What's new in Ultra Fractal 6.05
Jul 1, 2022
- Improved the anti-aliasing algorithm used by the Render to Disk feature to produce better results and take less CPU time, especially with Depth settings larger than 1.
- Docked Mode tool windows now only show the mode of the fractal window they belong to, which fixes problems with e.g. Explore mode and multiple fractal windows.
- The maximized state of fractal windows, formula editors, and browsers is now restored when reopening a file or window. (Previously windows would never restore as maximized.)
- Previews in eyedropper mode now get a higher calculation priority, so they also work well if the fractal is currently calculating.
- Fixed a bug that caused the frame input in the animation bar to be invisible on Windows (since version 6.04).
- Fixed a bug that could cause the network server application on Mac to prematurely stop calculating, as well as possible issues when using multiple connections to the same server.
- Double-clicking a float value in an edit control now also includes the sign in the selection on Windows.
- Implemented Esc shortcut to cancel the eyedropper.
- Changing monitors (e.g. unplugging an external monitor) could previously cause floating tool windows to become invisible: this is now fixed.
- Fixed a bug in the browser that would cause all formula thumbnails except the first to have the default aspect ratio.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Previous/Next Frame keyboard shortcuts not to work on Mac.
- Fixed a bug that prevented touch gestures for zooming, rotating and panning (e.g. on a trackpad) from working on Mac.
- Fixed various minor visual issues on both Windows and Mac.
- Small bug fixes and improvements.
New in Ultra Fractal 6.04 (Jul 8, 2021)
- What's new in Ultra Fractal 6.04:
- Fixed a crash with some graphics drivers on Windows with OpenGL acceleration enabled.
- Fixed various issues on Windows with 150% DPI scaling.
- Fixed various problems in macOS 11 (Big Sur): the buttons in the layers list wouldn't turn off, and items in some lists were not drawn correctly.
- Improved color matching in the fractal window on macOS on some monitors.
- Fixed a problem when running in full screen mode on macOS (via the green window button): opening a modal browser (e.g. to select a formula) could lead to a non-functioning interface.
- The welcome and evaluation dialogs now appear correctly in Dark Mode on macOS.
- Small bug fixes and improvements.
New in Ultra Fractal 6.03 (Sep 5, 2020)
- Added support for Dark Mode on macOS Mojave and Catalina.
- Fixed problems with exporting as a Quicktime movie on macOS Catalina.
- Changed the default syntax highlighting colors in the formula editor so all elements look good both in light and dark user interface modes.
- Fixed a bug that could cause unfinished strips to appear in the final image when using multi-pass or guessing, especially when using many calculation threads.
- Fixed a possible crash when using formula plug-ins in arbitrary precision mode.
- Fixed a bug when dragging a layer group to another fractal window: if the layers within the group were selected as well, they would be copied twice.
- Fixed a bug that caused the precision setting to be ignored for fractal formulas. Added precision=4 setting to the Julia/Newton formula in Standard.ufm because it turns out they need a little more precision than Mandelbrot-type formulas. Otherwise the calculation doesn't go to extended or arbitrary precision mode as needed when zooming in.
- Fixed a bug that could cause far too many vertical strips to be created in the fractal window when using a high number of calculation threads in combination with certain image widths.
- Fixed a bug that caused accented letters (e.g. for the author name or in the comments field) to be saved incorrectly on Mac.
- Fixed a bug that caused the log function to return NAN when used with a large number (> 1e308) in arbitrary precision mode.
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash in the Modified Perlin Texture trap shape in reb.ulb.
- Small bug fixes and improvements.
New in Ultra Fractal 6.02 (Jan 7, 2019)
- The toolbars for fractal windows, browser and formula editors can now be customized on Windows. Right-click a toolbar to select which buttons and other items should be shown. There are more actions available than before such as undo, redo, copy, paste, and the toolbar can now also be displayed in Small Icons mode so it becomes similar to the toolbar in Ultra Fractal 5. On Mac, the toolbar was already customizable, but the new actions are available here as well.
- Fixed a problem that caused multithreading to work inefficiently in arbitrary precision mode with formulas that use classes/plug-ins.
- Fixed a bug in the formula compiler that could cause some formulas that use the round/trunc/ceil/floor functions to produce a different image than in Ultra Fractal 5.
- Fixed a bug that caused exported images in TIFF format to be unreadable in some programs.
- Fixed a bug on Mac that could cause crashes when using a MacBook Pro with a pressure-sensitive trackpad.
- Fixed a bug on Mac that would cause a crash when sorting an empty list in e.g. the Find Entries dialog in the browser.
- Fixed a bug on Mac that caused the histogram in the Statistics tool window to be invisible.
- Fixed a bug on Windows where the keyboard focus would be lost after showing an Open or Save dialog.
- Fixed a bug on Windows where the tool windows would be shown incorrectly after clicking the Show Desktop button in task bar to hide all windows, and then activating another application.
- Fixed a problem where the fractal window could become too small when slowly typing a new width or height value with the "Resize with fractal window" option enabled.
- Small bug fixes and improvements.
New in Ultra Fractal 5.04 (Aug 7, 2013)
- Class parameters are now called plug-ins, because this makes it much clearer how they work in practice. If you don't write formulas, all you need to know is how to select and combine formula plug-ins. Only if you're a formula writer, you need to know about the classes that are the foundation of plug-ins.
- The browser will now show proper thumbnails when selecting a plug-in for a plug-in parameter, based upon the current layer. In addition, thumbnails for transformations, formulas and coloring algorithms are now also generated based upon the current layer where possible. This shows you exactly how the layer would look with any of the available items in the browser. A disadvantage is that these dynamically generated thumbnails cannot be cached, so you might want to turn the feature off. You can configure this in the Browser tab of the Options dialog.
- The browser will now calculate multiple thumbnails at the same time, depending on the amount of processors/cores in your computer. This greatly increases the speed at which thumbnails are generated.
- The layers list now remembers its scroll position when switching between different fractal windows.
- Right-clicking on a layer in the layers list will now correctly select that layer.
- Removed Server.exe program because it used to trigger false virus warnings with some anti-virus solutions. Instead, the installer now just creates shortcuts that launch Ultra Fractal in server mode.
- Added How to Print item to the File menu for fractal windows that opens a new Printing topic in the help file with information on how to print fractals.
- Fixed bug when loading parameter sets that caused the progress bar to stay at 0% all the time, instead of actually showing the loading progress.
- Fixed bug that could cause Explore and Eyedropper previews to be incorrect in fractal animations with a different frame rate than 30 fps. (Extended Edition only.)
- Fixed bug that caused enabled and visible settings for parameters in an inherited class that tested class inheritance for another parameter not to work correctly.
- Fixed bug that caused formula parameters of integer type to work incorrectly with negative values.
- Fixed bug that caused a crash when a formula contained a string in the middle of statements.
New in Ultra Fractal 5.03 (May 17, 2010)
- Improvements:
- Improved various help topics.
- Bug fixes:
- Fixed a crash when reloading a formula with a non-empty image parameter.
- When reloading a formula that uses classes, all files used (indirectly) by the formula will be saved automatically now. (In previous versions, due to a bug, not all files would always be saved.)