Hi all, The darcs team would like to announce the immediate availability of darcs 2.4 beta 2. darcs 2.4 will contain many improvements and bugfixes compared to darcs 2.3.1. Highlights are the fast index-based diffing which is now used by all darcs commands, and the experimental interactive hunk editing. This beta is your chance to test-drive these improvements and make darcs even better. The easiest way to install darcs is using the Haskell Platform [1]. If you have installed the Haskell Platform or cabal-install, you can install this beta release by doing: $ cabal update $ cabal install --reinstall darcs-beta Alternatively, you can download the tarball from http://darcs.net/releases/darcs-2.3.98.2.tar.gz , and build it by hand as explained in the README file. Interactive hunk editing ------------------------ The interactive hunk editing feature is included in this beta. However, be aware that we are not entirely sure that the user interface in this version is ready yet. You're welcome to try it out, but be prepared for a learning curve that's somewhat steeper than usual for darcs. To try out interactive hunk editing, press 'e' when you are prompted with a hunk patch by 'darcs record'. You will then be shown an editor screen in which you can edit the contents of the hunk as darcs should consider them to have been before and after the hunk patch you edit. You can edit the state you want to record between the last two "===" lines. You can find more information about the hunk editing feature on http://wiki.darcs.net/HunkEditor . Reporting bugs -------------- If you have an issue with darcs 2.4 beta 2, you can report it via the web on http://bugs.darcs.net/ . You can also report bugs by email to bugs@darcs.net. What's New ---------- A list of important changes since 2.3.1 is as follows (please let me know if there's something you miss!): * Use fast index-based diffing everywhere (Petr) * Interactive patch splitting (Ganesh) * An 'optimize --upgrade' option to convert to hashed format in-place (Eric) * Hunk matching (Kamil Dworakowski, tat.wright) * Progress reporting is no longer deceptive (Roman) * A 'remove --recursive' option to remove a directory tree from revision control (Roman) * 'show files' accepts arguments to show a subset of tracked files (Luca) * A '--remote-darcs' flag for pushing to a host where darcs isn't called darcs * Many miscellaneous Windows improvements (Salvatore, Petr and others) * 'darcs send' now mentions the repository name in the email body (Joachim) * Handle files with boring names in the repository correctly (Petr) * Fix parsing of .authorspellings file (Tomáš) * Various sane new command-line option names (Florent) * Remove the '--checkpoint' option (Petr) * Use external libraries for all UTF-8 handling (Eric, Reinier) * Use the Haskell zlib package exclusively for compression (Petr) A list of issues resolved since 2.3.1: * 183: do not sort changes --summary output * 223: add --remote-darcs flag to specify name of remote darcs executable * 291: provide (basic) interactive patch splitting * 540: darcs remove --recursive * 835: 'show files' with arguments * 1122: get --complete should not offer to create a lazy repository * 1216: list Match section in ToC * 1224: refuse to convert a repo that's already in darcs-2 format * 1300: logfile deleted on unsucessful record * 1308: push should warn about unpulled patches *before* patch-selection * 1336: sane error message on --last "" (empty string to numbers parser) * 1362: mention repo name in mail send body * 1377: getProgname for local darcs instances * 1392: use parsec to parse .authorspelling * 1424: darcs get wrongly reports "using lazy repository" if you ctrl-c old-fashioned get * 1447: different online help for send/apply --cc * 1488: fix crash in whatsnew when invoked in non-tracked directory * 1548: show contents requires at least one argument * 1554: allow opt-out of -threaded (fix ARM builds) * 1563: official thank-you page * 1578: don't put newlines in the Haskeline prompts * 1583: on darcs get, suggest upgrading source repo to hashed * 1584: provide optimize --upgrade command * 1588: add --skip-conflicts option * 1594: define PREPROCHTML in makefile * 1620: make amend leave a log file when it should * 1636: hunk matching * 1643: optimize --upgrade should do optimize * 1652: suggest cabal update before cabal install * 1659: make restrictBoring take recorded state into account * 1677: create correct hashes for empty directories in index * 1681: preserve log on amend failure * 1709: fix short version of progress reporting * 1712: correctly report number of patches to pull * 1720: fix cabal haddock problem * 1731: fix performance regression in check and repair Kind Regards, the darcs release manager, Reinier Lamers [1]: You can download the Haskell platform from http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/