Rotula 0.4.0

Added

• Print to any Windows printer. A DYMO, Brother, TSC, SATO, Epson or office printer that does not understand ZPL can now print your labels through its Windows driver. Each printer has a print mode: Printer language (ZPL), as before, or Windows driver (picture), which draws the label at the printer's real resolution and the label's real size. The mode is remembered per printer. The first time you print to a printer with no saved mode, the Print dialog asks once "How does this printer understand labels?" and suggests an answer from the printer's name and driver (ZPL for Zebra-style names and "Generic / Text Only" queues); network printers added in Rotula by address (TCP/IP, port 9100) always get ZPL. Nothing is switched for you: the printer saved in your settings stays on ZPL without a question, and other printers you used before this version are asked about once, with ZPL already selected for Zebra-style names. Before a picture print, Rotula lists what a driver cannot print the same way (raw ZPL kept from an imported file, barcodes only a ZPL printer can draw, recalls of graphics stored on the printer, images too large to draw, UL and CSA marks, a barcode whose bars are narrower than their safe size, a label larger than the area the printer can print on, whose outer edge may be cut off) and asks for one tick for the whole job; a label larger than the paper the driver uses is refused; a field the printer would number, date or fill in itself (^SN/^SF, ^FC, ^FE) cannot be printed this way and is refused. It works for a single label, for a whole data-merge batch (checked once, not per record) and for the print station. Because every copy is a page of its own in the Windows print queue, one job may print at most 100,000 labels (all the ticked records times their copies); more is refused with a plain message that says to print in smaller batches, and no tick lets it through. A label that does not fit the driver's paper but fits it turned a quarter turn (sideways stock) is turned clockwise for you, pixel for pixel so barcodes stay exact, and Rotula says so before printing (one tick); when neither way fits you get the usual paper error. The preview says it shows the printed picture. Printer-side counters, cutter, tear-off and status checks stay ZPL-only; the MCP server and the command line print ZPL only, and ZPL output does not change. No label printer to hand? Choose "Microsoft Print to PDF" and the Windows driver mode to try it. See docs/printing.md.
• Set up print station (File > Set up print station...): checks every label of a print station with the printer it uses and, for a printer in Windows driver mode, shows the points a driver cannot print the same way. When the label is fine as it is, you tick one box and save, and operators can print it. The acceptance is kept in station.acknowledged.json next to station.json (which is never changed). If the points found for a label change after you accepted them, operators are told to ask you to check it again. See docs/print-station.md.
• Print engine for scripts and warehouse systems (rotula.exe): print .rotula labels with no window. rotula print takes a label, field values (--set) or records from a CSV, Excel or JSON file, and a Windows printer or network address, and prints through the designer's own print path: resolution conversion, darkness and speed, variables, questions (--answer, otherwise the designer default; never a sample value), copies, and serial numbers used once. Before every job it checks the printer status (~HS) and holds the job back on a fault; after the last job it waits until the printer reports it finished. rotula status and rotula printers report printers, --json gives a machine-readable result, and exit codes tell a script what happened. rotula serve offers the same as a REST API (/api/v1/jobs, printer status and lists, OpenAPI at /openapi/v1.json) that can run as a Windows service: off until started, on 127.0.0.1 by default, an API key on every call (only its hash is stored), and only the label folders and printers its settings file lists. One job at a time per printer. Messages in English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil) and French (Canada). A new PrintEngine policy lets an administrator switch it off. The setup program, the MSI and the portable zip include rotula.exe beside the app. See docs/print-engine.md.
• Label sheets for office printers (File > Export > Label sheets (PDF), or Label sheets in the Print dialog): put the label on sheets for a laser or inkjet printer and save them as a PDF at the sheet's real size, each label at its own physical size. Pick a generic template (Letter 30-up, 20-up, 14-up, 10-up, 6-up, 80-up and half sheets; A4 3 x 8, 21-up, 65-up, 16-up, 14-up, 8-up and 2-up) or type your own layout, start at any position of a partly used sheet, and add crop marks or label outlines. With data loaded the ticked records go on the sheets with their copies, and serial numbers are used once, exactly as when printing. The layout is saved with the label; older versions of Rotula open such a file and ignore it. Sending the sheets straight to a Windows printer is not offered: print the PDF at actual size.
• Machine-wide MSI for IT departments: every release now also has Rotula-X.Y.Z-win-x64.msi, signed like the setup program. It installs to Program Files for every user with a Start menu entry and the .rotula association, upgrades older versions in place, and is made for silent deployment with Intune, Group Policy or Configuration Manager. The setup program can now also install for all users silently with /ALLUSERS. Silent install and uninstall commands, exit codes, Intune detection rules and Group Policy steps are in the new docs/deployment.md.
• Settings your organization can manage: administrators can fix the language and switch the update check on or off for everyone, suggest a default printer, keep add-ons in the user's own folder from loading, and switch printing or database access of the MCP server off, through Group Policy or Intune. Administrative templates (English and Spanish) are in packaging/policies. A setting fixed this way is greyed out in Rotula with "Managed by your organization".
• Optional update check (Help > Check for updates once a day): off unless you switch it on. Then Rotula asks GitHub once a day, with one anonymous request that carries nothing about you or your PC, whether a newer version exists, and shows a notice with a link to the release page. It never downloads or installs anything.
• winget: the manifests use schema 1.10, offer the MSI for --scope machine next to the per-user installer, and have a Spanish (es-MX) description. The submission steps are in docs/releasing.md.
• Print station for the warehouse floor: a locked, print-only screen started with Rotula.exe --station <folder, station.json or label> (without a path it uses %ProgramData%\Rotula\station.json) or from File > Open print station. Labels show as large tiles with thumbnails and a search box; scanning a label's code opens it. Its questions are large fields that take keyboard-wedge scanner input: Enter or Tab moves to the next one, the last scan can print at once, and the label's own rules (required, length, pattern) are checked before anything is sent. Printing goes through the same print path as the Print dialog with the printer status check, and the result is shown in large plain words (ready, held back with the reason, printed and verified, not confirmed); the questions then reset for the next item, keeping the answers the station is told to keep. A station.json sets the labels and their scan codes, the printer of each label or a default, copy limits, whether the label's data may be printed, and an exit PIN stored only as a salted PBKDF2 hash (made with File > Create print station PIN or Rotula.exe --station-pin); five wrong PINs lock the PIN box for 30 seconds. Every setting is checked and a mistake is explained with the setting and line. See docs/print-station.md.
• Printer status before and after printing (ZPL ~HS). Before each job Rotula asks the printer for its status and does not send while it reports it is out of labels, its printhead is open, the ribbon is out, it is paused, too hot, in diagnostics mode or its buffer is full; the Print dialog says which and what to do. After the job it waits (up to 30 seconds) until the printer reports it finished, then says "printed and verified", names a fault that appeared after the job (the labels still count as possibly printed, so no serial number is reused), or says it could not confirm. A printer that cannot answer never blocks printing. On by default for network printers and off for Windows printers, switchable in the Print dialog; "Check printer status" shows the decoded answer at any time. The MCP server has a matching get_printer_status tool.
• A gallery of eight showcase labels in the README (GS1-128 pallet, parcel, food, wine, lab specimen, asset tag, shelf tags with data merge, print conditions). Their .rotula files and the CSV data are in docs/showcase, and the pictures are rendered with Rotula's own PNG export by a test that only runs when ROTULA_RENDER_SHOWCASE=1 is set.
• Text fit for wrapped text (Properties panel, Text fit): choose what a text block does when its text is longer than the box. "Shrink to fit" uses the largest font size, between a smallest and a largest size you set, at which all the text fits; "Grow height" adds lines, up to a limit you set, so all the text shows. With data merge every record gets the size or the lines its own text needs, the canvas shows the same size that prints, and "Do not warn" hides the does-not-fit warning when cutting the text off is what you want. Labels that do not use it are saved exactly as before; a label that does cannot be opened by older versions of Rotula.
• Print an object only when you want it: in the new Printing section of the properties, mark an object "Do not print this object" (a note or guide that never reaches the printer or an export), set "Print only when" a field equals, does not equal, contains, is empty or is not empty a value (so a warning can appear on some labels only), and "Lock position" so nothing moves it by accident. The Objects list and the canvas show small No print, Hidden and Locked badges.
• The Preview window shows a label the way it prints when it is set to print upside down (^POI) or mirrored (^PMY). It opens on "As printed", says in one sentence why the picture is turned, and has an "As designed" switch to see it upright. The canvas stays upright for editing and the status bar says "Prints upside down" (or "Prints mirrored"). Imported ZPL with ^POI / ^PON and ^PMY sets the label's setting, so the preview follows it. PNG, JPEG and PDF exports stay as designed.
• Portuguese (Brazil) and French (Canada): the whole interface is now also available in Brazilian Portuguese and Canadian French (View > Language, where each language is listed in its own name), and the installer offers both. On first run Rotula follows Windows: a Portuguese desktop gets Portuguese (Brazil), a French one French (Canada), Spanish stays Spanish and anything else English. Numbers and dates follow the chosen language. A language you picked before stays as it was. The "Language of Rotula" policy (Group Policy / Intune) also accepts pt-BR and fr-CA.
• The ZPL panel is editable. Type or paste ZPL under the canvas and, after a short pause, the label is rebuilt from it through the same importer as File > Import ZPL; every edit is one undo step (Ctrl+Z works from inside the panel). A badge says whether the text is Generated from the design or Edited by hand - re-imported; "Revert to design" regenerates it. Commands the designer does not model are never dropped: the status line says how many were kept as raw ZPL and names the first ones (hover for every notice). Element names, data bindings, print conditions, locks, text fit and "do not print" objects survive an edit when the element is still there. A hint line explains the command under the caret: its name, its parameters and what each one means, for every command Rotula supports.
• Numbered fields (^FN) are data fields. Importing ZPL turns ^FN3"Customer name" into the placeholder {{Customer_name}} (or {{Field3}} without a prompt) with the field's data as the sample value, so the field can be merged from a file or database; the number and prompt are written back unchanged. A label can be written as a stored format (ZplGenerator.GenerateStoredFormat: ^DF plus one ^FN per placeholder) and its recall (GenerateFormatRecall: ^XF plus the values), with the same numbering both ways.
• Barcode size you can understand, and checked against the printer. Under the module width of a barcode (and the module size of QR Code, Data Matrix and Aztec) the Properties panel now says what the setting means on paper: "Module: 9.9 mil (0.25 mm) - symbol 17 mm wide", plus the quiet zone the symbol needs (for example 10X on each side for Code 128, 11X before and 7X after for EAN-13, 4X for QR Code), and a small - / + pair changes the module one dot at a time with the readout following live. While one barcode is selected the design canvas shows its quiet zone as a dotted rectangle. The Problems list now warns, in plain words, when the module is a single dot at 300 dpi or more, when a linear code has bars thinner than 2 dots at 203 dpi, and when the symbol plus its quiet zones does not fit the label width. Nothing about the file format changed.
• Relative position with an anchor point (Properties panel, Position): pick one of nine anchor points (corners, edge middles, centre) and what the object is relative to, the label or another object. X and Y then mean the distance between the two anchor points, so an object anchored bottom-right stays in the bottom-right corner when the label is resized, and an object relative to another one follows it when it moves or grows (a longer text on one record moves its right-anchored neighbour on that record only). Choosing an anchor never moves the object: only the numbers change. The canvas marks the anchor point of the selected object, deleting a reference keeps its followers where they are, and a reference that would make two objects relative to each other is refused with an explanation. The printer always receives absolute ^FO/^FT positions. Objects without an anchor behave exactly as before and such labels are saved exactly as before; a label that uses anchors is saved as format version 11, which older versions of Rotula refuse to open. Also new: Align to label (Object menu) lines several selected objects up with the label's edges or centre instead of with each other.

Fixed

• Windows fonts that are named after a style now draw in that style. "Arial Black", "Segoe UI Semibold", "Segoe UI Black", "Bahnschrift Condensed" and similar names used to be replaced by the default font in the preview, PNG/PDF export and print picture; they now resolve to their parent family at the weight and width the name says.
• Arial Narrow, Franklin Gothic Medium and other families Windows lists only under their own name now draw in that font instead of the default one: when the font manager does not know the family, Rotula loads the installed font file.
• Serial numbers are never reissued, and are given back when a job cannot start. A number that may have reached the printer is never used again. If the counter store cannot be read or saved (full disk, locked file, no permission), the run stops before anything prints, the numbers already taken are given back, and the message says what happened and what to check, instead of an error window.
• Printing is more careful when something goes wrong. An unfinished job is cancelled in the Windows print queue instead of being left behind, bytes still on their way to a network printer are counted, and a printer that cannot start the job is reported as a result with a reason.
• Settings are saved safely. settings.json is written to a temporary file first and then swapped in, so a crash or power cut during the save cannot leave it half written.
• Very large or hostile input no longer exhausts memory. Images above 40 million pixels are refused with a placeholder (the same limit in the preview, exports and printing), and imports and data loads are bounded.

Security

• The read-only guard for database sources is stricter. It now refuses spellings of a query that different SQL readers could understand differently, and refuses PostgreSQL functions that run text or read files on ODBC connections too. A few unusual but valid queries may be refused: for example SELECT 1AS x (no space) must be written SELECT 1 AS x.
• The MCP server checks every label it is asked to print. All the ZPL is scanned for commands that change the printer itself (memory, network, stored settings); such a job needs an explicit acknowledgement, and raw ZPL blocks are shown in full before printing.