Version 3 Change Log

This page lists only those changes made to the new interface, a.k.a. version 3. Changes made to any other area of the program are documented under the 'Changes' section and will be included in any version 3 update.

Build 912

• A critical file needed when running an XSL transformation was missing from the installation list. The result would be a '-226' error with no filename mentioned in the error message. This update will fix that problem (applies to new or existing installations).

Build 905

• The command-line utilities now distributed with the program were not recompiled for version 237, which caused cmx.exe to become out-of-sync with the MARCXML Utilities. This update fixes that problem.

Version 2.37 released

Build 904

• The (annoying) pop-up that appeared when closing an edit session after not making any changes has been removed.

• Saving bookmarked records to a MARC file did not work–fixed; the menu item for this option has also been relocated fromt the 'File' menu to the¹⁾ 'Filters|Bookmarked records' menu.

• In version 2, the option for filtering brief messages on a list of tags appears on the 'Batch Mode' page of the options; although this option also appears in version 3, it is not functional. To avoid confusion, a pop-up was added to remind the version 3 user to use the new 'Filters' menu for this purpose.

Version 2.36 released

Build 875

• Final changes for RDA support.

—- Build 869

• Fixes bug using MARC Global to search a control field for an item in a 'value list'.

Build 868

• Fixes many problems in the new support for RDA in MARC cataloging checks, and greatly improves the way the cataloging checks will work in a mixed AACR and RDA world.
• Fixes a potential 'crash': if an edit session is running, and if records have been changed, and if the user closes the main program window (without saving the changes), the 'Edit Session results' window would display behind the main program window; the next attempt to close the main window would result in a program crash.
• Fixes a bug in Text View; the symptom is: if the 'Blank After Indicators' option was checked, and edits were made in Text view, and the user switched to MARC View, the MARC delimiters might be removed at the beginning of each field.
• Importing records when a filter was applied (randomly?) failed; a limitation of using filters is that records cannot be added to or removed from a file when a filter is applied; a pop-up message to this effect will now be shown by the program during the F9 processing.

Build 860

• Fixes a problem an inconsistency in cmx.exe (the batch marc-2-xml utility)
• Adds a special option called 'Truncate Record elements' to the marc-2-xml utility (incl. cmx); as a rule, this option should not be selected, because it interferes with the natural stylsheet transformation process.

Build 851

• Fixes a typo in a 'reverse' RDA crosscheck for 'pages'.

Build 848

• Fixes a problem with autoreviews containing a 'Same Record Duplicate Field' job.

Build 843

• Fixes a few problems in the new cataloging check code for RDA/MARC
• Adds about 10 new cataloging checks for the above
• Adds an indicator for current 'Description Rules support' setting to the bottom of the screen

Build 835

Problems with the update script on our website should now be fixed.

• Fix MARC Review/MARC Global bug: some patterns²⁾ were not saved correctly.
• option added to the Version 3 tab for RDA Toolkit Username/Password

Build 82x

• Links to the RDA Toolkit are now available when you press <F1> in an edit session. For this to work you will need a toolkit license that recognizes your IP address. (We will add other means of access in the future).

Build 812

• Add 'mconcat.exe' - a command-line utility for joining one file to another

Build 806

Includes changes also made to version 2:

• Diacritic display order changed
• MARC Review support for Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions
• Cataloging check support for RDA–(Help for this in progress)

Build 798

• Added a 'Blank Around Subfields' option to Text view/Print format

Build 789

• Added a 'Print' option to Text view

Build 788

NOTE: no more major changes are expected for v3 until version 236 is released

• Changed the 'Diacritics only' radiobutton to be sticky throughout a session
• May have fixed picture rotation bug (finally)
• Fixed a bug in MG/Add a Tag introduced in #771
• Added an XML-aware concatenation utility to distribution (xcat.exe)
• Fixed a few form errors in version 2 (caused by version 3 code)

Build 774

• Added new xml concatention utility 'xCat' to the installation. Unlike 'Concatenate Files', which simply mashes the files together, this utility uses the DOM to load each file; so there should be an intact XML structure when it completes (or that is the goal).

Build 771

• Various fixes for the new MARC Review list search feature (and as such, this applies to all users not just version 3); includes the resuscitation of the 'old' way of searching a list; for details please see this article: List searching in MARC Review

Build 768

• A new (and we hope improved) interface for defining Edit Session Macros has been added to version 3. Its now possible to define 36 macros in version 3.
• A few changes have been made to the MARC Help form (F1); it is now possible to enter a coded value into a record by selecting it in Help and pressing the 'Append' button ³⁾.

Build 762

• Fixes several annoying problems introduced in 757…

Build 757

• The first time this version runs, the 'views' will be cleared; please go into the options and reset them.
• Merging items in MARC Global was being limited to 10,000 items (shld be 100,000); Fixed.
• Some of the pop-up confirmation messages in the program are under construction

Build 754

• There was a bug applying case-sensitivity to MR List searches. Fixed.
• The 'Enabled' field in a MARC Review Cataloging Check group was being ignored. Fixed.

Build 753

• An update to better support very large value lists (up to 10,000 items). List searching is much faster.
• Changed the name of 'Meta view' to 'Labelled view', for now; An overview of Labelled view (in progress)

Build 742

• A new option, that allows different cataloging checks to be applied to RDA records than to AACR2 records, has been added to the program. However, this option is not completely functional. It should be left set to 'AACR2' for the time being.
• Changes made in Meta view should be reflected in other views when the Save button is pressed (and vice-versa).
• Control fields (001-005, 009) were not displayed in Meta view–Fixed in this build.
• In the label file used by Meta view, the mnemonic codes used to represent indicators have been changed from 'I1' to '%1' and 'I2' to '%2'.
• An option to add new data elements has been added to Meta view. The list of elements available are generated from the label file selected in the options. Any elements (eg. main entry) already present in the view that are 'not-repeatable' will be grayed out in this list⁴⁾.
• To support the above, the label file format has been modified to provide for i) the 'grouping' of labels, and ii) the ordering of subfields in the list of elements available⁵⁾. Options to hide 'Numeric subfields' and 'Indicators' have also been added to the new element list.
• A fairly typical 'Find & Replace' option has been added to Text View. The 'Undo' option will only undo the last change, but keep in mind, if you make a complete mess of a record, switch over to MARC view and press 'Undo' to restore the original record from disk.
• A new option has been added to the 'MR Filter' feature called 'Create Brief message'⁶⁾. What this option does is this: whenever an MR Filter is created and applied, an item for this filter will be added to the Brief messages on the right. If you then click on the corresponding message, the program will place the cursor on the exact position of the pattern match.
• The internals of the MARC Review cataloging checks has been overhauled, and hopefully this will make the feature easier to use. In the past, MARC Review had to be run, a saved review created, then the saved review exported to XML, and finally, the XML version of the review re-imported at runtime. We have removed the import/export layer, and now MARC Report connects directly to the user's saved reviews⁷⁾. In addition, the configuration of the MARC Review cataloging checks was very limited in the past (some might say 'broken'). That issue has now been addressed⁸⁾. The help pages for this feature will be updated on this site as soon as possible.
• Work has begun to support user value lists in MARC Report. We are still investigating a mechanism for implementing this effeciently. Its tricky because value list validation may also require a 'condition'⁹⁾. To support these conditionals, an obvious tool is MARC Review. Thus, in this build, MARC Review and MARC Global have been enhanced so that patterns derived from lists can now be saved to a saved review. This, in essence, means that user value lists are now available in MARC Report by creating a MARC Review Cataloging Check.

Build 721

• Fixes a bug recently introduced in meta view where all indicator elements would fall out as unmapped fields.
• This build adds a way to quickly 'Tag' or 'bookmark' records while browsing (by pressing F4). At any time the list of bookmarked records can be written to a file ¹⁰⁾. In addition, bookmarks can be applied to navigation in the same way that a MR Filter or Title List filter can be–although only one of these filters can be active at any given time. The one difference is that bookmarks do not go away after a filter is cleared; they persist until you clear them (and there is a menu option to 'Clear All' bookmarks).
• This build adds a 'Load' button to the 'Set MR Filter' form so that the user masy now access any saved reviews they have created in MARC Review and run them in the current edit session.

Build 714

• The program will now run Batch mode on an XML file; up to now, this functionality was only available for an Edit Session (see note in #559 below). Also, since Batch mode does not make changes to the source file, the temporary files used in the conversion will be cleaned up (by default) when the run is complete. If you want to be prompted for this clean-up, unselect 'Automatically cleanup conversion files' on the Batch mode page of the options.
• A new option called 'Filters' has been added to the Edit session menu. The purpose of this option is to collect all of the many filtering options available in version 3 in one place, and also explain them! This work is still IN PROGRESS. However, none of the existing controls for filtering have been moved.
• In conjunction with the above, some of the filtering options have been renamed slightly. The 'Set Filter' button now reads 'Set MR Filter'. The 'Tag Filter' is now the 'Brief Message Filter'. It is now possible to set a brief message filter during an edit session, as it is no longer linked to the similar option on the Batch mode page.
• Fixed a couple of bugs re: MR and Title List Filtering. A session would sometimes end unexpectedly when going backwards, or would not go back to the first record in the file. The title list filter would not allow multiple rows to be selected.
• A new option has been added (to the 'Version 3' page) that allows you to set the mode the program should open a file in whenever you select a file using the 'File|Select MARC' or 'File|Re-open' menu.
• WARNING: This build includes the first attempts to save changes on the meta view page; changes in that view may change the 'source' record in MARC view. So be careful!

Build 710

• Fixes a bug introduced into MG, probably in 682, in which entering '000' and pressing tab popped up the 008 template.
• In the 'Set Filter' (MARC Review) interface, it was not possible to specify a fixed field. You can do this, now in #710, but you will need to enter the POS (Position, or Offset) and LEN fields manually.
• Added Expand/Collapse buttons (a plus sign and a minus sign) to Meta view (these controls work only if 'Group by Marc' is turned on).
• Very small change made to Export utility so that the first 100 records can be popped up simply by pressing 'Enter' three times (as a response to the various prompts) instead of having to use the mouse to close the dialog.

Build 697

• In Meta view: the Occ column is now never visible, even if 'Hide MARC Tags' is turned off; the 'Wrap caption' has been removed as a (broken) option; when Hide Marc Tags is turned on, the program will sort the Captions by the underlying MARC Tags (instead of by the Captions themselves as it does in #682).

Build 682

• The Meta view is somewhat functional (again). The changes are too numerous to mention (and ongoing). A documentation page for 'Meta' will be available as soon as things settle down.
• Added improved type-checking to the fixed field templates. Previously, it would be possible to add, for example, a Community Information format 007 to an Authority record. Now, only templates relevant to the current record type will be available.
• Along the same lines as the above: if you change the record type byte of the leader, and the new value will result in a different 008 template, a warning will pop-up to that effect, and the record will automatically be revalidated with the new record type value (no doubt spawning a large number of messages for the 008).

Build 629

• The 'Meta' view page is under heavy construction at the present, and should probably be avoided in the current build.
• Version 3 would not auto-recover a crashed edit session. This problem has been fixed in build 629.
• Version 3 did not skip records with MARC Errors correctly. It will now work the same as the standard version.
• There was a problem in MARC View adding a new 008 to a record that did not have one; each keystroke in the fixed field editor (at the top of this view) would create a new field. Fixed.
• There was a problem with the new feature that allows a text file to be selected (see 559 below), because the program would use the '.txt' extension to determine the file type. The program will now check all '.txt' files to see if they are actually MARC21 files before anything else.
• There was an option under the 'File' menu named 'New record' (it allows creation of new empty record); this option has been moved to the Edit menu.
• Using F11 to add a template record to an edit session will now automatically select the last template opened; the purpose of this is to speed up adding a template top a session repeatedly.
• Pressing 'Save' when a template record is being edited in version 3 will automatically tweak the leader; in the standard version, Leader/23 must be manually changed to '0' to turn on validation messages for a template record.

Build 563

• 'Save this record as a Template' (F12) was broken. Fixed in #563.

Build 559

• Changed the modal form used for pop-up messages to always 'stay on top' (See note in #502, below)
• Moved the label for the 'Notes' from the bottom of the window to the top
• There was a problem with the 'Diacritics' radiobutton in X View–when navigating to a new record it would need to be toggled on and off to function properly. Fixed.
• New: From the File|Select MARC Menu, select a supported XML file (DC-OAI, DC-SRW, DC-RDF, MODS, MADS, MARCXML), then start an Edit Session¹¹⁾. The program will convert the XML file to MARC21 and start an edit session on the converted file. When you close the edit session, the program will ask you if you want to save your results (if applicable), and if so, write them back to the XML format that you started with. If you did not make any changes, you are simply prompted to delete the temporary conversion file.
• New: Similarly, select a text file in MARC Tagged text format, and then start an Edit Session ¹²⁾

—-

Build 502

• Getting reports that the edit session hangs when no changes are made. This may be a problem with the pop-up window ('No changes were made') being hidden behind the main form. If you run into this problem, try updating to #559, and please let us know of the results.

There is no public documentation for version 3 changes earlier than #502. If you have an earlier build, please update to the latest build by following the ß–Next version link on the left