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DeployMaster 5.0.0 is now available for download.

DeployMaster 5.0.0 is a minor update that is free for current DeployMaster users. It is numbered as a major upgrade because although very little has changed in DeployMaster itself, these changes have significant implications.

If you want to use DeployMaster to build installers with a digital signature on or after January 1st, 2016 for Windows 7 or later, then you must upgrade to DeployMaster 5.0.0. Installers built and signed with DeployMaster 4.x.x prior to January 1st, 2016 will continue to be accepted as validly signed by Windows 7 and later. So you don't need to cancel your year-end holidays to deal with this now. You can deal with it whenever you want to build a new installer in 2016. If you do build an installer with DeployMaster 4.x.x in 2016, then the installer will run correctly. But Windows 7 and later will treat it as having an invalid digital signature. This will result in security warnings similar to those that unsigned installers are subjected to.

The reason is that Microsoft is deprecating the SHA-1 message digest algorithm. Windows 7 and later consider SHA-1 digital signatures as invalid, unless the signature has a time stamp prior to January 1st, 2016. DeployMaster always time stamps signatures, so any signature that was valid when you built your installer will continue to be valid in the future. (At least until support for SHA-1 is completely dropped, which is not planned at this time.) But new signatures made in 2016 and beyond will require SHA-256.

What complicates matters is that Windows XP and Vista have limited support for SHA-256. They will not recognize a digital signature using an SHA-256 message digest and cannot apply such signatures. This is the reason DeployMaster has continued to use SHA-1 as long as possible.

DeployMaster 5.0.0 applies digital signatures using the SHA-256 message digest algorithm if you tick Windows 7 and/or later on the Platform page. DeployMaster itself needs to be running on Windows 7 or later to be able to apply such a signature. If you do not tick Windows 7 or later on the Platform page, then DeployMaster 5.0.0 applies a signature using SHA-1. If you tick Windows XP or Vista as well as Windows 7 or later, then DeployMaster 5.0.0 applies two signatures, one using SHA-1 and another using SHA-256. DeployMaster itself needs to be running Windows 8 or later to be able to apply dual signatures. So if you want to digitally sign your installer for all versions of Windows XP through Windows 10, then Windows 8 is the minimum operating system for DeployMaster itself.

In addition to upgrading to DeployMaster 5.0.0, you will also need an Authenticode certificate based on SHA-256. If you purchased your certificate in 2014 or 2015, then you likely already have a SHA-256 certificate. Older certificates are likely still based on SHA-1. To check this, open Windows Explorer and right-click on an .exe file that you have signed with your certificate. Click on the Digital Signatures tab. The "digest algorithm" column indicates the digest of the signature itself. This is what DeployMaster applies. It will say "sha1" for signatures applied by DeployMaster 4.x.x, and "sha256" or both "sha1" and "sha256" for signatures applied by DeployMaster 5.0.0. To check your certificate, click the Details button. Then click the View Certificate button. Then click the Details tab. The "signature algorithm" should be "sha265RSA" and the "signature hash algorithm" should be "sha256". If instead you see "sha1RSA" and "sha1" then your certificate will be obsolete on January 1st, 2016. In that case, you need to obtain a new certificate. If the "valid to" date on your certificate is some time in the future, you should be able to have a new SHA-256 certificate issued for the remaining validity period at no cost and no paperwork. Log onto the website of the company that sold you your certificate and follow their instructions to have the same certificate "replaced" or "reissued". The replacement certificate will automatically use SHA-256. SHA-1 certificates are no longer issued.

DeployMaster does not check whether your certificate uses SHA-256 or SHA-1. It is possible to apply an SHA-256 signature using an SHA-1 certificate. So you can upgrade to DeployMaster 5.0.0 even if your certificate still uses SHA-1. But such signatures will only be considered valid by Windows 7 and later if timestamped prior to January 1st, 2016. It is also possible to apply an SHA-1 signature using an SHA-256 certificate. This allows DeployMaster to use the same SHA-256 certificate to apply dual SHA-1 and SHA-256 signatures so your installer will be considered as validly signed by Windows XP through 10.

Windows XP SP3 is the oldest version of Windows that supports SHA-256 certificates (but not SHA-256 signatures). So once you've replaced your certificate with an SHA-256 certificate, you won't be able to create digital signatures for Windows XP SP2 or prior. Since Windows 2000 and prior do not display any warnings based on digital signatures and only support versions of Internet Explorer that do not display such warnings, this is not really a problem. So DeployMaster can still generate a single installer that works on Windows 98 through Windows 10. DeployMaster itself now requires Windows XP or later to run. Windows 2000 is no longer supported. But, as noted above, Windows 7 or Windows 8 may be required to sign your installer.

RFC 3161 timestamps are now applied to digital signatures for Windows 7 and later. DeployMaster 5.0.0 requests SHA-256 to be used for the timestamp. But in our tests, only tsa.starfieldtech.com honors this. All other timestamping services use SHA-1 instead. This is not a problem, as SHA-1 is not yet deprecated for timestamps. But you may want to select tsa.starfieldtech.com on the Media page to future proof your signatures. It is DeployMaster's new default. Authenticode timestamps are still applied to digital signatures for Vista and prior, as they do not recognize RFC 3161 timestamps.

If you don't apply digital signatures to your installer, then nothing changes for you. Upgrading to DeployMaster 5.0.0 still gains you one thing. On the Build page, there is now an Abort button that allows you to abort the build. The Build button is now disabled during a build, so you can no longer accidentally cause the build to fail by clicking the Build button twice.

• If you have already purchased DeployMaster, you can download this free update for free.
• Buy DeployMaster now.
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EditPad Pro 7.4.0 is now available for download.

This release brings some cosmetic changes to EditPad's menus and toolbars to better fit the style of Windows 10. These changes only take effect when EditPad is actually running on Windows 10. Screen shots have been updated to show EditPad running on Windows 10.

When EditPad preserves its window position between sessions, it now takes into account that on Windows 10, windows have a border that is as thick as it was on Windows 8, but most of the border is now fully transparent. When restoring the preserved window position, EditPad now allows the visible portion of the window border to sit directly against the edge of the screen.

EditPad Pro's support for FTPS, SFTP, and SSH connections has been significantly improved. For FTPS connections (FTP over SSL or TLS), EditPad now prompts whether you want to accept the server's SSL certificate. You can choose to reject the certificate, to accept it once, to always accept this particular certificate for this particular server, or to always accept certificates that match the server address and aren't expired. If the server presents a certificate that does not match the address you're using to connect to it, or if the certificate has expired, then EditPad will always prompt for it, even if you had chosen to always accept it before it expired.

For SSH and SFTP connections there is a similar prompt that asks whether you want to accept the server's public key. Since SSH keys do not identify the server, EditPad can only display the key's fingerprint. Your choices are to reject the key, accept it once, or always accept it for that server.

EditPad Pro now supports SSH and SFTP connections using a private key file instead of a password. In the "Connect to FTP Server" dialog, click the (...) button next to the new "private key" setting to access EditPad's private key storage. Click the Import button to import a private key. The first time you do this you will be prompted for a password (and again to avoid typos). This password is used to encrypt all the keys in EditPad's private key storage. After importing the key, click the Select button to select that key and close the key storage dialog.

You can connect to another server using the same key simply by selecting the key in the "private key" drop-down list in the FTP connection dialog. You can connect to another server using a different key by clicking the (...) button and importing another key.

EditPad will ask for the private key storage password once per EditPad session at the moment where it needs to encrypt a key you're importing or decrypt a key you need to connect to a server. The keys are stored with the rest of EditPad's settings, which is in %APPDATA%\JGsoft\EditPad Pro 7 for normal installs, and EditPad's installation folder for portable installs. Fingerprints of server certificates and keys that you have chosen to always accept are stored in the EditPadPro7.ini file.

One issue we're aware of is that private keys generated by ssh-keygen can only be imported if they are not protected with a passphrase. You can run ssh-keygen with the -p command line argument to (temporarily) remove the passphrase from your private key and then import it into EditPad.

EditPad now supports CTR encryption mode and DH group 14 key exchange for SSH/SFTP connections. If previous releases failed to connect to your SSH/SFTP server saying that an encryption algorithm could not be agreed on, then this will most likely be resolved with version 7.4.0.

A bunch of bugs were also fixed. The version history has the details.

• If you already purchased EditPad Pro 7.x.x, you can download this minor upgrade for free.
• If you have EditPad Pro 4, 5, or 6, you can upgrade to version 7 at a special price.
• Buy EditPad Pro now.
• EditPad Pro version history.

EditPad Lite 7.4.0 is now available for download.

This release brings some cosmetic changes to EditPad's menus and toolbars to better fit the style of Windows 10. These changes only take effect when EditPad is actually running on Windows 10. Screen shots have been updated to show EditPad running on Windows 10.

When EditPad preserves its window position between sessions, it now takes into account that on Windows 10, windows have a border that is as thick as it was on Windows 8, but most of the border is now fully transparent. When restoring the preserved windows position, EditPad now allows the visible portion of the window border to sit directly against the edge of the screen.

A couple of bugs were also fixed. The version history has the details.

EditPad Lite is free for personal use. Business and government users can purchase a license.

Download EditPad Lite.

HelpScribble 7.9.1 is now available for download.

In previous versions of HelpScribble, Project|Export to Web Help sometimes nested font, bold, italic, or anchors tags incorrectly. All browsers still displayed the pages correctly, but HTML validators would complain. This was partially fixed in version 7.9.0. Version 7.9.1 now fixes the remaining cases.

HelpScribble's HelpContext property editor now supports Delphi 10 Seattle and C++Builder 10 Seattle. HelpScribble's installer will automatically install it if it detects that you have Delphi 10 Seattle or C++Builder 10 Seattle installed. HelpScribble's HelpContext property editor can assign HelpContext properties to controls in VCL applications and Multi-Device applications.

• If you have already purchased helpscribble, you can download this update for free.
• Buy helpscribble now.
• Complete version history.

AceText 3.2.0 is now available for download.

This release brings improved compatibility with Windows 10. Windows 10 now allows Windows Store applications (previously known as Modern UI or Metro applications) to run on the desktop. This makes it possible to use AceText with such applications. The best know example of such an application is Microsoft's new Edge browser. Sending clips directly to such applications (through AcePaste, for example) was unreliable with previous versions of AceText. Sometimes the pasted text would appear in the target application. Sometimes it would not. We've now tweaked AceText's method for sending clips directly to applications to make it just as reliable for Windows Store applications as it already was for Windows desktop applications.

On Windows 10, window borders appear to be very thin. But the area where you can grab the window border with the mouse to resize the window extends quite a bit beyond the visible part of the border. Technically, this entire area is part of the border and thus part of the window. This complicates things for applications like AceText that preserve window size and position while ensuring the entire window is visible when you restart them. Previously, AceText would make sure its entire window including the entire border is visible when you restart it. On Windows 10 the window would appear to be shifted away from the edge of your monitor if you had previously positioned it against the edge or even beyond the edge of your monitor. Now, AceText only requires the visible part of the border to be on-screen. If you shut down AceText with its window partially off-screen and restart it, then AceText now places its window so that the visible part of the window border touches the edge of the screen.

When deleting clips, AceText now maintains the scrolling position of the clip tree. This makes it easier to keep track of what's happening. The URL button on the Appearance page in the Preferences now changes the color of highlighted email addresses in addition to changing the color of highlighted URLs.

• If you have already purchased AceText, you can download this free update for free.
• Buy AceText now.
• Complete Version History.

RegexMagic 2.4.0 is now available for download.

This release brings RegexMagic up-to-date for all the applications that it supports. Newly supported versions are Visual C++ 2015, Delphi and C++Builder 10 Seattle, PCRE 10.20, PHP 5.6.14, Python 3.5, XRegExp 3.0.0, and R 3.1.2. Microsoft Edge has been added as an additional browser option for JavaScript and HTML5 Pattern.

Under the Copy button there are new items for copying the regex or replacement text as a C++11 raw string literal. C++11 raw string literals do not require backslashes or quotes to be escaped and can contain literal line breaks. This makes them much better suited for adding regular expressions to your source code than normal C string literals because there's no doubling up of all those backslashes. RegexMagic automatically adapts the raw string delimiter to make sure it does not occur in the regex. The std::regex source code templates for all C++Builder versions and for Visual C++ 2013 and 2015 now use C++11 raw string literals. Earlier versions of Visual C++ do not support them.

Some cosmetic changes were made to RegexMagic's menus and toolbars to better fit the style of Windows 10. These changes only take effect when PowerGREP is actually running on Windows 10. Screen shots and videos have been updated to show RegexMagic running on Windows 10.

• If you have already purchased or upgraded to RegexMagic 2, you can download this update for free.
• If you own RegexMagic 1, you can upgrade to version 2 at a special price.
• Buy RegexMagic now.
• Free trial download.

RegexBuddy 4.5.0 is now available for download.

This release brings RegexBuddy up-to-date for all the applications that it supports. Newly supported versions are Visual C++ 2015, Delphi and C++Builder 10 Seattle, PCRE 10.20, PHP 5.6.14, Python 3.5, XRegExp 3.0.0, and R 3.1.2. Microsoft Edge has been added as an additional browser option for JavaScript and HTML5 Pattern.

Under the Copy button there are new items for copying the regex or replacement text as a C++11 raw string literal. C++11 raw string literals do not require backslashes or quotes to be escaped and can contain literal line breaks. This makes them much better suited for adding regular expressions to your source code than normal C string literals because there's no doubling up of all those backslashes. RegexBuddy automatically adapts the raw string delimiter to make sure it does not occur in the regex. The std::regex source code templates for all C++Builder versions and for Visual C++ 2013 and 2015 now use C++11 raw string literals. Earlier versions of Visual C++ do not support them. There are no items for C++ raw strings under the Paste button. The item for pasting C strings now recognizes the R prefix so it correctly pastes C++11 raw string literals in addition to normal C string literals.

When you select a programming language based on .NET as your application, there is now an additional regex option called "flavor choice". You can switch this between "default flavor" and "ECMAScript". This corresponds with not passing or passing RegexOptions.ECMAScript to the Regex() constructor. The topic about .NET in the Regular Expressions Tools part in the help file has a new section that discusses the effects of RegexOptions.ECMAScript in detail. The flavor choice is also available on the Convert panel. You can convert a regex that uses RegexOptions.ECMAScript to one that does not use RegexOptions.ECMAScript or vice versa. To see this in action, try converting the regex \d, which normally matches Unicode digits in .NET but only matches ASCII digits in ECMAScript mode.

Applications differ in how they treat an unescaped hyphen in a character class when the hyphen is between two tokens that cannot form a range. The hyphen can be treated as a literal or as a syntax error. Previously, RegexBuddy emulated the behavior of the selected application in both Helpful and Strict mode. Now, RegexBuddy does this in Strict mode only. In Helpful mode, unescaped hyphens that don't form a valid range and that aren't the first or last character in the character class are now always treated as an error. This encourages you to write regular expressions that are easier to read and easier to convert between applications by escaping them or by positioning them as the first or last character in the class.

Some cosmetic changes were made to RegexBuddy's menus and toolbars to better fit the style of Windows 10. These changes only take effect when PowerGREP is actually running on Windows 10. Screen shots and videos have been updated to show RegexBuddy running on Windows 10.

A bunch of minor bugs were also fixed. The version history has the complete list.

• If you have already purchased or upgraded to RegexBuddy 4, you can download this update for free.
• If you own RegexBuddy 2 or 3, you can upgrade to version 4 at a special price.
• Buy RegexBuddy now.
• Complete version history.

PowerGREP 4.7.0 is now available for download.

This release brings some cosmetic changes to PowerGREP's menus and toolbars to better fit the style of Windows 10. These changes only take effect when PowerGREP is actually running on Windows 10. Screen shots and videos have been updated to show PowerGREP running on Windows 10.

This release also fixes a bunch of bugs that occurred in very specific circumstances, which are different for each bug. The version history has the complete list.

• If you have already purchased PowerGREP 4, you can download this update for free.
• Upgrade from PowerGREP 2.x or 3.x to 4.x.
• Buy PowerGREP now.
• Complete Version History.

RegexMagic 2.3.0 is now available for download.

This release brings RegexMagic up-to-date for all the applications that it supports. Newly supported versions are Perl 5.22, PHP 5.6.10, and R 3.2.1.

One new feature was added. At the bottom of View menu you'll find a Custom Layouts item. If you've rearranged RegexMagic panels, you can use the Custom Layouts submenu to save that layout or switch to a previously saved layout.

On the Regex panel, the Modifiers button (purple tick mark) is explained in the Assistant panel and help file as generating a regex that does not depend on regex options set outside the regular expression. Now this button does exactly that, as long as the chosen regex flavor supports mode modifiers in the regex for turning options on and off, so the regex will work regardless of which options are turned on or off outside the regex. There will be no "required options" listed on the Regex panel. Previously, this button would only add mode modifiers for options that need to be changed from their defaults, so the regex would not work correctly if it required an option to be in its default state and that option was toggled outside the regex. If you do not use the Modifiers button, or if the regex flavor does not support mode modifiers, there may be "required options" listed on the Regex panel. In that case you should generate a code snippet on the Use panel which will set the necessary options.

On the Samples panel, the "show samples and/or action results" drop-down list allows you to choose whether RegexMagic should display your sample text, the results of a search-and-replace or split operation, or both. Previously, this setting would automatically revert to showing only the sample text when there is no search-and-replace to be performed (because you changed a setting on the Action panel or no regex was generated). Now, the setting is preserved at all times. If there are no results to be displayed, RegexMagic displays only the sample text. As soon as results become available again, RegexMagic again displays what you selected in "show samples and/or action results".

A bunch of minor bugs were fixed too. On the Match panel, the "select field" drop-down list wasn't cleared immediately when deleting the last field. On the Regex panel, the Generate button could not be turned off if the formula resulted in a blank regular expression without any errors. On the Samples panel, clicking on a sample after loading a formula from a library marks the formula as modified, enabling the Save Formula button and triggering a prompt to save when loading another formula without having made any actual changes. Undoing changes to the sample text could lead to access violation or invalid pointer operation errors later on. View|Dual Monitor made the floating window take up the size of the entire second monitor, which caused it to appear behind the taskbar if the taskbar was on that monitor.

• If you have already purchased or upgraded to RegexMagic 2, you can download this update for free.
• If you own RegexMagic 1, you can upgrade to version 2 at a special price.
• Buy RegexMagic now.
• Free trial download.

RegexBuddy 4.4.0 is now available for download.

This release brings RegexBuddy up-to-date for all the applications that it supports. Newly supported versions are Perl 5.22, PHP 5.6.10, and R 3.2.1.

When you move the cursor while editing the regular expression, the Create panel now selects the node that corresponds with the regex token to the right of the cursor, unless there is a selection that starts to the left of the cursor. Previously, it always selected the node for the token to the left of the cursor. This makes the Create panel's selection correspond better with the edit control for the regular expressions, as the cursor in text editing controls on Windows points points to the character to the right of the cursor.

The History and Library panels did not correctly load the "^$ match at line breaks" option. Regular expressions in Replace or Split mode were always loaded with this option turned on if the target application supports it. Regular expressions in Match mode were correctly loaded with the option on or off as it was saved. If you have libraries that store regular expressions in Replace or Split mode that are intended to be used with "^$ match at line breaks" turned off, then you will need to update those regular expressions to turn the option off as it will have been turned on when the library was loaded and saved by previous RegexBuddy 4.x.x releases.

In Python replacement strings you can use \g<name> named backreferences and \g<1> numbered backreferences. The Just Great Software applications also support these. Previous RegexBuddy releases already emulated this correctly. RegexBuddy now also correctly emulates that Delphi does not support \g<1> even though Delphi supports \g<name>. When you use the Insert Token menu to insert a numbered backreference with Python as the target application, RegexBuddy now inserts \g<1> instead of \1. The Insert Token menu prefers to insert backreferences that separate the number from any literal text that follows, so there are no issues with backreferences that are immediately followed by a digit.

When you convert a replacement string from one application to another, the Convert panel now prefers preserving the syntax used for backreferences if supported by the target flavor and there is no following literal digit to prefer a different syntax. If the target flavor does not support the same syntax, or if there is a literal digit after the backreference, then the Convert panel now prefers generating a backreference that separates the backreference's number from literal digits that may follow the backreference. Essentially, these changes eliminate needless syntax conversions and make the converted replacement string easier to read and maintain in case of literal digits after backreferences. Replacement string conversions by previous versions of RegexBuddy were all syntactically correct. It never generated \g<1> for Delphi replacement strings, even though the Create and Test panels incorrectly allowed it.

• If you have already purchased or upgraded to RegexBuddy 4, you can download this update for free.
• If you own RegexBuddy 2 or 3, you can upgrade to version 4 at a special price.
• Buy RegexBuddy now.
• Complete version history.