CHANGES - v0.2.b6, 05-JAN-2009

fix: general bug fixes
imp: improved functionality
new: newly added functionality
wip: (incomplete) work in progress
doc: documentation changes
inf: informational only

v0.2.b6, 05-JAN-2009:

* fix: startup crash on the creation of the template configuration map under certain circumstances (see tracker #2201714)
* fix: worked around a minor Phonon issue with duplicate metaDataChanged() signals
* imp: SDLMAME options template updated to 0.128u7 (corrected default value for audio_latency, revised several option descriptions, removed remapjoys and remapjoyfile, added new options joy_idx1 - joy_idx8)
* imp: updated template format to include the template´s emulator name (new format version 0.2.1)
* imp: ROMAlyzer: determine ROM file CRC identification troubles in ZIPs, log warnings and set the file status to bad in such a case (in contrast to not found as before)
* imp: code cleanup: changed several macro definitions to be consistent within QMC2´s namespace
* imp: build: added new make options DISTCC, DISTCC_CC & DISTCC_CXX (uses a distributed compiler such as distcc or icecc if DISTCC is set to 1 - check/set DISTCC_CC / DISTCC_CXX if enabled!)
* imp: slightly improved welcome dialog (logo, button icons and layout)
* imp: build: preserve existing system-wide configuration (usually /etc/qmc2/qmc2.ini) on make install
* imp: build: avoid overwriting the Makefile when qmake is accidently called standalone (the project file now sets QMAKE_MAKEFILE to Makefile.qmake)
* imp: build: allow pretty compile output (doesn´t work for RCC yet due to a qmake bug) - enabled per default, use make PRETTY=0 to disable
* imp: build: splitted CCACHECMD into CCACHE_CC & CCACHE_CXX
* imp: build: use the same qmc2.pro project file for both debug and release builds (adding CONFIG settings dynamically on qmake call)
* imp: ROMAlyzer: log more CHD v3 header information (CHD tag, writable flag and parent´s MD5/SHA1 checksums, if applicable)
* imp: ROMAlyzer: if romof is set in a game´s XML data, but the file to merge is missing from this data (= merge attribute is empty), recursively search for the name of the current game´s ROM file instead - MAME does exactly this in these rare cases (example: sfiiin)
* imp: ROMAlyzer: produce better status and log information on CHDs that were not found
* imp: allow higher values for gamelist responsiveness - setting this value higher than the total number of games will usually allow for less than 2 seconds of gamelist processing (at the expense of a more or less unresponsive GUI during reload, of course)
* imp: updated XML game info parser to support all current game/machine settings from MAME/MESS
* imp: many [Frontend] settings moved to [MAME] and [MESS] sections (automatically converted if the previous version is less than 0.2.b6)
* imp: code cleanup: make class and variable names emulator independent (i.e. use EmulatorOptions instead of MameOptions)
* new: added new SDLMESS options template (see data/opt/SDLMESS/template.xml, initial version 0.128)
* new: experimental support for SDLMESS (status: very basic and no device support yet)
* new: added plugin helper sample script for emulator startup interception (see scripts/plugin_helper.sh)
* new: all UI files regenerated with Qt 4.4´s designer - Qt 4.4.0+ promoted as the new required version, although you may still be able to build it using Qt 4.3 in the short term - Qt 4.3 is no longer supported!
* new: added tab icons for all main widget functions
* new: ROM status export tool with support for ASCII, CSV and HTML output formats - can output to file or clipboard
* doc: added Q2.10 to FAQ
* doc: added Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) as an officially tested distribution to the FAQ (see Q1.7.1)
* doc: added Fedora release 10 as an officially tested distribution to the FAQ (see Q1.7.3)
* doc: added openSUSE 11.1 as an officially tested distribution to the FAQ (see Q1.7.2)