Development History - (versions 2010 and newer)

Version 2012.104 - 4. January 2012

• Added (preliminary) support for operating with catalog files (.ctf) larger than 2GB. Your file system must be able to handle files of that size, and any single disk image in catalog must still be under 2GB in data size once saved. Note that getting catalog files anywhere near 2GB in size requires some reflection on your actions and intentions, as you are likely heavly abusing thumbnails, or otherwise getting way too much data in a single catalog file. Organizing cataloged data and breaking it down into more catalogs would be strongly recommended.
• Improved performance when moving around large chunks of data, like copying huge disk images between catalogs.
• Improved catalog saving performance due to optimized write caching.
• Other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Older versions

Version 2011.1216 - 16. December 2011

• Minor maintenance release.
• Updated IMDB and TheTVDB plugins, added support for additional encodings and handling a few item or language specific issues.
• Maintenance on several description plugins, improving on stability and Unicode support.
• Adjustments of compare functions, fine tuning of detection if file has changed since cataloging or not. Details like different time zones are now taken into account.
• Other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2011.902 - 2. September 2011

• Optimized speed in thumbnails importing and processing for several types of graphics files. Direct assembly code is used in some critical areas.
• Fine-tuned the order of importing files and folders when scanning the media. On some newer non-removable media and related hardware, this can result in performance increase due to more efficient data caching.
• Improved searching performance on multi-core CPUs.
• Updated IMDB plugin for the latest changes on their web site, most notably importing rating information. By now, the same information from IMDB can come to the plugin in several different forms, depending on whether or not you are logged-in on IMDB site, if so what your selected preferences are, and which web browser are you using for retrieval, for example. The plugin at this time handles all cases.
• Other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2011.622 - 22. June 2011

• Minor maintenance release.
• Considerably improved scanning performance in some special cases, like having thousands of archive files in the same folder.
• Updated IMDB plugin to support new techniques recently used on the IMDB web site, for example AJAX loading of details like user comments.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2011.403 - 3. April 2011

• Minor maintenance release.
• Improved performance of the internal viewer, loading and processing of certain types of files is now faster and more robust.
• Improvements to IMDB and TheTVDB plugins, handling additional details.
• Fixed scanning certain ISO files with Juliet file system, some rare long filenames were not imported correctly.
• A few Unicode related fixes, mostly cosmetical.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2011.201 - 1. February 2011

• Minor maintenance release.
• Optimized the pattern of media access operations, resulting in up to 15% faster media scanning on some specific, slower media types.
• Added support for two additional different variants of TIFF files to the appropriate thumbnails plugin.
• Improvements and several adjustments to both IMDB the TheTVDB plugins, improving title detection and accuracy of search results.
• Improved internal diagnostic of host system related problems, such as missing or non-functioning system components, resulting in friendlier and clearer error messages from the program rather than failures or generic errors being reported by the system.
• The setup program will now specifically check if WhereIsIt is running before attempting installation, and warn the user.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.1208 - 8. December 2010

• Minor maintenance release.
• Search engine has been improved with added negation in quick searches. You can specify words and phrases you want to exclude from results by prefixing them with a minus sign, i.e. "photo -digital". This also works when searching by file names or descriptions in advanced search expressions.
• Quick searching now has two operation modes when searching by both file names and descriptions. Previously, each file name and description have been evaluated independently, and at least one had to match. Now you can optionally have file name and description combined to a single text string before evaluating. This returns a bit different kind of results, i.e. if you are looking for two words, one can be present in file name, and the other in description. Adjust the setting to your preference.
• Fixed selecting a large number of items on a list (tens of thousands), for example when pressing Ctrl+A. The selection took unnecessarily long time to complete in most cases.
• The setup program has been improved, it can now also install your license file at the time of installing the program. There is a checkbox available for registered users that will make the setup program prompt for your license and place it for you.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.1026 - 10. October 2010

• Minor maintenance release.
• Updated IMDB plugin for large scale changes on the IMDB web site, featuring a completely new web site design. Plugin currently supports both old and new IMDB design. Languages other than English are not tested at this time since the new design is not yet available for other languages.
• The Descript.ion plugin now supports assigning descriptions to files with Unicode file names.
• Added new options in program's Display Settings for switching between ribbon and toolbar mode, and minimizing the ribbon. Those same options were already available directly by right-clicking ribbon or toolbar, however some users have problems finding them.
• Fixed a problem in Catalog Setup dialog when using "Copy From" function to copy categories from some other catalog.
• Eliminated desktop flickering on autoloading password protected catalogs.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

• Minor maintenance release.
• Updated TheTVDB plugin; added a workaround for an apparent bug in the XML data structure returned by TheTVDB.com, preventing retrieval of details about individual episodes.
• Updated CDDB/freedb support for submitting entries containing UTF-8 data.
• Added a check for GDI+ availability on the system. If GDI+ is not available, it will show an appropriate error message instead of crashing on startup. Microsoft GDI+ Library is required for WhereIsIt to run, and is included by default on all but oldest Windows versions.
• Minor search performance improvements when using specific search criteria.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.714 - 14. July 2010

• Improved scanning error tolerance in safe mode, the program can now handle and recover from several additional error conditions (typically crashed plugins) that would previously cause scanning to fail.
• Updated IMDB plugin for correctly handling some special cases of encoding.
• Updated CorelDRAW Thumbnails and AutoCAD Thumbnails plugins for supporting Unicode file names.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Fixed Compare results window occasionally throwing an error when changing view mode under certain conditions.

• TheTVDB plugin: Fine-tuned series information caching and recognition.
• On some systems, setting toolbar UI mode was not correctly remembered for the next time the program was run. Fixed.

• Minor maintenance release.
• Updated TV Series Database (TheTVDB) plugin to support handling special episodes.
• Added recently used catalogs list to the toolbar's Open button.
• Ribbon is enforced as the default user interface in new installations. Help file has been updated to emphasize the availability of both ribbon and toolbar user interface modes, and how to switch between them.
• Improved multithreading in the internal viewer, graphics processing is now more reliable and slightly faster.
• Recently used catalogs list has had some problems if the program was set to store settings in a config file. Fixed.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.502 - 2. May 2010

• Minor maintenance release.
• Added support to switch between ribbon and toolbar mode in the main window, for die-hard toolbar fans. Note that toolbar offers only a basic set of commands, corresponding to the ribbon's Main tab. This sufficies for daily use, the rest of the commands are available via shortcuts, item's right-click popup menus, or by switching back to the default ribbon view.
• Addressed several visual and cosmetical issues, such as painting drop-down menus from toolbar buttons, behavior of the view mode drop-down window, etc.
• Windows like Search Results and User List now correctly size to available monitor work area when maximized, avoiding taskbar.
• Enhanced several thumbnail and description plugins for robustness in handling invalid files, improved performance and therefore disk scanning time for several thumbnail plugins.
• Some code optimizations, resulting in smaller executable file and improved performance in certain parts of the program.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.319 - 19. March 2010

• Significantly improved built-in scanning troubleshooting capabilities.
• Introduced optional scanning safe mode. In safe mode, all plugins are run in their own separate threads, separating them from the scanning process and allowing it to retain a level of control over executing plugins. In safe mode, stuck plugins can be terminated by user action, or automatically if they execute longer than predefined allowed time. Plugins causing problems can be turned off for the remainder of scanning. Long archive file operations can be canceled as well, allowing scanning to continue immediately.
• Added detailed scanning status information, available on request at any given moment. This status information reports current task in progress, as well as all available related information, including running plugin, file being processed by the plugin, current folder being cataloged etc. Plugins activity logging is still available, however it should now rarely be necessary to use.
• Improved help file documentation for media scanning troubleshooting.
• The Windows Shell Thumbnails plugin has been heavily optimized. Asking Windows shell about available thumbnails for every file being cataloged is quite expensive in terms of performance. The plugins now "learns" as it goes on each scan which types of files have available thumbnails in Windows shell, and which have failed to produce consistently, skipping them for the rest of scan. Performance improvement is very notable.
• The internal viewer now features a simple slideshow support.
• ISO files handling is now more robust, especially the UDF format detection. Some non-UDF ISO files have turned out to be problematic in previous versions.
• The popup menu in Report Generator / Printer Setup / Settings button was not displayed correctly. Fixed.
• The sort button in Catalog Setup has had no effect on listed items. Fixed.
• Help file now switches to the default English language help file, if help file specified in active language file is not available. The program now also warns if unable to show help due to missing HTML Help support on the system (old Windows systems).
• Tweaked a bit Compare functions, filename compares are case insensitive once again, and files that have only changed in using capital case in their filenames are tolerated as unchanged.
• IMDB plugin: adjusted for small changes on IMDB web site, preventing some titles from detecting and downloading full size thumbnails.

Version 2010.218 - 18. February 2010

• Minor, mostly maintenance release.
• Introduced new thumbnails plugin: Windows Shell Thumbnails. This plugin takes advantage of available Windows shell interfaces, which can be extended with third-party thumbnail providers for additional file types. The plugin offers WhereIsIt the same kind of access to generating thumbnails as Explorer has, and is able to use already cached thumbnails (Thumbs.db files) for better performance.
• Plugins debugging mode has been updated a bit, it now falls back to a secondary location for creating a log file if program's folder is not writeable to current user, and now always reports the exact location of the log file at startup.
• Improved robustness of the JPEG description plugin when dealing with certain type of invalid/corrupted JPG files.
• Configuration dialogs for several different plugins have been updated to work around a problem with edit control when running on 64-bit versions of Windows.
• Several other miscellaneous minor adjustments and improvements.

Version 2010.120 - 20. January 2010

• IMDB plugin: added support for importing information from international IMDB sites in different languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese).
• Added new command-line option, autoindex. Browsing catalogs in categories view mode is not native mode, and requires data to be indexed when using it for the first time. Autoindex option allows for this indexing to be done automatically in the background when the program is idle, starting immediately when catalog loads. This will shorten or eliminate the need to wait when switching to categories view. This capability is currently in test mode and may no longer require the switch to activate in the future.
• Most progress windows are now equipped with icons, indicating operation in progress.
• Plugins importing thumbnails for parent items (i.e. Folder Thumbnails plugin) can now take in account order of listed file masks. If more than one file is available for importing thumbnail, the one matching first listed file mask is given priority.
• Further tweaked search thread synchronization, slightly improved search performance.

Version 2010.104 - 4. January 2010

• Minor cumulative service release, focusing on fixing odd errors and addressing annoyances.
• Added Locate in Catalog ribbon item and menu option when browsing catalog by categories.
• Search by Tags option was missing from the advanced search editor menu, and is now once again available.
• Addressed a problem on some systems where editing descriptions in the Description Window and switching items in a very specific way would result in one of items ending up with other's description.
• Fixed Del key interfering as a shortcut for a ribbon item when editing text in the main window, such as editing descriptions or renaming items.
• Fixed an error being reported if creating a new catalog while no other catalog is loaded at the time, or has been loaded before.
• Fixed an error occurring when closing a catalog in a specific way.
• Updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• A few other minor improvements, for example snappable listview columns when resizing on Windows Vista and Seven.

Version 2009.1210 - 10. December 2009

• Windows 7: All major operations like disk scanning, searching and catalog saving now show progress in application's button in the taskbar.
• All multiline descriptions were missing the last character when shown in shortened form in all Description columns. Fixed.
• Fixed a thread synchronization issue with searching, causing rarely occuring random catalog structure errors when actively browsing catalog data or search results while search was still running in the background.

• Help file has been updated for version 2009, covering new user interface.
• WhereIsIt has a new program icon.
• Hints on menus and ribbon/toolbar buttons are no longer shown if they do not have available any additional information than already shown.
• The Export Audio CD Details button on the ribbon now has a submenu, offering the same kind of options as in previous versions.
• Updated IMDB plugin for changed movie web pages, updated DcrawPlugin to the latest version of dcraw.c.
• Web site has been updated for version 2009. Product information page has new screenshots showing new user interface on Windows 7, download section has been tidied a bit and downloads for older versions, including 3.xx, moved to a separate Legacy Downloads page.
• Several miscellaneous fixes, adjustments and minor improvements reported or suggested during the last beta stage.

Version 2009.1110 (Beta 1) - 10. November 2009

• The immediate and most notable impact of the new version 2009 is the new ribbon based user interface. The program did away with the main menu and main toolbar with small icons, both were replaced with a ribbon bar featuring large, high quality icons, and a round application menu button in the top left corner as the program command center.
• WhereIsIt now supports large, 32x32 high-quality semi-transparent icons in all parts of user interface, particularly on ribbons and toolbars. Over 250 new icons were designed or updated for this version.
• With the new interface, commands were reorganized for easier access in both main ribbon and right-click context popup menus. All catalog-related commands like creating, opening, saving and closing catalogs, as well as basic application command were moved in the application menu, some are also available in the small quick access toolbar in the window title. The rest of the commands are available in the ribbon, distributed in several logical groups accessible as ribbon tabs.
• The "Home" tab on the new ribbon bar is by default context sensitive, available options change and adapt to currently selected item. This way, ribbon shows only options relevant for current selection, making it fast and easy to find the command for your task. On the other hand, changing available commands also means some level of buttons jumping around on the ribbon - as this can be distracting, context sensitivity is optional and can be turned off in program's settings.
• The main ribbon bar can be put in a minimized mode, showing only a list of available tabs and acting as a pull down window. This leaves as much window space as possible for both main windows to work with, even more than in previous versions with a small toolbar. Just right-click main ribbon to select minimized mode.
• The new ribbon interface together with new status bars comes in three basic predefined color schemes (default silver, blue and black), selectable in program's settings.
• All remaining toolbars have a completely new implementation, they support different appearances based on environment the program is running in, and can be switched between small and large icon modes. Just right-click the toolbar to make the switch.
• All popup menus support semi-transparent icons and feature a new, modern glassy appearance that goes along with ribbon style user interface. Like ribbon and toolbar options, all popup menu options provide popup hint window with larger icon and quick access to each option's help page.
• Changed user interface required lots of changes to language files. Still, existing language files are automatically converted to new format, and as many existing translations as possible are preserved and reused on new controls. Only minimal editing is required for language files to be adapted for version 2009, mostly due to some new additions.
• Language files have been optimized and are considerably smaller than before, removing lots of redundancy.
• Available options in the internal viewer can be presented either on a ribbon bar, or on a toolbar. Just right-click ribbon/toolbar to make the switch. Toolbar takes somewhat less space on the screen than ribbon, and may be preferred especially for graphics viewing.
• Added new advanced search criteria: searching by item type (disks, files, folders, disk groups, archive files, compressed files etc.) You can now combine this criteria in your search expressions at will.
• Maximizing the search results list over the entire window area is possible once again, using a dedicated button for the purpose on the search window toolbar.
• Added new command line parameter, "-lang". The following parameter specifies language file, allowing starting the program in any predefined language. This new parameter replaces old "-English" and "-Deutsch".
• Added new command line parameter, "-newinstance". Allows running multiple instances of the program. Note that running multiple instances is NOT recommended for stability reasons, in certain cases can cause conflicts between running instances, and comes with certain limitations. If you know and understand what you are doing, it can be a time saver.
• Most popup, drop-down, and status windows are now dropping shadow, making them easier to distinguish from the background and work with in general.
• Added new privacy options in program settings. On program exit, you can have the program clean up all search history and several other edit boxes with capability to remember last entered text, as well as the list of last used catalog files.
• The description window typically docked at the right-bottom of the program's main window now snaps down to get it temporarily out of the way without actually closing it. Just drag the sizing bar down until it snaps close, and use the bar again to open it back up. Of course, you can still show and hide this window with a dedicated button on the ribbon bar.
• Removed the advanced search expression Validate button. Validation is now automatic in real time, and the result is always available in the status bar. You can click there for more details if search expression is found not valid.
• Report Generator dialog layout has been redesigned a bit.
• The term "Flag" used in previous versions has been changed to "Tag". Tags better represent the use and purpose of this feature.
• IMDB and TheTVDB plugins have been updated, both featuring better file name filtering and title/episode detection, and offer additional features such as assigning alias names to imported titles.
• New versioning system. As the program forked into two separate versions and version 4.00 has been released back in 2003 for custom development clients (now up to version 11), public shareware version needed a new designation. Starting with this version, all released versions will be marked with current year and build number, representing the date of release.
• Dropped support for ancient Windows 95. The new user interface uses GDI+, only available on Windows 98 and newer.
• Addressed several miscellaneous issues occurring in previous versions.
• Known issues, to-do list: Some additional visual fine tuning like flicker removal, adjusting help file documentation to the ribbon user interface.

Versions older than 2009