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So, it's been a while... welcome back!
Since the last update, a couple of major things have changed, and a couple of minor things. Patch v0.7.0 is meant to reflect the patch that will be going live as v1.0. We plan for this to happen later this year. With that, DropStack is now feature-complete, so let's look at the features that it gained over v0.6.4:
Localization
DropStack is now available in several languages:
- English (as always)
- Danish (thanks, @FireCubeStudios for the help)
- Ukrainian (courtesy of @Phyan, magnificent work!)
- German (localized by yours truly)
If you'd like to contribute yourself, you can get in touch and request the necessary resource files. And yes, we do support right-to-left languages!
Interactive Animated Themes
If your main language is English, you may still appreciate this fun new feature. As part of another project, we developed the Ozora Engine, which will soon be released as an independent open-source project to GitHub. This application provides a suite of tools that allowed us to craft interactive and dynamic experiences for each of our themes:
- Bliss: Ozora's efficient hard body physics simulation breathes life into the Bliss theme by adding a sun that follows the mouse cursor as well as a day-night-cycle. The sun will rubber-band towards the mouse cursor, if you pull hard enough, it can even overshoot it. It can also bounce off the sides of the window and slowly come to a stop when it's no longer being dragged.
- Colorful: Ozora's particle-based cloud simulation, while not viable as an actual cloud simulation just yet, can provide a colorful blob that follows your cursor around the screen.
- Evening: Ozora's ParulAI Bird Behavior Simulation creates a convincing bird simulation where each bird in the scene has a defined personality through several character traits, which in turn influence the decision birds make. Birds are also able to respond to each other, which can increase their social character trait. For example, if a bird is complimented by another bird, its confidence in its chirping skills will increase and you can see it singing more often. Same goes for birds forming a choir. There is a lot more to this simulation than would fit into these release notes. A deep dive may follow later.
- Thunderstorm: While not part of the Ozora Engine, the Thunderstorm theme can simulate the view into a sky during a thunderstorm. This will occasionally result in very bright flashes, which may obstruct content for up to half a second. Please refrain from using this theme if you are suffering from epilepsy.
These experiences will be available in normal mode and should be enabled by default, but you are free to toggle the animations off next to the theme picker in settings if you so prefer. If you have any feedback, please contact us, and tell us what you think!
Other Changes
Different publishers may disagree on this one, but apps shouldn't only get larger, they should also refine what is already there to provide a more intuitive user interface. So, here's a non-conclusive list of what's changed:
- The settings panel now has a maximum width and you can tap anywhere around it to dismiss it now, because it makes sense
- Fixed several crashes, related to Windows Hello™️ authentication, tapping into an empty space of the files list and more
- Fixed several visual and functional bugs related to the context menu and details pane
- Improved the reliability of preview features, such as music previewing and fixed an issue where the preview windows couldn't be dragged around
Important Notice
Please do note that the certificate from the last patch is no longer valid, you will have to import the new certificate into the trusted root certificates. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you. Kindly refer to this StackOverflow reply for assistance with importing the certificate. Thank you.
