1.79 20th November 2005

Hierarchical schematic editor: Block > Fetch from other designs was failing during import if the block being imported contained busses.

• Schematic compiler and parts list editor: when outlines were imported to the job by these routines, the pad and track sizes for the imported outlines were not correctly adjusted to conform to the size table configuration of the destination design.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: Symbol > Copy was not copying the outline attribute value if this had been changed on the symbol being copied. Also, if primitive symbols were created with signal name attributes, the signal name attribute reverted to the value on the library symbol and not the value on the symbol being copied.

• Hierarchical schematic editor: schematic properties were being lost when browsing for symbols in master libraries or other designs. (Problem introduced at version 1.75)

• Hierarchical schematic editor: Symbol > Copy was causing a program crash in some situations.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: Symbol->Copy was not preserving any position or visibility changes applied to the part ident value or pin name.

• Hierarchical schematic editor: when using Symbol > Copy, the "Value", "Order Code" and any user defined attributes will be copied from the selected source symbol to the newly inserted symbol.
• When performing a Block > Fetch operation from other designs, blocks will now be displayed in the selection dialog with category headers (i.e. "User Blocks", "Parts", etc)

• Artwork editor: the Parts > Find command and all Hilight commands are now available when using a limited license where the design exceeds the licensed limits.
• Artwork editor: the Text > Add and Text > Edit modes now have a "mirrored" checkbox.

• Outline editor: it is now possible to copy outlines directly between jobs, without going via the master outline library.
• Outline editor: when an outline is copied between libraries, the pad/line sizes are maintained, rather than the pad/line codes. So there will no longer be the problem of pad/track sizes changing when the outline is copied between jobs or the master library. New entries are added to the destination design sizes table if necessary to preserve correct dimensions.
• Outline editor: The outline open dialog has been restructured to provide a more detailed view when choosing outlines for editing. Also, the Delete, Rename and Duplicate functions that were previously in the File menu have been moved within the outline open dialog.
• Outline editor: all pads are now drawn "filled".
• Outline editor: pad drill holes are now drawn in a grey colour, to differentiate them from the display background colour. This makes it easy to see when a drill hole has been defined that is larger than its associated pad.
• Outline editor: a Show Connection Points entry has been added to the View menu. When switched on, a small mark will appear on each pad indicating where tracks will attach.
• Outline editor: the pad style viewer window (in the top left hand corner) now shows standard shape pads in correct proportions. Also, this window now shows pads in the colour appropriate to the selected insertion layer. Drill holes are now only shown in the pad style window if the pad destination layer is inner or all layers in accordance with the rule for determining whether a pin should be drilled.
• Electra autorouter interface: changed fixed routes directive in routing file from fix to protect to enable router to finish routing partially pre-routed nets.
• Electra autorouter interface: when mitre mode is selected, the recorner diagonal directive in the routing command file has been replaced with the following sequence:
  recorner pin 200
  recorner slant 500
  recorner bend 400

• Plot program: removed the AutoCAD DXF file (Fixed Layer) mode from the output device setup "Device Type" pulldown. "Fixed layer" DXF output mode may now be specified within the setup dialog of the remaining "AutoCAD DXF file output" mode.
  The "Layer Mode" option provides two modes for controlling the conversion of design features to corresponding DXF layer identities.
  In "Layer = Pen Number" mode, .dxf data will be generated in layers which are numbered identically to the pen number selected in the plotting source setup dialog.
  In "Layer = Fixed Layer Number" mode, all .dxf data will be generated in the layer number specified in the '"Fixed Layer" edit window. The fixed layer number may be in the range 1-16.
  The "Setup Layer Colours" button in the AutoCAD DXF properties page permits configuring the colour used for the various layers that can be created by RangerXL's .dxf output.

• System general information: when an attempt was made to open a design using an entry in the "most recent files" list section of the File menu, the open would sometimes fail and a corrupt file path would be displayed in the error dialog.

• Modified the File > SystemSetup dialog. The "Show Licenses" button has been replaced with a "License Setup" button. This button displays a new dialog that permits configuration of the licensing method for the product. By default, single host licensing is active as before, with a license.dat file being read from Ranger2 XL's 'Data' directory. If the 'Enable floating license mode' checkbox is clicked, the floating license server TCP/IP address and port number may be specified. As your floating license server may have licenses available for several different variants of Seetrax Ranger software, it is also necessary to choose the desired version that the product should execute as. You should only choose product versions that you have licenses for in your floating license server.

• General: Introduction of Konekt Electra auto-router interface.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: The File > Attributes > Import/Export functions can now be used within the currently open design.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: an "Unsupported operation" error dialog box appeared when an attempt was made to open a master library file.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: the maximum permitted length of an attribute value has been increased from 80 to 256 characters to allow for the use of longer URL's in the datasheet address attribute.

• Product licensing change: this version of Ranger2 XL requires Series 5 license codes.
• System general information: Because of internal data structure changes, it is not possible for designs saved with this version of Ranger2 XL to be loaded into earlier versions.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: added a new attribute to allow the association of a web address (URL) or local file path with each library part.
• Artwork editor: Identify > Track and Identify > Feature now displays the required clearance on the selected item.
• Artwork checker: added the ability to specify the default minimum clearance for power nets independantly of signal nets.

• Artwork editor: bug fix to Mroute > Ripup - tracks could be ripped out past a via hole.
• System general information: a new license limits page has been added to the File > System Setup > Show License Information dialog to show the system capacity limits in force for the installed license file.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: the editor would crash when allocating parts that had any pins with more than 8 characters in the pin number.
  The maximum permitted length for a pin number text string has been increased from 8 to 16 characters
• Artwork editor: added Amend > Enter Circle function to allow circles to be added to the keepoout and profile layers from within the artwork editor.

• Artwork checker: when reporting shorted nets, the artwork checker will now show the signal name (or R$nnn net ident) of the nets in the report listing.
• Artwork editor: when adding parts to the part placement tray using the Add by Part Ident expression mode, the part selector dialog will now automatically reopen after addition to the placement tray.

• Artwork editor: the copper fill boundary polygon always used track size 4 and not the size in the fill size box on the dialog bar.
• Artwork editor: when using Amend > Replace Pad, it was not possible to replace a partpad on the "B" (bottom) layer if the padstack only had pads on the "T" and "B" layers (i.e. an edge connector). The dialog bar "Layer" selector will now correctly select pads on the appropriate board side for replacement.
• Printing/plotting: if a board profile consisted of only a circle, then if was not possible to move the board on the plot sheet with the Configure > Move Plot command because there were no corners to click on. Circle centres may now be selected to reposition plots containing only circular profiles.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: when placing parts from the fast part tray, the rotate and flip keyboard keys now operate on all parts, not just the first part selected from the tray.
• Parts/wiring list editor: it is now possible to use a Shift-Tab keystroke to step the cursor backwards through fields in the editor.
• Artwork editor: two new menu entries PartFix > Enable Unflipped Parts and PartFix > Enable Flipped Parts have been added. These allow side selection of which parts are selected by the various part fix/unfix operations.

• System general information: imported board profiles containing illegal vertices could cause the profile and artwork editors to crash upon opening.
• Artwork editor: A new checkbox Via HeatRels has been added to the power plane mode dialog bar. When unchecked, heat relief pads will not be generated for via holes that connect to a power plane.

• System general information: Introduction of new product licensing levels (no implications for existing users).
• Increased maximum number of available pad/track size codes from 16 to 32.
• Increased maximum number of power rails from 8 to 16.

• System general information: It was possible to execute menu commands while the progress bar was being displayed during a design save, this could result in design file corruption
• The File > System Setup dialog now contains a check box that permits file compression to be switched on/off for design file saving.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: The Extract Pin to Pin Capture Distance parameter on the Edit > Properies > Miscellaneous page may now be set to a negative value to disable the compile time connecting of pins in close proximity.

• General information: improved error handling for when an attempt was made to open a design that contained badly structured design data.
• Flat circuit editor: Symbol > Find and part auto-allocation now work correctly for parts with a prefix code longer than 2 characters.
• Artwork editor: macros can now be added even if stored outside the default macro directory.
• Artwork editor: the Window > Macro Delete command has been removed, as macros are using Windows standard file save and open dialogs.
• Artwork editor: tracks routed with the Mroute > Corner or Mroute > Convert to Track commands are now marked as unfixed.
• Artwork editor: the macro generate command now observes the layer rules correctly (V, T and B layers are only included if selected.)
• Artwork editor: the Window > Macro Generate and Window > Macro Add commands now execute immediately, instead of requiring the Go command to be invoked.

• Artwork editor: the Macro Generate function now uses a Windows standard file save dialog, so it is now possible to delete and overwrite existing macros from within the save dialog.
• Artwork editor: macro generate was saving tracks that had unrouted ends (partial unroutes). These tracks will now be excluded from macros.
• Artwork editor: power nets can now be dynamically reconnected during part place/move operations in the same way as for signal nets.
• Artwork editor: Mroute > Ripup will no longer rip up fixed nets.
• Outline library editor: rename outline now saves the change.
• Hierarchical circuit printing: component pin name negation bars did not print correctly.
• System general information: jobs are now compressed when saved to reduce file sizes. Note: because of this format change, designs saved with this version will not load into older versions of Ranger2 XL.
• System general information: the File menu most recent files list will now be correctly updated after a file Save or Save As.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: now possible to display component pin names with a negation bar.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: Undo of non-electrical edit now operates correctly. Also the display returns to the page where the undo has taken place.
• Parts/wiring list editor: part prefix table is updated if required when entering previously undefined part references.
• Profile editor: the Full View function key (F4 by default) did not work.
• Artwork editor: now possible to display part outlines and labels when in power plane mode.
• Artwork editor: improved message display when using macro tools.
• General information: Updated help file.

• Rip-retry and Seetrax push-shove autorouters: The power pattern router had a bias towards always routing power tracks under the body of DIL packages. A new option has been added to the power pattern router setup to select biasing of track routing underneath, or outside the footprint of DIL packages.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: If a signal name longer than 20 characters was entered, '$12' appeared after the displayed value.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: Window > Cut operation will no longer prompt for confirmation, as the operation can be immediately reversed with the Undo button.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: Select All and Deselect All buttons have been added to the Block > Purge dialog.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: It was not possible to remove parts from the 'fast part' tray. (They came back again when the tray was switch off and on)
• Artwork editor: If you tried to insert an arc track into the keepout layer with Amend > Enter Arc Tracks, and keepouts were not selected as visible, then the system would crash.

• IMPORTANT INSTALLATION NOTE: This version of Ranger2 XL contains an updated "capture.cfg" file. However, the software installer is configured to never overwrite an existing capture.cfg file because of the possibility of user customisation of the file. Before installing this release of Ranger2 XL over an existing installation, please rename the "capture.cfg" file in your \rangerxl\data directory, perform the install, then reapply any custom modifications to the newly installed capture.cfg
• Hierarchical circuit editor: The Wires > Attributes > Add dialog now permits addition of a minimum routing clearance attribute to a net.
• Wiring list editor: a new minimum routing clearance column has been added. Any value entered in this column will override the minimum clearance value used during design checking.
• Artwork checking: The artwork checker has been modified to utilise the individual minimum routing clearance values that may now be applied to nets.
• System general information: To accomodate the above changes, the design file structure for storage has been modified. All previous designs will load into this version of Ranger, but designs created or saved in this version will not load into any earlier version of Ranger2 XL.
• Product licensing change: This version of Ranger2 XL requires Series 4 license codes for correct operation.

• Artwork editor: If the layer selection was changed in the toolbar when the Tools > CopperFill > FilledCopper > DeleteArea/DeleteNode commands were active, then the system failed to locate copper features on the selected layer.

• Printing/plotting: When generating Gerber photoplot data, a warning will now be displayed if pad style is not Filled, undrilled or track style is not Filled.

• Drill/Rout data generator: There is now a field in the drill dialog where the default file name extension for drill and route data files may be specified.

• Artwork editor: A new part selection method has been added to the part placement tray builder dialog. Parts may now be added to the tray simply by typing a part ident into the Add by Part Ident window and either hitting return, or clicking the Add to Tray button. The wildcards * and ? can be used. For example * represents all parts, IC* all IC's. IC? will select IC's with one numeric value (IC1-9), IC?? will select IC's with two numeric values (IC10-99), etc. All parts with idents matching the entered expression will be placed into the tray.

• Hierarchical circuit editor: Find > Part did not work correctly if elements of the part were spread across multiple sheets.
• The following changes have been made to the Edit > Properties, Miscellaneous window of new jobs:-
  "Show Symbol Datum Points" defaults to ON
  "Max window mode dynamic nodes" has been increased to 750
  "Rotated text display mode" defaults to "Right Edge"

• Artwork editor: Performance problem with artwork macro insertion, and possibility of crash if system had no c:\temp directory. (Debug code inadvertently left in system)

• Artwork editor: if "Show pin numbers" mode was selected in the View > Setup Visibility dialog and the design contained any parts with unassigned part pins, then the editor could crash.
• Artwork editor: When a part is selected for equivalent pin swapping, each group of equivalent pins is identified by a small circle with lines drawn to each equivalent pin. When a part contained a large number of equivalent pins, the display became very congested and it was not easy to see which pins were being indicated.
  When an equivalent pin group now contains > 5 pins, each member pin will now be indicated by a small circle containing a reference number, and a short line pointing to the pin. All pins with equivalent reference numbers are members of the same pin swapping group.

• Artwork editor, artwork macro insertion:
  The sizes table was not updated correctly when inserting macros containing round or square ended finger pads.
  When the sizes table overflowed during macro insertion, the insert operation was aborting. The intended behaviour was for the features that could not have a size table entry allocated to be inserted with a size code of '4'. The macro import will now behave in this manner. There will be a warning beep, and message displayed on the bottom message bar if the size table overflows during macro insert.
  When a macro insert operation was undone, the sizes table was not returned to its earlier state.
  If a macro insert operation was performed after pads had been previously entered using 'Amend' mode, then the size table entries for the previously entered pads was being overwritten by the macro insert operation.
• Clicking the mouse button rapidly while in the Grid > Measure Distance mode could cause the system to crash.

• Withdrawn

• Autogrid pitch selection: Another programmable parameter "Autogrid long axis maxdots" has been added to the "Edit > System Defaults > Grid Autopitch Table & Axis Dot Limit" dialog. By changing this value, the threshold at which the display switches from one autogrid pitch to the next can be controlled.
  Autogrid pitches are chosen as follows :-
  Each autogrid table pitch entry is tested in turn to determine how many grid dots would be drawn along the longest axis of the workarea window if that pitch were chosen. The grid pitch that fits <= "Autogrid long axis maxdots" along the longest axis of the workarea window is the grid pitch that is chosen. The original non-programmable value for 'Autogrid long axis maxdots' prior to software release 1.66 was '50' The editable value now in the dialog takes a default of '50', and can be set in the range 25-100.

• Artwork editor: Program was crashing if the artwork exit icon on the toolbar was double-clicked. (Problem was introduced at revision 1.41 during correction of a powerplane redraw problem)
• Artwork editor: Revision 1.41 introduced an undocumented increase of the maximum displayable number of grid dots per axis from 100 dots to 250 dots. However, this change inadvertantely altered the calculation of the selected grid pitch when in auto pitch mode.
  The maximium grid dots per axis value is now user selectable in the range 100 to 300. The value can be set in the "Edit > System Defaults > Grid Autopitch Table & Axis Dot Limit" dialog (when no design is open). The initial default value is 100. The calculated autogrid pitch value will not now be affected by alteration of the axis dot limit value.

Just the keypoints of this version are listed here, the revhist.txt file that is down-loaded with the update contains more detailed information.

• Main system menu: If "File > Delete > Artwork" was used in selective layer delete mode, then all the setup parameters for power plane and silk screen generation were lost from the artwork editor.
• Hierarchical circuit compilation: no longer possible to lose the network identity 'uid' values of the wiring list nets and on features in the artwork.
• Artwork editor: When "Tools > Powerplane" mode was selected, the display did not repaint to show power pins until after a refresh was done.
• Artwork editor: The "Verify" button has been removed from the powerplane mode toolbar, as it provided no useful action on Ranger2 XL.
• Artwork editor: When the artwork editor is started, a verification is now made on the 'uid' values on all wiring list nets. Any nets found with a missing or invalid uid value will have a new uid code assigned.

• Outline editor: The system could crash when trying to delete outlines from the master outline library.
• Hierarchical schematic libraries: Most of the hierarchical schematic libraries have been edited to correct a naming error associated with the 'order code' attribute.
  NB: the schematic libraries are not included in the "maintenance release" .zip files, but they can be downloaded from the Seetrax web site. The CDrom distribution of Ranger2 XL does include the revised libraries, but note that they will only be installed if you delete or rename your old libraries first. (See version 1.29 release notes below for more information)

• Artwork printing/plotting: Filled and drilled pads were sometimes missing from plots if the pads contained drill holes that were too small to be printed correctly at the chosen scale. (Customer supplied job had pads with drill holes of 0.01mm/0.0003".)

• Artwork printing/plotting: The system was forgetting Pads and Copper checkbox selections on the 'Layers' setup page. The problem only affected designs that had last been saved using certain earlier versions of Ranger2 XL.
• System general information: The File->System Setup special function keys definition dialog now permits the assignment of keys that can be used to select inch or metric operation mode.
  The inch/metric hotkeys will currently operate in all editors and dialogs in the system with the following known exceptions: Artwork rip/retry router configuration dialogs, Hierarchical and flat circuit schematic editors and Flat schematic device library editor.
  The inch/metric hotkeys should be assigned to non-printing keystrokes. Assigning them to printing characters will render those characters impossible to enter into system dialogs.
• Calcomp and HP plotter setup dialogs: The Calcomp and HP plotter setup dialogs permit the setting of plot correction scale factors for the X and Y axis. When 'metric' operation mode was in effect, these scaling values were not being handled correctly. (They were inadvertantly being multiplied by 25.4)

• Artwork checking: Upon selection of artwork checking, the artwork is automatically scanned for copper filled areas and if detected the copper fill checks are switched on. If they are deselected a warning window appears indicating that the results of the checking could be compromised.
• Artwork checking: If an artwork or silkscreen check results in the insertion of error flags, the error flag display mode will be automatically switched on when the artwork editor is entered.
• System general information: Increased the max. number of artwork errorflags that the system can store from 128 to 500.
• Flat circuit editor: It is now possible to enter signal names of up to 16 characters in length.

• Artwork editor: Added automatic part renumbering utility to Parts menu.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: When library attribute export is selected, a dialog window is displayed permitting selection of the attribute types to be exported. In addition to user defined attributes, standard system reserved attributes can now be selected for export. During import, system reserved attributes can be referred to by name on the column header. The old method of using $number is still supported.
• Design autosave: If a design auto-save took place, and the design was then closed without any more editing being done, the system could close the design without prompting for it to be saved. This resulted in lost work, as the latest copy of the design was in the autosafe safe# file, and not the current design file.
• Flat circuit editor: Inserting non-electrical text strings with 40 characters could cause a crash.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: When editing a master library volume, it was possible to attempt to 'block fetch' a part from the library file that was open for editing. This caused a crash. The system will now not list the current edit library when performing block fetch operations.
• Hierarchical circuit compiler: More setup options have been added to the Tools > Parts/Netlist Extraction > Setup menu. It is now possible to select the rules used by the compiler in deciding when to update the outline and ordercode values on an extracted parts list.
  Outline and ordercode values can now be selected for update Never, Only on Unplaced Parts or Always. The default selections are Only on Unplaced Parts for both the outline and ordercode fields.
  This is a slight variation on the previous compiler behaviour which was to always overwrite ordercodes in the partslist and to only update the outlines for unplaced parts.
• General information: When performing an Edit > Restore Defaults operation with the Pad and Track Sizes option selected, the drill sizes were not being updated.
• Flat circuit editor: Non-electrical text height is now correctly initialised to the default value of 0.080".
• On-line help updated.

• Hierarchical circuit printing: The output program could crash at startup if the block previously selected for plotting had a long name (approx 15 characters or more).
• Parts/wiring list editor: When trying to add more nodes to a very large wiring list, nothing was appearing while typing in the new node data. Hitting the tab or space keys to terminate the node entry then caused the screen display to become jumbled.
• General information: Updated 'help' data has been included with this release.

• Flat circuit editor: If a connection wire contained overlapping nodes, and a new connection was inserted such that one end of the new wire connected to the overlapped vertex location of the original wire, then the editor could crash, or the wiring data could become corrupted for that schematic page.

• Artwork uid data could get corrupted if a design save operation was performed within the hierarchical circuit editor after a circuit compilation (extraction) had been performed.

• Artwork checker: The artwork checker was not detecting a short caused by a power via hole being placed within the area of a large part pad belonging to a different net.
• Artwork plotting: Square pads and square-ended finger pads that were rotated to angles other than 0/90/180/270 degrees did not get printed when using 'Windows printer' output device mode.
• Artwork plotting: Round-ended finger pads that were rotated to angles other than 0/90/180/270 degrees were being printed at the wrong size and orientation when using 'Windows printer' output device mode.
• General information: On startup, Ranger2 XL will now create a lock file in the system temporary directory, and use the existance of this file to prevent running more than one instance of the application. Running multiple instances of Ranger2 XL is currently not supported, and may lead to unexpected results and/or data loss.
• Artwork plotting: After a Photoplot or Penplot had been produced, the preview display was lost.
• Gerber photoplotting: Extended Gerber output mode (RS-274X) did not define the units of the generated data.
• Gerber photoplotting: Added the date of plot file creation to the start of the Gerber data.
• Artwork editor: Mroute/Neck mode was incorrectly prompting for a neck segment length value instead of using the neck length value located in the dialog bar.
• Hierarchical circuit printing: Negated bus names were being previewed and output with the negation bar prefix character instead of the bar.
• Artwork editor: The renumbering logfile (renumber.txt) was being updated every time the design was autosaved, even if no part renumbering or pin swapping had been performed. Autosave will now only update the log file if a renumbering event has occured since the last autosave.
• All printing/plotting operations: Configuration parameters were being lost from the printing/plotting dialogs when changing between dialogs belonging to the same output filter family. eg: Go into standard gerber photoplot setup, fill in the dcode table, then close the table, and change the gerber plot type to 'auto dcode'. When you return to the standard gerber type, all the dcode values were lost. (Problem introduced at rev 1.45)
• On-line help updated to include information on power plane generation, silk-screen generation, parts/wiring list editor, importing parts/wiring lists.

• Specctra router interface: The router was reporting "Warning: versions not the same" when importing the routing result file.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: The editor was crashing if the schematic contained an instance of a part block where the 'Part Prefix' attribute had been deleted.
• General information: A 'Restore Defaults' option has been added to the design 'Edit' menu. When this is executed, a dialog is displayed, and you can then choose to restore your design part code prefix table, sizes table, or heat relief feature dimensions table to their default values.
• Board profile editor: Added a new editor permitting numerical editing of profile, keepout and router features. This new editor is accessible from the "Edit > Profile Numeric Editor" menu entry.
• On-line help updated to include information on design defaults, profile editor, outline editor, Specctra interface and Seetrax rip/retry auto-router.

• General information: The File/System Setup dialog was limiting directory paths to 55 characters. This limit has now been raised to 240 characters.
• Artwork checking: If a drilled pad with a zero drill diameter was detected, then the warning message was being displayed for all subsequently checked designs, even if they had no error.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: When fetching parts from other designs, the editor crashed if the length of the registered design directory plus the length of the name of any design in the registered directory totalled > 80 characters.
• All import/export configuration dialogs: The system was sometimes crashing if any file or directory box contained an entry > 150 characters.
• Parts/wiring list editor: The spin controls in the 'Edit/Repeat parts' dialog were broken. (Problem introduced at version 1.50 when max. part reference raised from 4095 to 99999)

• Product installation: The product has been repackaged with a new installer. On the first run of the new product installer, you now have the option of specifying alternative locations for the circuit schematic libraries, and the PCB masters directory (outlines etc.) Subsequent product upgrade runs of the installer will use the original configured paths as the reinstallation target directories. The installer now uses the following file overwriting rules during installation/upgrade of various product components :-
  Program/Help files : Always overwritten.
  Configuration Data : Never overwritten
  PCB Masters : Never overwritten
  Hierarchical Circuit Library : Never overwritten
  Flat Circuit Library : Never overwritten
  Files for all other sections of the Ranger XL software will be overwritten if the CD contains a file having a newer date than the currently installed file. Please note that the 'never overwritten' rule for library files means that any library updates released by Seetrax will not automatically be installed onto your system during an upgrade run of the installer. To force a new library to be installed, you must delete or rename the original files prior to running the installer.
• Master outline library: This release contains an updated version of the master component outline library which corrects some wrongly defined outlines. NB: This library will not be installed unless you delete/rename your existing outline library.
• General information: When a 'File/Save As' operation was performed, and the save failed because of insufficient disk space etc., the design path in the title bar was still being changed to show the path of the failed save attempt.

• General information: The system was not displaying a warning dialog if the destination disk ran out of space when saving a design.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: The Find/Signal Name function was causing a crash when the located signal names were on a different design sheet to the sheet being displayed.
• General information: In order to provide more flexibility in numbering parts on hierarchical circuit designs, the maximum reference number permitted on parts has been increased from 4095 to 99999. (Any license limits imposed on the maximum number of parts per design remain in force).

• Artwork editor: The Identify/Feature function was not working correctly on text items.
• Artwork editor: When bringing out track stubs from SMD pins for a power plane, it is not now possible to drop the track end and new via hole at a location that is currently occupied by a via hole belonging to a different net. Also, if you drop the track stub end at a location already occupied by a via hole from the same net, the track will snap to the centre of that via hole, and no duplicate via hole will be inserted.
• Artwork drill sheet plotting: The drill symbols font file has been replaced with a font comprising letters of the alphabet.

• Report display windows: Various error/status report windows did not resize correctly unless 'show window contents while dragging' was selected within the Windows control panel display settings dialog.
• Artwork plotting: Some configuration settings in the 'artwork layers' setup dialog were lost after the 'solder mask' or 'solder paste' setup dialogs had been displayed. (problem caused by parameter file cleanup code introduced at rev 1.25)
• Artwork solder mask plotting: Tracks were being plotted at 'no width'. (Problem was a side effect of above bug.) Tracks will now always be plotted at width when solder mask plot mode is selected.
• Hierarchical circuit editor, attribute export/import functions: A set of order codes was added to a schematic library using the library attribute export/import functions. On using the edited library, it was found that the newly added attributes did not appear on the schematic, although they appeared to be correctly associated with the part. On examination, it was found that the attribute import function was incorrectly marking newly added attributes with a pin reference value that caused the attribute to be associated with the first symbol pin, and not the symbol body. The import function has been corrected, and the system modified to be tolerant of libraries having attributes imported by the flawed import routine.
• Artwork editor: Manual routing and amend operations will not now select features on layers that are configured as invisible in the layer colour editor. In addition, it is not possible to enter new features onto layers if the layer is invisible.
• Artwork editor: When the Identify/Track function was used, the displayed information box pointed to the nearest half-grid position location where the mouse was clicked, and not to the actual line feature that had been selected. This sometimes made it difficult to determine which feature had actually been found.
• Artwork editor: The 'Mroute' commands now display the name of the net being edited in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
• Artwork editor: Added a text insertion mode selector to the silk screen generator setup dialog. It is now possible to control how the part description field is processed to generate the mask label text.

• General changes: layer numbers have been changed.
  Old layer 0 is now called layer "V" (for vias).
  Old layer 1 is now called "T" (for top layer).
  Old layer 2 is now called "B" (for bottom layer).
  Old layers 3 to 15 are now 1 to 13.
  These changes will not have any affect on the data on those layers in existing jobs, except for the name changes. This change has been made to make Ranger2 XL consistent with Ranger XL. Wherever existing documenation refers to layers 0 to 15, substitute V, T, B and 1 - 13.
• General changes: when a new job is created, layers 1 to 13 are defined as silk-screen layers. This means that drilled component pads will not appear in white as you have been used to. They will be made from the combination of layer T and B colours (probably red + blue=purple). If inner copper layers are required they will have to be defined (Edit > Layer Assignments).
• Specctra router interface: the 'via grid' and track clearance parameters were not being saved. As a result of this bug fix, and other system changes, all Specctra configuration values will return to defaults the first time a design is loaded with this software version.
• Artwork checking: the artwork checker was crashing during phase 5. The problem only occurred on the second and subsequent runs of the checker after program startup.
• Layer assignments editor: if you opened a design, changed some layers assignments, then closed the design, the design was not marked as modified, and the changes were lost.
• Drill sheet plotting: when the drill sheet plot filter aborted with a 'no drill holes' error message, it was leaving some library resources open. This then resulted in a 'too many open libraries' error in subsequent operations.
• File/Delete/Artwork: It was not possible to delete the via hole layer in selective layer delete mode.
• Outline library editor: if you deleted an outline from the job outline library, and the job did not contain a parts & wiring list, then the outline editor would sometimes crash.
• Artwork checking: the artwork checker was crashing if it was run on two designs in succession without any intervening activation of a graphic mode edit tool (eg. artwork, outline editor etc.)
• Artwork editor: (Windows 95/98 only) the editor was crashing at high zoom levels when the artwork contained arcs. In order to remain within the limited parameter range possible in the Windows 95/98 environment, some arcs may not now be displayed when viewing the artwork at very high zoom levels. Arc display in Windows NT/2000 is not affected.
• Artwork editor: A case was reported where the copper fill routine had apparantly placed copper over an arc track causing a short circuit. The display routines have been corrected to properly show partially routed arc tracks.

• Flat circuit compiler: The compiler was not creating wiring list data for connections entered on circuit pages 9 and upwards. Also, there was a possibility of a crash during compilation when these pages were used.
• Flat circuit editor: The editor was crashing during macro insertion.

• Flat circuit editor: If you performed gate/pin swapping or part renumbering from within the artwork editor, then saved and closed the design without first entering the circuit schematic editor, then the circuit would not be back annotated after you reloaded the design.
• File/Delete/Artwork functionality change: When you select File > Delete > Artwork, the system will now display a dialog box that allows you to choose deletion of all artwork data, or selective deletion of layers. There is also the option of retaining 'fixed' track features on layers that are selected for deletion.
• System general information: The system now stores the names of the most recently opened designs on the 'File' menu. Up to 8 names will be stored.
• System general information: It is now possible to select File > New Job and File > Open Job while a design is currently open. (System will prompt for design save if the current design has been modified.)
• System general information: The system will now start with a design file automatically opened if the name of the design is given as a command line argument. The software installer will not yet create an association between the .rxl file extension and the Ranger2 XL application, but it is possible to create one manually so that double-clicking a design file in Windows Explorer will cause it to open. (See instructions in revhist.txt after down-loading software.)

• Hierarchical circuit editor: The system was crashing when compiling designs that use ioports.
• Flat circuit schematic device library editor: The File/Delete/Device, Copy/Device & Copy to/from master library menu entries were incorrectly enabled when a device was open in the editor. Selecting one of these menu entries when a device was open caused the system to lock up. The menu entries are now greyed out when devices are open.

• Artwork editor: The display was being repainted excessively when changing between the various artwork modes.

• System general information: Starting from this release, Series 2 license codes are required for product authorisation.
• Artwork editor: The behaviour of the window move,copy and unplace commands has changed. Previously, if layer zero was enabled in the left hand dialog bar, then all parts in the window would be moved/rotated irrespective of which side of the board they were located on. The system will now only move/rotate parts in the window based on the setting of the 'Top parts' and 'Bot Parts' check boxes in the rules dialog bar. The layer zero checkbox no longer influences this decision. Similarly, window unplace will now only operate on parts on the board sides enabled by the new check boxes.
• Artwork editor: A check box has been added to the silk screen generator dialog. When part label generation is executed with this box checked, component descriptions will be added to the silk screen layers in addition to the part reference. The description field is added as a separate text item, so can be moved, edited, resized etc. independantly from the part reference text.
• Artwork editor: When window move/copy/rotate and delete operations are used to adjust the board profile, then the router profile will now also be adjusted.
• Artwork editor: When placing parts, the initial orientation of each part will be taken from that of the previously placed part.

• Hierarchical circuit printing: No scroll bar appeared on the block selection list when the list contained lots of entries.

• Hierarchical circuit printing: The hierarchical circuit plotting setup dialog now presents a pull down list of all available user block instances for plotting.
• General information: The artwork and schematic editors had a 'File/Print' menu entry that was always greyed out. This caused confusion to new users who were not aware that all printing etc. is performed from the File > Outputs > Printing/Plotting tool in the main menu. The 'File/Print' entry has been enabled in the artwork and schematic editors, and selecting it will now raise an information dialog instructing the user to go to the output tool. Also, various redundant Print Setup menu entries have been removed.
• Printing and plotting utility: Whenever a change is made to a plot source (input) filter parameter, the system will now automatically redisplay a new preview.

• Hierarchical schematic editor: 'Undo' did now work correctly after the 'Block/Fetch' function had been used. Also, the system could crash on selecting 'undo' or trying to close the schematic editor after using block fetch.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: If you began a new connection from a symbol pin, then tried to enter the second connection node within the pin capture distance of the first node, then the system would sometimes crash.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: The attribute edit dialogs always opened with the cursor set on the top 'Name' line even if the attribute name was read-only. The edit dialogs will now open with the cursor focus set to the first editable line.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: When pins were deleted from a symbol, (or indirectly deleted by removing an ioport symbol from a user block), then any override attributes that were applied to the symbol pins on an instantiation of the symbol on another sheet were not deleted. This resulted in the override attributes suddenly reappearing when pins were reentered on the symbol.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: A new command 'Symbol/Attributes/Reset' has been added to the sheet mode edit menu. When this command is active, any instantiated symbols that you click on will have all their override attributes removed. i.e. the attributes for the instantiated symbol will return to those defined in the symbol itself. Part allocation information is not affected by this action.
• General information: The Specctra autorouter could only be accessed using the button on the toolbar, as it had been accidentally omitted from the 'Artwork' menu.
• General information: A customer had provided a design file that failed to load. On examination, the design file was found to be truncated, and Ranger was aborting the design load without any warning message being displayed. More warning dialogs have now been added to the system to alert the user of this type of error during design loadup.
• Penplot generation: If an artwork plot was rotated by 180 or 270 degrees in the output program, and a pen plot generated, then square-ended rectangular finger pads were being plotted too long.
• General information: If you ran out of disk space when saving the design file, or creating an output file, the system did not raise an error dialog.

• Gerber photoplot setup dialog: It was not possible to close the setup dialog window for 'auto' and 'auto-job' dcode modes when the system was in metric mode, and the pseudo pen width values were at their default (minimum) values of 0.000254mm. The problem did not occur on systems running Windows NT.

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