FinkCommander - Version History

0.5.4 7/2005

The following bugs are fixed:
- Inability to reset proxy settings.
- Selected packages are deselected on a fink error.
- "Show Package Info" is available when no package is selected.
- Crash on abnormal Maintainer field.
Better feedback is provided when fink is not installed.
"About FinkCommander" window includes fink version information.
iTerm is supported.
The filter for table data is updated to a Mail-like search field.
Preferences are accessible by default keyboard shortcut.
Support for local packages is improved.
Support for virtual packages is improved.
Version information for developer feedback is improved.
More fink prompts are correctly recognized.

0.5.3 4/2004

Fix display of stable vs unstable packages.

0.5.2 3/2004

Add selfupdate-rsync support
Add Regular Expression support to table filter (enable/disable in prefs)
Fix 'open info file' feature.

0.5.1 04/10/2003

Fixed the following bugs:
- Application hang during selfupdate-cvs on some systems.
- Erroneous report that self-repair of the setuid tool succeeded when FinkCommander was run from read-only media (making self-repair impossible).
- Application crash when the same field in the Preferences Environment table was accessed more than once.
- Application crash when gnome-core-dev was installed.
- Failure of the interaction dialog to appear in response to some recently added prompts.
Added Getting Started and FAQ sections to Help.

0.5.0 02/11/2003

The primary new feature is the package browser, which allows you to view the files that Fink has installed on your system for a selected package. The browser includes most of the functionality of a Finder window, including drag and drop and double clicking to open. You can open a new browser for an installed package via the Tools menu, the contextual menu for the package table or a toolbar item.
FinkCommander now provides easy access to a package's .info and .patch files, which are used by Fink to build and install packages from source. You can open these files with commands in the File menu, by double clicking a package name or by dragging selected packages from the table to an icon. You can also copy the files by dragging them to a Finder window or the Desktop.
A new item in the Tools menu opens the documentation directory for a package in a Finder window. There is also a command to do this in the contextual menu for the table.
The package table now includes a sortable flag column like the one in Mail.app. Menu items to toggle flags are included in the View menu and the contextual menu for the table.
Another new item in the Tools menu takes the user to the Bug Reporting page for Fink.
Thanks to Mathias Meyer, FinkCommander now displays a custom dock icon when a command is running. He's also improved the appearance of some of the toolbar icons.
FinkCommander Help now opens in the user's preferred browser.
Because FinkCommander is now a multiple-window program, closing the main window no longer quits the application. If you close the main window, a command in the Window menu allows you to reopen it.
A fixed-width font is now used in the output view. Although not as pretty as the normal system font, a fixed-width font is better for displaying text formatted for a terminal display.

0.4.3 11/22/2002

At the request of the Fink developers, there are now two versions of the e-mail maintainer command: one for positive feedback and one for negative feedback. Warnings are generated for unnecessary feedback, such as positive feedback on a stable package.
Fixed three bugs: (1) failure to display stable version for most packages if the user has unstable listed first in the trees line of fink.conf; (2) failure to disable Force Remove when a command is running in FinkCommander; (3) German text in a dialog in the English localization.

0.4.2 11/11/2002

The installer has been eliminated. All necessary changes to FinkCommander's privileges are now accomplished the first time a user attempts a command with a new version.
The user can now choose to run commands in Terminal rather than within FinkCommander itself. There are submenus in the Source and Binary menus and in the context menu, as well as toolbar buttons, that will open a new Terminal to run the selected command.
FinkCommander's memory usage has been drastically reduced, especially during the installation of very large packages, such as kde and x11. Limiting the scrollback buffer in Preferences now achieves a consistent reduction in the memory used.
The warning dialog for terminating commands has returned. There is an option to turn it off in Preferences. A couple items of dubious value have been removed from Preferences.
The appearance of warning dialogs that allow the user to turn the warnings off from within the dialog has been improved.
There is a new optional toolbar item for the update-all command.
The table filter toolbar item now resizes appropriately when the user selects the "Use small icons" option (available in Mac OS X 10.2 or later).
The toolbar has nicer icons.
This version is localized for English and German only. The French localization was not updated in time for this release.

0.4.1 9/29/2002

Fixed the following bugs:
- The output view sometimes collapsed when the interaction sheet appeared!
- On some systems, invoking the Package Inspector or the Email Maintainer command caused FinkCommander to crash
The user can now adjust or eliminate the timeout for FinkCommander's authorization by making changes to the /private/etc/authorization file. Instructions are included in the latest README.

0.4.0 9/22/2002

FinkCommander now uses Apple's Security Framework to authorize Fink and apt-get commands that require root privileges. Users will notice three differences as a result:
1. Apple's password dialog allows the user to enter a user name other than that of the current user. It will now be possible to use FinkCommander from a non-administrator's account.
2. FinkCommander's authorization will time out after five minutes, unless the default timeout period has been changed in /private/etc/authorization. The user will need to re-enter his or her password to run another command.
3. The terminate command is much more reliable.
Thanks to Dave Love, who provided the code for making this long-needed change.
The table display has been improved: The existing Installed, Binary and Unstable columns, as well as the new Stable column, show the appropriate version numbers. The information that formerly appeared under Installation ("current", "outdated", etc.) now appears in the Status column.
The same version information appears in the Package Inspector.
A determinate progress indicator and more detailed messages in the status bar provide better feedback for source installation commands.
The terminate command is more reliable.
Table rows can now be copied.
The output view can be collapsed or expanded by double clicking the view divider.

0.3.3a 8/10/2002

This is a bug fix release. It adds no new functionality, but fixes two problems with version 0.3.3:

Failure to display the Package Inspector on pre-release versions of Jaguar.
Code changes that broke the "always choose default response to prompts" option.

0.3.3 8/4/2002

The binary column now marks only those packages that are available in the Fink binary distribution. Previously, as documented in the help system, it also marked packages that had been installed on the user's system from the source distribution. Thanks to Martin Costabel for providing the information that enabled me to fix this long-standing problem.
A Force Remove command, which runs dpkg --remove --force-depends, has been added to the Source menu.
A new Environment tab in Preferences allows you to set environment variables for fink and apt-get processes. You can also edit or remove environment variables set by FinkCommander, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
The Verbosity item in the Fink Tab has been altered to accomodate a pending change to the Fink package manager. When you install the next version of the PM, you should have 4 choices rather than 2 for this item.
There has been another modest reorganization of the Preferences panel. Some items that formerly appeared in the Commander tab are now in a new Display tab. The Uniphobe tab is gone. Most of its contents are under Commander.
FinkCommander will now automatically check for new versions according to a schedule you set in Preferences. (As always, you can also turn this feature off.)
There is now an optional limit on the number of lines displayed in the output view. The default is 10000 (same as for Terminal), but this can be changed or removed entirely in Preferences:Display.
A bug preventing the table data from loading once Japanese had been chosen as the preferred language in System Preferences has been fixed. (I hope.)
The package version number and the version of make on the user's system have been added to the information included in emails to package maintainers generated by FinkCommander.

0.3.2 7/7/2002

FinkCommander has a new application icon!
A new View menu allows the user to specify which columns to display, including a new package maintainer column.
The user can now email the maintainer for a selected package via the Help menu and a toolbar command as well by clicking the email address in the package inspector.
Emails to package maintainers now include the name of the package in the subject line and a signature providing relevant system information. The signature also gives FinkCommander credit for generating the email, but you can turn this off in Preferences:Commander.
A save output command has been added to the File menu. The save dialog provides a default filename consisting of the command and the date. The user can specify a default directory in Preferences:Paths.
A FinkCommander:Check for Updates menu item has been added. It produces a dialog letting the user know whether a more recent version of FinkCommander is available for download.
An optional alert panel displays before FinkCommander runs a remove command.
The zoom behavior of the package inspector panel has been improved.
Fixed bugs: Failure of selfupdate-cvs when run by fink developers with secure cvs access. Inadvertent change in ownership and group ownership of fink.conf file. Memory leaks.

0.3.1 6/11/2002:

The menus and toolbar include a terminate command that actually works most of the time. When it doesn't, the user is offered the opportunity to quit the application.
An info panel that displays the full description for the selected package(s) has been added. The full description is now cached, so it can be accessed while a command is running.
Clicking on the package web site or maintainer e-mail address in the info panel will open the url in the user's preferred web browser or mail application.
Package specific commands can now be accessed through a contextual menu in the table view.
Preferences can now be set for all fink.conf parameters except for base path (which should be set properly before FinkCommander is installed) and download mirrors.
The number of displayed packages and packages installed is now shown in the window title bar rather than at the bottom of the main window. A Preference item allows the user to switch back to the old display.
The layout of the Preferences panel has been improved (I hope).
Basic scripting support is now included. You can now start and quit FinkCommander with AppleScript.
Fixed reported bugs: Version number is now displayed in Finder. The maximum window size is no longer limited. FinkCommander no longer crashes if the user moves the fink installation while FinkCommander is running.

0.3.0 5/12/2002:

Fink.conf can now be modified using the Preferences panel
Output window scrolling behavior now mimics Terminal.app: Unless the user chooses "Scroll to the bottom . . ." in Preferences, the user can now scroll up to view previous output without having the scroller zip back down to the bottom every time new output is added
Other new preference items: warn before running a command (as requested), never ask for password (for users who have configured sudo accordingly), ask for password on startup
All fields except version can now be filtered
Additional available toolbar items: selfupdate, apt-get update, selfupdate-cvs, describe, interact with Fink
Help now includes instructions on running commands and on setting Preferences

0.2.1a 4/27/2002:

Fixed bug preventing use of apt-get from behind firewall

0.2.1 4/24/2002:

Added menu item allowing user to summon interaction sheet
Fixed bug causing crash on startup if Fink not installed in one of certain directories

0.2.0 4/20/2002:

First binary release
Added toolbar, which includes an incremental filter for table data
Added progress indicator bar that appears at bottom of window when table is updating
Moved status/package number message to bottom of window
Added warning alert when user attempts to quit Fink while a command is still running
Full table update performed after error message detected
Disabled row selection and added alert when user selects package FC cannot install (just tcsh, at this point)
Cleaned up some memory allocation errors

0.1.3 04/05/2002:

First SourceForge release
/sw no longer hard-coded as fink directory path
FC now searches for path, sets user defaults to reflect result and writes path into fpkg_list.pl script
Interaction with Fink prompts enabled through sheet dialog that appears whenever input is needed. Password only entered when needed.
Added preferences panel: accept Fink defaults automatically when running commands; set fink directory path manually, if search method doesn't work; always update table data with fink commands; scroll to last selection after sort.
Window position and table column states now saved between sessions
Table selection no longer disabled while command is running; no longer necessary for update.
Message text now signals when a full update of the package data is occurring.
The table now resorts after a full update of the package data
FinkCommander now has its own icon! Since I'm no artist, it's ugly, but at least it makes identifying FinkCommander easier than the generic application icon

0.1.2 03/10/2002:

Added table column showing whether package is unstable.
Password entry sheet now appears automatically the first time a command is attempted; also after invalid password alert is dismissed; basically an improved implementation of the password entry procedure in 0.1
FC disables Source and Binary menus and table row selection while command is running
Added Selfupdate-cvs to Source menu and Remove to Binary menu
Removed commands from the Binary menu that do not appear useful; users should let me know if I went too far!
System beeps when command finishes (Woo woo!)

0.1.1 03/05/2002:

Added explicit data encoding to methods sending text to standard input of NSTask; passing C string as data may have been cause of a reported user crash
Simplified password entry procedures, another possible cause of the crash
The current procedure is in any case a placeholder until I can figure out how to work in the Security Framework functions
Eliminated error-prone method for determining user's Fink directory, which may have caused a reported failure of the table to load on one user's system
Added documentation

0.1 03/03/2002:

Initial release, errors galore reported.