CiderPress v2.3.0 released

[Andy McFadden <fadden@fadden.com>]

CiderPress v2.3.0 has been released.

New features:
- Limited support for AppleLink Compression Utility (.ACU) archives.
- Added "reduced error checking" mode for ShrinkIt archives.  This allows
  unpacking some kinds of damaged archives by ignoring the damage.
- Correctly identify and display monochrome PrintShop GS clip art.
- Updated to latest versions of NufxLib and zlib.

Bug fixes:
- Don't try to convert files 2GB or larger to anything but unadorned
  ProDOS (.po).  In particular, don't try to convert to 2MG.
- Corrected recognition of 1GB HFS volumes.
- Some specific instances of ProDOS disks with mild damage were causing
  assertion failures.  These are now identified and treated as damaged
  volumes.
- Fixed UI glitch when creating "blank" disk images.

My thanks to Soenke Behrens for pointing out most of the bugs.

CiderPress is shareware, with a $9.95 registration cost.  After 30 days
it must be registered.  Visit http://www.faddensoft.com/ for downloads
and more information about the product.

-----

Some additional notes...

There does not seem to be a published specification for ACU.  I was able
to reverse-engineer the format, but there are gaps in my understanding.
Specifically, there are two fields that appear to be checksums (one for
the data, one for the header), but they didn't match up with any of the
algorithms I tried.  Also, there are some "holes" in the header, possibly
for forked file support, but I haven't found any archives with forked files
in them.

ACU archives are always opened read-only.  You cannot create them or add
files to them with CiderPress.

The "reduced error checking" for ShrinkIt archives was added because some
people turned up some files that NuLib would handle but NuLib2 wouldn't.
It appears that there is a brain-damaged archiver out there somewhere
that doesn't set the "compressed data length" field in LZW/2 output.
The field can be ignored, but NuLib2 and some versions of ShrinkIt pay
attention to it and will complain if it's set incorrectly.

The brain-damaged archiver also doesn't set up the "filename separator"
value correctly, which can yield strange results when a directory full
of files is added.

Two examples of these peculiar archives:

  http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/GetTranswarpGSv18EPROM.htm
  http://apple2.org.za/gswv/USA2WUG/A2.LOST.N.FOUND.CLASSICS/PUBLISH.IT4.D1_shk.bin

Both appear to have been created by the same person.

The "reduced error checking" mode turns off the LZW/2 data length check, and
also turns off general data CRC checking.  The latter is intended to aid
in the partial recovery of damaged archives.  Because it can allow damage
to go unnoticed, it's a good idea to leave the feature disabled.

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