Blog: WhizFolders, Articles and tips

Occasional hang fixed on clicking direct links: We had to code a workaround for a bug in RichEdit that sometimes caused a nasty hang when processing the directly typed links. Since this is an important fix, we had to release this version soon after version 6.3.4.

Improved processing of links to network locations in the topic list: When links were put in the topic list pointing to files or documents on network locations, some delay was introduced in the list, especially during scrolling. This has been fixed.

Note: There is a newer version 6.3.4.2 that fixes a link clicking problem in the editor.

Improved Help Window: Now Help is an independent application so that when you launch help, it doesn’t overlay document windows. Moreover, the help can be independently started from the Start menu icons for WhizFolders.

Improvement, new operation to open a set of documents together: You will see two new operations on the File menu of the Main WhizFolders window as shown below. If you always like to work on a set of documents together, you can open them first and then use the operation “Save list of documents to group…” Later, when you want to open all the documents in a group, you use the operation “Open documents in group” and they will be opened together. This is especially useful in the Tabbed mode. Note that these operations are only available on the main window’s File menu.

Improvement, “Document options” button below the list: Some users didn’t realize the options they could change in the File or Document options because the operation to change the File Options was not easily located in the menu or the toolbar. The button “Document Options” now appears below the list.

Tabbed interface, more fixes: Some more keyboard and menu problems were found and fixed in the new tabbed document interface.

Paste plain text, fix: The “Paste Plain Text” operation to paste a jump link incorrectly brought up Insert Link screen in the editor. Paste plain text should actually be a way to avoid this screen for the links. Fixed.

Search/Find Text, fix: Sometimes the search started in the quick editor didn’t stop at the end of the current topic. Fixed.

Opening WhizFolder documents from the shell, fix: When documents were opened from command line or shell, they didn’t get properly added to the recent documents or to the main document list. Fixed.

Update 21 Jan: The latest AVG update seems to have fixed the problem. Meanwhile, we were worried as some users continued to face the problem. So we have gone ahead and replaced both paid versions (including beta) so that now the false alarms won’t occur even for earlier AVG scans.

Update 20 Jan: I also wrote to AVG at the same time I posted this article. They were prompt with their reply and said that the problem is fixed in their next update. I have yet to verify this because I have to depend on Virus Total that might take some time to get the update. Those of you facing this problem, please update your AVG scan database and recheck.

Original article:
A false positive alarm by anti-virus software is a real pain for software developers. Most of the software today is protected by some kind of licensing wrapper that protects it against reverse engineering or hacking. The problem is, a malware developer may also use the same software to wrap its malware. Then sometimes the file signatures start matching and one or the other virus checker starts raising false alarms. Today, AVG is giving a false alarm on WhizFolders exe files. I just investigated this when a user raised the alarm. In my test with Virus Total, out of the 41 virus checking software, only AVG is complaining. Obviously its checking algorithm needs to improve. Chances are, many other software programs wrapped with the same licensing software would be affected and somebody will complain to AVF. Then they will release an update that will fix the warning for all such false alarms including that for WhizFolders.

If you are seeing this warning, please see if you can put WhizFolders in some kind of exclusion list so that AVG does not complain. Also check for an update for AVG. May be that will fix the problem. Meanwhile, we are looking into this and will rebuild WhizFolders and rewrap it with some modifications to see if this false warning goes away. We will post another notice here as soon as we do that successfully.

In case you don’t know, you can copy the paid version of WhizFolders to a portable drive by using the Tools menu on the main window of WhizFolders. This feature has been available since version 6.1 and has been further improved in the new version 6.3 under beta testing.

Better keep your documents in another folder on the portable drive: I recommend that you always keep your WhizFolder documents on a separate folder on the portable drive. For example, if you made a target folder X:\whizfolders to keep the portable copy of WhizFolders, put your documents in X:\mydocs. This way, your documents will not be affected even if you reinstall the portable copy in another folder to solve the occasional file permission problems as described below.

Occasional file permission problems: During this portable copy operation (or when running WhizFolders from the portable drive) an occasional problem comes due to file and folder permissions of the target folder, especially on Windows Vista or later. Here are some clues on fixing this problem.

Make sure that you are using a portable key: When you go to make a portable copy for the first time, it asks for a special license key. This should be the portable key obtained from the self-service web site support.whizfolders.com from the special portable key section. You shouldn’t use your regular purchase key for this as it will give a permission error in versions earlier than 6.3.4.

Try to fix the permissions: In Windows Explorer, right-click on the folder that keeps the portable copy and try to fix the permissions so that anyone can write to it. Do the same for the files within that portable copy folder.

Make a fresh portable copy: If the above is too difficult for you, make a fresh portable copy of WhizFolders. You can even make the portable copy on your hard disk in some temporary folder and then copy the whole folder to the portable drive.

CAUTION: Do not delete your old portable folder as it may have your WhizFolder documents in it. Better move your documents to a separate folder on your portable drive before you delete your old portable copy. You may need to open your moved documents on the portable drive again by using the File–Open menu.

Better update to the latest version 6.3 (in beta testing) before making the above fresh copy: This version improves the portable operation and the improvements are listed on the new features page of version 6.3.

Finally, what is the best way to update the WhizFolders program on your portable copy? If you know that it is a minor update, you can simply copy the whizfolders exe to the portable location and replace the old copy. But if it is a major version change, for example, from version 6.1 to 6.3 where the portable feature has changed, it is better to make a fresh folder and then copy over your own documents from the old location, unless you have put them in a separate folder as recommended above.

If there is any confusion, please send your questions so that this documentation can be improved.

This version is already old. Please update to the latest.

Yet another tabbed mode fix: This version fixes a problem with the Return and Delete key in the Quick Editor when working in “tabbed” document mode.

For a complete history of improvements and fixes through 6.3 beta, please see History of versions

This version is already old. Please update to the latest.

Known problems in tabbed documents: Although, we have fixed many problems in the new “tabbed” documents feature, we are discovering new ones. For example, some keyboard shortcut keys do not work when in tabbed mode, especially in the editor. So we recommend that if you see any unusual behavior when using tabbed mode, please switch it off.

Improvement, Expand, Collapse selected: New menu items are available on the Edit menu and right-click menu of the topic list. These allow you to expand and collapse only the selected topics.

Improvement, Auto-expand: When you clicked on a topic list topic, it was expanded automatically and the previous item was collapsed. This feature could also be put off on the General Options–Misc page. But this feature made it difficult to do a multi-select with those auto exapands/collapses occurring. Now it doesn’t do an auto-expand on multi-selects.

Improvement, Make link warning switch off: When you right-click to make a link out of selected text, you get a warning about loss of formatting in the link text. Now this warning can be switched off for the session.

Fix, Make linked topic: The right-click operation on the quick edit to make a linked new topic automatically didn’t work for the choice “add the topic as first child.” This is fixed. Moreover, the program now remembers your choice for the next repeat of this operation.

Please do not use “Tabbed” documents mode till further notice:

Some operations like Search menu do not work well in “Tabbed” documents mode. This mode is enabled when you click on the “Tabbed” switch on the main window to switch it ON. I’d recommend not using the tabbed mode till the next update.

Another new feature in WhizFolders Deluxe 6.2.4 (under Alpha testing) is the keywords panel below the topic viewer that shows the keyword tags assigned to a topic. Here is a picture:

As soon as you click on the bottom tab “Keywords for above topic,” a panel opens that shows the keywords assigned to the topic shown in the viewer. You can even pin this by the Pin icon as I have done in this picture. Then the panel stays that way and goes on showing keywords assigned to each topic that you view in the viewer.

In case you haven’t noticed, a new version of WhizFolders Deluxe edition is in Alpha testing where we are continuously adding great new features. This version is available from our self-service area for paid customers, support.whizfolders.com.

We just released Alpha 6.2.4 that completely revamps the hoisting feature. Now you can hoist any level. Hoisting means, you want to concentrate on a particular tree of notes and don’t want other topics to be visible to distract you. Here is an example, the following list of topics shows a list before hoisting.

Suppose, I want to concentrate on the topics underneath “The power of hyperlinks” to develop that outline further. So I select that topic and click on the menu “View–Hoist all child topics.” As soon as I do that, all other topics go away and I only see the topics that I want to work with. Here is a picture after hoisting.

This list exactly works like the full list. I can add more topics, move them around, print them, and so on. Even if I close this document, it remembers its hoisted status. When I finish working on this hoisted list, I can go back to the full list by the menu “View–Unhide All (unhoist).”

If you use WhizFolders for outlining and haven’t used hoisting, try it out. It makes the outlining process much more powerful.

I’m happy to announce that more dictionaries for the spelling-checker can be downloaded from the paid user support area. There are many new language dictionaries in there and also some technical, medical and autocorrect dictionaries as well. Complete instructions are given in the user support area on how to download and install a new dictionary file.

Once you obtain a new .ADM (main language dictionary) or .ADU (user dictionary) file, you will need to use an Addons Utility called “Install Dictionary.” You will find this in the WhizFolders Addons installer available separately in the same paid user support area.