BlueIris Help file (BlueIris.pdf), difference thread?

jrbeddow

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About a year ago, when I was first studying this site, I believe I ran across a thread that covered the specific changes or differences in the BI help file across every release. I've been searching for it today and can't seem to find it again. Am I just imagining that a thread like this existed? Obviously the release notes are not nearly complete enough, but often new features are well documented in the help file, thus my request.
 

wittaj

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The beginning of the help file documents the big changes.

Usually @fenderman will post the big changes in the BI subforum like this recent post:

 

jrbeddow

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The beginning of the help file documents the big changes.

Usually @fenderman will post the big changes in the BI subforum like this recent post:

Thanks, but I am already aware of those options. It's fairly easy to find information on what are considered big changes, it's the smaller ones (that can be surprisingly useful) that are less well documented.

For example, I recently wrote to Ken suggesting an additional tweak to the Alert actions, specifically in the Wait action, which he implemented over the weekend with 5.3.6.4., yet it could be ages before most people even notice it. This one allows more granular control over which zone crossing(s) to wait for and "add to" a possible pending alert, rather than the previous "adopt all new zones". Pretty useful for multiple zones that look out from a home: I have Street, Sidewalk, and "My Property" zones, and I want Notifications/Alerts when motion starts on the sidewalk and eventually moves onto my property, but definitely not when it stays on the sidewalk (easy to control), or starts on the sidewalk and crosses the street (which happened fairly regularly at my place), and would always fall into the "adopt all new zones" previously and generate an Alert notification.
 

wittaj

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Yeah, other than that, the best we have is this one that gives a few words with each update, but not a lot of detail

 

jrbeddow

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My point was that the info is often added to the help file (and quickly, I might add): but unless we, as users, are regularly re-reading the help file with virtually every point release (which I know isn't going to happen), the new features/tweaks/fixes will be undiscovered for long periods of time. I suppose the best we can do for now is to peruse the beginning of that help file as often as possible to look for the highlights, as I think we can all agree that the release notes are rather light on detail, and generally don't change at all across an entire series of so called "minor" point releases (final digit change only), yet I know of several cases where fairly significant changes were made in those.
Or, I can try to start saving every help file (with the release number attached), and run them through software that will highlight the differences. Which is what my original post was about....I thought I remembered seeing that already done on this site.
 

jaydeel

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Or, I can try to start saving every help file (with the release number attached), and run them through software that will highlight the differences.
You mean like this :p

1667870085062.png

Compare example attached…
For optimum viewing, use the 2-page layout.
 

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jaydeel

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Here’s the batch script I use to create the version number tagged pdfs.
I run it manually after every update. EDIT: And, just in case I forget, I also run it daily ~midnight via Task Manager.

I use an old version of Acrobat (8.1) to do the compares. This does a pretty good job, but some results are hard to follow when lots of pages change due to repagination. The example in the previous post is pretty much as good as it gets.
 

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jrbeddow

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I should have known that one of our esteemed IPCamTalk script masters would have automated this process: Thank you.

I'm so glad that I'm not the only person to have pondered this somewhat roundabout way of compiling changes. Have you brought this up before? I'm still trying to figure out why I'd swear that I ran across a thread that covered this sort of thing, but can't put my finger on it now.
 

wittaj

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@jaydeel that is awesome.

@jrbeddow - I don't recall anything like this other than what I had linked above, but maybe it was there and we couldn't find it LOL.
 
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