This release adds bug fixes and improvements to v5.2.3 (Windows) and v5.2.4 (Mac). You will require a version 5 licence key to unlock the full functionality. You can buy a licence key here (or upgrade from a previous version here). This upgrade is free to all customers with a valid v5 licence key.
We recommend that you back-up any important plan files before installing any new release.
The download links are at the bottom of the page.
v5.3.0 was a test release.
Backward/forward compatibility
This version can read plan (.tp) files saved by any earlier version of PerfectTablePlan. But reading v5.3.1 plans into versions of the software before v5.3.1 may lose some data.
Improvements
All editions
Windows and Mac
1. You can now shuffle selected guests a number of seats clockwise or anti-clockwise using the new Edit>Shuffle Seats... feature. You can also use the keyboard accelerators Ctrl+{/Ctrl+} (Windows)/Cmd+{/Cmd+} (Mac) to move selected guests 1 seat anti-clockwise/clockwise.
Shuffling is particularly useful for moving guests around after you have resized an E-shaped table.
Tip: To only select some of the guests on a table:
- 1. In the Floor plan pane drag a selection box around all the guests you wish to shuffle.
- 2. Use Ctrl+click (Windows)/Cmd+click (Mac) to unselect the table and any guests you have accidentally selected.
2. All editions of PerfectTablePlan now support storing unique IDs for guests, groups, tables etc (previously it was only the Professional edition). This allows you to edit a plan in different editions of PerfectTablePlan (v5.3.1 or later) without IDs changing. You still need the Professional edition to import or export IDs. Unique IDs are useful for integrating PerfectTablePlan with other systems.
3. The user interface has been updated to look more modern on both Windows and Mac.
4. PerfectTablePlan is now significantly faster when:
- Assigning or unassigning lots of guests.
- Adding guests when the Proximity pane is visible.
5. The number of guests and/or tables currently selected in the active pane is now shown in the status bar.
6. 'Balloon' tips are now moved and hidden when their parent window is moved or hidden.
7. Keyboard navigation in the Guests, Groups and Schematic panes using Ctrl+Arrow, Return and Tab keys has been improved.
8. In the Export VCard window you can now choose whether to export to vCard v2.1 or vCard v3.0 formats. v3.0 is recommended. v2.1 is an old format that does not support UTF-8 encoding and is included only for compatibility with older software.
9. You can now set the group notes field during import.
10. Previously some non-English characters in version 3.0 and 4.0 format vCards were not correctly imported. For example when dragging a contact whose name contained an ü character from Apple Contacts on the Mac. This is now fixed.
11. PerfectTablePlan will now attempt to load plan files with additional characters after the XML </root> delimiter. This should make it better able to read corrupted or badly formed plan files.
12. Previously an 'Unable to write to image' message was sometimes shown by the Print window (however the printing still worked). This is now fixed.
13. Checkbox settings in the Export Data window are now remembered.
14. Previously the Special field was not always correctly imported from a vCard where multiple guests were stored in one vCard. This could also affect dragging guests between instances of PerfectTablePlan. This is now fixed.
15. Previously the default VIP status for guests set in the Titles tab of the Preferences window was ignored. This is now fixed.
16. The help documentation has been updated to look more like the website.
17. The help screen captures have been updated.
18. An 'Expert tips' section has been added to the documentation.
19. Various minor improvements have been made to the user interface and documentation.
Windows only
20. The program and installer files are now signed with both SHA1 and SHA2 digital certificates, so that the digital certificate continues to work with both old and new versions of Windows. A digital certificate lets you know that the software is produced by us and has not been tampered with.
21. The 'Standard', 'Dotnet' and 'Office' styles field have been replaced by a standard Windows style.
22. You can now resize the Select worksheet window that appears when importing an Excel document with multiple worksheets.
Mac only
23. Improved support for Mac Retina high resolution displays.
24. Previously PerfectTablePlan sometimes started when non-PerfectTablePlan format files on the desktop were double clicked. This is now fixed.
25. Some extraneous menu items added to PerfectTablePlan by macOS have been removed.
Advanced and Professional edition only
Windows and Mac
26. You are now warned if any custom fields in a custom import mapping are not defined in the current plan.
27. During import, values more than 30 characters long read into custom fields of type 'selection' are now automatically truncated. You will be warned if any truncation has taken place.
Professional edition only
Windows and Mac
28. Previously, when creating multi-plan reports including the current plan, PerfectTablePlan showed a spurious message that the current plan wasn't saved. This is now fixed.
29. Previously PerfectTablePlan didn't prompt to save the plan after changing custom proximity and exiting. This is now fixed.
