Simply Love for SM5 - v5.0.0
About
This is the v5.0.0 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a relatively big update that we hope people will enjoy! Let us know if you encounter any bugs!
Supported Versions of StepMania
Simply Love v5.0.0 is compatible with current releases from the official StepMania project.
Compatible Releases
✅ StepMania 5.0.12
✅ StepMania 5.1-b2
✅ StepMania 5.3-a4.9.7 (OutFox) (preliminary support)
If you are able to compile StepMania's source code yourself, the 5_1-new branch is supported. The wiki has instructions for compiling.
Incompatible
❌ Forks of SM5 (e.g. starworlds)
❌ Older versions of StepMania (e.g. StepMania 3.9)
❌ Forks of older versions of StepMania (e.g. OpenITG, NotITG)
❌ SM5.2
If you have trouble installing or running StepMania, particularly on macOS, this Troubleshooting Readme may help.
Installing Simply Love
If you are upgrading from a previous version of Simply Love, fully delete the old Simply Love folder first.
Do not merge the new folder into the old.
Full install instructions are in the Installing Simply Love README. It's worth looking at!
Major New Stuff
We got some fancy shmancy new features coming your way!
GrooveStats Integration
Starting off with the biggest feature of the release -- GrooveStats integration directly in Simply Love! Rivals, Scores, Leaderboards, Auto-Uploading of scores, it's all here! Please watch the video and refer the GrooveStats Launcher Guide on how to setup the StepMania wrapper program that will get you connected.
As of this writing, both Waterfall and Digital Dance will be adding GrooveStats integration Soon™!
Additionally, users of @dinsfire64/TJ's Image will be happy to note that a future update will also have support for the launcher.
First, check and see if you're connected!
Setup your Rivals on GrooveStats and check out your scores write in in the Select Music Screen
Want to see more scores? Open the sort menu and select the "Leaderboard" option! We show you the World Record, your Personal Best, your three Rivals' scores, and then scores closest around you (might help you branch out and find some other people to rival!)
Passed a new song? Got a new score? Your scores will be automatically uploaded to GrooveStats! Note that we do not upload failed scores and that those still need to be uploaded manually (either through the QR code or the web portal).
KNOWN ISSUES: Currently the letter grades displayed in the song wheel will not update to show the GrooveStats scores. It IS definitely in the gameplan for a future release!
Density Graph + Tech Analyzer
You may have noticed above that the Select Music Screen looks a little bit different.
If you take a closer look there's more than just the Density Graph. We also generate the breakdown, show the number of various techniques (Crossovers, Footswtiches, Sideswitches, Jacks, Brackets), and the stream density.
Song Search
Need to quickly find a song and don't want to sift through the 30,000 songs you have on your machine? Try out Song Search!
This feature requires a Keyboard to be connected.
You can search for specific difficulties and BPM tiers using the [###] notation.
You can also search for songs in specific packs using pack/song notation.
For example, the following query will search for songs that have a 15 difficulty song in the 180 bpm tier, from any pack that contains "sharp" (e.g. SharpnelStreamz) and contains the word "blue".
Error Bars
How off are your steps really? Find out with the Error Bars! Choose from two different visualizations (not shown is also the option to simply show Early/Late)
Modules
Want to display song information on stream in a fancy marquee? Don't know how to edit theme specific files and worried about breaking something? Simply Love now natively supports modules to run third-party add-ons! Tell your favorite script author to follow the Module Guide and then drop the completed script into the Module/ subdirectory of the theme!
Simply Training Integration
Simply Training is a web application that helps you track your personal progress in ITG. Think fitness tracker, but for ITG. It keeps a diary, including the full list of songs and charts played with their respective scores, the number of steps taken and other aggregated statistics. There are also graphs and a filterable score list available.
The website relies on custom score files written by Simply Love, which have to be enabled in the options (Options -> Simply Love Options -> Write Custom Scores). Score files are stored in the user profile directory, so if you use USB profiles, the scores are stored on the USB stick. Handy!
The website is 100% free to use. There are no ads either. There is a demo available on the website too if you want to try it out.
Other Things
StepMania 5.3 Compatibility with Simply-Love-SM5
StepMania 5.0.0 adds preliminary support for StepMania OutFox 5.3 . If you run into any issues, please let us know and we'll try our best to fix them!
As of this writing, SM5.3 is free to download and play, and though it is not yet open source, the project's FAQ page it is said that it will be open source in the future, when the team is comfortable with that.
Thanks for reading. 🙂
Contributors
@teejusb - For integrating GrooveStats on the theme side, adding the density graphs to the music selection screen, implementing song search and paying attention to detail in code reviews
@natano - For creating the GrooveStats Launcher to work as the intermediary between Simply Love and GrooveStats, unlocking 5.3 support, adding a new Visual Theme, importing the error bar codes
@archiveflax and @dominickp - For working on the GrooveStats end of the service and creating the API that Simply Love makes use of
@DinsFire64 - For supporting the GrooveStats launcher on his image (update will be released soon!)
@Hayoreo, @SteveReen, @Sereni - For adding GrooveStats integration to their themes in a future update (Digital Dance, Waterfall and SL-Vertical respectively)
@RainbowXynn, @krushrpants, @freyjaITG, @LemmingOnTheRun, @Roujo, @TheGalagaShip - For testing the GrooveStats launcher and its integration with the theme, reporting bugs, and providing feedback
@bblum - For contributing the algorithm for tech parsing
@SteveReen - For creating the Colorful error bar and allowing it to be used in the theme
@jordando - For creating the Monochrome error bar and allowing it to be used in the theme
@JustMoneko - Adding Polish support to Simply Love
@quietly-turning - Adding additional precision for mean timing error, fixing UTF-8 bugs in screenshots, tracking last seen chart in EditMode
Thanks to all who contributed to this release!
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v5.0.0 and v4.9.1, check GitHub's comparison of the two.