Empire Express 2.0 contains many new features and improvements which are described below.
New Inspector and Measure windows
The Info window and Customize window in previous versions have been replaced with a Measure window and an Inspector window. The Measure window is a compact window that shows the mouse position, the ruler tool measurements, and the car capacity of the currently selected track. You can use the Inspector window to examine and change information for the selected objects in a plan.
Using the inspector window you can set information for more than one object at a time. For example, you could select multiple objects and set the brand for all of them at once.
The pen color, pattern, and width and the fill color and pattern have been moved to the Appearance section of the Inspector. In previous versions of Empire Express the color and pattern menus did not show the color or pattern of the currently selected object. Now you can use the Inspector to quickly view the colors and patterns for the selected object(s).
Millions of colors
A much broader selection of colors is available now; instead of 256 colors you can now choose from millions of colors. Click a color well in the Inspector to open the standard Mac OS color picker window. This window allows you to set the color using a variety of methods including a magnifying glass which allows you to pick any color visible on your screen. You can also create and save your own color palettes in this window.
Improved text
Empire Express now takes full advantage of the Mac OS X text system for text shown in plans. You can now use more than one font, style, alignment, and color in a single text box. You can use the Font panel to preview and select fonts and the Color palette to preview and select colors for text. You can check spelling and even use text rulers to set tab stops, etc. within text.
Text no longer changes color or size when you start or finish editing it. You no longer have to use the text tool to start editing an existing text item. Instead you may select the text item by clicking it with the selection tool and then press the Enter key.
To support all of these text improvements, it was necessary to drop the following classic font styles: outline, shadow, condensed, and extended. Also to use bold or italic text, a bold or italic version of the font must be available. Some fonts such as Geneva do not offer bold or italic, but an equivalent font does. For this reason, Empire Express 2.0 automatically converts Geneva to Helvetic when it reads documents created by earlier versions.
Improved undo
Previous versions of Empire Express could undo only the last 25 operations. Now the number of undos is limited only by the amount of computer memory available; it is essentially unlimited.
In addition you can undo past document saves - saving documents no longer clears the available undos.
Improved appearance
Improved appearance in the plan window and supporting windows makes Empire Express easier on the eyes and easier to use:
- Improved feedback and appearance during draw, resize and rotate. Objects are much easier to see.
- Dragged objects are now translucent and show the whole object instead of just a dotted outline.
- Smoother drawing of flex track
- Smoother printing
- Easier to read fonts in all windows
Searchable help
Empire Express now provides searchable help making it easy for you to find the information you're looking for.
Now a Universal Application
Empire Express 2.0 is a universal application built for PowerPC and Intel based Macs. On Intel-based Macs, start up is now nearly instantaneous.
Other improvements
- The parts list window has multiple columns that you can rearrange and resize. You can click the column headers to change the sort order.
- The File menu now has an Open Recent menu for opening recently opened documents.
- New Deselect All command in the Edit menu
- The Window menu now has Minimize, Zoom, and Bring All to Front.
- In the Save dialog you can now type file names with a length greater than 32 characters.
- Sheets are used for Save, Print, etc.
- The plan window responds to the mouse scroll wheel. If you have a Mighty Mouse you can use its scroll ball to scroll both vertically and horizontally.
- The mouse pointer changes to an arrow with a plus sign to indicate when an object will be copied.
- If you copy or drag plan objects to another application, the objects will be copied as a PDF graphic.
- The key to toggle the auto connect option during a drag was switched from the Command key to the Shift key.
- After you enter your registration information, you no longer have to restart Empire Express.
- If you enter your registration incorrectly, an alert will be shown when you click OK instead of after you restart.
- The Show Pages command has been removed because Print preview is easier to use than Show Pages. The Preview application shows both full size and thumbnail pages making it easier for you to decide which pages you want to print. Choose Print and click the Preview button in the Print dialog to see the preview.
- Help tags are now shown for the tool palette and some of the other windows.
- You can end polygon drawing by pressing any key.
- The pointer for the rotation tool is now a curved arrow. As before, you may click a handle to rotate the selected object(s) or click on another part of an object to move it.
- The Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons in the plan window have been replaced by menu commands in the Plan menu. Keyboard shortcuts for these commands allow you to zoom in and out using the keyboard.
- Zooming has been improved so you don't lose your place when you zoom in or out. The point at the top-left corner of the plan window before the zoom is still at the top-left corner after the zoom.
- Plan specifications are shown in a sheet instead of a window making it easier to compare specifications for two different plans.
- It is now easier to click lines to select or drag them.
- Empire Express 2.0 requires Mac OS 10.3.9 or later. Version 1.6 is still available for Mac OS 8.6 through 10.3.8.