*************************************************************************
* Hangar Manager Version 2.4
* Author: Mark Schilberg
* For use with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 and 98
* Platforms: Win95/98/ME/NT/2K
* Support Website: http://members.home.com/hangarmanager
* Support email: hangarmanager@home.com
*************************************************************************



REVISIONS LIST - Last Updated February 3rd, 2000
================================================



==========================
What's New in Version 2.4?
==========================

- Added "Import package from MSFS" option in the Staging Options.  This brings up a list of aircraft that you currently have installed in MSFS which are not in the current Hangar.  From the list, you choose which package to import into the Staging area.  This process first copies the files into the staging area and then scans the MSFS gauge directory for gauges which the package uses and copies them to the Staging area as well.  If you copy the package to the Hangar without changing the name, the package will show up as already installed in MSFS and you can then uninstall it etc.  See the Readme.txt file for more details.

- Added an Image import tool.  Use this to import images for your packages.

- Added a tool to uninstall all packages which are currently installed in MSFS.  Use this if you have a number of packages installed which you would like to uninstall without having to do them one at a time.

- Added a "Run MSFS" button which starts Flight Simulator and stops Hangar Manager.

- Hangar Manager should now start quicker (the more packages you have in the Hangar, the more difference you'll see).

- Photo galleries are now sorted.  The images were being displayed in a random order but are now sorted by package name.



==========================
What's New in Version 2.3?
==========================

- Package compression ... I initially took the "disk is cheap" stand on this issue and didn't include compression in Hangar Manager but I found that bitmap (bmp) and gauge (gau) files take up a pathetically large amount of space.  I then found that bmp files could be 97% compressed (!) and gauge files upwards of 70%.  Wav files also take up a good amount of space but I found that they weren't very compressable at all.

Bottom line is you can expect to compress your packages upwards of 75% and your collection should take up less than half the amount of space it used to.  This also helps people who are trying to fit their entire collection on a CD rom.

Package compression is only enabled in the "Hangar" area and optional per package (added two toolbar buttons for this).  You can find "Compress all packages" and "Decompress all packages" options under the Tools menu.

When copying packages to MSFS or Staging, compressed files are automatically detected and decompressed into the destination directory.

- Added better support for Phoenix Simulation Software's awsome products.

Phoenix software products come with their own installers so this is for people who like to use Hangar Manager to handle all package installation and removeal.  Instead of installing a product into MSFS I install into the Staging directory and let Hangar Manager handle it.

A couple of file extensions that I've never heard of that PSS products use like .bm6 and .#cf texture files are now recognized.

I found that PSS does some pretty "non standard" stuff that HM doesn't handle but that you can quickly remedy ...

For the B777 panel, PSS create their own PSS gauge directory under the MSFS gauge directory.  This is easily remedied by modifying the panel.cfg file and doing a global search and replace to remove the PSS gauge directory name from the gauge filenames.

For the B747 package, you'll have to manually copy the navdata from the "Unrecognized files" directory to a directory called pss/navdata under the MSFS directory (and leave them there).

For the Bonanza turboprop, a scenery file is used (!?).  Not sure why but you'll need to manually copy this .bgl file from the "Unrecognized files" directory to the MSFS Scenery directory (and leave it there).

Those are the only PSS packages I've tried so far.  If you find any other oddities, let me know.

- Added .pdf files to be recognized as documentation.


  
==========================
What's New in Version 2.2?
==========================

- Hangar Manager is now friendlier regarding initial directory location setup (Staging and Hangar directories).  It now offers you hints as to what they should be and will create the directories you specify if they don't already exist.

- Added a "Packages installed in MSFS" list so that you can see and access packages you have installed quicker.

- Added a few more toolbar buttons for quick access to the various package removeal and copy options.  They change function depending on wether you're in the Staging or Hangar areas and are automatically enabled/disabled depending on the situation.  Just hover over them to find out what they do.

- Lessened the restriction of not being able to remove a package from the Hangar if it is aliased by another package(s).  I did this because the common method of adding a patch or upgrade to a package is to first use the "Copy package to Staging" option and then to dump the patch or upgrade into the Staging directory and hit "Refresh".  You would also have to remove the old package from the Hangar but this could not quickly be done if was being aliased by another package(s).  Since the removal is only temporary, all you get now is a warning if this situation occurs.

- Minor cosmetic changes.

- Minor mods to the readme.txt file.

- A couple of minor bug fixes ... selecting an image to be the first in sequence and repeating for the same image would cause an error.  Also, the tooltip for an image would stick around if there were no images for a subsequently selected package.  



===========================
What's New in Version 2.1 ?
===========================

- Changed the way a package is copied from the Hangar to the Staging directory.  Hangar Manager used to just copy the package directory to Staging.  I found this to be insufficient when I went to install the visual update for the Douglas R4D-6 NATS (by Bill Rambow, Roy Chaffin and Jan Visser).  These upgrade executables expect a standard MSFS directory structure so now packages are copied to Staging the same way packages are copied to MSFS.  (Note:  To upgrade a package in the hangar, use the 'Copy package to Staging' option, upgrade it in Staging and then copy it back to the Hangar).

- Modified file recognition to be "smarter".

- If an executable file (.exe) is encountered when unzipping a file, the user will be notified.

- When you use the Unzip option in Hangar Manager, the last unzip location will be memorized and automatically used for subsequent "Unzips".

- The Delete key can now be used in Staging to delete unneeded or unwanted files.  Just highlight a file and hit the Delete key.

- The Aircraft name as it appears in MSFS is now displayed in the Aircraft components tab.

- Added an option in the Hangar area called "Rename Package/Aircraft".  You can now rename the package and/or the aircraft name as it appears in MSFS (these names are independent of eachother but are usually the same).

- Added an option for Images so that you can select the first image to be displayed for each package.

That's pretty much it.  Other cosmetic changes were made that aren't worth mentioning here.

 

===========================
What's New in Version 2.0 ?
===========================

- Went to version 2.0 to mark the event of Hangar Manager going shareware, plus there are a lot of new features ...

- HM can now unzip files into the Staging directory automatically instead of making you do it manually.

- Modified the file recognition routine to run smoother.

- Flight Simulator 98 is now supported.

- Combat Flight Simulator damage profile files (.dp and .cdp) are now recognized but CFS is not officially supported by Hangar Manager.

- HM can now save up to 10 different "Location Profiles".  This makes changing locations easy, for example, if you have one "Hangar" for FS2000, one for CFS and maybe another FS2000 Hangar on CD ROM.

- Added dynamic Photo Galleries for "all packages" and "packages in the current category".  These galleries can be used to quickly select a package.

- Added a Toolbar.

- Alphabetized the list of all packages.

- Hovering the mouse pointer over an Image will give you information about it.

- Package size is now shown in megabytes over the package name.

- Corrected bug regarding directory attribute recognition.  One consequence was that if a directory had its read-only attribute set (i.e. if you stored a Hangar directory on a CDROM), the directory would become "invisible" to Hangar Manager.  The two CD writer applications that I tried did not change directory attributes to read-only on the CD which is why I did not run into this problem earlier.  Since nobody reported this problem, I hope nobody has run into it yet.



===========================
What's New in Version 1.4 ?
===========================

- Added limited support for multiple configurations per aircraft (ie. more than one [fltsim.x] section in the aircraft.cfg file).  The limitation is that you can only select one of these configurations at a time in the Staging area.  When an aircraft.cfg file like this is found, a dialog will pop up and ask you which aircraft config you'd like to select.

- Added "Delete" button to "List unused gauges in MSFS gauge directory" tool.  You can now select whichever gauges you want to delete from that list (use CTRL and SHIFT while selecting if needed) and hit the delete button.

- Added a Tool called "List all packages in Hangar" which shows a categorized list of all the packages in the Hangar directory.  You can now use this list as an alternate way to select packages in the main Hangar window.  The window size and placement of the list window is now saved between sessions.

- Tabs on the components tabbed control are enabled/disabled depending on if components of that type exist for the package.

- Moved the Panel alias indicator onto the Panel tab of components control.  Same idea with Sound alias.

- For those of you who are wondering how to get aircraft already installed in MSFS into Hangar Manager, see the notes at the end of this file.



===========================
What's New in Version 1.2 ?
===========================

- Added sound configuration alias support.  It is now handled like the panel "aliasing".  This wasn't supported previously because I never bothered with modifying sound configurations for my aircraft before so I didn't think to put it in.

- HM now recognizes text files used for the "kneeboard" (hit F10) in MSFS and correctly puts them in the "aircraft" directory.  It was previously putting them in the  documentation directory and therefore would not show up on the kneeboard.  These files have the extensions _check.txt, _keys.txt, _notes.txt and _ref.txt.

- Modified package removal from MSFS routine.  Found that MSFS would create empty xxx_notes.txt files in the aircraft directory automatically and the old way of file removal would get stuck when it encountered this "new" file.  The old routine used to make sure it did not remove any files for the package in the "aircraft" directory that it did not put there itself.  It now doesn't care.

- The zip file name changed for those of you who are used to the hangarmanv1.zip format.  I had to change it to hmv12.zip because some ftp sites can't handle filenames greater than eight characters (8.3 format).

That's it.  If you have any problems or questions, let me know at hangarmanager@home.com.



===========================
What's New in Version 1.1 ?
===========================

A few minor bug fixes ...

- Resizing the application window to a certain size (too small) would cause an error in certain circumstances.

- Selecting the "List Unused Gauges in MSFS Gauges Directory" option while the intro screen was up caused an error in certain circumstances.

- While fixing the bug above I found a way to speed up the gauge scan routine.  Scanning for unused gauges and uninstalling packages that contain gauges is now  faster.

- Removing the current image shown in the "Hangar" while the current package was installed in MSFS would cause the "Remove package from MSFS" option to fail.   Put in a safeguard to make sure this would not happen.

- Reworked parts of the readme.txt and application regarding directory locations.  Situations would arise where if you would change your Hangar directory  location after initial set up, the package categories (directories under the Hangar directory) would not get automatically created.

That's it.  If you have any problems or questions, let me know at hangarmanager@home.com.