Allegro 5.2.3 Released

The Allegro framework just released version 5.2.3.  Allegro is a C based media/game framework, very similar in scope to SDL or SFML.  Allegro holds a special place in my heart as it was one of the first open source game libraries I ever encountered and it was one of the most accessible C/C++ libraries I had encountered.  To get an idea of how long Allegro has been around, the original meaning was Atari Low LEvel Game ROutines.  Yes, Atari, but not the VCS, Allegro started life on the 16bit Atari ST in the 90s.  Now it is an open source and team effort available here.

Details of the 5.2.3 release:

Changes from 5.2.2 to 5.2.3 (October 2017)

The main developers this time were: Elias Pschernig, SiegeLord, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak, Vitaliy V. Tokarev, Simon Naarmann, Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro, Trent Gamblin).

Core:

  • Add al_path_ustr (Bruce Pascoe).

  • Handle NULL sections more gracefully with the config API.

  • Add missing glStencilMaskSeparate prototype (Aaron Bolyard).

  • Add al_clear_keyboard_state.

  • Don’t add blank lines before config sections when writing them out.

  • Fix fs_stdio_read_directory appending an extra slash.

  • Fix al_set_window_constraints when the flag ALLEGRO_MAXIMIZED is set.

  • Fix al_set_clipping_rectangle when out-of-bounds (Bruce Pascoe).

  • Enable blocked locking of S3TC formats unconditionally.

Raspberry Pi port:

  • Set default file interface when attempting to read /boot/config.txt.

Android port:

  • Replace the old build system that used deprecated tools with a new Gradle-based system.

  • Work around crashes on some Androids when an FBO is bound during egl_SwapBuffers.

  • Fix LocalRef leak when opening files using APK interface.

  • Remove -Wno-psabi switches from Toolchain-android.cmake.

Linux port:

  • Make three finger salute and LED toggle configurable.

  • Fix KEY_CHAR events under X11 with compose key enabled.

  • Fix clearing the ALLEGRO_MAXIMIZED flag under X11.

  • Add al_x_set_initial_icon.

  • Free wm_hints in set_initial_icon.

  • Read Allegro system config from ~/.allegro5rc on Unix.

Windows port:

  • Make bitmap contents persist again after device loss.

  • Add large file support for MSVC.

  • Only test cooperative lavel if device is known to be lost.

  • Don’t leak the D3DEffect when attaching multiple sources.

  • Fix al_get_monitor_info (Tobias Scheuer).

OSX port:

  • Various fixes for OSX 10.6.

  • Fix some Bluetooth mice on OS X (Tom Bass).

  • Fixed deprecation warning when starting OSX console app (Tom Bass).

  • Fix OSX magic main with the LTO switch (Evert Glebbeek).

Audio addon:

  • Allow setting the buffer size for ALSA.

  • Don’t apply gain twice for sample instances and streams when pan is not ALLEGRO_PAN_NONE.

  • Disallow attaching mixers with different channel configurations.

  • Add al_set_sample_instance_channel_matrix and al_set_audio_stream_channel_matrix.

  • Don’t free the extra pointer in DirectSound if voice fails to play for some reason.

  • Add al_lock_sample_id and al_unlock_sample_id.

  • For OpenAL, detach from buffers before deleting.

  • Return true when seeking mod audio streams.

Acodec addon:

  • Free audio stream buffer in flac_stream_close.

  • Add DUMB 2.0 support.

Color addon:

  • Add XYZ, xyY, Lab and LCH color spaces.

  • Remove “purwablue” named color, add “rebeccablue”.

Native dialog addon:

  • Improve save dialogs under GTK driver.

  • Improved path behavior in GTK native file dialog ([bk]door.maus).

  • Enable ALLEGRO_FILECHOOSER_FOLDER On Linux (Todd Cope).

  • Use unique ids to identify menu items internally, fixing their event sources.

  • Make the native message box return 2 on Windows when cancel is pressed.

Image addon:

  • Set compression level to Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION in png saver by default.

  • Make PNG, JPEG compression level configurable.

  • Make PNG gamma value configurable.

  • Add WebP support with libwebp.

Video addon:

  • Allow calling al_init_video_addon after al_shutdown_video_addon was called.

Build system:

  • Detect and link optional FreeType dependencies.

  • Add a CMake option to prefer static dependencies.

  • Fix SDL platform build.

Python binding:

  • Fix some corrupted regexps in the generation script (verderten).

Documentation:

  • Lots of improvements as usual (Edgar Reynaldo, Mark Oates, twobit).

Examples:

  • Fix various issues with ex_curl.

  • Fix memory leak in ex_audio_simple (Rm Beer).

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