I think I'll start posting this here - just to give you guys an idea of what is going on behind the scenes. Also - I'd like to hear everyones opinions on whether I should release daily updates (as I currently do for testers) or aim for more stable release versions? Personally I'm a cutting edge kind of guy, so prefer to get changes out as soon as possible.

2007-09-09
(+) New class BeatmapManager handles loading of all beatmaps initially.
(+) Metadata input dialog accessible using the "song information" menu option, or from the options menu.
(+) New version of song selection menu. Full song access once again
(+) Options menu. Still empty, but its there!
(*) Fixed some misaligned controls.
(*) Lots of new additions to SpriteManager. Handles easing in tweens, hover transformations, more origin and scaling types and quite a bit of other stuff I needed to get the new menu working.
(*) Default button settings on dialog popups.
(*) High score list stores up to 5 scores per song.
(*) Title song is random.
(*) Removed shortcut keys from main menu (and redirected others).
(*) Fixed bug where md5 could not be read of beatmaps in some cases.
(*) Titles with ':' characters were getting cut off.
(*) Holding down shift while increasing/decreasing bpm.
(*) Video sync added to [Events] section of osu files.
(*) Refinement of video texture copy code. Hopefully improved performance on some systems.

2007-09-10
(+) Ranking screen initial version.
(+) Dynamic health calculation. Totally changes the scoring system to be a lot more dependent on combos (similar to ouendan!)
(*) Fixed bug where mouse cursor doesn't retract during transitions.
(*) Converted all scoring types to enums.
(*) Increased the speed of the hitmetre Ki to match ouendan. Also ensure that it reaches max before the first hitObject is hit.
(*) Added delay where click is not accepted after auto-clicking on hover.
(*) Fixed bug where equal scores would be recorded more times than should be possible.

2007-09-11
(+) Basic options.
(+) New song setup dialog with difficulty settings.
(+) Support for named high scores.
(+) Some basic audio samples in the menus. Spinner bonus sound sample. Fail sample. Weeeeeee.
(+) Bonus shows on spinners.
(*) Editor titlebar displays current filename.
(*) Updated selection screen to show rankings.
(*) Added support for multiple beatmaps per song.
(*) Improvements to interface in lots of areas.
(*) Removed video rendering from editor (video can't skip around yet - need to implement this).
(*) Added a confirmation dialog when clearing all beats from a song.

Daily is too much of a commitment imo, to put out a release every day and ensuring that there are no bugs in whatever is out.. Weekly is often enough

2007-09-12
(+) Difficulty stars next to song in selection mode.
(+) Most of difficulty settings now take effect! This includes beat size, hp drain rate and spinner difficulty. Still a few more minor tweaks to go.
(*) Fix for slider tick rates which are non-integer.
(*) Adjusted menu somewhat. Fixed up the underlying code to support many sprites per song selection box.
(*) Slider lines on timeline were 1 pixel too big. Yes I'm picky .
(*) Limited open/save dialogs to .osu file extension.
(*) Fixed bug where songs that did not yet have an osu were not showing up in edit list.
(*) Set default edit modes on editing a new song - popup song setup window then go straight to timing. Woo.
(*) Fixed bug where screen sometimes does not fade in fully.

2007-09-13
(+) Video seeking, pausing, rate changing. Can now be displayed in the editor . Not on the timeline yet, but hopefully before the first public release this will be complete.
(*) Vast improvements to video synchronisation.
(*) Video texture swapped to managed so changing resolutions wouldn't break. Hopefully not too much performance loss because of this.
(*) Gamefield resizing is back in (ala design mode)
(*) Difficulty wireup for hit accuracy, miss score loss, preempt of circles.
(*) After further discussion, once again changed the hp calculation algorithm. Now ensures a minimum "average HP recovery" per beat in the song.
(*) Slider radius updates after circle size change.
(*) Spacebar plays/pauses the song in edit mode.
(*) Ranking progresses to name entry automatically if left alone.
(*) Graph finishes graphing properly if interrupted with a click early.

2007-09-14
(+) Play/pause/stop controls in editor. About time haha.
(+) Slider points can be removed (right click).
(+) Sliders can be extended to add/remove repeats by resizing the end of them on the timeline.
(+) Grid/time snapping can be temporarily disabled by holding shift. This works for placement and editing.
(*) Fixed bug with gamefield alignment at higher resolutions. Surprised I was the first to notice this!
(*) Fixed spinner placement - behaves more like slider placement with the setting of duration. Doesn't play sounds unnecessarily.
(*) Fixed bug where slider sliding sound would not play on some PCs.
(*) Removed a few redundant menu items.
(*) The osu! logo on main menu now beats in time to timed songs.
(*) TimingPoints are now handled on a higher level (seems like a better place to deal with these too).

2007-09-15
(+) Added version suffix to metadata for songs.
(+) Added a few graphics options.
(*) Same song continues through multiple menus without interruption if possible.
(*) High score entry screen shows what place you ranked.
(*) Slightly more friendly error dialog.
(*) Fixed audio samples a bit more (maximum concurrent samples lowered to more sane limits).
(*) Sliders can be placed with no beat snapping.
(*) Spinner placement icon is smaller.
(*) MPEG and other slow-seeking formats will now behave a lot better.
(*) Added number to fadeout animation for hitcircles. Made them scale a bit further too.
(*) Selection is ordered by difficulty stars if the other fields match.
(*) Fixed video size bug.
(*) Handling no beatmaps present and beatmaps with no notes.

2007-09-16
(+) HAJIMATTAZO! PUBLIC BETA RELEASE!
(+) Osz packaging support.
(*) Fixed md5 checksumming of utf8 containing files.
(*) Slider start circles are closer than the ball.
(*) Score multiple increases with difficulty.
(*) Tweaks before public release.
(*) Fixed bug with osz where it would try to zip itself.
(*) Mousewheel zooms on timeline.
(*) Metronome sound aligned for first beat.
(*) Reduced brightness of screen flashes on selection.
(*) Audio flow is better between same songs different versions.

2007-09-17
(+) Song grouping. How does this work for you guys?
(*) Changed some difficulty settings. HP drain should be a bit more reasonable, i hope!
(*) Extracts .zip files in songs directory as well as .osz. IE doesn't play nicely with archives.
(*) Handle crash when incomplete osz files are still downloading when osu! is started.
(*) Spinner has a bit more acceleration.
(*) Fixed bug where spinner/slider sounds gets stuck playing.

sorry guys - going to have to ignore the results of that poll above for a while. too many bugfixes and feature requests that I am keeping up daily public builds. hope you dont mind ^^

2007-09-18
(*) Fixed some songs not remaining transparent after being selected.
(*) Fixed bug where config file is not saved when using the 'X' button to close the window.
(*) Disabled hitcircle snapping to other hitcircles.
(*) Fixed bug where slider point editing was playing up when a slider was selected, but you hovered over another slider.
(*) Fixed bug where slider end circles occasionally appeared way too large in the editor.
(*) Standardisation of osz extracted directory names and osu filenames.

Keeping up a consistent pace with new features and bug fixes. Surprisingly, there haven't been as many bug reports as I expected. Not sure if people are staying quiet, or the testing process really did filter out the majority of bugginess. Spent most of my time tonight on the filename structure for osu/osz saving and extracting. Everything is really solid now in that regard - and filenames will be assigned automatically based on the provided metadata.

Also started on the video tutorial - did a test-run, but didn't have enough time left for the final take . Tomorrow!

2007-09-19
(+) Basics to allow osu! to check for new updates when it is run, and present an option for the user to get updates.
(+) Linear curve type. Can now place hard cornered sliders.
(*) Md5 can be checked in the currently open application. Changed updater to use this rather than hard-coded version number.
(*) Fixed issue where slider length is saved as non-integer, but causes crash on load.
(*) Fixed bug where resizing a spinner caused the game to crash.
(*) Snapping turned back on for hitcircles and sliders - and extended so circles snap to the end and the start of sliders.
(*) Broke sliders, but fixed them again..

forgot to post last night, whoops.

2007-09-20
(*) Reordered slider-tick sprites to be beneath repeat/end circles.
(*) Two crosses appear when missing a slider altogether, at the start and end points.
(*) No cross appears when missing the start point of a slider.
(*) Fixed bug where short sliders could not be placed correctly.
(*) Fixed bug where end circles acted as start circles too.
(*) Fixed bug where game would crash on entering play mode while a song was playing which does not have any beatmaps.

Graduated from uni - officially! Because of the ceremony I didn't get so much done, but I finished the voice-over for my first editor tutorial, and am encoding overnight

2007-09-21
(+) Circles shake when out of order.
(+) Slider velocity adjustment added to editor.
(*) Hopefully fixed bug with unsupported characters.
(*) Oops, I did a build too early. Removed slider velocity from public version.
(*) Notes under the end of sliders now stack. Makes it a lot easier to see these.
(*) Metronome ticks and metre are a lot more sane.

I'm not sure if I'll have time this weekend to pick up one of the large new features I want to add. Next on the agenda is most likely getting a website together, along with online ranking linked into the game. Might be able to have that done by Monday but no promises .

Been working on a lot of small bug fixes/features which have hopefully made things a lot more solid since the initial public release.

2007-09-22
(+) Login handling.
(*) Update notification disappears while playing/editing.
(*) Increased difficulty of combo end-scores, but introduced a hp bonus even when you miss both types of combo.

2007-09-23
(+) Volume controls in options.
(+) Replay support?
(*) Moved song extraction to selection menu rather than as the game starts.
(*) Game will start even without any beatmaps present. The message will now appear when you try to play or edit.
(*) Menu effects don't play and song selection doesn't change while osu! doesn't have focus.
(*) If fire fails to render, it is automatically disabled rather than crashing the game.
(*) Fixed bug where high BPMs would cause an error when attempting to manually set the bpm via the dialog.
(*) Started on new slider rendering code.

Made some good progress over the weekend, albeit a bit slower than I hoped for. Next public version will probably be a few more days, depending on how things go. I'd really like to get the sliders going with this new code, which will take quite a bit of time.

2007-09-24
(+) Framework for play mods.
(+) Two initial mods - "nofail" and "easymode".
(+) Heavier gridlines to show the centre of gamefield in editor.
(*) Grid resizing/non-standard resolutions handled a lot better.
(*) Fixed bug where editor menu selections would become out of sync after exiting/entering.
(*) Fixed bug with horizontal and vertical flipping losing notes.
(*) Fixed bug where short sliders would not play the end-circle sound in edit mode at higher BPMs.
(*) Fixed bug where songs containing characters which are invalid in filenames were being incorrectly handled.
(*) Fullscreen mode will exit whilst in the editor, and resume on exiting. The editor doesn't support fullscreen at this point in time.
(*) Song continues to play while at the ranking screen.
(*) Added a note to inform about the lack of online ranking functionality for the moment.
(*) Fire starts at 30 combo rather than 40.
(*) Fixed bug where game would not start if fullscreen was set in configuration file.
(*) Made selection of last songs in song selection menu a lot easier.

New version is up! This combines all the changes from the last few days in one major bug fixing and minor new feature effort! A few things have been excluded from this public build - like replay data and new slider drawing code. These will come later this week as they are not yet fully complete and tested.

Enjoy

Edit: Minor public build up after the initial version. Fixed a problem will fullscreen mode.

2007-09-25 (b72)
(+) Added audio offset to options.
(*) Changes to allow other localisations to handle numbers correctly.
(*) Fixed bug where snapping would not work when a song had exactly two timing points.
(*) Changed song selection quite a lot. <b>Need feedback on this.</b>
(*) Fixed sort order when stars are the same but difficulty differs (by a decimal place).
(*) Aaaaaahhh! Fixed spinners being HARDER on easy mode.

Spent quite a while experimenting with new stuff which didn't work out to much in the end. Not as much productivity as I hoped for. Tired too .

Edit: But I fixed two, or maybe even three bugs!

I really wanted to make the song selection centre on the beatmap you have selected if your mouse cursor is outside a certain range, but after implementing this and getting feedback from testers, I removed it before putting up the new public version. I did increase the speed of scrolling through the list while in a smaller area, though. Should help for large lists of songs. If anyone has bright ideas about improvements that could be made to song selection, please voice them!

2007-09-26 (b74)
(+) Basic support for break or intermission periods in songs.
(+) Added '!!' danger sprite when hitting very low HP.
(*) Handle left/right mouse clicks better (there were problems when alternating while one was still depressed).
(*) Fixed bug where sliders would go at old speed even after a new timing point.
(*) Fixed bug where every tick on a slider would be counted as a miss if missed.
(*) Fixed normal hit sound not playing when effect volume is set below 20%.
(*) Allow negative offsets in manual timing adjustment window.
(*) Fixed kanji for 'katsu' combos. The left-hand particle was incorrect in all sprites. Oops.

Got quite a few fixes done in this build - and a bit distracted working on new features which don't appear in the above list .

As for break/intermission mode - it is in the game (albeit untested) but not yet available in the editor. To make use of this, edit your .osu and add and event line in the following format:

[Events]
2,<startTimeMs>,<endTimeMs>

You can add as many of these lines as you want. If you need to find out the millisecond times, you can rever to the [HitObjects] section - the third number in the comma separated list refers to the hit-time of a normal circle.

I'll try and get it in the editor ASAP. At the moment it will simply blackout the screen and stop HP drain. It is also considered when deciding the song's HP drain rate.

Edit: Updated bugs/feature request forum topics. That felt good!

*sleeeeeep*

2007-09-27 (b76)
(*) Increased slider/spinner timeline resize handle by 4 pixels. Should be easier to grab.
(*) Cannot play zero-length spinners and sliders in editor anymore. (caused null reference crashes and other horrible stuff)
(*) Fixed bug where music and effect volume levels would drop if universal volume is less than full each time the options screen is entered.
(*) Fixed bug where sliders would count as two misses when missed.
(*) Fixed bug where registering login details while running fullscreen resulting in abnormalities (windows forms grr).
(*) New songs should be selectable even in a long list (the ones that appear as blue).
(*) Audio offset was applied in the wrong direction! Whoops.
(*) Fixed bug where setting an offset would break seeking in editor.
(*) Spinners give 100 points per rotation, 1100 for bonus rotations. Also ramped down difficulty slightly (around 10%).
(*) Increased the rate at which up/down arrows affect tempo change.
(*) Added an end circle for spinners on the timeline.
(*) First of a number of changes to spinner motion - the mouse no longer needs to remain on the spinner itself, and will be moved back closer to it if too far away.
(*) Ensure sliders are updated instantly after a bpm alteration (as opposed to after a save/load).
(*) Fixed SliderTickRate to not affect the actual speed of a slide - only the number of ticks on it. Setting this higher (2 or 4) will double/quadruple the number of ticks; setting to 0.5 will halve.
(*) Fixed break periods not showing in editor always.

Fear the bug fixes. Didn't actually get around to adding anything new (well, I actually got the "Perfect" graphic done for the scoring screen, and make an uploader for people to use for beatmaps..)

There should be something in this batch for everyone. I will say though, that these fixes have not been tested as thoroughly as I'd like them - please report if they don't work as expected and I'll look further into them. They can't make things worse than before though, right?

I hope you guys don't think I'm ignoring the poll results at the top of this post - I would really like to roll these updates into one per week, but I feel as though these changes should be made available as soon as possible. That, and anyone who can't spare 700kb and a few seconds of their day to actually process the update is a bit too stingy for my liking .

That said, there will probably not be another update until Sunday - unless I decide to do a few more bug-fixes before tomorrow night. In this time, there are a few major features I am looking at adding, so wish us luck!

b76 is up!

2007-09-28 (b77)

1. + Added confirmation dialog for snapping all notes/removing all timing sections.
2. + Editor now remembers preferences for curveType, gridSize, snapDivisor.
3. + Osz packaging provides a default filename based on the artist/title. Hopefully stop people from using []s in the filename (phpbb no likes).
4. + Mouse speed adjustment in options.
5. + Added shortcut keys for specific grid size modes (Ctrl+1-4).
6. + Added slider to adjust beat snap divisor.
7. + Basic static image background support.
8. + Manual entry button added to timing dialog.
9. Fixed stacking of notes at the end of slider causing the slider to move out of place.
10. Fix for one remaining localisation bug.
11. Fixed timeline selection being slightly weighted to the right-hand side with overlapping notes.
12. Fixed crash when nudging notes while none are selected.
13. Fixed spinner first 100-point score coming half a sping too early.
14. Mod buttons stay lit up after finishing playing a song.

Build is up. If anyone got it in the first few minutes, they may have been presented with 2 exe updates. This was my mistake, not a bug in the updater

I was hoping to add break-period insertion in the editor with this build, but its getting quite late so I'll finish that one off tomorrow. Quite a few editor enhancements that should make life that little bit easier. Keep the feedback coming.

To add a background to your beatmap, follow this example:

[Events]
0,<startTimeMs>,"imagefile.png"

So if you want a background from the start, set the startTimeMs value to 0. This is currently very basic support, I know, but it should be enough to take the bore out of that blue background screen. Images are automatically resized to take the full width of the window.

2007-09-29 (b78)

(!) Fixed sliders not displaying for some people. Woot.
(*) Extended timer height so selection can be made easily.
(*) Fixed pause/play occurring even when ctrl is held down.
(*) Added code to detect pixel shader version (reintroduced smooth curves for PS2.0+).

Not so much visible progress today. Spent a lot of time working on the new slider code (but didn't get so far), and also some other new feature which will hopefully be in by Monday evening .

Sliders are finally visible on all PCs! osu! will fallback for PS1.1 support, making less-pretty but visible slider tracks on those graphics cards which don't support PS2.0+. Hooray!

I was planning to get a few more features for tonight's build, but I am really really tired. I wouldn't have put a build up at all, was it not for the sliders being 10x less ugly than the one i put up this morning .

Niite

2007-09-30 (b79)
(+) 90 degree rotation in editor.
(+) Undo support in editor. Still a bit buggy - be careful when using!
(*) Difficulty stars calculation includes the number of notes/second.
(*) Fixed high scores not recording correctly.
(*) Fixed selection area causing PS1.1 cards to crash.
(*) Fixed slider end circles breaking combos when too far away.
(*) Replay support fully complete. Not implemented in public yet.
(*) Fixed perfect appearing behind the line on the results graph.
(*) Fixed ranking screen exiting on hitting 'q'.
(*) Preloading hit-value sprites when entering play mode.
(*) Added graphics fix for cards which do not autodetect a suitable render-mode.
(*) Fixed sliders stacking incorrectly (i hope - eyup can you check this?).
(*) Fixed background images being offset too far vertically.

There's a few semi-major changes this build, which I hope don't break things for you! I was tempted to not put this up publicly tonight, because I really haven't gotten around to doing much testing at all, but there are bug fixes which will fix a few annoying issues that have been going on... so I'm going to release! See my forum title ^^.

Hopefully on-track for the first version of online ranking tomorrow evening or soon after. Things are going along quite nicely, really .

If any of you guys have time, please report any bugs you find with the undo/redo editor code. I know there are a few - so if you can state the exact events which cause these bugs to occur, it would be really helpful.

A quick reminder too -- we will be moving servers today at ~5am GMT. A short downtime may occur.. lasting 1-2hours.

Keep those beatmaps coming!

b79 is up.

Re-tested replay and everything seems A-OK Seems like undo has done something to delete - when I delete the normal hit circles, they disappear from the timeline but stay on the edit screen. That's the only bug I can find so far. Oh wait - that's been fixed in public!

Can't wait for replays and online ranking!

eyupz

2007-10-01
(+) Online ranking.
(+) Replay implemented.
(+) Mods show up on the ranking screen.
(*) Mods are internally handled better - should prove nice for when more are added in.
(*) Perfect now means you haven't broken a combo (including slider midpoints).

Not much to report for today. Progress is good, but I am really tired after working the 3-day long weekend on osu! and only osu!. Online ranking should be up in the next couple of days for all - just need to get some basic testing some first.

Things should get pretty interesting this week

Edit: No build today - no major bug-fixes (no new bugs reported!) and the features that are coming are still quite half-baked.

2007-10-02
(+) 'Break Time' insertion/deletion support in the editor. Time period is automatically calculated - reinserting at the same point will run this calculation again.
(+) Basic background image insertion support in the editor. Currently accessible by hitting 'i' in design mode. This will probbaly be changed before a public release!
(+) Timeline ticks adjust depending on the current snap divisor.
(+) Replay data is streamed via a zip deflator.
(+) New icons for replay/back buttons on ranking screen.
(*) Fixed bug where dragging on the snap divisor selection bar into the timeline would do crazy scrolling.
(*) Fixed song selection bug.
(*) Slider point changes are undoable.
(*) Added help text to replay screen.

Fell asleep while coding . Really need to catch up on that stuff. Progress it good, but still lacking a lot of testing on new stuff. Today I took a bit of a break from online scores and added many of the editor features that have been requested a lot. I'll try and get a build out with these ASAP.

Edit: See attached for some sneak preview imagery .

2007-10-03
(+) Newly imported osz files appear in green on the song selection for that game run.
(+) Added slider tick rate adjustment to editor.
(+) Added new timing option "Resnap current timing section".
(+) Background fades when outside of a break period - becomes fully visible during break-time.
(+) Backgrounds images and movies can be added in the editor!
(+) Added support for changing the background colour on the gamefield!
(+) Added "osu!!" and "go!" graphics for when a spinner is finished successfully.
(*) Slider adjustments are completed when doing a "resnap all notes".
(*) Force updating slider lengths after exiting timing screen (hopefully allow more leniance for people who change bpm/velocity after already having sliders placed).
(*) 'Ki' symbol is displayed as normal sprite for the song-start period. (in response to Asho "When the meter fills up at the beginning, the slider says "気"/"Yes" all the time.")
(*) Irregular slider repeat ticks maintain their location. (in response to Asho "When it comes to Phrases with irregular dots, a return arrow does not relocate them")
(*) Combo display fades out when 0. (in response to Asho "The combo counter is invisible if the combo is 0.")
(*) Changed same-colour combo end scoring. (in response to Asho "Kiai/Beat Bonuses are awarded at the end of a same-colored string as long as there weren't any 50s or Xs in it...")
(*) Getting 50% of ticks on a slider results in a 100 score (as opposed to the previous 75%).
(*) Scores can have a fail record. They will not be recorded if this is set.

If that isn't a good effort, then I'll be damned. Got so much done even I am surprised .

Responded to most of Asho's spotted inconsistencies with fixes, and added quite a few new features that have been pending for a while. I feel like I *SHOULD* do a public release tonight, but my testers all ran away again . I'm thinking possibly tomorrow night.. though some parts of online ranking would not be functioning, there are a lot of other changes/additions to make playing more fun, and editing a lot easier.

You guys are going to love this

Edit: thanks for the typo correction ^^
Edit2: (+) Pause/fail menu.

4am... oops. nnite

Hey, I'm online - I just can't get on IRC from here.

I could probably handle testing if you sent me the build via PM.

peppy wrote:

2007-10-03
(+) Added "osu!!" and "go!" graphics for when slider is finished successfully.

You mean spinner, not slider, right?
The next release sounds good! Looking forward to it (patiently)!

2007-10-04 (b86)
(+) Files which are not used in the current beatmap are removed before packaging.
(+) Added slider beach ball animation (thanks to Kylecito!).
(+) Unplayed songs are remembered between launches of the game.
(+) Added warning arrows after a break period.
(+) Added a skip button for songs with long lead-ins.
(+) Added 'D' ranking.
(*) Removed hit sprites which are no longer used (due to ammendments in scoring).
(*) Undo/redo history is cleared when opening a file or starting a new beatmap.
(*) Fixed some bugs with pause mode.
(*) Working on issues with filenames inside zip files.. tempted to just force them to only contain the ansi range.
(*) Fixed a few crashy bugs.
(*) Halved slider precision for all snap divisors.

Well feck, I fell asleep again at ~2am. I meant to do a public build, but I guess that will happen tomorrow now . I also made a beatmap just to test the editor out. It turned out quite nice. I'll post tomorrow. nite

Edit: maybe i wont sleep! oh man, that sounds like a bad idea already
Edit2: BRACE YOURSELVES! A release is coming.

2007-10-05 (b87)
(*) It is possible to get S rankings again. Sorry!!
(*) Replay shouldnt fail anymore.

Posting a bit early because I'm focusing on the database tonight. Just fixed a few bugs which have been mentioned! Also I plan on catching up on some sleep from last night's loss ^^.

The osu! uploader can now handle any size files (in preparation for in-game integration!). Thanks to phill for getting this working.

2007-10-06
(+) Online ranking displays in-game.
(+) Replays can be downloaded and watched.
(*) Replays are compressed using 7z rather than zip. Therefore, all high-scores until now will not have valid replay data (except local).
(*) Fixed high scores appearing on edit selection screen.
(*) Metadata entry uses account username by default.
(*) Fixed mouse trail disappearing after replay.

So... high scores now display in osu! itself, and replays are automatically downloaded and made available . This will be up public tomorrow (needs a few graphics made first).

Also focussed on the database backend for rankings, and updated the ranking pages quite a bit (now live) with some new layout and stats. Added one more song for testing (with multiple difficulties). Should be seeing more tomorrow, I hope.

I have been setting up a system so the people in charge of approving official beatmaps can easily complete this task with minimal effort. Also been getting some scripts ready to wireup to the new packaging system for the editor. Should be quite exciting!

2007-10-07 (b89)
(+) Vertical red indicator line added to compose timeline at timing points.
(+) Skinning support.
(+) Ctrl+Mousewheel seeks forwards and backwards. Hold shift for 4x speed.
(+) Timeline ticks are colourised.
(+) New error popup for in-game warnings/errors.
(*) Fixed sliders being audible after fail (during spin-down time).
(*) Cut 6ms silence from hit-whistle sample.
(*) Slight change to the hitcircle fadeout animation (easing added - looks a lot closer to ouendan).
(*) Huge performance increase when sprites are being rendered off-screen (ie. song selection).
(+) Web: Ajax-ish user ratings added for beatmaps.
(+) Web: New stats and completion of beatmap import script.

I planned to get a bit more done than I got around to today. There's a few items left on my list which have to be pushed forward until tomorrow. This includes skinning support (done but no graphical interface to enable), editor bookmarks, slider point creation (after placement) and a few other things here and there. I haven't forgot about any of these!

With that out of the way -- I am very interested to see how you guys like the new online ranking features! I put a lot of effort into getting this working as well as it does (should) so hope it actually turns out to be enjoyable. More beatmaps will be added to the online ranking tomorrow, I promise.

Replays recorded before this release will not be viewable due to a format change. If you want to test this out, watch my S playthrough of Disco Prince . I'm sure there will be more to watch in no time.

Edit: I have added a few more songs to the ranking list.

Awesome. I always check in just as you make a new release.

I'ma go play around with it now.

2007-10-08
(+) Skin selector in options.
(+) Bookmark support complete!
(*) Skin ini file made available. Currently only supports changing the colouring of different hit-circle/slider combos.
(*) Replay during break time is smoother (when mouse was held during original play it stuttered).
(*) New songs are still remembered even if game is forced to quit (alt-f4).

The bookmarking stuff took a bit of time to do. It feels quite nice to use, though - definitely a feature worth adding. Skins should be ready for consumption tomorrow when I do a release. I'm holding back for tonight... after last nights horribly buggy build. I don't want to let this happen two days in a row :p.

I devoted some time to updating the ranking/new official song list and I believe I have added every song that is in the official thread. If I have missed any, please let me know! New ones should also start appearing very soon.

There is also a new link in the ranking pages to download the latest .osu file for each song. This should be handy for those of you that have a mismatching version and don't want to download the full osz file.

I felt like I could have got more done tonight, but ah well. Forward progress is good, nontheless .

New build tomorrow if all goes well~

peppy out

2007-10-09
(+) Keyboard shortcuts for bookmarks (Ctrl+Left/Right arrows).
(+) Custom preview time can be set in editor (Timing>Set Current Position as Preview).
(*) Fixed bug where skip button sometimes doesn't work (if you click it too fast).
(*) Fixed bug where sliders sometimes reported misses when they shouldn't (sorry eyup).
(*) Fixed depth problems with multiple background event layers. Now orders depth by how they appear in the osu file (back-to-front).
(*) Skinning takes effect on results screen and in editor
(*) Skin.ini contains skin/author metadata.
(+) Web: Sorting for the main beatmap list by headers. Still needs some new columns added (need to work on DB a bit more).
(+) Web: Pagination for beatmap listing.

Ok so once again I have decided it is best not to release a build tonight. Sorry to those who are waiting on features added/fixed in the last few days. I promise to get a new version up tomorrow no matter what - starting to feel a bit behind.

I spent a bit of time fxing up the osu import scripts, and adding pagination/sorting for the online ranking listing. Also found a pretty serious bug reported by eyup, which results in sliders occasionally being missed when they shouldn't. This occurs at the end of a repeat section, and will definitely be fixed in the next release. Sorry to those affected!

Skinning support is ready, but I have one last touch to finish things off (won't reveal this just yet ) which should be finished tomorrow. I was supposed to be somewhere into the automated packaging by this time, but due to the feature requests flowing in, that has kind've fallen back a bit. This is still what I plan to work on next, though.

Beatmap production is going really well - keep it up guys. Make sure you comment on others when you can - while we have few moderators present, it helps to have user comments to base approval decisions on. Also, if you are the author of a beatmap which has fallen off the first page of the completed forum, feel free to bump it back up if you feel it needs more attention to be included on the official list. We may give it a second chance .

nn

2007-10-10 (b96)
(+) pUpdater v2 - supports optional packages, and is much more robust.
(+) Can add points to existing sliders (Ctrl+Click in select mode).
(*) Fixed skin manager to handle cases when colours are not provided correctly better.
(*) Fixed spinners not being replaced by skinned versions.
(*) Fixed editor background being too bright after loading/reverting to saved.
(*) Fixed events not being ordered correctly in .osu file (caused warning arrows to not appear sometimes).
(*) Fixed skip not playing fair with beatmaps that have no timing points (PLEASE don't make maps with no timing... it makes me cry).
(*) Adding a new timing point adds it with default values - current time and same BPM as last. You can adjust/reset as required!

b96 is up! Bundles changes since the 7th - read back a couple of posts if you're interested!

Beatmappers can enjoy bookmarks (try hovering the seekbar), setting a custom preview point for songs, adding new points to existing sliders, and probably more that I have forgotten. There are also quite a few general bug fixes aroudn the place - and full skinning support! Hope you guys appreciate the effort Kylecito put into making the EBA skin (this is still a work-in-progress and likely to improve).

The new updater features an "extras" section. I'm not sure what the future holds, but this can manage any number of optional packages which users can choose to install. Once they are installed, they will automatically be checked as to whether they are the latest version on each update. Should provide a good way of distributing user contributions such as skins!

I feel like quite a few of the changes/fixes in this build aren't so visible - a bit going on behind the scenes.. but hopefully you can appreciate the stuff that has been included!! More to come (of course).

Argh... fell asleep again . I meant to goto bed early tonight... but got stuck doing stuff as usual ^^;;;.

2007-10-11
(+) New sounds for spinners and slider ticks.
(+) Basic wiring for selecting different sound-sets in the editor.
(*) Spinner sound effect loops a lot better.
(*) Fixed score to appear in front of scorebar.
(*) Fixed skin selection in options when more than one custom skin exists.
(*) Fixed new songs not being remembered properly when osu! is closed (argh).
(+) Web: Basic "Player ranking" page.
(+) Web: New profile statistics.
(*) Web: Time in lead will not be updated if you beat your own #1 score.
(*) Web: Started to store stats in the user table rather than calculate on-the-fly. Need to do this for all stats eventually.

So I did some sound sampling. All I'll say is, I can wait to show you guys (well, let you hear) the results. I think you will approve.

5am and I don't feel like typing. Nite.

No, I didnt fall asleep again last night. *cough*

2007-10-12
(+) Breaks can be removed by right-clicking on them.
(*) Fixed bug where notes could be dragged into break periods.
(*) Fixed bug where sort order isn't updated on drag end.
(*) Skin is used for slider start/endpoints.

I got 12 hours sleep though. It feels goooooood.

2007-10-13 (b99)
(+) Soft sound set added.
(+) Bookmarks are saved.
(+) Ctrl+B adds bookmarks, Alt+B removes.
(+) Added automatic offset detection back in.
(*) Fixed crash when trying to play a song with no notes placed.
(*) Slider ball is skinnable.
(+) Web: Date formats made a lot cleaner.
(+) Web: Ranking distribution.
(+) Web: Added sort arrows for beatmap listing.
(*) Web: Moved more stats to generate in a static fashion, therefore increasing the number of places they can be used (see player ranking).

Lots of web stuff done today. Got the new sounds out too, which makes me happy . I still have a bit of work I'd like to do on the ranking system before moving back to osu! coding tomorrow.

2007-10-14 (b100)
(+) Skin template added to updater.
(*) Slider tick sound obeys the audio volume settings.
(*) Quite a large scoring bug fixed. Took a lot of time and effort to ensure no data was lost.. Thanks to eyup for the help.
(*) A bit of work on new sorting system for menus.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

2007-10-16 (b102)
(*) Fixed spinner sound playing while paused.
(*) Fixed video being dropped from osu file if video is disabled (or codec fails) while editing.
(*) Default curve type is now bezier.
(+) Web: First post is shown on song detail pages.
(*) Web: Download links work from song detail pages.

Check out the changes to the song details pages. The download button actually works now, and the first post of the relevant thread is visible! Should be a lot easier to get songs now.

New editor features to try out - slider speed preview in the timing window, and Alt-snapping. Try holding down alt while placing a sequence of notes, and notice how the distance between each placement will be constant based on the duration of time separating the two notes. This is handy for people that want to have consistent spacing throughout a beatmap. The distance calculation is based on the the same speed as slider velocity - so you can use the preview to figure what this should be set to as well .

What a lovely update!
I LOVE the idea of showing the first post!
I also want to try out the editor.. maybe for the nex beatmap!

You're great, man!

2007-10-17
(+) Support for per-song skinning (ask if you care).
(*) More work on the new song selection/sorting system. Ahhh slow progress.
(*) Fixed bug where replay occasionally fails (as in HP drops below 0).
(*) Fixed bug where editor would crash on startup (new songs only).
(*) Removed audio md5 calculation. Not being used at the moment, no real point.

Wah I fell asleep again

2007-10-18 (b105)
(+) Can get updated osu files from in-game!!
(+) Can enter login by clicking the message on the main menu. Hopefully a bit more obvious.
(+) Custom colours can be specified in beatmaps. Overrides skins and defaults (again - ask me about this one if interested).
(+) Added Cartoon skin by KiraCatgirl to osume extras.
(*) Fixed page display showing 1/0.
(*) Fixed forcing update halfway through playing a song in some rare cases.
(*) Slider end-circles fade when slider is complete (how many times have i broken this? i've lost count).
(*) Locally recorded username defaults to the same as online one.
(*) More work on the new sorting framework. I've got things organised quite nicely, but not displaying in the GUI yet. There's quite a lot to think about with this stuff - way more than meets the eye.
(+) Web: Added ranked position to profile.

Touch-ups here and there. Didn't get too far into the new song selection screen, but made some forward progress! I think you'll all appreciate the ability to update osu files though. This should save a lot of effort.. especially as we keep uploading new versions with timing fixes and whatnot lately.

Oh, yeah I'll do a build tonight. Lets hope I dont fail at it! I hate waking up to a sea of bug reports .

2007-10-19
(+) Added "dead" area to song selection screen when hovering to the left.
(*) Fixed bug where beatmap would be overwritten when checking for updates if it was not officially ranked.
(+) Web: Added play guide to FAQ (thanks to Esque).
(+) Web: Added screenshots/video section to the About page.
(+) Web: Can sort beatmap listing by minimum difficulty. Difficulty icons also added.
(*) Web: Changed displayed date for beatmap listing to original submission date, rather than last approved date.
(*) Web: Changelog now has graphics - please read this changelog using the actual changelog page (should I move this thread? Or do you guys want to be able to reply to it? Maybe each changelog entry should have a comment section.. although I'm not sure how often this would get used.)

peppy wrote:

2007-10-19
(*) Web: Changelog now has graphics - please read this changelog using the actual changelog page (should I move this thread? Or do you guys want to be able to reply to it? Maybe each changelog entry should have a comment section.. although I'm not sure how often this would get used.)

Nah, keep each changelog entry in the forum as well as the changelog page. The changelog page gives a good overview of the development, and it's easily accessible for people that are checking out the program for the first time. Then this thread can be used for comments, if you don't mind that. I hesitate to post in here because I'm not sure if you want discussion of the updates to go here alongside the actual updates.
I'm not sure a comment section would get used; it'd be more detached that way.
If you don't mind people making comments here, how about editing the thread title with the date of the last update? Development Diary/Changelog [2007-10-19] That way the comments won't distract away from when there's been an update.

Great idea sanchny - I totally agree. I've been hesitant to post here as well because I might be disturbing the flow of log entries ^^ But now that we are given license, I think it'd be worth people to start commenting on how they like the changes here.

2007-10-20 (b107)
(*) Fixed editor crash when no sampleset is selected for a new beatmap.
(*) Fixed editor sluggishness/lag on some PCs (was related to loading skins).
(*) Changed dynamics of song selection screen.
(*) Improved performance/smoothness of song selection.

Just a mini-build to fix some bugs and stuff. Should solve all the problems mentioned up to current (I hope). Also includes some new dynamics for the Song Selection screen. Lets see what the response is like .

Oh and do feel very welcome to post in this thread from now on . I'd love to hear feedback.

More to come later on.

peppy wrote:

2007-10-18 (b105)
(+) Can get updated osu files from in-game!!

How do we do this?

Evi wrote:

How do we do this?

If you have an old version of a ranked song, at the left in Osu! it will display a message saying that the beatmap is either modified and/or outdated, then under it, it will say click here to check for updates, or something to that effect. Clicking there will update. This only works for ranked songs, of course. I think.

Ok here goes.

2007-10-21
(+) Added play-testing mode in editor.
(+) Added ability to recalculate slider lengths (very useful after changing a song's BPM).
(+) iDork skin by Fraeon added to extras.
(+) Percentage progress added to editor.
(+) Full TabletPC support!
(*) Sliders have a minimum length when being placed/recalculated.
(*) Fixed replay data not saving correctly.
(*) Fixed bug where updating an .osu on a song with no rankings had weird results.
(+) Web: Moved all ranked beatmaps to a new folder to increase organisation.
(*) Web: Fixed equal scores taking wrong precedence order.

Spend a lot of time fixing stuff. Especially that TabletPC support (see the results here). Play-testing mode is in, and I was hoping to get a build up tonight with these two major features, but feel as though I should wait until tomorrow and give it a bit more time in testing.

Check out the new skin by Fraeon available in the updater! It is really well done (although may need an acquired taste to appreciate).

Got to try and pick up the pace for the new song selection screen this week. I really expected to get it done over the weekend, but instead I got quite a few bugs fixed and small tweaks done which were long overdue. Not a bad exchange, I think. I also finally played through portal (been feeling left out spending all my time on osu! ). Fun fun fun!

4am again, oops.