(doc/xnec2.html)
Version 3.6-beta: I migrated Xnec2c to the latest GTK+-3.22 toolkit to bring it
up to date. A lot of changes were needed to both the GUI and parts of the
Xnec2c source code, mainly the use of GTK3's GUI Builder for creating the User
Interface and the revised drawing model of GDK for presenting the Graphics
displays. A new autogen.sh script has also been incorporated in the source
package and internationalization has been migrated to the GNU GetText system.
Because Xnec2c is very complicated and thorough testing is difficult, I am
releasing this version as a beta.
Version 3.6.1-beta: After a request by Don Walters W9DKI I modified the
xnec2c.glade file to reduce the default size of the drawing areas as they would
not fit in displays with reduced resolution. I also removed some legacy code,
left over from the migration of xnec2c to GTK3, which was producing error
messages from GTK3 during the dragging of structure or radiation pattern
displays. And I modified the Makefile.am file to get "make install" to install
program files and documentation to the right places.
Version 3.7-beta: After some feature requests by users of xnec2c, I implemented
a number of changes to xnec2c so that it can save the state of the GUI at exit
and restore it on start up. To this effect xnec2c now produces a configuration
file xnec2c.config in the user's ~/.config directory. In this file xnec2c saves
the state (position, size, active toggle buttons, projection parameters for
structure and radiation pattern displays, the state of the frequency loop etc)
of the main windows, e.g. structure, radiation pattern, frequency plots and
NEC2 editor.
I have also added keyboard accelerators for a number of buttons and menu items,
more commonly used in the main windows of xnec2c, and a new "Zo" NEC2 "card" to
specify transmission line impedance.
Version 3.7.1-beta: Fixed a reported bug that prevented wire diameter entries
less than 0.01 in the Helix (GH) card editor. This was due to specifying a
minimum value of 0.01 in the xnec2c.glade file.
Version 3.8-beta: I edited some of the code so that when a NEC2 file is saved,
the Center x and y offsets (the change of position) of the structure and
radiation pattern are not changed. I also arranged for the offset values to be
saved in ~/.config/xnec2c.config when closing xnec2c, and to be read back and
restored when starting.
Version 3.9-beta: I have arranged for some user actions to be "nested", mainly
regarding the saving of NEC2 editor data followed by the opening of another
file or starting a new project. Some such functionality already existed in
previous versions but it is now more comprehensive.
Another useful change is fixing a bug in the original NEC2 code for producing a
helix (as specified by the GH "card"). This bug resulted a division by zero if
the helix length was specified as zero, possibly intended to produce a spiral.
The GH card can now be used to produce both a helix or a spiral with no
floating point exceptions.
Version 3.9: Since I have not received any bug reports for some time after
releasing version 3.9-b, and having fixed a bug that resulted in a
gtk_widget_destroy() command to be passed on an invalid widget pointer, I am
releasing xnec2c as version 3.9.
Version 4.0: I have changed the code that saves the state of the
View-Polarization menu items, as it would only correctly save the state of
these items in the Main (structure) window. I also changed the code that
handles the removal of "card" entries in the NEC2 editor, as it was causing
crashes of xnec2c under some user action combinations.
Version 4.0: I corrected some mistakes in the GUI interface code, which handles
the creation of windows and dialogs from the glade UI description file. These
mistakes were such that they did not effect the operation of xnec2c but in any
case I fixed them for the sake of correct programming. Also changed the wire
designer dialog to include the Tapered Wire selection check-button in the
dialog's frame and the relevant code to deal with this better.
Version 4.1: I corrected some mistakes in the GUI interface code, which handles
the creation of windows and dialogs from the glade UI description file. These
mistakes were such that they did not effect the operation of xnec2c but in any
case I fixed them for the sake of correct programming. Also changed the wire
designer dialog to include the Tapered Wire selection check-button in the
dialog's frame and the relevant code to deal with this better.
Version 4.1.1: I made a small change to the Radiation Pattern code to allow the
drawing of both horizontal an vertical "cuts" in the radiation pattern, in the
zx and zy vertical planes and the xy horizontal plane. Also changed the
accelerator keys for the Add, Remove, Clear, Save As, Save and Revert buttons
to be Modified by the Control button as the original accelerator keys were
being activated when writing in the Comments Treeview.
Version 4.1.2: Changed the installation commands in Makefile.am so that all the
relevant files (desktop file, application pixmap, configuration file,
executable binary etc) are installed under any location specified to the
configure script by the --prefix= option. Also modified the program so that on
first start up after installation, the application will create its working
directory by copying files from the relevant directories under the installation
prefix.
Version 4.1.3: Arranged the pipe reading function for the parent process to
re-read from the child processes if not all data is transferred at the first
read(). In this case xnec2c was crushing with "Resource temporarily
unavailable" error message.
Version 4.1.4: Added the stdint.h include file to common.h to fix a compilation
error reported by Nick G3VNC.
Version 4.1.5: After an inquiry by Eric Wheeler KJ7LNW regarding the use of the
GH card to create spirals, I found a bug that caused the GH editor to delete
the GH entry in NEC2 Editor's treeview. I also found a bug that caused the
number of turns of a spiral to be rounded to the nearest integer. Both bugs
have been fixed in this version.
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