Release Notes

New Platform Functionality

November 2005
Contents

1 W HAT’S NEW? ................................................................. 3

2 M AJOR NEW FUNCTIONALITY ............................................. 4
Access to MyActix from within the software .................................. 4
Event Editor changes......................................................................5
Expression Builder changes...........................................................6
Printing.............................................................................................9
Quick Print Layouts ................................ ................................ .............................. 9
Print Setup ......................................................................................................... 10
Batch Printing..................................................................................................... 15

Copyright Actix © 2005 New Platform Functionality Oct 2005 Release Notes 2
1 What’s new?
This release of Actix software introduces the following new
platform features:
• Link to MyActix from the main menubar
• Quick printing from the map using predefined layouts
• Batch printing from the map
• Event Editor
Each of these is described in more detail in the following section.

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2 Major new functionality

Access to MyActix from within the software

If you are have access to the Internet, this allows you to access the
MyActix website, which provides information on your own
support issues, resources, news, FAQs, software releases and many
other useful documents and areas of information.

Note that you will need to arrange a username and password to be

able to log in. Contact Actix Technical Support for details.

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Event Editor changes
The new Event Diagram Viewer allows you to zoom in and out
more easily, and displays information in a panel at the bottom on a
selected state or state transition.

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Expression Builder changes
The Expression Builder now features several changes to streamline
the process of creating and editing expressions.

The most obvious change is probably the use of color within the
expression-editing pane. Blue text indicates identified attributes
within the expression.

Functions are displayed in the expression pane in green text:

You can use strings in the expression by using quote marks.

Strings are identified by pink text:

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 Any errors are shown in red text from the point at which they first
occur:

As before, to build up an expression, you can type the expression

into the upper expression pane directly2. Now, however, t yping
part of an attribute or function name displays a pop up menu
containing all matching attributes or functions. A double click
selects one of these choices.

The expression toolbar row has been moved above the expression-
editing region:

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 Double-click an attribute from the bottom left pane3 to add it to the
expression (this also auto-completes the format group setting6). If
you select an array attribute, you will also need to specify the array
index value in square brackets. The Value pane4 allows you to
choose a suitable value for a selected array attribute parameter:

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Printing
Quick Print Layouts
The new printing layout features are available from a
drop-down menu beside the Print button in the Map.
The quick-printing choices of ‘Portrait’ and
‘Landscape’ are default layouts provided with the
software. ‘Custom Layout’ prints the Map
information as configured in the ‘Print Setup’ option.
Batch Printing is described later.

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 Print Setup
Selecting Print Setup displays the following dialog:

Switching the Orientation to Portrait changes the thumbnail

image at the top of the dialog as a quick visual reference.

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 Clicking on the Options button displays the following dialog:

The Map tab allows you to control how the map is displayed in
terms of size, scale and content.

Selecting a Custom Map Size allows you to complete the Custom

fields:

This allows you to define the map size by its Width or Height, or
by the distance represented by 1 inch (or centimetre.

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 You can also select a custom scale from the drop-down menu.

The Legend tab allows you to display or hide the legend, to set the
legend position with respect to the map (by clicking on one of the
legend rectangles around the image), to allow the legend to overlap
the map and to fix the legend size as required.

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 The effect of the Allow legend to overlap map checkbox can be
seen in this next view of the dialog:

Note that, if this box is checked, the legend may be displayed

outside the map area, if the map is smaller than the legend.

The Title tab allows you to set and print the map title, to set the
font for the title and choose the location for the title.

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 "Fixed legend size" fixes the legend size to about 2.5". This fixes
the height if the legend is above or below the ma p, or the width if
the legend is to the left or right of the map.If the legend is set to
overlap the map, both the height and width are set to 2.5".

If this checkbox is cleared, the size of the legend varies according

to the size of its contents. This is normally satisfactory for single
prints, but if you are batch printing, the legend size needs to be
constant.

Here is a print preview of a map containing three attributes:

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 Batch Printing
This new feature is available from the Batch Print button on the
Map toobar.

Selecting the Batch Print button opens the following dialog:

This dialog lists all the attributes currently being displayed on the
Map. To select more attributes for printing, click the Attributes
button (see below).

The ‘Batch Print’ checkbox allows an attribute to be printed out on

a separate page if checked, when you click the Print button.

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 The ‘Include on all’ checkbox is used for events – check the box to
display the event on each printed page.

The Setup button displays a standard printer setup dialog for your
default printer.

Clicking on the Preview button displays a print preview for the

current settings. Here is a preview of the first page of a batch print:

Each attribute with its ‘Batch Print’ box checked is printed out on
its own page.

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