Rad Card Change Notes

Rad Upload is an integral part of Rad Card Standard Edition. The recent release of version 2.00 of the Rad Upload applet with several exciting new features has created the need for a new release of the card designer applet.

Feature Enhancements

Image Resize

One of the key feature of the uploader, the ability to resize images as they are being uploaded has made it's way into the standard edition of Rad Card

Additional Sample Scripts

Both the standard and lite edition downloads now contain an extra set of scripts that demonstrate how the applet can be integrated easily with an authentication and user management system. The Rad User Manager has been used for this purpose

Filter out unwanted file types

In previous versions when an image was added to the design it's validation was deligated to the server side handler, a process that may result in the waste of bandwidth. Another new feature of Rad Card (standard edition) is the ability to filter out unwanted file types at the client side there by saving bandwidth and a faster response.

Other Changes

In previous version the configuration file could not be retrieved over an encrypted connection, you can now specify a URL with an https:// prefix as the alternative configuration file.

The release of the print suite version 1.00 and 1.01 has nessaciated the release of a new version of the Card Designer in order to maintain the compatibility between the version embedded into the print suite and these downloads which are intended to be used as components when building other applications.

Some of the changes have been code level changes that are not directly visible (unless of course you obtain a source code license. However several feature enhancements have also been included.

Feature Enhancements

Set Background Image

You can set a background for the card design by choosing from one of the available images. Once an image is selected you have option of placing the image at the center, stretch to fit the canvas size or tile the image over the entire surface.

Specify alternative configuration file

This feature is very usefull if you have downloaded only the card designer and not the complete print suite. The previous versions of the applet looked for configuration information in the designer.properties file which had to be placed in the same folder as the jar file.

You can now specify the property file as a url via the 'props_file' parameter of the applet. Since this url may point to a page generated by a server side scripting language, you can use different configuration settings for different users.

Since the free version of the card designer is an unsigned applet, you need to make sure that the url is on the same server as the server that delivered the applet to the browser. With the standard edition the url may point to any server.

Other Changes

Session Data

The previous versions of the applet always encoded the session identifier as part of the url. Some users were not in favour of this and now you have the option of either encoding the session data into the url or to use cookies.

The card designer has branched into two different editions. The lite edition can be downloaded free of charge and it does not expire. a The standard edition is available with enhanced features at a price of just $199.00 per website.

Feature Enhancements

Popup Menu (Standard Edition only)

A new pop up menu that appears when the user right clicks on the drawing area makes the applet easier you to use. Most of the functionality that can be accessed from the toolbars or main menu can be accessed using the new pop up menu as well.

Multiple Canvas sizes (Std. Edition only)

The user can now choose one of several different sizes for this visiting card. These sizes are displayed as part of the popup menu. The site owner can make changes to available sizes by editing an xml file.

Portrait/Landscape Orientation (Std. Edition only)

The user can now switch between the portrait and landscape orientations through the menu

Bug Fixes

Image retrieval

In the beta release, when attempting to load a previously uploaded images errors occurred at times, which resulted in the image not been displayed in the design. This has been fixed but the change also involves a change to the behavior of the applet and that change is discussed below.

Other Changes

Image List Retrieval

In the alpha and beta releases the image file list that was provided to the applet was expected to be a new line separated list, where each entry was the name of a file.

However it was found that if the list is a new line separated list that contains a unique number for each file as well as a file name it greatly simplifies the process of creating the supporting application. This approach has now been adapted.

Insets

In previous versions a single pixel margin was left between the applet's outer border and the HTML displayed within to improve the visual appearance. This margin which was embedded in the java coding has now been removed and instead an HTML style has been used to reproduce the same effect.

This change gives you greater control of the appearance of both the welcome page and the upload response page.