Release of HDFView 3.3.0 (Newsletter #193)

News and Announcements
1

The HDFView 3.3.0 release is now available from the HDFView 3.3.0 download page. This release was built and tested with HDF 4.2.16 and HDF5 1.14.0.

There are a few critical notes:

  • Windows ONLY: HDFView built with VS 2015 will require that the Visual C++ Redistributable Packages be installed on your machine. If you cannot access HDF5 files, then you do not have these packages. Download and install the packages to fix this issue.
  • This release was built and tested with OpenJDK 19. It uses modules and the newest jpackage for distribution.

This release includes several major enhancements:

  • Supports the new references available in HDF5 1.12 releases
  • Support for reading a SWMR-created file, using a configurable timer to refresh dataset tables
  • Refactor of the attribute object classes to use the same object logic as datasets which allow data objects to display table views using the same logic. This includes editing and reference handling.
  • Several major bug fixes, including a fix for crashes on NetCDF-4 grids, support for true variable-length types in Java, and other minor bugs

Please see the full release notes for detailed information regarding this release, including a detailed list of changes. As always, feel free to post on the forum with any questions.

1 Like
2

What’s the difference between these?

  • HDFView-3.3.0-macos11_64.tar.gz 111.6 MB
  • HDFViewApp-3.3.0-macos11_64.tar.gz 103.7 MB
3

What’s the difference between these?

HDFView-3.3.0-macos11_64.tar.gz 111.6 MB
HDFViewApp-3.3.0-macos11_64.tar.gz 103.7 MB

Glad you asked!

There is a small informational note under the table that holds the binaries on https://www.hdfgroup.org/downloads/hdfview/

This release provides two ways to install the HDFView pre-built binary distribution for a platform:

  • Running an installer. The installer uses a system specific program to install the HDFView application on the target system.
  • Using an application image. This method simply requires running the provided executable to obtain the software. The application image is a folder/file image of the HDFView application. The user must setup any shortcuts or file associations.

As always, we welcome testers of both the process and the software itself!

4

Thanks, @lori.cooper! I think the running the provided executable to obtain the software is slightly misleading since it doesn’t obtain or download anything from the Internet.

5

The executable is inside the downloaded binary - just like all our other binaries with installers.

6

Two suggestions:

  1. Split the table in two columns with heading “Installer” and “No Installer”. Move up the information note so that users can easily decide what to download in advance.
  2. Rewrite “Using an application image”:
  "Running application directly without running an installer"
  This method simply requires unpacking the downloaded compressed archived file. 
The executable binary is available inside the unpacked directory. 
The user must setup any shortcuts or file associations.