Change Log

Here is a list of some of the changes to SKY Index Pro 8 since it was released. This log does not include all changes but does provide a significant history of changes.

To download the update, click here.

In the Oven (These features are not guaranteed to be implemented but it is likely that they will be.)

Any planned feature additions will be listed here.

Smart Format - This feature will, through a set of user configurable rules, format the index upon generation for things like changing straight quotes to curly quotes and adjusting punctuation (like where to put a comma or question mark that follows a quote) to follow the rules you want to be followed.

Fixed in 8.0.11

New! Automatic Cross-reference Type Assignment - Automatic cross-reference type assignment is now always enabled. The index now enters 'xref' in place of both 'see' or 'see also'. This relieves the indexer of any concern about whether to enter a cross-reference as a 'see' cross-reference or a 'see also' cross-reference and the index will always be generated with the appropriate assignment. If there is some reason that the proper by-the-book assignment must be overridden, that can be done with 'xref.see' or 'xref.also'.

New! Restore a backup by double clicking on it - If you double click on a backup file within Windows File Explorer, SKY Index will now automatically be opened and the backup restore process will start (File>File Management>Restore).

New! Backups created when closing an index now have a unique filename extension and are limited to no more than 5 backups - Each time you close an index, the index gets compacted. As part of the compaction process a backup is created to assure no data is ever lost. Previously an infinite number of these backups could get created potentially causing your backups folder to become overwhelmed with them. They are now limited to the most recent 5 backups. This in no way affects manual backups or AutoBackups.

New! Return to entry before search - This new command "Search>Return to entry before search" (Alt+Ctrl+Space) allows you to return to the entry that was current prior to starting a search in the Index Pane or Browse Pane. This command has no effect while in the Grid.

New! Edit View - When using this mode of SKY Index, the Index Pane becomes the primary focal point of your index and the grid is hidden unless you specifically call it up for data entry. The same keyboard shortcut that is used outside of Edit View to start appending records (Ctrl+;) is the same shortcut you use in Edit View to show the grid ready for adding new entries. If you add the shift key (Ctrl+Shift+;), the grid will appear with the marquee in the same entry as is current in the Index Pane so that you can edit rather than add records. You can re-hide the grid by pressing Escape. You can toggle between Edit View and standard view with Shift+F10.

New! Sync Headings - This feature will compare two headings and assure that all locators and subheadings of each of those two headings are identical. If they are not identical, the missing subheadings and/or locators will be added to each as needed to make them identical. This command is only available when the Browse Pane is visible and the command is available by choosing Utilities>Sync Headings. The two headings that you choose must be in the Index Pane and Browse Pane.

New! Locators with note references - There are new settings under Options>Index>Locators>Note References that allow SKY Index to automatically detect and properly sort and format your locators with note references.

New! Forced Sorting of locators - You can now append an equals sign to a locator followed by a number to change the value used to sort that locator. For instance if you enter 12=15, the locator will print as '12' but will sort as if it were actually 15. This makes it very easy to sort a locator before or after all other locators. Append "=0" to sort them before all other locators and "=999" to sort them after all other locators.

New! Page Range Conflation - The page range conflation settings have been update and will:

  • Include CMS 17 conflation rules

  • Use longer more descriptive names for the conflation rules.

  • Have a separate button to create a new conflation rule set.

  • Have a separate button to delete the current conflation set (if it is a user defined conflation set).

  • Store user defined conflation sets in the program state settings file so that they are available in all indexes you create. 

Improved! Collapse Heading - When you collapse a heading in either the Grid or Index Pane, you'll now be put in the appropriate place (page field or Xref Editor) with the 'xref ' leader already entered for you so that all you have to do is enter the target of the cross-reference.

Browse Pane - 1) Issues related to focus moving to the Index Pane and the wrong heading opening for editing when using the New Heading and New Subheading commands have been fixed. 2) Using the Browse Pane will no longer cause a SKY Index task to remain in memory when closing SKY Index.

Fixed in 8.0.10

New! Group on Cross-references - With the introduction of automatic cross-reference identification, grouping on 'see' or 'see also' cross-references became impossible since they would both have the leader 'xref'. This new feature, available from the Group menu, will allow you to group on all, just 'see', or just 'see also' cross-references.

Improved! Copy Locators - You can now select records in the grid and the Copy Locators function will use those records to copy the locators from. It used to always use the currently highlighted heading in the Index Pane.

Find/Replace - The match whole word option now works properly if the match case option is not selected regardless of the case that you type in the find text box. It previously only worked correctly if you typed the word to be searched for in all lower case.

Automatic Maiden Name Entry - When automatic maiden name entry is enabled in Preferences>Data Entry you no longer have to use the Process Maiden Names Tool. The maiden names will be processed immediately upon entry.

"Save As" Version 7.0 index - When saving a version 8 index as a version 7 index, you'll no longer, sometimes, end up with a version 7 index where you can't make any entries without a crash.

Cross-references - Fixed an issue that caused cross-references to incorrectly appear after a heading instead of as a subheading because of being incorrectly identified as an orphan cross-reference.

Ctrl+Clicking a cross-reference - If it is an 'under' cross-reference, it will find the correct target. For instance, if you click on the cross-reference in the entry: "Kamm. See under Schreiner", it will take you to the entry "Schreiner, Kamm" where Kamm is a subheading of Schreiner. 2) If it is a 'general' cross-reference, you will be presented with a message telling you that it is a general cross-reference and that a target cannot be determined.

Custom colors - (Preferences>Colors) When you change the colors used by the data entry grid or index pane, including the option to use a custom theme based on a user selected color. The changes take effect immediately instead of having to restart SKY Index. 

Fixed in 8.0.9

New! Default Index Settings - If you have no index open you'll be able to choose Options>Index, Options>Document, or Options>Data Entry and will be editing the contents of the default index template 'default.tp8'. If that file does not exist, it will be created for you automatically. NOTE: default.tp8 contains index settings that are applied to all new indexes you create.

New! Theme Color - You can now set a theme color for SKY Index and the programs grid, index pane and most other dialogs will obey the new color theme. If you use a custom color theme in Windows, you can use this feature to make SKY Index match your preferred colors scheme.

Cross-references - When automatic cross-reference type assignment is enabled, these problems are fixed: 1) Cross-references started with 'xref ' will not be deleted when using the Add/Remove Volume/Chapter label feature. 2) If you're entering a cross-reference target for a cross-reference that begins with 'xref ', entering a comma will no longer start a new record. 3) A cross-reference could be mistaken as an orphan and display twice in the Index Pane but generate correctly. 4) When you've configured see also cross-references to appear as the last subheading, they will appear even if the parent heading is not visible in the Index Pane.  5) Ctrl+Clicking to show a cross-reference target will now work with text that includes and ampersand or forward slash.

Error Scan - Error scan will no longer report as non-existent cross-reference targets that include an ampersand or forward slash.

Find/Replace - 1) Finding text with a particular style and then replacing it with a different style no longer keeps the original style in addition to applying the new style. 2) When doing a Find/Replace and replacing one-by-one instead of using Replace All, under certain circumstances, SI8 would crash. That no longer happens. 3) If you click the Search toolbar button and then click the Replace tab to do a Find/Replace, the replaced text will no longer be empty.

Index Pane - 1) Cross-references entered in the Index Pane with a slash or ampersand will not longer be altered to include <slash> or <amp> instead of the slash or ampersand. 2) You'll no longer, under certain circumstances, see a heading's locator(s) but not the heading itself at the top of the Index Pane. 3) When you have an index configured for see also cross-references to appear as the last subheading, you will no longer, under certain circumstances, crash SKY Index by scrolling the Index Pane.

Proofing Report (and other reports) - If you configure your program to display your reports in your word processor, you'll no longer see '&apos;' instead of an apostrophe in the generated report.

Label Selector - The label selector now displays text in white which is more readable against what are normally dark label colors.

Other - 1) Fixed some problems related to ampersands and forward slashes within index entries. 2) Fixed a problem related to generating an index with text that had character values between [128 and 255].

Fixed in 8.0.8

Import/Export - SKY Software's import and export functions have been updated to work with the new automatic cross-reference identification feature. If Automatic Cross-reference Identification is turned ON:

  • Imported indexes will have 'see' or 'see also' converted to 'xref'

  • Exported indexes will have 'xref' converted to either 'see' or 'see also' as appropriate.

Convert Cross-reference - This function will now work with cross-references identified with 'xref'.

Create Reciprocal Cross-reference - This function will now work with cross-references identified with 'xref'.

IDEX Import - IDEX will now properly import records containing a less than sign (<).

Reports - Most reports that generate an HTML output can now be opened in your word processor instead of your browser by using the Preference>Fonts>Open reports in your word processor, not your browser option.

Find/Replace - The '>' pattern matching character now works as it should.

Error Scan - 1) Duplicate records no longer cause false positives for some results. 2) 'xref' is no longer seen as a locator when automatic cross-reference identification is turned on for some results.

Statistics - 'Wrapped' line count is now correct.

Fixed in 8.0.7

New! Automatic Cross-reference identification - Here's the details:

You can turn the feature on/off for each individual index at any time through Options>Index>Cross-references>Automatically determine cross-reference type. The default setting is OFF.

Have you ever edited an index entry that includes one or more cross-references and the edit would require you to change your cross-reference(s) from 'see' to 'see also' or vice versa and you forgot to do so? This feature will make impossible to forget because SKY Index will determine the appropriate form of the cross-reference when the index is generated.

If you leave this setting OFF, everything works exactly as it always has.

If you turn it ON, you can enter 'see', 'see also', or 'xref' as the introductory phrase of your cross-references. Those phrases will be ignored except to identify the text as a cross-reference. SKY Index will determine, when generating the Index Pane entries or the RTF file, whether it is a 'see' or 'see also' cross-reference. There are NO overrides to this. With this feature on you will always have ‘by-the-book’ cross-references. If a heading from which a cross-reference is made has locators or subheadings, it will always be a ‘see also’ cross-reference. Otherwise it will always be a ‘see’ cross-reference. The word under will work as it always has and your general cross-references will also work as they always have.

You can turn this feature on/off at any time, but if you've entered cross-references with 'xref', you'll have to change them to 'see' using Find/Replace. Error scan can then help you determine those that should be ‘see also’.

Error Scan: If this feature is ON, Error Scan will not scan for problems related to improper use of ‘see’ or ‘see also’. If the feature is, OFF Error Scan will look for instances where you have used a generic cross-reference identifier (‘xref’) and let you know that you need to change it to ‘see’ or ‘see also’.

If you are writing an index that uses by-the-book cross-references, you will never, ever, have to be concerned with cross-reference type or with performing an error scan to check for incorrect cross-reference types. That will save time and time is money.

Undo - Undo has been improved: 1) Saving undo data is now faster for many types of Undo operations. 2) You can now see progress of an Undo. 3) Restoring the state of the Grid and Index Pane after performing an Undo is improved.

Redo - Redo now works when the Index Pane has focus and has the same improvements as Undo

SmartSwap - SmartSwap will no longer cause SKY Index to crash if you swap a record that has an empty subheading.

Find/Replace Dialog - 1) After the first time you use the Find/Replace dialog, subsequent times the dialog should appear faster than in previous releases. 2) Pressing the Find Next button quickly in succession will no longer cause a crash. 

Grid Marquee - Under some situations, the grid's marquee might jump to a different cell in the same row or a different row of the grid after making an edit. This has been fixed for at least one cause of the problem. If you still experience this problem after installing this update and if you can provide a reproducible case, please report the problem and how to reproduce it.

Data Manager Reports - 1) All Data Managers (Acronyms, AutoComplete, AutoEntry, Macros, and Translations) now create a report in HTML format when you click the Print button. You can simply view the report or you can print it from your browser. 2) The reports are now single spaced. 3) The reports use the font and font size chosen in preferences for the Grid and Index Pane.

Proofing Report - 1) Now creates a report in HTML format when you click the Print button. You can simply view the report or you can print it from your browser. 2) The report uses the font and font size chosen in preferences for the Grid and Index Pane. 3) The page ordered report has some improvements to make it easier to read. 4) You can elect to have your reports open in your word processor instead of your web browser through a setting in Preferences>Fonts>Report Fonts. NOTE: The proofing report option to include record numbers cannot currently be disabled. It will be possible in a future update.

 Promote/Demote - If the text being promoted or demoted contained a slash or ampersand, the command would sometimes split the text at the wrong place.

Find/Replace - The Find Pane would not show replacement text when doing a Find and Replace.

Import - Importing a text file now allows you to specify if the file is in UTF8 format or not. The default is no. If you import a text file and get hollow rectangles or other improper characters where there should be Unicode characters, check that check box and try importing again.

HTML Output Format - Indexes that are generated in HTML format and that include a slash in a hyperlink will now include the slash in the generated output instead of &amp;slash;.

IXML Export - IXML export includes cross-references again.

Fixed in 8.0.6

SmartSwap - SmartSwap will now recognize words in the SmartSwap list even if the space preceding word is formatted.

Compaction - Because of the problems that Dropbox (and possibly other cloud syncing services) has caused during the compaction process, the compaction code changed in 8.0.5. 8.0.6 adds additional safeguards to assure safe compaction and to accurately report to the user any problems that might occur.

Activation - Some users have had activation problems caused by their anti-virus software. Activation code has been changed to hopefully stop anti-virus software from interfering with activation.

Group on Current - When grouping on the current locator, grouping is now much faster.

Group on Locator - When grouping on a locator or locator range, grouping is now much faster.

Copy and Paste - When pasting from one SKY Index session to a separate SKY Index session, the program no longer crashes.

Syncing the Index Pane to the Grid - When syncing the Index Pane to the current grid record in an index with more than one subheading level and when the current record has more than one subheading level, the proper heading is now highlighted (synced) in the Index Pane.

Goto Next Active Label - This now works if the grid's marquee is in the Append row.

Deleting subheading in the Index Pane - If you delete all text of a suheading in the Index Pane and press F2, the empty heading will now be changed to <Edit Me> instead of deleting the subheading and its locators. This is consistent with what happens if you press the Delete key. If you wish to remove the subheading and keep the locators, use the Consume Heading command.

Backup/Restore - Both manual and automatic backups now include the record attributes Record #, Label ID, Creator, Date Created, Editor, and Date Edited.

Find/Replace - A problem where if you start a search from the grid, found the first occurrence and then edited that occurrence in the Index Pane, Find Next would cause the program to hang has been fixed.

Fixed in 8.0.5

New! Grid and Index Pane Colors - You can now customize the colors used in both the Grid and Index Pane for text and background when they have or do not have focus. If your display does not show good contrast with the default settings, you can change them to whatever you like.

Syncing of Grid and Index Pane - The syncing of the Grid to the Index Pane and the Index Pane to the Grid has been refined.

Compaction Change - In an attempt to help customers that put their indexes in a Dropbox folder, the compaction that occurs every time you close an index will now retry compaction for up to 10 seconds before giving up and displaying an error message. This will hopefully give Dropbox time to sync the index to the cloud and prevent the error message that Dropbox users get as a result of the ill timed syncing.

Cross-reference Placement - Under certain circumstances, you could end up with the same cross-reference appearing twice - once after the locators and again as a subheading.

Adding headings in the Index Pane - The Ctrl+N (New Heading) and Ctrl+Shift+N (New subheading) commands have been improved to work reliably when you use them while still editing another heading. In addition, the new heading is placed near the heading from where you're adding a new heading to make the Index Pane move less and cause less distraction. Finally, the code has been refined to reduce the amount of code running in the background to make things happen more quickly.

Fixed in 8.0.4

Syncing of Grid and Index Pane - As the result of a previous bug fix, the syncing between the grid and index pane failed under certain circumstances. That has now been fixed.

Restoring a backup - A progress indicator now appears when restoring from a backup.

Internationalization - A problem that caused users in countries that use a comma as a decimal point to have index indentions settings set to zero when generating and index has been fixed.

Fixed in 8.0.3

Index Heading Style - because of work done to assure interchangeability of indexes between indexers of all languages, the turnover lines of main headings was being changed to zero. It now works as it should. You will need to modify the index options of any index you created after installing 8.0.2 in order to fix this problem.

Fixed in 8.0.2

New! Name Inverter - The name inverter has an additional option that allows you to rotate the names within the name being inverted rather than rely on specific predefined prefixes. If running the name inverter once does not result in the correct inversion, just run it again until you reach the desired inversion. This new option is available in Preferences>General

Page range conflation - Custom page range conflation was broken and now works.

Browse Pane - 1) Pressing Ctrl+Enter in the Browse Pane will now close the Browse Pane and sync the Grid and Index Pane to the current Browse Pane entry. 2) When the Browse Pane opens, the current heading will be the same as the current record in the grid if the grid has focus or the current heading in the Index Pane if the Index Pane has focus.

Labels - Setting or unsetting labels for selected records is now considerably faster than before.

Import/Export - The new IDEX (Index Data EXchange) import and export format is now available.

Grid - When using a menu to apply formatting to text while the text editor is active in the grid, the area that was covered by the menu would be left as a gray shadow of the menu. That is now fixed.

Drag and Drop - When dragging and dropping in specific ways to the Append Row of the grid, sometimes improper data would appear in a row that was not modified.

Locators - locators with footnote ranges should now sort correctly when locators with a footnote (but not a range) also exists within the range of the other footnote.

Help - The help text for a problem bringing up a PDF reader has been improved to be more informative.

Backup/Restore - When a person in a non-English speaking country shared a backup file with someone in an English speaking country, the restored index would have improper indents for subheadings and turnover lines.

Labels - The Label status area of the status bar now obeys the preferences font name and size and also displays the name of the font in white since the label color is possibly too dark for good contrast if it is black.

Progress Gauge - The progress gauge in the status bar now obeys the font name and size in preferences and has been modified to reduce the possibility of flashing of the gauge while progressing.

Import/Export - When exporting delimited text files using SKY Index encoding, the encoding is now included. The encoding was being stripped before.

Data Entry - When navigating in the grid or searching within certain types of indexes (ones that include, for instance, a huge number of the same subheading) there would be a noticeable period of time you had to wait for the search to complete. That delay is significantly shorter now and for most indexes will be unnoticeable.

Error Scan - updated the error message related to see/see also under cross-references to make it clearer why there is an error.

Progress Gauge - The progress gauge is now used for some additional functions.

XML Markup - Several problems with XML Markup tags were fixed: 1) The last heading of the generated index would be missing the closing '<level>' tag. 2) character formatting within a locator might be missing a closing format tag. 3) A forward slash within a heading would cause &slash; to appear in the generated index.

Fixed in 8.0.1

Open a version 7.0 file - The preview will now open a version 7.0 file and copy it to a version 8.0 file. The original version 7.0 file is not modified in any way.

Message about Unicode - A new message (tip) has been added that explains what to do if you enter a Unicode character and it appears as a empty rectangle instead of the character you're expecting.

Alphabet Groups - The Index option for defining the characters included within each alphabetic group has been fixed to allow entry of Unicode characters so that they will appear within the alphabetic group of your choice if they are the first character of a heading.

System Info button removed from the About dialog - Because the System Info feature is in no way related to SKY Index, it has been removed from the About dialog.

Deleting a cross-reference prefix in Index Options causes the program to close - If you wanted to edit the introductory phrase (prefix) for a cross-reference and as part of changing it you deleted all characters, the program would close.

Message about Unicode - This message was appearing even when you didn't enter a Unicode character. That has been fixed.

Demote from the context menu - You can now demote using the context menu. 

Define Alphabet Groups - The dialog to allow you to define alphabet groups will now use 'Tahoma' as its font instead of Arial if it is available. This makes it possible to see the Unicode characters you're most likely to enter as the actual characters instead of a rectangle outline.

Alphabet Groups - The default settings for alphabet groups now include all Latin and Greek characters so that you will not need to modify the settings unless you are working with non-Latin/Greek characters.

Text file import - You can now import text files in UTF-8 format that include Unicode characters.

Duplicate record with a label - duplicating a record will now include the labeling of the record being duplicated

Copy and paste with labeled records - When copying and pasting records, the labels of the records will be preserved.

Tip of the day - Tip of the day #31 misspelled the word technique plus you can now close the tip of the day using the escape key even if an index is not currently open.

Find/Replace - Because of reported problems from those with multiple monitor setups, this dialog will now appear centered over the program screen rather than near the top of the screen.

Preferences (Use metric system measurements) - If you choose the 'Use metric system measurements' preference option, Margins and other sizes will now properly appear as metric measurements in the Document Options pane.

Collapse Heading - This command will now remove all subheading text below the level of the marquee when the command is invoked.

Drag and Drop - The problem where drag and drop would start to malfunction if it was initiated from a cell that had the marquee over it has been fixed.

Find - When using the Find Next keyboard shortcut F3 from the Index Pane, the search would get stuck on some headings with multiple locators.

Index Generation - Both the RTF and HTML output formats now support up to 99 fonts in the generated index. This required a change to the markup tags for those two formats so if you've created any custom output formats based on either an RTF or the HTML output format, you'll have to recreate that custom output format or you'll have font problems in your generated index.

Index Generation - The XML Tagged Text output format has been updated to fix problems with the generated output. 

Macros - Unicode characters should now work within a macro and macros will execute if you've entered Edit Mode. Please note that there are still issues with Macros to work out and that they are not reliable at this point in time.

Data Managers - The data manager grids (Acronyms, AutoComplete, AutoEntry, Macros, and Translations will now use the font you set in Preferences instead of Arial or Tahoma.

Reveal Codes - The Reveal Codes pane no longer shows two lines with one empty when a displayed line includes characters styles.

Unicode Message - The About Unicode message has been rewritten to be more clearer.

Index Generation - A problem with generating RTF when there were multiple fonts in the same heading has been fixed.

Goto Cross-reference - The Ctrl+Click command to show the target of a cross-reference has been updated to be much quicker.

Cross-reference Target Pane - The code to update the layout of the Grid, Index Pane, Browse Pane, and Cross-reference Target Pane has been updated because of problems showing the Cross-reference Target Pane. This also resulted in some improvement to the layout manager for handling the other panes.

Labels - You now have a Preferences option "Preferences>Colors/Help>Apply label color to grid text" to have SKY Index draw all text of a record in the color of the label if a record is labeled making the record more obviously labeled.

Bookmarks - 1) Bookmarks no longer share label 9 with the labeling system. 2) In Preferences>Colors you can define the color of a bookmark. 3) In Preferences>General you can specify if bookmarks are retained or removed when you close your index. 4) When Toggling or clearing bookmarks, the Grid now properly shows the results of the change.

Endnotes - When entering an endnote range, the second 'n' in 'nn' is now converted to ignored text so that sorting issues do not arise between a single endnote and an endnote range.

Find/Replace - 1) Using a dollar sign when pattern matching was enabled would result in the desired text not being found. 2) Pattern groups would fail to work correctly unless you chose to use regular expressions in preferences..

Updates - Choosing Help>Check for update will now properly query our website and give you the results.

 

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