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minisphere 3.0.0

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@fatcerberus fatcerberus released this 28 Mar 03:30
v3.0.0
364d52a

minisphere 3.0.0 is a massive release, the biggest in the history of the project. It brings several new features, including a full-featured command-line debugger called SSJ, TypeScript support, and fully-documented CommonJS modules for miniRT, as well as a slew of minor fixes and improvements. It also marks the first time minisphere binaries have been offered for Linux*.

note* Official Linux support is currently limited to Debian-based distributions.

Release notes (minisphere 3.0)

  • SphereFS sandboxing is more comprehensive. API calls taking filenames no
    longer accept absolute paths, and will throw a sandbox violation error if one
    is given. As this behavior matches Sphere 1.x, few if any games should be
    affected by the change.
  • minisphere 3.0 stores user data in a different location than past versions.
    Any save data stored in /minisphere will need to be moved into
    <documents>/Sphere 2.0/saveData to be picked up by the new version.
  • miniRT has been overhauled for the 3.0 release and is now provided in the form
    of CommonJS modules. Games will no longer be able to pull in miniRT globally
    using RequireSystemScript() and should instead use require() to get at the
    individual modules making up of the library. Games relying on the older
    miniRT bits will need to be updated.
  • When using the SSJ command-line debugger, source code is downloaded directly
    from minisphere without accessing the original source tree (which need not be
    present). When CoffeeScript or TypeScript are used, the JavaScript code
    generated by the transpiler, not the original source, will be provided to the
    debugger.
  • CommonJS module resolution has changed. Previously the engine searched for
    modules in ~sgm/modules. minisphere 3.0 changes this to ~sgm/commonjs.
  • Assert() behavior differs from past releases. Failing asserts will no
    longer throw, and minisphere completely ignores the error if no debugger is
    attached. This was done for consistency with assert semantics in other
    programming languages.
  • When a debugger is attached, minisphere 3.0 co-opts the F12 key, normally
    used to take screenshots, for the purpose of triggering a prompt breakpoint.
    This may be surprising for those who aren’t expecting it.
  • TypeScript support in minisphere 3.0 is mostly provisional. In order to
    maintain normal Sphere script semantics, the TypeScript compiler API
    ts.transpile() is used to convert TypeScript to JavaScript before running
    the code. While this allows all valid TypeScript syntax, some features such
    as compiler-enforced typing and module import will likely not be available.
  • Official Windows builds of minisphere are compiled against Allegro 5.1. Linux
    builds are compiled against Allegro 5.0 instead, which disables several
    features. Notably, Galileo shader support is lost. If a game attempts to
    construct a ShaderProgram object in a minisphere build compiled against
    Allegro 5.0, the constructor will throw an error. Games using shaders should
    be prepared to handle the error.
  • If SSJ terminates prematurely during a debugging session, either because of a
    crash or due to accidentally pressing Ctrl+C, minisphere will wait up to 30
    seconds for the debugger to reconnect. During this time, you may enter
    ssj -c on the command line to connect to the running engine instance and
    pick up where you left off.

Changes in this release

  • The Windows redistributable and GDK downloads have been combined into a single
    installer. The engine is so compact that there's nothing gained from having
    separate installers.
  • minisphere is now officially supported on Linux! .deb binary and .tar.gz
    source packages will be provided for all minisphere releases going forward.
  • miniRT is completely revamped and modernized. All miniRT components have been
    rewritten as CommonJS modules which allows them to be pulled in individually
    as needed, instead of all at once using a global RequireScript().
  • A complete API reference for miniRT is now included with the engine.
  • Introducing the brand-new command-line debugger, SSJ! SSJ can be started by
    running ssj <game-path> on the command line. This brings single-step Sphere
    debugging to non-Windows platforms for the first time!
  • Strengthens the SphereFS sandbox: Using absolute file paths is no longer
    supported and will result in a sandbox violation error.
  • Adds provisional TypeScript support. minisphere uses ts.transpile()
    internally to convert TypeScript to JavaScript, so some TypeScript features
    may not work as expected. See the release notes for more details.
  • User data (screenshots, save files, etc.) is now stored in <docs>/Sphere 2.0
    instead of <docs>/minisphere as it was in prior versions. SPK packages can
    be placed into the games subdirectory to have the startup game automatically
    pick them up.
  • minisphere now looks for CommonJS modules in ~sgm/commonjs.
  • Enhances Assert() behavior. If an assertion fails and the debugger is
    attached, choosing not to continue will cause a prompt breakpoint instead of
    throwing an error. If the debugger is not attached, any failing assertions
    will be logged to stderr but otherwise ignored.
  • Improves fullscreen behavior: Games are letter/pillarboxed to maintain their
    aspect ratio when switching into fullscreen mode.
  • Screenshots are now given meaningful names based on the game filename and
    current date instead of random characters.
  • The frame rate is now visible by default whenever a game is started using the
    spherun command, and has been moved to the lower right corner of the screen.
  • When the debugger is attached, the engine now shows a small "SSJ" watermark in
    the lower left corner of the screen as a reminder.
  • The engine now waits for sounds to stop playing before freeing them, even if
    the Sound object goes out of scope. This allows a common Sphere idiom
    new Sound("munch.wav").play() to work as expected.
  • With the debugger attached, you can now press F12 to pause game execution and
    turn over control to the attached debugger. This can be useful when trying to
    debug glitches that don't lead to an exception.
  • You can now change the minisphere Console verbosity level when developing in
    Sphere Studio by going to the Settings Center page. V2 (high-level logging)
    is the default.
  • Vastly improves object inspection in the Sphere Studio debugger. Object
    contents will be displayed in a treeview, allowing you to drill down into
    properties, alleviating the need to scroll through a potentially huge JSON
    dump.
  • The command to run minisphere Console from the command line has changed from
    msphere to spherun. This will be the standard command to start a
    Sphere 2.0 engine in developer mode going forward. The end-user engine has
    been renamed as well, to minisphere.
  • RNG.vary() is now named RNG.uniform().
  • New API: DebugPrint(), for logging low-level debug information without
    cluttering the console. DebugPrint() output is visible only with a debugger
    attached.
  • New API: DoEvents(). This function can be called in a long-running loop to
    avoid locking up the engine when you don't need to render anything or
    otherwise disturb the backbuffer.
  • Print() now accepts multiple values, which are separated by spaces when
    printed.
  • The sphere global object alias has been renamed to global, which is more
    obvious and matches Node.js. Code relying on the sphere alias will need to
    be updated to work with minisphere 3.0.
  • All minisphere API functions, constructors, and constants have been marked as
    non-enumerable, to avoid bloating the output when examining the global object
    in the debugger. Everything is still fully writable and configurable, so as
    not to prevent monkey-patching.
  • Fixes memory leaks in both Cell and minisphere, including a major one in
    Cell's packaging code which could have caused it to run out of memory during
    the installation step.
  • minisphere will no longer fail to start if the underlying platform doesn't
    support shaders. Instead, the Galileo ShaderProgram constructor will throw
    an error if called. Shaders are always disabled when the engine is compiled
    against Allegro 5.0.

Installing in Windows

Simply download and run minisphereSetup-3.0.0.exe. The Inno Setup install wizard will walk you through the installation process.

Installing in Linux

For Ubuntu (14.04 and later), minisphere is available via personal package archive (PPA):

Installing from a PPA is easy. Simply open Terminal and run the following commands:

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fatcerberus/minisphere
  • sudo apt-get update
  • sudo apt-get install minisphere

For other Debian distributions such as Linux Mint or Debian itself, simply download one of the .deb packages below. Users of 32-bit systems will want minisphere_3.0.0_i386.deb, while 64-bit users should download minisphere_3.0.0_amd64.deb. Once downloaded, simply double-click the file and your package manager will guide you through the process of installing the package.

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