The current HDF-Java products are available for download at http://www.hdfgroup.org/downloads/

Files included in the release:
/src            -- include all source files
/bin/$platform  -- prebuilt binaries for specific platform (limited platforms)
/hdfview        -- HDFView installation program (limited platforms)


HDF Libraries
==================================================================================================================
This release was built and tested with HDF 4.2.6 and HDF5 1.8.8. 
$YOUR-HDF-JAVA-HOME/lib/<platform>/*.settings files include information on the platform 
version and compiler used to build hdf4 and hdf5.

JDK
==================================================================================================================
This release was built and tested with JDK 1.6. 


Platforms
==================================================================================================================
This release was built and tested for the following platforms:

64-bit distribution -- runs on 64-bit systems with 64-bit JRE only
    * Linux
    * Mac Intel
    * Solaris
    * Windows

32-bit distribution -- runs on 32-bit systems or 64-bit systems with 32-bit JRE
    * Linux
    * Mac Intel
    * Solaris
    * Windows


Changes to the Java HDF5 Interface(JHI5)
==================================================================================================================
    -- The following 29 methods were added to JHI5: 
        H5Diterate,             H5Pget_buffer_size,     H5Pget_char_encoding,           H5Pget_chunk_cache, 
        H5Pget_driver,          H5Pget_dxpl_multi,      H5Pget_elink_file_cache_size,   H5Pget_fapl_multi, 
        H5Pget_filter,          H5Pget_filter2,         H5Pget_gcreferences,            H5Pget_mdc_config, 
        H5Pget_meta_block_size, H5Pget_obj_track_times, H5Pget_sieve_buf_size,          H5Pset_char_encoding, 
        H5Pset_chunk_cache,     H5Pset_dxpl_multi,      H5Pset_elink_file_cache_size,   H5Pset_fapl_multi, 
        H5Pset_fapl_sec2,       H5Pset_fapl_split,      H5Pset_fapl_stdio,              H5Pset_fapl_windows, 
        H5Pset_mdc_config,      H5Pset_meta_block_size, H5Pset_obj_track_times,         H5Pset_sieve_buf_size, 
        H5Sget_select_type.
    -- 80 new unit tests were added to JHI5. 

Major Enhancements
==================================================================================================================  
    * When opening a file family, HDFView now selects the first file in the family
    * NaN and INF values are now ignored in TableView for better line plots
    * The fill value can now be set when a new dataset is created
    * If an object is copied to a group where the name already exist, the name 
      conflict can now be resolved
    * Image palettes can now be imported from or exported to a text file
    * Users now have the option to show data values in a 0-based or 1-based index
    * The image origin can now be specified as UpperLeft, LowerLeft, 
      UpperRight, or LowerRight
    * Users now have the option to show values of selected bits or to apply 
      a bitmask for 1-byte or 2-byte integers
    * A data distribution histogram has been added for changing the data range in ImageView


Major Bug Fixes
================================================================================================================== 
    * Fixed HDFView so that it will not crash when it finds region references 
      in nested compound fields
    * Added serializable interfaces and tests to all hdf-java objects
    * Added coordinate information of selected data to the column header 
      for 2D+ string datasets
    * Fixed the ability to refresh the image palette table after palette 
      values have been changed
    * Fixed TableView so that users can flip through data of 3D compound datasets
    * Fixed HDF4 SDS creation so that unlimited dimensions cannot be used 
      with compression or chunking
    * Fixed HDF-Java objects to use "/" for the root group instead of the file name
    * Fixed HDFView to allow the renaming of committed (named) datatypes
    * Fixed HDFView to allow the viewing of objects pointed to by external links 


Limitations / Known Problems
==================================================================================================================  
    * HDFView does not support undo operations; the editing results go to 
      files and cannot be recovered.
    * HDFView does not support conversion between HDF4 and HDF5.
    * HDFView supports only indexed images with RGB color model or 24-bit 
      true color images. 
    * Directly using multiple dimensional arrays causes a performance 
      problem because there is no direct mapping for multiple dimensional 
      arrays between Java and C.
    * HDF (4&5) APIs with function pointers are not supported in HDF-Java. 

    * Specific to HDF4:
        -- Deleting an object or attribute from an HDF4 file is not supported. 
           Deleting objects in HDF4 may leave dangling objects or corrupt 
           the file.
        -- HDFView cannot modify compressed HDF4 SDS if rank is greater 
           than two because the existing compression algorithms supported 
           by HDF do not allow partial modification to a compressed data stream.
        -- HDFView cannot modify HDF4 vdata. HDF4 only writes vdata by records. 
           HDF-Java reads data by vdata fields because HDF-Java does not 
           support the data structure of a vdata record.

    * Specific to HDF5:
        -- Writing compound data is limited to simple cases. For example, 
           base compound fields that have primitive types such as integers, 
           floats, characters, etc. can be written. HDFView does not write 
           complex compound data. For example, HDFView cannot write a dataset 
           that has a compound datatype with a region reference.
        -- Writing variable-length data is not supported except for datasets 
           where each data point is a single variable-length string.
        -- There is no single JNI function that can handle HDF5 library 
           functions that have different return types for version 1.6 and 
           version 1.8. An additional function is added in the JNI. For example,
             * public synchronized static native int H5Tget_size(int type_id)
             * public synchronized static native long H5Tget_size_long(int type_id)

Other Notes
==================================================================================================================  
Made the following changes to bin/hdfview.sh to make it consistent with the 
Windows batch file, bin/hdfview.bat:
    * changed "HDFVIEW_HOME" to "HDFJAVA" and "JAVAPATH" to "JAVAHOME"
    * FAQs related to HDF-Java products: http://www.hdfgroup.org/hdf5-quest.html#JAVA


