What’s New in This Update

Welcome to FoCal 2020.1 Alpha 1. This is the first release of the brand new FoCal 2020.

Version Details

(The slightly later Mac version fixed an issue seen on Mojave systems where the license could not be obtained from the server)

Headline Features

• Completely new user interface and internals
• Addition of CalCheck feature
• Addition of MultiTest feature

This is an Alpha release. We define these as a release that is not feature complete – i.e. some features may be added, fixed or removed during development. This release has undergone extensive testing across many cameras and computers, so it should be reliable but any feedback – good or bad – would be hugely appreciated.

Known Issues

The following is a list of some more important known issues:

• There is currently no text information related to the FoCal Comparison Database. The coloured areas showing how your camera/lens performs will still be highlighted if comparison data is available.
• The Windows installer is fairly rudimentary. It should install all the necessary prerequisites but it’s difficult to fully test across a range of computer types. If you get problems, please review the Windows Prerequisites section below.
• AF Consistency test when run with more than 1 data set (e.g. both near and far defocus, or both phase- and contrast-detect AF) only correctly populates the first chart. The processing and presentation of multiple data sets is work in progress. Note that the captured data is complete – so in future versions, reviewed historical information will be presented in the new way.
• Report generation and CSV generation is unfinished. Reports will be produced, but their content is not final.
• Dust Analysis test is not complete. It will run and produce result charts, but the crops are not displayed and there is no ability to see the captured images in this release.
• The File Explore tool is unfinished and will not produce any useful information. This will be completed and explained in the next release.
• File Mode support for non Canon/Nikon cameras has not been extensively tested.
• User Interface Zoom setting on Mac does not work well.
• The Contact Support button in the Setttings > Help page on Mac does not work all the time. If you try to use it and do not see a contact page, please use this link to report an issue (note that the FoCal version and OS version will not be populated, so if you could manually provide this information it would be useful).
• On Windows, You cannot install FoCal 2020 side by side with FoCal 2.x. We will fix this, but for now if you install FoCal 2020 you will release FoCal 2.x and will need to reinstall FoCal 2.x afterwards.

Windows Prerequisites / Installer Problems

The Windows Installer should automatically install any necessary missing prerequisites on the first installation, but if you have problems with the installer you could manually install the following:

.NET Framework 4.8: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/thank-you/net48-web-installer

Visual C++ Redistributables (x86 version): https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x86.exe

If you download and run the installers for both of the above, and then re-run the FoCal installer it should fix any issues.

Blog Post

There is a blog post associated with this release available here.

Previous Release Notes

• Current latest Stable release is: FoCal 2.13

Changelog

The changes have been so pervasive since FoCal 2.13 that we’re not adding them to this note (there would be over 1,000 changes!). We will add changes from this version onwards to future release notes.