Subject: [Update] Allah Sulu's Massive Tool version 3.7.0
There is a new version of
Allah_Sulu's Massive Tool available, which can be downloaded in a
ZIP archive of files. These files can be extracted into a new folder (for first-time installers) or into your existing Massive Tool directory over the current files (make sure that you are not running the Massive Tool while you're trying to install/extract the update). I am NOT providing an installer (setup.exe) for this update, as the version I was using was not compatible with some versions of Windows (in fact, the program that I was using to create the installer does not run under the 64-bit version of Windows 7, which is the OS I'm using now).
New changes to the Massive Tool include:
- The "Paste Special" option on the "Edit" menu now presents four different options for interpreting text formatting in the clipboard text. If you copy a block of text from a web page (or MS Word, or some other source with text formatting) and special-paste it into the Massive Tool using "HTML Format", the text will come with HTML tags to preserve the formatting (which, in the case of MS Word, will probably be messy). The "Unformatted Text" option merely corrects line breaks (in case you're copying text from a source that doesn't use CR-LF newlines) and removes tab characters. The "Unicode Text" option is the original code that "Paste Special" used to invoke; it converts Unicode characters like "Я" and "Œ" into ampersand codes like "Я" and "Œ". (The "HTML Format" option also converts Unicode; but this option is for when you want Unicode converted without also getting HTML tags imported. All three of the above options do CR-LF correction and tab removal.) The fourth option, "Tab-Delimited Text", replaces (rather than removes) tab characters with spaces, lining up the text in columns. (The default column width is eight characters, but setting can be adjusted in the "Edit→Preferences…" dialog.)
[Screen Capture]
- The "Replace…" and "Count…" options on the "Search" menu now have an additional option of only operating upon the selected portion of the document, rather than upon the entire document.
- The new "Swap Strings…" option on the "Search" menu allows you to simultaneously replace all instances of two strings with each other. This function is not case-sensitive, and will not work if one string is a substring of the other; but it does also have the option of working on the entire document or just the selected portion.
- I've done a lot of work on the "HTML→Body/Title…" screen, which is only relevant if you're editing an entire web page in the Massive Tool as opposed to simply creating code to post into LJ or other blogs/sites. (It's useful to me.) The page and text formatting is now done in CSS rather than HTML - just another instance where I'm trying to keep the code generated by the Massive Tool up to the latest standards. Plus, this allows more options, like a hover color for text links and removing the underline from links… and then, if you want to put in more specific CSS definitions for different tags or classes, you're already part-way there.
- I've modified the way that the Border controls work on the "HTML→Images…" screen. Previously, you needed to click on the checkbox to enable the numeric control before you could modify the value. Now, the numeric control is always enabled; and modifying the numeric value automatically turns on the checkbox. (Or, you can just click on the checkbox if you want border="0" in your
tag.) - The new "LJ Like…" command on the "LJ" menu is used for implementing the tag. Select that menu option or click on the "LJ Like" toolbar button to get a list of options (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Vkontakte, and LJ Give); or right-click on the toolbar button to get a simple that will display all available buttons.
- The new "LJ Spoiler…" command on the "LJ" menu is used for implementing the [Spoiler (click to open)] tag. Select that menu option and you'll get a screen which functions almost identically to the "LJ Cut…" and "LJ Repost…" screens.
- I replaced all of the standard Windows color dialogs (which are invoked in many different places within the Massive Tool) with a new custom-built color-selection window that I designed. It lets you select colors by color name, from an on-screen palette, by red-green-blue values, or by hexadecimal HTML code (and combinations thereof). The squares in the bottom row of the palette are dynamic, and change based upon the current selected color (for instance, the first two are a darker and lighter version of the current color, and the last is the negative of the current color). There is even a slider to select how much darker/lighter to make those first two squares.
[Screen Capture]
- The Ctrl-K sequences for characters with umlauts now use a double-quote " instead of a colon :. For example, ^K A " results in Ä. This change was made to provide consistency with other Windows programs.
- As always, there are new icons, backgrounds, and macro modifications (e.g., the old Photobucket macro was modified to reflect changes in the way Photobucket displayed their pages). I also changed the text on some screens to replace "user tags" and "user icons" with the "userhead" term that LJ is using now.
(I would have gotten this up sooner but I was having problems accessing my FTP site.)