Changelog 2015

• New Feature [Keep Layers Locked] - A very highly requested feature, this new function allows you to Keep Layers Locked even if you have unlocked them using the Layer Manager. This eliminates the problem of moving important things like venue pillars which were on a layer that was accidentally unlocked.
• New Feature [Amalgamate Zones] - There is now an option to amalgamate Zone figures for Zones with exactly the same name e.g. If you create 2 zones called 'Food Zone' (which may be located in different places on your floorplan) you can specify whether the figures for these zones are amalgamated or not in the Meterage Report.
• New Feature [PDF Image Quality] - There is now an option to set the quality of images/logos that are embedded in an exported PDF. This option can help reduce the size of your exported PDFs when lots or high resolution images have been used on your plan. Also see below an additional improvement made to the PDF export.
• New Feature - More figures are now calculated in the Meterage Report:
  • The Quantity of stands is now shown in the figures by Hall, Zone and Plan Type.
  • The Quantity of names that are allocated to stands are now shown on the exported exhibitor list spreadsheet.
  • The total square meterage of a Zone is now shown in the figures by Zone along with a figure of the Stand Free Space.
• New Feature - You can now change the visibility of the stand area for multiple stands at the same time. Before you could only do this for one stand at a time by double clicking on a stand and un-ticking the 'Show Area' option. This is done by selecting the stands and then using the Properties Explorer to switch them on or off.
• New Feature - Additional to the option above, you can now also set the Split Name and Suppress from List options in the same way using the Properties Explorer.
• Improvement - The PDF export size has been reduced considerably for plans that have entities outside of the view border because these entities are no longer exported. This will make a huge difference when exporting just a section of a floorplan such as a PDF showing column dimensions for one stand.
• Improvement - When exporting to a PDF and the PDF is open somewhere else on either your computer or another computer, you now get an option to save the PDF with another name along with the existing the Retry and Cancel options.
• Improvement - The sort order of the Stand Numbers on an inserted Exhibitor List have now been improved so they now show as 1, 2, 3...10 etc instead of 1, 10, 2, 3 etc.
• Improvement - Drawings that contain an inserted DWG now export to PDF and DWG, eliminating the need to explode the inserted DWG first. Note: Layers within the inserted DWG are exported onto one layer only in the DWG, if the layers of the inserted DWG are required on the exported DWG then the inserted DWG must be exploded first.
• Bug Fix - On rare occasions when a stand has been adjusted using the nodes, one of the nodes becomes dis-joined from the one next to it which if moved caused a broken stand, this has now been fixed.

• New Feature [Split Stands] - There is now a dedicated function for Splitting stands.
• New Feature [Multi-Split Stands] - This new function allows you to split a stand into 4, 6 or 8 stands in one go.
• New Feature [Combine Stands] - There is now a dedicated function for Combining 2 or more adjoining stands.
• New Feature [Move Stand Walls] - There is now a dedicated function for moving stand walls.
• New Feature [Customisable Hot-Keys] - This new feature allows you to assign any of the A-Z keys on your keyboard to specific EFD functions so those functions can be used in an instant.
• New Feature [Customisable Toolbars] - You can now create your own Toolbars and add your mostly used functions to it. This function also gives you the ability to change the size of the icons, helpful for those with high resolution screens or people with bad eyesight.
• New Feature [Tables] - This new feature allows you to copy and paste cells from a spreadsheet into EFD which then creates a table of these cells, which can then be edited and formatted.
• New Feature - You can now convert a Polyline into a Hall Boundary/Gross Area, Zone or Stand.
• New Feature - You can now change the angle of gradient colours for Stands and Zones.
• New Feature - A new setting has been added to Visual Settings allowing you to show up to 5 decimal places for stand dimensions e.g. 4.51324. This is useful for finding stands that have been drawn incorrectly, such as from an imported plan drawn in another system or, just for showing more accurate dimensions.
• New Feature - A new setting has been added to Views which allows you to add a particular view(s) to the Shell Scheme Block Plan PDF, such as a plan showing all of the shell scheme stand locations.
• New Feature - The Exhibitor List sheet in the exported spreadsheet now shows this additional information:
  • The Stand Type cells are now coloured to match the Stand Type colours on the floorplan.
  • The amount of Open Sides per stand
  • The amount of Walls per stand
  • The Linear Meterage of Open Sides per stand
  • The Linear Meterage of Walls per stand
  • The Notes added to individual stands (not shown in picture below)
  • Note: The open sides must first be set on the stands before these figures can be calculated.

• Improvement - Some of the Icons have had a refresh and some icons have also moved slightly to allow for the new features added above but, don't forget you can now add your own Toolbars to make finding the functions you need much easier.
• Improvement - When adjusting stand sizes, the dimensions and areas that update dynamically now show in Red to make them more visible.
• Improvement - The Diameter of Circular Stands is now shown e.g. (Ø10m)
• Improvement - The search box for finding drawing templates has been speeded up greatly.
• Improvement - The FTP (File Transfer Protocol) upload function has been made more reliable for people with slow connections to the internet. A new icon ( ) has also been added which you will see in the Windows icon tray while your plan is uploading.
• Improvement - Stand Type Keys are now compatible with Floorplan Live, eliminating the job of having to create them manually.
• Improvement - If a Stand Type Colour is switched off in a View e.g. you might want to turn the colour off for reserved stands, the relevant item on the Stand Type Key is also now switched off.
• Improvement - The general speed and responsiveness of Snaps has been improved, especially on large drawings.
• Improvement - All of the Array functions have had a 'Fit Copies' option added.
• Improvement - The draw Polygon function has had a 'Filled' option added.
• Bug Fix - You can now Unlock/Lock Gangway Dimensions by hovering over them, then waiting for the Yellow tool-tip to appear, then by pressing 'U' or 'L' to Unlock or Lock. These items were missed in the previous update. For help on this function click here.
• Bug Fix - Symbols that were on a layer other than Untitled, but contained entities on the Untitled layer were not displaying when the Untitled layer was switched off, they now do.
• Bug Fix - When importing a spreadsheet that contained some text with a different encoding, an error occurred, this has now been fixed.

• New Feature - We have added the ability to export your floorplan to Media Services Group's Élan, Event Management software. For help with using this new function click here.
• New Feature - It is now possible to explode DWG drawings that have been inserted using the External Reference function.
• Bug Fix - Since the last update, Control Point nodes stopped working correctly, this has now been fixed.
• Bug Fix - The licencing server was having issues so this patch re-directs the software to look at a new server.

• Notice : The links to download Event Floorplan Designer have moved to this page which also has links for help on installing the software.
• New Feature - You can now copy and paste images directly into Event Floorplan Designer that have been copied to the clipboard from another program e.g. if you open an image file in Photoshop, select the image, copy the image (Ctrl+C), you can then paste (Ctrl+V) that directly into EFD without using the Insert Logo function. For help on this function click here.
• New Feature - Embedded Images can now be shown in Grayscale. For help on this function click here.
• New Feature - Symbols that have multiple insertion points now show as Red nodes at each insertion point. See picture below:

New Feature - When selecting a drawing Template, you can now search for a template rather than having to manually navigate to the one you want. Please note that for people with very large amounts of templates, the search could be a little slow, we are working to improve this on the next update.

• New Feature - While adding Stand Numbers using the 'Add Numbers' function, where you click on each stand to add incremental numbers, you can now CTRL + Click to Decrement. This is useful for when you make a mistake by clicking on a stand twice or more. A new icon ( ) has also been added to the dialog for this function for a reminder on how to use this.
• New Feature - You can now specify whether you want the Shell Scheme component calculator to export PDFs of only modified stand blocks instead of just all stand blocks each time you update your floorplan. The default for this setting is OFF, but you can change this setting under SETTINGS > Drawing Properties > Save Options > PDF only modified stand blocks. This setting is saved per drawing.
• New Feature - You can now set the Vertical Offset of Stand Names, e.g. you can position the name slightly above or below centre (if the name has been set to centre). To adjust this setting, go to SETTINGS > Visual Settings. The default is set at zero.
• Improvement - When inserting a logo, the dialog that pops up to select your logo is now filtered to show all compatible image file formats (JPG, PNG, BMP etc), instead of having to select the image format manually.
• Bug Fix - Exploding an Exhibitor List now works correctly.
• Bug Fix - Changing the Cursor Increment to a valid value after changing the units to fractional feet and inches now works correctly. e.g. you can now type 1'-6" (1 foot, 6 inches) as the cursor increment, whereas before you could only type a whole number like 1.0.
• Bug Fix - A spelling mistake has been corrected on the file properties which said Desinger, it now says Designer.
• Bug Fix - 3 point arcs are now working when drawing a Hall Boundary/Gross Area. While drawing a Hall Boundary, press 'T' (for Three) to draw a 3 point arc.
• Bug Fix - You can now Unlock/Lock View Borders, Stand Type Keys and Exhibitor Lists by hovering over them, then waiting for the Yellow tool-tip to appear, then by pressing 'U' or 'L' to Unlock or Lock. These items were missed in the previous update.

• New Feature - A Time Logging function has been added. This function allows you to track the time spent amending your floorplan. To enable this function go to SETTINGS > Drawing Properties > Time Logging and then tick 'Enable Time Logging'
• New Feature - It is now possible to lock and unlock individual layers without going into the Layer Manager. Simply hover over the entity that is on the layer that needs to be locked/unlocked, wait until the Yellow 'Tool Tip' box appears and then press ' U ' to unlock or ' L ' to lock the layer that the entity is on. You can also lock a layer that an entity(s) is on by selecting the entity(s) and then click on the HOME > Layers > Lock Selected layers button (). Please note that this function does not work on entities that are within a symbol.
• Improvement - The icons for the layer functions under Home > Layers have been improved:
• Bug Fix - A bug has been fixed where the Settings were not saving for some users.
• Bug Fix - A bug has been fixed where sometimes the views selection list was showing views unrelated to the currently open plan.

• Improvement - An improvement has been made to 'Build Stands' functions which converts polyline boundaries into stands. If the boundaries included zero length segments an error occurred, these are now removed when the function is run, eliminating the error.
• Improvement - Tool-tips for snaps have been improved to make them easier to read. When you hover over an End, Mid or other point, a new little box appears (see picture below). This Tool-tip turns Red when Intellisnap is activated.
• Bug Fix - A bug has been fixed in the DWG import where some arcs/circles drawn oddly in AutoCAD were not importing correctly.

• Bug Fix - Various bug fixes

• Improvement - The speed of panning and Zooming has been improved greatly. People with slower computers will notice the biggest difference.
• Bug Fix - A couple of bugs have been fixed that were accidentally introduced into version 3.1.2

• New Feature - You can now specify whether 'lines and arrows' on gangway dimensions are shown/not shown in a particular view.
• Improvement - When switching between open drawings, an Autosave now only happens if needed. You can also now press CTRL while switching between drawings to bypass Autosave completely. This is very useful if you are working on multiple large drawings and Autosave was taking a while between switching.
• Improvement - The Hall/Show and Zones sections in the Exhibition Properties dialog has had some improvements, reducing the amount of clicks needed to edit the properties, making it more user friendly.
• Improvement - The Stand List has had the following updates:
  • The Swap Column icon ( ) has been replaced with a new icon ( ) which now adds the Stand Type column instead of swapping it with the company name column.
  • The default width of the Stand List (when the software is first installed) is now wider to allow for the above change but, you can still stretch the width yourself if required.
  • Stand Type colours are now shown in the 'Filter Stand Type' drop down box and also the Stand Type selection drop down.
  • Zone colours are now shown in the 'Filter Zone' drop down box.
• Bug Fix - Spelling has been fixed in various places.

• New Feature - The software is now available in 64bit for using on 64bit operating systems which will provide the following benefits:
  • Increased refresh speed of up to 35%.
  • No system slowdown when managing large or multiple drawings.
  • Import very large DWGs that were not previously possible.
  • Insert much larger logos for improved quality.
  • Export very large images (JPG/PNG etc) of your floorplan for superior quality.
  • Improved stability, eliminating many issues related to memory handling.
  • Please note that the amount of RAM on your PC will determine the improvements above, the more RAM you have the better, and we recommend a minimum of 8GB.

• New Feature - You can now access Gangway Settings by clicking on the little arrow under the Gangway Dimensions button (see picture below). This saves you going to Visual Settings > Gangways.
• New Feature - You can now add existing company names to stands by first selecting a stand and then pressing F4 (or CTRL+Middle Mouse click), a little menu will now appear (see picture below) which contains a drop-down box for you to select an existing name. This pop-up menu now also works when multiple stands are selected so you can add the same company name to multiple stands at the same time.
• Improvement - When adding a company name via the Stand Properties dialog (by double clicking on a stand), the company name list now filters as you type, making it easier to see if a company name already exists which you can then just select.
• Improvement - Images/logos are now saved uncompressed in the drawing. This means that the images/logos will retain their quality instead of looking blocky. Please note that the image quality will only be improved on new image/logos that are inserted and not existing ones on your plan. Please also note that the size of the .EFD file will increase because of this.

• New Feature - Lines and Arrows have now been added to Gangway Dimensions to make where the dimension is measuring to/from more visual. The Lines and Arrows are switched off by default so, to switch them on go to SETTINGS > Visual Settings > GANGWAYS. Please note that these lines and arrows will not currently show on Floorplan Live.
• Improvement - OpenGL is now the default Display Engine when installing a fresh copy of the software. OpenGL makes the display refresh faster. To change this manually go to SETTINGS > Display.
• Bug Fix - The Stand Type lists in the Stand Properties dialog and in other places are now sorted as per the order they are set in the Stand Type master dialog (alphabetically). Arranging the stand types in a custom order may be added in the future.
• Bug Fix - The Stand List was not refreshing after copying stands from one plan to another or if you clear the stand properties by pressing CTRL+DEL, this has now been fixed.
• Bug Fix - Setting the Snaps to just a single snap such as END point was not working correctly, this has now been fixed.

• Bug Fix - A bug has been fixed where on some plans, configuring the Stand Types in a View was not working correctly. For instance if you wanted the colouring from Reserved stands to not be shown in a particular view, it did not work, now it does.

• Bug Fix - Entering a height of 0.0 (zero) for text height in the visual settings caused an error, the ability to add 0.0 as a height has now been disallowed.
• Bug Fix - A bug has been fixed in the DWG import where some arcs drawn is an odd way in Autocad were not importing correctly.
• Bug Fix - Some V2 drawings were not opening correctly in V3 due to badly drawn venue drawings imported into V2, this has now been fixed.