Last modification information:
$Header: /cvsroot/xaos/XaoS/RELEASE_NOTES,v 1.18 2006/07/13 06:01:46 kovzol Exp $


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.2.2
------------------------------------

This release contains a rewritten Mac OS X port by J. B. Langston III,
and some small fixes for pipes by Marton Torok. For more details
please read the ChangeLog file.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.2.1
------------------------------------

A new fractal type, the Spidron hornflake has appeared. We changed
the web site to a dokuwiki database, so the help system contains
now a converter for dokuwiki (not completely working yet).

STICKY/DESTDIR is now supported (by Claudio Fontana). The French
translation is updated (by Philippe Wautelet). Bigger fonts are
available for Latin-2 based usage if the user changes the screen
resolution more than 800x600 or 1000x720.

Some small fixes have been done in the catalog files.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.2
----------------------------------

Main points are the classic Sierpinski and Koch fractals, but still
other formulas are introduced. Some 'oldie but goldie' fractals are
included from the Fractint formula database. The keystroke order has been
changed a little bit. Now gcc-4.0.x is also supported (-mcpu is deprecated
now and the source had to be modified for this).

The new formulas are demonstrated with 3 new tutorial movies. These are
also available in Hungarian language. Volunteers are requested to
translate the new movies into other languages.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.1.3
------------------------------------

Using this release gcc version 4.0 should also compile the code, not only
the 3.x versions.

Two new fractal types were also added. In addition, the DirectX header
files have been fixed. The French translations are updated.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.1.2
------------------------------------

This release is a fast bugfix for some gcc versions (or more precisely,
there is a workaround for the B-B bug, see the ChangeLog for details).
The example files were not able to load in version 3.1.1 and msgmerge
was not recognized (this is fixed, however not tested yet).

There are other small but irrelevant fixes (see ChangeLog), too.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.1.1
------------------------------------

This release is a CVS snapshot freeze for those who are using newer
systems. The most important update is a fix for gcc-3.4. There are also

- improvements in French and Spanish translations,
- some more example files (contributed by Zsigmond Kovács),
- some fixes which patch annoying problems.

For other issues please read the ChangeLog file.


RELEASE NOTES FOR XAOS VERSION 3.1
----------------------------------

We would like to release a quality product in all manner. Unfortunately,
such a complex software like XaoS requires many details and it does not
seem to be so easy to put a quality software together.

Well, we did all our best... Here come the latest release binaries
for Linux, Windows and DOS. They should work with the following
restrictions:

1. The Linux version seems to be the most stable one. Almost
   no bugs were encountered testing it the last few weeks.
   SuSE 7.3 and SuSE 8.0 should be good enough to compile
   it. The latest source has been also tested on the Compile
   Farm of SourceForge.net with the next results:
   
   * [x86] Linux 2.4 (Debian 2.2)
     Compiles OK. Seems to be build properly.
     
   * [x86] Linux 2.4 (Red Hat 7.3)
     Compiles OK, runs properly. It is suggested to
     configure it with --with-mitshm=no to avoid immediate
     exit after startup. Runs correctly in an X11 window
     on cf.sf.net.
     
   * [x86] FreeBSD (4.7-STABLE)
     ./configure exits properly, make stops with an error.
     
   * [Alpha] Linux 2.2 (Debian 3.0)
     ./configure exits properly, make stops with an error
     during compiling ui.c.
     
   * [PPC - G4] MacOS X 10.1 SERVER Edition
     Compiles OK, the executable gave MIT/SHM problem
     with "./configure". It should work with --with-mithsm=no,
     but currently I have no access to any Mac OS X
     systems to test this.
     
   * [Sparc - Ultra60] Linux 2.4 (Debian 3.0)
     Compiles OK, seems to be build properly.
     
   * [Sparc - R220] Sun Solaris (8)
     ./configure stops with an error.
     
   * [CerfCube SA 1110] Linux 2.4 (Debian 3.0)
     Compiles OK, seems to be build properly.
     
   * [J2EE] IBM WebSphere
     Compiles OK, runs properly.
     
   I tried to run the executables, mostly I got "Cannot initialize
   driver", except where I wrote "runs propery" above. I'm almost sure
   that those platforms I wrote "seems to be build properly" for, XaoS
   will work without any problems, because there should be only "Can't
   open display"-related configuration errors on cf.sf.net and/or at my
   place.
   
   You can also realize that internationalization (i18n) will only work
   if you install XaoS as the system administrator with "make install".
   Future releases may solve this problem.
   
   Tcl/Tk interface now works, but it is not updated since a rather long
   time. You can run it entering "wish ./xaosmenu.tcl &" in a Unix shell
   in the bin/ directory. This interface is experimental.
   
   Under SVGAlib latin2 fonts will not work for some internationalized
   messages.
   
   For compilation with Aalib, you need version 1.4 which can be
   downloaded from http://aa-project.sf.net.
   
2. Microsoft DOS users will enjoy i18n if their system supports it.
   Unfortunately some systems have to have plain DOS to make i18n
   available. Many Windows systems also support running batch
   files from native Windows, however not all (my Windows NT 4
   does not). DOS users should run xaos-??.bat in the bin\
   directory.
   
   Note that some messages in latin2 fonts will not be displayed
   correctly.
   
   Aalib may not work 100% correctly. It may depend on your DPMI
   settings. You should download the latest csdpmi*.zip package.   
   
   If you want to compile XaoS from scratch, you should download
   the following software:
   
   aalib-1.4rc5.tar.gz, all402.zip, bnu213b.zip, djdev203.zip,
   fil41b.zip, gcc2952b.zip, gtxt040b.zip, licv17b.zip, mak3791.zip,
   png1012b.zip, txi42b.zip, zlib114b.zip.
   
   Aalib must be patched to compile it (I sent a patch to the
   SourceForge Tracker) and libvga and libtext (needed for Aalib) must
   be also installed. Note that libtext will not compile under the
   newest DJGPP, if someone know why DJGPP fails to compile the
   appropriate assembly code, please write to us.
   
3. XaoS has i18n support under Microsoft Windows now. You are not
   suggested changing the drivers many times because XaoS will
   crash.
   
4. Here is a list about recent bugs and problems:
     
   * Fixing Macintosh version (load/save works incorrectly).
   * Checking why Bailout item is duplicated in Windows help.
   * Displaying latin2 fonts correctly.
   * Fixing catalog files (mainly French and Spanish).
   * Filling up i18n for menu files for some languages.
   * Fixing Macintosh version (crash when loading random examples).
   * Fixing Windows version (crash when several times saving files
     and configurations).
   * Fixing generated xaos.dlg for certain languages (e.g. Hungarian).
   * Fixing crashing configure/make for all problematic platforms.
   * Rewriting i18n to be easier to add new menus and others.
   * All other todos announced in TODO file.

That's all. However the problem list is quite long, we hope
you will enjoy XaoS 3.1.

Regards,

Zoltan Kovacs <kovzol@math.u-szeged.hu>
Andreas Madritsch <amadritsch@datacomm.ch>
Jan Hubicka <jh@ucw.cz>

Credits:

Jan Hubicka is the main author of XaoS. He wrote the biggest parts of
this program. In fact, all important thing was done by him.

Andreas Madritsch helped a lot putting together version 3.1. He also
compiled the DOS and Windows executable and made German translations of
menu items available. He added bailout and 3 fractal types into version
3.1. He also fixed i18n to work under Windows correctly.

Zoltan Kovacs wrote this documentation about the recent installation
problems and he was finalizing release 3.1. He added i18n support into
XaoS and cleaned up the code as it was possible.

Many others helped as well. The full list of them can be seen in file
AUTHORS. 
