What is New in MegaDots 2.4

MegaDots 2.4 Improvements Over MegaDots 2.3

Key Changes

• MegaDots 2.4 supports the 2007 BANA Braille Codes Update 2007. See bana2007.meg for the details.
• MegaDots 2.4 has improved support for running on Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7. MegaDots 2.4 also works on a number of non-standard platforms where the MS-DOS full screen is not available, such as remote desktop and emulated Windows. See Chapter 2 for the details.
• MegaDots 2.4 has been developed with Nimpro to import NIMAS files (see Chapter 14 for details)
• MegaDots 2.4 contains Embossit 3.0, which offers more choices of embossing through Windows, and handles interpoint/single sided output
• MegaDots 2.4 contains a revised MegaPrn to drive print or braille output through Windows. The revised program remembers your default choices for both inkprint and braille printing. Also, you no longer find a strange-looking MegaDots screen after printing with MegaPrn.

Installation

• Default installation is to c:\mega24
• The MegaDots installer now gives you a chance to say that your machine does not support using MegaDots in full screen. If you answer yes to the question about this, then "MegaDots without speech" is set up for use in a window. See Chapter 2 for the detaile of setting the font name and size to show braille dots on the screen.
• In addition to .meg files, the installation registers .nmg files as MegaDots files for Windows. The .nmg files (or "nutmeg files") are MegaDots files produced by NimPro. As with .meg files, you can click on a .nmg file in Windows Explorer, and Windows opens the file in the MegaDots application.
• The installation CD-ROM has a link to "web links" for important resources. There is also a link on the bottom of the main page to the Duxbury DBT installation CD-ROM.
• MegaDots 2.4 has a few new "factory default settings" in the preferences menu. In Preferences - File import, there are settings for .brf and .sig, telling MegaDots to import .brf and .sig files with Style selection set to Spacing same by default. Once you have imported such a file that way, you can easily reimport it with a different setting if desired. Note that if the MegaDots installer brings in your preferences file from an earlier version of MegaDots, it will not set up that change in your preferences automatically.

Access

• We have made some minor changes in the JAWS script files for MegaDots. For example, in a print document when you cursor onto a special character whose name contains just one word, such as the baseline marker in a Nemeth document, JAWS no longer says, "character 9668." It now announces the markup.
• MegaDots 2.4 has set files for Window-Eyes 6.1

Nemeth Code Issues

• It is now possible to transfer math files from Duxbury DBT to MegaDots. From DBT export the file as a SGML/HTML file. Import the SGML file into MegaDots, make sure you switch the style sheet to Nemeth. Since Duxbury DBT can import Latex files and other types of math files, this gives a good route to obtain this material into MegaDots.
• We have fixed a problem which caused an intermittent failure by MegaDots to search for math notation to highlight in blue. This search does not occur for new math that you enter in the bottom paragraph of your document. But adding a paragraph, even an empty one, below the cursor allows the search. If desired, you can disable this searching by pressing Alt-Q to toggle off Quick math entry.
• There is no longer a problem with translating an isolated capital letter S in Nemeth.
• For a phrase with bold emphasis markup in the Nemeth style sheet, when the translator inserts the special bold phrase indicators, it no longer inserts the italic indicator before each word.
• For a phrase with italic emphasis markup in the Nemeth style sheet, the translator inserts the Nemeth italic phrase indicators when the first word or the last word of the phrase consists of mathematical notation (is colored blue).
• In Nemeth, the translator no longer deletes the word "with" after the word "and."
• In the Math items list, there is a new item called "suppress space." Use this to keep the translation from inserting a space, for example if a greater than sign is followed by a period. This is often useful within a key cap shape indicator.
• We have eliminated a problem which caused MegaDots to freeze sometimes when translating Nemeth material into uncontracted braille. This problem occurred when words like "but," "and," and "in" were adjacent to a grouping sign within a section or document marked for grade one translation.
• We have eliminated a situation which caused insertion of items from the Math items list to make Megadots crash after repeated use.
• We have changed the replacement entry for >= in the fastmath.meg shortcuts file, to make it similar to the replacement entry for <=. Now using >= produces the Nemeth Code for greater than with bar under (46, 2, 156).
• We have added some tools for creating stem and leaf plots.

Non-Nemeth Translation

• For British braille, we have fixed some problems with the use of slashes within italicized phrases.
• We have fixed a long-standing problem of freezing when translating a character marked as breve, lower, elevated, etc., when using grade one translation with a foreign language setting. This fixes a problem with producing Latin braille material.

Tactile Graphics

• We have added documentation about using MegaDots with tactile graphics. See Chapter 16 for this documentation.
• MegaDots 2.4 has an improved method for importing tactile graphics
• MegaDots 2.4 uses the FIX-GR and FIX-GR-P macros to import graphics (replacing the INS-GR macro from MegaDots 2.3).
• MegaDots can produce high resolution graphics on some Enabling Technologies embossers (Juliet, Romeo Pro 50, and Thomas).
• We have added a way to produce tactile graphics within an interpoint document on Enabling Technologies embossers without losing the text meant to appear above the graphic.

Documentation

• We have added a new file called bana2007.meg which describes how to use MegaDots to follow the new rules in the BANA 2007 Braille Codes Update. The file which was called newtext.meg in previous versions of MegaDots is now called bana1997.meg.
• We have done some other rearranging in the MegaDots documentation files.
• We have added some new jokes in the chicken.meg file.

File Import

• We have improved the importing of HTML files which were created from Microsoft Word with the "Save as web page" option.
• We have changed the "Retain blank lines" import to retain page breaks as well as blank lines.
• Now when you use -? to select an import file type and choose Retain blank lines, it works even if the file is a braille file; MegaDots used to ignore that choice for a braille file. You can import and view a faithful copy of a .brf file by importing with Source set to Retain blank lines and Style selection set to Spacing same, and then setting the style sheet to Nonums.

Status Line

• We have fixed the spelling of "schwa" when it appears on the status line. We have also changed the word "dropped" to "low" on the status line for braille characters.