iNMR news #85

[GB, author of iNMR]

Since the last newsletter there have been 5 new versions of iNMR! The
many small improvements have kept accumulating, and today I am going
to describe them. A new operating system (called Lion) has also been
released and many have adopted it, without apparent problems. Apple is
really pushing the developers to quickly adopt the new technologies
introduced with Mac OS 10.7 Lion. Putting things in historical
perspective, it seems that it's Apple that is following iNMR. Six
years ago iNMR had already removed the scroll bars from inside the
document windows and all new windows were already created at full
screen size (if you don'y mind the small size taken by the menu bar).
A little later, in January 2006, iNMR introduced automatic saving,
which has always been the default. Although there is no practical need
to rush and implement the new technologies Apple has introduce with
Lion, we can't ignore the fact that Apple is always moving forward. If
we stay still, or don't follow Apple at their speed, we risk to be cut
out. The new machines Apple is selling today, for example, aren't
capable of using iNMR version 0, because it was compiled for the
PowerPC. In the years I have already witnessed three similar
"massacres": gone was the 68K code, gone were the Classic
applications, gone are now the PowerPC applications. The next victim
will be the 32-bits code, although the fourth "massacre" will not come
soon (probably it will require another decade). iNMR version 5 will be
a 64-bits-only application and will require Snow Leopard: it will be
immune. It was scheduled to appear in 2014 but, for the reasons
explained above, it will appear in 2013. If Apple is releasing a new
OS every other year, so should iNMR.
64-bits applications are not much better, actually they come with a
few problems. The most notable one is that Apple removed the support
for QuickDraw pictures. Many of you are probably still importing
ChemDraw pictures into their iNMR documents. As everybody should be
aware of, CambridgeSoft and ChemDraw are reluctant of breaking the
bridges with the past, and this is a source of problems if you want to
use today's applications, like Apple's Pages, for example. Quickdraw
was replaced 10 years ago but ChemDraw never abandoned it. It is still
possible to deal with Quickdraw, but only in 32 bits mode. Technically
speaking, 32-bits application enjoys a much richer set of APIs.
iNMR 5 (a 64-bits application) will be able to read old iNMR
documents, but will not show QuickDraw pictures. Nothing prevents you,
of course, to keep an older copy of iNMR to read old documents. To
compensate for the loss of compatibility with QuickDraw, iNMR 5 will
recognize other three clipboard formats: JPEG, TIFF and PNG. This
doesn't help too much because, if you try exporting a ChemDraw picture
in one of these formats, it will be clipped and scaled up. I hope
CambridgeSoft will have solved the problem before 2013. Otherwise you
can use a third application (like Graphic Converter, which has no
apparent problem to import ChemDraw pictures).

Back to the present. Here is what iNMR 4.2 has to offer to you today:

- ticker scale labels and integral labels; when printing, nothing
changes (compared to the past); the difference is visible on the
screen only;
- a new, more informative, FT dialog;
- a new variant of the contour plot for 2D NMR: the "Gradient
Contours" mode show weak peaks with pale colors;
- when the pick-peaker tool is in action (mouse pressed), you see
where the threshold value is; there's more: the threshold is movable;
- there's a much quicker way to change a J of a simulation: bring the
cursor near the value and use the scroll wheel; it is no more required
to select the parameter for editing;
- in an identical way, you can change the offsets of the overlays:
open the Overlay Manager, bring the cursor over a row a play with the
mouse ball; to change the horizontal offsets, move the ball
horizontally;
- you can easily reapply a label to many documents; for example, you
may want to have your own custom label under the frequency scale; set
it as "document note" and create a new format; all document notes will
be included into the format for being reused in future (anytime you
need them);
- you can have an internal trace on one side of a homo-2D plot and an
external projection on the other side.

Many other small things changed too, but you will hardly see them. We
discovered, for example, that 4.1.4 (and older versions) could crash
under Lion, in rare occasions. Version 4.2 should not crash because
the code is more stable and safe. If you have installed the new OS, or
are going to do it, remember to upgrade iNMR as well. If you are still
using iNMR 2 or 3, it is time to upgrade. Do not wait for 2013 to move
directly to version 5, because the upgrade fees aren't uniform (double
and triple jumps are more expensive, see link below):

http://www.inmr.net/four.html