The following is a basic summary of additions or changes to earlier versions.
A detailed list in also available on the Internet at http://www.duxburysystems.com/dbtwhst.asp.
There have been many very small and minor changes, which are not specifically mentioned here.
1. French fonts have been renamed to be compatible with DBT’s Word importer. Versions of the fonts shipped with DBT 10.7 were not being recognized for purposes of reading in braille text marked up to avoid “double translation”.
2. Swedish encoding of braille documents has been added. A new French encoding for braille documents, “French Chiffres”, has been added. The standard “French” braille encoding for braille documents has been modified to match updated standards; the older encoding is now called “French 6 points”. (These changes are in display.cpt.)
3. Revised French documentation, and revised French DBT and Word templates. These changes should affect only those who use adaptations to DBT developed at AVH for use in producing French braille.
4. Translation improvements have been made to the following tables:
a. English/American (literary)
b. English/American (textbook)
Both American tables have been updated to conform to new rules regarding partially-emphasized words, and for improved handling of Greek letters within English context. A new "variation" code has been added to permit entering fractions more conveniently using a simple slash, e.g. 1/2 for one-half, when appropriate (as in cookbooks).
c. Arabic
Additional Unicode characters are now supported, as well as the standard "Arabic" page.
d. Bulgarian
(Minor update only.)
e. Modern Greek
Additional Unicode characters, as well as the standard basic "Greek" page, are now supported. The Nemeth Code is now supported for mathematics
Corrections and improvements were made to the logic for inserting clarifying parentheses into algebraic fractions. The handling of mixed numbers imported from LaTeX documents was corrected. Other corrections affected the handling of certain apostrophe-letter endings in grade 1, embedded German, and other miscellaneous situations.
These tables were extensively updated to conform more closely to the latest transcriber rules for capitalization, shortform usage, lower-sign contraction usage, and other miscellaneous matters. A new pair of commands, [ucs] ... [uce], have been provided to allow manual control of capital passage extent when desired.
The treatment of apostrophe (') has been corrected in [cz;f] mode. Certain capital passage and double-sign issues have also been addressed.
i. Croatian
(Internal update only -- no functional change.)
j. Kazakh
Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.
k. Malay
The logic for contraction usage has been extensively updated.
l. Norwegian
The logic for contraction usage has been improved, and the treatment of comma within numbers corrected. Support for contracted English embedded within Norwegian has been removed, as such text is normally uncontracted.
m. Russian
Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.
n. Ukrainian
Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.
5. Improvements have been made for these embossers:
a. All supported Tiger models: DBT has been updated to meet the requirements of the latest drivers from ViewPlus. (However, we are not adding to DBT 10.7 SR1 support for any Tiger embosser models not supported by DBT 10.7.)
b. Tiger Pro Ink: ink placement has been corrected; ink placement, font choice and font size can also be adjusted, though this presently requires registry “tinkering”.
c. VersaPoint Duo: graphics support improved.
d. PED-30 plate embossers: more “handshaking” options have been added, and the inclusion of a blank “last side” when there are an odd number of sides to emboss has been suppressed, saving the operator loading a plate at the end of a job only to see it come through without any embossing.
e. Thiel Beta X-3: additional paper sizes are now supported.
f. A defect in interline print output on Gemini embossers has been corrected.
These changes are in dxemb.dll and emb.elt, which always “travel as a pair”. Additional changes in emb.elt are to support future development of “TranSend SE”. Because these have no functional effect for DBT 10.7 SR1, they do not merit mention in the documentation.
6. Internal improvements have been made to chitab.txt.
7. DBT’s Word importer will support use of the Math12 font.
Direct imports of math in Word documents with MathType 5 or 6 installed
Updated BANA templates for DBT and Word, now include a Quotation style. Word Template (BANA Braille 2008)
Updated French templates and fonts
Updated French braille encoding (for display)
Improved communications to PED-30
Fixed ELEKUL 03 support
Allow disabling of serial port initialization, which can improve compatibility with some serial ports.
Fix to a rare crash when importing Word documents
Fix to a rare lockup during search and replace
The importer supports importation of mathematical expressions created with either MathType or Equation Editor. It does *not* support math typed directly into the text. That will still come in as it always has.
The importer requires that either MathType 6 or MathType 5 be installed and activated. They can be installed anywhere.
English/American: The BANA 2007 updates have been implemented (see http://www.brailleauthority.org/update07.html), notably including the two-cell slash, the use of the termination sign instead of hyphen to signal the end of the effect of the double capital sign, and other updated rules and added symbols. A control ("[big]") was added to provide for enlarged enclosure symbols in Nemeth Code.
A facility has been added to enable "locking" of the grade of translation, primarily to facilitate production of texts entirely in grade 1 despite the presence of [g2] in the text or within styles. See LOCK Grade 1 or 2 for more details.
English/UEB: Transcription rule decisions of the UEB Committee through January 2008 have been implemented, including those affecting the treatment of shortform words and lower signs, and the extent of grade 1 word mode when initiated by a number. The braille-to-print UEB tables have been revised to construct appropriate print (.dxp) file encoding for most math structures and certain symbols, thereby replacing some of the "double-brace" notation typically used for indicators, etc. when translating from braille to print.
At the time of writing (March 2008) the European Braille Union (EBU) have been discussing a proposed common/standard Pharmaceutical Braille code with European Braille Authorities to be used exclusively on medicinal packaging throughout Europe. See http://www.euroblind.org/fichiersGB/pharma.htm for more details.
For more up to date information concerning the production of Pharma Braille labels, etc., you may wish to contact our U.K. distributor http://www.techno-vision.co.uk.
"Esperanto is a language, but not of any country or ethnic group: it is a neutral, international language." For more details about the Esperanto language please see http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html
Details of DBT's new Esperanto table are described more fully here.Esperanto
French/Unified: The print-to-braille tables have been updated to conform more closely to the new French mathematics code. The braille-to-print tables have been updated to include common computer and currency symbols.
At the time of writing (March 2008) Enabling Technologies Inc were in the process of manufacturing a dedicated labelling embosser. Limited to 24 cells maximum width, the output is approximately 40% faster than a standard Romeo Pro.
DBT 10.7 includes additional form depths for this embosser from 0.5 inches to 4 inches in depth in increments of 0.25 of an inch.
The addition of a "Save As" file type to allow saving files for use with DBT 10.5 and earlier (Please note that DBT 10.5 and earlier will still ignore codes which they don't recognize).
A fix for a "stalling" problem which happens in some network environments.
A fix for a crashing problem when importing some HTML files, particularly those exported from Excel.
An updated SWIFT to eliminate "Error 13" showing up with some installations of Word.
These were not generally released, but are included in 10.6 SR4
Here is a list of what's new since DBT 10.6:
Translation and Formatting Improvements
GOODFEEL Integration Improvements
Improvements for Microsoft Word
Improvements for Scientific Notebook
Daisy/NIMAS imports have been greatly improved. When appropriate, the Daisy-specific document template is automatically selected, avoiding a common problem with these documents.
DBT can now be installed in Windows Vista. (But note that slsService is not Vista-compatible, so if activation is to be shared among many computers, the computer holding the activation must not be running Vista. Other computers certainly can.)
DBT's responsiveness while editing a document should be improved in some environments where sluggishness, or even an extreme lag, has been reported.
Applying a linear style will no longer remove a [fte~i] or similar code at the end of a line.
DBT will no longer corrupt a document when deleting a code with a matching code that includes a number or a parameter (e.g. deleting [ptye] after [ptys2]).
The list of open documents in the View menu is working more reliably.
Replace all no longer corrupts documents when bullets and similar characters are replaced.
When attempting to insert a Braille document into a print document or vice versa, DBT will now refuse to do so, rather than just display an error and proceed with the insert.
Rendering of [gd] code in coded view is corrected.
The [caplv], [ftlv], and [xcs] codes have been added to the code list (F5 list). These codes are honored by DBT 10.6, but could not be entered via the code list.
An [svrlbN] Code has been added to provide a "Reserved Line(s)" option. This may be of special interest to producers using embossing "plates" where corrections may be required.
Support has been added for Amharic, Khmer, and Ukrainian translation.
The Farsi table has been updated so that two variant letter forms are treated the same as the corresponding regular Arabic letter forms, i.e. U+06a9 Arabic letter keheh = variant of U+0643 Arabic letter kaf Arabic letter farsi yeh = variant of U+064a Arabic letter yeh
The Khmer (Cambodian) print-to-braille table (kmaacp.btb) has been updated so that U+200B (Zero Width Space) is translated to an optional line break.
The Lithuanian braille-to-print table (ltaacb.btb) has been updated to process Lithuanian text properly as such, including the special Lithuanian letters. (Formerly it was a placeholder suitable only for the Latin-1 letters and embedded English.)
The English/Unified print-to-braille table, enuncp.btb, has been updated (to version 2;8 061024) in order to correct an infinite loop that would occur when [vrn~ida] (informal treatment of hyphen, as requested in Australia) was in effect and a capitalized passage was encountered that in fact also contained some digits.
The "new" English/British print-to-braille translation table (enbrcp.btb) has been updated so that:
When suppressing capitals ([caplv1] in effect), code [ii] (as in the "acronym" style) will not cause an unwanted extra letter sign when applied to an acronymn that coincidentally is a Roman numeral, e.g. CD or VI.
Dots 456, 34 instead of just 34 is used for all explicit fractions in math as well as the literary oblique stroke.
The Quebec table has been updated to implement [fts...] ... [fte...] emphasis tagging in the same manner as the "pre-Unified" French tables.
A problem with the translation process, which affected American translations only, has been corrected. The problem could cause word capitalization to be handled incorrectly in some cases within the ordinary text following the first reference to a computer notation style (such as compinline or compdisplay).
DBT will no longer introduce spurious skipped lines within line-numbered BodyText.
Several running header problems have been fixed, notably that a [tld] (discontinue running head) on the same page as [tls] ... [tle] (set running head) would cause a lockup (endless internal loop) in DBT when "anticipatory headers" mode is in effect (as for British practice);
The formatter has been improved to guard against lockups even when due to yet-undiscovered problems.
Some helpful tips for Vista users have been added to the online help.
Indexing of online help has been improved.
Several new screen shots have been added to "The Menus".
"Table and Style Example" has been added to "Working with Word", which hopefully sheds a glimmer of light on very basic table handling.
French documentation ("Manuel d'utilisation DBT 10.6") has been updated to reflect use of DBT 10.6.
The [xcs] code is documented in Codes Quick Reference. (The code is not new, but it was undocumented in DBT 10.6.)
Improved stability and performance when GOODFEEL is used to embed transcribed music in a document.
The Modify Embosser and Remove buttons in DBT's Global Embosser Setup dialog will be disabled when it appears that a user will be unable to save the resulting change. This applies to any user not running "As Administrator" in Vista.
The Embosser Setup configuration editing dialog (the dialog with General, Device Settings, and Advanced tabs) will now lock a limited user, or anybody not running "As Administrator" in Vista, into saving a configuration "For the current user only".
Global Embosser Setup will now give an error message after any failure to save changes to embosser definitions.
To the Braillo 200/400 series, we added esc R 0 to the start up sequence. This sets the "page adjust" offset to zero. This is not an issue unless you manually set the "page adjust" parameter to a non-zero value and then DBT failed to reset this to zero. This change fixes a problem for at least one customer.
Added support for the ViewPlus Emprint.
Fixed a braille spacing problem when interline print is included in output to Tiger embossers.
Control-Z has been added to the end of output for Index embossers and others that require it.
Interpoint alignment on narrow paper has been improved for Index embossers.
Multi-Copy output to pre-Model 3 Index embossers has been corrected.
New keywords PortCloseSyncCount, PortCloseSyncByte, and PortCloseSyncPrompt are supported in emb.elt and myemb.elt. These are documented in emb.elt. They should not generally be necessary, except, in rare cases, when data is lost at the end of any embossing job, and the problem is not solvable using other handshaking adjustments. PortCloseSyncPrompt has in fact been added for the PED-30, which will otherwise lose part of the last page of data.
Syntax errors in myemb.elt will no longer cause a crash.
Sequences in the form <Ctrl-X> within embosser configuration custom job setup strings will now work.
Duxbury's embosser "drivers" now support a form offset. This is an advanced configuration feature that has been put to use on a PED-30 with plates that are less than the maximum width.
SWIFT has been updated to have a new Word 2007 interface. SWIFT will also give you an error with some instructions if you attempt to use it to open an OpenXML document in DBT.
The updated "Francais - 2006.dxt" is included in DBT distributions.
Word imports are more robust when encountering paragraph numbering information in an unrecognized format.
Start value overrides in auto-numbered documents are handled correctly again.
Text boxes now import from Word 2003 documents.
Added support for \lnot (logical not) and \implies.
Fixed problems with spurious spaces after some function names.
Fixed problems with sinh and real
Fixed a variety of problems with fraction levels.
Removed laptop keyboard layout designation for keystrokes Alt+0 and Alt+P; added laptop keyboard layout designation for keystrokes JawsKey+U, JawsKey+I, etc.
When switching DBT back into focus in a braille document window, you no longer get extra keyboard echo (QWERTY echo plus braille character echo).
When you press Alt+F3 the announcement of coded view or formatted view is no longer out of phase with JAWS versions 7 and up.
Braille-Build has been modified to introduce a visible space character in the SimBraille font (U+00B7)
Braille-Build will honor a custom font name you specify, without altering it.
Dot diameter adjustments are now honored.
The fonts have been updated to version 1.10.
Generated fonts should be compatible with MacOS X.
Cancel button in Global Printer Setup and Document Printer Setup now works without side effects.
DBT will now be more fully compatible with the LaserJet 6P and other new and full-featured printers.
The prompt to remove temporary files, which typically followed after appearance of the Autosave Recovery Wizard, has been removed.
SGML will now import when the file type was selected by the user rather than autodetected.
Global, Other Importer has been removed. This feature has not been in common use for many years.
User-defined import filters, broken in DBT 10.6, are working again.
DBT's installer now traps processor exceptions in the custom action code (dxwst.dll) and logs any failure to the normal log file. To get at the information, one must run the installer with sufficient logging enabled: e.g. /L*v <logfilename> on the command line.
A broader range of characters (specifically, numeric entity references) will be recognized by the HTML/SGML importer.
The following language translation tables have been added or substantially updated:
(Some of these have been included in service packs for DBT 10.5.)
Installation is now performed using the MSI (Microsoft Installer) interface, resulting in many improvements all round.
Many Settings are now retained for individual users rather than entire system.
Network installations now support licensing on systems running RAID or Mirrored drives.
If you are reading this, you may have already installed DBT 10.6 and noticed various changes to the Installation process.
See Installation for more details.
A DBT Template and connecting Microsoft Word template have been added to simplify transcription according to BANA standards, using terminology familiar to BANA transcribers. See the "Word Template (BANA)" topic under Help. These templates were designed by Susan Christensen, a well-known BANA Transcriber. The principles and templates themselves could readily be adapted for use with other braille standards.
SWIFT (Send Word Immediately For Translation) has been an extremely popular utility produced by the UK distributor. It has been further enhanced for this version of DBT.
For full details on how to install and run "SWIFT" click the link below: