evolvotron

This is a release entirely for the convenience of downstream builders of the sources.

The two files (libevolvotron/usage_text.h and evolvotron.html) which were previously built
from the USAGE file by a Python script are now under source control and included in the
sources tarball,
simplifying the build process.

There is no new application functionality.

This release fixes some issues with file save/load in 0.6.0. In particular, it allows saved functions to be loaded again (alternatively, a workaround in 0.6.0 is to edit the second line of saved XML and replace version=0.6.0 with version="0.6.0"). This update is recommended to anyone making anything other than casual use of evolvotron.

This version now builds against Qt4. It also includes significant changes to keyboard shortcuts. The heat/cool/shield/irradiate buttons in the main window have been replaced by an (optional) "autocool" system which gradually reduces the mutation rates.

The little-used heat/cool/irradiate/shield buttons
have been replaced by an optional steady
progressive "autocooling" mechanism. Middle-mouse
adjustments no longer flicker. Antialiased
rendering is supported by optional multisampling
and sample jittering. Enlargement images will now
use multiple threads, and their command-line
options provide more control over threading.
However, there are no new functions in this
release, so the range of images possible is the
same as with 0.5.0.

Mainly a development release focusing on memory management (now makes extensive use of Boost smart pointers), cleaning up threading code, using precompiled headers, and replacing the messy static-initialized function meta-information with something less troublesome. There are several minor end-user visible improvements. For example, the default number of compute threads is now set to the number of processors found, colours tend to stay in a sensible range instead of saturating, the application icon is derived from the last spawned image, and there are a few new functions.