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Introducing Forge release 18.6 for STU3 - Colonia 2018 Edition

As of today, Forge release 18.6 is available for download from Simplifier. This update represents a major new release that introduces a set of new features. Release 18.6 also includes a slew of usability, stability, and performance improvements. All users are recommended to update to the latest version.

New

  • Create New Structure
    The New Profile page desperately needed an overhaul. Release 18.6 finally introduces a new dialog to create profiles, extension definitions and logical models. The new dialog allows you to easily select a base type for the new profile. You can also inspect and customize the auto-generated default property values (name, canonical url, filename).

  • Select Extension Context page
    Release 18.6 also introduces a new dialog for selecting the Extension Context. You can easily select a base type from the list view. Optionally, you can select a specific child element from the tree view.

Improvements

  • Improved profile expansion
    The internal logic responsible for completing all the child elements of a profile has been improved and optimized. The new algorithm automatically detects and handles cyclic references, for example inbetween Identifier.Assigner (of type Reference) and Reference.Identifier (of type Identifier). This update also fixes an issue with the expansion of nested content references (e.g. Questionnaire.item[...].item).

  • Improved validation
    Forge now ensures that all validation rules are verified after loading a profile. This release also introduces a number of additional validation rules for ranged datatypes.

  • Add support for datatypes ContactDetails, SampledData, Timing (partial) & UsageContext
    The Forge UI now also supports examples values of these datatypes.

  • Font sizing now works in all pages
    The Ctrl +, Ctrl - and Ctrl 0 keyboard shortcuts are now recognized globally (on main page as well as child pages)

  • Workaround for rendering issues when running on MacOSX & WINE
    You can run Forge natively on Linux and MacOSX via WINE, as the Forge documentation website explains. Some users have reported rendering issues on MacOSX. It turned out that the rendering issues are related to (buggy) hardware acceleration. As a workaround, Forge now provides a new global application configuration option "Disable hardware rendering", available in the Options menu. If you experience any rendering issues, please try to toggle this setting. Forge release 18.6 tries to identify the operating system environment on startup. If Forge determines to be running on MacOSX, hardware rendering will automatically be disabled.

  • Fix memory leaks
    Older releases would sometimes not release allocated memory after closing a profile, causes by leaky databindings in the UI presentation layer technology. This release contains additional logic to ensure proper cleanup and de-allocation.

Bug fixes

As always, this update also provides a number of bug fixes and stability improvements. Consult the application version history (ReadMe.txt) for detailed information.

Download Forge

Visit Simplifier to download the new release.

If you find a new issue or would like to submit a feature request, please contact us at forge@fire.ly.

Happy profiling!

Michel Rutten,
Lead Developer of Forge

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