Grafx2 Changelog

What's new in Grafx2 2.4.2035

Nov 5, 2013

Palette changes that modify the pixels can't be undone (issue 514)
Opening a 24bit image in command-line gives wrong mouse cursor (issue 515)
On some non-x86 platforms, some changes can't be undone on animations > 32 frames (issue 516)

New in Grafx2 2.3.1781 (Mar 13, 2012)

New in Grafx2 2.3.1778 (Mar 13, 2012)

New in Grafx2 2.3 (Mar 13, 2012)

Improvements:
Added 2 virtual keyboards for portable console ports - one to easily enter filenames or text for text tool, another one for all numeric input
Magnifier settings for Main page and Spare page are now synchronized, if the images have same dimensions ( issue 327 )
Many new Lua functions for scripting
Lua scripts can now be located anywhere on your disk (the window allos browsing)
Improved the color matching formula used in 'Copy to Spare' and 'Recolorize brush'
Rotating a brush while holding 'Shift' key now snaps to the closest 22.5° multiple)
Added color cycling animation ( issue 365 ). Animation can be active even when drawing
Color cycles (or gradients) are now saved in PNG and GIF formats
Paintbrush window can be customized with your own brushes ( issue 345 ). It also highlights the selected one
The colorpicker cursor, (in zoomed view) no longer displays a preview pixel
Fixed the bottom line of pixels in the magnifier: The bottom row can no longer be too thin
Redesigned Settings window. Now contains all settings that were only available in gfx2.ini
Safety backups (after a crash or power failure) now remember the original file name and directory
File sorting in file selector is case insensitive
New drawing workflow allowing to use right click as a colorpicker instead of drawing with the secondary color where it makes sense
Allow skins to redefine the "selected" button graphics
Real alpha transparent mode. Allows to properly use antialiased-text on a multicolor background
Copy and paste in the palette using ctrl C/ctrl V or right-click sub-menu
Cleanup of the palette screen and added a way to input colors in hexadecimal
Palette screen : Added a button to tag used colors
Palette screen : Added a color histogram
Palette screen : Reducing color count now removes duplicates
Palette screen : Added a merge tool
New shortcuts for brush resize and calling factory scripts directly
New algorithm for palette sorting
Support fonts in 'bitmap Font Writer' format
Drag-and-dropping a file into Grafx2's window now opens it
Drive list (in Load/Save screen) now has icons for media type: HDD, CD, etc
Allow saving XPM images
Hold Control and Click to perform a right-click : handy for tablets and similar devices. An option allows you to pick different keys ( issue 400 )
Text tool : With bitmap fonts, you can now enter carriage returns using Alt+Enter
Fixes:
Keyboard shortcuts are now exclusive by default (you can change option if needed). This avoids the need to unset a shortcut when you need the key for something else
Fixes aevere image corruption when scrolling image while some layers are hidden ( issue 417 )
Palette screen: Undo is now much more reliable ( issue 354 )
Better control of brush palette (issue 362)
Text tool with bitmap font now works much better with colored fonts, especially if you use 'Get brush colors'
Fix the Saturation slider in HSL mode that would make greyscale colors red ( issue 396 )
Menu size (depending on UI scale) doesn't change when Pixel Scaler changes, when it's possible ( issue 338 )
Fix a bug where closing the Magnifier moved the view to random place ( issue 380 )
Lua : too many fixes to list
Fix important bug where resizing an image or using any transformation resets transparent color to zero
Fix imprecise RGB sliders when RGB scale is lower than 256 ( issue 384 )
Skin DPaint: Fix the icon 'unslected layer 6'
Skin DPaint: Fixed the hotspot of the standard mouse cursor, it was not in top left corner
Skin Modern: Fix the button for palette scroll arrows
The image preview in Load/Save window now uses a web-safe palette, if the previewed image has a low color count
Fixed the 'Copy to Spare / palette and remap' : It wasn't fully undoable
Improved mouse handling. Should fix many cases mouse cursor was choppy or lagging for no reason, taking lots of CPU
Modified the method for picking GUI colors in the current palette. This solves many cases where the menu was difficult to read
Fix using fullscreen mode with a tablet ( issue 317 )
Fixed the format of gfx2.ini, which was sometimes causing the loss of the "scroll up" shortcut
Fixed a few typos in Keyboard Shortcuts help
Fixed crash on loading PNG24 pictures if they contain transparency data
Fixed inaccurate picking of color in the menu palette and improved its ergonomy ( issue 340 )
The gradient rectangle tool can no longer leave construction lines ( issue 339 )
Fixed the "Zap unused colors" funtion, in some cases it would affect wrong colors
Fixed compilation problem for Linux ( Issue 336 )
F1 key in settings screen didn't open the right help files
Better compatibility in the GIF file loader (1bpp GIFs and other things)
Trying to use a font bigger than 99 and some bitmap fileformats would crash the program
Keyboard click emulation was broken since 2.1

New in Grafx2 2.2.1430 (Mar 13, 2012)

New in Grafx2 2.2.1406 (Mar 24, 2010)

New features:
Layers
Lua binding to generate and alter picture and brush with scripts
Two new skins by Jamon and iLKke
GIF and PNG transparency
Shortcut keys can be bound to multiple actions
Load more image formats when SDL_image can handle them (jpeg, tga, ...)
Show number of pixels used by colors in the selected range in palette window
Preview skins in the skin dialog. Move more settings there. Load prefered menu colors from the skin. Fix changing to a screen that use different color indexes for its menu colors
Save Amstrad CPC pictures in .SCR format.
Menu toolbars can be separately shown or hidden
Safety backups are made automatically about every minute, and reloaded after a crash or program halt
Improvements:
Zoom-on-mouse, also when changing the zoom factor
More zoom levels are available for the magnifier (up to x32)
Help message when running in console with /? or similar switch show some more options and a readable list of fullscreen modes
Only show recognized file extensions and not all files by default in save/load screen
Shade window selects the foreground color by default when opened, and if you close it with only one color selected either in the palette or the range filer, this color is selected as foreground
Added more space for filename in status bar
Better command line handling, allowing more options and possibility to load an image for the spare page too
Menu zoom is now maximum x2 by default. Avoids having a really big menu on modern screens
Rewrite of the save and load system to avoid a risk of corrupting the picture in some special cases
Program remembers the pixel scaler you used last
Fixes:
Fix a possible crash when using grad rectangle with shift key
Load and save palettes in "jasc" format and with the full 0..255 range
Removed deprecated setting "mouse correction factor"
Reset quicksearch when entering a directory in load/save dialog
Rotating a brush 180° was broken if the height was even since r763
Fix BMP saving again
Help page for Contour fill had a line too long
Fix potential endianness and packing problem in all file formats.
The homepage address on the splash screen was wrong !
Crash if you enable mask with 2 pictures of different size in main and spare
Mask and Stencil shortcuts were reversed in the FX window
Joystick is now disabled by default to avoid mouse drifting
Text tool: Bitmap fonts painted in "color 0" now work
Fix a wrong shortcut (filled circle) in helpscreen
Fix the loading of some C64 format files

New in Grafx2 2.1 (Sep 29, 2009)

New: C64 file formats (Issue 211).
Fixed: Crash with gradient-filled rectangle ( Issue 212 ).
New: Visible tile grid in zoomed view (alt-shift-G).
Fixed: Moving a very large brush in zoomed view would not refresh fast enough ( Issue 183 )
Improved: Resizable "circle" paintbrush now proposes all diameters, no longer limited to odd ones.
Improved: Resizable "random" paintbrush has a more even flow.
New: Brush container, in Paintbrush screen. Store and retrieve up to 12 brushes.
Improved: Slow operations (ex: circle with big brush and Transparency active) now draws some intermediate steps ( Issue 183 )
Changed: Color reduction when loading 24-bit BMP PCX or PNG no longer applies Floyd-Steinberg dithering. It picks nearest match instead.
Fixed: greyscale PNG loading.
Improved: PNG 24-bit can now be loaded, with color reduction ( Issue 201 ).
New: Keyboard shortcuts for assigning fixed zoom levels.
Improved: Palette screen remembers if you prefer HSV or RGB.
Fixed: Possible crash in Save/Load screen if directory content was modified ( Issue 198 )
Improved: You can exit text fields by clicking elsewhere.
Improved: You can now choose a fixed GUI scaling factor ( Issue 101 )
New: Hold SHIFT while drawing a line finds the closest multiple of 45° or isometric angle.
New: Hold SHIFT while using any other tool to lock X or Y axis ( Issue 193 )
Fixed: Dragging sliders and clicking color color ranges no longer activate other parts of windows ( Issue 191 )
Key-combo support to quickly set transparency, ie you can type 3 4 to get 34% transparency ( Issue 154 )
New keyboard shortcut: All effects off (shift-E)
Gradient-filled rectangle and Gradient menu are now a single button.
New settings screen specifically for the look of the program (font, menu graphics, mouse cursor) : Right-click the Settings button.
New default skin and several alternate fonts, made by Ilkke.
Fixed: Releasing shift control or alt had the extra effect of releasing all mouse buttons ( issue 187 )
New: Support for loading and saving Neochrome image file format (.NEO files)

New in Grafx2 2.00.970 (Sep 29, 2009)

New in Grafx2 2.00.951 (Sep 29, 2009)

New in Grafx2 2.00.880 (Sep 29, 2009)

New in Grafx2 2.00.874 (Sep 29, 2009)

New in Grafx2 2.00 Final (Sep 29, 2009)

Fixed: A delay on window resize ( issue 169 )
Fixed: Display of filenames in Save/Load, when they contain multiple dots ( issue 170 ).
Improved: Added user-definable mouse sensitivity, useful for fullscreen low-res modes ( issue 159 ).
Fixed: (Linux) The window "resisted" resizing ( issue 161 )
Fixed: (Win98) Crash related to key ^ on French or German character ( issue 167 )
Fixed: Bookmarks didn't allow characters ; and # in their name or target ( issue 166 ).
Improved: (Windows) The program records window position on exit, and restores it on startup.
Fixed: Some odd keys were displayed with the wrong scancode in help and config.
Improved: Added buttons x2 and /2 to select usual color scales easily.
Improved: Allows "2" as RGB scale.
Improved: Made RGB scaler a bit larger in palette secondary screen.
Fixed: Preview in text window is now drawn with the back color, so you can see the antialiasing correctly.
New: Allow sorting only a range of colors in the palette : when you right-click 'Sort'.
Fixed: Reverted Lightness sorting order so white is first.
Fixed: colorpicker cursor disappearing when too close to screen edge
New: Picture effects screen : Resizes / mirrors / rotates image
New: Distort brush ( Issue 34 )
New: Pixel scaler "Triple" for 3x3 zoom ( Issue 147 )
New: Pixel scaler "Quadruple" for 4x4 zoom ( Issue 151 )
New: Pixel scaler "Wide2" for 4x2 zoom ( Issue 148 )
New: Pixel scaler "Tall2" for 2x4 zoom ( Issue 149 )
Fixed: Resizing the image didn't mark the image 'modified since last save'
Fixed: When drawing a gradient ellipse, the cursor remained on screen after the drawing operation.
Fixed: Grafx2 now works on SPARC cpu
Fixed: Some specific macosx shortcuts (command+h)
Improved: You can assign "command"+key shortcuts, if the combination isn't a system one.
Improved: Discontinuous freehand now uses an asynchronous method for delaying. It is sensitive to the delay set in the airbrush/spray menu.
New: Frame the backcolor with a dark dotted line.
New: Double clicking in palette will open the palette window.
Fixed: Made the "Safe resolution" shortcut do nothing in windowed mode. ( issue 118 )
New: Shortcuts for previous and next colors in user-defined range. (Keys = and -) They use the Shade settings.
Fixed: In Shortcuts screen, explanation text can no longer overdraw the border.
Fixed: Grey out + and - buttons in palette screen when you use HSL mode, as they are irrelevant this mode.
Fixed: Removed useless precalculation tables that made the program crash on very high resolutions
Fixed: Big ellipses had an overflow in claculations
Fixed: Help screens updated
Fixed: Clear values of some text fields on right click
Fixed: mouse shortcuts were not locked in some cases, causing screen corruption
Fixed: GP2X build use correct 320x240 size by default, and no longer proposes a windowed mode. Write confing on the local dir and not $HOME.
Fixed: when there are less than 12 modes it was possible to cause a segfault when opening the screenmodes list.
Fixed: source archives are now packed with a directory inside, the usual unix way.

New in Grafx2 2.00 Beta 99.0% (May 8, 2009)

Improved : Grafx2's default FG and BG colors are now white and black (instead of 15 and 0).
Fixed : Palette ordering ( issue 112 ). You can activate it in the secondary palette window (shift-P), it's saved in gfx2.ini.
Updated : contextual help for all the new tools and features.
Fixed : display of mount points and drives ("Select drive" button) in Load/Save
Improved : Cleaned up the layout of Save/Load screen. ( issue 92 , issue 84 #4)
Fixed font selection, was off by 2 pixels (Text tool)
Improved : Menus: scrollbars are now dark.
Improved : Codesource is now written in english. Patches welcome.
Removed : Open Watcom support.
Removed : gfx2cfg tool, we don't need it anymore.
Fixed : small BMP files saving
Fixed : issue 129 : polyform unusable when effects are active
Improved : Tidied up the splash screen (can no longer drag it)
Fixed : the quick-typing that wasn't reset when changing directories in save/load
Fixed : a missing refresh on first click of tools: lines, curves, polygon, grad circle/ellipse
Fixed : Forbid resolutions < 320x200 ( issue 126 )
Added : Bookmarks ( issue 92 ) in Save/Load screens
Fixed : Resolution changes: No longer reset the mouse cursor in center of screen.
Fixed : Sieve menu display with tall/wide pixels or large resolution
Improved : Dropdown lists in Save/Load for choosing file format.
Fixed : issue 122 : Qshade only working in one direction with some tools.
Fixed : the pipette leaking drops ( issue 115 ) and a few other display bugs on mouse click or release
Added : Double Pixel mode ( issue 86 ) Tall pixels can now be used in resolution minimum 320x400, and Tall pixels minimum 640x200. (instead of 640x400 for both)
Fixed : There was incorrect error recovery when trying to use a fullscreen mode too small to use wide/tall/double pixel.
Fixed : GrafX2 can be used on ...DOS with HX extender.
Fixed : Do not crash if there is more than 4GB memory available.
Added : Last-chance recovery that saves the current and spare page on crash. ( issue 97 )
Fixed : an old, possibly lethal memory overrun in Backup buffers, when using long file names (>12)
Fixed : Palette screen: Copy,Swap,X-Swap now take place when you click button, not release. In all screens where you could press ` and pick a color (palette, shade...): The action now takes place when you click, not release.
Added : The secondary Palette screen (right-click PAL or press shift-P) now allows changing the menu palette cells, as well as the RGB scale.
Improved : Grad Rect cancellation now works
Fixed : In gfx2.ini, setting Merge_movement to >0 should help solve lag ( issue 80 ) for users who have a mouse with update frequency >100Hz
Fixed : refresh problem when rotating a brush outside of screen limits (bug in 98%)
Fixed : Palette window having 'S' as shortcut for 2 functions.
Fixed : When you use a keyboard shortcut to activate a window button (ex: ESC), it shows it's activated.
Added : Keyboard shortcuts are customizable from within Grafx2. 2 shortcuts per function. You can use keys, MouseWheel, Middlebutton, joystick buttons, in combination with Alt, Shift, Control.
Added : Safety in Help text GUI image change: Added more characters in help font.
Fixed : monochrome image preview (add some sane colors). Real 2-color palette is still used on loading the picture.
Fixed the missing confirmation message ( issue 105 ) in save/load
Added : 'repeatable buttons' that work like slider arrows : + - in Palette and Text, and for the arrow buttons that scroll Sieve pattern.
Improved : Buttons: Now you can 'cancel' a click by dragging the mouse outside of the button before releasing click, pretty much like a Windows button.
Fixed : buttons being depressed on mouse press
Fixed : missing refresh on color select with keyboard shortcut
Fixed : CRASH in Help screen, when pressing PageDown in pages of less than 16 lines.
Fixed : the double icons having their diagonal not shaded on selection. Fixed the Ellipse / Grad ellipse icon graphics (were quite off-centered)
Added : Contour fill, 4th mode of continuous drawing. (deluxepaint-like)
Added : PNG file format load and save
Fixed : the characters in Smooth window (shift-F8) and the string-editing cursor, both were drawn rotated 90degrees :)
Fixed : the close button requiring an extra click somewhere (on win9x at least)
Fixed : Some cleanups to the "credits" help page, as it felt a little bit messy.
Added : FreeBSD version available
Fixed : Default filename is now in .gif instead of .pkm
Improved : gfx2.dat is now replaced by an editable "skin" file (gif format). Two skins available : classic and modern done by Ilkse
Added : (un)installer script for windows (NSIS).
Fixed : When the last resize was by the 'safe resolution' button, on exit the program recorded the previous window size instead.
Fixed : "Parent dir" in the file selector for amigas. Should make it easier to use.
Fixed : Rotating a very small brush does not crash the program anymore.