What's new in UltraKiss ?

May 24, 2006: UltraKiss V3.0 is released.   This release improves keyboard handling and corrects various issues with components and ungrouped images. Testing of visual editing capabilities has been performed to resolve issues with image import, export, selection, object ungrouping, and positioning of cels and groups. Improvements to component handling now make it easy to create labels, text boxes, and buttons that can be saved as cel images for other viewers. 

UltraKiss is now significantly more robust and stable. 

1. Numerous corrections have been made to improve keyboard handling.
   
2. Numerous corrections have been made to improve component handling.
   
3. Numerous corrections have been made to improve ungrouped image editing.
   
4. Numerous corrections have been made to improve video cel stability. 
   
5. FKiSS numeric calculations add(), sub(), mul(), div(), mod() now support double precision and floating point arithmetic.
   
6. The ability to export image files to different image types during a File-Save As is now implemented.

July 1, 2005: UltraKiss V2.0 is released.   This release provides ease of use enhancements.  UltraKiss V2.0 source code is now released under terms of the GNU General Public License. 

1. With this release UltraKiss V2.0 provides a new Tips system for helpful tips and advice.
   
2. A new Search module is implemented to generate a catalogue of KiSS files.
   
3. Limited improvements to the Image Editor exist.  The Image Editor continues to be alpha release software.
   
4. The File Save and Save As operations are better qualified.
   
5. A new Demonstration system can be installed as part of the UltraKiss extensions.
   
6. New direct menu access to the UltraKiss Tutorial system.

July 21, 2003: UltraKiss V1.0 is released.   This release concludes new KiSS feature development work.  UltraKiss V1.0 is now provided as free licensed software with an five year term license granted for non-commercial use. 

1. With this final release UltraKiss V1.0 implements limited support for FKiSS event synchronization.   New FKiSS 5 commands wait() and signal() can be used to set synchronization locks on FKiSS variables, and sleep() can be used to suspend event execution for a specified time.
   
2. Local FKiSS variables can now be used within all FKiSS events, including Label events. Selective use of local variables provides support for recursive label calls and FKiSS function calls. Local variables are preceded with an '@' character and are created with let() statements.  Label events invoked through gosub() commands can return function values to the calling routine.
   
3. A new FKiSS event() command can be used to fire any programmed FKiSS event defined on any object.
   
4. UltraKiss is now released with the standard Java user interface look and feel.  
   
5. UltraKiss now loads into memory only the images necessary to display the current page set. Images are unloaded when the page set changes. This may significantly reduce the operating memory requirements for some KiSS sets. 
   

UltraKiss V1.0 (beta 5) introduces new features to define and use basic GUI components within KiSS sets.  Release beta 5 has also introduced a new capability for file input and output.  These features provide improved facilities to create full KiSS application systems with interactive user interfaces and persistent storage. 

1. UltraKiss now supports interactive Labels, Buttons, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, Text Boxes, Text Fields, multi-line scrollable Text Areas, scrollable Lists and Combo Boxes within KiSS sets.   These basic Graphical User Interface (GUI) components are fully functional cels that provide simplified capability for user input and output.   Specific attributes can be defined for each GUI component to set characteristics such as text font types, size, component background and foreground colors, scrolling characteristics, and input capabilities.  New FKiSS 5 UltraKiss commands are implemented to support setting and retrieving of component values.  Component input events can be recognized with the standard FKiSS press() and release() event model.  
   
   An example specification for a basic multi-line scrollable text area component within a KiSS object group is given below:
   
   #380.9999 12TA0S11-1.TextArea : 18;%size[350,172]%offset[188,150]%attributes[fontstyle=bold,wrap,vsb,bc=14079694]
   
   This specification defines an input text area of a known size and position offset within object group #380.  The text area performs word wrap, displays text in bold form, shows a vertical scroll bar, and has a specified background color.
   
   For further information on how to use the new KiSS GUI component features and FKiSS 5 commands in UltraKiss, please see the UltraKiss Component documentation.
   
   
2. UltraKiss now provides new FKiSS 5 commands to open(), read(), write(), and close() external files.   These commands can be used to create persistent storage for KiSS sets.  For further information see the UltraKiss FKiSS 5 command specifications.
   
   
3. New UltraKiss FKiSS 5 commands to access specific viewer services and retrieve information describing the viewer environment are now available.  A new viewer() command provides FKiSS capability to invoke print services, open new KiSS configurations, display KiSS files within a KiSS set, restart the active KiSS set, and so on.  A new environment() command can be used to retrieve current system information such as the system date and the registered user name.  For further information see the UltraKiss FKiSS 5 command specifications.

UltraKiss V1.0 (beta 4) has stability fixes and introduced the following new features:

1. This version contains a partial draft release of the Image Editor tool. The Image Editor can now be used to edit GIF 89a animated files. 
   
2. UltraKiss now implements the setpal() and lettimer() FKiSS commands.

UltraKiss V1.0 (beta 3) has stability fixes and introduced the following new features:

1. This version contains a new FKiSS Editor visual code debugger tool. You can now set dynamic breakpoints on any FKiSS event or action statement, the code will automatically interrupt, and you can visually step though your code and watch it run.  For more information see the FKiSS Editor documentation. 
   
2. Data set configuration restarts now automatically load directly from memory without re-parsing the text if the configuration file has not changed.  Restarts are much faster now.
   
3. A new tutorial in the Help system provide instructive examples on using the FKiSS Editor to create new FKiSS events and visually debug your program code. See Helpful Tutorials.
   
4. UltraKiss now implements the restrictx() and restricty() FKiSS 4 commands.

UltraKiss V1.0 (beta 2) has many stability fixes and introduced the following new features:

1. UltraKiss is now bundled with Java 1.4.0 run time environment.  Java 1.4 supports video hardware acceleration for significant performance gains.  Initial results show that UltraKiss CPU requirements can be reduced by more than 50% for graphic intensive KiSS sets.
   
2. UltraKiss now retains CNF configuration file comments and unparsed lines within the active configuration file.  You can easily edit your configuration file, apply the changes, and reload the KiSS set to test new content.
   
3. UltraKiss property dialogs now provide a graphic user interface to change selected object attributes such as object position, transparency, lock value and visibility.  The configuration screen size and border color can also be set through the graphical interface.
   
4. Two new tutorials in the Help system provide instructive examples on using UltraKiss to create new KiSS sets, introduce animation, and add multimedia effects. See Helpful Tutorials.
   
5. A new KiSS game demonstrating the power of UltraKiss FKiSS 5 is provided with the beta 2 release.  Have fun with Hashira, a Japanese version of Tetris, and Slider, a tile game that implements Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm.
   
6. UltraKiss now contains new settings within the Tools-Options menu to retain compatibility with older viewers.
   
7. UltraKiss now implements the windowsize() and viewport() FKiSS commands.

UltraKiss V1.0 (beta 1) was released on June 6, 2002 as the initial beta release of the Kisekae UltraKiss application. Kisekae UltraKiss is designed to be a full featured viewer and development system for paper dolls.  UltraKiss extended the KiSS domain by being the first integrated development environment to provide:

• A multi-platform consistent distribution for Windows, Unix, and Apple systems.
  
• The ability to use GIF, JPG, BMP, and PPM images in addition to standard CEL images.
  
• Support for new audio formats such as MP3, RMF and AIFF files. 
  
• The ability to use MPG, MOV, or AVI movie files as image cels.
  
• A visual editor to create. maintain and enhance KiSS data sets.
  
• A comprehensive programming model for developers to create active content.
  
• A fully integrated text editor for modifying KiSS data set text files.
  
• A fully integrated image editor to enhance and touch up KiSS image files.
  
• A full featured color editor for maintaining and updating image palette files.
  
• An integrated archive file manager for creating new KiSS archive files.
  
• An integrated media player for playback of audio and video files.
  

Java 2 platform support

Kisekae UltraKiss is a pure Java application developed with Java 2.

Kisekae UltraKiss uses Java Media Framework 1.2 and Java Help 1.1.

Kisekae UltraKiss requires Sun Java 2 Standard Edition level 1.3 or later.

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