minisphere 4.3.4

minisphere 4.3.4 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.3. This releases fixes a missing API call and replaces the undocumented Link module with a new, simpler implementation, from.

Changes in This Version

• Adds a new miniRT module, "from", which enables performing queries against
  the contents of objects, arrays, and strings. This replaces the undocumented
  third-party "link" module which was included with previous versions of the
  engine.
• Adds support for ECMAScript 2015 Object.is() and Math.hypot().
• Fixes a bug where Color.of() was undefined and not callable.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.3.4.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.3.4_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.3.4_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.3.3

minisphere 4.3.3 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.3. This releases fixes some Sphere v1-related bugs, adds Object.assign(), and adds a new module, "test" to miniRT.

Changes in This Version

• Adds a new miniRT "test" module based on the CommonJS Unit Testing/1.0
  specification.
• Adds support for ECMAScript 2015 Object.assign().
• Fixes Abort() to exit the game unconditionally, like Sphere 1.x.
• Fixes ExecuteGame() resetting the fullscreen/window state.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.3.3.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.3.3_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.3.3_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.3.2

minisphere 4.3.2 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.3.x. This releases fixes several Dispatch API bugs, improves the Sphere Studio new project template, and adds a new API to cancel all pending Dispatch API jobs.

Changes in This Version

• Adds an API call, Dispatch.cancelAll() to cancel all pending one-time jobs
  (recurring jobs must still be cancelled individually).
• Adds support for ECMAScript 2015 binary (0b1000) and octal (0o1454)
  notation.
• Improves the Sphere Studio project template to show off more features and
  better illustrate how the Sphere v2 API works.
• Improves Dispatch API priority handling. Update jobs are now executed in
  order from highest to lowest priority, rather than the other way around.
• Fixes jobs continuing to run after an uncaught exception.
• Fixes uncaught exceptions within the central frame loop crashing the engine
  instead of displaying the error screen.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.3.2.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.3.2_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.3.2_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.3.1

minisphere 4.3.1 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.3.x. This releases adds a new central frame loop which runs as long as there are active Dispatch API jobs. This will eventually allow minisphere to share code with Oozaru, the browser-based Sphere v2 implementation under development.

Changes in This Version

• Improves Sphere v2 behavior: minisphere will now run a frame loop until there
  are no more Dispatch API jobs active before exiting.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.3.1.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.3.1_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.3.1_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.3.0

minisphere 4.3.0 is the third minor update in the minisphere 4.x release series, introducing the new Dispatch API, native support for promises, frame-perfect timing, and more. It is a fairly large update with several breaking changes, atypical for minor releases.

Breaking Changes

• The entire engine now uses frame-perfect timing. API calls which previously
  dealt in seconds, such as system.now() and system.sleep(), now use
  frames. system.sleep() behavior has changed radically as a result - refer
  to the documentation for more information.
• The new Dispatch API allows functions to be called asynchronously from the
  event loop. Calls may either be performed on the next tick, on a
  frame-perfect time delay, or once per frame. Refer to the included Sphere v2
  API reference for more information.
• miniRT "struct" now provides Reader and Writer objects which work for
  both files and sockets. Refer to the included miniRT API reference for more
  information.
• screen.frameRate will no longer accept 0 as a valid value. To disable
  the frame limiter, the frame rate must now be set to Infinity.
• The fs object has been renamed to FS to match other namespace-like
  objects. There's little reason for it to be treated as a concrete object
  representing the file system, and doing so limits future extensibility.
• The mouse and keyboard global variables have been removed and are now
  exposed as Mouse.Default and Keyboard.Default, respectively. This was
  done to allow support for multiple keyboards and mice to be implemented in
  a future version without a breaking API change.
• The ShapeGroup constructor is now called Model to better reflect its
  purpose. Other than the name change, the API remains unchanged from previous
  versions of the engine.
• The mostly redundant and non-standard SSJ functions have been removed from
  the API. Going forward, the "assert" module should be used for assertions,
  and SSJ.trace() can be replaced with console.trace() with no loss of
  functionality.
• Promises are now supported natively through a polyfill. miniRT "pact" may
  still be useful to manage promises, but this allows them to be used without
  a pact if that's desired.
• File-based objects such as Image and Sound now expose a .fileName
  property which allows access to the canonicalized SphereFS filename used to
  construct the object. This may be useful in certain encapsulation scenarios.
• miniRT "threads" now takes advantage of the Dispatch API and no longer
  interferes with Sphere v1 update and render scripts. This should help with
  migration.

Changes in This Version

• Adds a new Dispatch API for setting up asynchronous jobs. Jobs are called
  from the event loop; for example, Dispatch.onUpdate() is processed at the
  start of every frame.
• Adds support for the JavaScript Reflect API.
• Adds native support for JavaScript Promises via a polyfill.
• Adds struct.Reader and struct.Writer which allow games to read and write
  binary data from files and network sockets.
• Adds a .fileName property to objects such as Image and Sound, which returns
  the canonicalized name of the file the object was loaded from.
• Adds assert() as an alias for assert.ok(), like in Node.js.
• Renames the fs global object to FS to match other namespace-like objects.
• Renames mouse to Mouse.Default to allow future support for multiple mice.
• Renames keyboard to Keyboard.Default to allow future support for multiple
  keyboards.
• Renames ShapeGroup to Model, better describing the object's purpose.
• Removes the superfluous SSJ functions from the API.
• Fixes several bugs discovered since minisphere 4.2.4 was released.
• Updates the Sphere v2 API to use frame-perfect timing throughout. For
  example, system.now() returns the number of frames processed since engine
  start.
• Improves Sphere 1.x compatibility. Many games which historically didn't run
  properly in minisphere, including Kefka's Revenge and Trial and Error, should
  now be fully playable.
• Updates error messages to be more concise, making it clearer what went wrong
  at a quick glance.
• miniRT no longer commandeers the legacy update and render scripts for itself.
• When debugging with Sphere Studio, the gold "ssj" watermark in the bottom
  right is changed to blue to more easily distinguish interactive debugging
  sessions from command-line sessions.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.3.0.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.3.0_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.3.0_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.2.4

minisphere 4.2.4 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.2. This update fixes an internal UTF-8 string validation bug and adds support for streaming in TextDecoder.

Changes in This Version

• Adds streaming support for TextDecoder.
• system.abort() now aborts unconditionally, as described in the API
  documentation.
• Fixes a bug in the UTF-8 validation logic that caused Unicode strings to be
  double-encoded, leading to undesirable side effects and in rare cases, a
  crash.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.2.4.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.2.4_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.2.4_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.2.3

minisphere 4.2.3 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.2. This update adds support for the JavaScript ** exponentiation operator and improves the Encoding API (TextEncoder/TextDecoder) implementation.

Changes in This Version

• Adds support for the new JavaScript exponentiation operator (e.g.
  x ** 2), allowing powers to be calculated without the performance
  impact of a Math.pow() call.
• term.log() is renamed to term.print().
• Updates the Encoding API implementation to more closely follow the
  algorithms described in the WHATWG standard.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.2.3.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.2.3_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.2.3_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.2.2

minisphere 4.2.2 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.2. This update is a patch to fix the struct and logger modules, which had stopped working properly as a result of the changes to the FileStream API in minisphere 4.2.0.

Changes in This Version

• Adds a new property, term.visible to the term module and removes the
  .show() and .hide() methods.
• Fixes the struct and logger modules, which were unintentionally broken by
  the changes in 4.2.0.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.2.2.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.2.2_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.2.2_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.2.1

minisphere 4.2.1 is a maintenance release for minisphere 4.2. In line with the experimental nature of the Sphere v2 API, this update includes a breaking changes with the goal of making the API easier to understand and use.

Changes in This Version

• The ssj global is now called SSJ, to align with usual JavaScript naming
  conventions for namespace-like objects.
• The terminal standard library module is now called term.
• Passing an invalid argument to a miniRT random module function will now
  result in a hard AssertionError, rather than just a debugger trap.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.2.1.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.2.1_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.2.1_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

minisphere 4.2.0

minisphere 4.2.0 is the second minor release in the minisphere 4.x release series, introducing a new joystick API for Sphere v2, an accompanying joy module, and TextEncoder and TextDecoder support.

Breaking Changes

• minisphere now includes support for the Encoding API (TextEncoder and
  TextDecoder objects). However, only UTF-8 is currently supported. Future
  versions of minisphere will support more encodings.
• The Sphere v2 subsystem now natively supports joystick input. Games using
  the Sphere 1.x joystick functions will continue to work as before; however,
  the new joystick API is much more flexible and should be preferred when
  writing new code.
• kb is now called keyboard. This should make keyboard input code clearer,
  but any existing Sphere v2 code will need to be updated.

Changes in This Version

• Adds native joystick support to the Sphere v2 API. Previously, using a
  joystick or gamepad required calling Sphere v1 legacy functions.
• Adds a new module to miniRT, joy. This provides a simplified joystick
  interface for games that don't need the full flexibility of the Sphere v2
  Joystick API.
• Adds W3C Encoding support (TextEncoder and TextDecoder objects) to the
  Sphere v2 API. This allows reading and writing text from ArrayBuffer views.
• Simplifies the FileStream API. All methods for reading and writing typed
  values from files have been removed, leaving only read() and write()
  which deal with ArrayBuffers directly.
• The kb built-in object is now called keyboard, making keyboard input code
  significantly easier to read at the cost of some extra verbosity.
• Fixes a long-standing map engine bug where the input person(s) can't be moved
  with the joystick.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-4.2.0.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

• https://launchpad.net/~fatcerberus/+archive/ubuntu/minisphere

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install minisphere

You only need to do this once. The system will automatically notify you of future minisphere updates.

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_4.2.0_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_4.2.0_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.