gnome-games 2.13.1

[callum physics otago ac nz]

gnome-games 2.13.1
==================

This is the first release of the 2.13 development series. A lot has
changed and many bugs can be expected.

Big issues:

gnome-stones has been removed. Serious questions have been raised
about the Copyright status of some of the code gnome-stones was based
on and also some of the levels used. Given the earlier sound-effects
problems and the general lack of maintenance of the game the best
course of action appears to be euthanasia.

Both Gnometris and Ataxx have new drawing-engines based on the Cairo
graphics library. The old themes are no longer usable (although this
may change in the future depending on development of the librsvg
library) and in the case of Ataxx there is only one theme. In fact,
using the theme selector in Ataxx is likely to cause a crash - for the
moment, don't use it. The other bug you should not report is that the
graphics for Gnometris suck. I know, the current code is mostly proof
of principle and will be improved.

There is a new high scores API. The games Mines, Five or More,
Gnometris and Same GNOME use it. This change should be backwards
compatible and, except for a change in the dialog, invisible.

Security: Because of the high scores change the previously mentioned
games do NOT drop their setgid privileges as they used to. If someone
accessing the games group is a serious issue then it is recommended
that you disable the setgid option. See the "Security Issues" section
of the README file, but note that the first item in the "mitigating
factors" doesn't apply for these games.

General News:

- You can now disable and enable the compilation of games. See the
  README file, search for "enable".
- Compilation on Windows and Mac OS X stand a good chance of working,
  I have not tested this personally.
- The supplied spec file is now up to date thanks to Paul Smith.
- You can now use Apple's Bonjour library for Zeroconf support instead of
  Howl. Avahi is unfortunately not yet supported.
- Numerous patches to fix compilation with various combinations of options.

Aisleriot:

- New game: Gaps from Zachary Keene. It is similar to the "Blue" demo game
  that  came with the curses distribution.
- The game Block Ten has been reinstated. It was removed with a comment
  indicating it didn't work. It seems to work fine for us, if you find out
  otherwise please tell us.
- Freecell hint code now runs in a separate thread so we get good hints with
  a good response time.
- Bug fixes for Spiderette, Kansas, Gypsy and Straight Up.

Ataxx:

- Completely new drawing engine. Theme changing doesn't work. See above
  for details.

Blackjack:

- There is now an option to automatically reject insurance.

Gnometris:

- Graphics engine rewrite inspired by Paolo Borelli's code. See above
  for details and caveats. Note that writing new themes is simple and
  encouraged.

Nibbles:

- New graphics from Aurélio A. Heckert

Tali:

- Rather than using a blank die to indicate a die that will be rolled,
  the entire die acts like a toggle button in a toolbar. In some themes
  this is a little subtle.

You can get it from:

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gnome-games/2.13/

 - Callum