Stella 2.7.1 released

[+stephena]

OK, this is a quick bugfix release for some things that slipped though the cracks in 2.7. There's a partial workaround for the sound/ATI/OpenGL/Windows issue, but it's still not working completely correctly (and will require much more reearch before it is fixed). I also managed to squeeze in a few more requests from the 2.6.1 thread. Barring any major bugs, this is the last release until 3.0.

 

  * Partial workaround for sound not working in OpenGL video mode in
Windows with ATI video hardware.  Sound will now work for the first ROM
selected, but not for subsequent ones (you will have to quit and
restart Stella for sound to work again).  Related to this, added
'-audiofirst' commandline argument, which initializes audio before video
when emulating a ROM.  Further work is required to completely fix
this bug.

 * Fixed bug where volume wasn't being saved in 'Audio Settings' when
started from the ROM launcher.

 * Fixed crash which sometimes occurred when viewing snapshots in the
ROM Info viewer.

 * Allow setting window sizes for the ROM launcher and debugger to be larger
than your desktop resolution.  Be careful with this feature, as switching
to fullscreen mode may cause problems in such cases.

 * Made the ROM launcher filename filtering be case-insensitive.  This fixes
a bug whereby ROMs with uppercase extensions were marked as invalid.

 * Added a pattern matching textbox to the ROM launcher, used to
further filter the files shown in the listing.  For now, this filters
files only (directories are not filtered, and are always shown).

 * The location of EEPROM files used for AtariVox/Savekey emulation can
now be changed with the '-eepromdir' commandline argument as well as
in the UI.

 * Added '-gl_aspectn' and '-gl_aspectp' commandline arguments (and
associated UI items), which replace the previous '-gl_aspect' setting.
The aspect modes can now be set separately for NTSC and PAL mode.
Related to this, the range of values is now 80 - 120.

 * Fixed bug with hold-select/reset/button0 when overriding ROM properties;
the checkboxes in the UI weren't actually doing anything.

 * The 'grabmouse' option is now configurable from the UI; previously
it was only accessible from the commandline or its shortcut key.

 * Removed 'Emulation_HmoveBlanks' ROM property and associated UI item.
You can no longer optionally turn off HMOVE blanking; it is always
enabled when necessary.

 

As usual, Stella can be downloaded from the Stella homepage. Please report any bugs in this thread or directly to me by email. Also, please move all discussion from the 2.7 thread to here, as your bug may have already been fixed in 2.7.1.

[+stephena]

Talk about a string of bad luck. I just found yet another bug related to filename handling. Specifically, the ROM audit functionality is completely borked; renaming a set of ROMs will create filenames without any extension! Please don't download version 2.7.1 (or at least don't use the ROM Audit functionality in that version). I'll address this in a 2.7.2 release later this evening.

[+thegoldenband]

From the 2.7 thread:

 

Looks great, but it appears as if Stella for OS X still can't handle aliases to other directories -- is that correct? It'd be a big help if that feature could be added.

Can you explain to me again what is happening with aliases, and how it should be functioning?

Basically, an alias to a directory -- which you create by selecting a folder in the Finder, and pressing Command-L -- should open that directory as if you navigated to it directly. In other words:

 

1) My ROMs are in /users/goldenband/Documents/ROMs/Atari_2600_ROMs. (Underscores added for clarity.) Stella defaults to that directory.

2) My bB development stuff is in /users/goldenband/bB.

3) So, I select the bB folder in the Finder, hit Cmd-L, and it creates an alias to the folder.

4) Then, I drag that alias into my /Atari_2600_ROMs folder.

5) When I open Stella's file browser and double-click on the alias I've made, it should jump right to my /users/goldenband/bB folder, as it does in the Finder (and in all apps I've seen that use the Mac OS X native file browser). Instead, it just says "not a ROM file".

 

Does that make sense? Basically, the idea is that if you have a bunch of stuff in different places, you can get to it with one click instead of having to navigate through the directory structure. I have less experience with Windows, but as far as I can tell, shortcuts work the same way, no?

[+stephena]

From the 2.7 thread:

 

Looks great, but it appears as if Stella for OS X still can't handle aliases to other directories -- is that correct? It'd be a big help if that feature could be added.

Can you explain to me again what is happening with aliases, and how it should be functioning?

Basically, an alias to a directory -- which you create by selecting a folder in the Finder, and pressing Command-L -- should open that directory as if you navigated to it directly. In other words:

 

1) My ROMs are in /users/goldenband/Documents/ROMs/Atari_2600_ROMs. (Underscores added for clarity.) Stella defaults to that directory.

2) My bB development stuff is in /users/goldenband/bB.

3) So, I select the bB folder in the Finder, hit Cmd-L, and it creates an alias to the folder.

4) Then, I drag that alias into my /Atari_2600_ROMs folder.

5) When I open Stella's file browser and double-click on the alias I've made, it should jump right to my /users/goldenband/bB folder, as it does in the Finder (and in all apps I've seen that use the Mac OS X native file browser). Instead, it just says "not a ROM file".

 

Does that make sense? Basically, the idea is that if you have a bunch of stuff in different places, you can get to it with one click instead of having to navigate through the directory structure. I have less experience with Windows, but as far as I can tell, shortcuts work the same way, no?

If that's an alias, then it's exactly the same thing as a soft link in Linux, or a shortcut in Windows (which both work). If you're getting a 'not a ROM file', then the alias isn't being recognized as a directory (which it is), but is treated as a file. And since Stella doesn't recognize the file, you get the aforementioned message.

 

I'll look into this ...

[+thegoldenband]

That's pretty much what I figured -- I couldn't imagine that, all this time, the Windows version had been going without shortcuts.

[+stephena]

That's pretty much what I figured -- I couldn't imagine that, all this time, the Windows version had been going without shortcuts.

I've done a bit of research, and it looks like an OSX alias is something specific to Finder, and other OSX apps that know how to access them (ie, they're not a filesystem thing). So to Stella, they look like normal files. You could always create symbolic links (on the commandline) instead of using Finder aliases, and then Stella would see the link and know what to do with it. Basically, Finder and Stella know what to do with symbolic links, but only Finder and related apps know what an alias is.

 

Fixing this requires more work than I can do before 2.7.2; I will have to address it in a future release.

[+thegoldenband]

I've done a bit of research, and it looks like an OSX alias is something specific to Finder, and other OSX apps that know how to access them (ie, they're not a filesystem thing). So to Stella, they look like normal files. You could always create symbolic links (on the commandline) instead of using Finder aliases, and then Stella would see the link and know what to do with it. Basically, Finder and Stella know what to do with symbolic links, but only Finder and related apps know what an alias is.

By "Finder and related apps", I assume you mean apps that rely on the OS X file opening/saving code, rather than rolling their own filedrawer. (That may not be a precise way of talking about it, but I'd imagine YKWIM.) I know that Firefox and Audacity are able to navigate aliases without difficulty, whereas GIMP (running under X11) is not.

 

In OS 9, one could trick just about any program into loading startup files from an alias, but it looks like that functionality is now only found in symbolic links...yep, apparently aliases "do not work from the command line", but symbolic links do, though aliases are "more versatile". (This link was also informative.)

 

Fixing this requires more work than I can do before 2.7.2; I will have to address it in a future release.

Understood. If the fix can be in 2.8 or 3.0, that'd be great, but it's certainly not a priority. In the meantime, I've created a symbolic link (ln -s /original/bB /symboliclink/bB), which works like a charm.

Edited January 26, 2009 by thegoldenband

[Buzbard]

Thanks for adding the filter box to the launcher, that makes life so much better!

 

The launcher resizing works well too.

 

You're right about the "Audit roms" button, good thing I have the roms backed up for this kind of emergency!

[+stephena]

PLEASE DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS RELEASE. It contains a major bug in the ROM Audit functionality, which has been fixed in the 2.7.2 release. Also, please move all comments to that thread.