[BRLTTY] brltty 5.1 has been released.

[Dave Mielke]

brltty-5.1 has been released. As usual, it contains a number of new features. 
More Importantly, though, it also contains some important fixes for problems in 
the recent major rewrite which were only discovered after 5.0 was released. The 
most significant of these fixes resolves a couple of serious problems with the 
FreedomScientific driver. Anyone using a Freedom Scientific braille device on 
any platform, therefore, should upgrade to 5.1 as soon as possible.

A couple of months ago we moved the source repository from svn (Subversion) to 
git. Now we're introducing yet another change. Brltty's web site is now at:

   http://brltty.com

The mailing list hasn't been moved to brltty.com yet. That change is being 
planned, though.

Here's a summary of the changes in release 5.1 of brltty:

General Changes:
   An alert (2 beeps every 30 seconds) is now played when the screen is frozen.
   Saving the preferences file now adds comments showing the possible values
   (and the default value) for each property.
   USB device identifiers now support the genericDevices= (yes, no) parameter.
Command Changes:
   Unicode braille dots input is now supported:
      The BRLUCDOTS toggle command has been added.
      The "Braille Input Mode" preference has been added to "Input Options".
   Skip Blank Windows now works like Skip Identical Lines:
      FWINLT/FWINRT are unchanged:
         If SBW is off then don't skip blank windows.
         If SBW is on then honour Skip Blank Windows Mode.
      FWINLTSKIP/FWINRTSKIP now work as follows:
         If SBW is off then honour Skip Blank Windows Mode.
         If SBW is on then don't skip blank windows.
The FreedomScientific Braille Driver:
   Various problems with detecting a connection error have been resolved.
   A problem causing a braille display freeze has been resolved.
The Papenmeier Braille Driver:
   The following bindings have been added for models with 22 status cells:
      Binding        Command
      Status20       BRLUCDOTS
      Dot7+Status20  BRLUCDOTS+off
      Dot8+Status20  BRLUCDOTS+on
The Application Programming Interface (BrlAPI):
   The version has been increased to 0.6.2 (from 0.6.1).
   The retainDots= parameter has been removed.
   The PASSDOTS command is no longer implicitly accepted by default.
   Explicitly accepting PASSDOTS bypasses the conversion to PASSCHAR.
Environment Variables:
   BRLTTY_NO_API (yes, no) is now supported.
The Configuration File (brltty.conf):
   no-api (yes, no) can now be specified.
   The following directives have been added:
      include <file>
      ifSet <property> [<statement>]
      ifNotSet <property> [<statement>]
      assign <variable> <value>
      ifVar <variable> [<statement>]
      ifNotVar <variable> [<statement>]
      else
      endIf
   The special syntax \{variable} is now supported.
Text Tables:
   The Hebrew text table (he) has been modernized.
Contraction Tables:
   The US English Grade 2 (en-us-g2) contraction table has been updated.
Key Tables:
   The following binding changes have been made to the "keypad" key table:
      Binding           Old      New
      KP0+KPMinus       SIXDOTS  SIXDOTS+off
      KP0+KPPlus        -        SIXDOTS+on
      KPPeriod+KPMinus  FREEZE   BRLUCDOTS+off
      KPPeriod+KPPlus   -        BRLUCDOTS+on
      KPMinus+KP3       -        FREEZE
   The <statement> operand of the ifKey directive is now optional.
   The following directives have been added:
      ifNotKey <key> [<statement>]
      ifVar <variable> [<statement>]
      ifNotVar <variable> [<statement>]
      else
      endIf
Data File Customization:
   The XDG configuration file paradigm is now supported.
   A local version of any data file can be placed in "/etc/xdg/brltty/".
   The XDG_CONFIG_HOME and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS environment variables are supported.
   See "README.Customize" for full details.
Build Changes:
   The source has been moved from an svn repository to a git repository at:
      "https://github.com/brltty/brltty.git".
   The URL of the web site has been changed to "http://brltty.com".
   Many of the core headers are now installed (in "/usr/include/brltty/").
   The brltty-devel rpm is now created.
   The --with-api-socket-path= configure option has been added.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | The Bible is the very Word of God.
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | http://Mielke.cc/bible/
EMail: dave at mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | http://FamilyRadio.com/