Openage v0.5.2 has been released!
Oct 19, 2023 - 14:23
Comrade General! We have news for you. Reinforcements have arrived from Openage as version 0.5.2 has been recently published by their developers. For those unaware of what is being written here, Openage is a free cross-platform real-time strategy game engine that provides the mechanics of Age of Empires, replicating its look and feel, making it more moddable, and allowing multiplayer games with more than 8 players. Here are the changes and the fun stuff from Openage v0.5.2:

Quote:
Adds a few fixes for macOS and release builds. The version number should also be correctly displayed now.

What's Changed
New Contributors
Full Changelog: v0.5.1...v0.5.2


You can check more information about Openage by visiting the Official Website, Forums, and YouTube Video Channel. Download Openage Here. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy Openage!

Ladies and gentlemen! Zero-K v1.11.10.0 has been posted as we speak by the team of Zero-K. For those who are not acquainted with it, Zero-K is a free and open-source real-time strategy game that uses the Spring game engine. There is only one faction with 100+ varied units with unique abilities. It has physically simulated units and projectiles, and it allows terrain manipulation in battle. It has a single-player campaign, a challenging, non-cheating AI, multiplayer 1v1 - 16v16, FFA, and coop, and a multiplayer online campaign. Here is what we know about Zero-K v1.11.10.0:

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This is a hotfix release for an engine bug that could be used to place geos anywhere.

Modding
  • Units can now be tinted, rescaled, and made glowing via customparams:

Code:
model_tint = "1.0  0.5  0.0" -- R G B
model_glow = "0.1  0.2  0.3  1.0" -- R G B A
model_rescale = 1.23,

  • Free units (0 metal and energy cost) no longer need to explicitly specify a non-zero build time.
  • Support some recently added engine interfaces. See `engine_compat.lua`. Note that ZK hasn't yet migrated.


Fixes
  • Fix an exploit to do with geo placement.
  • Fix the "Enable Force Fire Command" default state for Lobster.
  • Fix Dominatrix breaking when capturing very low completion nanoframes of very expensive units.
  • Fix awards for sharing and capture to consider nanoframes at their real value.
  • Fix a chat crash if using the "color labels the player color" option.
  • Fix Onyx Cauldron using incorrect boxes in coop comp stomps.
  • Fix cloaked constructors revealing themselves by reclaiming if using the automated constructors widget.
  • Land units now eventually give up when ordered to move deep into an inaccessible place (such as a large sea).


You can check more information about Zero-K by visiting the Official Website, and Forums. Download Zero-K v1.11.10.0. And that's all regarding Zero-K for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Zero-K!

Comrade General! We have news for you. Totem Arts, the developers of Renegade X, has recently published Renegade X: Patch 5.76. For those unaware of what is being written here, Renegade X is a free tactical shooter that aims to brings the Command & Conquer FPS experience to Unreal Engine. The changes from Renegade X: Patch 5.76 were announced with the following words:

Quote:

"Welcome back, Commander!"



This Spooky Season has brought Patch 5.76 upon us with many fixes, some big changes, and our seasonal maps.


| Bug Fixes / Changes |

  • Added a few extra seconds between production on air vehicles
  • Fixed an issue with getting out of bounds
  • Fixed a long-standing issue with Repair Gun first-person animations
  • Lowered Orca / Apache engine ambient volume
  • Added a global cooldown for map-related votes
  • Fixed recoil on multi-weapon vehicles being incorrectly applied
  • Fixed getting VP from self-vehicle repair assists
  • Fixed an issue where the team changing after calling support powers would cause the powers to affect the original team
  • Fixed a case where infantry would play a kill taunt after killing themselves
  • Added a ton of voice lines (thank you @dr.Mobius!)



| Balance |

  • Stamina has been removed, meaning you can now sprint permanently.
  • AT Mine

    • Significantly reduced explosion momentum

  • Volt Auto Rifle

    • Increased vehicle damage
    • Increased damage vs flak armour type
    • Reworked charge-up attack to feel more fluid and not be as fight-defining

  • Laser Chain Gun

    • Infantry damage values scaled down one rank, heroic now does damage of elite and so forth
    • Advanced Guard Tower
    • Rocket damage increased from 220 to 240
    • Rocket is now much harder to dodge
    • Fixed an issue where the rockets could hit the AGT itself
    • Machine Guns will now prioritize infantry over vehicles

  • AC130 Airstrike

    • Heavy cannon damage increased slightly
    • The rate of fire increased
    • Spread decreased

  • APC

    • Base health increased by 100
    • Spread now reduces while the weapon is being fired


| User Interface |

  • Cleaned up several bits of old UI code
  • Moved some bounty announcements to the top left-hand corner instead of the center screen


| Maps |

  • Seasonal maps added





For further information about Renegade X, visit the Official Website, and Discord Channel. Renegade X is downloadable at This Address. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy Renegade X!

Comrade General! We have news for you. Reinforcements have arrived from Notepad++ as version 8.5.8 has been recently published by their crew. For those unaware, Notepad++ is a free and open-source code editor and Notepad replacement that runs on Windows. It supports several programming languages, multiple tabs, plugins, and is based on the powerful editing component Scintilla.

Here are the changes and the fun stuff from Notepad++ v8.5.8:

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Notepad++ v8.5.8 Change log:

  • Fix the “Clear Read-Only Flag” command not working immediately regression.
  • Fix saving files losing Alternate Data Stream issue.
  • Fix data loss issue due to no room on disk for saving.
  • Add Win10/Win11 Restart-application feature.
  • Fix user-created session being modified behavior on exit.
  • Improve document list display performance.
  • Update Scintilla to v5.3.7 & Lexilla to v5.2.7.
  • Fix unwanted Afrikaans installer language issue.
  • Fix a crash issue while reading settings from the cloud.
  • Fix security issue CVE-2022-31901.
  • Enhance non-saved search text’s persistence in the Find dialog combo box while pressing an arrow key.
  • Make auto-checking of Find InSelection configurable (resizable & can be disabled).
  • Perl enhancement: Update Stylers & the keywords for Perl v5.38.
  • Fix “Single Line Uncomment” uncommenting an extra line issue.
  • Fix the “Next Bookmark” command, not resetting the current column issue.
  • Allow the menu command Window->Windows to be assigned a shortcut.
  • Fix wrong categories in Shortcuts Mapper.


If you are curious about Notepad++, visit the Official Website, and Forums to obtain further information about it. Download Notepad++ Here. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy Notepad++!

Are you picking this up? Good! paint.net 5.0.11 has been published by the paint.net's team a while ago. For those unfamiliar with it, paint.net is a free and open-source image and photo editing software for Windows with quite a rich set of features. Here is the official announcement from paint.net's staff about paint.net 5.0.11:

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This update has a handful of important bug fixes and an updated DdsFileTypePlus plugin.

Change Log
Changes since v5.0.10:

  • Fixed: If an image file (such as .png or .jpg) is actually a WebP image, the WebPFileType will be used for loading instead of WIC’s WebP codec (which doesn’t work correctly)
  • Fixed a crash when undoing brush strokes
  • Fixed a rare crash in the updater UI when exiting the app
  • Fixed a crash that was preventing CodeLab’s UI Preview functionality from working
  • Updated the bundled DdsFileTypePlus plugin to v1.12.8.0. It now supports DDS files from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, and has fixed BC5 Signed saving (thanks @null54!)


If you are curious about paint.net, visit the Official Website to obtain further information about it. Grab the latest version of paint.net by clicking Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on paint.net!

One vision, one purpose! OpenRA Release 20231010 has been posted yesterday by the developers of OpenRA. For those unaware of what is being written here, OpenRA is a real-time strategy game engine that recreates the gameplay experience of Command & Conquer games. OpenRA is packaged with three mods: Dune, Tiberian Dawn, and Red Alert 1, which expands and improves the experience of the original games based on the development team's ideals. OpenRA works for Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. Here is what we know about OpenRA Release 20231010:

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With two months of successful playtesting behind us, we are pleased to finally announce Release 20231010, which brings the public release up to date with development changes from November 2022 through to August 2023. The new release contains some long-awaited UI and UX improvements and many polish changes overall. It also serves as a jump-off point for many of the larger upcoming features, so do expect great things in the future!
 

The ability to select darker player colors has been restored.


For more information, see the other newsposts [one, two, three] and, as always, for a full overview - the full changelog.


As last time, we would like to mention that this release contains significant progress towards C&C Remastered Collection support, including compatibility with the new EA app. The “Tiberian Dawn HD” project is a separate release and can be downloaded here. This preview is multiplayer-compatible with the main 20231010 release. However, please keep in mind that performance, memory usage, and loading times have not been fully optimized yet. The C&C Remastered Collection must be installed through Steam or the EA App, and in case you are using macOS or Linux, the project README provides you detailed installation instructions.


Don’t forget to share your feedback with us on our forum, community Discord server, or GitHub. We hope you’ll enjoy this newest installment of OpenRA! Good luck on the battlefield, commanders!


For further information about OpenRA, visit the Official Website, Forums, ModDB Profile, Discord Channel, and YouTube Video Channel. OpenRA is available for download Here. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy OpenRA!

Reinforcements have arrived at Visual Studio. Microsoft has recently made Visual Studio 2022 17.8 Preview 3 available for download. For those unaware of what is being written here, Visual Studio is one of the most famous commercial code editor that supports several programming languages, multiple tabs, plugins, etc. It runs on Windows and macOS. Visual Studio comes with several editions and the Community Edition is free for personal use and for companies with up to 5 users/devices. The changes from Visual Studio 2022 17.8 Preview 3 were announced at the Visual Studio Blog with the following words:

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Welcome to Visual Studio 2022 17.8 Preview 3! This release is dedicated to addressing community-submitted feedback where we resolved nearly 100 Developer Community tickets. Our primary focus was improving stability and reliability while also introducing a few new features.


Productivity
 

Visual Studio Update Notification
Did you notice something new? For Visual Studio 2022, we added an overlay to the VS taskbar icon to help you know when VS will update. When there is an update available, and you have enabled the “Update on Close” option, the icon will appear. Once you close VS, an update will immediately start, and as a result, the icon will also disappear. For more information on Update on Close, please visit VS Update on Close.



C++ Game Dev
 

Unreal Engine Macro Specifier Suggestions
You will now see Unreal Engine macro specifiers suggested in the member list, making it easier to understand and use them in your code. This feature will save you time and effort by providing quick access to important information about macro specifiers without having to leave the IDE.



Structured Diagnostics
C++ compiler errors can be long and unwieldy. To address this, we’ve created a new Problem Details window, which allows you to navigate compiler errors in a structured way. The Problem Details window can be opened by clicking the Details icon for an entry in the Error List.



Entries in the Problem Details window can be expanded to view nested information about the error from the compiler.



MDS 3.0 to MDS 5.0 Upgrade in SQL Server Data Tools
SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) has upgraded from (Microsoft.Data.SQLClient)MDS 3.0 to MDS 5.0. MDS 5.0 has some significant benefits over MDS 3.0. It has added support to TDS 8.0, support for specifying Server SPN and Failover Server SPN on the connection, etc. Please refer to this blog for more information on the benefits of the upgrade.

For SSDT users, the major change that can be noticed is while connecting to a database. Two new fields, namely Encrypt and Trust Server Certificate, have been added to the Connect Page. This specifies the Encryption type and the requirement for a Trust Server Certificate. By default, the Encrypt is set as true or Mandatory. You can find details about this in our Microsoft Learn Documentation.



If you are curious about Visual Studio, visit the Official Website to obtain further information about it. Grab the latest version of Visual Studio by clicking Here. And that's all regarding Visual Studio for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Visual Studio!

Krita 5.2 has been released!
Oct 12, 2023 - 00:11
Howdy! Krita 5.2 has been released in these days by the developers of Krita. For those unaware, Krita is a free and open-source graphics editor for digital art and 2D animation. It features an advanced brush engine, non-destructive layers and masks, group-based layer management, vector artwork support, color management support, and switchable customization profiles.  Here are the changes that were announced at Krita's website:

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After a year of hard work, Krita 5.2 is finally here, bringing a variety of new features, ranging from fundamental changes in text and animation-audio handling to various smaller items like transforming all selected layers!



The following fixes were made in response to all your bug reports for the first release candidate:

  • Set updateRect to widget rect on fractional hidpi screen (Bug 441216)
  • Fix link to Scripting API in About splash (Thanks, Matt Alexander)
  • Fix loading swatchbook CMYK palettes (Bug 474583)
  • Remove a warning from KisTransactionData…possiblySwitchCurrentTime() (Bug 474123)
  • Several QImage optimizations from Fushan Wen
  • Fix crash when copy-pasting a transformation mask (Bug 474673)
  • Make sure that saved encoder settings are supported by FFmpeg (Bug 474559)
  • Fix external FFmpeg not working on Linux due to clash in LD_LIBRARY_PATH (Bug 473603)
  • Make sure that the splitter state is saved in Preset Chooser (Bug 474669)
  • Update webp to the latest version
  • Fix setting size of a text brush tip
  • Fix removal of duplicated frames in “Only Unique Frames” mode (Bug 450449)
  • Added openh264 presets to the recorder plugin (Bug 474803)
  • Fix layer selection menus piling up until closing the canvas
  • Fix a crash after removing a vector layer with an active selection of shapes (Bug 474476)
  • Fix detection of FFmpeg in AppImages (Bug 474927)
  • Fix misbehavior in the “grow until darkest pixel” selection filter (Bug 475014)
  • Welcome Page: Added bare minimum close/hide button to the dev fund banner.
  • Update libvpx to 1.13.1 that fixes 0-day vulnerability
  • Fix brush rotation when using Airbrush mode (Bug 455627)



There is also a huge list of new features that were previously posted back when the 5.2 Release Candidate was announced

You can learn more about Krita by visiting the Official Website. You can download Krita 5.2 Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Krita!