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UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable
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@DrewNaylor DrewNaylor released this 30 Apr 21:48
· 1220 commits to master since this release
v3.2
f691d87

I'm pleased to announce the release of UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable! It didn't take too long for most of the development of this version, but then some other projects delayed it, though it ended up better being delayed.

Please enjoy this version and its changelog. Version 3.2 contains a few bug fixes, some potentially major, and new features, but most importantly, Office 2019 is officially supported! In addition, files can be created from "File>New", and existing files can be opened from "File>Open...". There have also been a few places where code was cleaned up a bit, and two new themes were added. Important links, including links for more information on specific topics, are in the changelog below, so I'll let you read it.

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CHECKSUMS
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You can use Windows PowerShell to confirm the hash of the main UXL Launcher EXE file by running
Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher.exe -Algorithm SHA256
in the folder you extracted the archive to and comparing the output to my sum listed below. HowToGeek has a nice article on this, but the Windows section is a bit further down on the page.

To check the installer's hash, run Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher_v3.2-Stable.exe -Algorithm SHA256 in Windows PowerShell.

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive:
00C482364F9B229666E9E4F624E754EDB2AF8E913D743448639859D31434A2CD

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher_v3.2-Stable.exe" (the installer attached to this release):
F21C959981FACD47388CA124D32180C27A17B54ED8ADE86D4718949872152550

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CHANGELOG
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Below this text is the changelog. It compares UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable to UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable. Any changes made to the UXL Launcher Theme Engine are described in their own section after the rest of the changelog.

If you would like to look at the same comparison as I did while writing this changelog, you can do so here:
v3.1...v3.2
The link above will be active by the time this is posted, but I used a slightly different comparison since the one I linked to wasn't ready yet. However, the content was the same, so it shouldn't matter.

Many of the changes presented below have a related issue in the Version 3.2 milestone, if you would like to look at a bit more detail than listed here. Not all of the changes listed in this changelog were linked to a related issue, so you may need to do a bit of digging in that milestone to find the related issues.

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable Changelog

  • Added:
    • Official support for Office 2019! (commit e9811fe) (More details)
      • For now, it's only supported if installed from outside the Windows Store.
      • Office 2019 has been unofficially supported since Version 3.0 due to Office 2019 and Office 2016 sharing installation folders, but Version 3.2 shows "Microsoft Office 2019" in the Options window and forces Office 365/Click-to-Run support regardless of the checkbox status so that (non-Windows Store) Office 2019 should work.
    • Apps that have been deprecated or removed from Office that are still installed on your computer can be directly launched with their respective buttons after enabling "Bypass configured location for deprecated or removed apps" under Tools>Options window>Advanced tab. (commit 65aadef) (More details)
    • You can now create new documents with the File>New menu. It's based on the overall organization of the LibreOffice 4.4.3.2 File>New menu. Currently, the following choices are available: (closed in #132)
      • Microsoft Word document (Ctrl+N can be used as a keyboard shortcut for this)
      • Microsoft Excel workbook (macro sheet)
        • There's no command-line option for creating a regular workbook.
        • Because there's no command-line option to create a regular workbook, just create a new regular sheet and delete the macro sheet at the bottom of Excel.
      • Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
      • Microsoft Outlook email
      • Microsoft Outlook contact
      • Microsoft Publisher publication
    • Files you've already created can be opened from the File>Open... dialog, which also has Ctrl+O as a keyboard shortcut. This dialog supports filtering to show commonly-used Office formats, such as doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, mdb, accdb, and pub. If you want, all files can be shown, but executable files can't be opened for security purposes. This message can be hidden by changing the config file's setting for "showUnsafeFileExtensionBlockedMessage" to "False". (closed in #131)
    • A new theme called "TenDark" has been added. This is meant to be a dark theme that kinda looks like Windows 10's dark mode. Please note that the button highlight colors are a bit hard to see.
    • Another new theme has been added and has colors based on my cat.
    • The InnoSetup installer scrips used for UXL Launcher have been added to the repository.
    • A tooltip has been added to the custom theme path textbox in the Options window so that it's easier to tell where the custom theme file you're using is located.

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  • Changed:
    • The readme and parts of the wiki have been improved and cleaned up a bit since the release of UXL Launcher 3.1.
    • Copyright years have been updated to 2013-2019 from 2013-2018.
    • Microsoft's own copyright year (as listed in the About window and in code) for Office and Windows has been updated to 2019 from 2018.
    • The About window's "Acknowledgments" tab now says "Acknowledgements". (More details)
    • Updating the text for both the titlebar and the statusbar is now done from one code block (one for each string and window area) to make it easier to update rather than having it be in multiple places. This also makes it so that any Theme Engine problems don't impact updating the titlebar/statusbar text.
    • Instead of showing the full version number in the titlebar, only the major and minor version numbers are shown. The About window still shows the full version number. (More details)
    • Codenames are now stored in the My.Resources file instead of being hardcoded so that it's easier to update when working on a new version.
    • The debug label used to show if the user says they have Office 365 has been renamed from "debugLabelForMSIInstall" to "debugLabelForUserHasOfficeThreeSixFive" to better reflect the purpose of the label.
    • "Revert to Default Theme" in the View menu has been renamed to "Reload Default Theme" and its keyboard shortcut was changed to Ctrl+R from Ctrl+0.
    • The "I installed via Office 365" checkbox was renamed to "Enable Office 365/Click-to-Run Compatibility" and was merged with the "I installed via MSI" checkbox. When unchecked, this checkbox acts like the MSI checkbox, and when checked, it acts as the Office 365 checkbox. (More details)
    • On the Options window Advanced tab, the "View system info" button was replaced with a label that shows your Windows edition so that it's easier to configure UXL Launcher to work with the version of Office you have installed. This label explains which option to click based on whether your Windows installation is 32-bit or 64-bit. (More details)
    • The "Clear Textbox" button on the Options window General tab has had its text shortened to "Clear".
    • This "Clear" button has been moved closer to its relevant textbox.
    • Inside the "What edition of Windows do you run?" groupbox on the Options window Advanced tab, the labels and radio buttons have been moved up-left so that they're more centered with the new Windows edition autodetection label text displaying.
    • "Test settings" now attempts to find Office Language Preferences in the configured location (based on the user's settings) rather than trying to launch it (Office Language Preferences). If "Test settings" can find it, a messagebox will be shown telling the user that it was found, and their Office-related settings should be fine unless they change their version of Office. Otherwise, the user will be told that it couldn't be found, and the messagebox will offer a button to go back into the settings to change them again. Both of these messageboxes show the configured location based on the user's settings. (More details and merged in #129 ) (Technical details)
    • When saving settings that use Boolean values that are changed by using checkboxes, the setting is made equal to the checkbox's CheckState instead of having an If...Else block to determine what to change the setting to based on the checkbox being checked or unchecked. This reduces code complexity and (possibly) duplication. (More details)
    • If something other than a drive letter has been entered into the Office Drive Location textbox in the Options window, the drive letter will now go back to what's already saved in the settings after closing the messagebox, and the textbox will be selected for easier editing. Likewise, if the textbox is empty when saving settings, the drive letter will now be set to what's already saved in the settings, the General tab will be shown (if needed), and the textbox will be selected to make editing easier.
    • More detail has been added to some error messageboxes.
    • Many code comments and region names have been updated to be clearer or more accurate.

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  • Fixed:
    • If the user chooses to test their settings via "Options...>Test settings" and OfficeLangPrefs.exe can't be found, the main window will be sent to the back of the currently showing windows.
      • This bug was thought to have been fixed in Version 3.1, but it apparently wasn't fixed. It should be fixed now.
      • More details
    • In Version 3.1, if Office Language Preferences can't be found when testing your settings and "Always On Top" is enabled, the message box will be stuck behind the main window. (fixed in a0afb1a) (More details)
    • Office versions other than 14, 15, and 16 aren't picked up even if they're specified in the config file. (fixed in e54126c) (More details)
    • Make sure only one Options window is opened. Before now, it was possible to open multiple Options windows from the Quickmenu's "Options..." button, but now it shouldn't be possible. This fix was backported from Version 3.3, so it now will exist in 3.2. (fixed in efda37a)

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  • Removed:
    • Test2Theme_XML.xml was deleted. Please use the Eyesore2 theme if you want a test theme, or the ReturnOfNight theme if you want similar colors to the Test2 theme.
    • Messageboxes warning of potentially incompatible Office version and install method settings have been removed.
    • The "View system info" button in the Options window has been deleted along with its deprecation message since it was replaced with a label that directly shows your Windows edition as described above.
    • The "I installed via MSI" checkbox was deleted along with its deprecation notice since it was merged with the "I installed via Office 365" checkbox as mentioned above. My.Settings.installedViaMSIPackage was also removed.
    • An extra space was removed from between the copyright years and developer name in the About window text.

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  • Deprecated:
    • Nothing in this version.

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  • UXL Launcher Theme Engine changes:
    • The Theme Engine has been updated to version 1.02. Changes in this version:
      • Major bug fix: Numbers such as 1.01.1 used for the UseThemeEngineVersion tag/element will crash UXL Launcher with an exception of System.InvalidCastException because it's trying to convert the value from a string to a decimal type. If a theme file uses an invalid Theme Engine version number, version 1.01 will now be forced instead. (commit 9dc5474) (More details)
      • Minor bug fix: If a theme file specifies to use version 1.02 or greater and an invalid color (such as "Transparent", which is invalid in this case for some reason) is used for the Button FlatAppearance BorderColor property, the color will instead be set to "Nothing" in addition to having the System.NotSupportedException exception caught. However, if the theme file doesn't specify to use version 1.02 or greater, the exception will be caught but the color won't be changed to a valid color.
      • Code cleanup: The theming code that goes through all the controls on the main window has now been merged into one code block. Instead of going through one groupbox, then the next, then the next, it now loops through all the controls in the main window's FlowLayoutPanel. This change might not be any faster, but it reduces duplicate code.
      • Other: Custom theme paths will only be shown in the debugger's output if a custom theme is currently being used.
      • Other: Debugger output messages have been updated.
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