Version 0.50 Alpha is ready. I’m just doing final compiles and tests on various platforms.
It’s been awhile since I put out a new release. I’ve been working on (slowly) getting some of the backend formatting multi-threaded, trying all sorts of tricks with font handling, freetype, etc, etc. Finally decided to Keep It Simple.
Page formatting is now done ‘in the background’. It’s not perfect yet, and laptop users will notice a higher CPU usage/battery drain. I’ll release what I have next week, and work on the issues in the coming weeks.
We are back from holiday, and itching to get back to the code. We have some emails and registrations to catch up on as well.
Just a quick note. We are still on holiday. I’ve noticed several requests from new testers.
We’ll get to them when we get back.
The download site is having some issues, and downloads are not available right now.
Fixed.
Work has slowed down… The kids are out of school, and the camping season has started. We’re up to 0.46 of WordTsar, thanks to our testers, and 0.47 will be out this Friday.
There are a few known issues with 0.46 (check the forum), but all in all, we seem to be fairly stable. I’ll be spending the summer adding functionality, so if there’s anything you would like to see first, post in the forum.
I have some new testers in the queue. If I haven’t responded to you yet, give me until sometime next week.
WordTsar 0.43 Alpha was released last week. A big thank you to all my testers!
We made WordTsar 0.40 Alpha available to registered early testers today. We have a ways to go before we get a full Wordstar clone, but we are on the way.
To apply to be a registered early tester, please fsee the registration tab above.
WordTsar is a modern day Wordstar clone. It is GUI based, and runs on Linux, Windows, and OSX.
I’ve been using WordTsar in all of my work for the last year. It hasn’t lost data, and it hasn’t crashed. It’s also not complete, and has a couple of bugs. It does exactly what I need to get my work done, and when I need something else, I code it. And although that method works for me, it doesn’t work for getting something out the door.
So here is what I plan to do. I’ll finish the next feature set and make an Alpha Release available to a limited number of registered testers. The release will be for Windows, Linux, and OSX (see below). It’s called Alpha because it is not feature complete, and it’s only been tested by one person. What I’m looking for from my testers, is continual feedback and feature requests. I’ll try to get a voting system in place to rank the features, and work on them in order. Features will be limited to items that are available in Wordstar 7.0d only. Once WordTsar gets a bit more feature complete, I’ll allow feature requests for items not in Wordstar.
Please the the registration tab above.
I’m looking for active testers, people that want to use WordTsar and make it better. If you just want to play to see what it’s like, please don’t register as a tester at this time… there will be an opportunity later on in WordTsars development cycle.
You’ll receive an email in return specifying whether you have been accepted as a tester or not. At this point, I don’t see anyone being turned down, but you never know. Your email address will be added to a distribution list I can use to send announcements.
For my part in this tester/developer relationship, I’ll do my best to get new releases out on a regular basis, and get a working Wordstar clone out the door for you.
Let me state again, WordTsar is not feature complete. For a brief overview of what is done, see this post: http://geraldbrandt.com/2013/05/06/wordtsar-update-2/. That page will link to a couple of other pages, where you can find more infromation.
The WordTsar site is live. I’m sure there will be a host of changes coming in the following days/weeks/months, but basically, here we are.
