Portable GPS driver. GPS configuration and debug (status messages) will be improved by integrating the GPS management utilities from GBM Mobile
· Custom Forms
§ There are no warning messages when opening a project with custom forms that use incremental numbers and the numeric range has been exhausted. It is currently necessary to manually monitor the numeric range settings (Tools/Manage Custom Forms Auto Numbers menu item).
Other Issues
· Raster images contain a label at their centroid called Image which will displayed if the raster layer is set as a label source.
· MapInfo Arc features cannot be selected and do not correctly return statistics.
· Objects from seamless layers cannot be selected.
***
Updates between 3.10.0040 and 3.20.0041 (July 2007 – Production release)
1. Custom Forms
· It is now possible to directly access MapInfo .tab files opened through live connections to spatial databases (SpatialWare and Oracle Spatial)
· The robustness of the Custom forms operation has been improved
· The custom forms exporter that translates GBM Mobile forms for use with GBM Portable has been upgraded to better reflect GBM Mobile functionality
2. Printing
· Cartographic style A3 and A4 templates are available to automate map printing. The title block may include user entered metadata and printing date
· A scale bar is automatically added to print layouts
3. General
· Memory leak have been addressed that may have caused operation to slow down after prolonged custom forms operation or after opening several sets of maps. Memory leaks in the custom forms interface have also been addressed. This will lead to more robust operation when the application operates for extended periods.
· Improved feedback at start-up through streaming of progress messages on the splash screen.
4. GPS
· Robustness of the GPS interface has been improved. A memory leak has been corrected that will ensue performance does not degrade after extended operation.
5. Map Text
· It is now possible to draw text onto a map layer. Consistent cartographic presentation is ensured by allowing font size to be specified in terms of the final plot scale rather than the current (variable) on screen presentation scale.
6. Documentation
· User documentation and on line help has been improved. The GBM Administration Console has been documented.
7. Installers
· The installation program has been extended to allow installation of all or only selected components. This allows project managers to restrict access to the project set-up tools (e.g. Workspace Manger an GBM Administration Console).
8. Optional Extensions
· The GBM Data Manager is undergoing final field trials. This add-on module assists with installing and updating GBM Portable data sets in large corporate installations. The data manager will be offered as a separately priced option.
· GBM Office – This is an extended version of GBM Portable that is tailored for specific projects by integrating the mapping system with customer specific database tables.
The product delivers all the standard GBM Portable features but also supports spreadsheet style views of database tables with user defined data filtering and one-to-many linking of database records to map features (as is required to register multiple inspections or maintenance episodes for each asset). GBM Office directly interfaces with Crystal Reports.
GBM Portable customers may upgrade to GBM Office within the context of a custom database integration project.
*** Updates between 3.10.0038 and 3.11.0040 (February 12th 2007 – Production release)
9. GPS
This release incorporates the fixes provided in the patches
38a, 38b and 39
§ Corrected problem that gave rise to an error message concerning the animation layer when the GPS was first connected
§ Corrected problem with creating point objects through GPS
§ Corrected problem with moving map display causing a systems freeze after extended operation
*** Updates between 3.10.0037 and 3.11.0038 (December 18th 2006 – Production release)
10. Project Management
· The project screen now consistently highlights the current project and auto updates the project list when new projects are added as sub-folders of the project folder
· Screen display in project mode has been upgraded to more dynamically update the lists of maps and views available for a selected project
· The dialog for setting the project folder has been upgraded to support easy selection of the default project folder or the project folder containing the demonstration data sets
·
11. Map Tools
· Label expressions are presented on the map when the mouse moves over map features. These rely on presetting the label expressions in the new format MapInfo workspace (.mws) files
· Drawing to the cosmetic layer is now fully supported including drawing on the cosmetic layer when more than one map is open
· The layer control now properly manages the selectability of raster image layers.
· The custom forms drawing tab now incudes a panel that describes selected map features to support the draw from selection function
12. GBM Administration Tools
· Hand off between the GBM Administration Tools and GBM Portable has been improved to handle invalid file name conditions
13. Custom Forms
· Additional form configuration options are supported for improved compatibility with GBM Mobile
· The forms exporter has been updated to handle some unusual form configurations and the additional custom form configuration options
· The automated value of “creation time” is now properly populated
· The Custom form display are now cleared when a new project is selected or all maps are closed
14. Installation
· Further improvements have been made to the 30 day evaluation timer to fully support the case where software is installed under an Administration account but operated by end-users who do not have administration privileges.
15. General
· Numerous behind the scenes changes have been made to ensure the upgrade to MapXtreme 2005 and .NET 2.0 does not affect the user experience.
***
Updates between 3.10.0037 and 3.10.0038 (November 16th 2006 – limited
release)
16. General
· MapInfo sub-system updated from MapXtreme 2004 to MapXtreme 2005 release 6.6
· Upgrade from Microsoft .NET v1.1 to .NET v2.0
17. Custom Forms
· Upgrades to better support complex hierarchical database structures (requires optional add-on software to structure the custom forms .xml file)
· Minor corrections to auto-numbering where the incremented value is at the end of the numeric range allocated to the current GBM Portable installation
· Upgrades for cascading drop down lists and mandatory data fields
18. Mapping and Info Tool
· New settings button to format the display of location co-ordinates for the click point
19. Project Management
· More intuitive display of map view (map sheets) options when a new project is selected
· More intelligent re-loading of project lists and configuration files when new settings files or folders are added through the Admin console or separate processes
20. GBM Administration Tools
· User interfaces upgrades to better support 600x800 pixel screens (for UMPC devices)
21. Installation
· Correction to the 30 day timer for evaluation installations
· Upgrade to WiX technology to generate the installation .msi file with more informative installation screens
· Upgrades to allow end-user access to the software when it was installed under a separate administration login
· There are new controls for installing optional components such as the GBM Administration Console and MapXtreme workspace editor
***
Updates between 3.10.0033 and 3.10.0037 (August 29th 2006)
22. General
· The user interface has been made more intuitive by moving configuration settings onto tools buttons at the bottom of the tab that those settings relate to
· GBM Portable now automatically loads new settings files (info.xml, find.xml, CustomForms.xml etc)when they are copied into the project folder
· A number of menu items have been renamed to better describe their functions
· Documentation has been upgraded
23. Custom Forms
· Additional field testing and error correction has been undertaken, especially for conditional visibility and cascading pick lists
· The forms exporter has been updated. Install the GBM Mobile Manager for GBM Portable and re-export forms from Mobile Manager to benefit from the recent custom forms fixes.
24. Mapping
· The user interface for free form drawing is more intuitive with control moved to a separate drawing sub-tab.
· Graphical editing of map features that are not managed through custom forms is now only possible when the drawing sub-tab of the mapping system
· Graphical editing of map features that are controlled through custom forms is now only possible when the custom forms tab is selected
· Drawing and graphical editing tools are now only presented when the user selects an appropriate drawing tab in the LHS panel
25. GBM Administration Tools
· The screen layout has been improved
· Minor corrections have been made to the screen display of the find options
· GBM Portable no longer launches multiple instance of the Administration Tools
*** Updates between 3.10.0033 and 3.10.0036 (August 4th 2006)
26. Map Operation
· The search radius for selecting map objects has been increased to make it easier to select objects with the indirect pointers on some tablet devices
· There is a new map tool button for moving a selected object to the current GPS location
27. Custom Forms
· User interface navigation between the map and custom forms edit screen has been improved
· There is a new button pad at the bottom of the custom forms screen
· There are new checks to ensure custom form edits are saved
· There is a new check box to automate map selection of custom forms objects when forms are closed
· Create from selection (where a new feature is created with the geometry of a selected map object) has been added
· Auto populate by GIS query has been implemented
· A number of operational errors have been corrected
28. User Interface
· On many screens settings have been moved from the body of the screen to a tool button to deliver a less complicated interface
· The Map tools tab has been separated into two tabs
29. GPS
· The GPS interface has been further optimised for operation on low powered tablet devices
30. Demonstration Data
· The demonstration data set has been upgraded
*** Updates between 3.10.0032
and 3.10.0033
31. Custom Forms
· Error corrections to cascading pick lists
· Expressions are now supported
· Raster images no longer list in the attributes dialog
· Error checking has been improved in the auto number dialog
· Custom form now work during GPS input
· There is a new version of the forms export program
32. GPS Support
· Tracking now works with all map projections
· Map drawing via GPS is now more responsive
33. Installation
· The installer incudes GBM Mobile Manger for Portable for managing custom forms
· GBM Mobile Merge is now available from the installer
· The installer no longer overwrites the demonstration data folder
· The GBM Mobile user manual on the installation program has been updated with corrections to the formatting instructions for expressions
***
Updates between 3.10.0030 and 3.10.0032
34. Custom Forms
· Significant additional testing and error correction has been undertaken
35. GPS
· Integration with the Fujitsu tablet PCs has been improved
36. Documentation
· Documentation has been updated to reflect the new methods for exporting custom forms and mapping tools configuration files
*** Updates
between 3.10.0030 and 3.10.0031
37. General
· A new user interface is available for editing the xml files that control the info, find, locate and projections tools. Access this tool through the tools/admin menu.
· A custom forms exporter has been added to GBM Mobile Manager. Create forms with GBM Mobile Manager V4.1 and export to the relevant GBM Portable project sub-folder. The form converter has been removed from the Tools menu.
38. Custom Forms
· Edit Tracking is now supported
· The forms now honour settings on how Boolean operators (yes/no, true/false etc) are displayed
·
The forms now honour settings
for the number of decimals to display
· Auto-numbering is now supported – numeric ranges should be set through the tools menu
· Conditional visibility is more fully implemented
· Auto population of values by GIS look up from another layer is now supported
· Auto population of values form a selected object is now supported
· Times and Dates are now supported
39. Map Tools
· Find in no longer case sensitive
· The map cursor now displays with an image that shows which tool button is active
40. GPS
· An error with GPS integration in earlier release has been fixed
· Moving map display is supported
· It is now possible to draw lines with the GPS, create objects at the current GPS location and to move objects to the current GPS location
*** Updates between early
test releases and 3.10.0030
41. General
· The tab strip on the Left Hand side has been reworked
· Graphics has been improved throughout
42. Mapping sub-system
· There are significant upgrades and new features
· GPS support has been added
· The toolbar is now more stable
· Saved maps no longer include temporary layers
43. Custom Forms
· GBM Mobile style custom forms (not fully implemented in this release)
· A converter to migrate GBM Mobile custom forms to operate with GBM Portable has been added to the tools menu
44. Tools
· The MapInfo MapXtreme workspace manager is added to the tools/administrator menu to assist map set-up
45. Installer
· The installer has been re-built to with serial number and evaluation timer
· There are new options for choosing which components to install