Mastery Revisions List

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Version 2.6

Rev. 4

• Mastery now supports user created pieces. Pieces should be bitmaps, and they should always be square (same width and height). They will be transparent in areas where pure green is used (like the green screen for the movies; use RGB(0, 255, 0) where you want the piece to be transparent). If you need to use green in the picture, use something not quite pure green. Always try to make sure that all pieces you load are the same size, or odd things may be displayed.
• You may select one picture each to use for Blue Masters, Blue Officers, Blue Pawns, Red Masters, Red Officers, and Red Pawns. See the Piece Picture Options area in the Options window.
• Along with user created pieces, Mastery now bases the size of the board and jail areas on the size of the pieces being used. The Blue Master is used to set the size of the board, and all other pieces are assumed to be the same size, even if they aren't (they should be, or at least smaller than the Blue Master). Do not use pieces more than 64x64 pixels square. Pieces 64 pixels square will need you to run Windows in 1024x768 mode just to squeeze in the vertical size of the board and jail; Pieces 48 pixels square will need you to run Windows in 800x600 mode to fit vertical dimensions comfortably. The default pieces are the same as always, and are 32 pixels square.
• Mastery no longer automatically resizes itself when you change various options, but it will now remember the width and height settings you last used.
• Mastery now draws the board dynamically, to allow for resizing as you change pieces. This allows for adjusting the color of the board, and the default squares are now solid black and white, instead of grey and white as in the past. You can adjust these colors, but an option is not available in Options. Instead, open Mastery.INI in Notepad and edit the BoardBlack and BoardWhite sections. These sections allow for standard RGB entries to affect the color of the black squares and the white squares, respectively, on the board. These colors will only be read when Mastery starts.
• Prior Version Note: Some time in the past, but apparently not noted anywhere, was a change in the behavior of the two options allowing you to select a Board (Draume Crown or Imperial). Selecting a board will *not* begin a new game with that board; the option simply specifies what board will be selected when you choose New Game from the File menu. That behavior continues in this version. You can set the Board at any time without affecting your current game. To start a new game, select New Game from the File menu.
• Bugs: I was told that there was a problem when two people tried to invite each other into a game at the same time. There is code in place for the client to auto-refuse an invitation when it's involved in an invitation already, so I'm not sure what it is that could be going on here. This is very difficult to test by myself, but in my testing, things seemed to work correctly. If you have encountered this problem, I would appreciate more details, especially as to what happened when the situation occurred.

Version 2.5

Rev. 64

• Fixed the bug crashing the program if you minimized the chat window.
• The stupid installer should now put Mastery into your Programs menu off the Start button.
• Added an option allowing you to have a sound notify you if a new user logs into the server--useful if you're waiting for someone to log on, so you can minimize Mastery to get it out of the way and still know someone has joined you.
• Added options allowing you to set sounds for when you win or lose the game.
• Rolled all the options into a single Options window, so you can more easily set everything at once.
• Cleaned up some code (this may introduce game play bugs, but I do not believe that it has).
• Added an Action to the chat client to let you swap Blue & Red players when playing in a game--useful if you always want the loser to be Blue on the next game, and the loser started Red, for example.
• Changed the behavior of the program when someone wins the game--it now simply notes the win, without any message box popping up. It also does not immediately reset to a new game, you need to select New Game from the File menu instead.

Rev. 59

• Includes a private transcript in addition to the normal transcript. You can only view one transcript at a time, and while in private mode all messages you type are sent privately to your current opponent only. Switching between public and private mode is fairly simple, using a quick button or menu option. While in private mode, you'll see system messages, your own messages, and your opponent's messages, but not general chat. While in public mode, you'll see all messages as normal, but you can send a private message to your current opponent by typing /p, a space, then your message. While in private mode, you can send a public message by typing /g, a space, then your message.

Rev. 56

• Includes some additional Options, including the ability to customize fonts and colors in the Internet Mastery window
• Added Windows standard dialogs