- added convenience methods to Diagram for reading renderer and element files

- added API support for background gradients

- ability to access display attribute values through display element subclass property accessor methods

- improved API support for application layouts and element models

- added a definitions section for renderer specifications, supporting shapes, colors and gradients

- added gradient support for Paint-valued properties, specified in user units or percent

- added IconRenderer for custom rendering using the Java2D API

- simplified renderer positioning and alignment and added coordinate transformations

- made BoundsRenderer more flexible

- reloads application classes to pick up code changes

- added support for application layout classes

- improvements to preferences, project properties and support for application element models

- other usability improvements

- reworked several properties and property editors so they can be set to JavaBeans or application variables as well as names of application classes

- improved exception handling and error reporting

- API fully upgraded to Java 5.0 features

- improvements to exception handling and error reporting

- 8 new example programs illustrating new toolkit features

- reworked element model, data model and custom layout examples to better illustrate new toolkit capabilities

- reworked remaining examples and demos to clarify and use new Java 5.0 and toolkit features

- fully updated for new features

- added 7 tutorials covering Geo, renderer configuration and programming with the toolkit

- improved performance for PNG background images

- fixed zooming problems