Note:
Because of significant changes to the default configuration, please replace any existing copies of garglk.ini with the distributed one before applying your customizations.
Library changes
Runs on Mac
Graphical launcher on Linux
Loads fonts from underlying OS
Faster image loading and text rendering
Dynamic, expanding scroll buffer
Mouse and trackpad scroll support
Assorted bug fixes
Interpreter changes
Frotz now supports Unicode, Z-Machine Standard 1.1
Updated Agility, Git, Glulxe, and JACL to latest version
Various 64-bit fixes
Most of these changes have already appeared in unofficial, preview builds distributed upon request to testers, so I feel pretty good about the overall build quality. Still, please don’t hesitate to test the release candidate and drag it through its paces. I’d like to get the final files out by October 1st, and I’m especially interested in bug reports from Comp authors.
Thanks for putting these up! Not knowing how to build from source, I’ve been watching your updates to the bugtracking page forlornly for a while now.
I’ve only just started to play around, but the Mac version is sweet. It’s much faster at text-printing than the last build you released, and the scrolling seems to work nicely. I’ll try to spend some time with it this weekend and report back.
The new build is awesome as far as I’m concerned! I love the fact that it comes with Linux Libertine set up by default – that font looks great and has good Unicode support, which my game needs.
Performance was great before; it’s even better now. I was able to fly through my WIP, which is pretty darn big. I had taken out all the indexed text that was causing the lockups before, and unfortunately I don’t have the old code that triggered the problem, so I’m not able to test that. But my WIP does a reasonable amount of low-level Glk calls, opens a secondary window, etc. and it all worked flawlessly.
No bugs as far as I could see in a full run through my walkthrough, plus some save/restore testing that tripped me up in previous builds.
Congratulations on further improving a great interpreter!
Is anyone going to be maintaining Linux builds? (Maybe only when the release goes final, to save effort?) I don’t mind compiling Gargoyle myself, but it’s easier to just install a .deb file. I know Gargoyle is available in the Ubuntu repositories now, but it’s not a full version of Gargoyle; it’s missing a couple of interpreters that aren’t free-software licensed.
Not sure why it would be faster now than in the last build you saw, but I’m happy to hear it.
The lower-right corner resize widget has been the bane of my existence for these last few months. I’ve spent hours trying to coax it back from its hiding place. Alas, no luck yet.
All of the Git improvements are thanks to David Kinder’s work, and I’m certainly in his debt for those.
On the Glk side, the Mac port turned out to be a big win for performance, since it let me use Shark with its awesome profiling abilities. The performance boost does mean a larger memory footprint, though this should be acceptable on modern systems.
I believe Eric Forgeot will provide a .deb again on the project site, and I expect a GPL version will find its way into Debian quickly. I need to reach out to the Alan and Hugo folks to see if they’re willing to approve a compatible license. Neither was allergic to the idea last time; they just wanted some time to consider. I am not a license zealot but I would really like to see this happen, if only so there’s more consistency between the various Gargoyle packages.
For that matter, I have some hope that the Linux enhancements, notably the GUI launcher, will lead to a package that offers the same convenience features that the Windows and Mac builds enjoy: a menu icon and the ability to launch game files by double-clicking them. That would bring all three platforms to feature parity, which was my major goal for this release.
