DSP Robotics updates FlowStone to v3.0.5

DSP Robotics has updated FlowStone, the "graphical programming language" for Windows, to v3.0.5.

Here's what they say:

This release adds a new feature for education which allows teachers to create schematics that have a built in set of goals for a student to achieve. The progress can be shown as the student works with the schematic and progress is saved with the schematic as well. Teachers can then use FlowStone to scan a set of schematics and summarise the progress for each student, class or year group.

For audio users we now have mem inputs for the Code and Assembler components which allows you to use data from Mem components just like arrays in your code. Also on the audio side there's a new channel id output on the Voices to Poly which gives each channel on each sound process a unique id and can be used to achieve a number of different effects.

To make building your GUI even easier, we've added sub level editing for front panels. Simply double-click on a module on the front panel and you can then edit that module's front panel right there in-place without having to switch up and down through the module hierarchy. Double-click on an area outside of the sub module to go back up a level. Clicking on the schematic will reset back to the top level. If you press X while editing a panel you can hide all the selection adornments and sub-level masking. This can make it easier to see how your GUI will look after editing. You can still make adjustments to elements with the adornments hidden.

Individual links can now be made curved or straight. Right-click on a link to toggle between the two or to make a link have straight line segments hold SHIFT + CTRL when adding the first control point. We've also made it much easier to pick out control points on links that overlap. Previously, if you had links whose control points were near each other it could sometimes be impossible to select the point you wanted to move. Now all you do is hover on the link you want and as long as that link stays highlighted you get to edit the points on that link alone.

Another improvement on the GUI building side is the ability to position, move and hide a module's panel from within Ruby. This makes it easy to create expanding pop-up windows and such like. You can also animate parts of your interface more easily. See p170 of the update user guide to learn how this works.

There are several other new features and a whole bunch of fixes as well, see below for details.

PLEASE NOTE we have changed the install so it puts system modules in the FlowStone install folder and not in AppData. This is so that the system modules can be shared on multi user systems. If you have installed any of the module packs then you will need to install the new versions of the packs as well (or move the existing modules). Your own modules remain in AppData and will not be affected.

Improvements:

• New TeachingGoal and GoalProgress components allow educators to set students tasks and monitor progress.
• New Ruby extractGoalData method allows you to parse the schematics in a folder and extract all Teaching Goal data.
• New sub level editing in front panels.
• New option to set whether an individual link is curved or has straight line segments.
• New Code and Assembler components can have Mem inputs via the memin declaration type.
• New Mem Address component gives you the address of the raw data in a Mem.
• New channel id output on VoicesToPoly component gives you a unique id for each channel across all active sound processes.
• New polyintin and polyintout declaration types in Code and Assembler components.
• New Ruby setViewSize method allows you to change a modules GUI size and position.
• New Ruby setShowInParent method allows you to hide a modules GUI in its parent front panel.
• New Ruby playSoundFile method allows you to play a sound from a file asynchronously.
• New Measurement Computing USB-TEMP component.
• New send queue size (in bytes) output for the COM Port component.
• Improved resolving of link control points so that it's easier to grab the point you want to move when many links overlap in a small area.
• Improved the COM Port component sending mechanism.
• Improved the software install so that system modules and initial tags are put in the FlowStone folder in Program Files allowing the software to work on multi user systems.

Fixes:

• Fixed a bug in the Phidgets component which was causing them to lock on and prevent proper redraws.
• Fixed a bug where properties weren't showing when pasting property components or modules with properties inside a module with the properties panel open.
• Fixed a problem where the Swap Links option was missing from Schematic menu.
• Fixed the HID component which was only allowing 64 characters of hex when it should be 64 bytes (128 characters of hex).
• Fixed an issue where double-clicking on some files would cause a crash but the same files would load normally from the File menu.
• Fixed a crash with in the Ruby component which would sometimes occur when adding or removing connectors.
• Fixed a major memory leak in all the I/O components including the COM Port component.
• Fixed a problem with rendering captions on some modules.
• Fixed a problem with crashing and hanging when switching between schematics that use DirectSound or ASIO.
• Fixed a bug in the ArrayBuilder components where removing more than one link at a time from an input and then undoing caused an error.
• Fixed Multiply and Divide weren't initially shown with the Maths tag.
• Fixed the embed DLLs option when exporting was not being remembered between sessions.
• Fixed a problem with the Navigator and Toolbox resizing not working when running a schematic with lots of events being processed.
• Fixed a memory leak in exported VST plugins.
• Fixed an issue where the Stream version of the IsPlaying component won't work unless a Bool/Value version of the IsPlaying component is present.
• Fixed a problem with the software hanging sometimes when using AboutToClose components.
• Fixed a crash when, in the middle of following a wireless link you change the name or type of the currently followed item and then continue to the next one.
• Fixed a crash that can occasionally occur with the HID component.
• Fixed the ClearSends input on the COM Port component as it wasn't working before.
• Fixed a memory leak in the events system.
• Fixed a problem with some exported VST plugins hanging the host when closed if there were many instances open.