Boxer

Developer diary: plans and progress reports.

I love OS updates (yes, a new beta) Sunday 13th September 2009

Boxer 0.88 is in beta, and will be a point release to address bugs and incompatibilities that came to light from 0.87 and OS X 10.6. This version includes the usual aimless refactoring to bring about yet more bugs, so please report anything odd you find.

The biggest change in this version is switching DOSBox back from OpenGL to overlay output mode, which avoids a rendering bug on OS X 10.6.1 wherein the DOS window may appear blank until moved. Unfortunately, overlay rendering also sucks; this change will mean that fullscreen mode may show stretch-marks at certain resolutions, and the DOS window may appear off-center if you have a large screen. There are a lot of impolitic things I would like to say at this point, but let’s leave it that my contempt has now reached the stratosphere.

This version also tweaks the Snow Leopard shelf artwork to match OS X 10.6’s default grid spacing, which is unfortunately not under Boxer’s control. This will not affect existing folders, but if you have upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6 then new DOS Games folders may appear misaligned until you tweak the grid spacing from the View Options panel (⌘J.)

What next?

0.88 will hopefully be the final release on this Applescript codebase, which has long outstayed its welcome. I’ll then return to work on the 0.9 Cocoa branch, which brings with it countless clever features and ease-of-use improvements (among other things, a rendering mode that isn’t shit), and the ability to introduce substantial new improvements instead of just bailing out water whenever there’s an OS X update.

Sadly 0.9 will probably not be OS X 10.4-compatible, so it’s of particular importance to me that 0.88 works as well as it can on the venerable old Tiger. Report them bugs!

Commentary

  1. Well, now I can't replicate the window-appearing-blank problem when testing any longer. It may be that it has been fixed by an OS X update, or it may be just an occasional bug. In the next beta I'll switch back to using OpenGL rendering since the behaviour is far superior, but if anybody has any problems with OpenGL mode then please let me know.

    Alun Bestor Wednesday 7th October 2009

  2. Any new betas on the horizon? Or the ever-elusive 0.9? :)

    Sludge Vohaul Tuesday 27th October 2009

  3. Well, the beta has got to that awkward stage where there's nothing important left to be fixed and it needs to be wiped off, relocalised, patted on the bum and shoved out into the world.

    Which I haven't had time to do yet, because (happily) I've been too focused on 0.9, which is far more exciting to work on. Once I get 0.88 properly out the door then I'll start putting up new 0.9 betas, as it's way too much work maintaining two separate beta branches.

    Alun Bestor Thursday 29th October 2009

  4. I was secretely hoping that work on 0.9 had resumed. I'm happy to hear that it has. :)

    Take your time. Your work means a lot to many. I really admire your efforts to bring the best experience in DOS emulation.

    Sludge Vohaul Friday 30th October 2009

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