Release 2.29.5.2

[gnome.seed] / NEWS

== Seed 2.29.5.2, "Third Stage" (2009.01.07) ==

* Move tests to automake-style 'make check', away from the previous,
  Python-based 'make test' tool; all tests are now assertion-based, instead of
  the previous output-based style

* Fix various segfaults on Mac OS X (and possibly *BSD) related to 64-bit type
  safety problems

* Fix functionality of out arguments

* Interpreter now returns non-zero status code if it exits with an exception

== Seed 2.29.5.1, "Achtung Baby" (2009.01.01) ==

* Fix "duplicate symbol" errors on non-Linux platforms

== Seed 2.29.5, "Icky Thump" (2009.01.01) ==

* Fix build on non-GNU platforms (primarily Mac OS X)

* Distribute the REPL snippet with Seed again; the built-in REPL will work now

* Fix segfault when accidentally protecting already-garbage-collected values

* Fix segfault when accidentally unreffing nonexistant GIBaseInfos

== Seed 2.29.4, "( )" (2009.12.17) ==

* Improve type conversion portability; add seed_value_(to|from)_(s)size
  functions.

* Small random cleanup of unused arguments.

== Seed 2.29.3 (2009.11.30) ==

No changes.

== Seed 2.29.2, "Never Mind the Bollocks" (2009.11.16) ==

* Change semantics of seed_value_from_string and _from_filename; they 
  now return JavaScript null if passed a null input value.

* Seed interpreter adds --version argument

* libseed adds --seed-version argument

* Clutter extension wrapper for animate_with_alpha

== Seed 2.28.0, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
   from Mars" (2009.09.21) ==

* First official stable release!

== Seed 2.27.92, "Metal Machine Music" (2009.09.07) ==

* Fix a bug in module building; modules are now versionless

* The instanceof operator now works for GTypes

* Add global support for G_TYPE_STRV

== Seed 2.27.91, "Yellow Submarine" (2009.08.21) ==

* Added seed_context_collect, to provide an interface for forcing
  garbage collection manually

== Seed 2.27.90, "London Calling" (2009.08.10) ==

* Expanded and updated documentation; also available at:
           http://library.gnome.org/devel/seed/unstable/

* All JavaScript contexts now have a __script_path__ property, which
  exposes the absolute, canonical path to the evaluated script

* Add __init__.js functionality; if an imported folder contains __init__.js,
  it will be evaluated with the imported context as the 'this' object

* Fix bug which caused inheritance from a GType created in Seed to fail

* Add "pretty" property installation, see:
           tests/javascript/gtypes/gtype-property-nice.js

* New FFI module, provides an interface for calling non-introspected
  native C functions from JavaScript

== Seed 0.8.5, "Self Portrait" (2009.07.10) ==

* Significant reorganization and expansion of the reference documentation

* New native modules:
        * gettext
        * MPFR (partially complete)

* Same Seed has moved to the gsoc-seed-games branch of Gnome Games
  (and will eventually move to master)

* Add seed-module.h, which includes a handful of macros to make writing modules
  slightly more attractive. Look at gettext or the reference docs for examples.

* Prefix native modules with seed_ (libseed_readline.so, etc.); this fixes the
  need to incessantly 'make clean' seed and cuts down on ambiguity in naming.

* Add 'seed_value_is_string', 'seed_value_is_number', and
  'seed_value_is_object_of_class' to libseed

* Update examples to latest (now frozen) Clutter API changes.

* Fixes a bug with the importer search path which resulted in the search path
  being overwritten each time something was imported
 
* The importer now also searches the directory in which the script being
  executed is located by default.

== Seed 0.8, "Bringing It All Back Home" (2009.05.27) ==

* Importer now supports constructing directory objects, to avoid manipulation
  of search path. Importer directory objects now support property enumeration.

* Fix small leak in GObject wrapper initialization. (and also simplify
  the process).

* GtkBuilder module to handle GtkBuilder automatic signal connection.

* *_init methods now take normal arrays (by value) in addition to the special
  Seed.argv array.

* GObject constructors (init methods) now take "self" as a parameter.

* Passing non gobject-properties to a GObject constructor will set the
  properties on the GObject wrapper.
  
* Module documentation rewritten in docbook, and builds one nice manual.

* New Cairo module, supports most of the cairo API, with automatic memory
  management and everything you would expect.

* Fix a reference count leak introduced in the last few releases.
  in some cases with non INITIALLY_UNOWNED objects.

* Some work on ClutterPad examples, and writing examples which live inside of it
  (lots of fun to play with!, cairo example...fun spring example...ClutterBox2D)

* Working around a WebKit bug (which is actually fixed in SVN now), should
  prevent a crash that happened sometimes with C modules.

* Clutter animatev wrapper looks up property type wrapper now, so as to avoid
  having to pass [GObject.TYPE_FOO, bar]

* Implement some varargs functions which can be implemented on top of non-vararg
  variants in JavaScript extensions.

* JSON stuff (stringify,parse) is now in gnome-js-common.

* Add seed_value_to_format to API, for converting an Array of SeedValue based
  on a format string.
  
* Install seed-debug.h so modules can make use of it.

* Search path now works in nonstandard prefix, default search path includes
  gnome-js-common moduledir (from pkgconfig).
  
* Support to/from Date objects to time_t.

== Seed 0.7, "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (2009.05.13) ==

* Support for library init methods.

* The REPL now supports multi-line entry.

* Signal disconnection.

* Significant Gtk-Doc reorganization.

* New C modules:
        * sandbox - provides sandboxed JavaScriptCore contexts.
        * DBus - Client side DBus bindings.
        * libxml - XML parsing, XPath, etc.

* Examples:
        * New: ClutterPad (initially by Johan Euphrosine).
        * New: dbus-banshee, dbus-consolekit, dbus-networkmanager
        * New: xml-dom.js xml-tree.js, xml-xpath.js.
        * Pango examples have returned.
        * Same Seed performance is increased significantly.
        * Many examples now use "recent" style; some were completely rewritten
        
* Improvements to test system, and quite a few more tests.

* Improvements to error checking/handling in signal code.

* Reorganization of API related to GClosure handling, much cleaner and easier.

* Several new API methods.

* GC related crash fixes.

* Improvements to seed_value_to_string (mostly formatting improvements).

* Void methods now properly return undefined instead of null.

* seed_make_exception takes format strings now.

== Seed 0.6, "Beatles for Sale" (2009.04.29) ==

* Significant build fixes and cleanups. Should build on more distros
  with weird libffis now.

* Depend on GObject-introspection from GIT.

* Some API additions.

* Reimplement Seed.import_namespace in terms of the new imports system,
  will be entirely deprecated for 0.6.

* Improve memory management in signals and closures.

* Rewrite the GType subclassing to avoid using FFI, 
  saves memory and improves performance.

* GType "init" now means "constructor" and not "instance init".

* Signal installation, is now handled by an array on the type definition
  rather than in class_init (which was clunky and C-like).

* Lots of new documentation, including a documentation index, a description
  of the mapping from C to JavaScript, an example index, and updates to
  the rest of the documentation.

* Significant cleanup of all of the examples, a lot of them had bit
  rotted a bit, being written months ago.
 
== Seed 0.5, "Transformer" (2009.04.16) ==

* Many, many crash fixes.

* Significantly better base memory usage (on the order of MB) for some apps.

* Enums use Gtk.WindowType.NORMAL instead of Gtk.WindowType.Normal.
  This may break existing code in subtle ways (as Gtk.WindowType.Normal
  will now be JavaScript null).

* instance_init is now just init when creating new GTypes. This will require 
  changes in any code using subclassing.

* Enum types are validated when passed in to functions now.

* Complete rewrite of import system, spanning GObject Introspection namespaces, 
  native modules, and JavaScript files, which is compatible with Gjs.

* Along with above, deprecate Seed.import_namespace.

* New 'os' module, similar to that of Python. Provides access to a significant
  quantity of low-level system features unavailable from GLib.

* Significant updates to Canvas module - most features are compatible with the
  Mozilla/WebKit implementations at this point.

* Clutter 0.9 animation API wrappers.

* Add seed_repl_expose; gives the ability to drop to a JavaScript REPL from
  within C, and magically expose JSValueRefs to JS in a simple way.

* Seed.readline history persists between sessions (stored in ~/.seed_history)

* Support for several more array types.

* Added Seed.breakpoint(), which inserts a breakpoint instruction.

* API additions: Lots of API additions. Including a significant amount 
of API documentation.

* New examples:
    * opengl-glib examples (teapot, gears, triangle)
    * Gtk Twitter client (from the Ars Technica article)
    * Same Seed (Clutter 0.9 rewrite of Same Gnome)
    * Clutter-COGL example
    * Reddit client (Gio and JSON)
    * Library of Clutter "slide transitions"
    * Rewrote clutter example for 0.9

* The Lights Off example now lives in Gnome Games.

== Seed 0.3, "Wednesday Morning 3AM" (2008.12.31) ==

* Lots of memory changes. Memory usage isn't bad anymore, 
  reference counting actually works (no big leaks or anything anymore
  ...there are still a few very small ones you can trigger). 
  Memory usage of most of the examples after they've loaded,
  has about halved (or more in cases like the browser) since 0.1, 
  and now compares very favorably to other
  dynamic languages. Lots of g_slice_alloc, which comes off
  quite nicely when creating bunches of small structs like ClutterColor.

* Innumerable bug fixes.

* Structs work now! Things like GdkRectangle: you can allocate them,
  get at their members, etc.
    * Including struct "literals, i.e." stage.set_color({red: 255, alpha: 220}).

* GObject subclassing, which was rushed in to a 0.1 point release,
  is reliable now! signal installation too.

* Multiple context support, rather than the silly global context.

* Support for string array argument conversion.

* C extension Modules
    * readline
    * Multiprocessing -- Simple IPC pipes. Just an example, really.
    * sqlite
    * canvas -- A little, toy, mostly functional but incomplete HTML Canvas
                implementation. May be useful until we have cairo bindings.
                Supports SVG/PDF output.

* Signals use userdata now. The 'this' argument was removed,
  as it really just lead to organizational issues.

* object.signal.connect is defined for connecting by strings
  (allows for connecting to detailed signals, like property notifications)

* 'out' arguments of methods work, granted in a rather poor fashion,
  not sure of the best way to do this yet.

* Enums use Gtk.WindowType.Normal instead of Gtk.WindowType.normal,
  may break existing code in subtle ways (as Gtk.WindowType.normal
  will now be JavaScript null).

* Licensing update - libseed is LGPL. The trivial examples are BSD,
  the more complete ones are GPL.

* Lots of leaks fixed, and also some reference bugs that lead to crashing.

* External API is pretty usable now.

* External API example (Turtle Graphics)

* Threading sort of works now. It's rather unpredictable,
  but async callbacks and stuff are fine.

* Many more Seed examples. Ranging from Gnio Server, to threading. The
  browser example is pretty neat now, and has sqlite bookmarks, WebInspector,
  and a few other tidbits. lightsoff and browser are the two highlight examples
  to play with.

* Skeleton GTK-Doc for API 

* New builtins: Seed.spawn, Seed.repl/glib_repl/thread_repl.
  Kind of useful for debugging. 

* Removed builtins: Seed.prototype: Now use Gtk.Window.prototype 
                    Seed.closure, Automatically handled now.
                    Seed.closure_native, automagic.
                    Seed.readline, moved in to module.