Although I'm far along in development of version 2.0 of VirtualVP that will include a new communications core, and the ability to run as a service, it is taking longer than planned. This work has delayed the release of several long overdue bug fixes and new features. Today I released version 1.1.0 Beta. This has bug fixes and some new features, but sits on top of the existing 1.0.x communications core. During the next month or two I will be releasing a series of 1.x beta versions. Each will introduce some new features. They should be pretty stable, but I'm calling them betas because they will only get shortened testing before release, and I won't be updating the manuals until the end of the 1.x beta series, and possibly not until the official 2.0 release. After I finish the 1.x series, I will resume work on 2.0, which I hope to release around Dec 2006 to Jan 2007.
http://www.softwx.com/weather/virtualvp.htmlVirtualVP v. 1.1.0 Beta
Bug Fixes
Fixed some bugs and inefficencies in the low level timer code.
Fixed bug that caused excessive numbers of registrations reminder message boxes.
Features
Made the main form use a tabbed display with multiple display pages.
Added the Status display page, and made it the default page.
Added the Alerts display page. Alerts will be used to display messages that would
have been displayed in message boxes in previous versions.
Added blinking red dot in tray icon to indicate there are alerts to read.
Added the date to the time display on the Activity page.
Added Settings menu item to control the update frequency of the Status page. Less
frequent updates use less CPU.
Added Settings menu item to turn off animation of the console traffic arrows between the
console and VirtualVP on the Status page. Turning animation off uses less CPU.
Optimized the code so it releases most windows display resources and skips the display
update code when the program is minimized to the tray. This reduces the resource
and CPU footprint of the program while minimized.
Removed the reception display from the status bar. The purpose of VirtualVP is
communications, not the display of console or weather data. Avoiding expansion
outside this focus improves the robustness of the program, and will also make
the eventual migration of VirtualVP to a Windows service application easier.
Added the ability to assign custom names to the virtual consoles.
Added 4 more virtual console slots. The first four are dedicated to serial communications
via virtual COM ports, and the second 4 are dedicated to TCP/IP communications.
This is part of the eventual migration of the TCP/IP communications to a normal
server architecture where a single port can serve multiple connection requests.
Changed the Communications Settings dialog to support the 4 + 4 virtual console change,
and also attempted to simplify the dialog. Also added configuration tips.
Steve