20.23.0.0 (2022-12-17)
1. Improvement: Improve memory handing for image decoding so that the image loading process is more robust when there are out of memory errors.
2. Improvement: Improve the image loading process to support decode flags for decoding image informationn only.
3. New Feature: Implement a new batch tool for search images by image width and height. Use through menu Tools -> Search by Image Size.
4. Improvement: Improve the image list view to zoom with styles and caption sizes.
5. Improvement: Improve the status bar to show the count of selection in image list view.
20.3.0.0 (2022-04-13)
1. Improvement: Upgrade zlib library tothe latest 1.2.11 version. Upgrade minizip to the latest 1.1 version.
2. Improvement: Support zip and unzip handling with 64bit file I/O thus support zip and unzip files with sizes larger than 4GB.
3. Problem Fix: Improve the GIF decoder to handle the frame image data and LZW decoding in a more robust way. This will fix the problem that some GIF files with local bad encoded data not being able to show correctly.
4. Performance: Optimize the process of getting the number of frames in GIF decoder to be able to done so without actually reading and decoding the frame image data.
20.2.0.0 (2022-02-19)
1. Improvement: Implement per user based file associations and so no longer need admininstrator rights and elevation for updating file associations on Windows 7 and later.
2. Problem Fix: Fix the issue of continiously message of file associations failure for some Windows environment at startup.
3. Problem Fix: Fix the issue of file association context menu not showing for some common file types on Windows 7 or later systems.
4. Improvement: Increase the default thumbnail size to 196 pixels.
5. Improvement: Default to Limit Width and Limit Height zoom mode for vertical or horizontal sroll mode for enabling smart zooming by default.
6. Improvement: Add support of dib file extension as bitmap file.
7. Bug Fix: Fix the single selection radio buttons can be multiple selected problem on setup wizard choosing UI style step.
8. Bug Fix: Fix jpeg format signature detect issue on recognizing jpeg files with the wrong extension.
9. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of JFIF extesion jpeg image not being listed and showed.
20.1.0.0 (2022-01-31)
1. New Feature: Support to scale for scroll mode with two new fit mode: Limit Width and Limit Height. With these mode, user can zoom in/out and keep in the scroll mode.
2. Improvement: Upgrade WebP codec library to 1.2.1. Support playing WebP animation. Support to save images with WebP image file format (static).
3. Improvement: Rename the orginally FitView to FillView. FitView to enlarge the picture to fit the view either by width or by height. Fill View will crop the image to make sure the view is fully filled.
4. Improvement: Add a view option to specify the minimum scroll gap for scroll mode. Default to 200 pixels.
5. Improvement: Add a basic option to choose whether automatical elevation of privilege when startup if necessary.
6. Bug Fix: Disable Picasa since Google retired it.
7. Bug Fix: Fix scroll reset bug for playing in the vertical scroll mode.
20.0.0.0 (2020-10-25)
1. New Feature: Allow user to choose save image automatically and immediately after each image modification action. Options -> General -> Basic Settings -> General -> Save immediately after image modification. Default OFF.
2. New Feature: Allow user to choose whether to show progress window when saving image(s). Options -> General -> Basic Settings -> General -> Show progress when saving. Default ON.
3. New Feature: Add the capability in Media Player to show subtitles from external subtitle files. The system will search the external subtitle files with the same name prefix as the main video file. User can choose which one to use in the context menu or not show any of them.
4. New Feature: Add the capability in Media Player to play the media file in 0.5x, 0.75x, 1.5x, 2x, 4x, and 8x speed.
5. Improvment: Upgrade the ffmpeg library used in Media Player service from ffmpeg-2.8.6 to ffmpeg-3.3.4 and refactored the code to support new API changes.
6. Improvment: Reorganize the context menu of thumbnail view and image view.
7. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of not be able to copy image file in image view. Now Ctrl + C will copy the image file. Shift + C will copy the image to the clipboard. Ctrl + Shift + C will copy the image with viewing size.
8. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of using numeric category key and not being able to categorize image copy using shift key.
9. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of splitter bar and the Window capturer when the system is using High DPI monitor. And also fix the problem of UI blur for such cases.
10. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of incorrect the messages shown after user entered passcode for registration in standalone Paint .
19.0.0.0 (2019-04-17)
1. New Feature: Support to decode WEBP images. A lot of files saved from Mobile App with JPEG file extension are actually WEBP images. We support to automatically handle this and decode it as WEBP images.
2. Improvement: Show the actually file name in the folder tree for files with their file name encrypted. And we will also sort by the actually file name instead of sorting by encrypted file name.
3. Fix: Use the new international domain name colorstormgarden.com and use this new domain name to check for software updates. The old domain name colorstorm.com.cn was no longer in use.
17.0.0.0 (2017-01-01)
1. Improvement: Upgrade ffmpeg library to version 2.8.6. And impove the media player to support meta data rotation from videos taken by phone.
2. Improvement: Impove the services to support 64bit file size and seek operation in order to support playing video larger than 2G.
3. Improvement: Imprve the image thumbnail cache logic to avoid caching the thumbnails for encrypted images.
4. Bug Fix: Fix the problem in GIF codec to handle properly the local color table. Improve the logic of blend two images with the different color tables.
16.1.0.0 (2016-02-06)
1. New feature: Add full support of encrypted browsing. Now support to view encrypted images, encrypted ZIP or RAR files; Support to view and play encrypted video files. You can use ColorStorm File Master to encrypt disk files in batch. And directly view or play in ColorStorm by entering password and no need to temporarily decrypt to local disk. You can of course use File Master to decrypt the encrypted files to local disk in batch.
16.0.0.0 (2015-11-13)
1. New feature: Improve the Archive service to support directly viewing the images in external encrypted Zip files.
2. New feature: Improve the Archive service to support viewing the folder tree from the folder view. Also add support of archive browing history and automatically search of archive files from specifiied folders.
3. Improvement: Improve Windows Shell service to be able to handle specially for the irreversable shell path usually related to USB shell extension.
4. Improvement: Improve the batch rename tempate and corresponding algorithms. The new template alogorithms use a more standarad wildcard match algorithm and provide more powerful capability.
5. UI Improvement: Improve the background image at left side of wizard. Use the redesigned image which is more colorful.
6. UI Improvement: Redesigned the layout of About dialog and use the new background image.
7. UI Improvement: Improve the folder view to be able to automatically switch to the right tree according to the opened address.
8. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of program crash when trying to open an external encrypted RAR file.
9. Bug Fix: Fix the problem of Zoom lock doesn't work for some specific zoom operations.
15.6.0.0 (2015-10-02)
1. New feature: Improve Archive service to support cbr and cbz extensions.
2. New feature: Paint service supports Arc tool to draw arc or pie.
3. New feature: Improve all the drawing tools to support drawing to select.
4. New feature: Paint service to support Clone Stamp tool. Use Shift + click to select an origin point and then drawing around the destination area.
5. Improvement: Improve Windows Shell service to support friendly shell path in the address bar and searching by fridendly path.
6. Improvement: Improve Paint service to support drawing of continous lines in Polygon tool.
7. Improvement: Improve Paint service to support control point for all the shape tools.
8. Improvement: Improve Brush tool, Fill tool, Gradient tool and Text tool to support Draw Mode.
9. Improvement: Improve Gradient tool algorithm to draw only in related area of gradient filling.
10. Bug Fix: Fix Arrow tool to draw correctly for line arrow when the line size is big.
11. Bug Fix: Fix Windows Shell to be able to view Shell extension folder from USB devices such as camera or mobile devices.
15.5.0.0 (2015-09-13)
1. New feature: Add a new security feature to support image encryption and decryption. By using Tool -> Batch Encrypt, you can encrypt multiple images in a directory or sub directories. By using Tool -> Batch Decrypt, you can decrypt images which were encrypted previously.
2. New feature: Support to browse encrypted images real time after entering the password. You or the program don't need to decrypt the images to temporary files.
3. Improvement: Improve to support entering and validating passcode in the standard alone Color Storm Paint program.
15.4.0.0 (2015-08-01)
1. Improvement: Improve to support amr audio file format for Media Player.
2. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the image is not show correctly at some rare and specific conditions when sweeping to switch image.
3. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the checking status of the sort menu is not correct when sort by width.
4. Bug fix: Fix the problem in XP that the desktop icon size was restored to the standard size even if it was set to another size.
5. Bug fix: Fix the performance problem of thumbnail carousel when opening an image directly from Windows Explorer and there are a lot of other images before the image in the folder.
15.3.0.0 (2015-04-07)
1. Improvement: Support interaction mode for full screen mode. There are two modes: interactive and don't disturb. When at the interactive mode, mouse or touch interaction with screen bars are more agressive than don't disturb mode. So the don't disturb mode is more suitable for simple viewing actions.
2. Improvement: Improve to be able to show properties dialog even if there are mutlile selections. The properties dialog will show statistic data such as total file size.
3. Improvement: Improve the Window capture service to lock the window update when starting crop or grab operation. This can avoid wrong traces lefted on the screen when there are concurrent updatings.
4. Improvement: Improve Clipboard service to show context menu for opening the folder which stores all the clip pictures.
5. Improvement: Improve Window capture service to show context menu for opening the folder which stores all the window pictures.
6. Improvement: Support the short cut key of F1 at full screen to slide in or out the screen bars.
7. Improvement: Save the status of screen bars so that when program restart or enter full screen, the screen bars are at the state when leave full screen.
8. Bug fix: Fix the bug that the file size for folder is not zero.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the mouse cursor will still be hidden even when the mouse is pressed down but not move at full screen mode.
10. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the file icon shown at the status bar of Classic style disappears after window refresh.
11. Bug fix: Fix a bug in subsampling algorithm which cause the vertical border color is incorrect if the image is down scale at some special conditions.
12. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the scroll position reset when dragging to a scroll position which is larger than 16 bits number (65535).
13. Bug fix: Fix the problem that when the list view was set to detail style, the horizontal scroll bar isn't shown even if the columns exceeding the width of the view.
14. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the file name color for the first item in the list view is incorrect when returning from full screen for classic style.
15.2.0.0 (2015-04-01)
1. Improvement: Improve the thumbnail view to show the modified image even if a image is modified but not saved.
2. Improvement: Improve Upward function at the context menu. If the parent folder of the current image is the same as the opened folder, it will open the parent folder of the opened folder.
3. Improvement: Improve play list preview of media player service to center the preview items if the file number is less than the width of the play list view.
4. Improvement: Improve the positioning logic of thumbnail carousal. The current selection will approach to center and finally stays at the center when navigating the selection.
5. Improvement: Improve on-place edit for renaming, only the name part without extension will be automatically selected when clicking to rename a file.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the folder cannot be located in explorer tree when opening a Windows shortcut to a folder.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem that window may vibrate at the boundary feedback if panning to the edge of the image .
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem the scale of the current image will be reset when resizing the window.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the screen bar cannot slide out by single clicking at the full screen mode when the view is at scrollable state.
10. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the user interface responses slowly when image list style is set to a style other than Thumbnails and opening a folder that is not a local file system folder (such as a zip file).
15.1.0.0 (2015-03-28)
1. New Feature: Add comprehensive editing and storing functionality for Windows icon file. User can now add new icon, modify an icon or delete an icon from a Windows icon file.
2. New Feature: Add comprehensive editing and storing functionality for Photoshop brush (ABR) file. User can now add new brush, modify a brush or delete a brush from a Photoshop brush file.
3. Improvement: Improve New File feature to be able to show context menu when a folder is opened. And the save dialog for new image will automatically locate at the current folder.
4. Improvement: Add "Single expand for the explorer tree" option to control whether allow multiple unselected folders to be expanded. By default, it will be single expand. User can change the option through Options -> General -> Basic Settings.
5. Improvement: Add a splitter besides the Exit and Fullscreen button for separating of functionality.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of image preview for video file fail to be loaded occasionally. This is because codec open/close is not thread safe in FFmpeg library.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the thumbnail of image preview for video file cannot be effectively cached.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the multiple images file (for example, Windows icon file) cannot double click to open when dragging from Explorer to Color Storm.
15.0.0.0 (2015-03-21)
1. New Feature: Add media service which can preview and play most of the video files. This software uses libraries from the FFmpeg project under the LGPLv2.1.
2. Improvement: Improve the carousel bar to support scroll. User can use mouse or touch to scroll the carousel images.
3. Improvement: Improve the touch processing for hiding and showing the tool bar in the full screen mode.
4. Improvement: Remove the boundary feedback when reaching to the boundary of the image the full screen to provide better effect.
5. Improvement: Support to hide or show the full screen bars by single clicking or single touch.
6. Improvement: When the screen bar slides out by user, it will not automatically hide when the mouse moves out of the screen bar.
7. Improvement: Put basic settings for thumbnail view into a separate dialog page in Options -> General -> Basic Settings.
8. Improvement: Add a new option to show or hide the file extensions in thumbnail view. By default it will not show the known extensions. User can change the options through Options -> General -> Basic Settings -> Thumbnail View.
9. Improvement: Improve the histogram view to show the histogram using different level of brightness, red, green and blue colors respectively.
10.Improvement: Improve the desktop shortcuts settings. Support to set separately whether to create the shortcuts for main program, clipboard and window capturing service. By default, it will create only the shortcut for main program.
11.Improvement: Improve Shell Link service to show the target in the address bar and locate the target in folder tree when open.
12.Improvement: Improve the software update to support more flexible configurations which can decrease download size when some components are not changed. Improve to show the size information when downloading.
13.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the full screen bar cannot slide out if it is moved.
14.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the view switching button will put the carousel bar in wrong expansion state.
13.4.0.0 (2015-02-09)
1. Improvement: Add a new service (Shell Link service) for searching and viewing image file or folder linked by Windows shell shortcut and provide previewing of the target.
2. Improvement: Add the previewing capability for image list file in List service.
3. Improvement: Improve folder and file naming format for Clipboard service, Window Capture and Image Capture service. Provide the options to specify the folder and file naming template and improve the default values for these options. You can use the following variables in the template: <$date>, <$time>, <$year>, <$month>, <$day>, <$hour>, <$minute>, <$second>, <$starttime>, <000...>.
4. Improvement: Improve Archive service to be able to save the password and the saved password can be reused to avoid repeating to enter the same password after program restarted. The password is encrypted with strong encryption algorithm.
5. Improvement: Add Cut, Copy and Paste menu item in the context menu of thumbnail view.
6. Improvement: Improve tool bar thumbnail carousel to try best to position the current image at the center of the carousel.
7. Improvement: Improve the logic to show background image. The loading and showing the default background image will be delayed 3 seconds so that it will not be shown and flash away when open image from Windows Explorer.
8. Bug fix: Fix Paint service problem that the color values are shown incorrect when adjusting colors in HSV mode.
13.3.0.0 (2015-01-01)
1. Improvement: Add creation time attribute for image. The image source provider can provide creation time for images if have. User can now sort by creationn time of images.
2. Improvement: If the program starts up with parameter /h, the current address will not be recorded in open history as well as not automatically open next time.
3. Improvement: Improve the sort capabilites, provide a option to sort folder before file. The switch is on by default. User can change through Options -> General -> Basic Settings.
4. Improvement: Refactor the open logic to use the unified object to pass the open options. These options will be stored through the whole open session and is accessable.
5. Improvement: Improve the lock logic for on going operations. When the user is in the middle of an operation such as showing a dialog box for confirmation, and user tries to open a image from Explorer, a new instance will be launched to make sure the current operation will not be interrupted.
6. Improvement: Adjust the tab order for deletion confirmation dialog box: OK -> Cancel -> Don't show this confirmation again. By default, the focus and tab is on OK button.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem the deletion problem when image searching is still going on.
13.2.0.0 (2014-10-06)
1. Improvement: Simplify zooming by adding Zoom Lock capability. When Zoom Lock is on, the zooming for current picture will apply to other pictures. The original "All" zoom comes to the default zoom to reset when Zoom Lock is off.
2. Improvement: Improve Clipboard capturing service to support the options to save captured pictures to specific folder instead of temporary folder. By default, the folder will be "My Captures" under user documents directory.
3. Improvement: Improve Window capturing service to support the options to save captured pictures to specific folder instead of temporary folder. By default, the folder will be "My Captures" under user documents directory.
4. Improvement: Improve Image capturing service to support the options to save captured pictures to specific folder instead of temporary folder. By default, the folder will be "My Captures" under user documents directory.
5. Improvement: Add new options to allow creating of desktop context menus for launching the program, capturing clipboard and capturing window.
6. Improvement: Add new command flag of /z and /h when starting the program from command line. /z: Start up with minimized window. /h: Don't automatically open the address when start the program next time.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the images in the same folder are not listed when opening a single image from Explorer.
13.1.0.0 (2014-05-15)
1. Improvement: Improve to support better touch operations for thumbnail and image view. User can now to sweep to turn page in slide mode or pan to scroll. Espcially, Windows by default doesn't support pan operations when there is no scroll bar in fullscreen.
2. Improvement: Improve Flickr service to support OAuth and this standard and new authentication is used by default. The legacy authenticaton method still there but is not used by default.
3. Improvement: Improve Flickr service to use https requried by Yahoo.
4. Improvement: Add a new option to show the first image as the archive folder thumbnail. Refactor the folder image comproser code the share the single base class.
5. Improvement: In fullscreen mode, you can now sweep at the border to show or hide status bar, tool bar and information window.
6. Improvement: Improve fullscreen tool bar layout experiences to show the navigation and thumbnails if the space is limited.
7. Bug Fix: Fix the problem in scroll mode that the image is not shown up when click the non-first image to enter into fullscreen.
8. Bug Fix: Fix the problem that the image in view will shift when continously zoom to actual.
13.0.0.1 (2013-11-18)
1. Bug Fix: Fix the user listing problem in Picasa service. It is caused by the API change of Google side.
13.0.0.0 (2013-04-06)
ColorStorm 2013
1. Improvement: Improve the layout of tool bar in Modern style. Support different layout of the tool bar for different screen mode.
2. Improvement: Improve the tool bar to support extra large size and use the extra large for default in simple and full screen mode.
3. Improvement: Improve to show tool bar context menu for right click on anywhere on the tool bar for usability.
4. Improvement: Improve the zoom with mouse wheel direction that is consistent with other system programs.
5. Improvement: Improve the window capture service to show crop and grab operation icon in the single interface.
6. Improvement: Improve the setup wizard to add options to enable Flickr or Picasa.
7. Improvement: Improve to support more choises of the sizes of thumbnails for list view.
8. Improvement: Improve the status bar and title bar font size to be consistent with other parts.
9. Improvement: Improve the classic style tool bar with new Set Wallpaper button and with Ctrl + W short cut key.
10.Improvement: Improve the short cut key of zoom in and zoom out with new keys of , and . respectively on non-numpad.
11.Bug fix: Fix the Unicode file name problem in ZIP file.
12.Bug fix: Fix the position problem that happens on multi-monitor environments.
13.Bug fix: Fix the crash problem when decoding some spefific TIFF files.
14.Bug fix: Fix the default window size for image package that has more than one pictures.
15.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the check box are not correctly set when setting view background colors.
16.Bug fix: Fix the ordering problem of the explorer tab when enabling a new explorer of a service.
12.10.0.0 (2012-09-09)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1. New feature: Add the ability to automatically hide the cursor in full screen when the mouse is moved for some period of time.
2. Feature improvement: Improve the Modern style status bar to dynamically decide the status panel width according to the current system font.
3. Bug fix: Fix the decode problem of JPEG file with CMYK color space.
4. Bug fix: Fix the problem of Archive service settings cannot be saved when the user interface language is English.
5. Bug fix: Fix the problem of unable to perform the update when Color Storm Core Component is not in the updated component list.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the information of last image remains in the view when opening a folder that doesn't contain images.
12.9.0.0 (2012-07-18)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1. Performance improvement: Largely improve the speed of image switching by using asynchronous tasks for resampling for toolbar thumbnails and loading the histogram. Also use a delayed strategy for showing the histogram for avoiding unnecessary histogram loading.
2. Performance improvement: Improve the loading strategy when switching image. The new strategy will not pre-load the surrounding images unitl the current image is loaded. This makes sure that the current image is loaded at the fastest speed as well as pre-loaidng the surrounding images.
3. UI imrpovement: Add "Go" menu button in the Modern style tool bar to make sure all the functions are accessable under Modern style.
4. Feature improvement: By default disable the input device or file color management because I found that some image editing tools may generat images (such as PNG) with wrong color profile embedded.
5. Feature improvement: Show confirmation message when refresh image(s) that already modified.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of shortcuts update if change the languages multiple times and the application is running as a standard user.
12.8.0.0 (2012-07-08)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1. Performance improvement: An important performance improvement on UI when switching between full screen and main window.
2. Performance improvement: Improve the loading strategy of first image to make the load of first image much faster. The new strategy will not pre-load the surrounding images unitl the first image is loaded.
3. UI improvement: Improve the lock position and auto hide options be set separately for full screen status bar, tool bar and properties view.
4. UI improvement: Improve the menu popup from full screen status bar or tool bar. The bar will not automatically hide before the menu is closed.
5. UI improvement: Remove the "Menu" item from the start menu to avoid confusion over the functionality layout.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the start menu cannot be shown in full screen of Classic Style.
12.7.0.0 (2012-04-29)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 New feature: Add Distort -> Border filter for helping to remove or add image borders.
2. UI improvement: Change the shortcut keys for rotate and mirror operations. Use Ctrl key instead of the original Shift key for keeping consistent with the conventions.
3. UI improvement: Improve the thumbnail view to be able to use Shift + Arrow key to select multiple continious images.
4. Feature improvement: Change the name format of automatically renaming. The following is an example of the new file name format, Image - (1).jpg.
12.6.0.0 (2012-03-23)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 Bug fix: Fix the problem that the program user interface doesn't response for a long time when clicking open a image file from Windows Explorer and the folder of the image file contains a lot of images. The cause of the problem is too much unnecessary user interface updates during the searching of the images.
2. Bug fix: Fix the problem unreadable album name when creating albums with charaters such as Chinese in Flickr service.
12.5.0.0 (2012-02-29)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 UI improvement: Improve to provide address input and address history in the status bar of Modern style.
2. UI improvement: Improve to show the image description (if has) in Properties window.
3. UI improvement: Improve the image description and histogram to be able to expanded and shrinked.
4. Feature improvement: Add three more transition combinations to provide the best transition effects according to navigation direction.
5. Feature improvement: Improve the Flickr and Picasa service to enable to search for image description.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of lack of output device color management in the new image dialog.
12.4.0.0 (2012-02-21)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 New feature: Support color management on input file or device. It is enabled by default. If the input image has a embedded color profile (ICC), the input image will be interpreted as colors in that color space.
2. New feature: Support Enable color management on &output device. It is disabled by default. If output device such as monitor or printer has its own color profile (ICC) associated, the image will be translated to that color space for outputing.
3. UI improvement: Improve the text color schema of modern style, use a less white color suitable for the black background.
4. UI improvement: Improve the mouse wheel setting to support use mouse wheel to zoom the image.
5. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the archive file such as zip may not be shown or searched when the archive service doesn't exist or is disabled but there are archive shell extension in the OS.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the batch print may not work in some printing environments which need a document name when printing.
12.3.0.0 (2012-02-09)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 New feature: Add the thumbnail navigation bar in the tool bar of the modern style.
2. UI improvement: Improve the first time setup wizard to allow user to choose the default user interface style.
3. UI improvement: Improve the batch rename options dialog to use the wizard for simplicity.
4. UI improvement: Improve the Uninstall shortcut to use a different icon for avoid mistakes.
5. UI improvement: Improve the image package and screen saver wizard to use a consistent wizard style of the system.
6. UI improvement: Improve the thumbnail view for a better positioning of the current selection when switching back from fullscreen.
7. Feature improvement: Improve the uninstallation to be able to uninstall successfully even if the program is not current running as administrator.
8. Algorithm improvment: Improve the subsample drawing algorithm for large scale shrink with a faster alogrithm.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem of incorrect output image when shrinked with a large scale.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the language cannot automatically change according to system locale.
12.2.0.0 (2012-01-30)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm.
1 New feature: Add to show histogram information in the Properties window.
2. New feature: Support Password protection for image package.
3. New feature: Add perspective tool in Paint service.
4. New feature: Add perspective filter for providing perspective transformation.
5. Future improvment: Improve the color picker tool of Paint service to support operation modes of repeating and alternating.
6. UI improvement: Improve the launch process and the screen switch process for more fast and smooth experiences.
7. UI improvement: Improve the drawing process of the main window to void flash when resizing.
8. UI improvement: Improve the thumbail view of modern style to show scroll bar.
9. UI improvement: Improve first run setup wizard and software upgrade wizard for a more elegant style.
10. Algorithm improvment: Improve pixel interpolation alogrithm to avoid alias at transparent border.
11.Bug fix: Fix a problem in pixel interpolation alogrithm which gives wrong output in some conditions.
12.Bug fix: Fix the problem of Properties view doesn't show up in the simple screen mode when image view is docked around to Explorer view.
13.Bug fix: Fix the problem of inaccuracy when adjusting the position of splitter bar of main window.
14.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the error message is not shown while error happened in updating file associations.
12.1.0.0 (2012-01-13)
ColorStorm 2012 Enjoy color, experience storm..
1 UI improvement: Rewrite the simple screen mode of classic style and modern style.
2. UI improvement: Add favorites button at the right top corner of modern style.
3. UI improvement: Add lock bar and auto dock option for fall screen bars.
4. UI improvement: Add zoom menu in the tool bar of modern style.
5. Performance improvment: Improve the performance of showing the folder tree when there are zip files.
6. Feature improvment: Improve the shell extension service to support any extension contents.
7. Bug fix: Fix a problem in fall screen command line switch.
8. Bug fix: Fix a problem of lost of shrink statuts under some conditions.
9. Bug fix: Fix a problem of showing the scale percentage even if the image view is not showing.
10.Bug fix: Fix a problem in the splitter which cause the views may not correctly updated when dragging or docking.
12.0.0.1 (2012-01-04)
ColorStorm 2012 New user interface, new experiences.
1. The modern style user interface provides thoroughly new user experiences. User can still switch between the classic style and moden style user interface.
2. The splitter bar can now be shrinked and expanded for more convenient operations.
3. Fix a critical problem that exposed by 2012 version which caused the program cannot start up normally.(12.0.0.1)
Enjoy color, experience storm. -- 2012
12.0.0.0 (2012-01-04)
ColorStorm 2012 New user interface, new experiences.
1. The modern style user interface provides thoroughly new user experiences. User can still switch between the classic style and moden style user interface.
2. The splitter bar can now be shrinked and expanded for more convenient operations.
Enjoy color, experience storm. -- 2012
11.5.0.0 (2011-12-03)
1. New feature: Improve Paint in depth to become an advanced image editing program.(Summary)
2. New feature: Imrove the selection mechanism to support selection of any shape and any depth. This gives the foundation of a lot of other advanced image editing features such as providing various selection tools.
3. New feature: Add Ellipse Selection Tool, Lasso Tool, Magic Wand Tool, Move Selection Tool. Add support various operations over the current selection.
4. New feature: Improve the under layer 2D Graphics to support anti-aliasing drawing and selection. This is another foundation of advanced image editing.
5. New feature: Add Brush Tool, Curve Tool, Free Shape Tool, Regular Polygon Tool and Zoom Tool. Improve Pencil Tool, Eraser Tool, Arrow Tool and so on.
6. UI Improvement: Improve the overall Paint user interface for supporting better operation on tools and options.
7. Feature Improvement: Improve the Shadow filter to support diffusion radius option.
8. Alogrithm Improvement: Improve the interpolation algorithm of transparent image for avoiding unrelated colors appearing in the transparent edge when scaling.
9. Code Refactor: Refactor the interval storage structure of image with alpha channel from BGR + A to BGRA format.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem the main window cannot be closed under the condition that the Wallpaper Slider is running and after returning from an editor window such as Cropboard.
11.2.0.0 (2011-09-30)
1. New feature: Add new filter "Texture -> Diffuse" for creating diffuse effect like sand.
2. New feature: Add new filter "Effect -> Caustics" for adding caustics effect.
3. New feature: Add new filter "Effect -> Crystallize" for creating crystallized cellular effect.
4. Code Refactor: Refactor the code of image controller, thumnbail view and image view for preparing the future extension of features.
5. Bug fix: Fix the system handle leak problem when opening local file system folder.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that Ctrl + S still performs save even after the image was already saved.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem in Paint that the Clear Type font is not anti-aliasing if font was not changed when using the text tool.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of loading failure of shell extension images such as Windows 7 Libraries. Also fix the system handle leak in related codes.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem in Paint that duplicated image layer names may generated sometimes.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the file system icons may not shown if both explorer view and thumbnail view are not shown.
11.1.0.0 (2011-09-10)
1. New feature: Upgrade RAW image decode library to support the RAW files from latest camera models of Canon, FUJIFILM, KODAK, NIKON, OLYMPUS, PENTAX, Panasonic, SAMSUNG, SONY.
2. New feature: Add new filter "Distort -> Water Ripple" for simulating water ripple effect.
3. New feature: Add new filter "Distort -> Ripple" for creating horizontal or vertical ripple effect.
4. New feature: Add new filter "Distort -> Marble" for creating marble texture effect.
5. New feature: Add new filter "Distort -> Punch" for simulating punch effect on a surface.
6. New feature: Add new filter "Distort -> Whirl" for creating whirl effect.
7. New feature: Add new filter "Effect -> Mosaic" for creating a image with mosaic.
8. New feature: Add new filter "Effect -> Oil" for creating oil painting effect.
9. Feature improvment: Improve "Effect -> Emboss" filter to provide better effect and allow options to control the generation of emboss.
10.UI improvment: Rename filter categories such as "Outline" -> "Texture", "Stylize" -> "Effect".
11.Bug fix: Fix the problem of the image view is not updated to the modified image when a GIF image was modified.
11.0.0.0 (2011-07-01)
1. Performance improvment: Speed the JPEG decoding algorithm using SSE, MMX instruction of CPU. JPEG decoding can generally archieve 1x - 2x speed up.
2. Feature improvment: Improve the folder preview options to support "Show the first image" as the preview image of the folder.
3. Feature improvment: Enable to show different information for folder preview image and thumbnail.
4. Feature improvment: Improve the undo and redo in image editing. User now can undo or redo even after a image is saved.
5. Feature improvment: Improve Flickr to show the primary image of an album as the album thumbnail.
6. UI improvment: Add the file icon of the image in the fullscreen informatiion bar.
7. UI improvment: Improve Layer list box of Paint service to support double click to show layer properties dialog.
10.9.9.3 (2011-06-19)
1. New feature: Add "Unsharp Mask" filter to sharp the image by applying gaussian blurred mask. The filter appears at "Edit -> Blur -> Unsharp Mask".
2. New feature: Add "Background Strip" filter to strip the background color of the image. The filter appears at "Edit -> Alpha -> Background Strip".
3. New feature: Add "Shadow" filter to add foreground shadow. The filter appears at "Edit -> Alpha -> Shadow".
4. Feature improvment: Support to specify path for storing cached thumbnail files. User can specify the path in "Options -> General -> Temporary Data -> Settings".
5. Feature improvment: Improve "Folder Preview Information Level" option to support a new option "Icon" which enables to show the system icon as the preview image.
6. UI improvment: Add separator between "Delete" and "Rename" menu to avoid mistaken clicks.
7. UI improvment: Improve the explorer bar to show left or right arrow buttons when the explorer tabs cannot be all shown.
8. UI improvment: Show confirm dialog when saving all images to avoid data loss.
9. Architecture improvment: Add "Image Description" in the concept of a image source which enables to attach a text description to a image.
10.Architecture improvment: Improve the image and thumbnail loading logic to support different contents for image and thumbnail.
11.Bug fix: Fix the problem of "Explorer" menu is always disabled on the local file system files or folders.
12.Bug fix: Fix the problem of incorrect message shown when error happened while saving.
10.9.9.2 (2011-05-26)
1. New feature: Support send image by mail which is a storage extension. User can use it by menu "Send To -> Mail Recipient".
2. Feature improvment: Improve the resampling algorithm of 1bit, 4bit, 8bit images to improve the resampling quality.
3. Feature improvment: Improve the window library and program to support multiple monitors.
4. Feature improvment: Improve the canvas size adjustment of Paint service. Add direction option to specify how the canvas is extended or shinked with the new size.
5. Feature improvment: Improve the image editors to support directly save to storage.
6. Feature improvment: Improve the left button behaviour of image view which can now configurable.
7. UI improvment: Add rulers in the Cropboard view. Aslo imporve to support zooming with focus under zoom image mode.
8. UI improvment: Unified the scroll zooming of the views, such as use the same zooming schema and zooming with small granularity.
9. UI improvment: Change the original "Save To" menu to "Send To" to modeling the concepts.
10.UI improvment: Improve the option tool bar button to be dropdown menu to provide option shortcuts.
11.UI improvment: Improve Properties dialog to show image bit depth in the General page.
12.Bug fix: Fix the problem that only the first image type was searched in searching with multiple image types.
10.9.9.1 (2011-05-13)
1. New feature: Support multiple image layers in Paint and use Color Storm Image File Format (*.rmg) to keep the layer information. Add support of showing rulers in the paint view. Improve the undo feature support unlimited undo and redo steps.
2. New feature: Add crop modes support in Cropboard. There are two modes: Zoom View and Zoom Image. For Zoom View mode, only the view is scaled, the cropped image is not scaled. For Zoom Image mode, the cropped image is scaled with the view.
3. Performance improvement: Improve the way to use the constant string to avoid memory allocation and copy. The system startup is expected to improved because there are a lot of constant strings to be intialized when launching.
4. Feature improvment: Improve Basic service and Archive service to support "Folder Preview Information Level" option. This option can control how much information is generated in folder's preview image.
5. Feature improvment: Improve Clipboard service and other service to support more flexible file name format. For example, clipboard:///clip-<$date>-<$time>-<000> will generate the file names such as clip-20110417-100620-001.
6. Feature improvment: Improve the rectangle dragging in Paint and Cropboard to support dragging with the original proportion when Shift key is pressed when dragging.
7. Feature improvment: Improve the copy operation in thumbnail view. When copy and paste in the same folder, a new image copy will be generated other than overwritten the original image.
8. Feature improvment: Improve the copy operation in image view to copy the original image data by default other than copy the view by default. This can help to keep the transparency information in the image. Press Ctrl + Shift + C to copy the view image.
9. Feature improvment: Improve Text tool of Paint to always enable ClearType for text antialiasing no matter whether the operating system enables ClearType or not.
10.UI improvment: Improve Resize dialog to add button of swaping the width and height.
11.UI improvment: Improve About dialog to support clickable web address and email address.
12.Bug fix: Fix the problem of the image appears twice in the thumbnail view when creating a new image.
13.Bug fix: Fix the problem the disappearance of "Customize..." menu in Cropboard.
10.9.9.0 (2011-04-10)
1. New feature: Add "Blur -> Median" filter which adjusts the intensity of each pixel to the median of its surrounding pixels.
2. New feature: Add "Surface -> Jitter" filter which jitters the image by adding a random offset to each pixel in the image.
3. New feature: Add "Opacity -> Adaptive Opacity" filter which adjusts the opacity of each pixel according its brightness.
4. New feature: Add "Opacity -> Invert Opacity" filter which inverts the opacity of each pixel.
5. New feature: Add "Opacity -> Background Color" filter which sets the background color of a transparent image.
6. New feature: Add "View -> Show Checkerboard" option which enables you to see the transparency checkerboard if a image is some kind of transparent.
7. New feature: Add "View -> Optimized Loading" option which speed the image loading by deciding the loading image size according to screen resolution.
8. Algorithm improvment: Improve the image resample algorithm to support the interpolation on alpha channel which provides higher quality of scaling.
9. Algorithm improvment: Improve the image shrink(subsampling) algorithm to support a faster shrinking method which can be used normally by thumbnailing.
10.Algorithm improvment: Improve the image rendering algorithm to consider alpha channel to provide better rendering results.
11.UI improvment: Add a new color selection dialog which support alpha channel. And use this dialog in dialogs that enables user to select RGBA colors.
12.UI improvment: Add "End User License Terms" in software update dialog for legal considerations.
13.Feature improvment: Improve the internal image format and data processing to provide a consistency pixel color interface for different formats.
14.Feature improvment: Improve RMG image format to support 3 types of internal format: Bitmap bitmap(with transparency), PNG format and JPG format(with transparency).
15.Feature improvment: Improve the internal image data transfer and processing to better support multi-layer image. This prepares for layer support in paint.
16.Feature improvment: Improve software updater to retry 3 times if a download failed to provide more reliability.
17.Bug fix: Fix the problem in encoding algorithm of ICO format which may result a full transparent icon in some rare cases.
18.Bug fix: Fix the problem in status bar which shows the last image information even if the image browsing is closed.
19.Bug fix: Fix the problem of duplicates after saving modified images in the folder of a network mapped driver.
20.Bug fix: Fix the problem in the bitmap decoding algorithm related to BI_BITFIELDS format.
10.9.8.11 (2010/10/20)
1. UI improvements: Improve the fullscreen information bar and fullscreen tool bar to support auto-hide. When the bar is within 4 pixels to the top or bottom border, the bar will automatically attached to the border and hide after 3 seconds. If the bar is not close to the border, it will not automatically hide.
2. UI improvements: Improve the explorer view tab control for a better rendering effect. Also imporve the effect of close button and tool box button of Paint service.
3. UI improvements: Rename the list view to thumbnail view to help understanding.
4. UI improvements: Improve the image view title bar. Remove the caption "Preview" and show the file icon of the current image for providing type information.
5. Feature improvements: Add the ability of "Clear history when exit". User can set the option through Options -> General -> Temporary Data.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem the open file dialog crashs the program on some systems.
7. Bug fix: Fix the proglem of the random crash when browsing JPEG 2000 files. The cause is a call to a thread unsafe method in a multi-thread context.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of a viewer shows disabled when other viewer was disabled.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem duplicated addresses in the address bar list.
10.9.8.10 (2010/09/12)
1. Performance improvements: Improve the memory usage of image resampling algorithm. The new algorithm avoids a new copy of the whole image in the memory and thus improves the overall performance of thumbnailing.
2. Performance improvements: Improve the peak memory usage of converting for wallpaper.
3. UI improvements: Improve the folder tree, Picasa tree and Flickr tree to use hot track style.
4. UI improvements: Improve the tool window close button, color picker window buttons and paint tool buttons to support hot feedback.
5. UI improvements: Improve the list view selection highlight and hot feedback background.
6. UI improvements: When zooming the current image, if press the Shift key down, the current image zoom scale will also apply to all images.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the address bar border is not visible under Windows 7.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem when there is no image, it still shows the scroll bar under vertical or horizontal scroll style.
10.9.8.9 (2010/08/15)
1. Important Fix: Fix the problem of software updater which cause software updating failure. The cause is that the debug version of the updater program was mistakenly compiled which may not be able to be loaded on some systems.
2. Performance improvements: Improve the system response when there are big RAR files in the folder.
3. UI improvements: Support small icon in the tool bar and use small icon tool bar by default. User can switch to large icon through View -> Bars.
4. UI improvements: Add "Don't Check Update" button in the software update dialog box.
5. UI improvements: Improve the menu to use small icon to provide better effect.
6. UI improvements: Change caption "Google Picasa" and "Yahoo Flickr" of the folder tree to"Picasa" and "Flickr" correspondingly.
7. Bug fix: Fix the menu of Cropboard, Paint, Panorama and Red Eye Remover main window to support activation by Alt or Alt + short cut key.
10.9.8.8 (2010/07/25)
1. Feature improvements: Add a new option "Consider 32bit bitmap as bitmap with alpha channel". When this option is checked, 32bit bitmap will be loaded as transparent bitmap.
2. Bug fix: Fix the problem of loading failure of some WMF files. The cause is a check in the decoder which causes the file to be considered as invalid WMF file. Also improved WMF decoder to more properly decide the target image size.
3. Code refactory: Refactoried the abstract window library and related modules to support both static link and dynamic link to lay a foundation of future UI improvements.
10.9.8.7 (2010/06/01)
1. Feature improvements: Support new options to create Start Menu shortcuts, Add or Remove Programs shortcut for uninstallation, Desktop and Quick Launch icons. User can specify this options in either first time setup wizard of in Tools -> Options -> General -> Basic Setting -> Shortcuts. These shortcuts can help user launch the program or uninstall the program.
2. Feature improvements: Improve Picasa service to support configuring the default picasa server address if not picasaweb.google.com. Aslo user also type in the address other than picasaweb.google.com in the address to access, for example http://picasaweb.google.it/colorstorm.haifeng. (Note: this features are valid for VIP user only).
3. Feature improvements: Support to split channels. User can use these split features through the menu items under Edit -> Channel.
4. Feature improvements: Support to adjust the transparency of the image. User can use the feature through menu Edit -> Adjust Alpha.
5. Feature improvements: Improve move tool of Paint service to support resizing and flipping the selection by dragging.
6. Feature improvements: Improve the copy operation to support image with alpha channel. User can copy image with alpha channel by pressing Ctrl + Shift + C. Aslo improved Paint service to support copy image with alpha channel (Ctrl + Shift + C), cut image with alpha channel(Ctrl + Shift + X), paste image with alpha channel(Ctrl + Shift + V).
7. Feature improvements: Improve Clipboard servcie to provide options to deal with 32bit image with alpha channel. And also support to save image to PNG format for keeping the alpha channel. User can directly specify the options in the URI address when openning clipboard in the following way: clipboard:///name prefix/format/options. format: jpg | bmp | png; options: alpha | non-alpha.
8. Feature improvements: Improve the software update to support components based update. User can choose to the components to update. If one component depends another component, they must be both updated or not updated.
9. UI improvements: Improve the scroll of the image view and list view. Add the options of configuring the scroll line unit. User can change the default scroll unit through Options -> General -> View Setting -> Input.
10.UI improvements: Improve status text of Paint to show the R, G, B value of the image position of the cursor. Also add the option to show or hide check board for transparent background.
11.UI improvements: Improve the zooming shortcut keys of Paint service, Cropboard service and Red Eye Remover service to considering the keyboard of Laptop computer, using -, = or +, \ and / keys to perform zoom out, zoom in, fit picture and actual size.
12.UI improvements: Improve the first time setup wizard to show End-User License Agreements and to allow to enter the passcode for registered user.
13.Bug fix: Fix the problem of not being able to fill a transparent region of Paint service Fill tool.
14.Bug fix: Fix the memory problem when encoding in PNG format.
15 Bug fix: Fix the problem the drivers or folders are doubled under My Computer on Windows 2000.
16.Bug fix: Fix the problem of Picasa service that the user name and password is not correctly saved for next login.
10.9.8.6 (2010/05/01)
1. Feature improvements: Support to show the latest destination addresses in "Copy To", "Move To" and "Save All To" drop down menu.
2. Feature improvements: Support XButton 1 and 2 of mouse to perform backward and forward operation.
3. Feature improvements: Improve the image rotation to support precision up to 0.01 degree.
4. Feature improvements: Imrpove the speed setting of slide show. Separate the speed setting of slide show and scroll.
5. Feature improvements: Add default file name confliction action option for "Copy To", "Move To" and "Save All To". User can set through Options -> General -> Confirm Settings.
6. UI improvements: Improve the dialog boxes which include image preview to be resizale.
7. UI improvements: Improve the image preview window to allow zoom by double clicking. Also support to drag the image in the preview window if the image is larger than the preview window.
8. UI improvements: Improve the background color setting to apply also to the folder tree at left to unify the color effect.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the images are doubled when opening files such as zip from Windows Explorer. This bug was caused by Feature improvements 2 in 10.9.8.5.
10.Bug fix: Fix the prolbem of the text color is not properly changed when customizing background color for detail style of list view.
10.9.8.5 (2010/04/01)
1. Feature improvements: Add new action options for file name conflicts when save, move, copy, rename, batch convert and batch rename files. These action options include Confirm, Overwritten, Skip or Auto.
2. Feature improvements: Add new options for showing full screen or simple screen when opening folder or complex file types such as zip files from Windows Explorer. User can set the option from Options -> General -> Basic Settings.
3. UI improvements: Improve the list view to locate the selected image after removing or deleting one or more images which may make the selected image not in the view area.
4. UI improvements: Default to opening image in full screen when double clicking image to open. The original default action is to open in simple screen.
5. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the information bar doesn't update its contents when switching images.
10.9.8.4 (2010/03/06)
1. Feature improvements: Support toolbar in full screen to providing the basic operations under full screen mode. User can show or hide through "View -> Bars -> Full Screen Tool Bar". Or use Alt key to show or hide it under full screen mode.
2. Feature improvements: Improve Selection Tool of Paint service to always start a new selection even if the mouse on an existing selection. User can use Ctrl + Left Mouse Drag to move an existing selection.
3. Feature improvements: Improve Rectangle Tool, Round Rectangle Tool and Ellipse Tool of Paint service to support a new fill mode using the foreground color to fill.
4. Feature improvements: Improve Color Box of Paint service to support a transparent color for using. Also add the button for exchanging the foreground and background color.
5. UI improvements: Correct some mistakes and inproper translations for Tradtional Chinese. Add Tradtional Chinese support for the updater program.
6. UI improvements: Add full screen button in browsing mode to be identical with simple screen and full screen mode.
7. UI improvements: Reorganize the usage of "Enter" key and double click. Use "Enter" and "Double Click" to switching between browsing mode and sceen mode(simple or full). Use Ctrl + Enter or Ctrl + Double Click to switch between browsing mode and full screen mode. Use Shift + Enter or Shift + Double Click to switch between browsing mode and simple screen.
8. UI improvements: Improve View Setting dialog to use property page and reorganize the settings.
10.9.8.3 (2010/02/08)
1. UI improvements: Add support of Chinese Traditional user interface.
10.9.8.2 (2010/01/27)
1. Feature improvements: Add Shell Extension service to provide the ability to search images as well as reading image data from Windows Shell Extension. Using this service, Windows 7 user can browse pictures in the libraries.
2. Feature improvements: Improve the Text tool of Paint service, allow changing and previewing of the font continuously. Add more standard font sizes to the list and improve the font size combox to update while inputing.
3. Feature improvements: Improve the sort to restore the original selection after sort. This improvement helps to enable auto sort feature even if the user opens the image from Windows Explorer.
4. Feature improvements: Add rename ability in the image view. A dialog box will be shown for entering the new file name. Unified to use F2 to access renaming feature.
5. UI improvements: Improve Paint, Cropboard and Red Eye Remover service to use "OK" replacing the original "Save and Exit" menu and button. Because after clicking "Save and Exit", the data is not really saved to any persistent storage. It only means to confirm the editing operation and save the data back to main application.
6. UI improvements: Improve the ability of switching screen modes. Now, you can to Ctrl + Enter or Ctrl + Double Click to enter full screen mode or switch between full screen mode and simple screen mode.
7. UI improvements: Make editing feature "Image Size" and "HSL" available in tool bar. The two buttons will not shown in tool bar by default.
8. UI improvements: Improve to allow use to be able to customize the title format. User can choose whether to show file name or scale in the title bar through "Tools -> Options -> Appearance -> General".
10.9.8.1 (2010/01/16)
1. Feature improvements: Improve Paint service to support alpha channel. Improve the color box to provide more flexible color choosing.
2. Feature improvements: Improve "Add Text" service to support adding text on transparent images.
3. Feature improvements: Improve the file assocation feature to support icon assocation when choosing not to assocate context menu. Also improve to disable option "Default open with this program" when not assocating context menu. Diable option "Default open with this program" for EXE and DLL files to avoid problems caused by mistaken.
4. UI improvements: Allow user to choose whether to show background image or cutomize the background image (VIP User only).
5. UI improvements: Improve Paint, Cropboard and Read Eye Remover to provide smart zoom ability. When the image is very small, the image will be smartly zoom to a proper size for easy operation.
6. UI improvements: Support to show grid in Cropboard. User can choose to show large grid or small grid.
7. UI improvements: Allow extension service to provoide icons to tool bar such as Paint, Cropboard.
8. UI improvements: Improve to load the same size of icons from extension services when tool bar skin file was specified. It is suggested that the skin file icon size are standard icon sizes such as 16, 24, 32, 48.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem in editing the width and height in scaling image dialog for Paint service.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem of splitter drawing when one of the splitter view is set too small.
10.9.8.0 (2009/12/30) (New Year Special Edition)
1. Feature improvements: Support icon association. Use can configure the icon assocation settings when running the program at the first time. When upgrading from the old version, the icon association settings will set to the default. User can change icon associations through "Options -> File Types".
2. Feature improvements: Add Image Acquisition service to support acquiring images from WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) compatible devices such as WIA scanner. User can use it by "File -> Open -> Acqurie Images" or directly type "wia:///" in address box.
3. UI improvements: Use the new Color Storm icon for the main program. The new icon has the same style and with the file type icons provided by Color Storm.
4. Bug fix: Fix a potential problem in folder asynchronously loading code which may cause the program crash.
5. Bug fix: Fix the problem in loading customized tool bar file.
10.9.7.8 (2009/12/20)
1. Feature improvements: Support three setting modes. User now can choose to save settings in registry or config file. Registry mode stores the settings in the Windows registry. Local mode stores the settings in the local config file. The file format is XML and the file name is the same as the program file. Portable mode is used when the program is on a removable media such as USB disk. Using portable mode, the settings are stored in the local config file and the file associations will not be created so that the program can be removed anytime. When upgrading from the old version, it will in registry mode. User can change the setting mode from "Tools -> Options -> Setting Mode" dialog box.
2. Feature improvements: Add setting mode page in the setup wizard so that user can choose the setting mode when the program runs at the first time.
3. Feature improvements: Add support of export the settings to specified config file. User can use this feature from "Tools -> Export Settings". The program will search for its config file with the same name in its folder.
4. Feature improvements: Add option of enable or disable system wide hot keys for Wallpaper Slider. User can configure this option from "Wallpaper Slider -> Hot Key".
5. UI improvements: Use wizards instead of the dialogs for creating screen saver and package. Wizard is easier to understand and use for this situation.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem that virtual folder file data was overwritten by its preview image in batch convert.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem of file types combo box in batch convert dialog. The file types listed should be save filters other than the open filters. This problem is caused by the code refactory work done in 10.9.7.7.
10.9.7.7 (2009/12/12)
1. Feature improvements: Add setup wizard to help user to setup the software options such as file associations instead of the original first time setup dialog. The setup wizard will be shown when the program runs at the first time and help user undertand and setup several most important settings. Using the setup wizard, user can configure the file associations and other important options.
2. Feature improvements: Add support of step by step undo and redo of editing operations. User can use "Edit -> Undo" (Ctrl + Z) to undo the previous editing operation and use "Edit -> Redo" (Ctrl + Z) to redo the previous rollbacked operations. The number of steps can undo is unlimited in theory.
3. Feature improvements: Improved to configure the file associations in a tree other than in a list. These can help to categorize the file types and make it easy to check or uncheck all the file types in a category.
4. Feature improvements: Improved the search options in open dialog box. Add an new option to help for applying the search options to all the following open operations. Also makes the search options easy to specify such as providing supported file types. Also optimized the performance when search options specified.
5. UI improvements: Add "Exit" menu in the full screen context menu to allow user to exit the application under full screen.
6. UI improvements: Categorized some editing operations under "Edit" menu to its sub menus. These include moving "Blur", "Soften", "Sharpen", "Noise" to "Surface" category and moving "Emboss", "Conture", "Edge", "Threshhold" to "Outline" category.
7. UI improvements: Add single expand style for folder tree, picasa tree and flickr tree. The single expand style can help user expand a tree node using single click and other useful features.
8. Code Refactory: Refactory the code of reading and writing registry setttings. The refactoried code can help easily add reading and writing settings to and from other configure sources such as xml file.
9. Bug fix: Fix a bug in unstalling on Windows 7. When the program doesn't run as administrator, unstalling will incomplete because file associations can not be uninstalled, but there is no error message shown to user.
10.9.7.6 (2009/12/01)
1. Important optimization: Asynchronously load and locate the folder in the folder tree. This greatly improved the start up speed and user experience. And aslo improved the user experience when switching from a full screen mode or simple screen mode to browser mode while a locating of folder is needed. This usually happens when user directly opens a image file from Windows explorer or other program and then switch to browser mode.
2. Feature improvements: Improved Picasa service to add the ability to copy the image links of the selected photos. You can use the feature by selecting one or more items in the list view and click "Copy Image Link" menu in the context menu or File menu.The size of the image pointed by the link is decided by the view size in the Picasa service settings.
3. Feature improvements: Improved Flickr service to add the ability to copy the image links of the selected photos. You can use the feature by selecting one or more items in the list view and click "Copy Image Link..." menu in the context menu or File menu. You can choose the image size for the link to be retrieved in the following dialog box.
4. Feature improvements: Add secondary download link for updating software. If the primary download link failed, the update process can try the secondary download link instead.
5. UI improvements: Improved to enable dragging items in the list view on to the folder in the same list. This is usefully when organize images in a folder into its sub folders.
6. Bug fix: Fix the performance issue when the first image file is GIF and the current view mode is Scroll mode.
7. Bug fix: Fix a bug in Windows 7. The program will always prompt to run as administrator after change user interface language although it has been already run once as administrator.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem that the splitter could not properly split the view sometimes¡£
10.9.7.5 (2009/11/13)
1. Feature improvements: Upgrade jpeg decoding library to the version 7(27-Jun-2009).
2. Feature improvements: Improved TIFF service to consider the DPI settings in the TIFF image. Also to improve the scaling quality, monochrome TIFF will be converted to 24bit.
3. Feature improvements: Add information window for full screen. The information window shows the current image information similar to the status bar and can be shown or hidden. You can aslo adjust the position of the window.
4. Feature improvements: Improved and optimaized the image merge. Enable to merge a image with a transparent image. Optimized the algorithm for 24 bit image.
5. UI improvements: Improved backward, forward upward and open operation. When SHIFT key is pressed while clicking Backward, Forward, Upward or Open button, the targeting address will be opened in a new window.
6. UI improvements: Improved zooming operation. When SHIFT key is pressed while clicking Zoom In, Zoom Out, Zoom Actual, Fit Picture, Fit Width or Fit Height button, it will perform the same functionality as Zoom All In and so on.
7. UI improvements: Add Upward context menu in the list view to open the parent folder or album of current image. This is usally when the list contains images from more than one folders or albums.
8. UI improvements: Improved scroll mode to limit the span of each image at least 200 pixel. This will give a good view when the list contains a lot of small images such as icons. The span limit will be configurable in the future.
9. UI improvements: Use F2 as the shortcut key of rename operation to make it identical to Windows Explorer.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem on removing Directory and Drive context menu if it was set to default.
10.9.7.4 (2009/10/19)
1. Bug fix: Fix abr and tiff decoding problem brought in by version 10.9.7.3.
10.9.7.2 (2009/10/8)
1. Feature improvements: Enable Archive service to support Unicode zip filename. This enables us to open zip files with non-system code page filenames.
2. Feature improvements: Enable Archive service to support ZIP file format extension for Unicode filename in the zip file. This enables us to extract the files with non-system code page filenames in the zip file if the program created the zip file supports ZIP file format extension for Unicode filename. Notice that if the zip file create by unicode unaware propgram such as Winzip version before 11.2 or WinRAR before 3.8, you still may fail to extract correctly the files with non-system code page filenames.
3. Feature improvements: Upgrade the RAW format decoding library to support raw files for some new camera types such as Canon EOS 500D, Canon PowerShot G11, Kodak EasyShare Z980, Kodak EasyShare Z1015, Nikon D200, Nikon D300, Nikon D3000, Nikon D5000, Olympus E-620, Olympus E-P1, Pentax K-7, Pentax K-m and so on.
4. Feature improvements: Allow to change the image bit depth when edit the image's basic attributes (1bit, 4bits, 8bits or 24bits).
5. Feature improvements: Add option to allow user to select whether to generate the detail information of its subfolders in folder preview image. This may save the time for listing the folder contents. User can configure this option through Tools -> Options -> Services -> Basic Service -> Settings.
6. UI improvements: Add "Stay On Top" feature to allow user to make the window always on top of other windows. User can select this through View -> Stay On Top.
7. Optimization: Optimized the performance for cancelling the process of generating thumbnail.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the program crash when loading some types of RAW files.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the thumbnail selection box is not correctly updated when the scroll bar was scrolled.
10.9.7.2 (2009/10/8)
1. Feature improvements: Implement my own nearest neighbour and bilinear scaling algorithm instead depending on system StretchDIBits for drawing with scale. User can choose different scaling algorithm options in View Settings in Options. These options include Nearest Neighbour(Fastest), Bilinear (Slower) and Halftone (System).
2. Feature improvements: Optimize the shrinking algorithm which is used frequently by making thumbnails. This optimization can imporve the overall system performance.
3. Feature improvements: Add new extension point for providing "New Folder", "New Picasa Album" and "New Flickr Album" in the list view context menu for corresponding address.
4. Feature improvements: Allow assign your own icon file when creating package and screen saver. It suggest that the icon file should at least include three icons with the sizes of 16 * 16, 32 * 32 and 48 * 48.
4. Feature improvements: Open files in share read, share write and share delete mode to avoid access confliction when system are trying to cut, rename or delete files.
5. UI improvements: Add Select All menu item which is missed from the main menu.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the default thumbnail size. Change the default to 96 instead of the maximum thumbnail size 240.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem of auto sort when opening a image file from Explorer which leads the image file is not located after the sort. Auto sort will be disabled when openning a image file from explorer.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the system load the smaller thumbnail although the user choose the larger size. This is caused by selecting other list style and switching back to thumbnail.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the list view will not be shown when restart the program when the list view was hidden and shown by changing list styles.
10.Bug fix: Fix the problem that the subfolder preview was set as wallpaper when adding a folder from Wallpaper list editing dialog.
10.9.7.1 (2009/9/28)
1. Feature improvements: Add auto sort feature which allow automical sort after the images are listed. Add a sort button in toolbar which can facilitate the sort operation. It is suggested that enable auto sort only when needed.
2. UI improvements: Thumbnail size now can be adusted to maximum 240 * 240 size. Add corresponding menu items to select the size. You can also use Ctrl + Mouse Wheel to just the thumbnail size if thumbnail view is in focus.
3. UI improvements: Add support of configure the fullscreen background color. Add Color button in toolbar which provides a drop down color picker to help easily change the background color. Normally, it changes the view background color. If Ctrl key is press down while choosing a color, fullscreen background color will changed.
4. UI improvements: Improve the paint algorithm of thumbnail view which provides better user experiences and performance.
5. UI improvements: Automatically adjust the text color when user changes the view background color in the program.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of multiple software update dialog shown when the program is running there and at the same time there is a software update.
10.9.7.0 (2009/9/16)
1. Feature improvements: Support Windows Vista and Windows 7 new security features such as UAC (User Account Control). ColorStorm.exe will run normally as standard user. But for the first time running ColorStrom.exe, user need to run it as administrator for adding file associates for supported file types. If not, Color Strom will prompt for this and launch a new instance which will run as administrator. The updater will always run as administrator and then launch ColorStorm as administrator only once after it finish updating the software.
2. Feature improvements: Use the general way to view icons in the icon file using source provider and data provider. User now can double click to open a list of icons contained in the icon file. And thus remove the unnecessary icon viewer.
3. Feature improvements: Improve the software update process. Use the Updater in the latest software package to do the update other than using the old Upater in the old version.
4. UI improvements: Improve to show themed menu on Windows7. And also improve to use color according the system settings.
5. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the image disappeared from the list when Photoshop modified the file externally.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of some icons with PNG format data cannot be shown. Also fix the encoding problem of the icons with indexed transparent color the same as non-transparent color.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the program crashes when exits if the wallpaper slider is enabled and the wallpaper list includes some specific type of addresses. Also fix the problem when there is a failure in setting wallpaper, previous or next wallpaper control will not work.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the subfolder preview was set as wallpaper when adding a folder with subfolders but choose not to include subfolder images.
9. Bug fix: Fix a crash problem on Windows 7 when expanding some special nodes in the folder tree. Also fix a problem of continuous showing of error message box when trying to access a removable media removed.
10.9.6.21 (2009/9/5)
1. Feature improvements: Rewritten Photoshop image format(*.PSD) decoder. These include support of all the color modes such as RGB, CMYK, Lab; support of 16bit images; support of zipped data in image, also decode faster and code refactory. This update should solve the problem of some PSD files generated by CS3 or CS4 or higher cannot be loaded.
2. Feature improvements: Improve Tiff service to correctly handle 16bit channel and CIE Lab color space.
3. Feature improvements: Add quality option for batch convert.
4. UI improments: Locate the previously selected item when using "Back", "Forward" or "Up" button to navigate to previously opened addresses.
5. UI improments: Allow to choose whether include child folders when adding folder to wallpaper list.
6. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the scroll bar is not set vertical when switch from horizontal scroll to slide mode.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the program hangs when open a RAR file with missed volume.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of the zip file cannot be listed if Windows system configures to treat zip as folder.
10.9.6.20 (2009/8/22)
1. Feature improvements: Support to view and save Photoshop and Paintshop Pro brush file format (*.abr, *.jbr). You can double click the brush file in the list view to open the list of brushes if the file contains more than one brush.
2. Feature improvements: Create a new Color Storm raw image format (*.rmg). Color Storm uses this format internally and can save and view file in this format. User can use this format to save intermediate image results no concern of the loss of image information such as alpha channel.
3. Feature improvements: Improve Archive service to try last password on different files to avoid inputing password multiple times for different files with the same password. User can also turn this feature off in the Archive service settings.
4. Feature improvements: Improve Tiff service's naming convention for multi-page Tiff: index from 1 and append the original Tiff file name before the index.
5. Feature improvements: Clipboard service and Window service can now choose between BMP or JPEG file format for the output file. Also you can now use hostname part of the URL of clipboard or window service to specify a name. For example, for address "clipboard://abc/", the output file will like "abc1.jpg".
6. UI improments: Remove some not so usually used toolbar button from default toolbar. These buttons are: Properties, Previous, Next, Start Play, Stop Play, Cut, Copy, Paste, Options. User can still add these buttons in toolbar customization.
7. UI improments: Change not to expand "My Computer" when the folder tree is shown. Expanding "My Computer" to show its contents takes took much time when starting up. This is mainly because that enumerating devices or network resources such as DVD or mapped network driver are time consuming.
8. UI improments: Change ESC to close the application when the application is opened from windows explorer with simple screen or full screen.
9. Bug fix: Fix the bug when minimize and restore the window in scroll mode, the image view cannot set and draw correctly.
10.9.6.19 (2009/8/11)
1. UI improvements: Rename the original "Normal Window" mode to "Simple Screen" mode comparing to the "Full Screen" mode.
2. UI improvements: Add a "back" button in the simple screen mode toolbar which performs returning to browser window mode.
3. UI improvements: Make close window button will always close the window. The original implementation of close window button in simple screen mode will return to browser mode.
4. UI improvements: Improve the list view to use the same background settings as the image view.
5. Feature improvements: Improve Flickr service to support viewing and managing photos in group pool and adding group to user list.
6. Feature improvements: In Picasa and Flickr service, add properties dialog box for user or group to view its basic properties. Aslo add "Browse..." menu for user, group and album node to browse the corresponding address using Internet Explorer.
7. Bug fix: Fix the problem images cannot save or paste to local if the images are with invalid file system name. The images with invalid file system name may come from sources such as Flickr or Picasa.
8. Bug fix: Fix the problem of flickr cannot save its login status after restart the program. This problem was brought in by version 10.9.6.18.
9. Bug fix: Fix the problem of software update check. The problem is the check will be done only once when the program startup. Aslo it was possible fetch the update information from the cache.
10.Bug fix: Fix bug caused by image package which mistakenly records its address as last opened addresses.
10.9.6.18 (2009/8/1)
1. Implement the vertical scrolling by fit width and horizontal scroll by fit height. This is the very exicting view mode which is considered to provide the best view of the images in scrolling.
2. Improved Picasa service to allow adding google account with non-gmail address and login with non-gmail address.
3. Refactory the code of reading and writing settings from services which saves me 25KB in total program size.
4. Fix the problem of not using system color as the background of in the list view when using other styles than thumbnail.
5. Adjust shortcut keys: F6 = Slide Mode, F7 = Scroll Vertical, F8 = Scroll Horizontal, F9 = Fit Width, F10 = Fit Height, F11 = Start/Stop play.
10.9.6.17 (2009/7/15)
1. Improvement of Flickr service. Be able to add user by mail address, user name, NSID and by url or alias. Improve Flickr to support url and alias. This is important because a lot of users set a alias and using the url for sharing.
2. Improvement to delay a small amount of time before openning the last opened address. This improves the user experiences of openning a file or folder from Windows Explorer.
3. Extend to support zip files of the maximum of 4GB size in the Archive service.
4. Fix the problem of slown down of showing image when opening a image from Windows Explorer while the folder of the image contains a lot of image files.
5. Fix the customized toolbar skin size. 13 new buttons were added in 10.9.6.15.
6. Fix the problem of GIF animation is not shown properly when there are mixed gif files and other files and transition is used at the same time.
7. Fix the problem of the scale information did update when scaling a gif file.
10.9.6.16 (2009/7/3)
1. Improve batch rename ability by using templates, more fexible renaming options and be able to refer part of the original file.
2. Update RAW decoder to 0.1.8.89 version to support more RAW formats. And load available exif information when decoding RAW files.
3. Update TIFF decoder to 3.8.2 version. Also modify to ignore "data not enough" error in tiff decoder.
4. Fix the problem of when wallpaper slider is enabled and restart the computer will not set window placement correctly for wallpaper slider instance.
5. Fix the bug of gif not playing when opening from explorer.
6. Fix the bug of drop down menu cannot be shown when clicking "Browse..." button from open dialog box.
7. Improve to show new features or changes in softare upate dialog. And provide different messages and information for different languages.
8. Other improvements: word wrap in help window; make open button to directly show drop down; enable upper level button even openning more than one addresses.