You want to help make Sweet16 awesome? Report bugs in the public beta!

I now have a bug database set up online for filing bugs; you can even look at the bugs already in the system to see what's going on, and see if and when I get them fixed.

I've posted the full release notes for Sweet16 2.0 Public Beta 1, copied here for your reading enjoyment:

1. Graphics are now drawn using OpenGL, and color is 16-bit for truer color fidelity.

2. Removed tons of unused code.

3. Added a routine that makes it possible for IIgs code to output text to the Mac console.

4. The video window's title bar now indicates the name of the Apple II application currently running -- if you've installed the latest version of the SweetPrinter extension from the tools disk, as described in the documentation.

5. Added full screen graphics support.

6. Added a preference that lets you specify whether 800K disk images mount on the CleverPort or IWM by default.

7. You can now resize the video window to any size by holding down option and clicking and dragging in the resize box that appears in the bottom right corner of the window.

8. Switched to using the more modern Carbon Event Manager, which improves performance and makes certain tasks easier to accomplish in the code.

9. The Mac mouse cursor now hides and shows more reliably as it passes in and out of the video window, courtesy of Carbon Event Manager mouse tracking.

10. You can now switch between 16:10 (typical emulated Apple IIgs aspect ratio) and 4:3 (real Apple II aspect ratio) using the preferences.

11. Fixed a bug that was causing empty ROM and other files to be created if they couldn't be found.

12. The toolbar has been removed; the CPU speed indicator is not currently available but will return before the final version of Sweet16 2.0.

13. Removed the Real Time dock icon update option; this was hurting system performance when selected. Added an "Every second" option to replace it.

14. DiskCopy 4.2, HDRV, and Universal Disk Image files are now recognized by their Mac file type information if it's present.

15. Universal Disk Image files are identified by their internal signature if no other type information is found.

16. The mouse scroll wheel now sends key up and down events, to let you use the scroll wheel to some extent in GS applications.

I've posted Sweet16 2.0 Public Beta 1, which is now available from my Mac Downloads page. It has a number of nice improvements, among which are:

• OpenGL accelerated graphics.
• Color fidelity improved.
• Resize your IIgs video window to any size you like.
• Mount your 800K floppy disk images as SmartPort hard disks by default if you want to.
• Fixed bugs with finding and remembering the location of the ROM file.
• Now recognizes Mac file types for various disk image formats including 2mg, DiskCopy 4, and DiskCopy 6. Improved recognition of disk images in general.

There are others, too, but I can't remember them at this moment and my notes are on a different computer, so I'll post the rest later.

Please keep in mind that this is a beta, and almost certainly has significant bugs. While it has some nice new features, it's not necessarily reliable!

I'm still gradually working on Sweet16 2.0. I had done some work toward integrating Ethernet support, then realized I don't really want to.

So instead I'm now working on a plug-in system that will let third parties write expansion card emulation modules that users will be able to install into the virtual slots. Then other people can do the hard work of writing the Ethernet emulation -- and can write cards for whatever they want to do.

I don't yet know when this work will be done, but I'm working on it.

If I can get some residual issues worked out with the resizable OpenGL video window, I intend to release an open beta of Sweet16 2.0 in July sometime. Depends on how that work goes though.

Sweet16 2.0 development is chugging along. It has a number of nice improvements, in particular its totally rewritten graphics code that uses OpenGL to reduce load on the processor. This improves performance noticeably on PowerPC systems, less so on Intel.

You can also now choose whether the window should be displayed in 4:3 or 16:10 aspect ratio. Historically, Apple IIgs emulators have used 16:10, stretching the GS display vertically to 400 pixels tall. However, this creates an incorrect 16:10 aspect ratio.

That's actually good enough for ordinary use.

However, Sweet16 2.0 offers the option to switch to a 4:3 aspect ratio mode. This mode, while slightly fuzzy compared to the 16:10 mode, provides a more accurately scaled representation of the IIgs display, which can be handy for page layout and graphic design tasks.

Additionally, you can now resize the Sweet16 video window to any size you want, and the GS display will stretch to that size. While the display obviously looks best at its normal 640x400 or 640x480 size, you can make it whatever size fits your needs best.

Sweet16 2.0 also offers full screen support, a much-improved event management system, and a few other interesting new features and improvements.

I'm not sure at this point when it'll be done. I've got some work left to do on it. However, I'm tentatively planning a public beta version sometime in the next few weeks. The rewritten graphics and event management code could use some more strenuous testing than the regular test team has time to give it. There are almost guaranteed to be quirks in that build when I do release it, but it should help me nail them down and fix them.

I'll post more information as the test date approaches.