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# This file is part of the PyObjC package.
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WHAT'S NEW:

Version 1.0b1 (2003-07-03 [preliminary date]):

- More tutorials
  Two new tutorials were added: 'Adding Python code to an existing ObjC 
  application' and 'Understanding existing PyObjC examples'. The former
  explains how you can use Python to add new functionality to an already
  existing Objective-C application, the latter explains how to understand
  PyObjC programs written by other people.

- More examples
  Three examples were added: DotView, ClassBrowser and PythonBrowser,
  respectively showing the use of a custom NSView, NSBrowser and
  NSOutlineView.  PythonBrowser is reusable, making it trivial to add an
  object browser to your application.

- Support for MacOS X 10.1
  It is now possible to build PyObjC on MacOS X 10.1, with full access to 
  the Cocoa API's on that platform.

  Note: The port to MacOS X 10.1 is not as well supported as the 10.2 port.
  The developers do not have full-time access to a MacOS X 10.1 system.

- Support for the WebKit framework, included with Safari 1.0.
  If you build PyObjC from source you will have to build on a system that has
  the WebKit SDK installed to make use of this. Note that the additional 
  functionality will only be usuable on systems that have Safari 1.0 installed,
  however as long as you don't use the additional functionality it is safe
  to run a 'WebKit-enabled' PyObjC on systems without Safari 1.0.

- It is no longer necessary to specify which protocols are implemented by
  a class, this information is automaticly deduced from the list of implemented
  methods. You'll still a runtime error if you implement some methods of a 
  protocol and one of the unimplemented methods is required.

- Support for "toll-free bridging" of Carbon.CF types to Objective-C objects.
  It is now possible to use instances of Carbon.CF types in places where 
  Objective-C objects are expected. And to explicitly convert between the two.

  Note: this requires Python 2.3.

- Better integration with MacPython 2.3:

  * NSMovie.initWithMovie_ and NSMovie.QTMovie now use QT.Movie objects instead
    of generic pointer wrappers.

  * NSWindow.initWithWindowRef_ and Window.windowRef now use Carbon.Window 
    objects instead of generic pointer wrappers.

  * Methods returning CoreFoundation objects will return MacPython objects,
    and likewise, methods with CoreFoundation arguments will accept MacPython
    objects.

- It is now possible to write plugin bundles, such as preference panes for 
  use in System Preferences, in Python. See Examples/PrefPanes for an example
  of this feature.
 
- The methods ``pyobjcPopPool`` and ``pyobjcPushPool`` of ``NSAutoreleasePool``
  are deprecated. These were introduced when PyObjC did not yet support the
  usual method for creating autorelease pools and are no longer necessary.

- Improved unittests, greatly increasing the confidence in the correctness
  of the bridge.

- All suppport for non-FFI builds has been removed.

- Object state is completely stored in the Objective-C object.  This has no
  user-visible effects, but makes the implementation a lot easier to 
  comprehend and maintain.

- As part of the previous item we also fixed a bug that allowed addition of 
  attributes to Objective-C objects. This was never the intention and had 
  very odd semantics. Pure Objective-C objects not longer have a __dict__.

- Weakrefs are no longer used in the implementation of the bridge. Because
  the weakrefs to proxy objects isn't very useful the entire feature has 
  been removed: It is no longer possible to create weakrefs to Objective-C
  objects. 

  NOTE: You could create weakrefs in previous versions, but those would
  expire as soon as the last reference from Python died, *not* when the 
  Objective-C object died, therefore code that uses weakrefs to Objective-C
  objects is almost certainly incorrect.

- Added support for custom conversion for pointer types. The end result is that
  we support more Cocoa APIs without special mappings.

- The generator scripts are automaticly called when building PyObjC. This
  should make it easier to support multiple versions of MacOS X.


Version 0.9 (May-02-2003):
- This version includes numerous bugfixes and improvements.

- The module AppKit.NibClassBuilder has been moved to the package
  PyObjCTools.

- Usage of libFFI (http://sources.redhat.com/libffi) is now mandatory. The
  setup.py gives the impression that it isn't, but we do *not* support 
  non-FFI builds.

- We actually have some documentation, more will be added in future releases.

- There are more Project Builder templates (see 'Project Templates').

- The InterfaceBuilder, PreferencePanes and ScreenSaver frameworks have been
  wrapped.

- Management of reference counts is now completely automatic, it is no longer
  necessary to manually compensate for the higher reference count of objects 
  returned by the alloc, copy and copyWithZone: class methods.

- Various function and keyword arguments have been renamed for a better 
  integration with Cocoa. A partial list is of the changed names is:
  	objc.lookup_class -> objc.lookUpClass
	objc.selector arguments/attributes:
		is_initializer -> isInitializer
		is_allocator -> isAlloc
		donates_ref -> doesDonateReference
		is_required -> isRequired
		class_method -> isClassMethod
		defining_class -> definingClass
		returns_self -> returnsSelf
		argument_types -> argumentTypes
		return_type -> returnType
	objc.get_class_list -> objc.getClassList

- On Python 2.2, objc.YES and objc.NO are instances of a private boolean type,
  on Python 2.3 these are instances of the builtin type bool.

- Because we now use libFFI a large amount of code could be disabled. The
  binaries are therefore much smaller, while we can now forward messages with
  arbitrary signatures (not limited to those we thought of while generating
  the static proxies that were used in 0.8)

- Better support for APIs that use byte arrays are arguments or return values. 
  Specifically, the developer can now manipulate bitmaps directly via the 
  NSBitmapImageRep class, work with binary data through the NSData class, and 
  very quickly draw points and rects via NSRectFillList()

- We added a subclass of unicode that is used to proxy NSString values. This
  makes it easily possible to use NSString values with Python APIs, while at 
  the same time allowing access to the full power of NSString.

Version 0.8 (Dec-10-2002):

- GNUStep support has been removed for lack of support.  Volunteers
  needed.

- Subclassing Objective-C classes from Python, including the addition
  of instance variables (like 'IBOutlet's)

- Generic support for pass-by-reference arguments

- More complete Cocoa package, including wrappers for a number of 
  C functions, enumerated types, and globals.

- More example code

- Objective-C mappings and sequences can be accessed using the normal
  python methods for accessing mappings and sequences (e.g. subscripting
  works as expected)

- Documentation: See the directory 'docs'

- Can build standalone Cocoa applications based entirely on Python
  without requiring that user installs anything extra (requires 10.2).

- Better packaging and wrapper construction tools (borrowed from
  MacPython).

- An installer package.

- Support for Project Builder based Cocoa-Python projects.

- Unit tests.

Version 2002-01-30 (January 30, 2002):

- Version bumped to 0.6.1 ( __version__ is now a PyString )

- Will now build for Python 2.2

- added Cocoa package with Foundation.py and AppKit.py wrappers.

- HelloWorld.py in Examples

- builds with -g flag for debugging. -v option will dump log
  of message sends to /tmp file.

- Fixed one major runtime bug: added ISCLASS test before isKindOfClass -
  without check, it crashes on sends to abstract classes like NSProxy.

- There are still problems with Delegates and Notifications. 

Version 2001-03-17 (March 17, 2001):

- moved to using distutils setup.py (requires small patch to distutils
  that has been submitted against python 2.1b1)

Version 2000-11-14 (November 14, 2000):

- GNU_RUNTIME is likely completely broken

- Compiles on Mac OS X Server (python 2.0)

- Compiles on Mac OS X (python 2.0)

- Works as either a dynamically loadable module or statically built
  into a python executable

- Requires a modified makesetup to work [patches have been sent to
  SourceForge.net's Python project].

- Supports NSAutoReleasepool.

- Some pre-OSX stuff removed;  references to old APIs, etc... (but
  nowhere near clean)

Version 0.55, 18 August 1998:

- Here again, supporting GNU_RUNTIME and GNUstep Base! On my new Linux
  box I can finally test the module against them: I installed the
  latest snapshot of gstep-core, that contains the base library
  too. Given a sane GNUstep env (GNUSTEP_XXX env vars), you should be
  able to build a static ObjC-ized interpreter by:
    o Adjusting Setup, commenting out NeXT definition and enabling GNU
      ones;
    o make -f Makefile.pre.in boot
    o make static

Version 0.54, 24 March 1998:

- OC_Pasteboard.[hm], OC_Stream.[mh] and ObjCStreams.m are definitively gone.
- OC_PythonObject derives from NSProxy.

Version 0.53, 4 January 1998:

- Tons of changes, retargeting the core functionality around the
  OpenSTEP API. This release basically matches the previous one
  in terms of functionalities, but is should be closer to GNUstep.
- OC_Streams and OC_Pasteboard aren't supported, I've not yet decided
  if they are needed anymore.
- Updated LittleButtonedWindow demo.

Version 0.47, 29 October 1996:

- Misc/Makefile.pre.in automatically sets TARGET to `pyobjc'.
- ObjC.m splitted to ObjCObject.m ObjCMethod.m ObjCPointer.m
  ObjCRuntime.m.
- New (almost invisible) types: ObjCSequenceObject and
  ObjCMappingObject; this to implement sequence and mapping syntax
  (several mapping methods have stub implementation).
- OC_Pasteboard class is gone. Its functionalities are now in a
  category of Pasteboard/NSPasteboard.
- Better methods doc.
- PyArg_ParseTuple format strings contain arguments names.
- OC_Streams are mapped to ObjCStreams by pythonify_c_value and its
  counterpart.

Version 0.46, 18 October 1996:

- OC_Stream is now a subclass of NSData under Foundation.
- New Objective-C class: OC_Pasteboard. Use it instead of Pasteboard/
  NSPasteboard. 
- New Objective-C class: OC_PythonBundle. Use it instead of NXBundle/NSBundle.
  The ShellText demo has been upgraded to use it, and now you can run it
  directly from the WorkSpace.
- OC_Python.[hm] aren't in the package anymore.
- Setup.in directives changed again, due to OC_Python.m dropping.

Version 0.45, 14 October 1996:

- Double syntax: to make it easier for us to test and choose the
  better candidate, the only one that will be present in the final 1.0
  release. Keeping both would result in a speed penality.
- Revisited streams, in particular GNUstep support.

Version 0.44, 9 October 1996:

- Integers are now accepted too where floats or doubles are expected.
- New method: ObjC.make_pointer (1) returns an ObjCPointer containing
  ((void *) 1).

Version 0.43, 7 October 1996:

- Completed ObjCStream implementation. There is now a new module, ObjCStreams
  which is automatically loaded by ObjC. You can access it as ObjC.streams.
- Manual splitted in three parts: libPyObjC.tex with the chapter intro,
  libObjC.tex describing the main module, libObjCStreams.tex explains the
  stream facilities.

Version 0.42, 4 October 1996:

- You can pass initialization arguments when using the Class() syntax. You
  select the right initializer selector with the `init' keyword parameter.
- First cut on ObjCStream objects. Thanx to Bill Bumgarner for motivations.
- New demo ShellText, to test above points.

Version 0.41, 2 October 1996:

- Revised error messages: for arguments type mismatch they show the ObjC type
  expected.
- When a method returns a pointer to something, it gets translated as an
  ObjCPointer object, not the pythonified pointed value. When a method
  expects a pointer argument, it accepts such an object as well.
- New demo: Fred. To halt it, suspend the Python process with ^Z then kill
  it ;-).
- Setup.in directives changed. See the new file Modules/Setup.PyObjC.in
- Distribuited as a standalone package. Special thanks to Bill Bumgarner.

Version 0.4, 27 September 1996:

- Now handles methods returning doubles or floats.
- ObjCRuntime responds to .sel_is_mapped().

Version 0.31, 26 September 1996:

- It's now possible to use a different strategy to map ObjC method names to
  Python ones. Sooner or later we should decide the one to go, and drop the
  other. For details, see comments on PYTHONIFY_WITH_DOUBLE_UNDERSCORE in
  objc_support.h.
- Manual section.
- ObjC.runtime.__dict__ added.
- ObjC.runtime.kind added.

Version 0.3, 20 September 1996:

- No user visible changes, just a little effort towards GNU_RUNTIME support. 

Version 0.2, 16 September 1996:

- Accepts a struct.pack() string for pointer arguments, but...
- ... New methods on ObjCMethod: .pack_argument and .unpack_argument:
  these should be used whenever an ObjC method expects a passed-by-reference
  argument; for example, on NeXTSTEP [View getFrame:] expects a pointer
  to an NXRect structure, that it will fill with the current frame of the
  view: in this case you should use something similar to
        framep = aView.getFrame__.pack_argument (0)
        aView.getFrame__ (framep)
        frame = aView.getFrame__.unpack_argument (0, framep)

Version 0.1, 13 September 1996:

- Correctly handle pointer arguments.
- New syntax to get a class: ObjC.runtime.NameOfClass
- New syntax aliasing .new(): SomeClass()
- New Demo: LittleButtonedWindow, that tests points above.
- What follow is the recipe to get PyObjC dinamically loadable on NeXTSTEP:
        * apply the patch in Misc/INSTALL.PyObjC to Python/importdl.c
        * modify Python/Makefile adding the switch ``-ObjC'' to the importdl.o
          build rule:
          importdl.o:   importdl.c
                $(CC) -ObjC -c $(CFLAGS) -I$(DLINCLDIR) $(srcdir)/importdl.c
        * modify Modules/Setup moving the PyObjC entry suggested above AFTER
          ``*shared*'', and remove ``-u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s'' from it.
        * run ``make'': this will update various files, in particular
          Modules/Makefile.
        * modify Modules/Makefile adding ``-u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s'' to SYSLIBS:
          SYSLIBS=      $(LIBM) $(LIBC) -u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s
        * run ``make'' again