Release 0.8.4

From Gnash Project Wiki

Release 0.8.4 ("Sort out the media mess" / third beta) was released on October 13 2008 (and targeted August 2008).

1 Changes from Release 0.8.3
- 1.1 WARNINGS (for the release notes)
2 Roadmap
3 Post-release

Changes from Release 0.8.3

Improved SWF version 8 support:
- flash.geom.Point, flash.geom.Rect, flash.geom.Matrix classes implemented.
- flash.geom.ColorTransform almost fully implemented.
- flash.display.BitmapData partially implemented.
- flash.geom.Transform.matrix and flash.geom.Transform.ColorTransform implemented.
- MovieClip.transform implemented, with ability to find and apply MovieClip transformations.
- Support for loading PNG and GIF images added.
- Playback of VP6F video (SWF version 8 FLV) with Ffmpeg.
Fixes and implementation of ActionScript 2 classes:
- NetConnection.call() implemented: initial support for flash Remoting
- toString() method of objects called correctly, String.split implementation fixed.
- XMLSocket onData method implemented properly, other methods fixed.
- Error class implemented.
- XML and LoadVars sendAndLoad() now derive from a common base object (loadable AS object); fixes the popular SWF Twitter badge.
- addRequestHeaders and contentType implemented for LoadVars and XML.
VM bugfixes and improvements:
- Heart beating model, allowing for fine-grained interval timers and threading reduction.
- Frame label fix (case sensitivity).
- Fixes and improvements to Color and cxform.
- SWF matrix made faster and more compatible (golf.swf works now!)
- try/catch/finally ActionScript expression handled more correctly.
- Parse and partially use ScriptLimits tag. Handle stack limit more correctly.
- Fixed scoping issues for SWF <= 5
- Bitmap characters now support alpha.
- Fix parsing of urls containing multiple question marks
Media handling improvements:
- Pluggable architecture for MediaHandlers (ffmpeg/gst available)
- Media-handler agnostic Sound and NetStream classes
- Numerous bug fixes in ffmpeg and gstreamer media handling
- Fix support for movies embedding multiple sound streams
SWF version 2-specific fixes:
- PlaceObject tag display fixed (also applies to SWFs generated with some free tools)
- DefineButtonCxform tag implemented).
New Features:
- Support for writing RGB/RGBA PNG images and JPEG images.
- Works with Potlatch OpenStreetMap editor
- New 'flvdumper' utility for analyzing FLV video files.
- XPI packaging support for Mozilla & Firefox.
Codebase improvements:
- Renamed the 'server' directory to be a more accurate 'libcore'. Merge 'libgeometry' into 'libbase'
- Keep Adobe happy with our users and our users happy with us by s/Flash player/SWF player/ everywhere (a Linux distributor received a demand letter).
- Numerous cleanups and changes to improve portability.

WARNINGS (for the release notes)

The -d switch won't behave the same as in 0.8.3. This is a temporary thing, we'll likely bring it back to its original behaviour for next releases. If you're curious, -d will now change heart beating rate.
Support for MIT SHM X extention is disabled by default `cause it broke (*grin*). We'll get it back on next release. Let us know if you really notice a performance degradation on the rendering side please.