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What's New in ScorePost?
[Updated for version 3.17: 2021-12-17]

What's New?

Use BridgeComposer "Help→Help Topics" for details on commands, options, etc. that have been added or changed.

[2024-12-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.109:

New menu command: Tools→Validate All Boards (Strict).
File→Page Layout: New Layout option: Curtain card, West on left.
Tools→All Boards: Board→Adjust View: New checkbox to hide Contract and Declarer.
Format→Board Layout, General tab: New Commentary option: List item indent.
Automation: New BridgeComposer Object method: LoadLayoutEx.
Board→Edit dialog: The Room field ([empty], Open, or Closed) is now shown (next to the Board field).
Board→Edit: Contract field: If the strain is "N", it is automatically changed to "NT".
Tools→Double Dummy All Boards: Display percent complete and elapsed time on the progress panel.
SharkBridge: Accommodate the [StartGuidedPlay] PBN section.
Fix: Hand records for team events show each board twice.
Fix: Tools→Generate Random Boards fails with the message "Unspecified error".
Fix: Column break not working in 2-columns, 2 boards per column page layout.
Fix: Curtain card page layout: If a board is single-suited, the pagination is incorrect.
Fix: File→Save As HTML: In the hand diagram, when West is hidden the labels are too close to the North hand.
Fix: Card table dealer arrow shows as a question mark.

[2024-08-26] Key features and bug fixes in 5.108:

A focus of this release has been to see that your BridgeComposer PBN file can be processed by other apps, such as dealing machine apps and the convert-to-LIN app.

Board→Edit: New "Hide" checkbox for Contract & Declarer. (These fields are required if you have a Play section.)
Board→Copy: Fills (and hides) Contract & Declarer when possible, based on the Auction.
Board→Copy As→Copy Partial: Always copies Contract & Declarer, but hides them if they were not selected for copy.
Board→Edit: Board field: Automatically removes leading and/or trailing whitespace.
Board→Edit: Board field: When it contains a non-standard value, shows a caution background color (yellow by default).
Board→Edit: Auction field: Bids ending with "N" are automatically changed to end with "NT".
Enter Auction dialog: Call annotation Note text: Displays a character counter.
Board→Validate: Improve Play section diagnostics.
Board→Validate: New validation messages:
- 121: Board→Edit: Board field is not a positive integer
- 122: Board→Edit: A non-empty Play field requires a valid Deal field plus a valid Auction field and/or valid Contract and Declarer fields
- 706: Auction or Play Note exceeds the PBN standard length limit (241 characters)

New menu command: Board→Enter Auction. Opens the same dialog as the Enter Auction button in the Board Edit dialog.
Enter Auction dialog: Added controls to set the Dealer field.
Enter Auction dialog: Use pips from the Symbol font in the "bidding box".
Improved touchscreen support: Pan gesture will scroll, pinch gesture will zoom.
As a result of touchscreen support: "Ctrl+mouse wheel" will zoom; "Ctrl+Shift+mouse wheel" will zoom more slowly.
Card entry fields: Disabled keyboard auto-repeat.

Fix: Export As LIN: Was not exporting Play unless Contract was filled in. Now it exports Play OK as long as the Auction is valid.
Fix: Edit Control Extensions: Issues with "Insert Character" pop-up menu command.
Fix: Enter Auction Dialog: Changes to the notes were not always applied.
Fix: File Explorer preview may stop working after previewing a zero-length LIN file.
Fix: Board→Validate erroneously reports "##" as an incorrect Result tag value.
Fix: Tools→Bridge Bots→GIB: When numbering an auction note, account for any preexisting notes.

[2024-06-14] Addition to Scripting Library:

CreateDealType.wsf: New deal type: "Strong 1NT Opener - Random responder hand".

[2024-05-25] Fix in 5.107.1:

Fix: Enter Auction dialog: Two or more auction notes can run together.

[2024-05-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.107:

Alert!

File→Export As→LIN Format: These commands now require the helper program NetBridgeVu from BBO. If you do not have NetBridgeVu installed, a message box will be shown. Click the "Help" button in this message box for information on how to install NetBridgeVu. (Note: The "BFC" program is no longer used by BridgeComposer.)

The PDF option "Attach PBN file" has been moved to the Edit→Options Advanced tab. Its value is now stored in the BridgeComposer user's profile rather than in each PBN document.

Major features:

Board→Edit dialog: New Enter Auction dialog.
Edit Control Extensions: For certain dialog text boxes, support suit pips, bold, italic, underline, text color, and more.

Tools→All Boards:

Board menu: Augment the commands available to match the main window Board menu.
Edit→Select All: If all boards are already selected, clear the selection.

Board→Copy images:

Images created with Board→Copy (etc.) now have a small bit of horizontal padding by default. See Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option: Image horizontal padding.
Fix: Board→Copy: When a diagram is not centered, there can be excessive white space on the right.

Scripting:

Script progress panel: New Beep when finished checkbox, so that scripts that use the progress panel will finish quietly unless asked to beep.
Fix: Sometimes, after running a script, another app comes to the foreground.

Other changes:

When the Auction is a pass out, "Pass" was being displayed as the Contract, which might be misconstrued as an additional Auction call. Now, "Pass out" is displayed by default, and this phrase may be translated. And, if the translation is set to "hide", nothing will be displayed.
New menu command: Board→Leader for end-position diagrams.
Board→Double Dummy: Display a warning message when the DDA in the document may need to be recalculated.
Fix: Improve the Windows File Explorer icons for LIN, BRI, DUP, and DLM files (when they are set to "open with BridgeComposer").
Fix: Enter Hands dialog: Deleting a card from a suit text box (using the Backspace or Delete key) causes the caret to jump to the right end of the suit text.
Fix: Enter Hands, Dictate Hands: Spurious error alert upon clicking OK.
Fix: Windows File Explorer preview pane scrambled.

[2023-12-06] Key features and bug fixes in 5.105:

File→Save As PDF: A copy of the PBN is automatically embedded in the PDF as an attached file.
Tools→All Boards: New menu command: Board→Set Room.
View→Practice Play: Improvements.
Recovery startup (right shift key): Remove the printer setting rather than just ignoring it one time.
Online scripting library: New script RotateDeclarer.js.

Fix: Crash using File→Export As→LIN Format (regression in 5.104).
Fix: File→Export As→LIN Format: Exclamation mark after an auction call causes the rest of the auction to be dropped.
Fix: Crash when BridgeComposer starts in "Zoom→Fit Window" mode.
Fix: Edit→Options, Spelling tab: Issues with dictionary selection.
Fix: File Explorer says "No preview available" for supported file types (regression in 5.104.1).
Fix: File Explorer Preview: Incorrect display of "as many as will fit" layouts.
Fix: File Explorer Preview: Incorrect display of landscape documents.
Fix: File Explorer Preview: Sometimes the preview pane flashes (paints the screen twice).

[2023-09-21] PDFtoPBN.js is added to the Scripting Library. It converts PDF hand records produced by BridgeComposer back into PBN. Requires BCExtractText from the Bonus Software page.

[2023-09-07] BCInstaller is updated to version 1.9.

[2023-09-04] Fix in 5.104.1:

Fix: Edit→Options settings are not remembered correctly (regression in 5.104).

[2023-09-01] Key features and bug fixes in 5.104:

Windows File Explorer "preview pane" will now display the first page of PBN, LIN, DUP, DLM, and BRI files.

New menu commands:
- View→Practice Play
- File→Export As→New Duplimate (.dlm)
- File→Export As→LIN Classic+ Format
- View→Play An Optimal Card
- View→Zoom→Plus 10%, View→Zoom→Minus 10%

Edit→Options, Spelling tab: New option: Check first word of sentences capitalized.
When opening DUP, DLM, and BRI files, Hand Record page layout is now automatically applied.
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Alt+F4 can no longer be reassigned (it is reserved for "Window close").
Enter Hands Keyboard Map: Added a "Restore Factory Defaults" button.

Automation updates:
- New BridgeComposer object method: ExportAsNewDuplimate.
- New Board object method: EvaluateHand.
- BridgeComposer object ParsePbn method: New optional argument: index.
- Fix: Board object GetTagValue('BCFlags') returns an empty string.

Scripting Library additions:
- GenPracticePlay.wsf: Generates random deals for the new View→Practice Play feature.
- EvaluateHands.wsf: Places a copy of the pop-up hand evaluation tooltip information in the Diagram Commentary section of each board so that it is always visible.

Help topics: Alert that using deal set statistics for a decision on whether or when to play a set of deals is a violation of the Laws of Duplicate Bridge, section 6E4.

[2023-06-01] Key features and bug fixes in 5.103:

Format→Board Layout, General tab: New options: Space below diagram, Space below auction.

Workaround: Pointer cursor is a "big black box" (regression in 5.101). Restart BridgeComposer with the "right shift" keyboard key held down to force the Edit→Options, Advanced tab "Resize cursors" option to "No".

Fix: Script Favorites dialog: Remove superfluous controls (that may be confusing): Run button; drop-down arrow on Add button.
Fix: LIN input conversion: Handle pip symbols encoded with exclamation point.
Fix: LIN input conversion: Drop right braces in commentary text, since they cannot be stored in standard PBN files.

[2023-02-13] Key features and bug fixes in 5.102:

Board→Edit dialog: Shortcut keys: Ctrl+A is changed from "Edit auction notes" to "Select All [in current text box]". Added Alt+Shift+A for "Edit auction notes" and Alt+Shift+P for "Edit play notes".
Format→Board Layout, General tab, Double Dummy Analysis format: New option: Grid (4 rows, in diagram).
Format→Board Layout, Translate tab: Provide translation for Score Tables and Total Score Tables.
Enter Hands dialog: New Show Diagram checkbox.
Enter Hands dialog: The "Keyboard Entry" feature has been renamed more accurately as "Keypad Entry". There is no change in how it works.

Fix: Suboptimal play colors are not saved in the document.
Fix: Board→Image: Auction and Play Notes are clipped at the bottom sometimes.
Fix: Board→Image: Fixed a number of issues, including for when "View→Next To Play" and/or "View→Suboptimal Plays" are selected.
Fix: Play position view: An attempt to modify the play can result in an invalid Play section.
Fix: Board validation of ScoreTable PairIds fails after importing certain USEBIO XML files.

[2022-12-18] Bug fixes in 5.101.2:

Fix: Crash during startup when OneDrive is needed but not running.
Fix: Export As LIN Format: LIN files created in Archive format do not import into BBO properly, and other issues.

[2022-11-22] Bug fixes in 5.101.1:

Fix: Hand record printing: Spurious "Section too big (DDA bottom)" diagnostics (regression in 5.101).
Fix: Pointer cursor is a gray square (regression in 5.101).
If this problem persists, you may try setting this new option to "No": Edit→Options, Advanced tab: Resize cursors (Yes/No).

[2022-11-17] Key features and bug fixes in 5.101:

This release includes all the features and fixes listed for the 5.99.5 pre-release (see below), plus the following:

Board→Image: Bitmap PPI: Show current screen PPI (with a * appended) in the list of settings.
DDA format "Grid (4 rows)": Add support for HTML, plain text, and Check Score Data.

Fix: Card table dealer indicator arrow not showing if Dealer tag not set.
Fix: Board→Image: Does not display Hand Record DDA format "Grid (4 rows)" correctly.

[2022-11-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.99.5:

This is a pre-release. It is not available using Help→Check For Updates; you must download and run the appropriate MSI file:
(32-bit) https://bridgecomposer.com/Download/BridgeComposer5-99-5.msi
(64-bit) https://bridgecomposer.com/Download/BridgeComposer64bit5-99-5.msi

New menu command: File→Export As→LIN Archive Format for importing into BBO deal archive.
Board→Edit: New setting: Other Tags: RealBridge Impose Actions.
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option: Size image widths to content. Set to "No" to size images like version 5.97 and earlier.
Format→Board Layout, Card Table tab: New option: Small for single-suit: Display a smaller card table for single-suit hand diagrams.
Tools→All Boards; Board→Clear: New options to clear the ParContract tag and the RealBridge Impose Actions setting.
Format→Board Layout, General tab: Additional hand evaluation option: Kaplan-Rubens.
Format→Board Layout, Card Table tab: New option Dealer indicator. Shows an arrow pointing toward the dealer.
Support Windows 10+ Settings→Accessibility→Mouse pointer and touch→Mouse pointer size.

Fix: Board→Edit, Enter Hands dialog: Additional color is now used in the user interface to enhance contrast.
Fix: Board→Rotate, Board→Rotate Hands: Take translation into account when updating commentary sections.
Fix: File→Export As→LIN Format: To avoid conversion problems, adjust commentary and notes that contain brace characters and notes that contain double quote characters.
Fix: In end position and card combination diagrams, the second card cannot be "played".
Fix: LIN input conversion: Commentary and notes occasionally missing a space between words.
Fix: File→Save As PDF: When the diagram is float left, sometimes the commentary overlays the diagram.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Fails to import BWS files from BridgeTabs scoring devices.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data (USEBIO .xml file): Does not import IMPs for Butler pairs.
Fix: Tools→Import USEBIO Selected: Fails to create ScoreIMP PBN tags.

[2022-08-15] Key features in 5.98:

"File→Export As→Bridge Base Online" has been renamed to File→Export As→LIN Classic Format.
A new command, File→Export As→LIN Modern Format, has been added.
(The "File→Export As→" submenu has been rearranged to maintain alphabetical order.)
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: The "LIN encoding" option has been removed since it is no longer needed.
Board→Copy, Board→Image, OLE items: Images have been made more compact by reducing white space.
Format→Board Layout, General tab, "DDA format" option: The existing "Grid" option has been renamed to Grid (2 rows).
New options added: Grid (4 rows) and Grid (4 rows, no par).

[2022-07-15] Added a Utility Software page to the website. The initial offering is Bridge Dealer, a GUI program to generate lesson boards ( Updated 2022-07-28).

[2022-04-24] Key features and bug fixes in 5.97:

Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option LIN encoding to select charset encoding for files created using "File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin)".
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option Impose PBN charset for USEBIO.
New (non-standard) tag in BridgeComposer PBN files: ParContract. (Appears in existing files only after double dummy has been performed.)
Hand Record Page Layout: Adjust the displayed page numbers to account for hidden boards. This allows printing hand record pages on an as-needed basis with the correct page number displayed.

Fix: Tools→Import Score Data (USEBIO .xml file): Incorrect abbreviation of some player names.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data (USEBIO .xml file): When the hands are unknown, empty boards are shown (regression in 5.96).
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data (USEBIO .xml file): For some files, the "total score table" display is duplicated.
Fix: File→Save As PDF: Incorrect pip symbols. Auto-correct bad data in documents created by version 5.96.
Fix: View→Suboptimal Plays: Not working when the Play section ends with a *.
Fix: Auction is missing following initial Board→Edit of a board (regression in 5.96).

[2022-03-25] Fix in 5.96.1:

Fix: File→Save As PDF: Incorrect pip symbols using the default pip font (Symbol) (regression in 5.96).

[2022-03-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.96:

Format→Board Layout, General tab, Play section: New option Hide Result if Play incomplete.
Format→Board Layout, Pips tab: New pip font choice: Segoe.
Format→Board Layout, HTML tab: New option Language: value for the <html> tag "lang" attribute. (Use Format→Layout→Save As Default to have this setting persist.)
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option ACBLscore Game File location.
Tools→Import Score Data (ACBLscore .txt file): Look for the .bws file in both the .txt file's folder and the ACBLscore "gamefile" folder.
Tools→Import Score Data (USEBIO .xml file): Import hand record data when present in USEBIO 1.0 format.
Automation: BridgeComposer object "progress" method: New operation FINISH.

Fix: Board→Edit dialog "New" button: Avoid inserting empty boards.
Fix: LIN input conversion: Add a "*" to the Play field when play ends early.
Fix: OLE support: Automatically widen embedded objects to avoid clipping of the card holdings.
Fix: File→Validate HTML: Stopped working; updated to use https.

[2022-02-06] Fix in 5.95:

Fix: File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): Text with diacritical marks may appear scrambled. (BridgeComposer now exports PBN for NetBridgeVu using ISO-8859-1 encoding, rather than UTF-8.)

[2022-01-29] Fix in 5.94:

Fix: File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): Fails to complete on some computers.

[2022-01-28] Additions to the online Scripting Library:

BCScriptInstaller: a new app to download and install scripts.
SharkFix.js: a new script that fixes up a SharkBridge PBN file so that BridgeComposer displays it properly.

[2021-12-23] Feature in 5.93:

File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): The helper program BFC is no longer available. NetBridgeVu may be used instead. (If you already have BFC installed, no change is required.)

[2021-12-04] Fix in 5.92:

Fix: When ScorePost calls BridgeComposer, it gets "Invalid number of parameters" (regression in BridgeComposer 5.86).

[2021-11-26] Key features and bug fixes in 5.91:

Main window: Clicking the mouse wheel now enables and disables continuous scrolling mode.
New commands: View→Column Break Before, View→Page Break Before.
New commands: Edit→Copy Evaluation→North/East/South/West.
New commands: Edit→Copy Hand→North/East/South/West.
Format→Board Layout, General tab: New option: Hide Event text for all boards.
Tools→Import Score Data: USEBIO XML files: Show a "Set Section" text box on the file open dialog.
Tools→Import Score Data: USEBIO XML files: Improvements to the "total score table" that is shown before the first board.
Tools→Import Score Data: For pairs events, set the PBN "Scoring" tag to "Matchpoints;MP1" or "Matchpoints;MP2" as appropriate. (Previously, it was [Scoring "MP2"].)
Tools→Import USEBIO Selected: Allow any number of pairs (or teams) to be selected. Alert! The effect of "Select All" has changed.
View→Source, View→New PBN: Show line numbers.
File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): Warn about issues that might preclude successful export.
File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): Add a "View Input" button to the BFC failure dialog.

Fix: OLE object: The board image in the container app was clipped (regression in 5.86).
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: USEBIO XML files: Handle lead card in rank+suit order.
Fix: Teaching mat page layout: Support more paper sizes, including Legal, A5, others.
Fix: Edit→Paste: Handle the UNICODE "white" suit characters properly.
Fix: File→Validate HTML: Crash if unable to connect to validation server.
Fix: Crash trying to modify Format→Board Layout, General tab, "Space below Event text" (regression in 5.89).
Fix: File→Export As→Bridge Base Online (.lin): Notes and Commentary: Pips and hard newlines are not converted properly.
Fix: Board→Create Slides (View→Slide Highlighting): During the auction, the wrong hand may be highlighted (regression in 5.84).
Fix: On Windows 11, the card drag/drop custom cursors are not drawn correctly.

[2021-09-14] Key features and bug fixes in 5.89:

Add support for USEBIO XML Files:
- The Tools→Import Score Data command can now import USEBIO XML files. The results for all pairs (or teams) are shown in a Score Table for each board.
- New menu command: Tools→Import USEBIO Selected. Information for one selected pair (or team) is shown for each board. This includes auction, contract, declarer, play, result, and score (when the corresponding data is present in the USEBIO file).
- Both commands support the RealBridge.online "LIN data" extension.
New menu command and toolbar control: Format→Text Color.
Board→Copy As→Copy Partial: Add checkboxes for the player names.
Board→Copy As→Copy Partial: Make initial checkbox selection the same as was last used. Add "Check All" and "Uncheck All" buttons.
Script menu: Show all of the favorites (rather than just the top 16).
Script→Favorites: Show assigned keyboard shortcuts.
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Notify the user if assigning a shortcut key combination that includes the Shift and/or Ctrl keys will modify the operation of the selected command.
Spelling check improvements:
- Handle words and phrases enclosed with apostrophes serving as quotation marks.
- Handle words containing hyphens in the BC and user dictionaries.
- Handle card holdings with translated card ranks.
Handle UTF-16 LE and UTF-16 BE encoding for input files.
LIN input conversion: Capture matchpoint percentage score.
Double dummy solver program: It is now properly referred to as "DDS" rather than "dds.dll".

Fix: Play position view: Entering a new opening lead gets the message: [Play ""] incorrect.
Fix: Taskbar jumplist task "Center windows" gets "VCRUNTIME140.DLL not found".
Fix: PBN files with CR CR LF line terminators (transferred from Macintosh?) are not read properly.
Fix: Diagram float left: Bottom gutter is too tall when the Event field is displayed.
Fix: LIN input conversion:
- Board has scoreboard result but does not show it.
- Issues handling boards listed in the scoreboard but otherwise missing.
- When a scoreboard is present, always use its values for Contract, Declarer, and Result.
- Very old file with redundant data causes duplicate boards.
- Contract should be "Pass" when scoreboard shows passed out.
- If board is missing from the scoreboard but present in the file data, force Score to zero.
- Incorrect vulnerability in LIN file causes score to be incorrect.
- Incorrectly determined that boards were missing (regression in 5.87).
- An incomplete auction causes the Contract to be "NT".

[2021-05-07] Key features and bug fixes in 5.88:

Automation: Note collection: New method: RemoveAll.
Fix: LIN input conversion: For certain input files, the same player names were shown in both rooms.

[2021-04-16] Key features and bug fixes in 5.87:

Edit→Options, General tab: New option Main Window File Drop: File drop default action: Allows you to make "Open" the default action when a file is dragged and dropped on the main window.
LIN input conversion: Handle boards listed in the scoreboard, but otherwise missing, by inserting a placeholder board.
Fix: Incorrect selection highlighting for the first line of an indented paragraph.
Fix: Automation: The BrowseForFolder dialog is not always the frontmost window.
Fix: Automation: BC object CallerPathname property: Should return empty string if document has unsaved changes.
Fix: Automation: Problems with Note collection Current property and Remove method.
Fix: LIN input conversion: If there is no card play given, the contract/declarer fields are not set.

[2021-03-29] Key features and bug fixes in 5.86:

Tools→Generate Random Boards: The built-in dealer is now BigDeal.
Board→Image: Additional image format: Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF), ideal for importing into Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint). One advantage of EMF format is that it can be scaled up or down to any size or resolution without introducing any fuzziness or distortion.
File→Page Layout; Edit→Options; Format→Board Layout: Adjust colors of property grid elements to improve contrast.
Tools→Bridge Bots submenu: New commands: Bid Only, Bid Only in Commentary, Bid Only All Boards.
File→Export As→Bridge Base Online: Improve reporting of conversion problems.
Script→Favorites: New Arguments parameter for scripts.
Automation:

New BC object property: CallerPathname.
New BC object method: GetDealer, designed to improve performance of scripts like "CreateDealType" (see below).
BC object BrowseForFile method: New file parameter.
BC object progress method: New option to change the label on the Cancel button.
New Board object method: WriteImageFile.

Online Scripting Library:

New: AuctionAdjust.js: Changes "All pass" into three (or four) passes; or vice-versa.
Updated: CreateDealType.wsf:

Additional deal types implemented: Jacoby 2NT, Overcall in a Suit, Takeout Double, Negative Double, Lebensohl After Double of a Weak Two, Declarer Play (three finessing situations), Reverse (revised), Experimental (search for certain rare deal types).
New "DefineFilter" function is a bit easier to use than "AddFilter". See updated webpage Adding New Deal Types. ("AddFilter" remains available for backward compatibility.)
Additional global utility functions to assist with writing filter functions.
Improved performance.

New: ExportCardsOnlyAsLIN.js: Creates a LIN file containing cards only (strips out auction, play, and commentary).
New: ImageAllBoards.wsf: Creates EMF image files for all boards in a document, good for inserting pictures into Microsoft Office.

Fix: Improve accuracy of progress bars.
Fix: Tools→Bridge Bots→Bid and Play: Can fail with "Unexpected message" error (regression in 5.82).
Fix: View→Next To Play: Sometimes, cards were not being played immediately when clicked.
Fix: LIN input conversion: Set result for a board as per the scoreboard if it differs from the number of tricks claimed.
Fix: Metafiles: Some objects are scaled to the wrong size when the system display is scaled greater than 100%.
Fix: Automation: BC object EnableRecovery method not working.
Fix: Crash in OLE in-place editing mode.
Fix: Dialogs not showing I-beam cursor over textboxes (regression in 5.82).

[2020-12-23] Key features and bug fixes in 5.85:

Double-dummy par contracts: When making exactly, show an = sign.
View→Zoom→Other: Improved user interface.
Format→Board Layout, Translate tab: Translation is now available for the hand evaluation tooltips.
File→Page Layout: New layout: Two columns, 2 boards per column.
Automation "NewBoard" method: New (optional) index parameter.
LIN file input conversion:
- Set tags in the first board from the "vg" data:
  - Standard tags: Event, HomeTeam, VisitTeam; Scoring (set to IMP for team games)
  - Non-standard tags: HomeTeamCarryover, VisitTeamCarryover (set when non-zero)
- Fix: Player names are missing or incorrect sometimes.
- Fix: Do not set player names to "South", "West", etc.
- Fix: Set the Contract tag to "Pass" when the Auction is four passes (as per the PBN standard).

Fix: View→Suboptimal Plays: Highlighting was not visible in all situations.
Fix: Tools→Sort All Boards By Number: When the section and board numbers are equal, sort the Open room before the Closed room.

[2020-11-25] Key features and bug fixes in 5.84:

Double Dummy Analysis: Show par on a new line (when space permits).
Writing recovery file: Performance improvements.
Automation: New Board object method: DDSStartAnalyzePlay.
Automation: New Board object method: AddPlayCard.

Fix: LIN input conversion: Double-quote in a note causes an incorrect PBN file.
Fix: View→Next To Play: For an end-position diagram, sometimes the first player selected is incorrect.
Fix: WBridge5 Bot Bid and Play: During play, the display overwrites the final commentary.
Fix: Automation: C# Add Reference gets "error during type verification" (regression in 5.76).

[2020-08-29] Key features and bug fixes in 5.83:

Provide a 64-bit download in addition to the existing 32-bit download.

Fix: Crash using spelling correction in an Auction or Play Note (regression in 5.82).
Fix: PDF hand records: Deal set statistics are missing sometimes (regression in 5.82).
Fix: Edit→Undo: Undoing everything leaves Vulnerability set to "None" (regression in 5.82).
Fix: Excessive white space between West hand and card table.
Fix: Hand record logo image is too small when display is scaled greater than 100%.
Fix: Automation DDSGetResult method could hang.

[2020-08-03] Key features and bug fixes in 5.82:

Format→Board Layout, General tab: Reorganized by adding more categories and reordering options.
Powerful new menu command to analyze the Play section: View→Suboptimal Plays.
Scripting Library: New script SolveBoard.wsf provides current-position double-dummy solutions, and more.
New menu command: Help→About dds.dll. Includes memory and thread usage information.
Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 2.9.0. Among other things, this version supports CPUs with more than 16 logical processors.
Help→Check For Updates: When the download digital signature fails to verify, provide the option to install anyway.
HTML Horizontal NavBar: Provide for more than two rows of buttons (up to 20 buttons per row).
Automation: In a message box, pressing Ctrl+C will copy the message text to the clipboard.
Automation: Interface to the double dummy solver.
Automation: New BridgeComposer object method: SetFont.

Fix: Be more forgiving in handling "import format" PBN files.
Fix: LIN conversion; bot bidding: Don't collapse three (or four) passes into "All pass" if any of the passes are annotated.
Fix: Board select drop-down control: Scrolling with the mouse wheel not working in Windows prior to Win10 (regression in 5.53).
Fix: "Center windows" jumplist task may get a spurious Windows message "This program might not have run correctly".
Fix: Automation: Unable to set the Date property to zero (to indicate no date is set).

[2020-06-09] Addition to the online Scripting Library:

"HandsByPlayer.wsf": Useful for bidding practice, duplicate hand preparation, and similar functions. Prints each player's card holdings on a separate page. Prints card holdings for 36 or more boards using only four pages (one page per player position).

[2020-06-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.81:

BridgeComposer now can link to BFC to create Bridge Base Online (LIN format) files. See Converting PBN Files to LIN Files.
New, unique icons for LIN, DUP, DLM, and BRI format files (when they are set to open with BridgeComposer by default).
Fix: File→Open: Addressed a number of issues with reading LIN format files.
Fix: Hand Record page layout: When South is hidden, the double dummy analysis might be mispositioned.

[2020-05-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.79:

View→Hide Played Cards: Alert: The "checked" state of this command is no longer remembered between executions of BridgeComposer.
Board→Double Dummy: In makeable contracts mode, the par contract(s) are now always displayed. (Previously, they were displayed only for sacrifices.) A makeable par contract is shown in terms of the minimum required level to bid, plus the number of overtricks needed (when applicable). The minimum required level is determined by (1) bonuses for game and slam, and (2) competitive bidding by the opponents.
Automation: New Board object property: ParContracts.
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: User interface improvements.

Fix: LIN files: Display the correct board numbers when the first board is not number 1.
Fix: Dialog box resizing: Don't allow controls such as Edit boxes to shrink out of sight.

[2020-02-18] Key fix in 5.78.1:

Fix: Version 5.78 fails to install on certain computers.

[2020-02-13] Key features and bug fixes in 5.78:

Format→Hand Record Titles: New Apply button.
Alert: Previously, some changes made with this dialog were rendered immediately in the main window. Now, the main window is never updated until Apply (or OK) is clicked.
Board→Image: New Show whole page option.
For the 30-day free trial: At startup, the number of days remaining is shown in a balloon tooltip.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Problems displaying the player names when names in the BWS file are all upper-case.
Fix: For certain LIN files, BridgeComposer was not setting the board number in the first board.
Fix: Diagram float left: Commentary is misaligned sometimes (top of page rather than top of board).
Fix: Diagram float left: HTML commentary is not vertically aligned with top of board.
Fix: Format→Board Layout, General tab, Board labels, Show: Not working in HTML when all hands are hidden.
Fix: Format→Hand Record Titles; Tools→Generate Random Boards: An invalid date gets "unspecified error".
Fix: Tools→Bridge Bots: WBridge5 interface hangs occasionally.
Fix: Wine: Install fails to create shortcuts (regression in 5.74).
Fix: At startup, the "working in background" cursor is displayed for a few seconds longer than it should be (a long-standing annoyance).
Fix: At startup, the main window flashes twice.

[2019-09-27] Key features and bug fixes in 5.77:

In View→Next To Play mode, now you may play a card using a single-click (rather than a double-click).
Scripting: Now you may specify the first board number for generated random boards:
- Command line: New /randfirst parameter.
- GenerateRandomBoards automation method: New optional "first board" parameter.
Import Score Data dialog: The selected section(s) are retained when the same BWS file is re-imported.
Update build environment to VS2017 15.9.16.
Fix: In a HTML boilerplate file, a "byte order mark" causes the generated HTML file to be incorrect.
Fix: HTML Boilerplate option: Resolve relative paths with respect to the document's folder.
Fix: "Center windows" jumplist task: Handle maximized windows and script windows properly.
Fix: During installation on Windows Vista, shortcuts are not created (regression in 5.74).
Fix: After initial install, the "Bridge Club Utilities" folder did not appear in the Start menu until after a Windows restart (regression in 5.76).

[2019-06-24] Key features and bug fixes in 5.76:

Support has been added for the free bridge-playing program WBridge5:

The existing "Tools→GIB Bid and Play" commands have been moved to a new submenu, Tools→Bridge Bots→.
On the Tools→Bridge Bots→ submenu, you may select which bots to use for the "Bid and Play" commands (GIB or WBridge5).
Neither GIB nor WBridge5 is included with BridgeComposer: you must obtain and install one (or both) separately. See the related Help topics for further information.

Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New option: Days between automatic update checks.
Automation: New Board object properties: AuctionNotes and PlayNotes.
Automation: New collection object methods/property: Reset, MoveNext, Current.
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.9.13.
Fix: A continuous underline in commentary could change color and/or vertical position.
Fix: Edit→Options, Advanced tab: "Automatically check website for program updates": A changed setting is not saved.
Fix: Some unintended files (such as for File→Save As PDF) appear in the system "recently opened" lists.
Fix: File→Save of a very large document could erroneously show the "document modified by another program" message.

[2019-05-15] Key features and bug fixes in 5.75:

Teaching mat page layout: Forgo distracting BridgeComposer branding.
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.9.11.
Fix: Crash if "Save As" or "Export As" is blocked by Windows 10 "controlled folder access".
Fix: In Windows 10 File Explorer, BridgeComposer was not always being suggested when using right-click + "Open With" on supported file types.
Fix: Teaching mat page layout prints blank pages for boards with the diagram hidden.

[2019-03-26] Updates to the online scripting library:

CreateDealType: Script is redesigned to facilitate adding new deal types.
CreateDealType: Twenty new deal types submitted by a contributor.
RenumberBoards: New option to rotate hands when changing the dealer.

[2019-02-10] Key features and bug fixes in 5.74:

New "Task" in the application "jumplist": Center Windows.
- The "jumplist" is accessed by right-clicking the BridgeComposer icon in the Windows taskbar.
- Alert: If you have BridgeComposer pinned to the Windows taskbar, you should un-pin and re-pin it to properly enable this new feature.
Declutter the Board menu:
- The Board→Confirm Score command has been removed (see the Help topic "Commands Moved" for further information).
- Board→Exchange Hands and Board→Exchange Suits have been combined into a submenu.
- Several Board→Copy commands have been combined into a submenu.
- The two Board→Clear commands have been combined into a submenu.
New menu command: Tools→Spell Check All Boards.
New submenu: View→Application Look.
Edit→Options, General tab: New option: Suppress beeps.
Script Favorites dialog: New Select All button.
Automation: New Board object property: UniqueBoard.
PDF: Hyperlink BridgeComposer in the hand record title box (when PDF hyperlinking is enabled).
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.9.6.
Fix: Improved support for the Windows "high-contrast" display themes.
Fix: The Menu bar, Toolbar, and Status bar were scrambled after changing the Windows display theme.
Fix: Format→Board Layout, General tab: The option to show "Freakness" in hand evaluation tooltips (added in 5.73) was not working.
Fix: Script menu: Running a script sometimes set the document modified flag even though nothing was changed.
Fix: When opening a non-BridgeComposer file, certain options in the user's default layout were ignored.
Fix: Tools→Check Score Data: Click to Confirm was not working when the "Sort by Section and NS Pair Number" option was set.

[2019-01-01] Bonus software release:

BCbrowser is now available on the Bonus Software page.

[2018-10-07] Key features and bug fixes in 5.73:

Format→Board Layout: New "PDF" tab with the following options:

Render links as navigable hyperlinks.
Show hand evaluation tooltips.

File→Save As PDF: Reduce PDF file sizes by using additional compression.
Format→Board Layout, General tab: New option to show "Freakness" in hand evaluation tooltips.
Provide BridgeComposer associations for the BRI, DLM, DUP, and LIN file types.
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.8.6.
Fix: Tools→All Boards, View→Customize: Issues with the "Default" button.
Fix: "Format→Diagram Font" in Hand Record page layout shows the Hand Record font.
Fix: Board→Validate: Nonzero score for passout is not diagnosed.
Fix: Tools→GIB Bid and Play: For a passout, set the Declarer field to empty.
Fix: Use smooth scrolling when navigating to a different board on the same page.

[2018-08-14] Key features and bug fixes in 5.72:

Improve the "smooth scrolling" effect, plus add a new option to disable it (Edit→Options, General tab).
File→Merge: New "Set Section" option.
Tools→All Boards: New menu command Board→Set Section.
Tools→All Boards: New menu command View→Customize to add and remove detail columns.
Hand evaluation tooltips: If the evaluation is not shown, show the reason why.
Automation: "progress" panel: Use marquee mode when progress is zero.
Automation: If the user moves or resizes a message box, remember it for the remainder of the script execution.
Always make an Application Log entry when BridgeComposer terminates with a non-zero exit code.
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.7.6.
Fix: Double dummy grid format can overflow the box in hand record page layout.
Fix: Board→Edit: After Autofill, Undo, Autofill: Undo may not be enabled.
Fix: A hyperlink in commentary text formatted with bold, italic, or underline may not be rendered correctly in HTML output.
Fix: Teaching mat, 2 sided with labels hidden: shows incorrect arrow size and position.
Fix: Board→Copy (HTML format): Always omit navbar, download links, hand evaluation tooltips, and web page trailer items, such as board statistics, optional links, and page footer.

[2018-06-01] Changes in 5.71.1:

Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.7.3.
Fix: Crash when dragging the main window vertical scroll box (regression in 5.71).

[2018-05-28] Key features and bug fixes in 5.71:

Perform smooth scrolling in the main window (unless animation is turned off).
File→Page Layout: New "Teaching mat" option to orient the arrow towards the dealer (on the reverse side of printouts).
Tools→All Boards: New icon for the "Select All" toolbar button.
Help→Check For Updates: Download updates to the "Downloads" folder rather than an "AppData" folder (except on Windows XP).
Tools→Import Score Data:
- For IMP pairs, import and display the ACBLscore datum score for each board.
- Automatically split sections when a BWS file contains hand records that are different in two or more sections.
- Import double-dummy analysis from the BWS file.
Board→Score Table: Display/modify the Score Table caption.
Tools→Check Score Data: When printing, split boards across multiple pages as needed.
Update build environment to VS2017 Version 15.7.2.
Fix: Format→Layout→Load Factory Default was not clearing hand record title box and last page text, nor resetting bid and card spacing to "thin".
Fix: Crash when opening certain corrupt input files.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Triple-letter sections were not processed correctly.
Fix: Update the website link for GIB patches.

[2018-02-13] Key features and bug fixes in 5.68:

Scrolling via the keyboard:
- The View→Page Down and View→Page Up menu commands (assigned to the Page Down and Page Up keys, by default) are enhanced to scroll the current page, if possible, before going to the next (or previous) page.
- The new menu commands View→Next Page and View→Previous Page perform the former behavior. You may use Edit→Options, Keyboard tab to remap keys if you prefer the former keyboard behavior.
Enter Hands dialog: Show the card count and HCP totals for the suit columns (in addition to the hand rows).
Board validation: Display the board number in the dialog title bar and the main window status bar.
Tools→All Boards: New Select All toolbar button.
Tools→Check Score Data: New option Show All Scores to show all score table rows in the app window.
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.5.5.
Fix: more issues with "high-DPI" displays (monitors with more than 96 pixels per inch).
Fix: When the Card Table is in "auto hide" mode (per Format→Board Layout, Card Table tab), hide it when all hands are hidden (in addition to when all hands except North are hidden).
Fix: Board→Image: Existing files of the selected type are not being displayed in the "Save As" file browser.
Fix: The Auction overlays the South hand if North, East, West, and labels are hidden.
Fix: Teaching mat page layout: Hands that are flagged as hidden are being shown.
Fix: Modeless dialogs are not disabled while message boxes are displayed.
Fix: Automation: Provide more explicit return codes for failed SaveAsHtml and SaveAsPdf.

[2017-12-05] Changes in 5.67:

Fix: a number of issues with "high-DPI" displays (monitors with more than 96 pixels per inch).
Fix: minor caret mispositioning.
Fix: Board→Validate: Incomplete auction not always diagnosed (regression in 5.64).
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.4.5.

[2017-09-23] Key features and bug fixes in 5.66:

Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Permit reassignment of a key that is currently assigned to another command.
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.3.5.
Fix: View→Full Screen: Reports "Out of memory" (regression in 5.64.2).
Fix: View→Full Screen: Board transition not always animated when it should be.
Fix: Automatic board numbering: Do not consider boards with all hands hidden except North as "partial deals".

[2017-07-09] Key features and bug fixes in 5.65:

Board Edit dialog: Provide additional keyboard shortcuts. (Shortcut for "Apply" is changed to F11.)
Board Edit dialog: Permit multi-row "player name" headings over Auction columns (using the non-standard "\n" escape sequence).
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Shortcut keys now may be assigned to run favorite scripts listed in the Script menu.
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: Option to automatically apply a saved layout for every file open.
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.2 (26430.15).
Fix: Some boards are shown or printed in the wrong "single suit" or "label" mode (regression in 5.64).
Fix: Board→Correct Spelling: Correcting text in tag values (such as for "Event" or "Notes") can add unwanted newlines.
Fix: Board→Validate: When the Auction is a pass-out, check for Contract "Pass" (or empty) and Declarer empty.
Fix: Wine: Crash on startup (depending on default fonts) (regression in 5.64.2).

[2017-05-12] Changes in 5.64.2:

Fix: Automation: DoubleDummyAllBoards method throws an exception when the Noui property is true (regression in 5.64.1). (Affects CreateDealType script option 4, for one.)
Fix: Use "font linking" to improve handling of non-Latin glyphs: display with correct width; render properly in PDF files.
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.2 (26430.04).

[2017-05-05] Changes in 5.64.1:

Fix: Optimum Opening Leads (when selected) were not calculated in some situations (regression in 5.64).
Update build environment to VS2017 Update 15.1 (26403.3).

[2017-04-04] Key features and bug fixes in 5.64:

Tools→Check Score Data enhancements:
- Show the Print dialog before printing; new Print→Setup and Print→Preview commands.
- Option to show hand diagrams in the dialog view.
- Option to select double dummy format (grid or makeable contracts).
- When a strain is played by both sides, show the number of times for each side in the message.
- Allow for hand records to be imported from the BWS file.
Tools→Import Score Data: Import and display auctions if they have been recorded in the BWS file.
Board→Validate: Validate auctions in score tables.
Update build environment to Microsoft Visual Studio 2017.
Fix: Several dialogs were retaining their "active" appearance after becoming inactive.
Fix: Omit the "Save Changes?" prompt when forced to exit.
Fix: Tools→Check Score Data: Issue a message when a board lacks a hand diagram.
Fixes: Tools→Import Score Data:

Be sure BWS data is processed in the correct order.
When importing hands from a BWS file, the cards were not shown if "View→Hide Played Cards" was set.
When importing a BWS file directly, names were missing for an EW pair sitting out round 1 of a Mitchell movement (regression in 5.53).
The "document modified" flag was sometimes being set even though the option to omit that was selected.

[2017-03-08] Key features and bug fixes in 5.63:

Show an alert when the open document has been modified on disk by another program.
Tools→Check Score Data: Enhancements pertaining to information display and confirm-score operations.
Repair .dup files that have had trailing spaces trimmed, as can happen when they are transmitted as email attachments.
Fix: Tools→All Boards, Board→Copy: Omit deal set statistics from the generated HTML, since they apply to all boards rather than the selected boards.
Fix: In float left, HTML, the spacing between the diagram and the commentary can be too wide when East and/or West are hidden.
Fix: Crash using Script→Favorites, "Add" button (Windows 10 with touchpad).
Fix: Tools→Copy All Boards As HTML Code: Navbar shows buttons for hidden boards.

[2017-01-30] Key features and bug fixes in 5.62:

Format→Board Layout, Translate tab: Enable translation of the "10" honor card.
Format→Board Layout, Translate tab: In "Made" and "Down", use "%" to represent the number of tricks.
Automation: message boxes: Provide scrolling for more than 10 lines of text.
Automation: BrowseForFile method enhancements.
Automation: You may set ImportSection='*' to import all sections in a BWS file without prompting.
Command line: You may specify /section "*" to import all sections in a BWS file without prompting.
Installation: Remove the option to create a quick-launch toolbar shortcut, since it doesn't work on Windows 7 and later.
Fix: In Hand Record page layout, unable to remove the default logo.
Fix: Help→Check For Updates not working under Windows XP (regression in 5.61).
Fix: Automation: Assigning to the board TagSection property appends rather than replaces.

[2017-01-04] Key features and bug fixes in 5.61:

Use HTTPS (HTTP Secure) rather than HTTP when communicating with the BridgeComposer website.
Board→Confirm Score: Allow the section to be omitted for a single-section game (or board).
Use the new-style file dialog to browse for folders (except on Windows XP).
Automation: New method: progress.
Automation: New method: BrowseForFolder.
Automation: Disable writing recovery files by default. New EnableRecovery method.
Automation: confirm method: If the Noui property is true, return as if the user clicked the default button.
Fix: The I-beam caret is mispositioned for right-justified commentary lines beginning with a space (regression in 5.59).
Fix: Two-column auctions: Sometimes an extraneous blank line is shown at the bottom.
Fix: Two-column auctions: Auction is mispositioned if West is hidden.
Fix: Two-column auctions: Auction tooltips are sometimes incorrect.
Fix: Tools→Double Dummy All Boards: Be sure all the relevant PBN tags are updated, even if the DDA has already been set.
Fix: Double dummy grid format: The par score is shown using two hyphens for a minus sign (regression in 5.58).
Fix: The View→Source drop-down control is showing the current board list rather than the original board list (regression in 5.53).

[2016-12-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.59:

Perform a Windows registry consistency check at start-up.
If registry entries are out of whack, a dialog panel is shown that recommends a "repair" install.
Tools→Generate Random Boards: New option to append generated boards to the end of the document.
Script→Run: Highlight the status bar when a script is running.
Automation: Position message boxes so that button locations on the screen are consistent.
Board→Edit: Deal fields: Accept "-" to mean no cards (a PBN standard notation).
Tools→Check Score Data: Highlight opening lead issues using different colors than other issues.
Tools→Check Score Data: New Board→Confirm Score command to mark a suspect score as correct.
Fix: Board→Image: Auction and Play "notes" are not left-justified at low DPI.
Fix: Automation: ParsePbn into an empty document may retain the initial empty board.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data direct from BWS: If EW pairs move before round 1, names do not correspond to pair numbers.
Fix: Two-column auctions: Sometimes an extraneous blank line after the column headers is shown.
Fix: Board→Validate: Auction and Play "notes": Per the PBN standard: change the "non-sequential note numbers" message level from warning to info; warn about note numbers not between 1 and 32.
Fix: Blue screen crash in Windows XP prior to SP3.
See "OS Compatibility" on the Archive page for more information.

[2016-10-15] Key features in 5.58:

New menu command: File→Export As→ACBL Text.
Help topics: How to change property grid settings (i.e. click on the value).
Built with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 update 3.

[2016-04-17] Key features and bug fixes in 5.57:

New menu commands: Script→Run, Script→Favorites.
Updates to the online script library.
New on-screen display mode: Play Position View.
Dragging and dropping a card onto the card table will now "play" the card (same as double-clicking the card, but perhaps more natural).
Automation: alert, confirm, and prompt methods: New (optional) "message box type" parameter.
Automation: New property SelectedBoard.
Help topics: Split Automation topic into several smaller topics.
Update the double dummy solver to dds.dll version 2.8.4.
Fix: Automation: Open, BrowseForFile, Save, SaveAs: Don't add the file to the most-recently-used lists.
Fix: Automation: alert and confirm methods: Show and flash a taskbar tile when needed.
Fix: Automation: Save method call was being ignored if the document modified flag was not set.

[2016-02-24] Key features and bug fixes in 5.56:

New command: View→Zoom→Other...
Tools→Double Dummy All Boards: Previously, boards with preexisting double dummy results were simply skipped over. Now, such boards will be recalculated if the preexisting results do not appear to be complete and correct.
Spelling: Accommodate right-single-quotation-mark (U+2019) used as an apostrophe.
Tools→Import Score Data: Deprecate the importing of ACBLscore "HTML file" reports. (This option was added in BridgeComposer version 5.52. But, with ACBLscore version 7.90, it no longer affords any advantage to BridgeComposer users, and may be confusing.)
Automation: Open() and BrowseForFile methods: When displaying a "File Open" dialog, don't use the initial directory saved from UI mode.
Update the built-in "en_US" spelling dictionary to 2016.01.19.
Update the double dummy solver to dds.dll version 2.8.3.
Fix: File→Validate HTML: was not working with the current w3c validation server.
Fix: Attempt to avoid hang-ups during file opens and saves (perhaps due to network issues).

[2015-12-31] Key features and bug fixes in 5.55:

Automation enhancements:
- BridgeComposer object:
  - New property: pathname
  - New methods: alert, confirm, prompt, BrowseForFile, ParsePbn, ValidateDeal, ValidateHand
  - "Open" method: the "pathname" parameter is now optional. When it is omitted, a "File Open" dialog is displayed.
- Board object:
  - New property: Commentary(section)
  - New method: toPbn
- Help topic:
  - Scripting example 2 ("gen.js") is enhanced to prompt for dates, and more.
  - Link to the new online Scripting Library.
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New "Import Score Data" option: Split sections during import, to accommodate hand records entered by players (using Bridgemates) in multiple sections.
Board→Validate: In diagnostics, identify Score Table rows by Section, NS pair number, and EW pair number (rather than by the unsorted row number).
Tools→Import Score Data: Document that as of ACBLscore 7.90, there is no longer any advantage to creating HTML reports rather than TEXT reports for importing into BridgeComposer, and TEXT reports are recommended.
File→Open: If Shift key is down, set initial folder to user's "Documents" folder, and file type to "all supported".
Update build environment to Visual Studio 2015 update 1.
Fix: PBN Deal tag: Accept "-" in the tag value to indicate a hand whose cards are not given.
Fix: Board→New: When OK was clicked, any text entered into the Auction and Play fields was lost.
Fix: The automation "New" method was showing (and then hiding) the BridgeComposer main window for a background process.
Fix: Board→Copy; OLE support: Stray "?" characters in metafiles. Avoid using extended characters in non-enhanced metafiles, and also provide enhanced metafiles.

[2015-11-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.54:

Most option panels have been reformatted to display using a "property grid":
- File→Page Layout: All options.
- Edit→Options: All tabs except Keyboard and Spelling.
- Format→Board Layout: All tabs. The NavBar tab has been removed, because now the NavBar options are displayed on the HTML tab.
Tools→Check Score Data:
- Additional check for playing in an unlikely suit fit.
- When reporting a strain played by both sides, include "2 level or higher" in the message.
Format→Board Layout, Card Table tab: New Show Screen option.
Tools→All Boards: Board→Adjust View: New Hidden Hands checkboxes.
Fix: Tools→Check Score Data: Always generate the report webpage in one-board-per-page layout.
Fix: Be sure the recovery file is updated when using the Board→Edit "Next", "Previous", and "New" buttons; the Enter Hands "New" button; and the Dictate Hands "New" button.
Fix: When showing Optimum Opening Leads, apply Translation options for honor cards.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: The modifier key used to temporarily reverse the "prompt for sections to import" option is changed, from Shift to Ctrl.

[2015-10-05] Key features and bug fixes in 5.53.1:

Tools→Check Score Data: If no score data is present, prompt for it (by performing Import Score Data); after doing the check, perform Undo to remove the imported score data.

Fix: Crash when attempting to open certain PBN files (regression in 5.53).
Fix: View→Source, View→New PBN: No longer work after the respective window has been minimized.
Fix: The Date/Time format in the "Recover Previous Session" dialog was inadvertently changed (regression in 5.53). Restore the original format.
Fix: HTML: Deal set statistics (all zero) were being displayed when there were no hand records (regression in 5.52).
Fix: Automation: The new methods in 5.53 were not accessible.
Fix: Automation: Notify Windows File Explorer to update its windows when files have been written.
Fix: Handle Hunspell 1.3.3 not treating the built-in "en_US" dictionary as UTF-8.

[2015-08-22] Key features and bug fixes in 5.53:

Animate on-screen page transitions. (May be disabled using Edit→Options, General tab.)
File→Page Layout: New Teaching mat layout with hands facing outward.
New command: Tools→Check Score Data to identify potential scoring errors.
Edit→Options, Advanced tab: New PBN preferred encoding setting.
Automation: New method: DisplayInWebBrowser.
File→Validate HTML: Accommodate validation server enhancements.
Improvements for handling very large documents (thousands of boards):
- Drop-down board selection control: Improve performance.
- File→Open, File→Save: Improve performance.
- Show a progress panel (with Cancel option) when writing long session recovery files.
Update the build environment to Microsoft Visual Studio 2015.
Update the double dummy solver to dds.dll version 2.8.2.
Update Hunspell to 1.3.3.
Update the "en_US" spelling dictionary to 2015.05.18.
Reduce the .msi file size.

Fix: Curtain card page layout: If the player direction and board number are too wide for a single label line, move the player direction onto a new line.
Fix: Edit→Options: "Cancel" did not always reverse all changes.
Fix: Board→Validate: Report if the score is "Pass" but a contract (other than "Pass") is listed.
Fix: Handle additional Hunspell spelling dictionary character encodings.
Fix: Expanding certain spelling dictionaries: endless loop in the background.
Fix: Limit spelling dictionary expansion to two million words, to avoid running out of memory.
Fix: Spelling: When right-clicking a misspelled word with no suggested corrections, the "Add to Dictionary" option was missing.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: When importing a .bws file directly, with a Howell movement, player names were incorrect.
Fix: Board→Edit dialog, Enter Hands dialog: If "turn off animations" is specified using Windows control panel, then suppress flashing the screen.
Fix: Display balloon tooltips for the time interval specified using Windows control panel (when system doesn't override).
Fix: Tools→Double Dummy All Boards may get "Out of memory".
Fix: Windows XP, Help→About BridgeComposer: Clicking the website link displayed an error message.
Fix: Wine: "Enter Hands" gets "Encountered an improper argument".

[2015-05-01] Bug fix in 5.52.2:

Fix: File→Save As HTML gets message "Unspecified error" if page footer is used (regression in 5.52).

[2015-04-29] Key bug fixes in 5.52.1:

Fix: HTML was not showing the final commentary when the diagram was float left (regression in 5.52).
Fix: Enter Hands Keyboard Map: It was possible to have the same key assigned to more than one function.
Fix: Installer sometimes installed files in the C:\ folder rather than the intended folder.
Fix: The last-modified date and time for the installed program files was incorrect.

[2015-04-24] Key features and bug fixes in 5.52:

Tools→Remove Recap and All Score Data: Rename to "Tools→Remove Score Data". No change in function.
New "enter hands" keyboard mapping feature.
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Improve readability of command list.
Tools→Import Score Data: Allow importing of ACBLscore "HTML file" reports. (Can expedite handling of multi-section games.)
Tools→Import Score Data: New option in Edit→Options, Advanced tab: "Store recap in board 1". Note: When used with NavBar, the "Recap" button is replaced with "Top".
Automation: New methods: RemoveScoreData, DeleteBoard, ClearTag.
After an initial install, assume Letter-size paper until File→Print Setup is used. (Avoids display using whatever paper size was last selected on the system.)
Remove the menu and toolbar "docking" feature, because a torn-off menu or toolbar can be confusing.
Workaround: OLE in-place editing: Disable the right-click context menu, because it can cause a crash.

Fix: Board→Edit: When switching to edit a different board, the deal status icons were not being updated.
Fix: HTML: "Bold" font style was not being applied.
Fix: HTML5 validation errors could occur for boards with hidden hands.
Fix: Extra white space was inserted before "NT" in commentary.
Fix: File→Save As PDF: Glyph placement was incorrect when there was no printer.
Fix: Automation Open(file) method: Don't add the file to the "most recently used" list.
Fix: Command line /pt parameter, automation PrintTo method:
- The paper size and landscape flag were incorrect sometimes.
- Bad printout if dpi of destination printer was different from dpi of last selected printer.

[2015-02-17] Bug fix in 5.51.3:

Fix: Hand record text (title box text and last page text) is getting scrambled (regression in 5.51).

[2015-02-15] Bug fixes in 5.51.2:

Fix: Tools→Split Score Table Sections: Empty rows may appear (regression in 5.51).
Fix: Tools→Split Score Table Sections: Section may not be shown in label rows or pair IDs (regression in 5.51.1).
Fix: Error messages referencing "enginetrace.txt" may occur when BridgeComposer calls a subprocess (BigDeal or GIB) (regression in 5.51).
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: If the text file is busy, wait for it rather than failing with a "sharing violation".

[2015-02-12] Bug fix in 5.51.1:

Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Score Table "Auto" sort improperly combined sections in some cases (regression in 5.51).

[2015-02-09] Key features and bug fixes in 5.51:

Tools→Generate Random Boards: Updated the technical details in the Help topic. Configuring BridgeComposer to use BigDeal for generating random boards is recommended.
Tools→Import Score Data:
- New Score Table layout: "Contract" header now has three (unlabeled) sub-columns: Contract, Declarer, and Made; "Pairs" is now two "Pair" columns (N-S and E-W).
- Detects and handles IMP scoring.
Format→Board Layout:
- New main window toolbar button to open the Format→Board Layout dialog.
- The dialog may be resized by dragging its edges.
Format→Board Layout, Score Table tab:
- New "property grid" dialog page layout.
- The "Sort order" option now sorts for display only.
- "Default" sort order renamed to "Auto" (no change in function).
- New "Sort order" options: "None" and "Custom".
- New options for PBN "TotalScoreTable".
Board→Score Table dialog:
- Rows now saved to the PBN file in the displayed order.
- New row controls: "Move Up", "Move Down", "Move First", "Move Last".
Board→Edit dialog:
- New status icons, with tooltips, for each Deal field, to provide immediate feedback.
- Beeps when an incorrect keystroke occurs in a Deal field.
- Automatically corrects commas between suits in Deal fields to be periods.
Option to display/hide PBN "TotalScoreTable" data (New command: View→Show→Total Score Table).
Help topics:

New topics (step-by-step instructions): "Entering a Deal", "Hand Record Preparation".
Document possible workaround for GIB message "Opening lead case error".
Provide a tip to help resolve "duplicate card" errors.

Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 2.8.1.
Update build environment to Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 update 4.

Fix: File→Open dialog/File→Save As dialog: Open the correct help topic when F1 is pressed.
Fix: Hide tooltips when a different app is activated using Alt+Tab.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: PBN ScoreTable: When Contract is "Pass", set Declarer to empty rather than "N".
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Set Site and Date PBN tags in recap "board".
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Double-letter sections were entered into score tables with only a single letter.
Fix: View→Source and View→New PBN dialogs: Have Ctrl+Previous go to top; Ctrl+Next go to last.
Fix: View→Source and View→New PBN dialogs: Show shortcut keys in toolbar tooltips.
Fix: .lin files: In note text, convert !S, !H, !D, and !C to PBN notation so that pips will be displayed.
Fix: Board→Double Dummy:
- Make OK the default button (so pressing the Enter key is the same as clicking OK).
- OptimumOpeningLeadTable was sometimes sorted incorrectly.
- Avoid adding unnecessary Undos.
Fix: Score Tables could be incorrectly sorted after opening an existing PBN file.
Fix: Score Table names were not shown when the pair ID was omitted.
Fix: Board→Copy (metafile): Score Table bottom border is clipped.
Fix: When opening a non-BridgeComposer file, certain (recently implemented) options in the user's default layout were ignored.
Fix: Changing a font size was not setting the document modified flag.
Fix: Tools→All Boards: Board→Auto Dealer/Vul: When changing Dealer, adjust Deal tag to start with Dealer's hand (PBN "EXPORT" format requirement).
Fix: Float left with no diagram disregarded the page top margin.
Fix: Drag/drop commentary text: The text was disappearing after the drop.
Fix: PBN supplemental tables: Adjust declared column widths to accommodate the actual content.

[2014-06-05] Key features and bug fixes in 5.50:

Tools→Import Score Data: Populate the PBN file Date, Site, and Scoring tags when possible.
Help topics: Board field: Document that the PBN standard requires a positive integer.
Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 2.5.2-MinGW.

Fix: Compatibility with "KGB Batch Converter" PBN files, discarding "control number" comments that precede an Event tag: Apply to comments with arbitrary spacing.
Fix: In a PBN file, ignore a DoubleDummyTricks tag if an OptimumResultTable tag is also present.
Fix: View→Hide Played Cards: Selecting cards from the diagram with the mouse was broken.
Fix: Board→Copy Partial: If Contract and/or Declarer is set, but not Auction, they cannot be copied.
Fix: Tools→Generate Random Boards: When BigDeal is used, adjust the PBN file Deal tag so that dealer's hand is given first (EXPORT format requirement).

[2014-04-20] Key features and bug fixes in 5.49:

Font dialog: Use the Windows 7+ format.
HTML: When printing, omit the links for downloading boards and webpage help.
Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 2.5.1-MinGW.
Fix: All cards are hidden when opening a BRI, DLM, or DUP file and View→Hide Played Cards is set.
Fix: Tools→All Boards: Board→Clear: Screen is not being updated correctly.

[2014-02-27] Changes in 5.48.1:

PDF files: Improved (but not 100%) compatibility with the Firefox web browser (version 19+) built-in PDF viewer. For best results, Firefox users should configure a third-party PDF viewer. Click here for more information.
[Update 2014-04-30: In FireFox version 29, the built-in PDF viewer seems to correctly display files created by all versions of BridgeComposer.]
Fix: In PDF files, pips are positioned slightly below the baseline (regression in 5.48).

[2014-01-22] Key features and bug fixes in 5.48:

New command on Tools→All Boards menu: Board→Adjust View.
File→Save As PDF: Reduce PDF file size by not embedding PDF standard fonts.
File→Save As PDF: Reduce PDF file size through improved font subsetting.
File→Save As PDF: Provide support for all font characters (including the "extended" range).
Edit→Options, Keyboard tab: Rearrange controls so that command names are fully visible.
Board→Copy As Plain Text: Show double dummy analysis in grid format (when that option is selected).
Format→Board Layout, Score Table tab: Clarify the sort-order button labeled "NS pair number" by relabeling it to "Section and NS pair number" (no change in function).
Long suits: Automatically reduce font size when necessary to fit in Hand Record and 2-up Board Prep page layouts.
HTML: Show "View→Next To Play" highlighting (HTML5 only).
Compatibility with "KGB Batch Converter" (Jannersten BOS suite) PBN files: Discard "control number" comments that precede an Event tag.
Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 2.4.2-MinGW.
Update the built-in US-English Hunspell dictionary to Word Lists Collection 7.1-0 (2011-01-06).
Update build environment to Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 (Update 1).
Help topics: Change style to use, rather than avoid, the serial comma.
Fix: (Longstanding bug) The spade pip in the Symbol font is displayed incorrectly when the Windows code page is not 1252 (Western European).
Fix: File→Save: Extraneous prompt: "Filename already exists. Do you want to replace it?", after File→Save As of a non-PBN input file.
Fix: File→Display in Web Browser fails when the filename contains a period.
Fix: Board→Correct Spelling: Incorrect screen update in multi-line Notes.
Fix: Board→Validate: Does not show messages if (in an input file) one hand has 14 cards and another 12.
Fix: Board→Image too tall when using double dummy grid format.
Fix: Format→Board Layout: Score Table tab: Displays "Encountered an improper argument" sometimes.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Sometimes, score tables for combined sections are sorted incorrectly.
Fix: The drop-down control is not being updated after Board→Create Slides and then Board→Delete.
Fix: Double dummy grid format: Improve column alignment.
Fix: The character width used for pips in the Cards font is a bit too wide.
Fix: Apply NS/EW translation to par contracts and the slide-mode tricks won count.
Fix: Hand record titles: Do not wrap arbitrary text underneath the logo.
Fix: Wine: Extraneous recovery files listed at startup (regression in 5.46).
Fix: HTML: Consistently use the Diagram font for download links and optional links.
Fix: HTML: Position the page footer (if any) last on the page.

[2013-11-23] Key features and bug fixes in 5.46:

BridgeComposer will now generate HTML5 syntax by default. (HTML5 syntax is required to take advantage of HTML enhancements and fixes implemented since version 5.44. However, if any problems should occur, you may use Edit→Options, Advanced tab to restore the former XHTML 1.0 syntax generation.)
Format→Board Layout, General tab: New option: Two-column auctions (for uncontested auctions).
Edit→Find: New option "Search metadata" to search Deal, Deal ID and Description fields.
Format→Page Footer: Option to set the first-page page number to a value greater than 1.
Tools→Import Score Data: Automatically import hand records from the .bws file if they exist (a Bridgemate II feature).
Board→Image: Provide PNG and JPEG formats on the clipboard.
Update the built-in US-English Hunspell dictionary.
Board→Copy As Plain Text: Board Prep Layout: Copy just the board number and hand diagram.
Added new program icons in a larger size (48x48 pixels).
New help topic: Field value inheritance.
Session recovery: New recovery-file-naming strategy; deprecate the use of mutexes.
Fix: Hang when certain Hunspell dictionaries are used.
Fix: Board→Copy As Plain Text: When the Play section is hidden, the opening lead was not being shown.
Fix: Board→Correct Spelling: Displays "Encountered an improper argument" (regression in 5.43).
Fix: Board→Image: When the diagram is float left, the Score Table may be mispositioned.
Fix: Edit→Copy crashes when HTML "Place styling in <head>" option is set.
Fix: Edit→Copy, Paste as HTML: Bid and card spacing was incorrect.
Fix: Edit→Find can loop when the final commentary section is hidden.
Fix: Edit→Find could result in the page header not being shown on-screen.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: An erased result in the .bws file could cause an incorrect score to be displayed.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Sometimes, player names were present in a .bws file, but were not being displayed.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: Improve diagnostic wording (change "TS report" to "ACBLscore traveler format report").
Fix: Diagram float left: Commentary is mispositioned when zoom is not 100% (regression in 5.45).
Fix: OLE in-place editing: Word-wrapping of Notes could cause clipping at the bottom of the frame.
Fix: HTML5: The selected card spacing was not being used in the Optimum Opening Leads section.
Fix: Incorrect glyph placement for bold and italic fonts.

[2013-09-18] Bug fixes in 5.45.1:

Fix: Optimum opening leads: Sometimes, display is clipped or overdrawn. (Regression in 5.45)
Fix: Optimum opening leads: Sometimes, all optimum cards are not listed. (Regression in 5.45)

[2013-08-26] Key features and bug fixes in 5.45:

Board→Edit: Modified several keyboard shortcuts:

Function	Former Key	New Key
Select North hand	Alt+O	Alt+N
Select East hand	Alt+T	Alt+E
Select South hand	Alt+S	Alt+S	(no change)
Select West hand	Alt+W	Alt+W	(no change)
Invoke "Enter Hands"	Alt+E	Alt+T
Invoke "Dictate"	(none)	Alt+D
Invoke "New"	(none)	F4

Format→Board Layout, General tab: New option: Double Dummy Analysis: Grid format.
Format→Board Layout, Score Table tab: New option: Label sections. (Supported for HTML using HTML5 syntax only.)
New commands: Board→Exchange Suits→....
Board→Copy Partial: New checkboxes to hide or unhide specific hands in the new copy.
Board→Image: This tool window is now "modeless", that is, you may leave it open while you do other things.
Board→Edit, Dictate: Support Windows Speech Recognition "typing mode" for improved accuracy.
Hand Record page layout: Instead of truncating long board numbers, reduce the font size.
Improve user interface appearance in Windows high-contrast display modes.
Auto-recovery: Write the recovery file every 10 minutes during long computations.
Automation: Expand the help topic regarding the "gen.js" script (batch creation of deal sets).
Automation: Return specific error codes in more cases.
Add OS-compatibility section to the application manifest.
Uninstall: Provide a bit more detail when asking to keep or remove the user settings and license key.
Interface with the Windows "Default Programs" control panel.
dds.dll: Adjust link options; add VERSIONINFO resource; apply digital code-signing.
libhunspell.dll: Apply DYNAMICBASE; fix version number; apply digital code-signing.
Update the file compression library to zlib version 1.2.8.
Fix: Make Hand Record title box more WYSIWYG (same on-screen as for printer/PDF).
Fix: HTML: When the option to show deal set statistics is set, and hand records are not available, all-zero statistics are being shown; also, statistics are being placed on the clipboard for Board→Copy (fixed for HTML5 only).
Fix: HTML "double" symbol incorrect in par contract.
Fix: Incorrect display if a PBN file contains lower-case Deal or Contract tag values.
Fix: An incorrect metafile is created for Board→Copy in 2-up board prep layout.
Fix: PDF: Horizontal gutter line not centered.
Fix: Support additional language translation for Double Dummy Analysis, including Optimum Opening Leads.
Fix: .bws files: Skip "Received Data" records that have zero in the "Section" field.

[2013-07-08] Key features and bug fixes in 5.44:

HTML: Option to generate HTML5 syntax (see Edit→Options: Advanced tab).
Format→Board Layout, HTML tab: New option: Place styling in <head> (applies to HTML5 only). Reduces HTML file size and enables override of BridgeComposer-generated CSS styling.
Board Edit dialog: New "Dictate..." option for entering card holdings by speaking into a microphone.
Windows Automation: Interface for JavaScript, VBScript, etc.
Tools→GIB Bid and Play All Boards: Skip boards that have already been done (based on the Result field being non-empty).
View→Hide Played Cards: Suppress showing the opening lead if the Play section is hidden; suppress hand evaluation tooltips.
Edit→Options, General tab: Apply the File Open/Save As dialog "Use document's folder for initial folder" option to additional commands.
Fix: Certain layout attributes (such as page footer), after being set to empty or zero, would assume the default layout value when the document was reopened.
Fix: Web pages with NavBar did not print as expected (fixed for HTML5 only).
Fix: HTML tooltip with color pip caused garbled output (fixed for HTML5 only).
Fix: Don't show optimum opening leads in hand record page layout.
Fix: Board→Copy: Curtain card page layout: Metafile image was incorrect (bug introduced in version 5.38).

[2013-05-30] Fix in 5.43.2:

Fix: Error exit in libhunspell.dll on CPUs older than Pentium 4 (2001).

[2013-05-25] Fixes in 5.43.1:

Fix: HTML "Download board" links: Change [PBN] to (PBN).
Fix: HTML "Download board" links do not work on non-Windows web servers (due to backslash in path).
Fix: Optimum opening leads: Display "10" rather than "T".
Fix: After Tools→Import Score Data, deal set statistics might include hidden (unplayed) boards.

[2013-05-17] Key features and bug fixes in 5.43:

Replaced the spelling check/correct engine with the open-source "Hunspell" library:

US-English users will enjoy better suggestions for spelling correction.
Other-language users may specify a dictionary in their preferred language (new Edit→Options "Spelling" tab).

Spelling: Show suggested corrections (plus "Add to Dictionary") when right-clicking a misspelled word.
Double Dummy Solver:

New Format→Board Layout: General tab option: "Optimum opening leads in double dummy analysis". See Optimum Opening Leads for additional details. (Introduces a non-standard "OptimumOpeningLeadTable" section into BridgeComposer PBN files.)
Enhanced performance, especially for multicore CPUs: Different cores may be working on different boards at the same time.
Removed the option to use dds.dll version 1 (it should no longer be required for BridgeComposer on older PC's).
Updated the version 2 dds.dll to the latest, fastest available (2.3.0-MinGW).

New Format→Board Layout: HTML tab optional link: "Webpage help".
New Format→Board Layout: HTML tab optional link: "Download boards":

Requires uploading a "_files" folder along with each .htm file.
May require web server configuration changes—See the Help topic before using!

Tools→Double Dummy All Boards: Show Filename, Event, Date, etc. in the progress panel.
Board→Edit: Provide "Hide" checkboxes for Board, Dealer and Vulnerability.
Board→Edit: Contract/Declarer "Auto" button: If the Auction is empty, cycle through the double-dummy makeable contracts.
Help topics: Command line interface: Provide an additional example .bat file for creating deal sets in "batch mode".
Fix: File→Print Setup: Diagnose an unexpected printer device-mode data structure, hopefully to avoid a crash due to an incompatible printer driver.
Fix: Generate random boards with the Big Deal option was restoring certain default layout settings, such as landscape page orientation.
Fix: Multiple "%Created" lines were being inserted into .pbn files.
Fix: Hidden commentary in a saved document was sometimes being formatted incorrectly when unhidden.
Fix: File→Merge: Perform legacy-document fix-ups ("blank declarer if contract blank" and "convert bullets") in the same manner as for File→Open.

[2013-04-08] Fix in 5.42.2:

Fix: 5.42.1 fails to install on Windows XP.

[2013-04-08] Key features and bug fixes in 5.42.1:

2-up board prep layout: Add Site, Event, Date and Logo from Hand Record titles.
Fix: Hand records: Title-box text was mispositioned in some cases.

[2013-04-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.42:

File→Page Layout: New layout option: "2-up board prep".
New command line parameters: /setid and /setidauto.
New command line parameters: /tbtext and /lptext.
Fix: Install of version 5.41 on older hardware could fail with "PbnFilter.dll failed to register".
Fix: Hand records: Logo could cause Site name to be truncated.
Fix: Hand records: Title-box text could overlay the logo image.
Fix: Hand records: Convert logo image to grayscale when the View→Color option is unchecked.
Fix: The /noui command line parameter was not suppressing the /dda progress panel.

[2013-03-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.41:

ALERT! ScorePost users must install ScorePost 3.6.3 (or later) along with BridgeComposer 5.41.
Format→Board Layout: New HTML option: "Show deal set statistics".
Format→Board Layout: New HTML option: "Omit horizontal rules".
Update double dummy solver version 1 to dds.dll 1.1.18.
Built with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.
Doc: Reorganized the Help topic for the Tools→Import Score Data command.
Doc: "Command Line Interface" topic: Add an example .bat file that generates multiple board sets.
Doc: HTML: Web browser Print function does not work well when NavBar option is in use.
Fix: On the command line, /random followed by /dda might crash.
Fix: Remove dds1.dll through dds5.dll during uninstall.

[2013-03-11] Key features and bug fixes in 5.40:

Edit→Options: New "Keyboard" tab to customize main menu shortcut keys.
Support the .bri file format (input and output). New command: File→Export As→BRI Format.
New command: View→Cloaked to suppress on-screen display of card holdings.
New commands: Board→First and Board→Last.
Board→Copy As Plain Text: For multiple boards, insert an empty line between boards.
Workaround: Contract "double" symbol was incorrect on web pages.
Fix: File→Save was not enabled after opening a non-PBN file (bug introduced in version 5.37).
Fix: Edit→Options "Folders" tab was disappearing sometimes.

[2013-02-11] Key features and bug fixes in 5.39:

Edit→Options: Rename "Programs" tab to "Folders".
Format→Hand Record Titles: New "logo image" option.
Edit→Options, General tab: New option for initial folder in Save As dialog.
Board→Next, Board→Previous: If the Ctrl key is down, go to last or first board in the document, respectively.
Tools→Generate Random Boards: Use shuffle algorithm from Knuth volume 2.
Improve performance when handling excessively large files.
PBN: New "%Created" header line giving the date and time the file was written.
Doc: Consolidate hand record titles settings into a single help topic.
Fix: The "/random" command line parameter crashes when the BigDeal option is in use.

[2013-01-25] Key features and bug fixes in 5.38:

Option to use the "BigDeal" program to generate random boards.
New "Programs" tab in Edit→Options.
Fix: Auto-scrolling to next/previous board was not working well for multicolumn layouts.

[2012-12-27] Key features and bug fixes in 5.37:

Disable the File→Save command (and its toolbar button) when the document has not been modified since the last Save.
Tools→GIB Bid and Play: If GIB exits unexpectedly, show GIB's error message.
Tools→GIB Bid and Play: New option on the progress panel to adjust GIB's CPU priority.
Fix: HTML: When "NT" is translated to "SA" (French), a spade pip was being displayed.
Fix: In the Results field, the partnership directions "NS" and "EW" are now subject to the translation feature.
Fix: The GIB "playing strength" setting was not being passed to the GIB bridge engine.
Fix: Tools→Import Score Data: All boards were being hidden if there was no score data imported.

[2012-12-14] Key features and bug fixes in 5.36:

Tools→Generate Random Boards: Option to omit showing each board as it is generated.
Fix: Slide highlighting: Apply translation to honor cards on the card table.
Doc: Clarify when Board→Create Slides is disabled.

[2012-12-03] Key features and bug fixes in 5.35:

New command: Board→Copy As Plain Text.
New command: Board→Create Slides: Shows the bidding and play of a board call-by-call and card-by-card.
New command: View→Slide Highlighting.
New command: View→Hide Played Cards.
New command: Board→Remove Played Cards.
Tools→Generate Random Boards: Generation of deal set ID is now optional.
Board→Edit: After using "Enter New Board", focus is set on the North hand entry field.
Enter Hands dialog: Tab key may now be used to disable keyboard entry mode and set focus on a suit text box.
Board→Image: Image the highlighting when View→Next To Play mode is enabled.
Card table font: Adjust auto-sizing so that all except Arial are one point larger.
Reduce use of timer events: may improve battery life.
Update double dummy solver to versions 1.1.17 and 2.2.4.
Fix: View→Next To Play: Problems with optimal play highlighting when multiple boards per page.
Fix: Spurious messages from Board→Validate when "+" in the Play section is not the last token.

[2012-11-03] Key features and bug fixes in 5.34:

Tools→Import Score Data: If a .bws file is not found using the new naming method (introduced in version 5.32), fall back to the old naming method.
Add the "/bws" command line parameter to locate the .bws file in scripts.
Format→Hand Record Titles: The deal set statistics are now optional.
Hand Record page layout: Always show the Set ID in the title box, even if the titles have been replaced with the deal set statistics.
Fix: NavBar on Internet Explorer 8 and above has not been working since BridgeComposer version 5.31.7.
Fix: In HTML, use the translation for "Lead" (if any) when showing the opening lead.
Fix: Handle PBN files from other apps that use the standard tag value "?" (meaning "unspecified").

[2012-10-11] Key features and bug fixes in 5.33:

Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Renamed to "Tools→Import Score Data". It is backward-compatible, but now it can import directly from .bws files in addition to ACBLscore .txt report files.
New command: Tools→All Boards: "Board→Auto Dealer/Vul". May be useful after Tools→Renumber All.
New Score Table sort option: Format→Board Layout: Score Table tab: "Section and score".
Renamed commands (View menu): "Next Page" to "Page Down", "Previous Page" to "Page Up".
Enter Hands dialog: New keyboard shortcuts: Alt+E to enable/disable keyboard entry; Alt+N to enter new board.
Fix: Two BridgeComposer icons on desktop after upgrade to 5.32.
Fix: Board Edit Alert: When using "Discard Changes", some Board Edit dialog controls were not updated.
Fix: Enter Hands dialog: "Enter New Board" board number is not auto-advancing sometimes.
Fix: If typing commentary and the line wraps automatically, then the pip-symbol keystrokes (\x) do not work sometimes.
Fix: A BridgeComposer error exit when processing Swiss events was causing ScorePost to omit PDF hand records.

[2012-09-29] Key features and bug fixes in 5.32:

New command: Board→Image.
New commands: View→Next Page (Page Down) and View→Previous Page (Page Up).
Board→Edit: Avoid closing and reopening the dialog window when moving to a different board.
Board→Edit: Improve presentation of warnings and errors, and provide more explicit choices: "Edit Again", "Continue" and "Discard Changes".
Board→Validate: Show a severity level icon (info, warning or error) along with each message.
HTML: Auction, Lead, Play: Explicitly left-align the column text (Internet Explorer was centering).
Import From ACBLscore: Construct the .bws filename from data in the .txt file, rather than just the filename.
Update the double dummy solver dds.dll to version 1.1.15 and 2.2.2.
Fix: Desktop icon was sometimes not appearing after install. (If you get two, just delete one.)
Fix: HTML: Center pip glyphs in hand diagrams.
Fix: Score Table: Center declarer in "By" column.
Fix: Selecting items in various combo boxes with the keyboard arrow keys wasn't working correctly.
Fix: Curtain Card page layout: Don't show text selection highlight.
Fix: HTML vertical NavBar: Have the "Top" button scroll to the true top of the page.
Fix: Help→Check For Updates would sometimes show a stale, cached website response.

[2012-09-04] Digital code signing:

The .msi installer file for version 5.31.8 has been digitally signed and time-stamped. You will not receive warning messages about an "unknown publisher" when installing digitally signed files.

[2012-08-21] Bug fix in 5.31.8:

Fix: Fix crash introduced in version 5.31.7.

[2012-08-21] Features and bug fixes in 5.31.7:

HTML: Remove header requesting Internet Explorer 7 compatibility.
HTML NavBar: Option for vertical NavBar in top-right corner of web page.
Fix: HTML: Boilerplate code was being obscured by the NavBar.

[2012-08-15] Bug fixes in 5.31.6:

Fix: Import From ACBLscore: Since version 5.31, combined sections resulted in duplicate lines in the score table.
Fix: HTML single-suit one-pip pip position incorrect in version 5.31.5.

[2012-08-14] Features and bug fixes in 5.31.5:

Dragging and dropping a file from Windows Explorer: Shift key down will cause Open to be performed rather than Merge.
Fix: PBN: Omit empty tags when prior ## is in effect.
Fix: HTML hand diagrams: Left-align the cards.
Fix: Text dragged from one pane to another sometimes was not droppable.

[2012-08-11] Features in 5.31.4:

Hand evaluation tooltips: Optional display of Zar points (see the Wikipedia article).
PBN: Consolidate a number of BridgeComposer % lines into a single %BCOptions line.

[2012-08-08] Bug fixes in 5.31.3:

Fix: BridgeComposer might hang during the entering of Auction/Play footnote references.
Fix: Windows Search filter: Values in separate PBN tags were not always indexed as separate words.
Fix: Windows Search hit highlighting was not enabled for .pbn files.
Fix: Moving text out of document with drag/drop: set document modified, and set redo text selection.
Fix: Allow dragged text to be dropped on inactive view panes (including pane-to-pane drag/drop).
Fix: Ignore option to show HCP if no room at left of diagram.

[2012-08-02] Bug fixes in 5.31.2:

Fix: The menu structure in the All Boards tool window is improved.
Fix: When the South hand is hidden, other than in hand record page layout, the option to show HCP is now ignored (because there may not be room).
Fix: Board→Edit: Emptying the DealId or Description field did not remove the tag from the PBN file.
Fix: additional cases where the diagram overlays the labels.
Fix: "Call and Card Spacing" is renamed to the more specific "Bid and Card Spacing".
Fix: Do not use Bid and Card spacing in strain-only Contract displays.
Fix: 10-spot spacing in user text was incorrect.
Fix: Handle user text honor card spacing correctly when Format→Board Layout: Translate is in effect.
Fix: Enable the Result/Score Auto button only when the Play section is complete, or the Result field has been set, or the Result or Score field is clearly out of agreement.
Fix: Board→Edit: Autofill: If there are more "x" and/or "?" placeholders than there are spot cards available, distribute both spot and honor cards at random.
Fix: Revise handling of partial deals and blank pages in: Drop-down board selector; Board→Edit: Auto Board Number; Tools→Sort All Boards By Number; All Boards: Tools→Renumber All.

[2012-07-24] Bug fixes in 5.31.1:

Fix: Intermittent crash during File→Open and Edit→Undo.
Fix: Board→Correct Spelling was scrolling the document when there were no scroll bars.
Fix: Tools→Import From ACBLscore was not updating the board-select drop-down control when there was no recap listing.
Fix: Tools→All Boards window lacked a Board→Invert Selection command. [Changed to Edit→Invert Selection in 5.31.2.]
Fix: Hyperlinks ending in "=" (and most other punctuation) had the punctuation omitted from the link.

[2012-07-21] Key features and bug fixes in 5.31:

Board→Edit dialog enhancements:

Play section moved to upper-right to provide more room in the dialog panel.
Entering hands: Assumes unspecified suits are void (rather than showing an error).
New "Auto" buttons for Contract/Declarer and Result/Score.
[Empty] is now shown (instead of a blank line) as one of the selections in the Contract and Result drop-down lists.
Additional PBN tags "DealId" and "Description" supported for board organization.

New command: Tools→All Boards...

List of all boards in a document.
Drag/drop boards to reorder, or to copy or move to/from other documents.
Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete multiple boards.
Clear selected PBN tags in selected boards.
Renumber all boards.

Drag/drop or Copy/Paste of a supported file type from Windows Explorer pastes (inserts) the boards into the current document.
New command: File→Merge.
New command: File→Export As→

Deep Finesse Deals (.txt)
DOS Duplimate (.dup)

Automatic inter-spacing for bid and card formations (like 4 ♠ and ♥ Q) (configurable using Format→Board Layout: Pips tab).
New command: View→Single Suit Diagram→Show No|One|All Pips.
Card drag/drop: Use the standard cursor shapes and keyboard modifiers during drag.
Text drag/drop: Handle Ctrl key for copying in-process; delete source text when moving to another process.
Option to show HCP in page layouts in addition to hand record (Format→Board Layout: General tab).
Insert→Character: Control to clear the search box.
Board→Rotate, Board→Exchange Hands: rotate/exchange the hidden hand flags.
Hand record title data: Keep separate from any board in the document.
HTML: Turn text that looks like a link into a hyperlink (configurable using Format→Board Layout: HTML).
Use the "minus sign" character ("−", HTML: −) rather than the hyphen ("-") for negative numbers.
Use the "multiplication sign" character ("×", HTML: ×) rather than lower-case "x" for double/redouble in contracts (as recommended by the Style Guide).
Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Don't clear recap before each import (permits merging multiple files).
Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Keep track of player section.
Score Tables: Show a separate "By" column for the Declarer.
Workaround: HTML: Specify   in empty table cells (apparently needed sometimes for Joomla editor).
Help: More details about random board generation.
Update Double Dummy Solver to 1.1.14 and 2.2.1.
PBN search filter: Index semicolon comments; handle lines longer than 255 characters.
Uninstall: Ask about saving user preferences in the uninstaller itself.

Fix: Hand record "Balanced Hands" statistic was non-standard (counted hands with two doubletons).
Fix: Try to ensure that the "Unable to open wireless scoring system database" prompt is a topmost window.
Fix: All commentary preformatted: Initially hidden commentary appeared as a single line after unhide.
Fix: HTML preformatted text: Show pips and align them vertically.
Fix: Installer: Remove version number from product name (consistent with most other software).
Fix: Full Screen: Board Next/Previous was not working if page layout other than one board per page.
Fix: Don't show "? by ?" for the Contract.
Fix: Score Tables: Don't show headers for empty columns.
Fix: Board→Validate: Play section of 1 to 3 cards incorrectly got "Play out of sequence".
Fix: Could not read .dlm file when boards are in reverse order.
Fix: Hand diagram sometimes overlaid the board labels.
Fix: When a centered board consisted of Contract and Result only, these were printed too far to the right.
Fix: For end-position diagrams, allow Contract to be strain-only and any player to be next-to-play.
Fix: Handle (non-standard) PBN files with lines longer than 255 characters.
Fix: PBN: Handle # and ## in the BCFlags tag.
Fix: PBN: Output supplemental tags in alphabetic order, prior to Auction and Play; output supplemental sections in alphabetic order; output BridgeComposer % comment lines (after the first four) in alphabetic order (followed by any non-BridgeComposer % comment lines in their original order).

[2012-03-14] Bug fix in 5.30.2:

Fix: The conversion of .dlm files was broken in version 5.30 (and remained broken in 5.30.1). .dlm files are converted correctly again in this release.

[2012-03-08] Bug fixes in 5.30.1:

Fix: Autofill: Duplicate cards or crash when deal contains x-spot cards (introduced at version 5.30).
Fix: Enter Hands dialog: Correct the tab order to go directly from clubs in one hand to spades in the next (skipping over the Clear button). Augment the Help topic.

[2012-03-05] Key features and bug fixes in 5.30:

The Double Dummy Analysis now includes the par score for the board, plus the par contract(s) if a sacrifice is called for.
The installation option to install for "Just Me" has been removed, and BridgeComposer now always installs for "Everyone" (all user accounts on the computer). Unfortunately, this may cause two versions of BridgeComposer to be listed in the Windows Programs control panel. This should not cause any problems unless you try to uninstall, but see Multiple Versions Problem if you wish to correct the control panel listing.
Format→Board Layout: Pips tab: A new option to show all suits in single-suited hand diagrams is available.
Commentary text Edit→Copy and Edit→Paste: Preserve the font traits (bold, italic and underline). Provide additional clipboard formats (HTML and Rich Text [RTF]) for pasting into other applications.
Board→Edit: Enter Hands dialog: New feature to allow entry of hands using the keyboard numeric keypad.
Import From ACBLscore: Score Tables: The "Result" column is replaced with a "Made" column that shows the number of tricks made over book, or if the contract failed, the number of tricks down.
If the Date tag has been set (for example, by using Format→Hand Record Titles) for an Untitled (unsaved) document, then when saving, that date is used as the default filename (YYMMDD.pbn).
When Help→Check For Updates downloads an updated version of BridgeComposer, it is now placed in the Common Application Data folder rather than a temporary folder. This will help assure that the install file is available and accessible by all users in case it is needed at a later time.
Fix: Import From ACBLscore: Sometimes the recap listing became double-spaced.
Fix: Import From ACBLscore: Results were not imported for a double-letter section when two or more sections were combined.
Fix: Full Screen: Next board and previous board did not work if full screen was invoked from hand record page layout.
Fix: Double Dummy might hang if the deal is invalid.
Fix: Suppress View→Next To Play if the deal is invalid.
Fix: A single card in the Play section was being shown as a one-card trick rather than as the opening lead.
Fix: Adding a card to the Play section erased all the card comments and NAGs.
Fix: Commentary beginning with a blank line included an unnecessary "\n" character sequence in the PBN file.
Fix: Hand record page layout: Truncate board numbers longer than four characters.
Fix: Hand record page layout: The last page text was not centered correctly sometimes.
Fix: Curtain card page layout: Render Dealer and Vulnerability at 60% font size to try to avoid exceeding the column width.
Fix: When opening a Dealer file containing non-standard double dummy results, create a PBN-standard "Optimum Result Table" for compatibility with other PBN applications.

[2011-12-07] Bug fix in 5.29.1:

Fix: Board→Delete causes a crash.

[2011-11-22] Key features and bug fixes in 5.29:

File→Page Layout: New "Curtain card" layout: Each player's cards are shown in a separate column.
Double Dummy Solver (courtesy of Bo Haglund): Support version 2. Continue support for version 1 for older Windows XP computers that may require it. Update to DDS DLL versions 1.1.12 and 2.1.2. Also, show the solve time in the status bar.
Tools→Double Dummy All Boards: Shift key will recompute the DDA for all boards.
New commands: View→Source and View→New PBN.
Show a popup tooltip for comments in the Play section. (The same as has been done for the Auction section for some time.)
Board Edit dialog: Show tooltips for the more esoteric controls.
Notes dialog: Allow resizing; add a Help button.
File→Open: Remember and re-use the last file extension filter used.
Page footer: Additional option to insert Hand Record Title Box Text.
Format→Board Layout, General tab: New option "All commentary preformatted"
Fix: Process PBN input files that use the semicolon character to introduce comments.
Fix: Format→Preformatted: Handle newlines in non-BridgeComposer input files correctly.
Fix: File→Open dialog was not resizable on Windows XP. Remember size and position.
Fix: Double Dummy: Disable if the deal field is not valid.
Fix: .lin files: Single space the commentary.
Fix: Board→Paste was resetting some Format→Board Layout settings.
Fix: Board→Validate: Accept N as an abbreviation for NT.
Fix: Board→Edit was not immediately diagnosing duplicate cards when a hand had less than 13 cards.
Fix: Other PBN programs could possibly overwrite the BridgeComposer flags that were kept in the PBN "Application" tag. Move the flags to a new, non-standard "BCFlags" tag.
Fix: The Diagram, Auction and Play were stretched horizontally for some newer fonts such as Calibri and Cambria.
Fix: Convert PBN "suffixes" in the Auction and Play sections to PBN "NAGs" in the PBN file, for conformance with the PBN standard EXPORT format. (The NAG is still displayed as a suffix, however.)
Fix: Resize the Auction and Play columns, if necessary, to accommodate their content.
Fix: HTML: Ensure that anchor names for boards are syntactically correct HTML names.

[2011-09-09] Key features and bug fixes in 5.28:

For consistency, change all occurrences of "suit symbols" to "pips" in the user interface and the help topics.
Support the ITC Souvenir bridge font (analogously to the Gill Sans bridge font).
Format→Board Layout: HTML tab: New "Native" pip rendering mode.
Format→Board Layout: Card Table tab: Show what the card table looks like.
Format→Board Layout: Pips tab: Show what the pips look like.
Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Place "Result" values (number of tricks taken by declarer) into the score tables.
Score tables: Display the "Result" column (number of tricks taken by declarer) when present.
HTML score tables: Make the columns a little bit wider to improve readability.
File→Page Layout: Auto-select the "fit" radio button when the number of columns is changed.
Fix: When a PBN file specifies [Vulnerable "Both"] (rather than the Export-format [Vulnerable "All"]), BridgeComposer erroneously showed "None vul".
Fix: Help→License: Uninstall with option to remove all user settings nonetheless retained a few entries in the registry.
Fix: Help→License: Uninstall with option to keep all user settings nonetheless lost the current window position.
Fix: Board→Check Spelling: Sometimes, unknown words with accented letters were not recognized as a single word.
Fix: File→Page Layout: Rearrange the dialog slightly to save some screen space.
Fix: Multiboard layouts: When clicking between boards, sometimes an unexpected board was selected. Fix to select the board nearest to the click point.
Fix: Board→New: The "Previous board" control was not working correctly.
Fix: View→Next To Play: Update the screen properly after using Board→Edit.
Fix: Board→Validate: Improve diagnosis of plays out of turn.
Fix: View→Hand Record Page Layout might cause the hand record titles to be unintentionally set to the previously used values.
Fix: The page footer might incorrectly show a previously-used value for the Event field.
Workaround: Pasting into Microsoft Word in HTML format did not result in the correct font for the hand diagram. To workaround, we re-specify the font for each diagram element.

[2011-08-08] Key features and bug fixes in 5.27:

File→Page Layout: New layouts: As many as will fit, 3 and 4 columns. Added Portrait/Landscape selection.
New menu command: Tools→Delete All Boards Following.
Board→Edit: Deal fields: Use a fixed-pitch font; show a count of cards entered.
Board→Edit: New controls: Edit Next Board and Edit Previous Board.
Board→Edit: Disable the Autofill buttons when the deal is already full.
File→Open: Importing .lin, .dup and .dlm files: Show the original filename in the BridgeComposer window title bar, but still prompt for a new filename if File→Save is invoked.
New command line parameter: /htbp for HTML boilerplate file path.
HTML code: Tweak "id" and "class" attributes to facilitate use of website style sheets.
Help topics: Document technical details regarding Tools→Generate Random Boards.
Fix: Page footer right pane was mispositioned for multicolumn layouts.
Fix: Board→Edit: Make a change, Apply, then hit OK: Sometimes we got redundant Edit→Undo entries.
Fix: Hand Record Titles with Title Box text: When the Event ends in a newline (\n), suppress the " - " between the Event and the Date.
Fix: Makeable Contracts: Translate NESW according to the Format→Board Layout: Translate tab.
Fix: .lin files: Convert cards played to upper case.
Fix: .dup files: Be a little more tolerant of non-standard files.
Fix: HTML: Handle \ escape codes in the Event field when formatting the <title> text.
Fix: HTML: When the diagram was float left but hidden, a blank square appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
Fix: Help→License: Uninstall button: User settings were being removed even when "keep" was requested.
Fix: Help→License: Uninstall button: Do more to avoid necessitating a system reboot.

[2011-06-12] Bug fixes in 5.26.3:

Keyboard escapes for suit symbols were not working in 1-column page layout with diagram float left.
A double-quote character in an Auction or Play Note would cause the note to be truncated at that point after saving and reloading. Also fixed similar problem with Event, Board, Site and player name fields.

[2011-06-04] Bug fixes in 5.26.2:

Keyboard and suit-symbol entry was not working correctly for two-column layouts (2 boards per page, 4 boards per page, as many as will fit 2 columns).
Window was not drawn correctly after Board→Copy.
Show/Hide boxes were being clipped.

[2011-06-03] Bug fixes in 5.26.1:

Setting the default page layout to "hand record" (using Format→Layout→Save As Default) was causing problems, including an application crash when quitting.
After Format→Page Footer, Edit→Undo was not working.

[2011-05-30] Key features and bug fixes in 5.26:

New command: Format→Page footer. Page footers may contain arbitrary text, page numbers, date, etc.
New command: Tools→Validate All Boards.
New command: Board→Rotate Hands: Similar to Board→Rotate, but doesn't alter the dealer, vulnerability or player names.
Hand record page layout: Taking the title box and last page arbitrary text messages from the Board 1 commentary sections was causing problems with Board→Delete and other things. The arbitrary text messages are now kept in the file header, separate from any boards. They now must be edited using Format→Hand Record Titles.
Format→Hand Record Titles: Options to center title box and last page arbitrary text.
Format→Board Layout: Score Table tab: Additional option to sort by score.
Board→Copy Partial: Add a checkbox for Makeable Contracts.
View→Toggle Hand Record Page Layout: Remove the word "Toggle" from the menu command and place a check mark by the command when in hand record page layout.
HTML: Optional floating board navigation bar (Format→Board Layout: NavBar tab).
HTML: Whitespace above boards is now set as per the File→Page Layout horizontal gutter size.
HTML: When using Format→Board Layout: General tab and checking "Use Event text for page headers", we used to show the Event text over the first board only. Now we don't show the Event text at all (except in the hand record title box and optionally in the NavBar).
Format→Board Layout: HTML tab: New fields: Float Left Width: Diagram and Labels. These can be used to vertically align the left edges of Score Tables in web pages.
HTML: Some things are rendered differently in Internet Explorer 9. Add a header that requests Internet Explorer 7 compatibility mode for rendering.
New command line parameters: /copies and /collate for printing multiple copies.
At installation time, ask only once (at most) about taking over the .pbn file type.
Help→License: Uninstall button: Options to preserve the license key and other user settings.
Fix: Tools→Sort All Boards By Number was clearing an existing document-modified flag.
Fix: In HTML hand records, if the site and event are blank, the date was not centered.
Fix: HTML: The card table N and S were left-aligned under some external CSS style sheets.
Fix: When the diagram is float left and both the labels and the West hand are hidden, the commentary text overlaid the East hand.
Fix: When the diagram is float left but hidden, a blank square appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
Fix: Update the board number in the dropdown control when hitting Apply in Board→Edit.
Fix: Board→Rotate was not updating the vulnerability.
Fix: Tools→Import From ACBLscore: When switching out of hand record page layout, the margins were not being restored.
Fix: BridgeComposer was generating a non-conforming PBN tag of [Note ""] for blank lines in the auction/play footnotes. These are now accommodated in a way conforming to the PBN standard.
Help topics: Document the Player Name fields.
Help topics: Document how to place suit symbols in auction/play footnotes.

[2011-03-27] Key features and bug fixes in 5.25:

Rename the Tools→Copy All Boards command to Tools→Copy All Boards As HTML Code. This more accurately describes the function of the command, which itself has not changed.
Board→Edit (and Enter Hands): Move the "Enter New Board" controls from the lower left corner to the lower right corner. This is because the OK button should be the leftmost control at the bottom of a dialog.
New command: View→Toggle Hand Record Page Layout (Shift+F5), a shortcut for File→Page Layout....
Restore the previous margins and gutter flags when switching in and out of Hand Record Page Layout.
Hand Record Titles dialog: Add buttons to enter/edit arbitrary text messages for the title box and last page. Provide a button to restore the last message used.
Improve the placement of the hand record last page text message on the page.
Tools→Sort All Boards By Number: (1) Display a message if any boards are missing. (2) Preserve hand record titles.
Board→Edit: Hide the "Enter New Board" controls when the document is OLE embedded or linked.
Tools→Split Score Table Sections: (1) Copy double dummy analysis to replicated boards. (2) Sort unplayed boards to the end of the document rather than the beginning.
Look for hand record titles in the second board only if the first board has the "recap" flag set, that is, it was created by Tools→Import From ACBLscore.
Board→Copy Partial: Fix enabling/disabling the "Copy" button when the "Labels" box is checked/unchecked.
Fix a crash when an invalid path follows /pdf on the command line.
Fix unknown % comment lines in a .pbn file being duplicated, potentially leading to very large file sizes and noticeably slow keyboarding.
Fix the dropdown control sometimes showing an incorrect board number.
Board→Correct Spelling: Do not spell-check the player names.
Balloon tooltips: Fix being non-responsive while the system notification sound is playing.
Fix the Format→Board Layout Translate tab disappearing.
Double Dummy Solver: Update to dds.dll 1.1.11.
Avoid additional dialog boxes when running in /noui mode.
Provide categories for BridgeComposer entries in the Windows Application Event Log. (Note: When you install BridgeComposer 5.25, existing event log entries issued by a previous version of BridgeComposer may not display correctly in the Windows Event Viewer.)

[2011-02-12] Key features and bug fixes in 5.24:

Paragraph indent option (Format→Board Layout General tab).
"Enter New Board" control in Board Edit and Enter Hands dialogs.
Rename menu command "Board→Copy As HTML" to "Board→Copy As HTML Code" to express function more clearly.
Board→Copy Partial: Add a "Labels" checkbox.
Hand Record page layout: Allow arbitrary text additions to the title box and last page. See the help topic "hand record titles" for details.
Printing: Improve diagnostics regarding clipped text.
Option to customize the date format in the hand record title box (Format→Board Layout Translate tab).
Date in the hand record title box: Suppress leading zeros in the day of the month (in the default format).
PDF: Render pips correctly when Bold Diagram font has been selected.
Help file: Clarify that suit symbols are entered using consecutive key strokes (rather than simultaneous).
The default folder for the .exe and other files is changed from "...\Bridge Club Utilities\BridgeComposer" to "...\Bridge Club Software\BridgeComposer". (This was a consequence, unnoticed at the time, of changing the "Manufacturer" property in the Setup project.) The Start menu shortcut to BridgeComposer remains in the Start menu "Bridge Club Utilities" folder.
Fix crash trying to recover a file on a floppy that has been removed.
Fix incorrect selected text highlighting in Hand Record page layout.
Fix characters shifting left/right on-screen while typing in Justify mode.
Fix crash if incorrect Date in .pbn file.
Fix deleting board 1 hosing the hand record titles.
Fix Generate Random Boards displaying the new boards improperly when they are inserted rather than appended.

[2010-11-17] Key features and bug fixes in 5.23:

Hand record titles: Keep the game date as an additional data field. (See Gallery no. 10)

Optionally display the date in the hand record titles box.
Keep the date value in the [Date] tag of board 1 (or 2).
New Date field in the Hand Record Titles dialog.

Format→Board Layout: General tab: Explicit show/hide of the board labels.
Format→Board Layout: Card Table tab: Explicit show/hide of the card table.
OLE Support:
- Add "Recent Layouts" to the OLE Format→Layout submenu.
- Fixed: Changing the pip font did not update the window.
- Layout→Load Default/Load Factory Default: Use the OLE default margins.
Fixed: Uninstall was sometimes leaving behind the five hard links to the dds.dll file.
Fixed: Layout→Load (and Undo of same) was not resetting the translation that was in effect.
Document when the command line interface variable ERRORLEVEL may not get set.

[2010-11-06] Key features and bug fixes in 5.22:

HTML: Better centering of N and S in the card table.
HTML: Explicitly left-justify notes, contract, lead, etc. (IE was showing them centered.)
Fixed: The commentary in some .pbn files created by other programs was not being shown.
Add "Recent Layout Files" to the Format→Layout submenu.
Format→Layout→Save: Check that the file being saved to doesn't contain any boards that will get lost.
Support the "Cards" font for pips.
Copy unknown % escape lines from the input pbn to the output pbn so that they are not lost.
Document that DM Pro not computing double-dummy analysis for five- or fewer-card fits is a DM Pro decision, not a Deep Finesse one.
Fixed: Tools→Generate Random Boards: If you added an auction, you got the message "No dealer tag".
Create 30-day trial license during install, not at first user run.
New command line parameter: /random count to generate count random boards.
PDF: Improve compatibility with 3rd party readers, particularly Mac and Linux.
PDF: Support shaded scoretables.
PDF: Creation date did not take daylight savings into account.
Fixed: Sometimes you would get "Encountered an improper argument" when double-clicking text.

[2010-08-16] Key features and bug fixes in 5.21:

New Format→Board Layout tab: Translate. Permits reformatting BridgeComposer diagrams and translating into other languages. See sample here.
File→Page Layout: Margins: New drop-down list of convenient margin settings.
In hand record page layout, statistics about the deals are now shown (page space permitting).
Pasting HTML into WordPress and the like often did not look good. So, BridgeComposer HTML code now provides explicit style for <table>, <td> etc. to override the environment CSS.
New command: Board→Copy As HTML. Permits pasting into a website editor's code view.
New command line options:
- /quiet: Suppresses the Tools→Import From ACBLscore message "No TS score data found".
- /event, /site: Set the labels for the hand record title boxes.
- /pdf: Writes the current document as a PDF file.
Hand record page layout: Could not click the show/hide control if it was over a title box.
Board→Score Table was not hiding empty diagrams when the dealer was not North.
Formatting commands (Bold, Italic, Underline, etc.) were not working if the selection was created right-to-left.
Suppress showing tooltips if they would obscure the Help window.
Fix problems with leading empty lines in commentary sections.
Fix incorrect default margins for PBN files downloaded and opened using Internet Explorer.
Renumber the messages issued to the Windows Application event log. This frees up low message numbers for use as message categories in a future release.

[2010-07-02] Key bug fixes in 5.20:

Fix for card table font size in HTML output.
Not all the bug fixes listed for 5.19 below actually made it into the release build. They are all now included in 5.20.

[2010-07-01] Key bug fixes in 5.19:

Allow reading some .dup files that are not strictly conforming to the standard.
Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Switch to 1 board per page layout if in hand record page layout.
Allow Edit→Undo after Format→Hand Record Titles.
Tools→Generate Random Boards: Disable the "Switch to hand record page layout" checkbox during board generation.
/noui command line option: Suppress additional message boxes. Provide additional message box details in the Windows Application log. Return the default button rather than always "Cancel".
Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Treat a doubled-letter section (e.g. MM) like a single-letter section for purposes of reading the .bws file.

[2010-06-08] Key features and bug fixes in 5.18:

File→Page Layout: As many as will fit (one or two columns): Draw a horizontal gutter line at the bottom of each column (when horizontal gutter lines are enabled).
Tools→Copy All Boards: Include HTML comment lines showing program version and options.
Gutter lines too faint: Increase width to 1/300" regardless of printer resolution.
Tools→Split Score Table Sections: New command to create a separate diagram for each section.
/split command line parameter: Do the above from the command line.
Tools→Sort All Boards By Number: Now sorts first by Section tag (if set).
Format→Board Layout→Score Table: Provide three score sort orders to override the default.
Wireless data not found dialog: The "Don't show this again" checkbox was not working.
/noui command line parameter: For running on a server, suppresses most message boxes.

[2010-05-15] Feature in 5.17:

Read Windows Duplimate (.dlm) files.

[2010-05-07] Bug fixes in 5.16.3:

Command line interface: Skip the loading of the spell-check wordlists; skip the restoring of the main window position; document that there is never a "save changes" prompt.
User wordlist folder: Use SHGetFolderPath rather than SHGetSpecialFolderPath; log failures in the system Application log rather than showing a message box.

[2010-05-05] Bug fixes in 5.16.2:

Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Pick section letter correctly from Howell movement .txt file.
Repair "Help" button on View→Next To Play message box (broken in 5.15.3).

[2010-04-30] Key feature in 5.16.1:

Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Accept opening lead data from .bws file in either correct order (suit, rank) or reverse order (rank, suit).

[2010-04-27] Key features and bug fixes in 5.16:

Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Collect opening lead data from the wireless device database (Bridgemate or BridgePad), when present.
Board→Score Table:
- Allow manual entry of opening lead data.
- Sort by clicking on pair number column was not working for multiple-section games.
- Restore correct sort order on closing, for a multiple-section game.
Score Tables: Display a "Lead" column, if opening lead data is present.
Allow manual entry of Contract, Declarer and Lead data either before or after doing the Tools→Import From ACBLscore. IMPORTANT: Due to the changes required for this feature, users of Import From ACBLscore should be sure to see the updated help topic section "Repeating An Import" near the bottom of the help topic "Import From ACBLscore command".
New command, Tools→Remove Recap And All Score Tables, to facilitate repeating an Import in some cases.
Board→Validate: Additional checks: "Score" tag, "ScoreTable" tag. Scores are numerically validated, taking into account the Contract, Vulnerability and Result tags, if they are filled in.
Tools→Import From ACBLscore:
- The "board number" of the inserted recap/leader board listing is now "Recap".
- Alert if wireless data not found: "file not found" now issues an information-level message; other errors such as "access denied" now issue an error-level message.
- Handle .bws contract value of "N P".
Text double-click and drag to the left was not working right.
Double Dummy Solver: Update to DDS.dll 1.1.10.
Disable certain additional commands when there are zero boards in the document.

[2010-04-12] Bug fixes in 5.15.3:

Fixes for running as a web server subprocess:

Avoid putting up dialogs and alert boxes (they don't appear anywhere and can't be dismissed, and thus the program is hung waiting).
Log to the Windows Application Log:
- If opening the document file fails.
- If opening an Import From ACBLscore .txt file fails.
- If an Import From ACBLscore .bws file is not found or cannot be accessed.
- If a message box was suppressed.
- If the software license has expired.

Note: You can view the Windows Application Log using Windows Control Panel→Administrative Tools→Event Viewer

[2010-04-06] Bug fixes in 5.15.2:

Copy Partial: Diagram: Was empty or single-suited.
Copy Partial: Auction but not Diagram: Notes were squished at left.
Spelling check squiggly line: Was mispositioned for Auction or Play Notes line two and following.
Import From ACBLscore: Contracts incorrect or missing for last board (multiple sections with no hand records).

[2010-04-03] Bug fix in 5.15.1:

Sometimes, while backspacing using the keyboard, an error message box would pop up.

[2010-03-15] Key features and bug fixes in 5.15:

File→Page Layout: New "Hand record" layout (18 boards per page).

New commands: Format→Hand Record Font; Format→Hand Record Titles.

Format→Fixed-pitch font: Default to 10-point rather than 12-point (consistent with popular web browsers).
Printing: Display a diagnostic if a page header will not print properly.
File→Page Layout: Check that margins are not too small for selected printer and paper size.
HTML: Improve page title: Use board 2 Event if present; if not, use filename as before but remove file extension.
Add "% EXPORT" to our PBN files (improves compatibility with other bridge programs).
New command line option: /save filename.pbn
.lin file: Fix line break within a note being shown as a space.
OLE In-place editing: Fix F10 key not working.
Tools→Import From ACBLscore:
- Hide unplayed boards.
- Pick up section letter properly from "List" report.
- Help: Document repeating an import.
Fix paste into email or Word getting a little yellow box at the bottom.
Fix writing recovery file promptly after GIB finishes (or is stopped).
Fix updating cursor and tooltips after a scroll via the mouse wheel.

[2010-02-03] Bug fixes in 5.14.1:

Tools→Import From ACBLscore: Two-section game: No scores for boards played in second section only.
Edit→Complete Word: Completion via the keyboard was broken in 5.14.

[2010-01-29] Key features and bug fixes in 5.14:

Commentary text selection (using keyboard and/or mouse) has been reworked:

Additional standard keyboard combinations that are used to extend the selection are now supported: Shift + left/right/up/down arrow; Shift + Home; Shift + End. Also, you can extend the selection to include the next or previous word using Shift + Ctrl + right/left arrow.
Selections are now directional (left-to-right and top-to-bottom, or right-to-left and bottom-to-top). When you extend the selection using the shift key, it is extended from the previous stopping point (left-top or bottom-right).
When you select a word by double-clicking or using Ctrl + left or right arrow, the space or spaces following the word (if any) are included in the selection. This may facilitate cut and paste, and is the way many other word processing applications work.
When selecting words, a "word" is now a sequence of alphanumerics bounded by one or more spaces or a non-alphanumeric (such as punctuation), or a sequence of non-alphanumerics bounded by one or more spaces or an alphanumeric.
Shift + double-click now selects the whole word you double-clicked and extends the selection to it.

The version 5.9 feature "Format→Board Layout: Card Table tab, Font button" had the side effect that the card table NESW lettering was no longer automatically resized when you used Format→Diagram Font. We have added a new Card Table tab checkbox, "Use specified font size". When unchecked, the card table font size automatically resizes to the Diagram font size minus one (as was done prior to 5.9, except now your specified font face and style are used); when checked, whatever size you select using the Font button is used and automatic resizing does not occur.
Fix: Sometimes Undo was unavailable after Format→Board Layout.
HTML: Optional links ("Valid XHTML" and "Prepared using BridgeComposer") are now aligned at the left rather than the right (where the user sometimes had to scroll to see them).
Tools→Import From ACBLscore:

Edit→Options: Advanced tab: A new "Do Not Set Document Modified Flag" option. You can use this to avoid getting "Save changes?" prompts after doing an Import and File→Save As HTML.
Fix: The "Contract" column was missing on boards played in only one section of a multiple-section game.

The semantics of "partial deal" are changed slightly. Previously, when the dealer had less than 13 cards, it was a "partial deal". The problem was that this included new boards in which everyone had zero cards. Now, a "partial deal" is a board containing at least one but less than 52 cards. This can affect the display of board labels (board number, dealer, and vulnerability) and the operation of the "Set Default Board Number" button in the Board Edit dialog. See Help→Help Topics for more information (look in the index for "partial deals").
Edit→Complete Word: Fix: When the document was scrolled down, the pop-up window was positioned incorrectly (and even may have been off-screen!). Also, holding the Ctrl key will now make the pop-up window translucent.

[2009-11-30] Bug fix in 5.12.1:

In 5.12, the font commands would say "no fonts installed" in Windows XP.

[2009-11-29] Key changes in 5.12:

Additional Wine support:

Font dialog: Scale font sizes correctly
Font dialog: Disable the Apply button until Wine supports the required interface
Display In Web Browser, etc: Open web pages using "winebrowser"

[2009-11-12] Key features and bug fixes in 5.11:

Import From ACBLscore: If an imported board does not exist, create an empty board to hold the Score Table. This allows the feature to be used even when hand records do not exist.
Score Tables: Option to sort by North/South pair number (rather than North/South score).
Fix a few things to allow installing and running under Wine. (Wine runs Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X). Note: There are still some program features that do not work correctly when running under Wine.

[2009-10-20] Bug fixes in 5.10.1:

Import From ACBLscore: Repair import of single-section games.

[2009-10-20] Key features and bug fixes in 5.10:

HTML options are now kept with each individual document. HTML options tab has been moved from Edit→Options to Format→Board Layout. (Use Format→Layout submenu to save document options as application defaults.)
Ability to Open Duplimate (.dup) file format.
Import From ACBLscore: Improved handling of multiple-section games.
New command: Board→Score Table: Allows manual entry of Contract and Declarer data into an existing Score Table.
Blank the "BC" status bar area on startup.
New /sort command line option.
Window size on first startup after installation is now based on the printer paper size. (Subsequent startups continue to restore the window size to what it was when you last quit.)
Updated help file Table of Contents.
Hide tooltips when opening a program dialog panel.
Fix lines beginning with 80 or more spaces being shifted left.
Find Dialog: "What's this?" help was not working in Vista+.

[2009-09-23] Key features and bug fixes in 5.9:

Edit→Options: New tab Colors to adjust user interface colors.
Edit→Options: Score Table tab moved to Format→Board Layout, since Score Table formatting options are now kept with each document.
The option "Alert If Wireless Data Not Found" has been moved from the Score Table options to the Edit→Options Advanced tab.
Format→Board Layout: two new tabs: Pip Colors and Card Table to adjust colors and font used in hand diagrams.
New command: Edit→Complete Word to auto-finish a word you're typing.
New option: Justify Commentary Text on the Format→Board Layout General tab.
New command: Format→Fixed-Pitch Font.
New commands: Format→Layout→Save As Default, Save, Save As..., Load Default, Load Factory Default, Load... These allow you to maintain different settings files for different tasks. The former "Save Current Settings As Default" button in the Edit→Options General tab has been removed.
New command line interface option: "/layout file" to load a layout settings file.
Paper size (as set by File→Print Setup) is now one of the layout settings. Among other things, when you Undo a Print Setup, the paper size is restored.
Tools menu: Show the commands in alphabetical order.
Fix keyboard entry into a commentary section that has the Preformatted flag set.
After clicking Undo or Redo on the toolbar, pop up a new tooltip (showing what the next click will do).
Fix GIB play ending early if the auction was incomplete and the play section was non-empty.
New command: Tools→GIB Bid and Play In Commentary.
While GIB is running, continue to show tooltips for hand evaluation and call interpretation.
Show both the Result/Score line and the Score Table, if both are present.
Import From ACBLscore: Clarify that it is a .txt file report that is imported.
Import From ACBLscore: Diagnose problems with the text file before attempting to open the wireless database file.
Command line interface: Don't show any windows unless necessary.
Fix vertical gutter line overdrawing the page header text.
Fixes for the Windows Search filter.
Fix selecting the final commentary section of the last board when you click below the board.
Clarify messages 501 (incorrect opening leader) and 504 (incorrect play token).
Enable use of Windows security options: Data Execution Prevention and Address Space Layout Randomization.
Avoid reading the registry excessively while idle.

[2009-07-07] Bug fixes in 5.8:

Undo Autofill: Restores deal to contents just before the Autofill (as in version 5.4 and previous); Undo Autofill and Undo Clear no longer do an automatic Apply.
Format→Font commands: Avoid creating redundant Undo entries.
Import From ACBLscore: Import from wireless data: Use data from the correct table section only.
Fix a couple of dialogs hogging the CPU while waiting for input.
HTML: Fix not showing the Results field (other than ScoreTable results). (Broken in 5.6.)
Check license key validity when running in command-line mode.
Board→Double Dummy: Fix the error message when the DDS DLL cannot be loaded.
Board→Correct Spelling: Ensure the screen layout data is current so that selections are correct.

[2009-06-20] Key features in 5.7:

Windows Search: Make card holdings findable.
Double Dummy: Document that it may show more makeable contracts than ~~Deep Finesse~~ Dealmaster Pro.
ScoreTable: Option to show ScoreTable as in versions 5.4-5.5 (fixed-pitch font, no border or shading).
New command: Tools→Copy All Boards for pasting HTML code into web design apps.
HTML: Place JavaScript code at bottom of page for faster page display during loading, tweak JavaScript code.
HTML: Put comments in <body> giving BridgeComposer version and options in use.
Import From ACBLscore: Sort equal scores by N-S pair number.

[2009-05-19] Key features and bug fixes in 5.6:

Add code to display the "ScoreTable", a standard structure in PBN files that records board results when played at multiple tables (as in a duplicate bridge session).

New Edit→Options tab for ScoreTable.

Enhance Tools→Import From ACBLscore:

Put scores in a ScoreTable rather than in commentary.
Sort scores by descending North-South matchpoints.
Import contract and declarer from the wireless scoring database (Bridgemate, BridgePad), if present.

New command line parameters to support using BridgeComposer in a script (.bat file, etc.).
Always use a monospace font (Courier New) to display commentary with the "Preformatted" flag set. This allows you to set the commentary font as desired for non-preformatted text.
Undo/Redo: In the toolbar tooltip, show what will be undone or redone (like the menu has always done).
Suppress the splash screen when starting up as an OLE server.

[2009-05-07] Key features and bug fixes in 5.5:

Board→New: Show a warning message if you enter a board number that has been entered previously in the same document.
Windows Search "IFilter": Allows Windows Search to find BridgeComposer files containing specific words in the text. Support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.
Board→Validate enhancements:

A new Help topic page for each board validation message.
You can double-click board validation messages to open the relevant Help topic.
A new button on the validation report dialog to open the Board→Edit dialog.

HTML: Popup windows to show hand evaluation and auction call comments on web pages (similar to the BridgeComposer application window tooltips). Note: Viewers have to allow JavaScript for the popups to work.
Completed the implementation of Format→Board Layout→Float Left. Text, if long enough, will now wrap under the diagram. See at right.
Board→Double Dummy: Now computes each strain in a separate thread. Up to 2x faster on a Core 2 Duo; up to 4x faster on a Core 2 Quad.
New command: Tools→Double Dummy All Boards.
New command: File→Validate HTML. Generates HTML code and submits it to the W3C validator. Results show in your web browser. (This does what the Edit→Options "Valid XHTML" link has always done, but it works without having to upload the HTML file to a server first.)
HTML: Use the W3C logo image for the "Valid XHTML" link.
HTML: Improved comments in the generated code.
Recognize PBN standard "supplemental sections". Import double dummy analysis from OptimumResultTable if present. Record DDA (if it has been calculated and saved) in an OptimumResultTable when saving.
Fix OLE in-place editing to update the screen when text changes.
Board→New, Board→Paste, Tools→Generate Random Boards: Fix to more reliably avoid leaving an empty board at the beginning of the document.
Edit→Find: Fix to be sure the found board is rendered correctly.
Clean up the AppData folders during uninstall.
PBN: Omit the extra newline in .pbn files at the start of each comment section.
Fix sometimes showing the wait cursor while idle.
Correctly handle & and < in auction call comments (screen and HTML).
Document that the install option "Create Quick-Launch Toolbar Shortcut" won't work on Windows 7. (It's a Win7 feature!)

[2009-04-06] Bug fixes in 5.4.1:

Import From ACBLscore: Process a recap or leader board listing at the beginning of the text file.
HTML Options: Boilerplate: Browse button: open to correct directory; filter both .htm and .html (by default).
Document that user HTML boilerplate may cause validation errors when using the "Valid XHTML" link.
If the user HTML boilerplate has a <title> tag, omit generating another one.
Fix loading the user-specified default layout making a new document appear to be modified.
Fix clearing/setting the "float left" flag when parsing files created by older versions of BC and for Board Paste.
GIB Play: Record score in PBN standard format ("NS" rather than "N/S").

[2009-04-02] Key features and bug fixes in 5.4:

A new "diagram position" option (in addition to Justify Left and Center) in Format→Board Layout: Float Left. The commentary text will appear to the right of the hand diagram, auction, etc.
New command: Tools→Import From ACBLscore to add "TS" score data to boards.
"Preformatted" flag for Commentary sections to suppress word wrapping (and to preserve white space in HTML output).
Extend Edit→Options, General tab, "Save Current Settings As Default", to include all layout settings.
HTML: Properly render < and & characters that appear in commentary text.
HTML: Interpret the "Use Event text for page headers" flag so as to suppress Event text for all boards after the first.
HTML: Specify that browsers should not wrap diagram lines when window is narrow.
HTML: Provide for user-specified boilerplate code (Edit→Options, HTML tab).
View→Next To Play: Show message box in case of difficulties.
Hand evaluation tooltips: Align North tooltip with top of hand, if space permits.
Auction call comments: Keep tooltips on-screen by shifting left if necessary.
Spelling wordlist addition: "slammish".
Help file updates.

[2009-03-17] Key features and bug fixes in 5.3:

New command: Board→Exchange Hands
Make the description of BCUpdate.exe (which downloads program updates) more explicit: may help in identifying the program to firewalls.
Fix toolbar tooltips showing obscure accelerator keys: always show the same accelerator as the menu command.
Show the GIB update alert for additional back-level versions of GIB.
Fix clearing the makeable contracts unnecessarily when the dealer is changed.
Fix HTML showing the auction column headers sometimes when there was no auction present.
Fix updating the screen when adding empty lines to non-final commentary (broken in 5.2).

[2009-03-05] Key features and bug fixes in 5.2:

Improved WYSIWYG: The screen more accurately depicts what will be printed.
Extend spelling checking and correcting to the Event and Notes fields.
Notes (Auction and Play section footnotes) validation:

Check for one-to-one correspondence between note references and note definitions.
Check that note numbers are in sequence.
Check the syntax of note references (between = signs).
Alert the user to problems sooner if possible.

Edit→Find: Search the Notes fields.
Tools→Generate Random Boards: A new menu command.
Insert menu: Show keyboard equivalents in the standard position.
Help→Check For Updates: Provide a link to the What's New page (this page).
Help→License: Provide an Uninstall button.
Help: Split the Board→Edit help page into separate sub-pages for each field.
Provide an alert if GIB should be updated (6.2.0 is recommended for Windows Vista).
Use a more robust pseudo-random number generator for Autofill and random deals.
The wrong font was sometimes being used for the Event field.
The Makeable Contracts may have been word-wrapped incorrectly.
The full-screen display would flicker when going to the next board (version 5.0 to 5.1.3).
After starting a new session, Find→Next (F3) would not work right away.
File→Save As PDF: Certain diagram font sizes could lead to "Font not supported for PDF".

[2009-02-04] Bug fixes in 5.1.3:

When installing a new version, automatically reset the menu and tool bar to their default states. This ensures that enhancements to the menu and toolbar are visible.
Minor help file updates.
Insert menu: show keyboard equivalents for suit symbols.
Fixes for Notes (Auction and Play section footnotes):

Allow blank lines (for vertical spacing).
Diagnose incorrect format and order (in Board Validate command).
Use all the available horizontal space when laying out the text.
HTML: Fix using ordered-list markup when both notes sections are present.

[2009-01-19] Demos/Tutorials

This website now contains a Demos/Tutorials page showing BridgeComposer in action. The first demo/tutorial is now online.

[2009-01-11] Bug fixes in 5.1.2:

Revised Sort ordering
Fix BridgeComposer not restarting itself after a program update
Fix temp file being created that never got deleted

[2009-01-10] Key features and bug fixes in 5.1.1:

Not all of the help topic updates intended for 5.1 were included; now they are.
Renamed the GIB menu to the Tools menu.
Added a new command: Tools→Sort All Boards By Number.

After updating to 5.1.1, hold down the right shift key while starting BridgeComposer to load the new main menu. (This need be done only once.)

[2009-01-09] Key features and bug fixes in 5.1:

Automatic work saver: If a crash occurs, you can recover your work.
Self-updater: If a BridgeComposer update is available, one click starts the download & install sequence.
Board Edit dialog: Don't declare an error if all hands are empty.
Board Edit dialog: Define shortcut keys for some fields and buttons that were lacking them.
Board→New in a fresh new file: Just edit the existing empty board rather than creating a new board and leaving the empty board lying around at the start of the file.
Auto-scroll: When a different board is selected, version 5.0 implemented an automatic scroll to the top of the newly selected board. Version 5.1 includes several improvements to this feature.
Copy Partial: Handle "\n" (new line) in Event field properly.
Copy Partial: Do not copy contract & declarer unless the auction is selected.
Full Screen: Fix double-dummy analysis being cut off.
GIB→Bid And Play: Fix incorrect hand outlining (single suit vs. whole hand); fix an intermittent crash.
In an update install, preserve the existing user preference for automatic update checks, irrespective of what is selected on the install options panel (because install cannot currently inspect and display the existing user preferences).
"Automatically check website for program updates" checkbox is now on the Check For Updates dialog (in addition to Edit→Options).
Format→Board Layout: Space below Event text: do not show the error prompt if the field is blanked.
Fix crash when started with a non-existent file on the command line.
Add "Visit website" link on the Help→About box.
When a board shows the North hand only (the other three hidden), suppress the NESW square. (This restores existing behavior that was accidentally disabled in version 5.0.)
Help topic updates for Board→Copy, Play section formatting, page headers, OLE support.

[2008-12-13] Bug fix in 5.0.1:

Fix crash using new Enter Hands dialog when fourth hand has a void.

[2008-11-27] Key features in 5.0:

License key check: BridgeComposer will now remind you to purchase (or uninstall) after the 30-day free trial is up. Entering a license key will avoid these reminders. Previous purchasers (and other authorized users) may obtain a license key at no additional charge by sending email to support@bridgecomposer.com.
Modernized menu and toolbar.
Undo, Redo and Print Preview on the toolbar.
Check for updates online.
Page headers.
Enter Hands dialog to fill hands using point-and-click.

[2008-09-27] Key features and bug fixes in 4.4:

OLE support (for placing BridgeComposer boards into other applications such as MS Word) was seriously broken, probably since version 4.0, and is now repaired.
A new Board→Copy Partial command is implemented. Should help with OLE and some other things.
Pasting as HTML into MS Word is fixed.
Print Preview: fix suit symbol in line of text shifting baseline up.
Fix text selection highlight crossing into second column of a two-column page layout.
Add contract and tricks won by each side to the board validation report (for information only).
Fix spelling check sometimes not being performed at the correct time.
Fix GIB→Bid and Play: first hand to play did not show optimum plays.
Provide references for hand evaluation calculations.
View→Next To Play: make the gray color of cards already played easier to distinguish.
64-bit OS: Look for GIB in "Program Files (x86)" folder.
Document the handling of question marks and other punctuation.
Correct full-screen display of several hand types.
4 boards per page: allow text to run into the gutters without clipping unnecessarily.
Overrunning the margins: provide improved diagnostics and specialized help.
Updated to Double Dummy Solver DLL 1.1.9 by Bo Haglund. Reportedly another 10-15% faster.

[2008-03-18] Key features in 4.3:

Updated to Double Dummy Solver DLL 1.1.8 by Bo Haglund. Reportedly 10-15% faster.
Slightly faster screen drawing due to caching font character widths.

[2008-03-02] Key features in 4.2:

Now includes the Double Dummy Solver DLL 1.1.7 by Bo Haglund. This permits calculating the "makeable contracts" for boards without the need to purchase any additional software. The Double Dummy command has been moved from the GIB menu to the Board menu.
View Next To Play mode now shows "optimum plays" (as calculated by the double-dummy solver) in green.
XHTML compatibility extended to commentary text markup (bold, italic and underline).

[2008-02-14] Dealer (on the Bonus Software page) has been upgraded to version 2.0:

Dealer now includes the Double Dummy Solver DLL by Bo Haglund. This permits calculating the "makeable contracts" for boards without the need to purchase any additional software.
Dealer "makeable contracts" may now be displayed in text form (the older grid form is still available as an option).
Dealer board numbers are rendered in a large font size.

[2008-02-09] Bug fixes in 4.1.1:

Play column headers sometimes appeared when there was no play section
Card drag and drop was broken in 4.1 release
View Next To Play dimmed all cards when declarer was not known

[2008-01-16] Key features and fixes in 4.1:

When mouse is over a hand, a new tooltip gives hand evaluation
When entering hands, the fourth hand auto-autofills
File→Save As HTML:
- Now includes font selections (but as with all web pages, rendering may vary depending on a particular viewer's browser and installed fonts)
- Greater control over HTML generation (new HTML tab in Edit→Options)
- HTML is now valid XHTML code
Double Dummy: Result now saved, and "makeable contracts" displayed with the board
Fixes for reading BridgeBase files (.lin files)
Fix minor problems with Insert→Character
Installer now runs as Admin (for Windows Vista UAC)

[2007-10-28] Key features and fixes in 4.0:

Save As PDF command to create Adobe Portable Document Format files
Insert Character command to easily access all characters and symbols in the current font
Allow ? (in addition to x) as a spot-card place-holder in diagrams
Splash screen displayed during startup
Moved Clear Play and Clear Auction and Play commands from GIB menu to Board menu
Fixed full-screen sometimes showing very small text
Fixed minor Find command highlighting issues
Fixed issue with OLE linked documents
Install options for Desktop and Quick Launch Toolbar shortcuts
UNICODE character set support
Windows 98/ME/2000 are not supported in version 4.0 or later (but version 3.8.3 is still available)

[2007-08-25] Key feature added in 3.8.3:

A new advanced option regarding Save As HTML: Render suit symbols as UTF-8. This additional encoding option may improve compatibility with some publishing software.

Bug fixes in 3.8.2:

The show/hide controls (+/- boxes in the margin) were not always shown correctly
In the play section, trumps were not always recognized as winners when appropriate
The program might start up as a tiny window in the upper-left of the screen
Spelling: add "redoubler", "redoubler's"
Show the "wait" cursor while the system is preparing the first screen of a print preview
Undo of a spelling "Add" could cause a crash
In printing a subrange of pages, the specified "To" page was not honored by the system
Improve wording in the helpfile Introduction page

[2006-04-12] Key features added in 3.8:

Improved multiple-board-per-page support, including:

Multiple board screen display
Option for "as many as will fit", one or two columns
Gutter controls

Conformance with Richard Pavlicek's Bridge Writing Style Guide, including:
- Color board area (NESW table)
- Bid and card spacing
- Alternate play section formatting
- Superscripts for footnotes
Ability to read Bridge Base .lin files
Improved web page formatting
Edit→Find command to search files for text strings
Card combination diagrams
"File Modified" flag in status bar
Consolidation of options into new File→Page Layout and Format→Board Layout dialogs

[2005-12-07] Key features added in 3.7:

Improved formatting for:
- Full-screen
- Hidden hands
- Labels (Board, Dealer, Vul, Contract, Lead)
- Auction (West calls appear at left, underneath West cards)
File→Display in Web Browser menu command
Paste and drag/drop from Windows Character Map (for accented letters in text)

[2005-07-04] Key features added in 3.6:

Full-screen display mode
Paste bridge hands into email
Automatic hand generation by HCP and distribution
HTML formatting improvements
Fixed problem with opening files saved on a CD-ROM
OLE support (beta test)
Compatibility note: When started (other than by opening an existing document), previous versions of BridgeComposer displayed an empty gray workspace. Beginning with version 3.6, an empty bridge deal (four hands with four voids each) is displayed instead.