StepMania 5.0.9; release notes compiled and Markdown formatted by @kyzentun:

This is divided into two sections:

• Player visible changes: New configuration options players should try out,
• Themer visible changes: New (optional) screens that themes can support, new metrics or lua functions, or fixes for existing functions.

Items are roughly grouped into the general part of StepMania they fit into.

Compiling:

Cmake is now required for compiling Stepmania. Read Build/README.md for instructions.
The thread in the release forum has been updated with instructions for compiling on Linux.

Player visible changes:

BMS:

• .lua files defined in the #BMP tags now work as BG animations.
• The #difficulty tag is now supported. The difficulty numbers 1-6 map to
  StepMania's difficulties from Novice to Edit.

Bug fixes:

• Autokeysounds are no longer twice as loud when playing keysounded charts
  with two players.
• 1 pixel seam in hold cap rendering fixed.
• Noteskin animation fixed.

ScreenOverscanConfig:

There is a new screen for interactively adjusting the variables that already
existed in the preferences for dealing with overscan problems. This allows
editing the CenterImage* preferences without restarting StepMania to set them
so that the whole image appears on screen.
This currently handles the aspect ratio wrong, so it's not a perfect overscan
solution.

Themer visible changes:

Bug fixes and new functions:

• Attributes added are marked with [A].
• Bug fixes are marked with [B].
• Functions are marked with [F].

Actor:

• [B] bounce and bob effects no longer round pixel coords.
  When an actor had a slow tween moving it in a direction and a slow bounce
  effect, the bounce would round the resulting position and cause jitter. That
  jitter is gone now.
• [B] BlendMode_Subtract no longer crashes on the d3d renderer. It does not
  do proper subtraction blending, this is just a bandaid to prevent crashing.

Global:

• [F] get_music_file_length
• [F] multiapproach function now takes an optional 4th argument to multiply
  the speeds by.
• [F] update_centering

OptionsList:

The OptionsListQuickChange, OptionsListLeft, and OptionsListRight messages
now have a Selection parameter that has the id of the selection the player
moved to.

RageFile:

• [F] Flush

ScreenInitialScreenIsInvalid:

If you see this screen come up, you need to fix the InitialScreen metric in
your theme.