Version 1.0 Feature Freeze

OK, in the last post I said that we had reached 1.0 alpha, but once again, I'm going to have to take that back. I've been thinking about it, and there are a few more features that we need in version 1.0. So in this post, I'm going to list those extra features here. But this is the final list of features for version 1.0. Any other new features will have to wait until version 1.1. This is the 1.0 feature freeze!

1. Change the View menu to a Window menu.
2. Add a view menu that lets the user reset the view, or view along a coordinate axis (like the x-axis).
3. Add a select menu, that has the option to deselect everything (space bar) or select more (selects adjacent objects).
4. Allow for advanced modifier/primitive options. For instance, you want to add a cylinder, which has a certain number of sides by default. But lets say you want more or less than the default of 16 sides. You can click on the little box on the right end of the menu item to choose specific options before adding in the cylinder. Many modifiers do not have this, but a few do. Wings indicates that you can do this with a simple box on the right side of the menu item.

Those are the only requirements left for version 1.0. Additionally, there are a number of other things that still need to be done before the final version of 1.0 is released, including some form of a User's Guide, the mouse cursor needs to be hidden (and not actually move) when you activate a modifier, normals need to be fixed, the menu bar needs to be readjusted to center the mode buttons and add in open, save, undo, and redo buttons on the left side, and I would like to also start putting together an art gallery of work made in The Forge. Many of these things will only come in time.

Also, one further note. In my last post, I mentioned that I had an alpha version ready, but it was extremely buggy. I said at the beginning of this post that it was technically not an alpha version yet, but I've fixed the real killer bugs in it, and it is fairly stable now. Not perfect, but reasonable. I will be releasing the first public version of The Forge within a few days. I'm just working out the details of a good deployment scheme, and the world will be able to get a free copy of The Forge! Speaking of that, let's add one more thing to the list of things that need to be done by the final release of version 1.0: a good deployment scheme.