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.