Laps Free - Version Information


0.13 - 22nd November 2005
Due to the changes in V0.12 there were some bugs in the little used printing routines, these have been fixed.

2.4Ghz radio equipment is now becoming popular, a feature has been added to laps free to allow for this. In the drivers details window a check box ("No Freq Needed/2.4Ghz") has been added to indicate drivers that do not require frequencies, the same applies in the drivers database. In the future those that require frequencies may be in the minority, therefore a feature is now included to set the default value of the "No Freq Needed/2.4Ghz" checkbox. By ticking "New Drivers require Frequency by default" option in the Setup Screen the program will operate as before, otherwise new drivers will default to not requiring a frequency.

A label has been added to show the class of the highlighted race in the tables screen, sometimes it was difficult to remember which class was associated to a number, this should remove the problem.

0.12 - 9th August 2005
Laps free now had the ability to run 20 cars per race, the "tables" screen has changed to enable this feature, race duration is now only adjustable from the setup screen. The information about class is now displayed at the top rather than bottom of the table to enable it to be seen easily. The table file or this version is different, old events tables are not compatible, all other files are (databases etc are fine).

Additional time (in minutes) can be added to the countdown between races by press the the +1 or +5 buttons in the race screen, this only effects the countdown before the next race and does not change the setting in the setup screen.

Some settings were not saved in the ini file, this is now fixed. An additional sound has been added to give laps free the ability to announce the time between races (if the option is turned on) at 10 & 20 seconds.

0.11 - 1st April 2005
The printout for mass/grid start races always said "Final" and in the tables screen some frequencies were not shown, both problems have been fixed.

All printouts now have a smaller font for the header of the page, hopefully this will save some paper. The range of heats/finals to be printed from the tables screen can now be selected, the tables screen has been widened to show 16 heats at one time to reduce scrolling for those with large events. HTML results files for finals now have "f" as the first letter, heats have "h".

0.10 - 2nd February 2005
The race screen now has the marshals in view at the same time as the information (no switching required). If the finals were sorted by RbyR/Points and drivers were included with no results they would end up at the top under some circumstances, this has been fixed. Small improvements to serial port code for AMB and RCIO connections and a new feature has been added to import data in a CSV file format (the download page contains an example and instructions).

0.09 - 16th November 2004
If the database was not closed before the program was closed down some new entries would not be saved, the program now saves all the entries before closing. Heats above 15 would not run ,this problem may have only been in the last few versions, it is now fixed.

0.08 - 31st August 2004
Finals printout no longer take up more paper than needed (spaces were left where no driver was located). There are now separate settings for heats and finals regarding the race type (stagger/mass) these are saved to the ini file.

If the time entered for the running order announcement during a race was entered as a blank it may cause problems, this has been fixed (not a problem if the instructions in the manual were followed).

The car number above the lap times in the results printout now includes the first 4 letters of a drivers name, this enables a driver to identify their/other peoples lap times more easily.

0.07 - 20th July 2004
Deleting a driver will now remove them from the heat and final grids (before the name was removed but the number remained). The start order printout can now be done by name as well as car number, by name uses more paper however.

The screen shown at the end of a round (EOR screen) has a new button to printout the start orders for the next round, when the next round button is pressed it no longer asks if start order printout is required.

An option to printout letters for transponders has been added, this allows those tracks with two sets of transponders to label them with unique letters instead of numbers.

The results printout for the finals ("Final Results") now prints the correct class name.

Support for scoreboards, old heat boards, traffic lights, start lights, track temperature, air temperature, humidity and barometric pressure has been enabled, this option has always been in the program but wasn't enabled in the normal release. Options are listed in the RCio section in setup, if you want more information about external hardware please email.

0.06 - 13th May 2004
An option has been added to have the manual counting keys always enabled when using AMB decoders. The number of columns for the frequencies can be set to one (fix for windows XP problem) and the statistics page now contains the distance traveled in miles & km.

Sometimes the extra (blue) labels in the race screen were not being shown when the program was loaded, this has been fixed.

0.05 - 31st Mar 2004
The number of beeps/seconds before the race(known as the ten second countdown), can now be set between two and ten. An option for printing the results or not has been added. The times for the results are now given in hours minutes and seconds rather than just seconds.

Sometimes when creating a new database the directory for saving the file did not go to the default location, this is now fixed. The manual has been updated to reflect the changes.

0.04 - 18th Feb 2004
Several updates in this version, the open button now works correctly on the first screen, the numeric keypad can now be used to manually count cars (if a version without this is required please email).

A new button has been added to the 'tables' screen for automatically sorting the frequencies if the heats have been entered manually.

Lap times can now be reprinted from the program but only until the next race has been setup, this can be done via the new button on the race screen (useful when more than one copy of the results is required).

Extra sounds have been included for mass start races, a call will now be made thirty seconds before the race ends. For the last five seconds of the race a countdown can be given, this feature can be turned on/off in the setup screen.

Data from the 'Drivers Database' can now be exported to a CSV file, CSV files can be opened in many popular programs such as spreadsheets or databases.

0.03 - 17th Jan 2004
Added a multiple FTD feature, slight change in system 20 routine to accept a software emulation (still works as normal with system 20 decoders). Manual includes the updates and is numbered 0.03

0.02 - 30th Dec 2003
A fix has been put in to solve the problem of countries that use a ',' instead of '.' as a decimal point. Track distance units are now saved in the ini file, there is no new manual for this version.

0.01 - 9th Dec 2003
Minor changes to start screen, spacing on one of the printout has changed, label printing has been enabled (only a few late versions of 0.00 did not have it). Manual has been updated to reflect changes.

0.00
First Release (all beta & omega versions were called 0.00
)