Summary of important user-visible changes for releases of the io package

===============================================================================
io-1.0.18   Release Date: 2012-03-18   Release Manager: Philip Nienhuis
===============================================================================

** The following functions have been imported from the miscellaneous package:
      cell2csv    csvconcat     xmlread
      csv2cell    csvexplode    xmlwrite
   Their error messages and help messages have been cleaned up a bit.

** Bug fixes:
--- odsfinfo: fixed "wrong type argument `cell'" bug when run interactively.
--- xlsopen, odsopen: fixed messed up screen output due to UNO usage warning.
--- csv2cell: checks if file is empty and if so, return an empty cell.

** Adapted to internal LibreOffice-3.5-final changes. 
   Some bugs (flashing LO screens) still have to be fixed upstream - see here:
   https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42470

** Tried OpenXLS-6.0.7.jar. Reads OK, still unusable for writing .xls files.

===============================================================================
io-1.0.17   Release Date: 2012-02-27   Release Manager: Philip Nienhuis
===============================================================================

** Bug fixes:
--- oct2ods, oct2xls, odswrite default range input arg. These functions may not
    have worked properly for two years (!)

** Fixed support for odfdom v.0.8.7 (ODS). Note: the OTK interface only works
  well with xercesImpl.jar 2.9.1 (Sep 14, 2009)

** Many small bug fixes & documentation updated to actual functionality.

** Fixed "seealso" texinfo header string in almost all functions.

** Added formal test scripts to "internal functions" section.

===============================================================================
io-1.0.16   Release Date: 2012-01-19   Release Manager: Philip Nienhuis
===============================================================================

** Bug fixing release

** PKG_ADD now expects Java spreadsheet class libs (.jars) in /lib/java
  (for MinGW)

===============================================================================
io-1.0.15   Release Date: 2011-10-02   Release Manager: Philip Nienhuis
===============================================================================

io-1.0.15 is primarily a bug fix release and a snapshot / wrap-up of current 
  development status (some still a bit experimental). It mainly comprises:

** A number of bug fixes (incl. some serious ones, notably with .ods/OOo Calc);

** Some mainly cosmetic improvements to existing code; less verbosity;

** pch2mat (reading & transforming Nastran PCH files, contributed by 
  B. Oytun Peksel);

** object2json.m (creating a json description string of objects, contributed
  by Daniel Torre). This was already silently introduced in io-1.0.14;

** A scripted troubleshooting / classpath setup tool for spreadsheet I/O
  support (chk_spreadsheet_support.m);

** Experimental OXS support (OpenXLS) for reading Excel xls (BIFF8).
  OpenXLS is -let's say- a little bit lacking: For reading it is faster than
  JXL. However, while OXS write support has been coded (and works) I had to
  disable it as the OXS Java classes won't release the file handle so Octave
  will hang upon closing :-(  I'm stuck with this so I just release it as-is;

** Experimental UNO support, i.e. invoking OpenOffice.org (or clones like 
  LibreOffice) behind the scenes to read spreadsheet files, much like 
  ActiveX/COM for MS-Excel. This is also based on Java. The first time you
  use UNO, OOo has to be loaded and you'll have to be patient, but once loaded
  (and in the OS cache) you'll see the pros:
  --* Very fast;
  --* Much lower Java memory usage as OOo loads the spreadsheet in its own 
      memory chunk (not Octave's) => much bigger spreadsheet capacity;
  --* You can read *all* formats supported by OOo: .ods, .xls, .csv, .xlsx,
      .sxc, .dbf, Lotus wk1, Quattro Pro, ......; and it doesn't really matter
      whether xlsopen of odsopen is used.
  Of course all this wonderful stuff comes at a prize:
  --* After closing the spreadsheet file (odsclose, xlsclose) ALL OOo
      invocations will be closed, also those started outside Octave. This is 
      due to "the way OpenOffice works" (quoted from OOo dev forum), especially
      through Java. There are other ways to close OOo but they'll hang Octave;
  --* The Java UNO classes supplied with e.g. LibreOffice aren't kept quite
      up-to-date with the main program. As a consequence, with e.g.,
      LibreOffice 3.4 the main LO window will pop up (it can't be hidden). I 
      filed a bug report for this 
      (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40991) but I haven't seen
      it being picked up yet. Another example: while LO 3.3.1's row capacity
      was already > 106, it took until LO 3.4 before this capacity was
      implemented in the Java UNO classes.
  Like with OXS, I'm a bit stuck here - all this has to be fixed upstream.

Hint:
for older Octave versions (< 3.4.0) you can install io-1.0.15 using the -nodeps
  flag. You'll then loose the old and buggy textread and csv/dlm-read/write
  functions but I'd consider that as no big loss.