v1.5.5

v1.5.5 brings a whole host of improvements to quality of life and functionality!

First and foremost, the old OpenCV video backend has been ditched in favour of a Qt5 native pipeline. This requires some extra dependencies on some systems: be sure to check out docs/INSTALLATION.md for details.

In doing so, we now have access to a lot more device-specific information, allowing a Resolution selection menu for each device! Additionally, you can now choose a set scaling factor (1:1, 1:2, 1:4 or even double 2:1) for video feeds, which enables per-pixel scaling and clearer video if that's what you want. Dynamic scaling remains the default, but the mode can be changed through the View menu. It has also vastly reduced the size of the download due to the removal of the bundled OpenCV from the binary distributions (most of which wasn't even being used).

Finally, screenshot functionality has been added to capture a frame from the video feed: you can find that in the "Edit" menu.

Please note: the command-line kvm-control app has some deprecations in this release due to the switch away from OpenCV: as a result, the --video flags will no longer work from v1.5.5 onwards. Users who rely on this (I don't expect there are many, but still) can switch to kvm-gui, or pip install kvm-serial==1.5.4 as the last working version.

As always, if you find a problem or bug with this release, please feel free to raise an issue. Check out docs/CONTRIBUTING.md for guidance.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: as the binary distributions in this release are un-signed, OSX users will need to run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ./KVM\ Serial.app to enable it. OSX will notify that the package is broken otherwise. This is a pity, but until I have an Apple signing certificate ($100 a year) this is the only way to release open source software on Apple platforms.

What's Changed

• Add screenshot functionality by @sjmf in #27
• Add MkDocs documentation site with GitHub Pages deployment by @sjmf in #28
• Update installation instructions for MacOS Tahoe by @sjmf in #30
• Update testing documentation by @sjmf in #33
• Add resolution enumeration and selection menu (towards #24, #29) by @sjmf in #34
• Bump black from 26.1.0 to 26.3.1 in the pip group across 1 directory by @dependabot[bot] in #37

New Contributors

• @dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #37

Full Changelog: v1.5.4...v1.5.5