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

• Plane usage and layer ordering editor: if more than 63 names were defined in the power names table, closing the Edit > Layer assignments and ordering window would cause a program crash.
• 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 1.106)

• System general information: Help updated.
• 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.

• General information: Online help updated.
• General information: hierarchical schematic, artwork, outline, custom pad and profile editors - it is now possible to pan and zoom the display when using a mouse with a middle "scrollwheel" button. By rotating the button, the display will zoom in and out. The display may be panned by pressing and holding the middle button, then moving the mouse.
  Please note that this facility is not available in the old "flat" schematic editor or its device library.
• 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.
• Hierarchical schematic editor: 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 schematic-only license, a limited license where the design exceeds the licensed limits, and in cases where the security key is unplugged.
• Artwork editor: Text > Add and Text > Edit modes now have a "mirrored" checkbox.
• Artwork editor: a new menu entry Mroute > Enable Unroute Reconnect has been added to allow the unroute reconnection function to be switched on and off during manual routing. (To avoid unroute ends being picked up when the intention is to move an underlying track vertex or via hole.)

• Output tool: (fix to bug that appeared in v1.103) when outline properties were configured to generate a 3D solid shape for the DXF output, the boundary box was being incorrectly shown on screen preview in outputs. The box was also wrongly included in the Postscript, Gerber, Pen Plotter and BMP file output modes. Now corrected.
• Electra autorouter interface: electra will now attempt connections that contain pre-routed/fixed tracks (replaced FIX with PROTECT command)
• Electra autorouter interface: new settings added to the mitre command to produce tidier results
• Help updated
• Outline editor: when outlines are copied between libraries, the sizes of imported pad and line features is now correctly adjusted to conform to the size table configuration of the destination design.
  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. 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: the outline copy to/from master library functions have been replaced with one single Import function located within the outline open dialog. The new import functionality allows importing outlines from any existing RangerXL design or master outline library.
• 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: when inserting free copper traces, tracks will now snap to the defined connection point for custom pads. Previously, the track was wrongly snapping to the pad datum point.
• 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.

• Outputs: component height (where defined) added to DXF output files. The resultant output can be displayed with or without shading in AutoCAD 3D modeling.
• Outline library editor: updates to the Edit > Properties dialog to control the way in which 3D solid figures are created when generating DXF file data. This command is now active when no outline is open for editing to allow the bulk editing of properties for all outlines in the library.
• System general information: because of the changes to the structure of the outline libraries to provide control over 3D solid figure generation in DXF output files, designs saved by this version of RangerXL cannot be loaded into any earlier versions of the software.
• Note: there is a problem when outputting files if the 3D Shape generation is enabled in the outline editor (placement boudaries will be output automatically). This can be resolved by switching off the 3D Shape generation when not required. Fix will be available in August.

• System limits: the maximum number of pad, track and drill size codes has been increased from 128 to 512. Because of this capacity change, designs saved by this version of RangerXL cannot be loaded into any earlier version of the software.
• 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.
• Floating licensing: the File > System Setup > Show License Information window displayed the license status incorrectly when no key or the wrong security key was attached to the floating license server.
  The frequency of display for the license failure error popup windows has been reduced.
  If licensing fails whilst any of the system editors are open, the design save and save-as functions remain active.
  There was a risk of deadlock between the RangerXL application and the license server. Symptoms were failure of the license server (control dialog could not display server status), and many server communication errors displayed by the affected RangerXL application.
• Seetrax Push-Shove autorouter: the router could crash if entered with an existing artwork, and the artwork contained URL text markers.
• Seetrax Push-Shove autorouter: If the router was entered with an existing artwork, and then the router was exited without beginning autorouting, it could crash on subsequent attempts to route an artwork.

• General: Introduction of floating license server capability. Please contact your Ranger XL supplier if you wish to make use of this feature as a replacement license and return of unrequired dongles will be required. (One dongle per network.)
  Note: to use the floating license capability, the floating license control software also has to be downloaded from the Ranger XL software update page.

• General: Introduction of Konekt Electra autorouter interface.

• Artwork editor: now possible to add a symbol to the artwork that can be linked to a file or URL. Allows the addition of notes or reference information to the layout.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: The File > Attributes > Import/Export functions can now be used within the currently open design.

• 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 Ranger 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 RangerXL 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.
• Added View > NetClearances option. When switched on, all tracks will be drawn with a shadow representing the required clearance for the net.
• Artwork checker: added the ability to specify the default minimum clearance for power nets independantly of signal nets.

• Artwork editor: the Mroute > Corner command and new Mroute > Move Unroute command allows connections to be picked up and reconnected to other part pins, via holes or track corners on the same net.
• 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.

• Artwork editor: silk screen generator/free copper insertion: extra features (eg. solder pastes, solder masks) can be added for each component side independantly.

• System general information: imported board profiles containing illegal vertices could cause the profile and artwork editors to crash upon opening.
• Racal Cadstar importer: The importer failed to import copper fill boundaries (problem added at revision 1.75).
• 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.

• Artwork editor and checker: Isolated copper fill regions detected by the artwork checker were being incorrectly displayed in the artwork editor.

• System general information: Product rebuild due to introduction of new license level variants of the Ranger2 XL product. No functional differences to RangerXL.

• 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.
• Artwork editor: the number of definable copper fill polygons has been increased from 10 to 99.
• 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 Ranger 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: now possible to select simultaneous display of part silk screen outlines and placement bounds.
• Artwork editor: improved message display when using macro tools.
• General information: Updated help file.

• Artwork editor: The active DRC checker was checking all net features using the clearance values specified in the Edit > Manual Routing Parameters dialog. If a net has a minimum routing clearance value specified in the wiring list, or as an attribute in a hierarchical circuit EMC rule, that value will now be used instead if it is larger than the default value in the routing parameters setup dialog.
• 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 Ranger 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 Ranger 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 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 recognises 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 network 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 Ranger XL.
• Product licensing change: This version of Ranger XL requires a Series 4 license for correct operation.

• Artwork editor: The copper fill functions were ignoring the presence of user defined via holes. (It was filling over the top of them.)
  The smooth edged copper fill routines will now recognise these vias, and leave proper clearance with due regard to the pad shape on the filling layer. Stubs will also be inserted to connect the vias to the fill pattern if they are a member of the net being filled.
  When using 'hatched' mode copper fill, the fill pattern will correctly distance itself from user defined vias, but user defined via holes that are a member of the net being filled will NOT be connected to the fill pattern with stubs.

• 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.
• Artwork checking: The artwork checker will now detect and flag copper fill areas that are not electrically connected to any component pins.
• Artwork editor: View > Isolated Copper option has been added. When this view mode is enabled, all copper fill regions determined as 'isolated' by the artwork checker will be highlighted in white.
• A new function Filled Copper > Delete All Isolated Copper has been added to the Tools > Copper Fill mode. When executed, all copper fill regions determined as 'isolated' by the artwork checker will be removed.
• Printing/plotting: The plot batch output editor could cause a crash if the artwork contained any part pins that had been altered with the artwork Amend > Replace Pad function.

• Printing/plotting: The plot batch editor no longer permits the insertion of a NC drill/rout step containing a blank step description and output file name.

• Printing/plotting: A new Add NC Drill/Rout button has been added to the plot batch file editor toolbar. This permits NC drill/Rout data generation steps to be included in a plot batch sequence.
• 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.

• Artwork editor: If Amend->ReplacePads was selected and a user defined via hole was selected while a normal layer pad was selected in the toolbar, then the via hole would completely disappear.
  Amend->ReplacePads will now correctly convert user-defined via pads into normal pads of the style selected in the toolbar. Also, Amend->ReplacePads can now be used to convert normal layer zero pads (via holes) into user-defined via pads.
• 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.

• General information: Updated help file.
• 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.
• Artwork editor: if a powerplane split boundary polygon has been edited, a warning is now raised if you try to exit from the powerplane editor, as changes to split boundaries are not remembered unless a powerplane generate has been performed.

• Artwork editor: The artwork editor remembers the boundary polygons used by the copper fill functions. Up to 10 different copper fill boundaries may now be separately stored in the artwork. A new 'Boundary' selection control has been added to the copper fill toolbar to select the boundary currently active for editing and filling.

• 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: if a part outline contained pre-routed copper stubs with terminal pads at the end, then the editor could lock up.
• Artwork editor: there was a severe performance problem when moving parts containing a lot of pre-routed copper stubs on a board containing large amounts of routed tracks. (On 1GHz Athlon computer, test case job was taking 2 minutes to pick up a 144 pin part with a pre-routed stub on each pin)

• 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

• Printing/plotting: if File > Exit (or the exit icon) was clicked while a batch output command was running, then an abnormal program termination would result. When a batch output is started, the menu and toolbar buttons will now become disabled, and the batch plot start button will change to become a stop button that can be safely used to terminate the batch output operation.
• Artwork powerplane generation: if you edited a split powerplane boundary, then exited from the powerplane mode, then hit the 'Undo' button, the program could crash because the system tried to undo the operations on the split boundary out of the context of the powerplane editor. The system now flushes the undo history on powerplane boundary editing operations prior to exit from the powerplane mode. If you did 'Undo' on a powerplane generate command, the display was repainting with a normal artwork display instead of the powerplane display.
  'Undo' function is now available on the SplitBoundary->ImportLine function.

• Printing/plotting: Added batch tool to the plot program - details in on-line help (look for "Batch outputs" in the help index).
• General information: Updated help file with information on new plot batch tool.
• 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 1.66 during correction of a powerplane redraw problem)
• Artwork editor: Revision 1.66 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, or "File > Delete > Artwork Teardrop Pads" was used, 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. Although most of the lost uid values could be recreated by running an artwork check, this would not correct the loss of identity of split power plane boundary polygons, and smd power via holes/stubs.
• Artwork editor: When the artwork editor is started, a verification is now made on the 'uid' values on all wiring list nets and any nets with a missing or invalid uid value will have a new uid code assigned.
• Artwork editor powerplane generation mode: When "Tools > Powerplane" mode was selected, the display did not repaint to show power pins until after a refresh was done.
• Artwork editor powerplane generation mode: The 'Verify' button is now disabled unless a valid power net is selected from the power names list.
• Artwork editor powerplane generation mode: A new command "SplitBoundary > Import Line" has been added. This mode can be used to recover split powerplane boundary polygons lost as a result of bad or missing wiring list uid values.

• Artwork editor: test points can be added automatically to the artwork using the "Tools > Network" menu commands. The new parts and connections are automatically back-annotated to the parts/wiring list. A report is provided in the hierarchical schematic editor detailing the new parts and connections.
• Main system (no design open) menu: A new entry, "Test Point Generator" has been added to the "Edit > System Defaults" menu. This dialog defines the default part prefix and outline name that is copied into the testpoint setup values for newly created designs.
• Outline editor: The system could crash when trying to delete outlines from the master outline library.
• Artwork editor: Identities of nets changed with the Tools > Network commands were always recorded in the netmods.txt log file in the form R$xxxx. This was true even if the net had an assigned name. The system will now use the net name if available, and only use the R$xxxx format when no name is available.
• Artwork editor: When a net was renamed with the Tools > Network > SetNetName command, this fact was not recorded in the netmods.txt file.
• Artwork editor undo/redo action: When an undo of actions from the Tools->Network menu was performed, the network modification transcript remained in the netmods.txt file even though the changes were no longer in the design. Undo/Redo of Network menu commands will now correctly update the netmods.txt file.
• Master outline library: A new outline named 'AUTOTP' has been added. This was added to satisfy the initial default outline name for the test point editing tool.
  NB: the software installer will never overwrite an existing master outline library. To receive the updated library, you must rename your current master outline library prior to installation. (See version 1.51 release notes below for more information)
• 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 Ranger 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 1.51 release notes below for more information)

• Artwork checking: If EMC attribute tags were set on nets, then any minimum clearance value specified in the EMC checking rule was used as the default minimum clearance value for checking the entire board. (Problem introduced at version 1.61)

• Artwork printing/plotting: The system was sometimes crashing when printing a design containing user defined (library) pad shapes. (Invalid code had been generated by upgraded C++ compiler)
• 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 Pad and Copper checkbox selections on the 'Layers VTB,1-13' setup page. The problem only affected designs that had last been saved using certain earlier versions of RangerXL.
• Artwork editor: There was the possibility of a crash on the second and any subsequent invocations of the artwork editor if the loaded designs contained user defined (library) pads.
• Artwork printing/plotting: The system was crashing when printing a design containing user defined (library) pad shapes.
• 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: Added silk screen checking capability. A new switch in the artwork checking window allows the standard copper checks to be performed, or the new silk-screen checks. The silk-screen checks allow data (lines or text) on silk-screen layers to be checked against either outer copper layer for proximity to part pads and/or vias. A further check can be used to identify text inside the component outline's auto-placement footprint (bounds).
• 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.
• Help updated to include new features.

• System general information: starting from this release, series 3 license codes are required for product authorisation.
• Flat circuit compiler: jobs created on the older Ranger3 products were able to have signal names upto 16 characters in length. An incorrect wiring list was being generated when these desugns were imported into Ranger XL and recompiled.
• Flat circuit editor: it is now possible to enter signal names of up to 16 characters in length.

• 2D output tool: the system crashed under certain conditions when opening the output tool.
• On-line help updated.
• Artwork editor: The Tools > Network > Add Part function was not recording new parts in the netmods.txt logfile. This subsequently caused no warning message of partslist and circuit mismatch to be raised on entry to the circuit schematic editor.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: On entry, if a netmods.txt logfile existed, a warning message was displayed in the bottom status bar. As this message was very easy to miss, the warning will now be posted in the form of a popup dialog. You must now press 'OK' to proceed.
• Hierarchical circuit editor: A View > Logfiles function has been added to the menus.
• User-defined via hole editor: The system crashed if you clicked Allow in power nets if there were no via hole styles defined/selected in the left hand window pane of the editor.
• 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 file 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 with the following rules: 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 only update 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"

• Artwork editor: New commands:
  Tools > Network > Add Part
  Tools > Network > Set Net Name

• General: The 2D drafting toolbar icon was missing from the top level (no RangerXL design loaded) menu when large toolbar buttons were in use.
• 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 the back-up copy having to be opened, as the latest copy of the design was in the autosafe safe# file, and not the proper design file.

• 2D Editor: Lines > Insert Line was sometimes causing a crash.

• 2D plotting: the output program was crashing in some situations after a rangerxl design had been saved with the output source selection set on 2D Drawing.

• 2D Editor: Layer colour palette editor completed.
  New system default colour scheme with less saturated colours.
  Assigned colours now get saved with the drawing.
  Added capability to save user created colour scheme as the system default colour scheme.
  The colour of the layer currently selected for import is now shown in the small square to the right of the layer selector.
• 2D Editor: Pen width table editor added to drawing properties editor.
• 2D Editor: Drawings will now be displayed/plotted with lines at width.
• 2D Editor: Window > SetPen function now implemented.
• 2D Editor: Import functions did not import data with the correct pen values assigned.
• 2D Editor: When pasting imported data, a correct size bounding box will now be displayed.
• 2D Editor: When plotting a 2D drawing, and no RangerXL design is open, the output device selection is now fixed on "Windows Printer".

• Help information updated to include details on all 2D editor features available.

• 2D Drafting output tools now included.

• 2D Drafting preview included: The system now contains a preview of the 2D drafting utility which is nearing completion. Please note: the output tools will be made available at the end of April.

• 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 editor: fix to stop loss of split powerplane polygons when selecting Tools > Powerplane menu.

• 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, Ranger 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 Ranger 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/split power plane generation.

• 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 new profile text editor and outline editor commands.

• 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.
• Artwork editor: After making changes to power plane parameters, the 'Edit' button remained enabled in the Full/Split Powerplane Parameters editor dialog, but no signal name was selected. If the 'Edit' button was then clicked without first selecting a power name in the list, the program crashed.
• Systems licensed for 'Schematic Only' use: When File/Close was selected in order to close a design, a dialog box was being displayed offering the normal choices for saving, discarding, or not closing the design. On selecting the 'Save' option, the design file was being written to disk, but the design did not close.

• 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 now uses a font comprising letters of the alphabet.
• General information: The Rainbow Technologies Sentinel system driver distributed on the product CDrom has been updated to version 5.38.2. This version will install and function correctly on Windows 2000.

• Updated help table of contents.
• Report display windows: Various error/status report windows did not resize correctly.
• 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.
• 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, library attribute export/import functions: Adding a set of order codes to a schematic library using the library attribute export/import functions, 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 invisible. It is no longer possible to enter new features onto invisible layers.
• 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: The editor crashed if you tried to move a user-defined via using the mroute/corner command.
• Artwork editor: If 'UD vias' was selected in amend/enter pads mode, and no user-defined pads were available, a warning dialog would be displayed, and the system appeared to return to standard pad entry mode. However, any subsequent attempt to change the selected pad style/size etc. would cause the program to crash.
• Artwork editor: silk screen generation, the part description field can now be added to the silkscreen.

• Outline library editor: if an outline was deleted from the job outline library, and the job did not contain a parts & wiring list, then the outline editor would sometimes crash.
• Artwork editor: artwork window routines were not operating on user defined via holes.
• Artwork checking: the checker was crashing if it was run on two designs in succession without any intervening activation of a graphic mode edit tool.
• Artwork checking: added a warning dialog to advise on the usage of the isolated copper checking mode.
• 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: The display routines have been corrected to properly show partially routed arc tracks.

• Specctra router interface: The "Via grid" and "Track clearance" parameters were not being saved. All Specctra configuration values will return to defaults the first time a design is loaded.
• General information: Blind/buried via hole capability added to Spectra router interface, artwork checker and output tools. Hand routing with blind/buried vias is currently limited to the artwork 'amend' mode.
• Outline library editor: The "Edit > Properties" dialog now contains a checkbox which enables via holes to be placed under outline smd pads during routing with the Specctra autorouter.
• Specctra router interface: It is now possible to enable 'vias under smd pads' during routing. (Specctra router must have the HYB option, and the HYB option must be switched on in the router installation menu.)
• Artwork editor: "Mroute > Ripup" was crashing in situations where tracks had their start and end points overlapped.
• Artwork checking: The checker was crashing during phase 5 on the second and subsequent runs of the checker after program startup.
• Artwork editor: The artwork editor was crashing on exit if any layer contained a library pad style AND outlines had previously been opened in the outline library editor.
• Layer assignments editor: If you opened a design, changed some layers assignments, then closed the design, the changes were lost.
• Layer assignments editor: Added a button to enable setting all empty copper layers to 'silk screen' type.
• Drill sheet plotting: If the "No drill holes" error message appeared, it was leaving some library resources open, which resulted in a "Too many open libraries" error.
• "File > Delete > Artwork": It was not possible to delete the via hole layer in selective layer delete mode.

1.44 (3 February 2000)

• 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.
• Flat circuit editor: The editor was crashing during macro insertion.
• Flat circuit compiler: If the design contained > 8 power nets, then only the first 8 defined power names would be correctly grouped together in the resultant wiring list.

• Flat circuit editor: If gate/pin swapping or part renumbering was performed from within the artwork editor, then the design was saved and closed without first entering the circuit schematic editor, then the circuit was not back annotated.
• File/Delete/Artwork functionality change: now possible to selectively delete layers and retain 'fixed' track features.
• System general information: The system now stores the names of the 8 most recently opened designs on the 'File' menu.
• System general information: It is now possible to select File > New Job and File > Open Job while a design is currently open.
• 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. (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.

• Artwork editor: reduced display repaints when changing between the various artwork modes.

• System general information: Starting from this release, Series 2 license codes are required.
• Artwork editor: parts on the top and/or bottom of the board can be included/excluded in the window opertions.
• Artwork editor: A check box has been added to the silk screen generator dialog to allow component descriptions to be added to the silk screen layers.
• Artwork editor: Router profile now included in window operations when profile is selected.
• Artwork editor: When placing parts, the initial orientation of each part will be taken from that of the previously placed part.