HomeCorporate

TX Text Control: 15 years word processing components

[10 January 2006] This year, we are celebrating being market leader in word processing components for fifteen years. Over the past fifteen years, TX Text Control has always been developed to take advantage of current and future software technologies.

This page offer a history of TX Text Control and discuss the evolution of the TX Text Control family of word processing components.

Product Timeline

Product Development

In 1989/1990 The Imaging Source (known then as DBS GmbH) developed an application to fill in paper forms. The application ran under the then brand new Microsoft Windows 2.0 operating system. The idea of the program was to scan in a paper form and to display it on the screen on a background layer. On top of the scanned in form, it was possible to define text areas and to then fill in these areas with text on the computer screen. The paper form was then placed in the printer and the contents of the text areas were printed exactly into the fields.

Very precise text positioning functions were required to perform this seemingly simple task. It was incredibly important to exactly define the text areas on the screen - right down to the last pixel - so that the program could know when it was nearing the edge of a field on the paper form. As TrueType fonts had not yet been invented, this WYSIWYG functionality was very important. Still today, this is a key element of TX Text Control.

Towards the end of 1990, development of the second version of Office Forms (the name of our little application) commenced. In addition to the text areas, the specification of version 2 requested that image and database areas could be defined. Due to the ever-increasing complexity - especially for the handling of mouse and text inputs - we decided to make the various input areas more object-oriented.

We were getting pretty near to using the first interface that Windows offered at the time, namely 'the Window Message Interface.'

The text areas became text windows; the image areas became image windows and the functionality was broken down into separate DLLs. Using the Window Message Interface, the main program communicated with the separate fields using self-defined messages. Messages for the text areas were called TX_* (for 'text') and messages for the image areas were called IC_* (for 'image control'). Messages that communicated with all areas, for example, those for loading, saving or printing were called WMX_* (for 'Window Message Extension').

As Windows offered only an edit control, a checkbox, buttons and a list box, it became obvious that we could sell the controls as separate products. Not surprisingly, some customers showed interest and on 18 April 1991 the first retailable version of TX Text Control was released. We called the first version 'version 2' as it included the second version of the editor that was embedded in Office Forms.

The TX Text Control brand name was derived from the first 2 letter of the message definition.

Product Chronology

The following list summarizes all the versions of TX Text Control that have ever been sold, as well as their version number and noteworthy features.

21 November 2005, TX Text Control .NET Server 12.0

• Fully programmable ASP.NET (Visual Studio 2003 and 2005) word processor engine
• Build documents on-the-fly
• Creates, modifies or converts documents on server-side
• Deployed as an automation server

03 August 2005, version 12.0

• Freely placeable and programmable text frames
• Images and objects can now be anchored to a paragraph or page
• Extensive dialog box for all image, text frame and object attributes
• Toggle between multiple image position modes
• Page breaks in table cells, keep rows together and more

21 April 2004, version 11.0

• GIF import filter
• Nested tables
• Multi-level Undo and Redo
• Improved PDF Export: Resolution and document security are scalable
• Improved JPEG Export: Image resolution and compression are scalable
• Improved Ruler Bar: A modern look and feel

01 August 2003, TX Text Control ActiveX Server version 10.10

• Fully programmable ASP word processor engine
• TX Text Control for ASP.NET and ASP
• Build documents on-the-fly
• Deployed as an automation server

23 Dezember 2002, TX Text Control .NET Release

• Full advantage of Visual Studio .NET
• Improved object-oriented design

19 September 2002, version 10.0

• TX Text Control documents can be exported in Adobe PDF format
• HTML documents can be loaded and saved with stylesheets in CSS format
• A new button bar has been designed in Windows XP look
• Images can be exported in JPEG, PNG, BMP an WMF format.

28 May 2002, version 9.1

• XML files can be loaded and saved including their corresponding DTD and CSS files.
• TX Text Control becomes a WYSIWYG editor for XML, validating each editing action with the corresponding DTD.
• In addition XML files can be manipulated from programming code
• Stylesheets can be manipulated from programming code

09 July 2001, version 9.0

• TX Text Control supports both paragraph and character based style sheets, as well as multiple style inheritance. The stylesheets are compatible with MS Word, and can be used with RTF and DOC files.
• The button bar being extended to support style sheets and is now fully configurable.
• In tables text can be aligned vertically and columns can be formatted with a new built in mouse interface.
• Adjustable word wrapping
• Integrated JPEG / PNG support
• A new built in dialog box can be used to set tabs

27 October 2000, version 8.0

• TX Text Control now supports bullets and numbered lists. A new dialog box enables their attributes to be easily edited.
• The shipped .CAB file enables TX Text Control to run in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
• Unlimited columns and rows can be inserted into and deleted from tables.
• The TX Text Control interface consists of 269 messages. 228 properties, methods and events. Additionally, the C++ class library has the same amount of member functions.

26 June 2000, version 7.04

• Version 7.0 is shipped with a C++ class library that supports all functions.

17 November 1999, version 7.0

• TX Text Control supports headers and footers. All functions that can be used to manipulate the text body can be used on the headers and footers.
• TX Text Control supports macro fields that can be used as hyperlinks.
• TX Text Control supports macro fields that can be used to display automatic page numbering.
• There is a central page view.
• All OLE objects can be accessed directly.
• The 16 bit version is no longer supported.

4 December 1998, version 6.0

• TX Text Control now supported the Microsoft Word format. Word files can be opened and saved directly with TX Text Control.
• Internally, all kernel DLLs now work with the Unicode file format (even on versions of Windows that do not support Unicode).
• All interface functions that process character strings are available in Unicode and as ANSI versions.
• Unicode text can be directly loaded and saved.
• TX Text Control is shipped in a Japanese version and supports all Japanese and the majority of Chinese text input methods.
• Search and replace is possible without using the dialog box.
• Table cell attributes can be set without the dialog box.
• A resource tool allows languages to be supported that are not directly shipped with TX Text Control.

3 December 1997, version 5.2

• A new edit mode for macro fields is introduced. At the beginning and end of a field there are now two edit positions.
• Additional data, for example a database field name, can be related to a macro field.

19 October 1997, version 5.1

• Files can be saved in HTML format.
• The user can assign a number to tables thus simplifying programming with tables.
• Further underline methods are implemented: double underline and singular words can now be underlined.
• It is possible to zoom to 400%.
• The VBX interface is no longer supported.

18 March 1997, version 5.0

• Tables can be inserted. An integrated dialog box allows the cell and frame attributes to be set. The button bar can be used to change cell width.
• TX Text Control becomes an OLE container - in other words, OLE objects can be inserted as easily and in the same manor as images. This function is only available in the 32 bit version.
• HTML format can be loaded.
• A further image filter enables GIF images to be inserted.
• A French resource file is available.
• The version numbers are equaled: the DLL version, VBX and OCX versions get the version no. 5.0

11 April 1996, version 4.5

• For the first time, the TX Text Control kernel DLLs are available in 32 bit.
• There is a dialog box for search and replace.
• There is a delete and count function for inserted images and windows.
• The VBX version 2.32 contains similar updates.
• The OCX version 3.01 contains similar updates.
• This version is also sold by the software house Visual Components. They baptize TX Text Control 'VisualWriter' (see old printed advertisements archive (towards the bottom of the page)).

5 Februrary 1996, version 4.4

• The first OCX in both 16 and 32 bit is available; the kernel DLL remains 16 bit. The kernel DLL is addressed with so-called 'thunks'. Following on from the VBX, the OCX is sold as a separate version, beginning with the version number 3.0

24 November 1995, version 4.3

• Text can be displayed in page mode.
• Images can be inserted into TX Text Control at any possible position and the text flows around the image. Using the mouse interface, the inserted images can be scaled and be dragged around the control.
• An unlimited number of other windows can be inserted into a TX Text Control.
• Page margins can be set.
• The text background color can be set to any color.
• The VBX v2.3 is similarly updated and now contains advanced example programs, which are sold under the 'TX Text Control Collection' brand.

31 January 1995, version 4.1

• An undo feature is now available.
• Images can be inserted as characters.
• Millimeters and inches can be used as the measurement unit.
• The VBX v2.2 is similarly updated.

28 September 1994, version 4.0

• TX Text Control now support texts of unlimited length.
• A built in scroll interface makes operation much slicker.
• The default language can be toggled (currently between English, German and Spanish).
• The output device can also be toggled (printer or monitor).
• New print functions are made available. Amongst other, single pages can be printed.
• The VBX v2.1 is similarly updated.

25 March 1994, version 3.3

• TX Text Control now supports the VBX interface from Microsoft Visual Basic by providing the majority of the interface functions as properties and events. The four controls - TX Text Control, button bar, status bar and ruler - are now available as VBX controls. The VBX version is sold under its own version number (v2.0); however it is based on the kernel DLL v3.3. With the VBX version TX Text Control is shipped for the first time with a setup program.

25 November 1993, version 3.2

• TX Text Control contains additional controls: button bar control and the ruler control.

27 September 1993, Arabic version

• TX Text Control is available in Arabic. This version was developed in co-operation with an Arabic text processing company. It was possible to enter text from right to left and also from left to right and right to left in the same paragraph. This version was developed for the Arabian 16 bit Windows version. This version is so different from the current 32 bit Windows version that we no longer support this dual writing direction.

2 July 1993, version 3.1

• Images in bitmap format can be inserted.
• For the first time TX Text Control contains the status bar as an auxiliary control.
• The control background can be set to any color.
• Paragraph frames can be set.
• A VBX control 1.0 for Microsoft Visual Basic is available for the first time. However, for the majority of functions, the kernel DLL must be directly called via the Window Message Interface.

20 November 1992, version 3.0

• Text can be loaded and saved in RTF format. An interface and suitable filter are shipped with TX Text Control to add this functionality. Using this interface it was also possible for users to develop their own filters and then use them with TX Text Control.
• Marco fields can be inserted. There are functions to insert, delete and change text. Read-only and not changeable are available as attributes.
• A read-only mode is introduced.
• The entire documentation is available as online help for the first time.

8 May 1992, version 2.11

• Text color setting possible.
• An interface for hyphenation is available.
• Multiple TX Text Control can be connected together, enabling text to flow automatically from one to the other. This was a kludge to enable TX Text Control to process large texts - do not forget that TX Text Control was still limited to 64 kB.

19 December 1991, version 2.1

• Text can be subscript and superscript.
• Paragraph indentations possible.
• The dialog to set line spacing becomes the dialog box for all paragraph attributes.
• Images can be inserted into text. They are linked to a paragraph and can only be in TIFF format.
• Control characters can be made visible.
• Auto-expand mode is added.

18 April 1991, version 2.0

• Selection of font type, font size and the attributes bold, italic and underlined for all text areas possible.
• Settings for line spacing, text flow and tabs for all selected paragraphs.
• Two built in dialog boxes to set font and line spacing.
• Zoom from 10 to 250%.
• Ability to edit texts up to 64 kB.
• Load, save and print functionality.
• Transparent mode.
• The interface consisted of 39 self-defined messages and two functions.

top