What's new in Braille Plus 18™

Revision History

Version 14.06.27, June 2014

• Corrects UEB braille translation issues.
• Corrects a bug that could crash Word Processor when moving by word in large files.
• Corrects a problem that could cause the battery to not charge properly.
• Adds the ability to press Select on the drives list when saving a file in Word Processor.

Version 13.09.30, September 2013

1. Removes the formally required switch to computer braille mode when using the Unified English Braille table and entering non-literary text such as file names, web URLs, and email addresses.
2. Decreases key bounce time for the panning keys to help improve the user experience when using either of the braille panning keys.
3. Improves panning behavior in the Word Processor app and other multi-line edit controls with the pan left function. In earlier versions, panning left at the beginning of a paragraph moved the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph instead of the last braille window in the previous paragraph.
4. Adds hot keys for mark, copy, cut, and paste editing commands.
5. Enhances the braille status messages by letting the user dismiss the message with a router key and make the original text from the focused app replace that text on the display.
6. Includes several braille translation table corrections for both English and Unified English braille.
7. Adds a notification to the Recorder app to make it easier to return to the recording and control it. If the user switched away from the Recorder app in previous versions, the recording in progress was abandoned.
8. Granted highest level importance status to the audio hardware during recording. This corrects the problem of sometimes getting a recording with no input from the microphones.
9. Adds a Record Boost, on by default, to help bring up the level of most recordings.
10. Adds a command, Space+Dots 2 5 6 (low D) to turn on and off the braille display.
11. Increases the DC offset in recordings. This has the effect of seeming to slightly raise the volume level.
12. Corrects a problem with invalid folder names when downloading titles from Bookshare in the Library app.
13. Corrects a problem that could make Reader crash on navigation.
14. Changes the time to delay while changing levels in the Reader app. In previous versions, you often had to use the command so quickly, you could not hear the speech responses.
15. Corrects a cursor navigation problem in the word processor when using computer braille.
16. Adds navigation to audio playback.
17. Includes several enhancements for Nearby Explorer.

Version 13.5.22, May 2013

• Adds the ability to power off the device even when it is charging.
• Adds the ability to force a power down by holding the Power button for about 10 seconds until the unit vibrates twice.
• Changes the power on procedure to require holding the Power button until the device vibrates. This prevents accidentally turning it on while carrying in a bag.
• Changes the behavior when plugging in the charger when the unit is off.
• Adds the ability to check the battery status when the unit is off and plugged in.
• Improves the volume level while using earbuds. It was formerly too loud, even at its lowest setting.
• Improves keyboard responsiveness.
• Improves punctuation pronunciation when in All Punctuation mode.
• Adds the ability to pan the braille display in formerly impossible areas (like the notifications) and the Power Off dialog.
• Improves braille support for prompts. Previously, there were areas where the accessibility services did not provide critical information. Setting up an email account is a good example of this issue.
• Adds header navigation capability in email.
• Adds a Save button to compliment the Open button in Email with attachments.
• Simplifies Word Processor's Save and Save As dialogs.
• File Manager
  • Improves File Manager's multiple volume support to make it easier to discover and use Flash Drives and SD cards.
  • Adds additional sorting options.
  • Adds a control to hide hidden files.
• Adds a Power Off option to the Phone Options alert dialog that appears when you hold the Power button. Previously, this option was available only when not plugged in.
• Nearby Explorer:
  • Adds additional route settings to customize route creation characteristics.
  • Adds information about the side of the street to destinations and directions.
  • Adds announcement about Pedestrian vs Driving mode when you start Guidance.
  • Improves the ability to detect multiple street name changes as street names change from city to city or county to county.
  • Adds an audible, vibratory, and announcement notification when you reach your destination. Nearby Explorer also turns off guidance.
• Corrects a problem that could make the device power on when it was off.
• Corrects a problem that allowed the device to sleep during continuous reading mode.
• Corrects a problem that made dollar amounts in braille announce incorrectly.
• Corrects a problem that enabled continuous reading even when speech was turned off when opening the Help app.
• Corrects a problem that caused the screen to time out if the user used braille only and pressed only panning buttons during the screen timeout period.
• Corrects a problem that could cause a hang when resuming from sleep.
• Corrects a problem that did not let File Manager recognize some file extensions if they were in upper case.
• Corrects a problem in Word Processor that made the End of File command go only to the beginning of the last line if that line did not end with a return character.

Version 13.3.26, March 2013

• Corrects a problem that could make dot 8 cause a force close in some situations.
• Corrects a problem that turned off the charging circuitry before the battery charge was complete in low amperage charges.
• Corrects a problem that prevented the device from recovering from sleep mode when connected to a high amperage power source.
• Corrects a problem that prevented external devices from reconnecting after waking from sleep mode.
• Corrects a problem that let the device go to sleep if the user had used only braille keyboard keys and no regular Android keys during the time designated for the time to keep the display active with no activity.
• Corrects a problem in Library that caused a crash when moving to the top or bottom of a list of Bookshare search results.
• Corrects a problem that prevented the Search key or the Read All key from working after a reboot in the Browser and other places.
• Corrects a problem that kept the Camera button from working immediately after rebooting.
• Adds a Problem Reporter tool to provide developers system information after a crash or lockup.
• Optimizes processor distribution to improve studderring speech during startup.
• Improves OCR recognition by manually focusing the camera with optimum results achieved at about 12 inches.
• Dramatically increases sleep time battery life. One should expect about three days standby time beginning with this version.
• Adds code to reboot the device if the kernel hangs.
• Corrects a problem with odd headphone volume in some situations after a wake from sleep mode.
• Increases the maximum file size for the Word Processor from 256 KB to 1.5 MB.
• Correctly reverse translates and speaks .BRF files.
• Stops announcing the WiFi connection messages twice. Previous versions announced both a successful association and a signal strength alteration to the WiFi state.
• Improves the time it takes to reconnect to WiFi upon waking the device from sleep.
• Corrects the problem of the WiFi signal disconnecting periodically in some situations.
• Corrects a problem in Library that caused the app to crash after the user pressed Up Arrow after moving to the beginning of a title.
• Adds a Find Again command and a Find Previous command to Word Processor.
• Corrects a problem in Word Processor that did not save .DOC files correctly.
• Corrects a problem in Word Processor that put "%20" where there were spaces in a file name.
• Corrects a problem in Word Processor that could cause a crash when you discard a document.
• Corrects a problem that could cause a crash when pressing Dot 8 in an empty edit control.
• Corrects several problems with editing text.
• Adds .ZIP handler to File Manager.
• Suppresses multiple blank lines in the Browser.

Version 13.1.10, January 2013

• Corrects a problem that made the braille display sometimes say "blank."
• Changes Browser and Help apps to open the download manager window when initiating a file download.
• Corrects a problem that kept downloads from working inside the Help app.
• Adds several new navigation types to the browser's capabilities.
• Corrects a problem that prevented Bookshare searches from working properly if the user pressed Enter in the edit control.
• Adds UK English to the voices included with the Pico TTS engine.
• Corrects a problem that dropped a single character from the braille display when it was full and the user panned to the previous or next braille window.
• Corrects a problem that prevented selected text from deleting when typing a character in a new edit control while translation was enabled.
• Improves Library's book importing procedures, so it handles large numbers of titles reasonably.
• Improves Word Processor's Save As dialog so focus starts at the edit control where the user can immediately type the desired file name.
• Corrects a problem that moved the cursor to the top of the document when switching documents in Word Processor.
• Corrects a problem that caused delays saying the "Screen Off" message when putting the device to sleep.
• Corrected problems that prevented the device from seeing the Alt key for hot key short cuts.
• Restores the Word Processor shortcut keys including the document switching.
• Puts "Reading" on the braille display during continuous reading. This prevents the display from moving during continuous reading. Later, we will add auto display advance functionality to scroll the display on demand.
• Corrects the error that put computer braille symbols around single characters.
• Improves stopping continuous reading.
• Adds a message when the sleep timer expires. This helps reduce confusion about the reason the device stops reading.
• Corrects a problem that prevented the AR and GH signs from announcing properly when typing.

Version 12.12.03, December 2012

• Adds the space available to the labels of volumes in File Manager.
• File Manager now shows only volumes that exist. Thus, if there is no USB drive, USB no longer shows up in the list of volumes.
• File Manager dynamically updates the volumes list as volumes are inserted and removed.
• Multi line edit controls no longer read the entire contents of the text when they get focus. They now read only the first sentence or line upon entry to the box. Read All and all other navigation controls continue to work normally as they have in the past.
• Enhances navigation behavior when encountering single line edit controls. In earlier versions, the cursor moved to the end of the text, even if the control appeared in a list of other controls. Now, the Up and Down arrows move to the next control as expected.
• Corrects the Help hot key. It is, as documented, Space+Low H (dots 2 3 6.)
• Changes the default Browser's navigation method to "Headings." This makes it easier for the new user to move through the documentation without having to know about how to change the browser's navigation technique.
• Corrects a problem that caused a crash when using Dots 4 6 as Enter in empty edit controls.
• Changes the behavior of the Space+G translation command. Now, pressing Space+G turns the braille translation on and off. The translation table selected in the Braille and Speech Preferences gets used when translation is on.
• Corrects a problem in the Browser where list navigation was not correct.
• Adds a Braille and Speech Preferences app shortcut, so it is more easily discoverable.
• Corrects a problem that stopped continuous reading in the DTB reader when encountering markup errors in the title.
• Adds preliminary support for contracted and uncontracted Unified English Braille. The Contracted English, Uncontracted English, and Computer Braille settings are also still available. Note that there is still some minor work to do with single character navigation pronunciation and reverse translation. The dots 3 4 5 6, for example, still says "ble" when in the middle of a word. This will be corrected shortly. Also, many edit boxes may still require computer braille, but the new code should permit most file name and web address entry directly from UEB. In cases where computer braille must be used, the user may still use the Space+g command to change to computer braille manually.
• Adds support for docx files in the Word Processor.
• Adds the ability to type the first letter of the navigation type after pressing Space+dots 2 3 5 6 (low g) in the browser to quickly select the desired navigation type.
• Adds the Set Mark command to edit controls.
• Corrects the selection commands in the word processor and other edit areas.
• Adds a File Manager intent handler for apps that request a list of files from which to choose. This corrects the problem of not getting a file list when attaching a file to an email message.
• Adds the following features to Nearby Explorer:
  • Adds the ability to virtually move to another city or state.
  • Adds several cities to the Transit support.
  • Makes it easier to both save and name one's current location in a single step.
  • Makes the transit schedules easier to interpret.
  • If a network connection is available, use the address as reported by Google Places instead of estimating it.
  • Adds several additional available radii for the Nearby Place option with Google Places
• Corrects the problem where Library treated the word "his" as the end of a sentence, causing unnatural pauses.
• Corrects the pronunciation of version numbers. Previously, the speech system treated them as if they were dates.
• Corrects the problem where you could not cut and paste across different volumes in the File Manager.
• Corrects the problem where the File Manager did not show the updated file list after a paste operation.
• Lets you type over text in selected edit fields such as those in the date and time picker.
• Corrects the problem where you type in the browser windows to search or go to another page and the first letter of what you typed was eaten.
• Adds additional labels to search buttons on the main screen and in the browser.
• Corrects the problem of not being able to interact with combo boxes in the browser. Note that the browser still shows the previous value until you leave then come back to the combo box.
• Improves Browser behavior around edit controls.
• Changes the message displayed when there are no contacts in the Contacts app.

Version 12.10.10, October 2012

• Corrects problems that can occur with Bluetooth connection to the GPS receiver.
• Works around an Android accessibility issue that often prevents a dialog or other screen from reading the first time it is selected.
• Forces focus to the message reply area rather than the original message when replying to an email.
• Adds labels to the Open button so the name and size of email attachment files get announced.
• Corrects issues that caused a "Force Close" in the virtual navigation of Nearby Explorer.
• Fixes same page links on web sites that use deprecated attributes.
• Corrects focus problems in web pages around edit boxes and controls that immediately follow.
• Speaks input fields with image buttons, so the alt tags get announced.

Version 12.10.1, October 2012

• Corrects the Library app so that it properly imports books from the SD card.
• Corrects the Help app so that links activate.
• Adds labels to the standard calendar date and time picker, so it is more obvious how to use it.
• Adds descriptive text to certain dialogs where labels were not read. This applies to the dialog for secure network settings.
• Corrects a problem that made Browser header navigation not work smoothly.
• Corrects a problem where pressing multiple Down Arrows in Browser could cause Browser to stop.
• Corrects the problem where backing out from a message to the message list in Email put the user back at the top of the message list instead of on the current message.
• Adds descriptions to the updater.
• Corrects a panning issue in multi-line edit controls.

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