Releases: Simply-Love/Simply-Love-SM5
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.9.1
About
This is the v4.9.1 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a pleasant little update that focused on bug fixes.
Supported Versions of StepMania
Simply Love v4.9.1 is compatible with current releases from the official StepMania project.
Compatible Releases
✅ StepMania 5.0.12
✅ StepMania 5.1-b2
If you are able to compile StepMania's source code yourself, the 5_1-new branch is supported. The wiki has instructions for compiling.
Incompatible
❌ Forks of SM5 (e.g. starworlds)
❌ Older versions of StepMania (e.g. StepMania 3.9)
❌ Forks of older versions of StepMania (e.g. OpenITG, NotITG)
❌ SM5.2
If you have trouble installing or running StepMania, particularly on macOS, this Troubleshooting Readme may help.
SM5.3 compatibility is described further down in these release notes. Keep reading!
Installing Simply Love
If you are upgrading from a previous version of Simply Love, fully delete the old Simply Love folder first.
Do not merge the new folder into the old.
Full install instructions are in the Installing Simply Love README. It's worth looking at!
Bug Fixes
Evaluation Screen UI + Input Bugs
There were also a lot of initialization and input scenarios for the new Evaluation screen I hadn't considered in the 4.9 release!
It was possible to get yourself into situations like these:
That's not how Casual Mode is supposed to look.
Oh no.
I've worked to address these in Simply Love 4.9.1. They should be fixed now!
NPS in Gameplay
Simply Love 4.9 introduced a bug where the Peak NPS (notes-per-second) text would always display the value for the previous song.
I'll do you one better, Furry Flea, and fix it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Evaluation Screen Load Time
Simply Love 4.9 extended the single-player Evaluation screen to better use available space. This was good overall, but my code took the very naive approach of just loading everything twice. This caused the screen to take twice as long to load. Amazing. 😮
You probably didn't notice any difference for shorter songs with reasonable step counts, but the slow load time became very noticeable for stepcharts with 10000+ notes.
Load time for the Evaluation screen should now be back to where it was in SL 4.8.7 and prior.
Pacemaker Text
Simply Love 4.9 had also introduced a bug where the Pacemaker text overlapped with BPM text in double.
Gameplay's UI has been adjusted to accommodate its many possible configurations, including:
- 4:3 aspect ratio vs. widescreen vs. ultrawide
- single vs. double vs. 2-player vs. solo vs etc.
- single BPM to display or split BPMs
- StepStats side pane shown or hidden
- Target Score bar graphs shown or hidden
- Center1Player is enabled or not
- score shown or hidden
- NPS density graph is enabled or not
- Pacemaker is enabled or not
I did my best to test all of these in every combination I could think of but I'm sure something has slipped through.
If you spot something that overlaps with something else, post about it on social media and I'm sure I'll hear about it. 💛
Avatars for Local Profiles with Same Name
Previously, two separate local profiles with the same DisplayName would both show the same avatar (whichever came first in the list). This has been fixed!
Instructions for setting up profile avatars can be found here.
Scientific Notation
Songs with very large BPMs were previously displayed using scientific notation. 🔬⚗️
This was an oversight on my part and has been fixed so you can appreciate each and every digit in its excessive glory.
Split BPMs with MusicRate
Some songs feature "split BPMs" where each stepchart can use its own timing data (BPMs, stops, delays, warps, etc.).
For example, an expert difficulty might have a slowdown section while lower difficulties maintain a steady BPM to be nice to new players.
Combining split BPMs with the MusicRate modifier means that two different BPM ranges could scale differently, though previous Simply Love releases did not show that this was happening.
I've added extra text to the Music Rate row that only appears when split BPMs are in effect.
New Stuff?
I tried hard to make this release bug-fixes-only but some small new things still snuck in. 🤦
Remaining Time in StepStats
"Elapsed" time in StepStats side pane has been replaced with remaining time. This will count down as you play and save you (and/or your Stamina Pit Crew™) the mental math of figuring out how much longer you have to go.
Simply Spooky
Simply Spooky is looking a little more spooky than usual, just in time for October to end. 🎃
Other Things
Licensing
I switched Simply Love's open source license from MIT to GPLv3 for this release.
This is unlikely to impact players at all, but you can read my notes in b3a278e if you'd like to learn more about it.
here in the darkness
The Rabbit Hole, initially introduced in SLv4.8 Extra Stage, has been renamed here in the darkness.
This more appropriately captures my feelings on it now, two years out, as I am better equipped to distance myself from then. It also actively distinguishes my own work from the unfortunate YouTube series that also uses the name The Rabbit Hole.
As part of this renaming, I revisited each chapter and tidied loose ends, fixed bugs, and reworked much of the music and visuals.
StepMania 5.3 Compatibility with Simply-Love-SM5
Alpha builds of SM5.3 are not supported by Simply Love at this time, but the OutFox team and I have been using this public thread to discuss the topic and our respective goals: https://github.com/quietly-turning/Simply-Love-SM5/pull/184
As that thread points out, I have included code in Simply Love that prevents it from being used in SM5.3. This was a conscious decision on my part, informed by a combination of:
- a legitimate misunderstanding caused by an early in-person interaction
- me wanting to keep StepMania free for players (you) and open source for developers (me)
As of this writing, SM5.3 is free to download and play, and though it is not yet open source, the project's FAQ page and my conversations with the team have made it clear that it will be open source in the future, when the team is comfortable with that.
As an open source developer, myself, I keenly appreciate that these things take time, and shouldn't be rushed.
When will I remove the block?
My plan is to remove the block from Simply Love when SM5.3 is made open source. At that time, I'll be able to review the new StepMania source code (as will everyone) and assess how to improve Simply Love to accommodate.
In the meantime, if you'd like to try out StepMania 5.3, I think that's great and that you should do that! I've heard very positive things about performance improvements and modernization of ancient code, and I'm looking forward to using to using the OutFox team's efforts in the future, when they are ready.
If you'd like to use Simply Love with SM5.3 alphas now, you can remove my block with a very simple edit to my code.
The file to edit is: ./Simply Love/Scripts/SL-SupportHelpers.lua
It's not a large file, and you'll find a bit of code that looks this:
-- SM5.0.x is supported
-- SM5.1.x is supported
-- SM5.2 is not supported because it saw significant backwards-incompatible API changes and is now abandoned
-- SM5.3 is not supported for now because it is not open source
if not (t[2] and (t[2]==0 or t[2]==1)) then return false endYou can change that to:
-- SM5.0.x is supported
-- SM5.1.x is supported
-- SM5.2 is not supported because it saw significant backwards-incompatible API changes and is now abandoned
-- SM5.3 will be supported when it is open source :)
if not (t[2] and (t[2]==0 or t[2]==1 or t[2]==3)) then return false endI'm aware that there are forks of my work that have already made this change, but this personal approach makes more sense to me right now.
Thanks for reading. 🙂
Contributors
@Sereni fixed a bug that caused Personal High Scores to sometimes not appear on the Evaluation screen.
@Valentina16 fixed a bug with the Target Score system that was introduced during the 4.9.1 development cycle.
Thanks to all who contributed to this release!
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.9 and v4.9.1, chec...
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.9 (OMES)
About
This is the v4.9 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a nice little update that balances new features with bug fixes.
Overall, it is the twenty-first release of Simply Love for SM5, and specifically marks the two-year anniversary of the v4.8 release.
Supported Versions of StepMania
Simply Love v4.9 is compatible with current releases from the official StepMania project.
Compatible Releases
✅ StepMania 5.0.12
✅ StepMania 5.1-b2
If you are able to compile StepMania's source code yourself, the 5_1-new branch is supported. The wiki has instructions for compiling.
Incompatible
❌ Forks of SM5 (e.g. starworlds)
❌ Older versions of StepMania (e.g. StepMania 3.9)
❌ Forks of older versions of StepMania (e.g. OpenITG, NotITG)
❌ SM5.2
❌ Alpha builds of SM5.3 are not supported at this time, but hopefully this will change in the near future
If you have trouble installing or running StepMania, particularly on macOS, this Troubleshooting Readme may help.
Installing Simply Love
If you are upgrading from a previous version of Simply Love, fully delete the old Simply Love folder first.
Do not merge the new folder into the old.
Full install instructions are in the Installing Simply Love README. It's worth looking at!
Major New Stuff
Measure Counter Lookahead
The Measure Counter has been updated to support "lookahead." It is enabled by default with the MeasureCounter and will show the current count plus the next two that are coming up.
In this example, both players are actively on measure 2 of 6 in the curent stream. Player1 has lookahead enabled, showing that the current 6-measure stream will be followed by a 2-measure break, which will be followed by another 6-measure stream.
With this notation, break counts are shown with parentheses. For example, (2) indicates a 2-measure break.
Player2 has lookahead turned off, and only sees the current stream count, measure 2 of 6.
As before, the entire MeasureCounter is optional. Lookahead offers an additional option to help stamina players.
Evaluation Screen
The Evaluation Screen has been restructured in single and double play to show two panes of information side by side. If you'd like to take a single photo of your latest score and timing data to share on social media, this should help.
As before, you can still toggle between panes with your MenuLeft and MenuRight buttons. These are typically the ← and → keys on your keyboard by default, but they can be remapped to any keys (or recognized input device) in Options → Configure Keyboard/Pad Mappings.
The left pane will use Player1's MenuLeft and MenuRight buttons; the right will use Player2's.
ScreenEvaluation will appear the same as before if two players are playing.
Profile Avatars
Simply Love now supports profile avatars.
To have an avatar, you'll need a StepMania profile. You can create one in Options → Manage Local Profiles → Create Profile. Profiles are handy for keeping track of scores and saving modifiers between games.
Once you have a profile, you can add an image named Avatar.png or Avatar.jpg to your profile folder on your computer.
If you're using SM5.0.12:
| Windows 10, Windows 7 | C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\StepMania 5\Save\LocalProfiles\profileID\ |
| macOS | /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/StepMania 5/LocalProfiles/profileID/ |
| Linux | /home/USERNAME/.stepmania-5.0/Save/LocalProfiles/profileID/ |
Or, if you're using SM5.1-beta:
| Windows 10, Windows 7 | C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\StepMania 5.1\Save\LocalProfiles\profileID\ |
| macOS | /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/StepMania 5.1/LocalProfiles/profileID/ |
| Linux | /home/USERNAME/.stepmania-5.1/Save/LocalProfiles/profileID/ |
In each of these paths, USERNAME will be your OS username and profileID will be your StepMania profile's ID (a numeric identifier like 00000001 or 00000008 or etc.).
Avatars in Simply Love should be square. Non-square images will be squished to fit a 1:1 aspect ratio.
If you've used Hayoreo's Digital Dance theme, you might already have an image in your profile folder titled Profile Picture.png. Simply Love includes support for that; there should be no need to change anything.
Color Changes
@garcia helped make colored text in Simply Love easier to read using quantifiable contrast ratios. Here's what they had to say:
The new colors are only used for text and boxes containing text. Decorative elements like the background hearts retain the old colors.
The number in each square indicates the color contrast ratio – an objective measure of how readable one color is against another – between the background and the text.
The boxes' shades of gray correspond to the pulsing effect on the selected row in the music wheel. The pulsing effect was toned down in this release to meet the rainbow colors halfway, so-to-speak.
Together, these changes raise the minimum color contrast ratio of text in Simply Love to 3.0, which meets the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) recommendations for large text.
You can see a side-by-side comparison (old colors left, new colors right) here: https://i.imgur.com/DFj8SUM.png
Support for 21:9 Aspect Ratio
Simply Love now supports 21:9 aspect ratio.
The full list of supported aspect ratios is now:
- 16:9 (common)
- 16:10 (many laptops, some LCD monitors)
- 4:3 (CRT arcade monitors, older TVs)
- 21:9 ("Ultrawide")
The aspect ratio can be changed under Options → Graphics / Sound Options.
❗️If you want to use 21:9, you'll need to use a developer build of SM5.1-beta (newer than the released 5.1-beta2). For now, this means being able to compile source code yourself or knowing someone who can.
On that note, if you can help get the StepMania project set up with a means of automating and hosting packaged developer builds so more people try out new features, you should get in touch.
Italian Language Support
Marco Ruggiero translated Simply Love into Italian.
The current language can be changed in Simply Love under Options → System Options.
Thanks, Marco!
Nice New Stuff
Selectable Hold Judgments
Hold judgments are now configurable as a player option before gameplay.
Elapsed Time in Step Stats side pane
The Step Statistics side pane now displays how long the song you are playing is and how long you've played so far.
If a viewer joins your Twitch stream in the middle of your Last Trip 1.1x rate attempt and wonders how far into it you are, now they'll know that you've only been playing for 2 minutes. 😩
Stage Count in CourseMode
The stage number at the bottom of the screen will now show current / total stages.
If you opt to recreate Endless Mode from MAX2 in crs format, you'll see that D2R is 3rd out of 56 total songs.
Random Background behavior now matches OpenITG
If you have Random Movies installed and enabled (Options → Visual Options → Appearance Options → Random Gameplay Backgrounds = "Random Movies") they should now start playing at the first beat of the song, similar to OpenITG. Previously, they would be already playing when Gameplay appeared.
If you don't have Random Gameplay Backgrounds enabled (the default setting), you won't see any change in gameplay.
Contributors
Thanks to all who contributed to this release!
Marco Ruggiero fully translated Simply Love into Italian.
Gabo, SRH*, and Darth Kira updated the Spanish translation.
@garcia helped make text in Simply Love more accessible and provided diagrams and prose explaining the changes at my request.
@CrashCringle12 provided testing and feedback, and updated the emojis font.
@natano fixe...
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.7
About
This is the v4.8.7 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It is a nice little update that focused on bug fixes, code cleanup, and smaller new features.
Supported Versions of StepMania
Simply Love 4.8.7 is compatible with current releases of SM5 from the official StepMania project.
Compatible
✅ StepMania 5.0.12
✅ StepMania 5.1-beta.
Incompatible
❌ Alpha versions of SM5.3 are not supported at this time, but hopefully this will change in the future.
❌ Forks of SM5 (e.g. starworlds)
❌ Older versions of StepMania (e.g. StepMania 3.9)
❌ Forks of older versions of StepMania (e.g. OpenITG, notITG)
❌ SM5.2
Oh Hey There's a Bug in This Release
I realized this release includes a bug a few hours after release announcements were made.
The bug happens if your Default Fail Type is set to EndOfSong. Simply Love's UI will break in various ways making it unusable.
If your Default Fail Type is set to EndOfSong, the fix for now is to change it under
Options → Advanced Options
The other three settings (Immediate, ImmediateContinue, Off) work fine. There will be a proper fix in the next release.
New Stuff
Split BPMs
The SelectMusic and PlayerOptions screens have been updated to support "split BPMs".
For example, this hypothetical song has different BPMs for different difficulties. Player1's beginner stepchart is 200 bpm while Player2's hard stepchart ranges from 50 to 400 bpm. That's so fast! 😲
GrooveStats QR code better explained
The GrooveStats QR code now displays reasons why your score isn't valid for submission instead of just not appearing at all.
In this screenshot, Player2's score was not eligible for GrooveStats because the Little modifier was used, which removed notes from the stepchart.
VisualDelaySeconds in millisecond increments
You can now change VisualDelaySeconds under Graphics/Sound Options in millisecond increments from -1 second to +1 second. If your TV has very bad visual "lag", you may have luck setting a small negative VisualDelaySeconds.
Subtractive Scoring uses "Combo Font"
Subtractive Scoring has been updated to use the player's "Combo Font" instead of being hardcoded to Wendy.
Additionally, Arial Rounded has been added as a new Combo Font with round edges.
New graphic for Held/Let Go
mute has provided a new graphic for hold notes, used when they are held/let go.
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All modifiers saved to profile and automatically applied each game
Several years ago, someone asked if all modifiers could be saved to profile. They noted that the "dizzy" modifier helped them keep columns of arrows mentally separated, but had to go into the mods menu and manually apply it with each new game.
Previously, only certain modifiers were saved to profile and automatically applied, but I'd never documented which modifiers these were (anything managed by the SL-PlayerOptions.lua script) or why (laziness on my part, mostly).
It should be fixed now. Thanks for being patient. Sorry it took so long!
New background music
- a01der contributed a chill new tune for the GameOver screen. 🎧
- dbk2 touched up the BGM for the StepMania Credits screen and it has 15% more right arrows than before. ➡️➡️➡️
Small New Stuff
- Mini is now available in increments of 1 instead of 5.
- The Evaluation screen now has text specifying the style (
singleordoubleorsoloor etc.). - If you use the (LLRRLLRR) MenuButton code to back out of SelectMusic during EventMode, you'll now be prompted first. This should help people who happen to activate the code while scrolling through the MusicWheel causing them to accidentally exit their set early.
- Lots of small adjustments to font sizing and positioning were made for people using low-resolution CRT monitors at 640x480. I strove to make all text legible at minimum. Some rows in the mod menu that previously collapsed all choices into one are now spread across two rows.
- The prompt screen (for example, accepting or rejecting changes to stepchart sync during gameplay) was visually cleaned up.
- Some more exotic modifiers found in SM5's default theme have been added to page 3 in the mod menu ("Uncommon Modifiers").
- The Simply Love Acknowledgements screen has been updated. Be sure to check it out!
Bug Fixes
The stepchart parser will use the correct Edit stepchart in .ssc files when there is more than one Edit.
If a song has multiple Edit stepcharts, the theme would previously parse the last Edit found (the bottom of the .ssc or .sm file). This would result in you choosing "Edit A", and playing the stepchart for "Edit A", but seeing the measure counter that corresponds with "Edit B".
This has been fixed for .ssc files. I have not fixed this for .sm files yet, but hopefully in the next release.
Funny story, I'd never realized this was a bug because my test case had always been Tachyon Alpha/DeltaMAX where every Edit stepchart has different notes but the same step density.
SelectProfile now respects the MenuTimer if it is enabled.
If the MenuTimer runs out on ScreenSelectProfile, both players will be assigned to [GUEST].
Small Fixes
- Both players can now choose [GUEST] on SelectProfile if they want to.
- The timing scatterplot and histogram on ScreenEvaluation have been fixed to use the correct colors when
TimingWindowScaleis in effect. As always, changing theTimingWindowScaleis possible in Advanced Options but doing so will make your scores ineligible for GrooveStats. - EvaluationSummary has been fixed to show the correct difficulty (text) and meter (number) for the course, rather than the last song that appears in the course like it had been doing.
- All text should be properly translated immediately after switching StepMania's Language setting; no need to restart StepMania any longer.
- BPM values, including calculated scroll speeds in the modifier menu, should handle and display decimal precision more consistently now.
- Emojis that appear in group names in the MusicWheel should no longer be colored with the rest of the text.
Noteworthy Changes
These aren't really fixes, they're just... changes. 🙂
- The notes-per-second density graph is now a cool blue/purple rather than yellow/orange.
- The Test Input pane in ScreenEvaluation appears in not-EventMode now. It still requires
OnlyDedicatedMenuButtonsin order to appear. - The GrooveStats QR code now uses https in its url instead of http. This shouldn't impact anything but will hopefully prevent future problems as web browsers become increasingly strict about the use of http.
Things Removed
StomperZ game mode has been fully removed.
"StomperZ" mode was added in 2016 to help a few players qualify/practice for Bearpocalypse 6. I had not intended for it to ever be a Long-Term Thing, but hey, four years later here we are.
If you enjoyed playing StomperZ mode in previous Simply Love releases, I encourage you to support the official Rhythm Horizon project as my efforts here will forever be deeply indebted to it.
www.rhythmhorizon.com
Small Removals
- Support for score vocalization has been removed.
- The "3.9" judgment graphic is no longer included with Simply Love.
- The joke option for turning off all Timing Windows has been removed.
For Other Developers
- More than 600 new inline comments were added throughout the theme.
- 2 inline
FIXME:items were fixed during this release cycle bringing the count down to 15. Yay! 🎉 - 11 new inline
FIXME:items were added during this release cycle bringing the final count up to 26. Oh no. 😂🤣😭
Contributors
Thanks to natano, jordando, CrashCringle12, andrewipark, and Fieoner for contributing code to this release.
Thanks to av01der and dbk2 for contributing music to this release.
Thanks to natano, zerinho6, and Okami for updating non-English localization files.
Thanks to mute and Cardmaster12 for beta testing and providing feedback.
Thank you for playing! 💛⬅️⬇️⬆️➡️
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8.6 and v4.8.7, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.6
About
This is the v4.8.6 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a pleasant little update that focused on bug fixes. The majority of the noteworthy changes came in via pull requests by outside contributors. 💛
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
Changes
Contributions
- The Spanish translation was updated by @JoseVarelaP in #162.
- @JoseVarelaP also submitted #163 to fix some typos in the Combo code I'd made.
- @teejusb submitted #165 which fixed a Lua error that would prevent BPMs from displaying on EvaluationSummary.
- @natano submitted #166 which fixed the Step Statistics gameplay overlay to respect the global
BGBrightness. - After some offhand discussion in #166, @natano then went above and beyond in #167 to fix many issues with the notes-per-second density graphs in Gameplay. Many of the inadvisable and bizarre workarounds I'd written to prevent the density graph from scrolling underneath the notefield should no longer be necessary. As a result, gameplay with Step Statistics should properly respect your BG visualization settings now. Thanks, @natano!
- Simply 🤔 had its BGM remastered by ashastral. ae93725
- The BGM for the Simply Love Acknowledgments screen was updated by av01der. 72655dc
Other Stuff
- Multiple small issues with Holiday Cheer have been fixed. Importantly, the snow particles should always initialize and animate correctly now. Let it snow. ❄️❄️❄️❄️ 30721be
- The judgment count breakdown in gameplay's Step Stats overlay now accommodates songs with more than 9999 notes. Thanks, stamina. 💪💦 4a65329
- The Uncommon Modifiers menu now has options for turning Lifts and Fakes off. ddb2f79
- Select Profile was fixed to work with USB sticks in 537b0ca and again in 58d0f56.
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8.5 and v4.8.6, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.5
About
This is the v4.8.5 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It is a nice little update that focused on bug fixes, code cleanup, internal documentation, and smaller new features.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
Changes
The release notes for previous releases read like short novels. These will attempt to be more concise.
Language Support
- Simply Love was translated to Japanese by @fms-cat.
- Simply Love was translated to German by @TheNick451.
- The existing Brazilian Portuguese translation was updated by @zerinho6.
- The existing French translation was updated by Okami.
New Stuff
- A Test Input overlay is available from SelectMusic's "SortMenu" (only in Event Mode).
- A Test Input pane is available during Evaluation (only in Event Mode and only if DedicatedMenuButtons are enabled).
- The font used to display the Combo and MeasureCounter in gameplay can now be customized.
- The SelectProfile screen now has a "GUEST" account which will let players proceed without choosing a profile.
- There is a new Visual Style with assets contributed by Frums and TheGalagaShip.
Bug Fixes
- @Kauhsa fixed a bug that had caused some NPS density graphs to draw outside their boundaries.
- @teejusb fixed a bug that had caused Subtractive Scoring to sometimes be incorrect by 0.01%
- @mutesauce provided new title screen graphics to fix kerning issues present in the Wendy font.
- @DinsFire64 added an idle timeout to ScreenTitleJoin to prevent public arcade machines from sitting on that single screen for too long if there is no player interaction.
- SelectProfile has been fixed to work with Pay mode and not just let players through for free. (I'll note that USB profiles make more sense for public arcade machines.)
- Autogenerated courses should no longer cause Lua errors on Evaluation Summary.
- Name entry for HighScores in Event Mode should work (maybe).
- Local profiles should no longer be auto-assigned to a player that latejoins in Event Mode.
- The Chart Parser now works with
TLOES Chapter 1/Mirage Garden... - Additional error-checking (as in, even more than before) is performed on NoteSkins before trying to show previews of them in PlayerOptions. Looking at you, "smx" NoteSkin that got widely distributed throughout the community.
- Simply Thonk is still broken if you have your VideoRenderer set to
d3d(Windows only), but the theme now warns you about this and forces you to either change your VideoRenderer or your Visual Style.
Noteworthy Changes
- "Competitive" mode has been renamed to ITG.
- "ECFA" mode has been renamed to FA+.
- There is no longer a Simply Love Option for
TimingWindowAdd. It is now hardcoded to be0.0015inCasual,ITG, andFA+modes, and hardcoded to be0inStomperZ.
For Other Developers
- More than 700 new inline comments were added throughout the theme as part of the ongoing efforts to tame and document this mess.
- Some of the
FIXME:inline comments from the previous release were fixed, and new ones have taken their places. Overall, they remain great places to start if you are interested in contributing.
Contributors
Thanks to FMS-Cat, TheNick451, zerinho6, Okami, Kauhsa, teejusb, mutesauce, DinsFire64, Frums, and TheGalagaShip for helping to make this release possible.
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8.4 and v4.8.5, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.4
About
This is the v4.8.4 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It is a nice little update that focused on bug fixes and smaller new features.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
Bug Fixes
Lots of Fixes for Graphs
This release fixed multiple issues with the various graphs throughout the theme.
The previous release introduced a bug in which the note density graph in the Step Statistics side-pane would be pushed far offscreen for very longs songs. This was fixed in 156fe63 and 476fea6.
Songs that use "split BPMs" sometimes resulted in graphs that were incorrectly sized. This was fixed in 44a1c6c and e444a94.
On ScreenEvaluation, the offset histogram was drawn more efficiently in 58b3df2 and the smoothing procedure was slightly improved in fe7ea72.
Quad star grades should no longer have histograms where the edges are accidentally smoothed into "Excellent" territory, FECs should not be accidentally smoothed into the "Great" window, and so on. You strove to be accurate; the graph should, too.
QR Code Fixes
People who modify Simply Love to support musicrate mods beyond 2 digits of decimal precision (for example, 1.573 musicrate) found that GrooveStats did not accept their scores via QR code. This was fixed in 156e55c.
We also found that .sm and .ssc files often specify their BPMs with different precision (for example, 128.000 bpm vs. 128.000000 bpm), which complicated GrooveStats integration with QR codes. It was resolved in 6a45add and Archi has updated GrooveStats to accommodate.
Better Support for Multiple Copies of Simply Love Being Installed
I always recommend upgrading to the most recent version of Simply Love available, but I also recognize that many players have several different copies of Simply Love installed simultaneously. With that in mind, a few small improvements were made to help with this.
If you're in the operator menu to switch to a different theme, the list of themes will display folder names. What might have previously been a list like (Simply Love, Simply Love, Simply Love) might now be a list like (Simply Love, Simply Makkyla, Simply Unprofessional). The title screen also now uses the theme's folder name to more clearly identify which version of Simply Love you're currently running.
Please note that once you switch to another version, these^ fixes will not carry over into that version of Simply Love until the authors of those forks are up-to-date with mainline 4.8.4.
Small Fixes and Improvements
- support for more emojis 🔥💯✨; see 38d5d88
- toasties were too spooky and have been suppressed; see 4f5c59c
- Devon's Rainbowmatic judgment graphic is included for Competitive and ECFA; see ea85020
- the snowfall animation that occurs in December should perform much better now; see 686a8cf
- fixed a surprisingly serious input-related bug on SelectMusic that (surprisingly) no one ever reported; see 5ebe8d2
- fixed a Lua error when adjusting sync in gameplay; see 264cd95
- screen for managing local profiles fixed for 4:3 displays
- saved UserPrefs in local profiles are now validated for ScreenSelectProfile; see 1e611be
Other Notes
I made an effort to document bugs I'm aware of but haven't fixed yet using inline comments throughout the theme's code. They are all tagged using FIXME:, so if you clone the theme, you can grep for that.
I tried to include both technical and historical/community-based details to help give issues context. If you're looking to contribute, any of these would be a great place to start!
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8.3 and v4.8.4, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.3
About
This is the v4.8.3 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It is a modest update that includes new features and bug fixes.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
New Features
Upload Scores to GrooveStats via QR Code
The evaluation screen now displays a QR code that can be scanned to upload your latest score to your GrooveStats account. To use this new feature, you'll need a phone capable of scanning QR codes and a GrooveStats account. For now, only dance is supported (sorry Technomotion enthusiasts).
This feature was a collaboration between Archi, teejusb, and me (they did 99% of the work and deserve the credit). Though initially conceived of to facilitate the upcoming SRPG3 event, the feature grew to work with GrooveStats more broadly.
The QR codes make use of the luaqrcode library; many thanks to the people involved in that!
Judgment Graphic Previews in Modifier Menu
I'd been wanting to add this for a long time.
Note that having a large number of judgment graphics installed can cause the PlayerOptions screen to take longer to load. The default judgments that ship with the theme should be fine.
Note Density Graph above the Notefield
Players can enable this feature in the second PlayerOptions page, under Gameplay Extras.
This feature occupies the same space in Gameplay as score, so enabling it will hide your score. If you enable this graph and the Step Statistics sidebar, your score will be moved over into the sidebar.
Track "Miss Because Held"
This release adds the ability to track "Misses you earned because you were still holding down the arrow when you were supposed to have hit it instead." This sounds somewhat bizarre when described like this, but accidentally holding down notes becomes an issue in upper-level stamina play as pads are modified to be more sensitive.
This feature can be enabled in the second page of Player Options under Gameplay Extras. The data will display in Pane2 of Evaluation, where misses-because-they-were-held will appear as a superscript adjacent to the overall miss count. It looks like this:
(Those crazy kids and their stamina, always modding their pads to be more sensitive. Why, back in my day we played VerTex² in clunky Nike Frees and considered ourselves lucky! ...)
Casual Mode Improvements
The custom optionrows for choosing difficulty and arrow spacing (speed mod) in Casual Mode would previously reset to their first choice if you backed out of a particular song. They now retain the previous choice in a way I felt was suitable for novice players.
There were additional small changes like coloring the judgment labels on the evaluation screen, adding new novice-friendly packs to the CasualMode-Groups.txt whitelist, and lowering the input handler's repeat rate. You can read more about my thoughts on Casual Mode in 8927ece.
Prompt Users to Reset Preferences When Switching Themes
As you use Simply Love, it will modify many of your global StepMania preferences as it goes. This is needed to achieve multiple gamemodes (Casual, Competitive, ECFA, StomperZ). I've never been comfortable with this, but I was also never sure how to address it.
A while back, I attempted to handle it by having Simply Love create a Static.ini file that contained the default SM5 values for preferences that Simply Love would need to modify. Unfortunately, I botched even that, and it ended up confusing veteran ITG players and simultaneously accomplishing nothing because I had it written to the incorrect location. Read more at e536fe0, but the tl;dr is that if you see Save/Static.ini you can delete it because it's doing nothing.
With this release, I've added a new screen that appears when players go to switch out of Simply Love to another theme. It will briefly explain this mess and offer them the ability to reset their preferences to default values before switching if they wish. This was accomplished in dd1157a.
Make ScreenMapControllers Slightly Less Bad
I've personally always had trouble identifying which text in which column was currently active in ScreenMapControllers. It's proven to be particularly bad when pads needed to be remapped mid-tournament and the arcade CRT being used had poor contrast.
This screen seems to be largely hardcoded by the StepMania engine, but I hacked in a "cursor" to more clearly identify the text that currently has focus. You can learn more about the six hours I spent doing this in 9ec4799.
Show Overall Pack Lengths
It's nice to know how long the journey will be before you embark on it. Will you be streaming 200 for over thirty minutes in Last Trip or enjoying the best 4 seconds ever in Windows XP Critical Stop?
Simply Love has always displayed the lengths of each song in the MusicWheel, and now it displays the overall length of each pack as well. So far Crapyard Scent seems to have a comfortable lead in this regard, with nearly 34 hours of content. Not that it's a contest or anything.
Updated Translations
Simply Love v4.8 introduced support for Spanish and French, and v4.8.2 saw Brazilian Portuguese added as well. The localization files have been updated for this release's new features by Moru Zerinho6 (pt-br), Frank (es), and Remi (fr). Thanks to each of them!
In-Theme Credits and Acknowledgments
Simply Love's in-theme acknowledgments section has been updated. Perhaps you are in there now.
Smaller New Features and Changes
- add "Total Notes Hit This Game" to Gameover screen; this replaces Current Combo
- always show bpm (and MusicRate if not 1.0) on Evaluation screen; see 66778b4
- show Dancing Character optionrow on options page 2 if dancing characters are installed; hide it if not
- hide Score Vocalization optionrow if no voice packs are installed in
./Simply Love/Other/Vocalize/ - allow players to hide Combo milestones (the animation that occurs every 100 and 1000 combo) without hiding the entire combo; see 882f321
- remove gradual zoom from Combo number; see ef0b64e
- change HideDanger to be false by default; see a67bb6a
- move "Clear Credits" to the bottom of the Operator Menu to lessen the likelihood it is accidentally chosen; see: b5db0bc
Bug Fixes
Allow Similarly Named Judgment Graphics to Coexist
If you've played around with installing your own judgment graphics, you probably found the bug where StepMania would raise a warning about similarly named files (for example, Love and Love Chroma). There were some efforts to fix this in the previous release but those fixes required you to name files a certain way and didn't always even work then.
It should be fixed for real now. You should be able to name judgments graphics whatever your operating system allows and it they should Just Work™. I hope.
This was accomplished in 765c9aa and 288aec7.
Fix Notes Not Disappearing in ECFA
Over the years, players would occasionally report that getting a "Great" (W4) in ECFA wasn't causing the arrows to disappear. I figured this had something to do with MinTNSToHideNotes, but since ECFA always seemed to work for me, I mistakenly chalked the reports up to misconfigured SM5 installs by end users.
stepmania/stepmania#1816 caused me to revisit the issue and acknowledge that it really was a problem, and resulted in me spending several days digging into it. I tried many things that did not work, but I think I eventually found the cause and fixed it. You can read more technical details in 3bde5ca if you wish.
Allow ActionOnMissedTarget without Pacemaker
The ActionOnMissedTarget feature was added in v4.8.1 to facilitate score grinding. It allowed players in EventMode to have the song automatically restart or end if their target score became no longer achievable.
With the previous implementation, ActionOnMissedTarget would only work if the Pacemaker was also enabled, though this wasn't clear at all from the UI. The two features have been somewhat detangled and it should now be possible to have the Pacemaker or ActionOnMissedTarget or both or none. See 439ac39 for details.
Overall Better Support for Less Common Games
Though StepMania is commonly used for 4-panel dance game simulation, it can also emulate several other games. Previously, Simply Love's support for these other games ranged from "not bad" (Pump, Techno) to "it kind of works" (kb7, para) to "everything is on fire" (beat, kickb...
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.2
About
This is the v4.8.2 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a small update that includes a few new features and bug fixes.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta2. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
New Features
Full Support for Brazilian Portuguese
Simply Love now supports Brazilian Portuguese. My sincerest thanks go to Moru Zerinho6 for undertaking this effort and seeing it through to completion!
Cycle through simfile Credit, Description, and ChartName fields
People are apparently now using .ssc metadata correctly/appropriate and filling out chart Credit, Description, and ChartName fields uniquely. Thus, the stepartist box in ScreenSelectMusic and ScreenEvaluation now cycles through those fields, if they are available and unique, showing each for 2 seconds. Empty strings are ignored and not cycled through.
Thanks to @Horsey- for implementing this change across pull requests #99, #100, and #132.
Clear Credits from Operator Menu when in CoinMode_Pay
There is now a new Operator Menu row for resetting coin credits back to 0 when SM5 is in CoinMode_Pay. Note that this row will not appear in Home or Freeplay modes or when EventMode is on (because EventMode forces Pay to be off).
Thanks to @concubidated for this feature in pull request #142.
Add Simply Love version to Title Screen
The title screen now displays the Simply Love version to the right of the SM5 version. The hope is that this helps users assess which version of Simply Love they are currently using, going forward.
After installing this update, the title screen will indicate that Simply Love v4.8.2 is installed and in use.
Bug Fixes
Fix Bug with Similarly Named Judgment Graphics
If you've installed additional/custom judgment fonts, for example DDR SuperNova 2x6.png and DDR SuperNova2 2x6.png, you previously would have encountered a bug where selecting either would result in only the first ever being displayed. This is (probably) due to the way the SM5 engine reads white space in filenames when loading them into Sprites.
You may need to rename some of your custom-installed judgment fonts for this fix to work.
Until this is fixed in the SM5 engine, this release introduces a workaround to allow similarly-named judgment fonts to exist and be selected. If your judgment font png has whitespace in it, you can rename the file to use underscores. For example DDR SuperNova 2x6.png would be renamed DDR_SuperNova 2x6.png and still appear in-game as "DDR SuperNova".
Thanks to @andrewipark for fixing this in pull request #141.
Fix Vertical LifeMeter Positioning For Double
The vertical LifeMeter added in SL v4.8.1 was incorrectly positioned in double play. It's fixed now.
Fix More Negative-Credit Bugs with ScreenSelectStyle
Several more bugs were identified and fixed involving credits and ScreenSelectStyle. For more, see 407cb45, 9ad54c2, and 7e53185.
Don't Allow Players to "Sort" into Double Play when Premium_Off
It was previously possible for enterprising players to "sort" their way into double play from single when Premium was set to Premium_Off. It should no longer be possible.
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8.1 and v4.8.2, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8.1
About
This is the v4.8.1 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It's a modest update to the previous release that includes small bug fixes and a handful of nice new features.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta2. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
New Features
Vertical LifeMeter
LifeMeter options now include:
- Standard
- Surround
- Vertical
Danger Flashes Now Optional and Hidden By Default
The previous "danger" behavior (flashing red while in danger, a single green flash when out of danger) was inherited from SL3.95, but many players have found it distracting and asked how to disable it. The red/green danger flashes are now optional and disabled by default. They can be re-enabled on the second Options page.
There will be still be a single red flash when the player fails regardless of this setting.
Limited Emoji Support
Simply Love now supports a limited set of Emojis. 😎👌
Perform Action When Target Score Is No Longer Possible
A new option has been added by @DinsFire64 for non-public setups that will either restart the song or auto-fail you when your target score is no long achievable. This setting is only available in EventMode.
For more details, check out #128.
Scrolling Notes-per-Second Density Graphs for Long Songs
For longer, stamina driven songs (where the nps density graph can be especially helpful), there was previously too much information squished into too little a horizontal space. For very, very long songs (30+ minutes), the density graph was basically useless.
With this release, if the song is 4 minutes or longer, the graph scrolls to show you 1 minute of what you've already done and what's coming up in the next 3 minutes. If the song is shorter than 4 minutes, the graph's behavior is unchanged.
For more details, see: 8206e3c
Bug Fixes
Ensure that TimingWindowAdd=0.0015 for ECFA mode
See a6c494a and b593b23 for more information.
Allow ScreenShots on Evaluation Summary Again
SLv4.8 broke the ability to save screenshots on Evaluation Summary. It's working again. See f537c2f for more information.
Reinstate TargetScoreGraph
SLv4.8 made the TargetScoreGraph inaccessible. It's back now. See fb659cf for more information.
Correctly Get and Display BPM Range for Autogenerated Courses
See 14e4602 for more information.
Improve ChartParser's Chart-Finding Routine
See 6b96f7b for more information.
Remove Problematic Attacks from Attack Menu in Edit Mode
Certain attacks that caused StepMania to crash have been removed. See d05b101 for more information.
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.8 and v4.8.1, check GitHub's comparison of the two.
Simply Love for SM5 - v4.8 (Extra Stage)
About
This is the v4.8 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It includes new features and bug fixes.
Please note that this requires StepMania 5.0.12 or StepMania 5.1-beta1. Future releases of SM5.1 should also work fine.
Older versions of SM5 are not supported. SM5.2 is not supported.
New Features
Casual Mode Overhaul
Originally implemented for the SLv3.0 release, Casual Mode has undergone a significant overhaul for this release. To summarize, Casual Mode now:
- restricts what song groups are available to choose from
- filters out all charts with a difficulty meter above a given level
- provides a new, dedicated Select Music screen to simplify the process of choosing a song
- provides more prominent on-screen instructions throughout
- simplifies the flow of a game cycle by removing certain screens
While Simply Love ships with some reasonable default settings for Casual Mode, some of the features described above can be configured by machine operators as desired. This is described in more detail in the CasualMode-README.
Options Menu Overhaul
The main Options menu (sometimes referred to as the Operator Menu) has been visually overhauled to more clearly explain what each setting does and offer "recommended" values where appropriate. Many new explanations have been written to facilitate this effort.
I encourage all machine operators to take a few minutes to look through the new Options menu.
Aesthetic Updates
Previous releases of Simply Love allowed users to choose between "Hearts" and "Arrows" as the visual emblems for the theme. This release adds additional choices that can be selected from Simply Love Options.
av01der has kindly provided new menu music for most aspects of the theme. Thank you, av01der!
Riakodoadm, cardboard_box, and dbk2 have also lent their musical talents to this release. Thanks, everyone!
Finally, the UI has been slightly darkened when RainbowMode is enabled to improve legibility and to change up the aesthetic.
Spanish and French Translations
Simply Love's UI has been translated into Spanish and French by Jose_Varela and HeySora, respectively. Many thanks to both of them!
Users can change the current language of StepMania in Simply Love under System Options.
Please note that immediately after switching the language (for example, from English to Español), it may be necessary to restart to StepMania for all in-game text to be properly translated. This is probably a bug, but thankfully you should only need to change the language once.
In-Theme Credits and Acknowledgments
Simply Love now has an Acknowledgments section that can be viewed from the main Options menu. Be sure to check it out!
Bug Fixes
ScreenSelectProfile Cleanup/Improvements
Many users who own their own arcade hardware use ScreenSelectProfile to help manage multiple local profiles. Previously, the screen was inherited entirely from SM5's _fallback theme, exhibited buggy behavior, and was generally thought of as confusing to use.
Issue #115 has been resolved and the screen has been cleaned up for this release. It now:
- notifies players if they attempt to join both sides to use the same local profile
- can unjoin sides by pressing SELECT (if available) or MenuLeft+MenuRight (if
ThreeKeyNavigationis enabled) - shows a USB stick icon if a USB profile is in use
Don't Allow Negative Credits
Issue #111 loosely described a scenario in which StepMania with Premium=Off could enter into a state of negative (coin) credits. I found two means of causing this bug and patched them theme-side (though they should really be fixed in the engine because they can be recreated in any theme).
See commits 25d4f47 and 7574a51 for more detailed explanations.
EvaluationSummary Supports Home Pads
In previous releases it was only possible to navigate through multiple pages of scores in EvaluationSummary using dedicated MenuButtons. This behavior has been changed for this release by allowing players to navigate through multiple pages of scores using their dance pads if OnlyDedicatedMenuButtons=0. If you navigate the game using your dance pad (you don't have dedicated MenuButtons), this setting is already disabled.
For more, see 5ae1066.
Fix Crash with Target Score System
Issue #110 pointed out that failing a song while the IIDX-inspired Target Score system was enabled would cause StepMania to crash. This should be resolved as of d060363.
Fix SelectMusic with MusicRate When Not In Event Mode
The previous release introduced a bug where ScreenSelectMusic would lock up if a musicrate modifier was in effect and EventMode was disabled. This was fixed by @andrewipark in pull request #105.
Replace snow.mp4 with snow.lua
SL v4.4 introduced a winter-themed EasterEgg aesthetic that relied on a 24MB mp4 file to simulate snowfall. In an effort to keep the release's filesize down, this video was replaced with a 3KB Lua file + a 2KB PNG asset.
...but don't worry, this release still ended up growing substantially in filesize! 😂 😂😭
Small/Misc. Fixes
- Reinstate Letter Grades to ScreenEvaluationSummary; see 2286096
- Correctly Display Number of Courses on Title Screen; see c0787e9
- Fix Full Combo flash and make it a little flashier; resolves issue #109; see d869098
- Include ITG2 fonts for "mod charts"; see dd0f809
- Fix font size for Background Editor in Edit Mode; resolves issue #120
- Make Gameplay for Dance "Solo" mode (6-panel) less buggy; see b84b1c2
- Fix wrapping of color indices; resolves issue #106
- "Hide Background" displays on ScreenEval as "Hide BG" instead of "Cover"; see aada2bb
Misc. Cleanup
As always, files have been cleaned up and comments have been added and clarified.
Other Notes
ImageCache System
If you are using SM5.1, you will have the option of using the ImageCache system for loading and displaying song jackets more fluidly in Casual Mode. A consequence of enabling this feature is that it eats up 2x to 3x more RAM.
If you leave this feature off, or if you use SM5.0.12, the frame-rate will take an occasional hit when loading jackets from disk for the SelectMusic screen in Casual Mode. Other modes (Competitive, ECFA, StomperZ) will not be improved by turning on the ImageCache system, though they might actually perform worse if your computer has an inadequate amount of RAM. For these reasons, the ImageCache system is disabled by default, and I recommend leaving it off unless your computer has at least 8GB of RAM. (For slightly more technical info, see: b903825.)
If you wish to try it out, the ImageCache system can be enabled under Simply Love Options. You'll need to restart StepMania after enabling it for it to take effect. Please note that the next SM5 startup will take significantly longer than usual as ImageCache versions of your jackets and backgrounds are created. Every subsequent startup will be as fast as usual.
Change Summary
For a full summary of changes between v4.7 and v4.8, check GitHub's comparison of the two.