Missing GDIPLUS.DLL error message

Windows 98/ME/2000 users: You may get an error message relating to a missing GDIPLUS.DLL file. To update your system click here

New Part A from 1 Dec 2004

The new 2004 Part A Approved Document came into force on 1 December 2004. As expected BS449 was withdrawn from the list of Standards and Codes. For a further discussion of the implications of this see our page on The future of BS449. In the medium term we plan to release a Eurocode-based program, EuroBeam™ and would expect this to replace SuperBeam. See the Eurocodes Expert website for more information on the Eurocode programme.

Joist hangers: SCOSS warning

K8=1.1?

From time to time we get asked why SuperBeam has applied a K8 factor of 1.1 to a built-up timber beam?

Loft conversion structural design courses

One-day courses on the structural design of domestic loft conversions are run by ABE. For detailsclick here (scroll to end of list). ABE tell us that these courses are very popular and book up quickly.

askTRADA timber information now available to non-members

Release 4.52e, 24 June 2008

Users of releases 4.20a and later who have been sent and entered a valid activation key ending in 806 or greater can download this release using the Miscellaneous, Check SDA Website for Updates option within the program. How to use the web updates facility

1. If a member fails, this is now noted in the Project Summary
2. Load expressions containing a comma are now handled: previously if such an expression found its way into a project file (it shouldn't have) the file could not be read in.
3. A lower case 'l' in load expressions is now uppercased if it precedes a '/' (e.g. l/2 is turned into L/2) or follows a number (e.g. 0.5l is turned into 0.5L). Before this change 'l' was discarded, possibly leaving an invalid expression.
4. Additional moments on columns can now be entered as expressions.
5. Where the vertical height of the Project Manager and number of items was such that the item list finished with an incompletely displayed row, clicking on the last (part) row displayed the wrong item. Now only whole rows are shown.
6. For some while there has been an option to right-click on the Project Summary and select 'Copy to Clipboard' from the popup menu: the copied text included some extraneous formatting characters that should have been stripped out - fixed
7. A basic standard notes file is now installed in the program folder on new installs. If the file shown in Configuration > User Setup is not found, the default file will be copied over to the user's data folder (the file name and location is shown in Configuration > Information and in the notes edit dialog). Obviously the intention is that users will modify the default notes to suit their own needs.
8. A new option on the Help menu takes you straight to our new User forums - please use these where possible for your questions, feedback and suggestions. Our previous website helpdesk is no longer in use.

4.52d, 3 April 2008

Release 4.52c, 26 March 2008

1. Some additional error checking has been added which should make it easier to diagnose startup and shutdown problems.
2. An extra option on the Miscellaneous menu takes you to a page on our website http://www.sda.co.uk/renew which lets you renew your update cover online. From the end of April we will not be taking credit card payments ourselves. This option is greyed out until 45 days before your update cover expires.
3. 4.52d fixes a problem with page heading column widths: on accessing the heading editor the widths were lost and could not be reset.

Release 4.52b, 6 March 2008

This release incorporates various changes required to make it work in countries that do not use a period, '.' as the decimal separator

Release 4.52a, 21 Nov 2007

1. The Masonry Strength Calculator has been updated (a little belatedly!) to BS5628-1:2005. Note that default material strengths have changed. Testing is now to BS EN 771-3 which gives a slightly higher measured strength for the same material due to the testing being done in slightly drier conditions. Article explaining this on Celcon website Thus 2.8 becomes 2.9; 3.5, 3.6; 7.0, 7.3; 10.0, 10.4 etc.
2. A number of people have asked whether we could add timber calculations to ProSteel. As explained on our Future of BS449 page, the real answer lies in switching to Eurocodes - a year from now this may be practicable. Meanwhile we have added a new option to SuperBeam which lets you copy timber beam and column calculations into ProSteel as static text pages. To do this, select the timber calculation in SuperBeam, right click on it and select 'Copy Page Source' from the popup menu. In ProSteel select 'Add Project Text page'. The page editor will open: click somewhere in the editing area and press Ctrl+V (paste) to insert the copied text. Press 'Apply', the 'Close' and you will have the formatted calculation. At this point it is of course static text you you cannot update the calculation..
3. Calculated fields (e.g. loads) allow you to incorporate text within expressions to amplify them (e.g. 'avg') which is stripped out when the expression is evaluated. Previously no check was made as to where this text was, so if you inadvertently entered (say) 2N038 instead of 2NO38 the first would be resolved as 2038, the 'N' being stripped out. Now an error is thrown if free text comes within a number.
4. The startup dialog, which is displayed if automatic reload of last project is turned off, now includes an option to reload the last project.

Release 4.51c, 10 Oct 2007

1. Startup dialog was erroneously shown if program started by double clicking on a project file - fixed
2. As the licence/disclaimer is not now shown each time the program is run, we have added a new menu option Help > Show Licence.

Release 4.51b, 29 Sept 2007

1. Bug fixed that could set the wrong INI file location on new Vista installs
2. Fixed bug that gave 'Could not create backup: Save cancelled' error messages when 'Create backup on save' not checked in User Setup > Preferences.
3. The disclaimer/licence screen is now shown when (i) the current user initials are not the same as those entered last time the program was run;. (ii) this is the first time a new release has been run; or (iii) this is the 25th, 50th, 75th ... time the program has been run. You can also view it using a new menu option, Help > Show Licence.
4. A new startup dialog is now displayed if a previous project is not automatically reloaded. Future display of this dialog can be skipped by checking the box in the dialog.
5. UNC program settings INI file names (i..e starting with \\) were lost on exiting program - fixed.
6. A new default steel table now includes the 18 new Corus Advance sections: to use it. If you are updating an existing installation and want these sections you will need to change the steel data file name - go to Configuration > User Setup > File Names and Locations, press the 'Open' button at the end of the line and locate and select file name AdvSteel.dta (on XP systems this file should be in folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SDA and on Vista systems, C:\ProgramData\SDA. The Advance sections include three new UB families, 610x178; 533x312 and 533x165 and additional heavier sections in the 533x210, 457x191, 406x178 and 406x140 UB and 203x203 and 152x152 UC series.
7. A new option in Configuration > User Setup > Preferences lets you decide whether to us the traditional UB, UC and PFC designations or the Advance UKB, UKC and UKPFC ones.
8. The beam span can be changed using the cursor [Up], [PgUp], [Down] and [PgDn] keys.
9. For axially loaded columns, the on-screen summary calculation now shows the load and axial capacity, and the printed calculation shows these instead of the stress ratio.
10. Where a check fails or an actual stress exceeds the permissible, 'FAIL' is now printed instead of '!!!' (follows a comment from a LA chekcing engineer that the latter could be overlooked too easily)

Release 4.51a, 25 May 2007

• The PDF generation code is now part of the main program so the SDAwPDF2.dll file is no longer used by SuperBeam 4 (similar change are being made to the latest releases of SuperHeat and ProSteel). The generated PDFs now include a bookmark for each report.
• Holding down the [Ctrl] key while moving the mouse wheel increases or decreases the font size as on all modern web browsers.
• SuperBeam now runs on Windows Vista in non-administrator mode
• The Miscellaneous > Catalogue Disk Files option now lists files with clickable links to open
• The Internet > Check SDA Web Site for Updates option now includes a button which lets you choose an alternative download location. The default location has been changed to be compatible with Windows Vista

Release 4.50g, 23 Feb 2007

Two small fixes

1. INI (configuration) file names could be incorrectly retrieved from the registry - fixed.
2. UPX file compression is no longer used.

Release 4.50f, 6 Feb 2007

1. The program file is now code-signed to prevent Windows issuing a potentially unsafe file warning
2. We have made some changes to speed up the program startup and shutdown
3. Help > About now just displays the basic build and licence data instead of the full licence and disclaimer text shown when you first start the program
4. More message boxes have been replaced with the new Vista-style ones showing more information
5. Clicking the bar above the Project Manager buttons hides them - useful if you are just using the PM to select items and reports and have a lot of them.
6. You cannot now delete an beam or column from a project if it is referenced by another item (e.g. BF load)
7. When designing a steel beam, the first section in the table (usually a small CHS) would be used if nothing that met the required width and section types was found. A warning box is now displayed when this happens.
8. If you were using separate DL+LL load entry and brought forward the load from a true cantilever (span=0), the LL would be shown as zero - fixed
9. A little reminder via a London Borough checking engineer: virtually all joists are 47mm wide, not 50mm so you should generally specify a width of 47mm when designing/checking timber members.
10. Flitch beam calculations now show the G7-G10 connection capacities, not just the lowest figure
11. The 'Add to recent documents' option has been dropped from User Preferences.
12. The '99' button in User Setup, Paths & Files is now labelled 'V' and generates the preferred locations for INI files on Windows 2000/XP/Vista systems.
13. Double clicking on the Page Heading Edit dialog grid header line resets the column widths to their original defaults.
14. The default standard notes filename on new installations has been changed to StdNotes.sbps (was StdNotes.xxx where xxx were your initials): this does not affect existing installations.

Release 4.50e, 20 Sept 2006

1. Important fix relating to beams extending as cantilevers when dead and live loads are being entered separately: If a part UDL live load ends at R1 (i.e is on span only) or starts at R2 (i.e. is on cantilever only) the BM &SF figures for the part load conditions DL|DL+LL DL+LL|LL were incorrectly calculated. The all loads applied calculation was correct. This has been fixed.
2. When you first entered the beam load edit table you could not enter a load type until you had moved to another cell and back - fixed
3. Selecting either of the beam diagram options gave a range check error - fixed
4. Loads could not be reordered in the Post edit dialog - fixed

Release 4.50c, 29 May 2006

• Bearing page elements were not properly realigned when dialog resized - fixed
• Moving items up and down using the Project Manager 'Move' buttons was s-l-o-w on larger projects - improved
• B/F on column edit dialog didn't work - fixed: note that you first have to press a load position button 'A', '1'-'4', to enable the B/F button.
• If the applied loads on a column generated a negative moment and you also entered a positive additional moment the signed values were added (i.e. the moment resulting from the applied loads was subtracted from the additional moment). The moment is now calculated by adding the absolute values of the two moments.
• Section name now shown on bearing page of beam edit dialog
• The steel column and timber post edit dialogs would not allow more than one character to be entered in the load description field if the previous field to be edited was the load type or description - fixed

Release 4.50b, 24 Feb 2006

• New bug in 4.50a that stopped non-integer bearing masonry strengths being entered has been fixed
• Invalid steel beam effective lengths can now be corrected - previously the same error message was endlessly repeated despite correcting the error
• In the beam load column the load column widths have been enlarged slightly with a corresponding reduction in the load position column widths.

Release 4.50a, 22 Feb 2006

• The total load has been added back to beam printouts (it was dropped some while ago)
• If you have selected separate dead and live load entry, the span and cantilever deflections for timber beams extended as cantilevers are now calculated with live loads applied to the span or cantilever only (i.e. worst case condition)
• You can now disable the web update facility if required: please contact us if you need to know how to do this.
• The total load is now shown on beam printouts
• B/F beam load did not copy the referenced beam description - fixed.

Release 4.40l, 6 Sept 2005

• Pressing the 'Move Up' and 'Move Down' buttons on the Project Manager worked correctly but would select a random item on projects containing OLE pages - fixed.
• Reordering items in a project containing an OLE page prevented the page contents being printed until you saved and reloaded the project - fixed
• Long notes in the Project Summary could be displayed incorrectly - fixed
• The Project Summary reference to a timber post/stud showed the grade twice, e.g. 'C16 C16' -fixed
• Autosave setting was lost when manually saving a project - fixed
• When you selected the Print Project option the toolbar Edit button could be erroneously disabled - fixed
• If you try and print to a PDF file and a file of the specified name is already open (most likely in Acrobat Reader) you now get a meaningful error message.
• When you use the B/F option to bring forward a beam or column load, the referenced item location/description is now used to form the load name rather than it being initialised as 'React B/F'.You can of course change this default name if desired. Note that load names can be up to 24 characters long though not all are visible in the load edit dialogs
• If you entered columns loads in the 'wrong' order, when they were sorted by the program load values could be copied incorrectly - fixed
• If you started to enter a timber width starting with '2', '3' or '4' (e.g. '200') the number of sections was incorrectly automatically changed to this number - fixed
• You can now give a descriptive name to the additional moment on a timber post/stud

Release 4.40k, 3 May 2005

• A new option, Project, Add item(s) from another project, has been added which does just this
• The Configuration, User Setup, Preferences dialog page now includes a set of check boxes which let you select which section types are displayed in the beam and column edit dialogs. Use this to hide section types (e.g. Euronorm or ASB/SFB) that you will never use
• The Steel Check section selection dialog now includes a new option 'Table order' which displays the sections in ascending table order (e.g. showing all the 254x146 UB's or 150x100 RHS sections together). The dialog now remembers the selected section when you change the sort order or section type.
• An additional preference 'Ask before closing program' has been added to the Configuration, User Setup, Preferences page. If the box is checked you get the 'Exit Yes/No' confirmation dialog as before; if you uncheck the box this is skipped.
• The handling of projects containing large numbers of items has been improved.
• The Configuration, Information screen now lists all the names and locations of all the files used by SuperBeam

2004 changes . 2003 changes . 2002 changes . 2001 and earlier changes