Pre-Release 5.0.0-beta1

This release comes after some substantial code cleanup and is our first based on Python 3.9 rather than 3.7. Other than what is noted in this changelog it should have the same functionality as 4.2.4.

• We are now testing and building with Python 3.9 (3.9.2 specifically at this point). This should have no impact on users or plugin developers, other than the latter now being free to use features that were introduced since the Python 3.7 series.

  For developers you can check the contents of the .python-version file in the source (it's not distributed with the Windows installer) for the
  currently used version in a given branch.

• We now also cite the git 'short hash' in the version string. For a Windows install of the application this is sourced from the .gitversion file
  (written during the build process).

  When running from source we attempt to use the command git rev-parse --short HEAD to obtain this. If this doesn't work it will be set to 'UNKNOWN'.

• New 'Main window transparency' slider on Settings > Appearance.

• New command-line argument for EDMarketConnector.exe --reset-ui. This will:

  1. Reset to the default Theme.
  2. Reset the UI transparency to fully opaque.

  The intention is this can be used if you've lost sight of the main window due to tweaking these options.

• We have added a 'killswitch' feature to turn off specific functionality if it is found to have a bug. An example use of this would be in an "oh
  shit! we're sending bad data to EDDN!" moment so as to protect EDDN listeners such as EDDB.

  If we ever have to use this we'll announce it clearly and endeavour to get a fixed version of the program released ASAP. We will NOT be
  using this merely to try and get some laggards to upgrade.

• Our logging code will make best efforts to still show class name and other such fields if it has trouble finding any of the required data for
  the calling frame. This means no longer seeing ??:??:?? when there is an issue with this.

• macOS: We've managed to test the latest code on macOS Catalina. Other than keyboard shortcut support not working it appears to be working.

• We've pulled the latest Coriolis data which might have caused changes to ship and module names as written out to some files.

Plugin Developers

• config.py has undergone a major rewrite. You should no longer be using config.get(...) or config.getint(...), which will both give a
  deprecation warning.
  Use instead the correct config.get_ function:

  • config.get_list(<key>)
  • config.get_str(<key>)
  • config.get_bool(<key>)
  • config.get_int(<key>)

  Setting still uses config.set(...).

• The files stations.p and systems.p have been removed from the Windows Installer. These were never intended for third-party use. Their core code use was for generating EDDB-id links, but we long since changed the EDDB plugin's handlers for that to use alternate URL formats based on game IDs or names.

  If you were using either to lookup EDDB IDs for systems and/or stations then please see how system_url() and station_url now work in
  plugins/eddb.py.

  This change also removed the core (not plugin) eddb.py file which generated these files. You can find it still in the git history if needs
  be. It had gotten to the stage where generating systems.p took many hours and required 64-bit Python to have any hope of working due to memory usage.

• Support has been added for the NavRoute (not Route as v28 of the official Journal documentation erroneously labels it) Journal event and
  its associated file NavRoute.json. See PLUGINS.md:Events documentation

• Similarly there is now support for the ModuleInfo event and its associated ModulesInfo.json file.

Code Clean Up

• Some code to do with processing Journal events has been re-factored.

• The code for File > Status has been cleaned up.

• Localisation code has been cleaned up.

• Code handling the Frontier Authorisation callback on Windows has been cleaned up.