2011-03-20, 14:17
It's been too long, but reFocus 0.9 is finally here.
This is the biggest reFocus release since the first public release. A lot of effort went into this in order to make this a true milestone release.
Originally this release was mainly going to be about introducing PVR support. Along the way though I decided to take more time to get more changes and fixes in this release so it wouldn't solely benefit users that use or want to use the PVR.
The PVR support, like XBMC's PVR functionality in itself, is to be considered experimental. Even though my experiences with the PVR have been quite good, it is not yet in XBMC's main branch and not all planned features are implemented or ready for primetime. Over time I will do my best to keep up with XBMC development in that area.
Other changes in this release include a much improved presentation of add-on content, cleaned up OSD controls, big list view for movies and tv shows, content-aware video playlists and redesigned OSD info.
Furthermore, the issues with scrollbars should really be resolved now, as should the problem with the viewtype reverting to list when displaying add-ons.
There have also been many optimizations to animations and textures, resulting in a smaller memory footprint, smaller total filesize and overall speed increase.
These are just a couple of highlights though, please see the changelog for a (still incomplete) changelog.
Unless some really nasty bugs pop up, I will probably consider reFocus 0.9 to be Dharma's pseudo-stable release and shift development focus to XBMC Eden. Some big skin related changes for XBMC are on the horizon, and I will focus on the skin playing nice with XBMC's nightly Eden releases.
I will also be setting up a reFocus repository allowing you to update reFocus from within XBMC. How the release planning is going to work out I have not yet decided on.
Because of the many changes I would advice on uninstalling your old reFocus installation. It might not be necessary, but maybe it's best to be sure. Because there have been many changes internally regarding skin settings your current preferences will be lost upon installing reFocus 0.9 and you will have to reconfigure the skin settings to your liking. Sorry about that, but I really needed to clean up the code in that area and bring some structure in that area.
Finally, some known issues for this build:
- sometimes accessing the leftside menu in the PVR the menu doesn't move into the screen completely. When that happens press right and re-enter the menu by pressing left again, and it will appear properly. Still investigating that issue.
- For some reason the transition animation when exiting a screen started to act funky for me recently. Don't know if this happens on every system. Also investigating that one.
- Dutch translation is unfinished
- On XBMC 10.1, recentlyadded script is not working properly for me. Working fine on nightly build. This may be a matter of db conflicts though.
Download
Changelog and more details
This is the biggest reFocus release since the first public release. A lot of effort went into this in order to make this a true milestone release.
Originally this release was mainly going to be about introducing PVR support. Along the way though I decided to take more time to get more changes and fixes in this release so it wouldn't solely benefit users that use or want to use the PVR.
The PVR support, like XBMC's PVR functionality in itself, is to be considered experimental. Even though my experiences with the PVR have been quite good, it is not yet in XBMC's main branch and not all planned features are implemented or ready for primetime. Over time I will do my best to keep up with XBMC development in that area.
Other changes in this release include a much improved presentation of add-on content, cleaned up OSD controls, big list view for movies and tv shows, content-aware video playlists and redesigned OSD info.
Furthermore, the issues with scrollbars should really be resolved now, as should the problem with the viewtype reverting to list when displaying add-ons.
There have also been many optimizations to animations and textures, resulting in a smaller memory footprint, smaller total filesize and overall speed increase.
These are just a couple of highlights though, please see the changelog for a (still incomplete) changelog.
Unless some really nasty bugs pop up, I will probably consider reFocus 0.9 to be Dharma's pseudo-stable release and shift development focus to XBMC Eden. Some big skin related changes for XBMC are on the horizon, and I will focus on the skin playing nice with XBMC's nightly Eden releases.
I will also be setting up a reFocus repository allowing you to update reFocus from within XBMC. How the release planning is going to work out I have not yet decided on.
Because of the many changes I would advice on uninstalling your old reFocus installation. It might not be necessary, but maybe it's best to be sure. Because there have been many changes internally regarding skin settings your current preferences will be lost upon installing reFocus 0.9 and you will have to reconfigure the skin settings to your liking. Sorry about that, but I really needed to clean up the code in that area and bring some structure in that area.
Finally, some known issues for this build:
- sometimes accessing the leftside menu in the PVR the menu doesn't move into the screen completely. When that happens press right and re-enter the menu by pressing left again, and it will appear properly. Still investigating that issue.
- For some reason the transition animation when exiting a screen started to act funky for me recently. Don't know if this happens on every system. Also investigating that one.
- Dutch translation is unfinished
- On XBMC 10.1, recentlyadded script is not working properly for me. Working fine on nightly build. This may be a matter of db conflicts though.
Download
Changelog and more details