[gs-cvs] rev 8890 - trunk/gs/doc

[giles at ghostscript.com]

Author: giles
Date: 2008-07-28 11:55:01 -0700 (Mon, 28 Jul 2008)
New Revision: 8890

Modified:
   trunk/gs/doc/News.htm
Log:
Update news for 8.63rc1.


Modified: trunk/gs/doc/News.htm
===================================================================
--- trunk/gs/doc/News.htm	2008-07-28 12:01:51 UTC (rev 8889)
+++ trunk/gs/doc/News.htm	2008-07-28 18:55:01 UTC (rev 8890)
@@ -55,61 +55,541 @@
 
 <!-- [2.0 begin contents] ================================================== -->
 
-<h3><a name="Version8.63"></a>Version 8.63 (unreleased)</h3>
+<h3><a name="Version8.63"></a>Version 8.63 (Release Candidate)</h3>
 
 <p>
-This is an unreleased development snapshot.
+This is a release canditate for Ghostscript 8.63.
 
+<p>
+This is the fourth scheduled release in the stable Ghostscipt 8.6x 
+series. It corresponds to the 1.53 release of GhostPDL.
+
+<p>
+Approximately 238 bugs have been fixed since version 8.62. Of particular 
+note are robustness and performance improvements with large files, 
+invalid PDF, and font handling.
+
+<p>
+The major new feature of this release is multithreaded rendering. This 
+can be requested by passing <tt>-dNumRenderingThreads=</tt><i>n</i> on
+the command line. The input document is first parsed, and then each page 
+is split into <i>n</i> bands which are rendered concurrently. This 
+can provide a significant reduction in processing time on multi-core 
+systems.
+
+<p>
+Images are now always interpolated in their source colorspace. This 
+improves correctness for XPS documents and avoids bypassing the custom 
+color management callbacks for interpolated images. Interpolation and 
+color management are both expensive operations, so this affects 
+performance with large images. The effect can be positive or negative 
+depending on the file and the target resolution. If performance is a 
+problem, we suggest running with <tt>-dNOINTERPOLATION</tt>.
+
+<p>
+Support for OpenPrinting Vector devices has been upgraded to version 
+1.0.
+
+<p>
+There are two new devices in this release, both experimental. Behdad 
+Esfahbod has contributed a <tt>cairo</tt> output device which uses 
+the <a href="http://cairographics.org/">cairo graphics library</a> to 
+generate PDF, SVG, EPS, or PNG files, based on the requested filename
+extension. The <tt>svgwrite</tt> device directly outputs Scalable Vector 
+Graphics, the W3C XML vector graphics format. Both support only vector 
+art at this point; text and images will not be represented efficiently.
+
 <p> The following <a href="http://bugs.ghostscript.com/">bugs</a> were
-open at the time of the last release: <blockquote>
-465936, 578865, 626295, 686747, 686853, 687011, 687146, 687257, 687271,
-687280, 687295, 687327, 687514, 687520, 687531, 687608, 687650, 687674,
-687677, 687695, 687697, 687702, 687721, 687728, 687729, 687796, 687805,
-687814, 687850, 687903, 687904, 687957, 687974, 688007, 688022, 688026,
-688032, 688036, 688042, 688058, 688061, 688064, 688066, 688075, 688081,
-688095, 688129, 688130, 688151, 688152, 688159, 688166, 688184, 688187,
-688207, 688215, 688227, 688239, 688269, 688280, 688288, 688317, 688318,
-688320, 688333, 688342, 688358, 688359, 688360, 688361, 688363, 688372,
-688378, 688386, 688387, 688389, 688395, 688413, 688427, 688428, 688436,
-688437, 688440, 688446, 688475, 688483, 688500, 688515, 688517, 688528,
-688533, 688539, 688540, 688542, 688543, 688557, 688580, 688581, 688588,
-688601, 688604, 688605, 688610, 688615, 688616, 688619, 688627, 688636,
-688638, 688646, 688651, 688653, 688655, 688673, 688674, 688696, 688699,
-688709, 688710, 688714, 688717, 688728, 688736, 688739, 688757, 688770,
-688774, 688778, 688796, 688797, 688807, 688811, 688813, 688815, 688829,
-688843, 688846, 688876, 688908, 688918, 688919, 688926, 688928, 688933,
-688942, 688943, 688952, 688958, 688969, 688976, 688986, 688990, 688992,
-688999, 689003, 689011, 689013, 689014, 689022, 689025, 689028, 689031,
-689040, 689044, 689046, 689048, 689057, 689058, 689080, 689081, 689090,
-689093, 689094, 689098, 689111, 689116, 689128, 689129, 689130, 689133,
-689136, 689137, 689138, 689145, 689146, 689148, 689150, 689153, 689154,
-689159, 689161, 689164, 689172, 689174, 689181, 689184, 689195, 689198,
-689206, 689209, 689210, 689222, 689224, 689230, 689236, 689246, 689247,
-689248, 689252, 689253, 689264, 689279, 689280, 689281, 689283, 689289,
-689290, 689291, 689304, 689305, 689308, 689313, 689331, 689335, 689340,
-689341, 689343, 689358, 689361, 689363, 689364, 689367, 689370, 689373,
-689376, 689378, 689396, 689402, 689412, 689418, 689419, 689422, 689428,
-689431, 689438, 689439, 689440, 689444, 689445, 689448, 689450, 689451,
-689456, 689460, 689462, 689463, 689469, 689471, 689476, 689484, 689487,
-689488, 689489, 689490, 689498, 689499, 689500, 689502, 689507, 689509,
-689510, 689512, 689514, 689515, 689516, 689518, 689521, 689522, 689532,
-689534, 689535, 689538, 689542, 689543, 689546, 689547, 689549, 689552,
-689554, 689557, 689559, 689560, 689561, 689563, 689566, 689567, 689573,
-689574, 689579, 689581, 689583, 689585, 689588, 689591, 689592, 689595,
-689598, 689601, 689606, 689607, 689609, 689610, 689618, 689621, 689623,
-689627, 689628, 689632, 689636, 689637, 689641, 689649, 689652, 689653,
-689654, 689657, 689658, 689659, 689663, 689666, 689668, 689669, 689673,
-689674, 689675, 689676, 689677, 689681, 689682, 689684, 689685, 689687,
-689689, 689690, 689691, 689692, 689693, 689697, 689698, 689699, 689702,
-689704, 689705, 689709, 689710, 689711, 689712, 689713, 689715, 689716,
-689721, 689722, 689723, 689725, 689727.
+open at the time of release: <blockquote>
+226943,
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 </blockquote>
 
 <h3><a name="8.63_Incompatible_changes"></a>Incompatible changes</h3>
 
 <p>
-No compatibility issues at this point.
+The maximum number of color components has been reduced to 8 (from 252) 
+as a performance improvement. Eight is the largest number commonly used 
+and the largest number for which we support continuous tone images. 
+Users with special needs can restore the previous behavior by setting 
+the GS_CLIENT_COLOR_MAX_COMPONENTS preprocessor symbol to the required 
+number of components at compile time.
 
+<p>
+The -Z: debugging option now uses 'realtime' instead of 'usertime' 
+when reporting timing information on unix-like systems. This has
+always been the case on windows-like systems.
+
+<p>
+Obsolete makefiles for the DesqView environment have been removed.
+
 <h3><a name="8.63_changelog"></a>Changelog</h3>
 
 <p>See the <a href="History8.htm">history file</a> for complete log 
@@ -134,7 +614,7 @@
 San Rafael, CA  94903, U.S.A., +1(415)492-9861, for further information.
 
 <p>
-<small>Ghostscript version 8.63, 1 March 2008
+<small>Ghostscript version 8.63, 28 July 2008
 
 <!-- [3.0 end visible trailer] ============================================= -->