Wesnoth 1.5.9

[ivanovic]

Wesnoth 1.5.9 is out!

This is the first beta release for 1.6. By now we are basically feature complete and the changes happening from now on are meant to polish existing stuff and wipe out the bugs that are left. So you as user can already consider updating to this new version since it should be basically usable. You should expect a stable 1.6 rather soon, maybe in Q1'2009...

What is new in this release, you might ask now. The most impressive change is probably the completion of the conversion to the new dialog style. The new style should now be used for all the dialogs ingame.Many portraits were update to at least have the black background removed, or to receive a complete overhaul, so that they look really stunning in the soon to come 1.6.

Users preferring fighting human opponents over battling the AI might welcome the option to use their forum accounts on the multiplayer server to have registered names. The feature was already there in the last releases, but it is by far more polished now and should work a lot more reliable.

Authors of add-ons should really consider porting their work over to 1.5.9 since the API is basically stable by now. That is add-ons working perfectly in 1.5.9 will most likely also work nicely in 1.6, too.

Translations have made huge progress, too. Two more translation teams managed to complete the translation of Wesnoth: Czech and Spanish are now complete and several others are nearing completion but help is of course still needed and welcome. If you want to help translating Wesnoth into your language of choice, have a look at this page and contact the translations maintainer. The maintainer will tell you how you can help best.

Some other important things to mention:
***
From this version onward, the development team will only focus on bug-fixing. The WML API will probably have very little changes.
Thus, now is a good time to port all User Made Content to 1.5.x
***
The image path functions (~RC(), ~TC(), ~FL() et al) parsing has been heavily modified. Now all functions in a path are stacked in a left-to-right order, with the sole exceptions of ~RC() and ~TC(), which continue to be non-accumulative.
Additionally, a new note-worthy image path function, ~SCALE(width,height), was introduced; it scales graphics, of course.
***
The conversion of the old message dialogs to the new message dialogs is mostly complete. The code needs some more polishing. WML authors who use advanced features of the [message] tag are encouraged to test their add-ons with the new engine and report bugs if they find them.
***
The defaults for "fog of war" and "random start time" have been changed to on. Add-on maintainers may want to explicitly set those properties if they're important to the way the scenario works (like for survivals with specific chaotic/lawful waves etc.) so that they have the right values when played with "use map settings" on.
***

Of course there is also the full changelog listing (almost) all the changes since 1.5.8. A changelog with changes that might be visible to most users (and only includes these) is the players changelog.

Downloads
Sources:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wesnot ... 2?download (203.2 MB) md5sum
Here is the xDelta for the sources:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wesnot ... a?download (1.5.8 to 1.5.9, 26.2 MB)
Check http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7034 for info on using xdelta.

The Windows package is available on the download page.

The MacOSX package is available on the download page.

The OpenSolaris package is not available yet. Once it is, you can find it on the download page.

All known packagers have been contacted. Information about where to get the respective binaries or how to get them work you get on the Linux binaries site for the Linux binaries. Download links for the other supported systems will be listed at the downloads page once the binaries are available.

As a fallback you can also get the sources from http://files.wesnoth.org/ - you should first try to get files through SourceForge to help us save bandwidth. Please get the files from sourceforge.net if possible.

The multiplayer server for 1.5.9 is already up and running. This server can only be used to play with 1.5.9. If you do encounter problems, please report them.

If you find any bugs don't hesitate to report them, but please read the instructions on how to post bugs first. Instructions for bug reporting can be found at http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/ReportingBugs.

Enjoy!

PS: Within the next seven days anyone asking when the binary for xyz will be ready will be banned and the post will be deleted. Such questions just distract the developers and packagers and don't do any good, so better not ask them...
Bugreports in the forums tend to get forgotten. You will get better results by following the guidelines and report them in the bugtracker.

[tr0ll]

thanks!

i'm curious why the md5sum isnt posted right here instead of or in addition to downloadable. seems like a lot of extra clicks for user and network load on the system.

[Iris]

Not mentioned in the release notes, but it is in the changelog:

Code: Select all

Version 1.5.9:
 * Graphics:
   * Restructured portraits directory to be based on unit types rather than
     authors, added an authors file for recording portrait credits

wmllint can do the conversion to the new portrait directory schema for add-ons that reference the mainline portraits directly.

[cyberfrag]

Some new screenshots might be a good idea, showing off a few new shiny features, like the dialogue system or the new menu backgrounds, on the front page. This would certainly create some more excitement about the upcoming 1.6
I'd do it myself, but my forum account doesn't seem to work for editing the screenshots page...

Anyway, congratulations to everyone involved: you've done a good job again

[AI]

The wiki has it's own user accounts, so you have to create one.

[theruler]

Congratulation guys. You will never stop to amaze me.



I noticed a little and stupid graphical issue.
the new build (windows, downloaded as is from the DL page) does not behave like the old ones:

* convert the render engine to a z-ordered based engine, this allows to
have multiple layers and the calculation and rendering are separated
which means things can be drawn in front of units.

Is it a regression or intentional?

Sorry if it has been posted before.

[Iris]

That was done in 1.5.0, not 1.5.9. Still, I would say that it is definitively a feature or nobody would have invested all that hard work into it.

[theruler]

nice discussion indeed.
I missed it.

Thanks Master.

That was done in 1.5.0, not 1.5.9.

I know, I quoted the 1.5.0 changelog. But what confused me is that a feature, during the develop of a branch, usually stays.

[Iris]

Um, perhaps posting a screenshot about the particular bug for Technical Support could help. I have not noticed any regressions here (Debian lenny, 1.5.6, 1.5.8, 1.5.9 and 1.5.9+svn).

[SkeletonCrew]

as a side note boucman and I have been looking into
some glitches last weekend at the FOSDEM and I
rewrote a part of the engine to fix several rendering
glitches boucman also fixed some other glitches
this week, so in general the engine has improved
quite a bit last week.

So if you encounter glitches please retest with 1.5.10
once it released and post a bug report if the glitches
are still there.

[theruler]

Hey! Good things to ear!

I really look forward to these changes... could you please report here a little changelog preview?


About the regression I was talking for, before posting it as a bug (if not in your recent engine changes), I wanted to be sure that I ain't the only one that experienced it.

Windows build version 1.5.9;

[SkeletonCrew]

Here's the latest changelog as in the version the developers use
http://svn.gna.org/svn/wesnoth/trunk/changelog

The glitches with the castle and great tree are gone.

[theruler]

I love you guys, you know...

I will stop playing my ongoing 1p campaign till the 1.5.10 release! (I have a will of steel)