AlternaTIFF Release Notes

This page lists the significant changes in each new version.

Version 2.0.8 - 22 May 2015

No significant changes.

Version 2.0.7 - 3 Sep 2014

• Fixed a bug that could cause the toolbar to stop working (at least in IE) when Windows broadcasts a notification about a system setting change.

Version 2.0.6 - 15 Aug 2013

• Attempt to support some invalid Fax-4 compressed images that new versions of libtiff can't handle.
• ActiveX version: Made the "Copy Image Location" feature more likely to copy the full URL.
• Plug-in scripting: Support method enumeration.

Version 2.0.5 - 6 Feb 2013

• Maintenance release.

Version 2.0.4 - 30 Apr 2012

• Change error handling to not give up immediately if a bad IFD or subIFD pointer is encountered. Instead, it will continue, and try to read any other (sub)IFDs that are known.
• Added a scripting option to change the default print range from "all pages" to "current page".
• Updated third-party libraries.

Version 2.0.3 - 22 Dec 2011

• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash (at least on Windows XP) when resizing bilevel images.
• Fixed a bug in v2.0.2 that caused the zoom window to close if you switched pages.
• Added page number information to the tooltips for the Next and Previous Page buttons.

Version 2.0.2 - 1 Nov 2011

• Changed the default and the UI for the mouse wheel zoom direction setting.
• Made Send Image more likely to work in browsers (like Firefox) that change the DLL search mode.

Version 2.0.1 - 27 Apr 2011

• Allow fit-width and fit-height mode to enlarge the image as much as necessary, instead of limiting it to the best-fit size.
• By default, turned off universal support for printing multiple copies and collation.
• Added support for a certain type of invalid Fax3 compressed images.
• Plug-in version: No longer spoofing QuickTime.

Version 2.0.0 - 22 Nov 2010

• Available for 64-bit web browsers.
• Windows 98 and Windows ME are no longer supported.
• Full Unicode support, which admittedly doesn't mean much for an imaging application like this. Supports opening local files whose names contain Unicode characters, and a few other things.
• Scripting: Enhanced the GetVersion method.

Version 1.9.3 [plug-in version only] - 31 Mar 2010

• Plug-in version: Changed the internal product name to "AlternaTIFF (QuickTime compatible)" to work around a bug in Google Chrome. This may have side effects on some websites that try to detect what plugins you have installed, but we don't really have much choice.
• Plug-in installer: Improved detection of Google Chrome.

Version 1.9.2 - 27 Jan 2010

• Option to increase the size of the toolbar buttons (though the graphical quality leaves something to be desired).
• Added "Rotate 180 degrees" menu item and optional toolbar button.
• Relaxed the rules about the maximum allowed image size. It's now based primarily on the amount of memory required, rather than the pixel dimensions.
• Basic support for the "BigTIFF" format. However, the maximum file size is still about 2GB, even for BigTIFF files.

Version 1.9.1 - 23 Jun 2009

• Fixed crash when viewing some invalid JPEG-compressed images.
• Scripting: Fixed the OnOrientationChange event, whose parameter had the wrong value.

Version 1.9.0 - 11 May 2009

• Resampling ("Smooth image") now works on all image types.
• Added "Center printed images" option.
• Added "Auto-rotate printed images" option.
• Automatically "correct" certain all-black palettes.
• Orientation -> "Rotate Left" and "Rotate Right" menu items.
• Errors are logged differently, with separate per-file and per-page logs. (This can cause some errors to be logged twice, but that's probably better than having some errors not be logged at all.)
• Updated libtiff.
• Scripting: New methods: GetValueString, SetValueString.
• Scripting: Ability to change background color.
• Scripting: New events: OnPageChange, OnMouseModeChange, OnSizeModeChange, OnOrientationChange, OnNegativeChange, OnPrintComplete.
• Scripting: The web page can disable and enable individual events.

Version 1.8.5 - 12 Nov 2008

• Plug-in version: Fixed a scripting-related problem in v1.8.4 that could cause crashes, particularly when using the NoScript add-on.
• Plug-in version: Fixed the Scroll() scripting method, which was broken in v1.8.4.

Version 1.8.4 - 21 May 2008

• Added an option to turn off universal support for printing multiple copies. For reasons we don't fully understand, some printers print too many copies when this is used.
• ActiveX version: IE sometimes puts unescaped non-ASCII characters in URLs (in particular when dealing with local files that have Unicode characters in their names), though this violates internet standards. AlternaTIFF now tolerates this.
• ActiveX version: Fixed possible crash if you close IE while a large number of downloads are in progress.
• Plug-in version: All scripting now uses the "npruntime" mechanism. This should allow scripting to work in a larger number of modern web browsers. The "npzzatif.xpt" file is no longer needed.

Version 1.8.3 - 28 Jun 2007

• Changes to allow user actions to open new windows even when popup blocking is enabled (now works in most current web browsers).
• Changed where saved settings are stored on newer Windows systems, to allow them to be shared regardless of whether IE/Vista's "Protected Mode" is in use.
• Save-to-disk now works better in Protected Mode.
• Fixed problem with the download progress meter that affected files larger than about 20MB.
• Made hot-links effective on mouse-up instead of mouse-down.
• Fixed filename case-sensitivity problem when deciding if a local file should be allowed to be loaded by a script.
• Scripting: Added GetValue(17,18) to return the chrome width/height.
• Scripting: Experimental support for events in Firefox.
• Added "preapprove" installation option for the ActiveX version.

Version 1.8.2 - 29 Nov 2006

This is a maintenance release, with no significant changes.

Version 1.8.1 - 13 Jul 2006

• Workaround for a problem in v1.8.0 which caused it to incorrectly display some new-style JPEG color images whose width is an odd number of pixels. The rightmost column of pixels may still be corrupted, but no immediate fix is available for this.

Version 1.8.0 - 15 Jun 2006

• Support for most Old-style JPEG compressed images (thanks to Joris Van Damme and AWare Systems for adding this to libtiff).
• Support for most images with 16 bits/sample.
• Support for most images with YCbCr, CIELab, or LogLuv color.

Version 1.7.6 - 3 Feb 2006

No significant changes.

Version 1.7.5 - 19 Jan 2006

• Rearranged "More Settings" dialog, dividing it into two tabs.
• Added a user interface for the allow-remote-scripts-to-access-to-local-files privacy feature, and added a "TIFF files only" option, which is now the default.
• Can now select any monitor to be used for the zoom window.
• Plug-in installer: improved detection of Netscape 8.

Version 1.7.4 - 12 Oct 2005

• Fixed a problem with the GoToPage and LoadImage scripting methods in v1.7.2-1.7.3. They did not go to the correct page.

Version 1.7.3 - 4 Aug 2005

• Image size can be increased beyond 100%.
• Can use Ctrl+mouse wheel to change image size in "fixed size" mode.
• Can use mouse wheel or +/- keys to change image size while zoomed.
• Can use keyboard to switch pages while zoomed.
• Attempt to display certain corrupt files that are slightly smaller than they should be.
• Updated zlib to v1.2.3.

Version 1.7.2 - 17 May 2005

• Changed the way that correcting for non-square pixels works. The only noticeable change should be that the copy-to-clipboard and save-as-BMP features now use the original unstretched image.
• Added an access-control flag to disable auto-update checking.
• Updated libtiff to v3.7.2.

Version 1.7.1 - 8 Mar 2005

• Fixed a problem where some invalid TIFF files could cause a crash.

Version 1.7.0 - 22 Feb 2005

• Uncached files received via SSL more likely to work in the ActiveX version.
• Tag viewer supports a larger amount of text (it was limited to 30-40 pages).
• Scripting: ability to query unadjusted image size.
• Some multi-monitor fixes/improvements.

Version 1.6.6 - 14 Jan 2005

• New TIFF tag viewer feature.
• Using upgraded version of libtiff software.

Version 1.6.5 - 17 Nov 2004

• Fixed bug which caused some settings to be saved when they weren't supposed to be saved, when closing the More Settings dialog.
• Fixed bug which caused some non-RGB images with extra samples to be displayed incorrectly.
• Scripting: ability to read scaled height/width.
• Scripting: ability to get/set scroll position.
• New keyboard controls: Ctrl+[Home/End/PgUp/PgDn] (may only work in full-page mode).
• New "ignore sub-IFD images" option.
• Arguably better handling of non-TIFF files.

Version 1.6.4 - 18 May 2004

• Administratively disabled features will now be removed from the menu, instead of appearing grayed out.
• The ActiveX version didn't work with URLs longer than 1000 characters; this limitation has been removed.
• Native support for scrolling with mouse wheel.
• Physical image size is now shown in About box.
• Scripting: LoadImage() now unloads the previous file immediately, rather than waiting for the new file to arrive.

Version 1.6.3 - 30 Dec 2003

• Fixed a bug (in v1.6.0-1.6.2) that could sometimes cause a crash after rotating an image and then copying to clipboard or saving as BMP.
• Reduced flicker in some situations.
• Scripting: GetState() returns more useful results when called immediately after LoadImage().
• Scripting: Fixed a problem in which calling LoadImage() multiple times quickly could lead to unpredictable results.

Version 1.6.2 - 28 Oct 2003

• Fixed problem with printing in Windows ME that occurred in v1.6.1.

Version 1.6.1 - 21 Oct 2003

• Support printing multiple page ranges, if your version of Windows supports it.
• "Send Image" now works around most bugs in email software.
• Files with a large number of pages are handled more efficiently. Increased the page limit to 32000.
• Ability for scripts to query the document dimensions (using GetValue()).
• Added some events to the ActiveX version.

Version 1.6.0 - 7 Jul 2003

• Enabled LZW compression support.
• Attempted workaround to handle some invalid images with incorrect STRIPBYTECOUNTS tag.

Version 1.5.5 - 1 May 2003

• Fixed bug in ActiveX version that could sometimes cause a crash during initialization (probably introduced in v1.5.3).
• Support for TIFF sub-IFDs.
• Open zoom window on nearest monitor, if you have multiple monitors.
• Double-click on error message opens error log.