Knowledge Finder Release Notes

Knowledge Finder^® Release Notes

Last Update: August 11^th, 1999

Version 4.22.04 [Build 300]

This release is specifically for the Cochrane V3 CD-ROM.

Installation Changes

[448] (MacOS) CD installer for Cochrane now includes MRJ 2.1.4 and will tell the user how to install it if they do not have MRJ 2.1 or later.
Win32 installer will now check to see if Service Pack 3 or later is installed when run on Windows NT platforms and the Microsoft VM is scheduled to be installed. If using Service Pack 2 or earlier, installation ends at the beginning with a error message.
Microsoft VM will only be scheduled for installation if an older version exists on the computer. A bug in the previous installers forced installation of the Microsoft VM every time KF was installed.
Installation of the Microsoft VM no longer forces a reboot. The KF installer handles this now.
Installer now only forces a reboot when necessary.

Fixed Bugs

[447] (All) On come Cochrane documents hitting the "Previous Section" or "Following Section" arrows would result in an empty window.
[433] (All) Vertical scrolling on tables could cause display glitches.
Metaviewer would come up blank sometimes.
Hotlink cursor on PC taken off steriods.

Version 4.22.02 [Build 296]

Fixed Bugs

Between 4.22.01 and 4.22.02:

Concept Mapping crashes on Win16.
Small memory leak occured on every non-KHost search.

Between 4.22 and 4.22.01:

Win16 crashes when saving to EndNote.
Win32 fails to launch EndNote.

Version 4.22 [Build 294]

Operating System Requirements | New Features and Improvements | Fixed Bugs | Prior Release Notes

Operating System Requirements

Note: Version 4.22 is the last release that will support Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, 68k Macintosh, or MacOS earlier than 7.6.1.

Knowledge Finder® Base Version	Platform	Minimum Required OS Revision	Maximum Supported OS Revision¹	Minimum Required QuickTime Revision²	Maximum Supported QuickTime Revision¹
4.22	MacOS	7.0.1	8.6	2.1	3.0.2
	Win16	Windows 3.1	Windows 3.11	2.1.2	2.1.2
	Win32	Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0	Windows 98 Windows NT 4.0 (SP5)	3.0.2	4.0

¹ Products may function with later revisions, however compatibility is not guaranteed.
² QuickTime is only required for viewing thumbnails, images, tables, and movies in Full-Text databases. Knowledge Finder will still operate without the presence of QuickTime, however the items listed will not function.

New Features and Improvements [Since Version 4.21]

Limit Searches to Locally Held Journals

Assuming you have a Local Holdings file, you can limit your search results to locally-held journals through a single checkbox on the Search Formulation window (Local Journals Only). To obtain a copy of the Local Holdings Maintenance software, go to our Institution Services Page.

QuickDOC (United States Only)

You can order articles that are not locally held through your library's QuickDOC facility (this feature requires QuickDOC utility setup by librarian). Contact Aries Technical Support for information on how to get the QuickDOC utility.

Cochrane Library Support

This is the first release of Knowledge Finder to support the Cochrane Library with java-based metaviews. Cochrane is only supported on Power Macintosh, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. It does not work on 68k Macintosh or on Windows 3.1.

Proxy Server Support Improved

Access to databases through proxy servers is now much more reliable.
Support for proxy server user authentication has been added.

Startup Time Reduced

It takes less time to initialize the databases when you use a new Knowledge Host (1.4.3 or later) server due to a new batch mode startup process.
Knowledge Finder caches the batch mode startup information on the client computer. If none of the databases have changed since last use then startup time is greatly improved.

Startup Time Comparison (28.8 Kbps Modem, Power Mac 7100/66)
4.21		4.22
Direct Mode	Proxy Mode	Direct Mode		Proxy Mode
Direct Mode	Proxy Mode	1st Launch	2nd Launch	1st Launch	2nd Launch
55 seconds	1 minute, 40 seconds	26 seconds	15 seconds	33 seconds	19 seconds

Application startup time has been reduced by 50% on the first launch of the application, and by 75% on subsequent launches. When using a proxy server startup time has been improved between 66% and 80%.

Various & Sundry

You can ask for up to 5,000 documents in a result set, up from the previous limit of 1,000 (Win32 and MacOS only).
The spinning discs on the acknowledged screen stop spinning after three seconds. This provides for better operation with NT Terminal Server.
Full-text table display time has been reduced by a factor of 10, primarily seen in the Cochrane Library.
Full-text image quality for printing and copying to clipboard is improved when used with QuickTime for Windows 4.0.
When using databases off a Knowledge Host database server, transmitted search results are now compressed when it is determined to save time, thus making 5,000 document results transmit in 1/10th of the time (70kb -> 7kb). This was done primarily for modem users.

Fixed Bugs

Note: Some of the bugs listed here as fixed occured only as a result of a previous beta release, and therefore may not have been in the previous general release of version 4.21.

Between beta 6 and Final Release:

Using InstallShield 5.53 for Windows product installation.
Using Aladdin InstallerMaker 6.0 for MacOS product installation.

[?] (All) Control characters can be pasted into the free-form topic text box.
[?] (All) If a proxy server connection fails at startup, KF would crash.
[445] (All) Crash occured if search was submitted and document display window was open.
[?] (All) If you opened help in any database, closed help, then switched to any other database with a different help file, the first help file would be displayed.

[?] (All) Using a single word longer than 240 characters in the free-form topic window would cause a crash.

[427] (All) Code improvements in beta 4 and 5 caused the total number of scored documents (i.e. Found 200 out of <total_number_of_scored_documents>) to be incorrect.

Between beta 5 and beta 6:

[430] (Win32) When using logging (through KSO file) the username is not captured correctly.

OLD: (4.22b4, 4.21, 4.20)

103 User/Station Name: Windows NT 4.0 Build 1381 Service Pack 5
104 NetWork User Name: Administrator

NEW: (4.22b6)

103 User/Station Name: QUASAR; Windows NT 4.0 Build 1381 Service Pack 5
104 NetWork User Name: ARIES\Administrator

[435] (All) Show Following Search would appear when it shouldn't, and choosing it would cause a crash.
[?] (Win9x) beta 5 broke printing with QuickTime for Windows 3.0.2 - worked OK with QTW 4.0b21 and on NT with either of the two.
[?] (All) Publication year range search control will now handle years prior to 1900.

Between beta 4 and beta 5:

[421] (Win32) Due to a bug in QuickTime for Windows 3.0.2, 4.0b21, and 4.0b22, printed or clipboard-copied images from full-text databases will not be the highest quality possible. Apple has confirmed this as a bug (Apple Bug ID #2322028), and provided us with a workaround that fixes QuickTime 4.0, however it is not possible to fix QuickTime 3.0.2.
(All) Crash when switching from CD-ROM to Knowledge Host database (writing string to NULL) - related to new BTSU code.
(MacOS) We don't use the standard font menu any more but two calls were still being made to the font subsystem and they were in turn accessing low memory when they shouldn't be.

Between beta 3 and beta 4:

[?] (All) MeSH explosion problem on ' G(M1) GANGLIOSIDE'.
[431] (All) Printing full-text document in dual column mode with in-text equations would cause the equations in the second column to print incorrectly.
[426,427] (WinNT) Export in QuickDOC format causes the application to exit unexpectedly - KF then is locked in the background and will not quit, and you can't start up another instance of the application.
[422] (All) Export selected documents from CINAHL and PsycLIT would crash.
[420] (All) Author name dictionary doesn't function properly on some full-text databases due to improper database builds.
[417] (All) Do a search with concept mapping. Click Cancel in the concept mapping terms window. Go to the Search menu and select "Show Following Search". Application crashes.
[413] (All) Quicksave/restore doesn't restore the "Local Journals Only" button properly when using a Knowledge Host.
[393] (Win16, Win32) The floppy-based installer constantly spins the floppy drive and it becomes difficult to switch to disks 2 and 3 when asked. We no longer produce floppy installers.
[287] (Win16) Multiple re-installations create multiple program groups of the same name, rather than just one.

Between beta 2 and beta 3:

[339,340] (Win16, Win32) If you change the name of the destination directory, the changes are ignored.
Installer creates personal program groups, but should create common program groups (and now it does).
[413] Quicksave does not restore Local Journals Only search fomulation option correctly.
[404] Scrolling to the end of the word dictionary by typing in "ZZZZZZZZ" doesn't work properly.
[408] Closing graphics window causes internal error.
Various GDI resource leaks (Win16, Win32 platforms only) fixed related to graphics and table windows.

Between beta 1 and beta 2:

Application startup optimized so that a pause does not occur when drawing the Search Formulation window for the first time. This may have appeared like a crash to users on slow dial-up links.
Default setting for "Include Local Holdings Information" in the Print Options dialog was changed from off to on.
Fixed an infinite loop problem when trying to scroll to the bottom of the word dictionary in the current year's JMRI database. Potentially could happen on any full-text database.
Concept mapping was broken in beta 1 due to bug fix for item #401. In particular, disease and syndrome did not map any more.
Concept file updated with additional drug mappings as well as previously left out terms that exceeded a certain length. The file grew by about 40%.

Between alpha 13 and beta 1:

[401] Search term STROKE was not mapping to CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS.

Between alpha 12 and alpha 13:

Fixed a bug caused by a memory leak fix in alpha 11.
Fixed a bug that would only detect a remote server app launch on Windows NT and not on Windows 98.
Performance improvement when changing cursors.
Preallocate two 64K suballocation memory blocks on MacOS to prevent memroy fragmentation.
[395] Local Holdings data for database on a Knowledge Host would never print. Code was never added.
[387] Sticky notes never worked on full-text databases mounted from a Knowledge Host due to asynchronous document loading introduced in 4.20.
In full-text mode, the title above the books panel in the search formulation window was clipping the bounding box.
[379] Copying a full-text table from TEAL with a glyph in it did not work right. Code to create glyphs (characters that are not part of the standard font sets) was written with the assumption that text was black, however in today's modern systems (MacOS 8.6, Adobe Type Manager on MacOS or Windows) it is possible to get grayscale data from font rendering. Glyph support updated for "font smoothing" and/or anti-aliasing.
[356] Printing a table before copying it to the clipboard in TEAL would produce a garbled table on the clipboard.
CD Eject function on Windows 98 could hang.
Empty progress box on splash screen removed.
[284] Saving to an undefined location on Windows, such as "\\SERVER\FOO.TXT" would drop the file into the current working directory instead of displaying an error.
[389] If the term dictionary window was scrolled horizontally by using the right arrow (not the right page-area or the thumb), when the window was closed it would leave fragments of non-updated information on the search formuilation window.
[358] Items in the summary window would not be updated properly if they were selected. This occured when clearing either the print-list or save-file lists from the document menu.
[355] [258] Title on the word dictionary window doesn't match term dictionary or search controls.
[325] Last help topic was chopped off because word wrapping was off.
[223] Words displayed as hitwords that shouldn't be.
[285] Print-list or save-file buttons in document display window not updated properly.
[29] Printing a full-text document with lots of references could take a long time - up to 15 minutes. Cut the time to print a long one down to one minute; a 15x increase.

Between alpha 11 and alpha 12:

Fixed a problem on the Mac introduced in alpha 1. A patch to optimize memory management was bad and freed an uninitialized memory pointer. This typically caused a crash instantly on any search in fully optimized code. The optimization of PowerPC code is now back up to full strength as the bug was ours, not Metrowerks.

Between alpha 10 and alpha 11:

[368] Menu items to manipulate display formats are available in Full-Text databases.
[357] Bad words (incorrect spelling) were not handled correctly for Full-Text databases.
[376] CodeWarrior Pro 4.1 C++ Compiler version 2.2.1 is flawed when optimizing past level 2 and/or using instruction scheduling. As a result, Knowledge Finder / Server on MacOS may have performed illegal operations. The optimization for the entire project has been changed from level 4 to level 2, and instruction scheduling for the PowerPC 750 processor has been turned off. This should not significantly affect performance.
Fix negative array accession when restoring a search.
Buffer of length 9 was being passed to function assuming 15 bytes long.
Fix invalid array access when a text entry box is empty.
Fix invalid memory access on date conversions in Limit to Local Holdings logic.
Fixed invalid parameters to sprintf in QuickDOC code that could cause a crash.
Fixed invalid parameters to sscanf in sticky notes rebuild logic that could cause a crash.
A buffer overwrite may have caused an ISSN lookup to occur when it was not necessary (cache invalidated incorrectly).
An uninitialized variable may have caused a new disc inserted after "Eject Removable Media" to be ignored.
Calling a Win32 routine to detect how much physical memory is available, however the length field in the structure passed into that routine was never set. This could cause future incompatibilities with Windows NT 5, etc.
When document window is closed, the slider control in the relevance graph is being freed and then accessed later before window destruction completes.
Memory leaks fixed:

Every time a pop-up button is destroyed (local holdings bookcase icon, for example).
Every page printed if the printout includes thumbnails or graphics (Full-Text only).
Every time a table of contents window is opened (Full-Text only).
Every time a table of contents window is closed (Full-Text only).
Every time the contents of a sticky note is updated.
Every time a quicksave file is used.
Every time a database is closed (large block leak).
When the search control window is destroyed before the application quits.
When reading startup options.
When building Limit to Local Holdings bitmaps.
When grouping together individual database segments into a single logical database.
For storage of the hints on the splash screen.

Between alpha 9 and alpha 10:

[334] Sticky notes and autosave should not be active when running application from file server.
[378] [385] New concept file improvements.
[336] CancerLIT sticky notes are broken.
[388] Save (export) from AJR 1997 CD-ROM document causes a crash.
[387] TEAL sticky notes are broken.
[380] Data updated at incorrect time causes search results that are bogus.
[391] Export to EndNote doesn't work with CancerLIT.
[390] June 1998 CancerLIT UI field shown incorrectly.
[358] Summary window list identifiers (colored bars) don't get updated while an item is selected.
[384] Age check tag '80 and over' causes the word 'and' to be hilighted - should not be.

Between alpha 8 and alpha 9:

Win16 crashed upon startup since 4.22a5 due to linking error.
Crash could occur on second and subsequent searches if using Limit to Local Holdings.
LOCALHLD.CLH file on local drive in KFPREFS was recognized even if "Use Local Databases" in Database Connections was turned off.
Limits were not included when Local Journals Only button was checked. Broken between a7 and a8.

Between alpha 7 and alpha 8:

Local Holdings Only button not showing up on client when using Linux based Knowledge Host [372].
Local Holdings Only button appearing when no local holdings are available [366].
Crash occurs when printing to Adobe PS 5.0 Printer Driver (Windows NT onl.y) [346].
System hangs when exporting references to EndNote if EndNote is already running (MacOS only) [345].
Clicking on the search eraser would reset the Local Holdings Only button on-screen but the feature itself was still 'turned on' [375].
Sometimes a full-text article printout would have figures and tables in incorrect order [363, 359].
Sporadic crash when closing help window.
Debug information appearing in release utility code.
Memory leaking when creating Limit to Local Holdings bitmap.
Incorrect internal error code could result in strange QuickDOC operation.

Between alpha 5 and alpha 7:

Crashes occur when using old style JTC local holdings file.
Limit Local Holdings file (.LMT) was being created in the wrong place if a '.' appeared in the file path.
EndNote integration is broken in such a way that the first export completed successfully, however the second export always hangs in a dialog box.
Performance on building Limit Local Holdings bitmap creation improved [355].
Limit Local Holdings bitmaps are only regenerated when necessary instead of at every launch [349].
Bookcase icon not displayed for locally held journal, when the local holdings file had no specific statement and no standard statement [322].

QuickDOC enabled for non-medlars databases - should not be.
Clicking ignore in the word dictionary causes the entire dictionaries menu to become inactive [335].

Between alpha 1 and alpha 5:

There were alpha 2, 3, and 4 builds before the alpha 1 released yesterday, so everything was moved up to alpha 5.
With the exception of Win16, C-Tree is now statically linked into all executables rather than being distributed as a DLL (shared library).
C-Tree v6.8A1 is now being used on all platforms (AIX, Linux, Win16, and Win32 updated).

Between 4.21 General Release and 4.22 alpha 1:

A calculation bug in the table display and printing code causes a crash on one particular table.
When printing tables from full-text databases that are more than one page high, the last row from the previous page is repeated on the following page.
Author names in full-text journals built in 1999 will be normalized to MEDLINE style.
Cannot properly select authors from full-text document window.
Subjects of chemical synonyms are not excluded.
While a single bad word was detected properly, a bad word within a phrase was not being detected.
A complex concept mapping search could crash MacOS due to memory architecture.
Local Holdings does not work in a multi-user environment with Knowledge Server.
Accessing some PsycLIT documents when Local Holdings is active - ISSN field larger than expected - crash. [342]

Release Notes from prior releases are located here.