Version 5.0 - released February 4 2023

Major changes

Version 5.0 continues to improve interoperability with the browser tools at tools.chronolator.com. The browser tools will themselves be upgraded in March 2023.

Other significant changes

• Author Notes. Authors and Reviewers can annotate a chronology with special 'events' called Author Notes.
• Digitally signed macros. Chronolator Version 5.0 macros use a newer digital signature than Version 4.0. If you made Berrick Computing Ltd a Trusted Publisher under 4.0, you will need to do so again for 5.0.

Bug fixed

A bug which prevented the Conversion Tool from recognising a licence if it was not the first Word document to be opened has been fixed.

A complete description of all the changes can be seen in this document.

Version 4.0 - released January 27 2021

Major changes

Version 4.0 improves interoperability with the browser tools at tools.chronolator.com. The browser tools, hitherto not widely publicised and known only to a few customers, were themselves upgraded and officially released at the same time.

Other significant changes

• Uncertain Dates and Times. When a date or time is uncertain, it can be prefixed with a question mark. Chronolator sorts it as if it were an exact date or time.
• Alphabetic times. 'midnight', 'midday ' and 'mid-day ' are allowed in a time column.
• Abbreviations.
  • More information about a potentially duplicated abbreviation is given in the error message when trying to define or change one
  • Punctuation marks are prevented in terms and definitions so they can be recognised when using the Glossary to review the chronology text

A complete description of all the changes can be seen in this document.

Version 3.5 - released September 26 2019

Major changes

Version 3.5 introduces the ability to interface with new browser tools being developed at tools.chronolator.com. It also corrects some minor problems. A complete description can be seen in this document.

The following paragraphs summarise the most significant changes.

• Browser tools.

  The Chronolator Browser Tools use your web browser to process chronologies.

  It is important to note that only the software resides on the Web. Your chronologies stay on your computer, completely under your control. Their confidentiality is not compromised.

  The tools will eventually include everything in the Microsoft Word™ version of Chronolator - and more.

• Digitally signed macros. Chronolator Version 3.5 macros use a newer digital signature than Version 3.4. If you made Berrick Computing Ltd a Trusted Publisher under 3.4, you will need to do so again for 3.5.

Version 3.4 - released April 29 2017

Major changes

Version 3.4 improves stability and performance, introduces some new features, and enhances some existing features. A complete description can be seen in this document.

The following paragraphs summarise the most significant changes.

• Digitally signed macros. Chronolator Version 3.4 macros are 'digitally signed' by Berrick Computing Ltd, which means that Word checks they have not been tampered with since they were published.
• Analysis Tool. A new Analysis feature at Publish > Analysis analyses event counts and produces a new document summarising them by month and by source.
• Source Prefix processing.
  • Formatting and case errors in Source Prefixes are automatically corrected when checking tables;
  • When importing a document, the proposed Source Prefix is checked against existing prefixes in the importing document to prevent accidental mistyping resulting in similar but not identical Source Prefixes (e.g. 'Berrick Care' and 'berrick Care').
• Licensing. Internal Chronologies are now licensed for up to 6 months from when they are created, subject to a maximum of 1 month after the customer's Online Workbench licence expires. Chronology document licences can be extended for up to 3 months at a time by entering a password, again subject to a maximum of 1 month after the Online Workbench licence expires.

Bugs fixed

The list below shows the most significant bugs which have been fixed. Some unreported minor bugs were also eliminated.

Version 3.3 - released May 31 2014

Major changes

Version 3.3 introduces a number of new features which will benefit reviewers as well as administrators. It includes full support for 64-bit versions of Word, helps prevent a number of problems which customers have reported since Version 2.1, and processes large files much more quickly. A complete description can be seen in this document.

The following paragraphs summarise the most significant changes.

• Anonymisation and Personalisation. Chronolator can anonymise a document according to the entries in its Abbreviations Glossary. As it can be hard for a reviewer to build up a mental picture of the people involved in a review when they are only referred to by their initials, Chronolator allows you to switch between anonymised and personalised views.
• Colour coding. Documents can be colour-coded according to the agency that reported them.
• Narrative chronology formats. A new document can be produced which transforms a tabular chronology into a variety of narrative formats, including elapsed times from the start of the chronology.
• Reference numbers and Sequencing. A Sequencing column can be included in a chronology table which Chronolator can automatically populate with event reference numbers. The column can also be used it to specify the order of events on a particular day when their times are not known.
• Samples and Exercises. The samples documents have been reworked, and can now be used in conjunction with a set of exercises in the new Using Chronolator Samples document.
• Add-ins. Add-ins allow new features to be implemented more quickly by the creation of stand-alone additions which can be attached to a chronology. For example, there is an add-in to produce the timelines required by the Child Practice Reviews introduced in Wales in 2013.
• Default document format. .docm is now the default document format, reflecting Microsoft's withdrawal of support for Word 2003 on April 8 2014. Documents can still be saved and used in the old .doc format if required.