Markin 4Below, you will see a list of bugs and updates which have been included in later releases of Markin 4. When a new release of the program is made, any bugs which have been fixed will have a grey background.
If you're suffering from one of these bugs, upgrade to the latest version. The current version of Markin is 4.3.1.1, released on 19 May 2018. Download the Markin installer (setup_markin_4311.exe).
| Date reported | Description | Cause | Workaround |
| 19-05-2018 | Word counts were one word short in each paragraph or section of the text. | Thanks to Heike Fahrenberg for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.3.1.1 |
| 11-12-2016 | If you choose to group buttons by category, etc., and to sort them by something then you switch to "No sorting", and finally you save and reload the button set, the first button appears grey and has no caption. | Thanks to Al DeGennaro for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.2.4.1 |
| 31-01-2014 | Changes in recent versions of Windows have made it possible that the Count Annotations function might not work under some circumstances. | Thanks to Morten Larsen for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.2.2.2 |
| 30-04-2012 | Adding a comment could occasionally cause a "List Index out of Bounds" error. | Thanks to Susanne Löhne and Joe Greenman for finding this. | Fixed in 4.2.0.1 |
| 30-04-2012 | Some documents containing tables might be truncated when saved and reloaded. | Thanks to Morten Birch Larsen for finding this. | Fixed in 4.2.0.1 |
| 13-10-2010 | Line-spacing in some Microsoft docx files was not handled correctly, resulting in lines of text overwriting each other in the web view of the Markin document. | Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.2.1 |
| 12-10-2010 | Pasting a hyperlink whose URL contained ampersands into the main text box could result in a document which Markin could not reload. | Ampersands in the URL were not being escaped when the file was saved. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.2.0 |
| 07-06-2010 | Changes to the default styles of Snippets, made in the Options / Text styles / Modify text styles dialog box had no effect. | Changes to text styles in the dialog box are now applied to both new snippets and existing snippets. Please note: if you have previously made a change to snippet text styles using the Modify text styles dialog box, you would have seen no effect from the changes, but with this bugfix your changes will now appear. Thanks to Joe Greenman for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.0.11. |
| 27-05-2010 | After inserting a snippet into one of the main text boxes, the original style of the text box would be replaced by the inserted snippet's style. | The behaviour of the text box insertion routine was unintuitive in this respect. I'm now saving and restoring the original style. Thanks to Joe Greenman for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.0.11. |
| 21-04-2010 | Some text styles in comments may disappear after saving and reloading a file, then saving it again. | Text styles were erroneously being cleared between the loading of each individual comment, leading to loss of style information. Thanks to Paolo Cutini for reporting it. | Fixed in 4.1.0.10. |
| 07-04-2010 | Tooltips for Add Category and Delete Category were missing in the Edit Button window. | Thanks to Paolo Cutini for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.0.9. |
| 24-03-2010 | Some tooltips provided inaccurate descriptions of the purpose of their controls. | Thanks to Richard Nisius for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.0.8. |
| 16-02-2010 | A rare combination of a comment inserted immediately preceding a soft linebreak resulting from an import from MSWord could cause a corrupted file, which Markin could not re-open completely. | Thanks to Vaska Tumir for finding this. | Fixed in 4.1.0.7. |
| 02-02-2010 | Inserting a link in which the linked text contained an ampersand (&) into the Feedback or Comment boxes could cause a corrupted file, which Markin could not re-open. | Thanks to Joe Greenman for finding this. Ampersands need to be escaped when saving out to XHTML, and that wasn't happening in this context. | Fixed in 4.1.0.6. |
| 23-12-2009 | Inserting an annotation right next to a comment or another annotation could result in garbled text. | Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for finding this. After changing the style of selected text, the cursor then ended up situated between two blocks of protected text, making it impossible to insert the annotation or comment number. Some fancy footwork behind the scenes has fixed it. | Fixed in 4.1.0.5. |
| 04-12-2009 | Hiding the Value column in the statistics table by unchecking it in the Output Options dialog box would cause the statistics table to be distorted. | Thanks to Larry Kahn for reporting this. The Value cells in the table were being hidden, but the caption at the top of that column was not, which resulted in the cells being mismatched with column headers. | Fixed in 4.1.0.4. |
| 24-11-2009 | New feature: auto-saved files are now available for reload at any time. | Markin used to delete auto-saved files automatically when it was shut down normally. Now it preserves them, so you can always go back and find them. click on Options / Auto-save Options, then click on Open to see a list of available auto-saved files. | Added in 4.1.0.3. |
| 24-11-2009 | New feature: create a standalone marking key. | Every marked text has always contained a full marking key, but it's often useful to distribute a single document with only a marking key in it. You can now created one from a command on the Marking menu. | Added in 4.1.0.3. |
| 24-11-2009 | If a user specified a custom template folder in the Output Options dialog box, it would be used during the remainder of that session, but when the application was restarted, it would go back to using the default template folder. | The application was failing to notice the custom template folder on startup. | Fixed in 4.1.0.3. |
| 11-03-2009 | Text highlighting supplied by MS Word is lost when importing from an RTF file saved in Word. | Thanks to Josep M. Fontana for finding this. It's due to an oddity in the way Word distinguishes between background colour for text, and "highlighting". | Fixed in 4.1.0.3. |
| 23-09-2009 | If a button was created which had a URL containing an ampersand, then a marked essay was saved including that button, it was impossible to re-open the Markin file. | Button URLs are converted into anchor href attributes in the Markin file, but the ampersands were not being escaped in the output, so the resulting Markin file was invalid and could not be reloaded. | Fixed in 4.0.9.2. If you have already created Markin files that are broken in this way, send them to us and we'll fix them manually and send them back. |
| 27-08-2009 | After editing a button, if no shortcut was chosen for the button, it would be detected as a "clash" with another button also having no shortcut, and the user would be shown an erroneous warning message. Obviously, only two actual working shortcuts which were identical would cause a problem. | I wasn't checking whether the "key" for the shortcut was a real key, or no key at all. | Fixed in 4.0.9.1. |
| 27-08-2009 | When a button in the button set was "switched off", it continued to appear in the table of annotations in the RTF output, where it should have been suppressed. Also, in the same situation, in the XHTML file, the score for a switched-off button would still be added to the negative or positive total. | I failed to carry over some additional sophistication from the normal XHTML saving process to the RTF export process. Thanks to Pete Balding for finding this. | Fixed in 4.0.9.1. |
| 06-05-2009 | The "Make Hyperlink" command in the Snippets window was enabled when it should have been disabled. It should only be enabled when there is selected text (to create a new link), or when the cursor is inside an existing link (to edit that link). | Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for finding this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.9. |
| 23-04-2009 | A French interface has now been included with the application. | Added in 4.0.8.8. | |
| 11-03-2009 | Soft linebreaks inside paragraphs (usually inserted with "Control + Enter") disappear when saving and reloading a file, and do not appear in the browser view. | Soft linebreaks are now saved as HTML <br/> tags, and reloaded appropriately. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting it. | Fixed in 4.0.8.7. |
| 01-04-2009 | The "Tools / Normalize text from email" function rarely worked correctly; usually it had no effect. | I hadn't taken account of the differences between line breaks and paragraph boundaries when creating the function. Thanks to Joe Greenman for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.6. |
| 26-03-2009 | When importing an old Markin 3 data file, the program did not offer to import any old annotation buttons from the file. It imports annotations, so if these annotations match buttons in the current button set, they will work, but it doesn't import any buttons which are not in the current button set, or warn you when annotations don't match any buttons in the current set. | For a number of reasons, it's not a good idea simply to import actual buttons from an old Markin 3 data file, so now the program will warn you with a list of any annotations which do not match buttons currently in the button set; you can handle those annotations as you like, after importing them, either by deleting them and replacing them with annotations from the current set, or by creating new buttons to match them. Thanks to Nik Holmes for finding this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.6. |
| 24-03-2009 | When a file was passed to Markin on the command line (or using "Open With..."), it did nothing with it. | Fixing this required not only writing the command-line processing code, but also changing the installed name of the Markin executable file from markin.exe to markin4.exe, to allow it to co-exist better with Markin version 3. Now the new executable is distinct from the old, and can load or import files passed to it on the command line (Markin 3 or 4 files, as well as RTF and HTML files). (Note that DOC files are not handled on the command line because the program cannot know what version of DOC file they are, so it can't determine which Word import library to use.) Thanks to Nik Holmes for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.2. |
| 19-03-2009 | When the Output Options dialog box is shown, it's not possible to invoke normal editing commands in the dialog box from the keyboard; the commands are sent to the main window instead, so (for instance) if you try to paste into a text box in the dialog, the text is pasted into the main window. | This was caused by the dialog box being non-modal, and the main window retaining control of keystroke processing. I like having that window non-modal, so I had to do some behind-the-scenes hooking of the application's keydown messages to make sure they were passed to the correct control. This should also work for other non-modal dialog boxes such as the Preferences box. Thanks to Nik Holmes for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.1. |
| 16-03-2009 | When Autosave ran, the focus was lost from the current editing box. | I'm now saving the position of the caret (the editing focus) before autosave takes place, and restoring it at the end of the process. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.8.0. |
| 16-03-2009 | Export to RTF dialog box did not behave consistently. | Different users have requested different behaviours from this dialog box, some wanting it automatically to default to the same path and filename as the data file, but with an RTF extension, and others wanting it to remember its previous directory (which may be different from that of the data file), but still suggest the data file name with an RTF extension. The dialog box now attempts to please both parties, by remembering its previous directory, but still suggesting the current filename with RTF extension. | Fixed in 4.0.8.0. |
| 12-03-2009 | When assigning a keystroke shortcut to an annotation button, the program failed to warn you if you assigned a shortcut which was already assigned to another button. | Since the shortcut can only trigger one annotation button, the user needs to be warned when a duplicate assignment is made, and that's what now happens. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.7.9. |
| 12-03-2009 | When deleting an annotation, the caret (cursor) jumped back to the beginning of the text. | My fault; I was failing to record the caret position, and reset it after the deletion. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.7.9. |
| 11-03-2009 | Importing an HTML file, then saving, then reloading again could trigger an endless series of "List index out of bounds" errors. | This is too complicated and boring to explain, but it should now be fixed. It was caused by a bug in a component not of my making, but I was able to trap for the condition and avoid it. Thanks to Nik Holmes for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.7.8. |
| 06-03-2009 | Several links in the Help file were broken. | Thanks to Paolo Cutini for reporting most of these broken links. | Fixed in 4.0.7.7. |
| 06-03-2009 | When you try to create a new annotation button, but use an annotation which already exists in the button set, the program silently changes the annotation, adding a number to the end (so "Spelling" becomes "Spelling_2". | The behaviour is correct -- annotations must be unique -- but the user should be warned about what is happening, so I've added an error message to do that. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.7.7. |
| 06-03-2009 | Non-Latin characters were garbled when saving and loading a file. | My fault; this was a side-effect of a previous bug fix. | Fixed in 4.0.7.7. |
| 28-02-2009 | Holding down Control and double-clicking an annotation button could add two annotations and two comments, with the second comment number being wrong (e.g. 9 instead of 8). It was then impossible to delete the comment. | I can't reproduce this behaviour myself, but I have added some extra constraints to prevent the attempt to add a second annotation/comment pair while the first addition is still being processed. Thanks to Lillian Balsvik for reporting this. | I hope this is fixed in 4.0.7.3, but I wasn't able to reproduce it, so I can't tell for sure. |
| 23-02-2009 | On a fresh install, buttons were missing from the toolbar. | When starting up a fresh install of the application, the paragraph alignment buttons did not show up on the main window's toolbar; only after going into the Toolbar Options dialog box, unchecking, and then checking them again would they show up. Thanks to Paolo Cutini for finding this. | Fixed in 4.0.7.1 |
| 23-02-2009 | Bad links and obsolete graphics in the Help file. | Paolo Cutini has reported a number of broken links and graphics which required update in the Help file. Those should all now be fixed. | Fixed in 4.0.7.1 |
| 22-02-2009 | There was no Quit item on the File menu. | Thanks to Paolo Cutini for spotting this one! I guess hardly anyone uses Quit on the File menu; we all just click the X in the top left of the main window to quit the app, so no-one noticed the missing item till now. | Fixed in 4.0.7.0 |
| 20-02-2009 | Some images did not appear when viewing the marked text in a browser. | My fault; where the size of the image was not directly discoverable, Markin was setting the display size to 0 width and 0 height, causing the image to disappear. | Fixed in 4.0.6.9 |
| 18-02-2009 | By inserting key HTML characters into certain fields (annotations, explanations, text fields for captions, etc.) it was possible to save a file which Markin could reload, because it was not well-formed XHTML. | My fault; I had been neglecting to escape angle brackets and ampersands in various places. | Fixed in 4.0.6.8 |
| 18-02-2009 | The text used to create a link where a URL was specified for an annotation was simply "URL", and could not be changed by the user. Josep M. Fontana requested that this be configurable, and the logical thing is to use the text in the Output Options dialog box which is used to create the column header for this column of the statistics table (by default "Help link"). This now works. | This had been my intention, but I hadn't carried it through. Thanks to Josep for pointing it out. | Fixed in 4.0.6.8 |
| 17-02-2009 | Josep M. Fontana pointed out that it would be useful if the URL link from the Statistics table were shown along with the button explanation in the popup, so the student could have access to the help link without having to scroll right down to the Statistics table. | This makes perfect sense; where a button has an associated URL, there's no reason not to include it in the popup. | Added in 4.0.6.8 |
| 11-02-2009 | Exporting to RTF created two files, the .rtf file, and a useless .rtf.rvf file alongside it. | My fault -- I forgot to remove some debugging code from the application. Thanks to W.J. Gasille for reporting this. | Fixed in 4.0.6.7 |
| 10-02-2009 | Keystroke shortcuts for annotation buttons were not working. | I had planned these badly, so that they overlapped with other shortcuts in the application and the OS. I've now rewritten them to use the Alt and Alt+Shift modifier keys, which allows them to work properly. Thanks to Inger Hilde Wold Ingebretsen for finding this problem. | Fixed in 4.0.6.6 |
| 10-02-2009 | Scrollbars on the Feedback and Comment boxes were invisible on some computers. | This was caused by font scaling when the Windows font size is not the default; I had neglected to take measures to work around font scaling in the Comments and Feedback window. | Fixed in 4.0.6.5 |
| 05-02-2009 | If the content of the text, feedback or a comment contained an angle bracket or an ampersand, the file could be saved, but it could not be reloaded, and might not be viewable in a Web browser. | I was failing to correctly escape these characters before saving the file. | Fixed in 4.0.6.4 |
| 04-02-2009 | Interface issues in the Snippets window. | Joe Greenman pointed out various interface problems in the Snippets window, including a missing context menu, items slightly out of order on another context menu, and a missing tooltip. He also suggested that a double-click on a snippet in the tree should "Use" the snippet, which I've implemented. | Fixed in 4.0.6.3 |
| 04-02-2009 | After changing the comment text style or comment number style in the Text Styles window, on restarting the application, the changes were lost. | My fault. These changes were not being read back into the application from the file system on startup. Thanks to Joe Greenman for this report. | Fixed in 4.0.6.3 |
| 04-02-2009 | New feature: double-clicking on a snippet in the snippets tree now automatically inserts it into the main Markin window. | An excellent suggestion from Joe Greenman. This removes the extra step previously required (clicking on the snippet in the tree, then clicking on the Use snippet button). | Added in 4.0.6.3 |
| 04-02-2009 | Dialog boxes did not "remember" the last location to which a file was saved, forcing the user to navigate back to the same folder every time they saved a file during a session. | I was too concerned with maintaining dialog box directories between sessions, and forgot to maintain them within the session. Thanks again to Joe Greenman for this one. | Fixed in 4.0.6.3 |
| 04-02-2009 | When closing the application (or executing "File / New") with unsaved changes in the current document, the user was only offered two options: to save or abandon changes. Normal practice is to allow a third option, Cancel. | My fault; failed to follow user interface conventions properly. Thanks to Joe Greenman for pointing this one out. | Fixed in 4.0.6.3 |
| 23-01-2009 | Some files containing fonts with spaces in their names could not be reloaded after being saved. | My fault; I was using double quotes instead of single quotes inside style attributes in the HTML code. | Fixed in 4.0.6.2 |
| 23-01-2009 | New feature: in the Output options dialog box you can now choose the location of the template file used when saving files. | This will be a useful feature once I've added the appropriate documentation for it. | Added in 4.0.6.2 |
| 22-01-2009 | If the student text did not contain a title, and started with a long uninterrupted string of text, the Web page view would show the whole of that text in the browser title bar as its title. | In this situation, the text is now truncated at a length of 100 characters, so it will look more manageable in the browser title bar. Thanks to Joe Greenman for finding this. | Fixed in 4.0.6.1 |
| 19-01-2009 | The installer option to add a QuickLaunch item fails in Windows Vista. | The QuickLaunch bar is not available by default in Vista, so the QuickLaunch option should not be shown in the installer. | Fixed in 4.0.6.0 |
| 19-01-2009 | The Italian button set was not available. | I neglected to include the Italian button set file in the installer. Thanks to Paolo Cutini for pointing this out (he's the translator). | Fixed in 4.0.6.0 |
| 14-01-2009 | The Italian translation was not available. | I neglected to include the Italian interface files in the installer. Thanks to Paolo again for pointing this out (he's the translator). | Fixed in 4.0.5.9 |
| 13-01-2009 | In the interface translation screen, ampersands were lost when saving and reloading. | My fault. Thanks to Paolo Cutini for finding this. Entities were not being correctly expanded when reading the interface file in, so ampersands were ignored in item captions. | Fixed in 4.0.5.8 |