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2006-12-25 : Version 0.10.0 - zooooooommm!
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CHANGED:
  1. Double clicking endlos.jar starts endlos instead of showing version information
     (if your system is configured to start Java on file types ".jar").
  2. Renamed scripts "start.sh"/"start.bat" to "startCustomUnix.sh"/"startCustomWindows.bat".

FIXED:
  1. File endlos_src.jar wasn't updated during last versions.

NEW:
  1. Introduced fast preview when zooming in. (Enabled by default as it doesn't hurt performance much.)
  2. Zooming factor is now configurable.
  3. Automatic saving of global preferences and settings of the last fractal window.
     (Next time you open endlos will generate the same fractal of your last session.)

2007-01-08 : Version 0.13.0 - sweet Julia
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Fractal frames don't store their dimension anymore as it caused some size problems. As the preferences
     also changed, you won't get all former preferences values anymore.
  2. Right mouse click into image shows popup menu instead of zooming out. Zoom out via middle mouse button.
     Therefore, former middle mouse function (reset) was removed. If you want to reset, you need to open a
     new fractal window (or set the corresponding coordinates + radius).
  3. Settings panel changed again.

FIXED:
  1. Preview image was slightly misplaced.

NEW:
  1. The exponent of the standard Mandelbrot formula (Zn+1 = Zn^2 + C) can be changed to other values than 2
     to generate cubic Mandelbrots and so on.
  2. New fractal type: Julia set.
  3. Right click on image shows popup menu with new functions:

     "Open location"   : clones the current window with click point centered.
     "Open Mandelbrot" : open a Mandelbrot fractal based on the click point location.
     "Open Julia"      : opens a Julia fractal based on the click point location.
     
     and save functions that formerly were in the settings panel. 

2007-01-14 : Version 0.14.0 - fast colors
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CHANGED:
  1. Recoloring of an image doesn't recalculate fractal anymore! Now you can change color maps, smoothing,
     anti-aliasing on the fly - it's much more satisfying to play with colors.
  2. As some users complained about a "missing" GUI and told that they had to maximize it from the task panel,
     the workbench window's initial size is set to 1024x768. I hope this addresses the issue as I can't
     reproduce this on my computer.
  3. Several operands increased from 32 bit (int) to 64 bit (long). This might decrease performance on 32 bit
     systems but gives a much wider range of precision on 64 bit systems without slowing down.
  4. The demo fractals now use the updated ColorMaps version 1.1.0.

FIXED:
  1. "Open location" didn't work in high precision mode.
  2. If zoom clicks came too fast, the fractal could fall into endless sleep. :-(

NEW:
  1. Cycle iterations of fractal which is basically a colour cycling (via mouse wheel).
  2. The demo directory contains a new fractal 'Sun (deep)' with a precision of 34 (128 Bit). I will use this
     for benchmarking to measure the future performance increase of the iteration algorithm.
     Calculation time on my AMD X2 3800+ EE (2 GHz), Sun Java 1.6, Ubuntu Linux 64 bit: 03:14:35. Tell me yours ... ;-)
  3. Usage of sourceforge subversion repository for resource control.

2007-01-20 : Version 0.15.0 - speed & misc
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. High precision speed improvement: demo fractal "Sun (deep)" now takes 02:23:28 compared to
     03:14:35 of former version.

NEW:
  1. Progress information (percentage, remaining) in fractal window title.
  2. New image popup menu item to save current color map. E.g. to save a random color map.
  3. New demo fractal: "Four Comets"
  4. Further speed optimization through Java parameters. I already found one Java parameter that
     reduced calculation time of demo fractal "Sun (deep)" by 5 minutes: -XX:+UseBiasedLocking
     
     java -server -XX:+UseBiasedLocking -jar endlos.jar
  
  5. New feature: play ... MIDI files! If a subdirectory "MIDI/" is available in the startdirectory (e.g.
     a shortcut to your MIDI collection folder), a random file will be played in the background. Here's
     one suggested place to get MIDI files: http://www.vgmusic.com/

java -jar endlos.jar

2007-01-26 : Version 0.16.0 - speed & effects
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Improved speed of fast (float/double) precision: demo fractal "Four Comets" is 75% faster!
  2. Checkbox 'Anti-Aliasing' removed - see new tabs Rendering and Effects ('blur').
  3. Decreased precision of demo fractal "Sun" from 34 to 22. It's now 30% faster.

FIXED:
  1. Flickering of image during color cycling via mouse. Cycling is also a little faster.

NEW:
  1. Effects tabulator. Post process an image with several filters (Spin, Blur, Emboss, etc.).
  2. Rendering tabulator. Set misc rendering hints for image manipulation.
  3. Improve speed by using the Java parameter "-XX:MaxTenuringThreshold":
  
     java -server -XX:MaxTenuringThreshold=31 -jar endlos.jar
     
     With this parameter, the "Sun" demo fractal is 3% faster with my configuration.

2007-02-02 : Version 0.17.0 - new fractals
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Fractal definition XML file. To migrate your old XML files replace
          <type>Mandelbrot</type>
     by   <class>de.dentaku.endlos.fractals.Mandelbrot</class>
     and equivalent with the Julia type:
          <type>Julia</type>
     by   <class>de.dentaku.endlos.fractals.Julia</class>
  2. Popup menu items "Open Mandelbrot", "Open Julia" replaced by "Open new fractal".
  3. Removed fast float datatype as it just bloats the code without any real benefit.
     (The fast double datatype is good enough.)
  4. Several GUI changes as a preparation to generalize the iterator and introduce
     custom fractals.
     
NEW:
  1. 9 new fractal types available: Barnsley's, Peterson's, Magnetic, Manowar Mandelbrot
     and Julia sets; Spider.
  2. New demo fractal "Spider".

2007-02-12 : Version 0.18.0
---------------------------

CHANGED: 
  1. Fractal definition XML file. Migration:
     <real>           => <x>
     <imaginary>      => <y>
     <real0>          => <x0>
     <imaginary0>     => <y0>
     <width>/<height> => <imageDimension>
  2. Introduced color formulas (alpha). Instead of just switching between classic and smoothed
     coloring, a list box offers several coloring methods. So far, only one additional test algorithm
     "Function" - look how the colors change when you cycle them with the mouse wheel ... 8-
     
FIXED:
  1. Rendering hints weren't used for post processing image effects.
  2. Progress update now at least after each block line to see progress for block/image draw modes.
  3. Real number of threads (= number of blocks) weren't set in text field which also could lead
     to a progress state of > 100%.

NEW:
  1. Negative exponents supported in fast precision mode (16). So far, negative exponents were treated
     as exponent 0. Now, negative exponents are correctly treated. Thanks to Paul Bourke's site
     http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/mandelpower/ that shows examples.
  2. Demo fractal 'Dubai'.
  3. Move location (up, down, left, right) via buttons (10% per click).
  4. Image dimension presets.

2007-02-22 : Version 0.19.0 - flexibel formulas
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Fractal definition XML file. Migration:
     <x0> => <custom><cr>
     <y0> => <custom><ci>
  2. Tabular "Fractal" is full generic now, i.e. all fractals are decoupled from the main
     iterator.

FIXED:
  1. Open new fractal didn't use the mouse click location.

NEW:
  1. Parameters of formulas configurable in settings GUI.
  2. Demo fractals "Blossom", "Eye", "Protozoan".
  3. Fractal class "Newton".

2007-03-05 : Version 0.20.0 - threads & color functions
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Coloring function "Function" renamed to "Function1". Migration: in you fractal XML
     files, rename value of <colorMode>: 
     
     <colorMode>Function</colorMode>   to   <colorMode>Function1</colorMode>
     
  2. Misc. GUI changes.
  3. Thread count is not squared anymore. The image is now tiled into the exact number
     of threads. This leads to misc image tiling depending on the possible tile factors.

FIXED:
  1. Randomize colors didn't work for deep iterations.
  2. Demo fractal settings were reused so that once a demo fractal was changed,
     the new fractal hasen't used it's saved settings but the last changed.

NEW:
  1. Cycle through color maps with mouse wheel when mouse pointer is over color
     maps list.
  2. Eighteen new coloring functions.
  3. New post processing effects 'posterize', 'threshold', 'rotate'.

2007-03-30 : Version 1.0.0 - 2D fractals
--------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Default number of threads is number of (virtual) processors. On a dual core or a
     pentium with hyper threading this will be 2. This will use the theoretical optimal
     number of threads by default.
  2. Pause button replaced by CPU usage slider for fine grained system load.
     (0% same as former pause.)