Releases: highenergymagic/VBNote
Release list
VBNote v1.2.0
VBNote 1.2.0.
Moving files on and off the machine
The machine now has a USB flash drive plugged into it, and that drive is a folder on your computer:
Documents\VBNote USB Drive
Put a file in that folder and it is on the drive next time you start VBNote. Anything you put on the drive from the machine is back in that folder when you quit. VBNote says what it copied, both ways.
On the machine the drive appears alongside the flash disk, and you copy to and from it exactly as you would on a real BrailleNote. Your documents still live on the flash disk — this is for carrying things between the two machines, not for keeping them.
Set up VBNote now asks how big the drive should be. 256 MB is the default and is plenty for documents.
The drive is a real virtual hard disk (.VBNote\UsbDrive.vhd), so Windows can mount it directly if you would rather use Explorer — right-click, Mount. That needs an administrator, and never do it while VBNote is running.
One rough edge, so it does not surprise you
Asking the machine for drive information takes about twenty seconds of silence. It is reading the whole drive's index to work out the free space, and it does finish. Everything else about the drive — listing, reading, writing, copying — is normal speed. Being worked on.
Also
Upgrading from 1.1.x keeps your flash disk and settings. The drive is made the first time you start this version; nothing to do.
New here? Install it, then run Set up VBNote once. It builds your machine from the bootloader and operating system of a machine you own; VBNote does not include them and cannot obtain them.
This is not a HumanWare product and is not supported by them.
VBNote v1.1.1
VBNote 1.1.1.
It tells you what it is doing while it starts
A cold start is about ninety seconds and the machine is silent for most of it. VBNote used to beep every five seconds — which says "not dead" and nothing else, eighteen times over.
Now it says what is actually happening: Windows starting, loading programs, keyboard ready, loading drivers, and on a first boot that it is setting up. Each one is announced when it really happens, not on a timer, and if a stage is taking a while it says how long it has been rather than going quiet. Once the machine has its own voice, VBNote stops so it is not talking over it.
If something has genuinely gone wrong it now says so after four minutes, instead of reassuring you indefinitely.
The power switch is gone
It confused people, and it lost work: switching off before quitting lost your flash disk contents.
Here is why, because it was not obvious. Switching off suspends the machine rather than shutting it down — on a real BrailleNote the memory stays alive, which is the whole point. So the machine goes on holding your open document, its directory entry and its filing-system updates in memory, and never writes them out. On a real machine that is fine. Here, quitting from a suspended machine throws that memory away, and the flash disk is left missing the parts that were never written.
VBNote cannot resume from suspend yet, so every use of that switch was a chance to lose work. The control is gone rather than carrying a warning. F11 + Q quits and saves your flash disk properly, as it always did.
Installing over 1.1.0 keeps your flash disk and settings; you do not need to set up again.
New here? Install it, then run Set up VBNote once. It builds your machine from the bootloader and operating system of a machine you own; VBNote does not include them and cannot obtain them.
This is not a HumanWare product and is not supported by them.
VBNote v1.1.0
VBNote 1.1.0.
The host key is now F11
It was right control. Some keyboards don't have a right control key — compact and laptop keyboards routinely drop it — and without a host key you can never capture the keyboard, so the machine hears nothing and there is no way to find out why. F11 is on every keyboard, and the machine has no use for it.
| F11 + G | take the keyboard, or give it back |
| F11 + R | reset the machine |
| F11 + P | the power switch |
| F11 + Q | quit, saving your flash disk |
Right control now works as CONTROL, the same as the left one, so pressing it does what you meant rather than nothing.
Nothing else about how you drive the machine has changed. Installing over 1.0.x keeps your flash disk and settings; you do not need to set up again.
Under the hood
The USB host controller is emulated. Nothing user-visible yet — it is the groundwork for getting files on and off the machine, which is the next thing being built.
New here? Install it, then run Set up VBNote once. It builds your machine from the bootloader and operating system of a machine you own; VBNote does not include them and cannot obtain them.
This is not a HumanWare product and is not supported by them.
VBNote v1.0.1
VBNote 1.0.1.
Update if you use NVDA. 1.0 was built without NVDA's controller client, so VBNote announced itself in the system voice instead of your own screen reader's. It was named in the build under a filename that build never produced, and told to skip a missing file quietly — so nothing failed and nothing said so. It is in this one, and the build now fails rather than leaving it out.
Nothing else about the machine has changed. Installing over 1.0 keeps your flash disk and settings; you do not need to set up again.
New here? Install it, then run Set up VBNote once. It builds your machine from the bootloader and operating system of a machine you own; VBNote does not include them and cannot obtain them.
This is not a HumanWare product and is not supported by them.
VBNote v1.0.0
VBNote v1.0.0.
Install it, then run Set up VBNote once. It builds your machine from the bootloader and operating system of a machine you own; VBNote does not include them and cannot obtain them.
This is not a HumanWare product and is not supported by them.