If you have any previous version of our EasyGrapher programs (other than Stitch Wiz), you may be entitled to a reduced-price upgrade. Please contact us for details.

General Changes

1. One change that may have been too long in the making is that the design is now called a chart instead of a graph and the legend is now called the color key instead of the color chart. The preponderance of stitchers now uses these terms, so we decided to finally change for this and future programs.

2. Significant changes were made to the organization of commands and menus. The two more significant changes are that all stitch selections, such as full and half stitches, are in their own Stitches menu and the View menu has been condensed and commands related to the screen appearance have been moved to it from other menus.

3. EasyGrapher Professional 2000 is written to run on Windows 95 and above, including Windows 2000, and to use what is called in computerdom a "multi-document interface." This has resulted in several changes in how the program works:

• up to 10 design windows can be open at one time
• long file names can be used
• a computer display that can show more than 256 colors at once is strongly recommended
• a chart can have over 32,000 lines
• there is no longer a limit to the number of stitches that can be copied to the clipboard
• the same chart can be opened in more than one window where changes made in one are reflected in the others
• individual windows are closed with the Close command in the File menu without exiting the program.

4. Fonts are now sorted alphabetically and Arial is selected in windows where no previous font selection has been made. This clears up the confusion caused by the Marlett symbol font coming up first on many computers.

5. The toolbar now acts much like those in Microsoft Office 2000.

Graphing Features

1. Curved lines or stitches can be drawn.

2. Lazy daisy and queen stitches can now be drawn with backstitch end points, meaning they can begin and end on top of grid lines. Also, end points of queen stitches are no longer limited to particular positions inside the grid square at the center of the square's edge.

3. The number of symbols allowed in a chart is increased from 108 to 150.

4. Delete Grid and Restore Grid now act just like other stitch type selections. If you choose one of these, the previously chosen stitch selection is unselected. Also, the mouse no longer changes shape for these commands.

Color Key

1. Symbols have been revamped to add new special effects.

The new features include:

• a symbol can be used more than once in a chart
• the background behind a symbol can be shaded to varying degrees
• the symbol can be printed inverted with the symbol white and the background black
• symbols can be printed in colors other than black
• a different symbol can be substituted when printing the chart
• selected symbols can be flagged to not print on the chart
• the number of strands used to estimate floss use is specified for each symbol and line style

2. Most color key changes are done through the new Change Color Key command. This command makes it much easier to perform a variety of color key changes in one window.

3. In the Stitch Box:

• the currently selected stitch is highlighted
• there is no longer a separate box showing the currently selected stitch
• the More button is added to pop up a window for selecting symbols when there are more symbols in the key than can be shown at one time, and the scroll arrow buttons are removed
• double-clicking on an entry will bring up the Change Color Key window with the selected stitch information displayed
• the Color Information window is no longer used

4. The new Merge Symbols/Lines command works similar to the previous Change Symbol/Line command. It cannot be used to add a new symbol to the color key, however.

5. The new Remove Unused Entries command deletes unused symbols from the color key.

6. The new Clear Color Key command can be used to easily clear all symbols and/or lines from the color key.

View Features

1. Lines can be displayed on the screen as line styles drawn in black.

2. Display options for all design elements have been placed in sub menus to make the View menu shorter and all design elements can be selectively "turned off" such as lines, symbols, special symbols, annotations, etc.

3. Annotations can be displayed as markers (as before) or with full text on the screen.

4. On large scrolls, the blackboard will scroll an entire screen rather than being limited to multiples of 10 rows or columns.

5. An additional zoom level was added between the former 3 and 4.

6. A window can easily be zoomed one level with the new Zoom In and Zoom Out commands.

Libraries

The concept of naming patterns and pasting them from a file has been expanded into the ability to create libraries. Font, Pattern, and Stitch Libraries can be created, each with a specific purpose in mind. With Font Libraries you can create your own alphabets, including backstitch alphabets, which can be used to chart text in the Chart Text command (formerly Text To Graph). Pattern Libraries work similar to the way patterns did before. Stitch Libraries let you design additional stitches and draw them as complete stitches just like charting a lazy daisy or queen stitch.

Underlay Image

The Underlay Image is a bitmapped image that can be displayed behind the blackboard so you can draw over the image to create a design. This is an alternative to using the Import command when the image is not suitable for converting.

The image is read through the Load Underlay Image command in the Tools menu. How the image is displayed is controlled with the Underlay Image Properties command in the Tools menu.

Whether an Underlay Image is displayed is controlled by the Underlay Image command in the View menu.

An underlay image can be unloaded with the Unload Underlay Image command in the Tools menu.

Chart Properties

The previous Setup command has morphed into two new commands, Preferences and Chart Properties.

With the advent of multiple charts being open at one time, display and other options had to be separated into those applying to newly opened windows and those applying to an existing chart.

Preferences is where view options are chosen and settings made that apply to new windows, such as how symbols are displayed and the size of the blackboard. There are also properties set here that apply across all open windows, such as the size of the Undo queue.

Chart Properties is where changes can be made that apply to only one window/chart, such as the chart name and blackboard size.

Changing the size of the blackboard no longer clears the chart on the blackboard.

Other New Commands

1. View Silhouette in the View menu displays a condensed view of the chart on the active window. The Silhouette can also be used to change the view of the blackboard in the design window.

2. Sticky Lines in the Stitches menu lets you quickly draw a series of connected lines.

3. Open Chart In New Window in the File menu opens the active chart in another window. Changes to the chart can be made in either window. Each window can have different display options and look at different views of the chart.

4. Edit Annotations in the Edit menu opens a window that lists all annotations in a chart where an annotation can be selected for editing.

Miscellaneous Changes

1. The positioning of Annotations is no longer limited to line end points. They can be placed anywhere on the chart. This means they can be more finely positioned at higher zoom levels.

2. Floss tables are no longer limited to 500 entries.

3. When Snap files (used in the Undo command) are found on program start up, it automatically provides an option to use them to recover a work in progress. All snap files are deleted when the program ends.

4. Only one copy of EasyGrapher Professional 2000 can be running at a time.

5. Print Chart will no longer limit printing the chart to multiples of 10 rows and columns.

6. For printer drivers that support these options, multiple copies of a chart can be printed either collated or not.

7. The Import command will enlarge the blackboard as needed when converting an image.

8. Print Setup is merged into Print Chart and Print Color Key. Changes made to Printer properties are no longer permanent.