Version History

Version 1.2.1 (October 12, 2022)

  • NEW: Added functionality to better control file encoding and line endings. Current file encoding and line endings are now displayed in the status bar and can be altered by double-clicking the status bar labels. File options have been added to control default behavior.
  • Improved performance of ‘Edit –> Paste Cards’ function and added an option to allow integers to be accepted as real numbers.
  • Improved FATAL and WARNING message detection in default F06 profile csv. Added INFO message too.
  • Changed line tag symbol from asterix to arrow.
  • Minor updates to card libraries.
  • BUG FIX: Card helper now displays unicode characters properly.
  • BUG FIX: When clicking on a different file tab and the main window was unfocused, looping of filenames in the window title bar would occur.
  • BUG FIX: When searching files with the ‘Output Results’ option enabled, an infinite loop would be generated if the search result included the end of the file and the last character was not a newline character.
  • BUG FIX: When exporting cards, IntDof fields were incorrectly written as ‘0’.
  • BUG FIX: ‘Tag All’ in search dialog would not tag the lines properly.

Version 1.2.0 (September 19, 2019)

  • NEW: ‘Debug Model Files’ tool that combines NastPad’s existing functionality to check one or more Nastran models for missing/duplicate INCLUDE files, card syntax errors, and cross-referencing issues.
  • NEW: ‘Cross-reference Model’ tool has a new ‘Secondary Duplicate’ check, mainly used for checking load cards for inadvertent issues. The dialog has a new layout and also has the ability to specify individual card types for cross-referencing, rather than just card families.
  • The Model Tree has been re-worked to allow automatic refreshing of the INCLUDE file tree whenever a change is detected. In card mode, model refreshing is now faster. Also, a tree is only shown if the file is configured as a model file. Any files opened from a model tree are now automatically set as a model file regardless of their extension.
  • Files in a model tree can now be commented/uncommented from the model tree context menu.
  • All options in tool dialogs are now persisted between NastPad sessions. Also, scope options are now persisted independently for each dialog.
  • Added icons to file editor tabs.
  • Added option in Help menu to toggle LITE feature set for trial versions.
  • BUG FIX: A couple of images were omitted when printing the help documentation.

Version 1.1.5 (July 2, 2019)

  • BUG FIX: Syntax checking via the Card Helper dock window or the ‘Check Syntax’ tool would sometimes cause a crash. This only happened under very particular situations where cards had repeating fields followed by non-repeating fields across two lines.


Version 1.1.4 (June 20, 2019)

  • Switching tabs now ensures the editor has keyboard focus so that it does not need to be clicked to start typing.
  • Changed ‘Paste Cards’ shortcut from [Ctrl+Alt+v] to [Ctrl+Shift+v] as it was clashing with an existing block selection alternate paste action.
  • Documented alternate Block selection copy & paste methods in the Help.
  • Tweaked Find & Replace with scope ‘Current Selection’ to work with block selections (previously the entire lines the block selection touched were searched).
  • BUG FIX: Block selection cut/copy actions incorrectly handled situations where lines of text contained tab characters and the selection extended beyond the end of the lines.
  • BUG FIX: Re-opening a file from the model tree sometimes caused a crash.

Version 1.1.3 (June 16, 2019)

  • Post message to user when attempting to block select with Line Wrapping mode on (which is not supported).
  • Tweaked Search Dialog – Search Cards – Integer replacements to justify right by default.
  • Tweaked regular expressions in default F06 parser for BEAM and some SHELL results, as they were not working properly.
  • BUG FIX: Find/Replace Next in Search dialog caused Editor to go inactive (and hence the cursor selection). Editor now remains active.
  • BUG FIX: regular expression numbered back-references with double digits were not handled quite as described in the Help documentation.
  • BUG FIX: Enhanced regular expressions used in replace strings that did not contain back-references were not correctly handled.

Version 1.1.2 (May 31, 2019)

  • NEW: ‘Paste cards’ action in the Edit menu that can take spreadsheet data from the clipboard and paste as formatted Nastran bulk data cards.
  • NEW: Print button added to Help window that allows printing of the entire Help documentation.
  • Cross-reference tool now posts a warning message if syntax issues were encountered during cross-referencing. Additionally, the model tree (in card mode) now highlights cards with syntax issues.
  • Significant performance improvements when searching and highlighting a large number of matches in open files.
  • Syntax highlighting now supports multi-line strings.
  • BUG FIX: Card formatting (either converting with the ‘Modify files’ tool or exporting from the model tree) would incorrectly replace fields with character (char) data types as ‘********’.
  • BUG FIX: Syntax errors were not reporting the type conversion error. The error messages should now match previous versions.
  • BUG FIX: In Windows, some path strings in the ‘File Browser’ and ‘Model Tree’ dock windows used ‘/’ separators instead of ‘\’ separators. Also, cancelling the ‘Browse’ action in the ‘File Browser’ incorrectly cleared the root folder path.

Version 1.1.1 (May 5, 2019)

  • Revised card libraries to add new cards and tweak existing cards to enable better syntax checking and cross-referencing.
  • Improved Syntax checking and error reporting.
  • Model Tree now represents ‘multi-definition’ cards, where a single bulk data entry can define more than one card (e.g. SPOINT or CORD1R). Cross-reference tool now also uses the multiple definitions.
  • Tweaked Model Tree – Card Mode to prevent ‘phantom’ children, which occurred when cards referenced an ID of zero.
  • Reinstated hotkeys for main menus.
  • BUG FIX: Syntax checking of real number bounds in long format cards incorrectly showed errors for valid fields.
  • BUG FIX: Replace strings for regular expressions with optional groups sometimes incorrectly returned “capture count mismatch!” error.
  • BUG FIX: Line tags disappearing when Syntax Highlighting option enabled. Also fixed when a single line tag persisted after using “cut tagged” option.
  • Miscellaneous UI improvements.

Version 1.1.0 (April 16, 2019)

  • NEW: ‘Cross-reference Model’ tool to check for missing/duplicate/orphaned cards in Nastran models.
  • NEW: ‘Parse Data from Files’ tool that can be used to extract data from Nastran result files and output to text (CSV) files or directly to a database.
  • NEW: Model Tree dock window has a ‘card mode’ toggle button to cross-reference the model and display a tree-view of model cards.
  • NEW: Model Tree dock window has an ‘Export’ button to allow exporting of tree/model data.
  • NEW: Added option to ‘Modify Files’ tool to allow conversion of Nastran card formats.
  • Improvements to Search:
    • Automatically verify regular expressions in the Find Text.
    • Enhanced expressions can now appear anywhere in the Find Text, and use multiple back-references (named or numbered).
    • Support ‘\n’ and ‘\t’ in the ‘Replace With’ text and substitute with a new line and tab respectively.
    • Special functions for Enhanced Regular Expression have been updated to support different card formats.
    • Tweaked ‘Search in Cards’ regex’s to only capture the field text.
  • Added default profile (used in Contents Viewer) for PCH files.
  • Added ‘Next tab’ and ‘Previous tab’ View menu entries and shortcuts to aid tab navigation. Also, the File List dock window can now be traversed with the up/down keys.
  • Tweaked cut/copy methods to remove mime types that did not paste well into other programs (Excel).
  • ‘Check Syntax’ tool now available to Lite version with 10,000 card limit. The same 10,000 card/row limit applies to the Lite version in the new ‘Cross-reference Model’ and ‘Parse Data from Files’ tools, as well as the model cards displayed in the ‘Model Tree’ dock window.
  • Tweaks to Card Helper to ensure it recognizes lower-case card names and embedded blank lines.
  • Updates to Help documentation and Card libraries.
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 1.0.3 (September 7, 2018)

  • Added Linux installer package with installation script.
  • Tweaks to Quick Find and Search dialog (Scope is now remembered and won’t change inadvertently).
  • BUG FIX: External file change message incorrectly displayed after saving a file.
  • BUG FIX: Reverting a file often caused program crash.
  • BUG FIX: Portable version looking for .ini file in current directory instead of application directory.
  • BUG FIX: Program crash when Contents Viewer visible and saving/switching new files.
  • BUG FIX: Infinite loop when current line highlighting active with a model file and card at top of file.

Version 1.0.2 (September 4, 2018)

  • Packaged MSC Nastran library and added option to specify path to libraries folder.
  • Improved Quick Find shortcut to automatically search selected text in active editor. Can now also be selected from editor context menu.
  • Search options (match case, regular expression, etc.) are now persisted between NastPad sessions. New user option to enable/disable this feature.
  • File configuration options (read-only, model/results file) are now accessible through the ‘File’ menu in addition to the context menus in the MDI and File List dock window.
  • Expanded user options to control application style (theme).
  • Fixed some broken links in help files and updated for new options.
  • Added Linux build (x86_64 architecture only, with limited testing).

Version 1.0.1 (July 1, 2018)

  • Fixed bug in ‘Options -> File -> Line Endings:’ where selecting the ‘Windows (CR+LF)’ option had no effect  and always saved files with ‘Linux/Unix (LF)’ line endings.
  • Added new ‘Options -> File -> File Saving:’ to allow configuration of safe file saving mode (version 1.0.0 hard-coded the ‘Prefer use safe mode’ option, but it can now also be strictly enforced, or disabled altogether). See help documentation for more information.
  • More reliable ‘check for updates’ and ‘start trial’ web requests.
  • Improvements to MSI package.

Version 1.0.0 (June 21, 2018)

  • Initial release