Beta 1 is out for 2.1; this build is essentially what has been available for the past couple weeks, with a couple extra popups added in EPIC that proved to be useful.
The switch to beta is pretty much due to the same reasons that I switched 1.1 alphas into betas, in that any of the changes I want to make have far too much potential for breaking things already running fine, and I want to release a stable version with a solid number before I go in an tinker in major things.
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The next revision will be either 2.2 or 3.0, and the following are amongst my list of things that may or may not be in it:
- A revamped Data Access Object (DAO) system. The system implemented today is based off of an extension of the original ideas for handling data, which was easy due to the only thing being needed was pairings. Now, each of these classes have seven of these "get something" classes, and it is becoming unwieldy and heavily redundant. If you think of the 1.1-2.0 change as being rewiring the internals of the program, 2.1-2.2 is rewiring the external connectors.
- Reworked window management. The restrictions added in 2.0 and 2.1 to windows have some benefits, but some feature requests have been directly in conflict with these, and there have been occasions brought up where the need for multiple timers and multiple pairings windows have become apparent. I'm currently looking at designing a system that will still give many the cool tricks of the current setup, while allowing for unrestricted windowing. (and yes, there's a setup I have in mind that makes EPIC work fine with this)
- Full program settings window. Recently, I've been holding back on the occasional addition due to the need to have a popup menu brought up, asking some random question. ("Send timer to EPIC", "Mask tiebreakers to EPIC", "Print Slips with Character Strip") The need is becoming easily apparent for a full programs settings menu, and I plan on turning the current tournament settings menu option into a tabbed window, adding all sorts of program settings in there.
- Advanced Pairings. This I'll actually probably be building a pre-alpha build for that "fakes" the functionality, as there is immediate need for this at one location that uses this program. This is just a way to bring up a pairings window with name ranges, so you can have one window with A-M pairings and another with N-Z.
Now, for me this is a different kind of change than the 1.1-2.0 changes, as I don't feel I'll be writing a ton more code initially; instead, it's just a lot of new creations and moving already-written code to new areas. Also, since most of these changes are pretty insulated against the rest of the program, I can really just work on one part at a time. One downside of this is that, unlike alphas for 1.0-2.1, the builds won't necessarily be getting progressively more stable as time goes on.
Update 10/14/10: I didn't change the version of the release, but I put in some quick updates to EPIC. The system now uses GET rather than POST in the form, which just means that the contents of the DCI field goes in the URL, making that page bookmark-able. I also removed some upload stuff that I don't have a quick way of implementing, but had as part of the page.
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