DSP Robotics FlowStone 2 v3.0.3 Raindrop-CHAOS

In this release we have two new primitives for connecting to external hardware. The DMX primitive allows you to connect to a massive range of compatible lighting products. The HID primitive will interface with any Hardware Interface Device compatible hardware. Most input devices adhere to this standard but it's not just about games controllers, there is a wide range of hardware that uses HID. With this new primitive you can now create your own device using a PIC and use FlowStone to talk to it.

To enhance the UI building capabilities of Ruby in FlowStone even further we've now added the ability to create in place edit controls, drop lists and message boxes. Previously you would have had to use external primitives to handle these features. It was awkward and messy but now it is incredibly easy.

Toolbox scrolling using a mouse wheel has been vastly improved with the addition of a new Adaptive Scrolling feature. This makes the scroll speed change depending on how quickly you move the mouse wheel. You can now scroll slowly when you need precision or whizz through the toolbox in seconds when you want to get somewhere fast. There's a new Toolbox tab on the Options dialog where you can adjust the scrolling to your taste. There's also a new option here to determine how toolbox filters are combined.

For audio users we have finally found a solution to Ruby sharing for VST plugins. The ruby dll no longer needs to be distributed with exported plugins because we now link it directly with our code. As a result of this each plugin now has its own Ruby interpreter, no more worrying about potential conflicts with other people's plugins. This also solves a problem we were having with compatibility between plugins generated with different versions of FlowStone. As a result of this change VST plugins can't use Ruby extensions. We may be able to get this to work later down the line but it's not guaranteed. For now we think it's a small price to pay as the benefits of this solution massively outweigh this small downside.

As well as this there are a host of other fixes and improvements.

IMPROVEMENTS

New DMX primitive for controlling lighting devices
New HID primitive for connecting to a huge range of external controllers and boards
New In Place Edits from Ruby code
New Ruby Drop Lists from Ruby code
New Message Box handling in Ruby code
New Adaptive Scrolling feature in Toolbox (see new Toolbox page in Options to control this)
New way of handling exported VST plugins so there is no dependency on the ruby dll and no inter plugin Ruby sharing
New Ruby getInterpolationMode and setInterpolationMode methods for controlling bitmap rendering
New Follow Sync Modules feature
New Schematic File Path primitive
New Paste input on the Bitmap primitive allows you to paste a bitmap from the clipboard

FIXES

Fixed a crash which can occur when deleting Float Array components that are fed from a Ruby component
Fixed the Changed component so it now saves state
Fixed a bug where Ruby components were not saving state when switched off
Fixed crash when closing an exported plugin if there is another one open
Fixed the conversion from Float Array to string so that it now uses the correct float representation
Fixed a problem which could cause crashes when calculating syntax colouring for Ruby code
Added refresh input to COM port component so that you can request a refresh of the port numbers
Added clear sends input to COM component so that you can clear the send buffer
Added a mouse cursor request on mouse button up
Fixed a problem where module tags were not being saved to .tag files
Fixed a bug in the COM port component where data was being sent out in first in last out order instead of first in first out
Fixed a the COM port component 'Out' output so that triggers are not sent when data is received only when data is sent
Fixed an issue with cursor setting in Ruby not passing through to other elements if no mouseCursor method was present
Fixed a bug when pasting modules which appear on a front panel so that these now all appear on top of existing elements
Fixed a problem in the Phidgets Stepper Controller component where the position was not being reset correctly
Fixed a bug in the Phidgets Stepper Controller where the Zero input trigger was not resetting the current position
Changed the Swap Links feature so it now deselects the components when finished
Changed the way that Mono to Frames and Frames to Mono work so that they can handle variable buffer sizes
Fixed a problem where the software could crash or hang on startup if MIDI events are generated during loading
Fixed the Ruby Draw method so it now uses EditConnector objects to refer to inputs
Added option to say whether tag bar, search and filter pane selections are combined or not
Fixed instabilities in the events system that could lead to crashes when the ruby interpreter is shared (mainly an issue for VST plugins)
Fixed the problem of the UAC dialogs disappearing behind the application window when exporting to VST or EXE
Fixed an issue with muting exported VST plugins in a host where Ruby events would stop being processed