2.11

The sunset update of the 2.X series of clients.

Important Notice : 2.11 will not work on Windows 8.1 or older!

Courtroom

• Added player list.
  • Provides a visual list of all players in the current area. Providing information about their name and character.
  • The formatting can be changed in the clients settings.
• Add initial moderation tools.
  • Context menu to perform basic moderation actions to kick, ban or report users.
• Fix bug where the selected effect was being discarded even when the message was blocked by the server.
• Fix bug where the color dropdown does not match the chatbox or character defined colors.
• Add character searching by category

Chatbox

• Added a style option allowing character names to appear outlined. (e.g. with a border of a designated color)
  • For more information please refer to the docs.
• Fix absurdly bad linespacing on user-provided fonts. See here.

Viewport

• Added Ace Attorney style camera panning.
  • For more information please refer to the docs.
• Updated Evidence Presentation Logic.
  • Animation won't be replayed when the evidence is already shown.
• Fix scaling option being illogically applied.

Characters

• Support for multiple Options segments in char.ini for characters with multiple blips/shownames. See here.

General

• Update the client to Qt 6.5 LTS.
• Added notification popup when an errors occurs while loading media formats.
• Added notification popup when a client update is available.
• Added support for restoring the window position after closing the client.
• Added support for AppImage Distribution on Linux.
  • Supports Ubuntu 20.04 LTS derivatives or newer. Please upgrade your OS as needed.
• Added support for font files outside the primary base folder.
• The clients username is send to the server while joining it.
  • This solves the issue where the playerlist or /getarea does not show the username.

Miscellaneous

• Improved performance for playback of sprite animations and audio playback.
• Improved startup performance by no longer checking if the image plugins, which are automatically loaded, have actually been loaded by loading them again.
• Improve server-join time by no longer looking for animated character images
• Fix inconsistent combobox behaviour in the settings.

Deprecations

• TCP sockets are no longer used for general communication with a server. WebSockets are their designated replacements.
  • Check your server documentation on how to enable them.
• Removed audio MIDI support.
  • The system was not being used.
• Removed the majority of "animated themes" functionality

v2.11.0-rc6

Due to major changes in the Qt Framework, the Attorney Online project is forced to drop support for Windows Vista, 7, and 8.1. If you are still running one of these versions, AO2.11 and onwards will no longer run on that system. The Attorney Online project recommends at minimum Windows 10 or a current Linux distribution instead.
Without this change some features of 2.11 would not work correctly.

What's Changed

• Update PlayerList to work more akin to WebAO
• Fix PlayerList and Slide button not showing up
• Fix outlined nameplates not obeying alignment
• Fix effects dropdown being erroneously cleared when a message is not sent
• [Feature] Add support for custom playerlist formatting, show all users when authenticated
• Fix evidence not being consistently presentable
• load aceattorney2x instead of aceattorney

Full Changelog: v2.11.0-rc4...v2.11.0-rc6

v2.11.0-rc4

Due to major changes in the Qt Framework, the Attorney Online project is forced to drop support for Windows Vista, 7, and 8.1. If you are still running one of these versions, AO2.11 and onwards will no longer run on that system. The Attorney Online project recommends at minimum Windows 10 or a current Linux distribution instead.
Without this change some features of 2.11 would not work correctly.

What's Changed

Changes from RC3

• Fixed crash due to the PlayerList system not working properly with demos sometimes
• Change the initial theme to AceAttorney
• Fix slides not respecting offsets
• Fix playerlist and slide checkbox not appearing after using an outdated theme
• Playerlist and slide checkbox will now appear in the top left if the theme is not correctly configured

Known Issues

• Layer clipping does not always work correctly with slides

Full Changelog: v2.11.0-rc3...v2.11.0-rc4

v2.11.0-rc3

Due to major changes in the Qt Framework, the Attorney Online project is forced to drop support for Windows Vista, 7, and 8.1. Please be aware that if you are still running one of these versions, AO2.11 and onwards will no longer run on that system. The Attorney Online project recommends at minimum Windows 10 or a current Linux distribution instead.
Without this change some features of 2.11 would not work correctly.

What's Changed

Changes from RC1 / RC2

• Fix preanimations not being displayed correctly
• Change ban duration to unix timestamps
• Add universal connfigure script for maintainers
• Change default theme to AceAttorney
• Send username to the server during connection
• Fix crash when playing back demo files created with RC1/RC2

Full Changelog: v2.11.0-rc.1...v2.11.0-rc3

2.11.0 - RC1

Due to major changes in the Qt Framework, the Attorney Online project is forced to drop support for Windows Vista, 7, and 8.1. Please be aware that if you are still running one of these versions, AO2.11 and onwards will no longer run on that system. The Attorney Online project recommends at minimum Windows 10 or a current Linux distribution instead.
Without this change some features of 2.11 would not work correctly.

What's Changed

Major changes

• Add AppImage support for Linux (#1005)
  Linux Clients no longer need to install Qt to run the client. Version differences between the Distro and AO2 should no longer apply. (Ubuntu 22.04 and up)
• Add showname outlines (#939)
• Add Courtroom slides (#966)
  Enables Ace Attorney style courtroom panning of the background. Only works on supported backgrounds.
• Add char.ini [Options] override for per-emote blips and displayname configuration (#953)
• Add support to restore the last window position (#1016)
  The client stores the position it was closed at and opens the window in the same position on the next start. If the position can't be found it will center the client as it currently does
• Add playerlist with minimal moderatior dialog menu (#958 , #1018)
  Adds a per-area playerlist with support for moderator actions
• Update client to Qt 6.5.3 (#991)

Minor changes

• Fix crash when the user joins a server before the serverlist is loaded (#927)
• Fix translation settings not being applied properly (#918)
• Fix typos in effects code (#921)
• Fix themes not loading correctly when stored in a mounted base folder (#922)
• Fix zooms without emote modifier defaulting to showing the desk (#925)
• Fix URL encoding for music streaming (#926)
• Change sorting of character categories to ascending, instead of by load order (#932)
• Add basic theme upscaling (#935)
• Fix client crashing when a JPEG pretends to be a PNG (#937)
• Fix frameFX on frame 0 playing twice on playback start (#945)
• Fix A/B music looping not working properly (#944)
• Improve initial load times when joining a server (#954)
• Fix secondary music-channel updating the currently playing song (#948)
• Hide pair on zoom emote (#940)
• Hide chatbox when using shouts (#933)
• Tweak missing image warning to be more visible (#994)
• Cleanup Readme and typos (#995)
• Make launch.sh for dynamic Linux clients work independently of the directory (#1011)
• Improve linespacing deduction and application (#981)
• Improve internal client and project structure (#995 , #957, #960)
• Improve character searching with searching by category (#968)
• Fix issues with UI not honoring chatbox settings (#984)
• Improve loading and playback performance of renderer
• Improve loading and playback performance of audioplayer
• Update about dialog (#1020)

Deprecations

• Remove (barely documented) MIDI Support (#1008)
• Remove side-dropdown being editable (#1009)
• Remove legacy TCP-Support (#1007 , #973)

Known Issues

• Themes need to be updated
  Use slide_enable and player_list to add it to your theme.
• Some elements are sized differently in Qt6.
• Preanimations do not play correctly.
  Fixed in RC2

2.10.1

Better late than never.

What's Changed

Major Changes
Technical Preview of AO2-QtUI Files in Lobby/Serverlist (Partial #874)

• Lobby now uses a new UI system to showcase the potential new UI System for future AO2 Releases.
• Move Demoserver into its own category on the serverlist (#834)

Minor Changes

• Add dialogue to add servers to favourites (#651)
• Add Favorite Server Edit Dialog
• Reworked Settings Dialogue to be resizable and Theme-Modifiable.
• Add direct connection dialogue.
• Sort themes dropdown according to Windows Explorer
• Playercount turns to connection message when connecting.
• Scale speedlines by default

Deprecation

• Removed Case Announcements Feature and Network Handling
• Settings options relating to case announcement will be removed from config.ini after the update
• Remove migration code and checks for legacy serverlist.txt files
• Remove Favorite Serverlist Context Menu
• Remove "chat" emote_mod
• Animated themes have been mostly removed due to performance concerns

Bugfixes

• Add logic to load a default soundfont for MIDI files. (base/soundfont.fs2 in the main mount path)
• Fix character select screen not showing all characters until page changed or reloaded (#854)
• Restore evidence selector preview under Qt5 (#890) - Caused by #824 incorrectly overwriting signature.
• Stretch speedlines by default (#895)
• Change default audio behaviour to restore audio-settings from last launch (#903 )
• Restore legacy judge button behaviour.

Full Changelog: 2.10.0...2.10.1

2.10.0

What's Changed

• Android CI by @stonedDiscord in #850
• Raise pair list after courtroom construction by @Salanto in #859
• Don't reset evidence selection on theme reload by @Salanto in #860
• Don't set selected state when evidence is on another page by @Salanto in #861
• Fix case of self_offset received without a y offset by @oldmud0 in #864
• Change some default settings by @Crystalwarrior in #839

Full Changelog: 2.10rc1...2.10.0

2.10 RC1

After nearly 18 months between releases, we are almost ready to present AO 2.10. This brings some fresh relief to various quality-of-life issues, including new master server infrastructure, along with a new asset system that allows mounting multiple base folders without the need to overwrite files.

Many thanks to @Crystal2002 for developing this changelog, along with all developers who have been working on 2.10 since March 2021.

Major Changes

• Add the ability to mount multiple base folders
• Switched to HTTP-based master server
  • Servers that have not yet switched to the new master server API will still be listed.
  • Earlier versions of the client will still be able to see servers that are publishing to the new master server.
  • The old, TCP-based master server will be supported until at least January 2023. Once it is retired, AO1 and AO2 players connecting to the master server will only receive a MOTD with a link to the website until it is fully shut down.
• Added support for connecting to servers via WebSockets (webAO style) (#696)
  • This allows servers to leverage DDoS protection through free services such as Cloudflare Tunnel
• webAO-like music streaming
  • Servers can specify a base asset URL to retrieve assets from, which is shared with webAO
  • When music is not found locally, an attempt is made to stream it instead from the asset URL
• Removed client-side waiting for IC chat to be finished before your message can be sent to the server (#620)
• Shouts no longer force preanimations from triggering (#697)
• Removed master chat from the courtroom. Long reign debug logs, which will assist the tech-savvy (or the developers) in solving tech issues!
• Character select screen now updates when the server updates its character list. No more rejoining required.
• Added music support for MIDIs and tracker formats (i.e. MIDI, MOD, XM, IT)
• Icons now appear in position, iniswap, and emote dropdowns (just like with the effects dropdown)
• Major effects system overhaul for content authors (#663) (#701)
• Blip rate can be set to 0 (meaning the blip only goes off once per message) (#659)
• Improved viewport performance, especially when loading large animations
• A "ghost" of your message is shown at the bottom of the log when your message has been sent but has not been delivered yet
• The following client-side commands have been removed as they were not useful compared to the UI:
  • /pair
  • /settings
  • /offset
  • /voffset
  • /switch_am
  • /enable_blocks
  • /non_int_pre
  • /save_chatlog - Right-click the chat log to save instead. You can also find logs in the logs folder if chat logging is enabled.
  • /load_case - Use the "Load Evidence" button in the evidence menu instead.

Minor Changes

• Remember search terms when swapping between area/music List
• Added the client version to the window title
• Added a visible countdown to the "OK" button in dialogs instead of hiding the button
• Added showname & selfname colors to courtroom_fonts.ini (#672)
  • Allows for the name attached to your messages to have a different color from the rest!
• Log timestamp format is now configurable via the settings menu
• Added ability to change the timestamps' colors in courtroom_fonts.ini (#698)
• Disabled button masking for themes (#703)
  • This was causing text to be cut off when a widget's text is supposed to take more area than its background image.
• Changed evidence buttons from a double click to a single click to edit (#660)
• Accounting for pathing differences between theme & misc when getting data for effects

Bugfixes

• Fixed losing audio permanently when the default audio device is lost/disconnected
• Fixed first server in server list not being selectable unless another server was selected first
• Fixed custom shouts not playing audio
• Fixed several bugs with pairing
  • In certain cases, Person #2 would disappear whenever Person #1 talked, and vice-versa.
  • When paired, the idle animation would play only once.
• Fixed BG Positions w/o a desk inheriting the previous position's desk.
• Fixed (c) animations not resolving into the (a) animation
  • (For those who may have missed it in 2.9, (c) are optional animations that are used for transitioning from (b) (talking) to (a) (idle) animations.)
• Fixed non-image files being loaded as images
• (what is this) Fixed custom shouts appearing on characters without the option
• Fixed freezing when a music file is being loaded
  • Was most noticeable when streaming or loading large music files.
• Fixed emote buttons sometimes scaling with nearest-neighbor (#699)
• Fixed the sound list treating the alias as the actual filename (#708)
• Fixed iniswap remove button permanently removing the entry from iniswaps.ini. (#710)
• Fixed issue where iniswap dropdown was destructive to char.ini (#712)
  • Note that for the time being, your iniswap will NOT persist. This is a side effect of fixing the error.
• Fixed some demos skipping strangely due to the max_wait parameter (#680)
• Fixed extended desk modifiers not being handled when there is no preanim (#578)
• Fixed "X" button alongside SFX dropdown hiding when the dropdown selection is changed (#612)
• Fixed background animation restarting when the background was not changed (#632)
• Fixed long game load times when there's a lot of music by removing excessive ARUP updates
• Fixed evidence (#660)

2.9.1

Some minor features and bugfixes since 2.9.0.

What's New

• Narrator chat - when the IC emote is completely blank, only text is played back on the chatbox without altering any animations or overlays.
• AUTH packet. Servers can now control programmatically whether the mod controls are shown, instead of having to send the magic string "Logged in as a moderator." See #489.
• Logs now include OOC chat
• Demos now support timers properly
• /reload command for demos
• Dropdowns elide left, allowing long names to be more readable:
  
• Deprecated /min_wait for demos
• All UI elements are now named. While this is not fully documented yet, you can obtain the full list of object names from #534. More info on CSS here: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/stylesheet-syntax.html
• Two new ways of controlling judge buttons: judge buttons can be forced on or off depending on certain conditions. One of them is through the network, but there is also a clientside option in the design.ini of any background that can define a list of positions where the judge button should be automatically enabled (e.g. judges=jud,jud2,jud3,judX).
• You can now specify in the options menu the default scaling method for assets that do not otherwise specify a scaling method - so you can have "fast" (pixely) or "smooth" chosen as default. You should select "smooth" if you are using HD-resolution assets.
• Added default showname preference in the options menu

Fixes

• Fix evidence icons not appearing after evidence has been presented once
• Fix demos containing messages with special characters not playing back correctly
• Fix demos being recorded with incorrect timing information. When loading a demo with such an issue, you can choose to automatically have it fixed.
• Fix demos being recorded with incorrect packet data (e.g. wrong encoding for things such as evidence by recording <and> instead of &)
• Fix demos not recording evidence or timers
• Fix demo playback not appearing on favorites list if serverlist.txt is missing
• Fix demo server not sending help text if "Spectator" is selected
• Fix final message in demo not being played
• Fix timings for OOC being really busted if the max_wait option is -1 during demo playback
• Fix blankposting forcing the message queue to sleep up until another message is received
• Fix chat messages being lost to the ether if instant objection is used, or area is switched while message queue is not empty
• Fix desynchronized logs options checkbox not loading from config properly
• Fix crash selecting random track when music list contains tracks without a category
• Fix per-emote stretch settings not working
• Fix chat arrow being displayed even when blankposting
• Fix animated themes freezing the client on Linux when joining a server with (too) many characters
• Fix character-specific color list not being properly regenerated on a theme reload
• Fix ~~, ~> and <> causing tick issues
• Fix objections forcing a missingno to appear when you object to someone mid-preanim, and their preanim ends before objection shout finishes
• Fix characters being incorrectly masked to the aspect ratio of the viewport even when the aspect ratio of the pixmap differed
• Fix Cyrillic/non-Latin characters breaking configuration files
• Fix regression where direct file paths (base/misc/blank) were not recognized
• Fix shownames disappearing forever if a message is sent while the shownames checkbox is unticked
• Fix using preanims with static images just breaking everything
• Fix text_stay_time timer firing even if immediate is enabled
• Fix regression where effects in misc folders were not being detected
• Euthanize Morton
• Fix evidence

Note: The Windows zip had an old executable, due to a mishap in the manual release process. Sorry about that.

2.9.1 Homebrew Edition

Some minor features and bugfixes since 2.9.0. This is Crystalwarrior's "early access" build, after he got fed up with me never fixing the CI pipeline for releases, so you can blame him for mistakes. (lol)

What's New

• Narrator chat - when the IC emote is completely blank, only text is played back on the chatbox without altering any animations or overlays.
• AUTH packet. Servers can now control programmatically whether the mod controls are shown, instead of having to send the magic string "Logged in as a moderator." See #489.
• Logs now include OOC chat
• Demos now support timers properly
• Dropdowns elide left, allowing long names to be more readable:
  
• Deprecated /min_wait for demos
• All UI elements are now named. While this is not fully documented yet, you can obtain the full list of object names from #534. More info on CSS here: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/stylesheet-syntax.html
• Two new ways of controlling judge buttons: judge buttons can be forced on or off depending on certain conditions. One of them is through the network, but there is also a clientside option in the design.ini of any background that can define a list of positions where the judge button should be automatically enabled (e.g. judges=jud,jud2,jud3,judX).
• You can now specify in the options menu the default scaling method for assets that do not otherwise specify a scaling method - so you can have "fast" (pixely) or "smooth" chosen as default. You should select "smooth" if you are using HD-resolution assets.

Fixes

• Fix evidence icons not appearing after evidence has been presented once
• Fix demos containing messages with special characters not playing back correctly
• Fix demos being recorded with incorrect timing information. When loading a demo with such an issue, you can choose to automatically have it fixed.
• Fix demos being recorded with incorrect packet data (e.g. wrong encoding for things such as evidence by recording <and> instead of &)
• Fix demos not recording evidence or timers
• Fix demo playback not appearing on favorites list if serverlist.txt is missing
• Fix demo server not sending help text if "Spectator" is selected
• Fix final message in demo not being played
• Fix timings for OOC being really busted if the max_wait option is -1 during demo playback
• Fix blankposting forcing the message queue to sleep up until another message is received
• Fix chat messages being lost to the ether if instant objection is used, or area is switched while message queue is not empty
• Fix desynchronized logs options checkbox not loading from config properly
• Fix crash selecting random track when music list contains tracks without a category
• Fix per-emote stretch settings not working
• Fix chat arrow being displayed even when blankposting
• Fix animated themes freezing the client on Linux when joining a server with (too) many characters
• Fix character-specific color list not being properly regenerated on a theme reload
• Fix ~~, ~> and <> causing tick issues
• Fix objections forcing a missingno to appear when you object to someone mid-preanim, and their preanim ends before objection shout finishes
• Fix characters being incorrectly masked to the aspect ratio of the viewport even when the aspect ratio of the pixmap differed
• Fix Cyrillic/non-Latin characters breaking configuration files
• Fix regression where direct file paths (base/misc/blank) were not recognized
• Fix shownames disappearing forever if a message is sent while the shownames checkbox is unticked
• Fix using preanims with static images just breaking everything
• Fix text_stay_time timer firing even if immediate is enabled
• Euthanize Morton
• Fix evidence