Version 5.6

[kinook]

Released on November 17, 2004

New Features

• Added Sign Code action for signing, timestamping, and verifying of digital signatures on executables.
  
• Added Subversion action and sample for integrating Subversion source control into builds.
  

Action Enhancements

• COM Register action: Support unregistering of custom user action via action name or filename.
  
• Copy Files action: Store number of copied and deleted files in COPYFILES_COPY_COUNT and COPYFILES_DELETE_COUNT temporary macros.
  
• Delphi action: Add support for Delphi 8 and 2005.
  
• FTP action: 1) Log connection and action; add logging options to show filenames and progress during transfer; 2) Store number of transferred files in FTP_TRANSFER_COUNT temporary macro; 3) Add retry capability; 4) Add support for connecting through a proxy server.
  
• Get VS6 and Get VS.NET Version actions: Log filename and versions found.
  
• Help & Manual action: 1) Add support for more command-line options; 2) Add option to treat warnings as errors.
  
• Inno Setup action: Add support for Inno Setup 5.
  
• InstallAnywhere action: Add support for InstallAnywhere 6.
  
• InstallShield action: 1) Add support for InstallShield X Express; 2) Add support for InstallShield 10.5; 3) Enable Release field for InstallShield Express.
  
• JBuilder action: Add support for JBuilder X and 2005.
  
• Make VB6 action: 1) Add option to set projects to no compatibility before building (use instead of VSMake, which is no longer installed with VBP); 2) Add option to treat circular references within a project group as an error condition; 3) Add option to log project references found in project group (aids in locating circular references).
  
• Make VC6 action: 1) Add option to log dependencies found in workspace; 2) Ignore invalid project dependencies within a workspace.
  
• Make VS.NET action: 1) Support building all configurations or a regex for matching configurations when building individual project files; 2) Populate Configuration combo drop-down list from solution or project file; 3) Support literal match as well as regex match of project and solution configurations containing regex special chars; 4) Support 'clean' build operation.
  
• Process Files action: Log full path of each file processed for easier launching or viewing from Build View.
  
• Replace in File action: 1) Support binary mode; 2) Log and store match and replace counts in temporary macros; 3) Support specifying text to append if no matches found; 4) Add Dot does not match newline option; 5) Support additional Perl regex features; 6) Support replacement of single literal value with multi-line text.
  
• Send Email action: Log action(s) performed.
  
• Set Macro action: Log action(s) performed.
  
• Surround SCM action: 1) Add support for new version 3 commands; 2) Set current dir to path from 'Directory for local files' field instead of adding -d flag (all commands except get).
  
• Telnet action: 1) Support for auto-login with username/password fields (instead of manual login within script); 2) Log connection and support Text logging level to log all text sent and received to/from server.
  
• Transform XML Log action: Add option to include output of nested (chained) build steps.
  
• UNZIP action: 1) Support extracting from password-protected ZIP files; 2) Store number of processed files in UNZIP_PROCESS_COUNT temporary macro.
  
• Vault action: Add support for new version 3 commands.
  
• Wait action: 1) Add more logging; 2) Add option to continue without waiting if file already exists when step starts.
  
• Write File action: 1) Ensure the target folder exists before creating file; 2) Log activity performed.
  
• Write INI action: 1) Ensure the target folder exists before creating file; 2) Add 'Ensure non-readonly' checkbox; 3) Log activity performed.
  
• Write Registry action: 1) Populate combo with list of remote computers; 2) Log action performed.
  
• ZIP action: 1) Support passwords on ZIP files; 2) Support deleting of files from ZIP file; 3) Store number of processed files in ZIP_PROCESS_COUNT temporary macro; 4) Add option for creating PKZIP 2.04g-compatible ZIP files.
  

Note: VSMake is no longer install with VBP 5.6 and later (it hadn't been updated since 2002 with any bug fixes).

If you still use VSMake in your projects, we recommend that you replace those steps with ones that use the Make VB6, Make VC6, and/or VS6 Get Version actions instead.

If you must continue to use VSMake, do the following:
1) Uninstall VBP, install a version between 3.0 and 5.5, then re-install the latest version
2) Define a global VSMAKE macro pointing to vsmake.exe (usually "C:\Progra~1\VisBuildPro\Tools\VSMake.exe").


Application enhancements

• Builder component: Add application option to log details of build rule when a step is skipped or repeated.
  
• GUI App: 1) Use action name as default step name instead of 'New Step'; 2) Enhancements to Insert Step dialog: Add Expand/Collapse All buttons, remember expand/collapse state and last selected action; 3) Make configuring of shown/hidden and category of actions a user option instead of application option; 4) Add projects to Recent Documents; 5) Add Create Shortcut menu item on Tools menu; 6) Enable filename auto-completion in browsable step properties fields; 7) Add Check for Updates menu item to About menu; 8) Add support for rubberband selection of steps and macros.
  
• System script functions: Add vbld_EscapeString and vbld_Sleep functions.
  
• Samples: 1) Add BuildLauncher sample and updated VisBuildPro.bld sample; 2) enhancements to CSharpClient sample; 3) Update Script.bld sample with pause from script step; 4) Update Chain.bld sample to demonstrate parallel builds.
  

Bug Fixes

• FTP action: 1) Fix for proper handling of wildcards; 2) Create each subfolder in separate steps to support FTP servers that cannot create multiple levels in one step.
  
• GUI App: 1) Don't show tooltip for password fields referencing macros and/or script; 2) Disable Test button while build is active; 3) Show tooltips on drop-down combo fields; 4) Indent tabs in print/preview instead of showing squares.
  
• Send Email action: Properly attach UTF-16 encoded text file attachments.
  
• Telnet action: Improvements to handling of wait for server responses.
  
• Write Registry action: Connect to remote computer for delete operation if a computer is specified.