17 August 2008

vcs Support 0.6b1

This version works for versions 0.8 and 0.9pre up to 20080810 at least (and should have no problems up to version 0.9 when it is released) of Sunbird and Lightning. It is only available in en-us at the moment, due to new strings which have yet to be translated to other languages (and is the reason why this is a beta release rather than a final release). If anyone wants to help to translate it to other languages, go to http://www.babelzilla.org.

There have been a number of changes in this version.

Firstly, the "vcs support options" entry has removed from file menu of sunbird the options are now displayed on every export and have been tweaked so that should behave a little better than they used.

Secondly, we can export as QUOTED-PRINTABLE properly for all characters (not just a select few any more) including ideographic ones. We can also import QUOTED-PRINTABLE characters properly as well. Note that to export ASCII based characters, ANSI may be selected as the encoding option in the export options, but to correctly export ideographic languages such as Japanese, you have to select UTF-8. Another issue is that many programs and phones do not recognise UTF-8 encoded characters and you get gibberish when you import to them.

Thirdly, we now export the file as an ANSI encoded file (UTF-8 now means that unicode characters are exported as their QUOTED-PRINTABLE equivalents), which should be compatible with almost all programs. In the past, a UTF-8 encoded file would not work with Palm Desktop among others.

Finally, I've slightly changed the export file makeup to include a carriage return as well as a line feed at the end of lines. This appeared to be causing problems with certain mobile devices (the LG Dash in particular) and hopefully this change will solve the problem.

Once translation work has been done, the extension will be submitted to AMO to be updated there. In the meantime, it can be downloaded from here.

If you do find any bugs or issues, please use the support form or email vcssupport1@gmail.com.