Version History

The changelogs for each release of BOSS are listed below. The masterlists' changes cannot be concisely recorded here, but a full history of changes to them may be viewed by browsing the online repositories.

Contents

1. 2.3.1 - 5 January 2016
2. 2.3.0 - 6 May 2014
3. 2.2.0 - 15 March 2014
4. 2.1.1 - 28 September 2012
5. 2.1.0 - 6 August 2012
6. 2.0.1 - 6 April 2012
7. 2.0.0 - 27 March 2012
8. 1.9.1 - 1 January 2012
9. 1.9.0 - 13 November 2011
10. 1.8.0 - 6 July 2011
11. 1.7.0 - 10 June 2011
12. 1.6.5 - 1 December 2010
13. 1.6.4 - 28 November 2010
14. 1.6.3 - 15 November 2010
15. 1.6.2 - 1 November 2010
16. 1.6.1 - 19 October 2010
17. 1.6.0 - 8 October 2010
18. 1.5.0 - 24 March 2010
19. 1.4.1 - 31 August 2009
20. 1.0.0 to 1.3.5 - 22 October 2008 to 24 June 2009
21. License

2.3.1 - 5 January 2016

• Fixing an issue with Unicode path names
• The Plugin Submitter is operational again
• Fixing a crash with the User List under certain conditions
• Updated the translation files
• Updated the installation script to support both 64-bit and 32-bit executables
• BOSS now builds on *nix platforms
• Removed some Boost library dependencies
• The default for an addition to the user list is now "After" instead of "Before"
• Code style changes

This is also the last release specifically for XP. Future releases may or may not work.

2.3.0 - 6 May 2014

• Fixed: Ampersands now display correctly in the user rules editor's rule list.
• Changed: The BOSS Log's plugin submitter now sends submissions to issue trackers hosted on GitHub, rather than a Bugzilla tracker hosted on Dark Creations.
• Removed: Support checks for visual effects in the BOSS Log.
• Removed: The UTF8-CPP library as a build dependency.
• Removed: The MSVC 2013 Redistributable requirement, due to many reports from users encountering a variety of issues with it.

2.2.0 - 15 March 2014

• Fixed: Version extraction from Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim plugins.
• Fixed: The plugin submitter selecting existing entries that only partially matched the submitted plugin name.
• Changed: BOSS now requires the MSVC 2013 redistributable.
• Changed: BOSS has moved to GitHub.
  • Changed: All current references to Google Code have been removed from the program and its documentation.
  • Changed: Masterlist updater now updates the masterlists by cloning and syncing their Git repositories.
  • Added: Ini and GUI settings for the masterlist repository URL for each game.
• Changed: The installer now downloads and installs the MSVC 2013 redistributable if it cannot detect it as installed.
• Changed: Settings for logging and source code references have been removed. Debug output is now logged at any level higher than standard. Source code references have been removed as they're of no real use.
• Changed: GUI settings window layout tweaked.
• Removed: The API, as better alternatives now exist (libloadorder, LOOT API).
• Removed: Program updater, as it was poorly implemented, specific to the Google Code repository, and of limited use.
• Removed: Proxy support, as it was reported to be non-functional, and it was decided that it wasn't worth retaining.
• Removed: Morrowind support, as it was only token support present so that the API could function uniformly across all the games it supported.
• Removed: The "Hide Clean Plugins" BOSS Log filter, as it was misleading.
• Removed: The "Display Settings" BOSS Log feature, as the CSS used by the BOSS Log is now stored in a separate static file (resources/style.css) which can be edited if desired.

2.1.1 - 28 September 2012

• Fixed: BOSS Log plugin submitter sending escaped HTML special characters in JSON data to the Bugzilla tracker.
• Fixed: Links to versions in BOSS Version History.html not working.
• Fixed: Installer only installing Start Menu shortcuts for the administrator user.
• Fixed: Support for HTTPS web links in masterlist messages.
• Fixed: EOL characters in the masterlists being accepted as part of version strings and quoted strings, leading to inaccurate error messages and incorrectly unrecognised plugins when a version or quoted string was left unterminated.
• Fixed: The Hide 'Do Not Clean' Messages BOSS Log filter not working when BOSS was run in a language other than English.
• Fixed: Masterlist format version conditions returning false if the file does not exist and the condition is a less than condition.
• Fixed: The BOSS Log plugin submitter sending plugin filenames wrapped in nested HTML <font> tags when the BOSS Log was translated using Google Chrome's translation functionality. Use of this functionality is not recommended as it will also change the plugin filenames as they appear in the BOSS Log, and it will submit the changed filenames, leading to the wrong text being added to the masterlist(s).
• Fixed: Masterlist version conditions evaluating incorrectly for plugins (broken in v2.1.0).
• Fixed: Ghosted non-plugin files (eg. ghosted BSAs) appearing in the unrecognised plugins list of the BOSS Log.
• Removed: Support for Masterlist Format 2.2. The masterlists have been updated so there should be no noticeable changes.
• Removed: Links to BOSS's pages on the Nexus sites from readme, as the Nexus pages are now only of use for those who do not yet have BOSS installed.
• Changed: Updated Boost libraries used from 1.50.0 to 1.51.0.
• Changed: Updated Simplified Chinese translation.
• Added: BOSS icon to installer and uninstaller.
• Added: Installer now installs a default BOSS.ini, and sets the sLanguage setting to match the language chosen for the installer.
• Added: Spanish translation of BOSS, by Sharlikran and Leandro Conde.

2.1.0 - 6 August 2012

General Changes

• Fixed: BOSS counting false-flagged .esm files as masters when applying the master partition.
• Fixed: Some masterlist and ini parsing errors not being detected.
• Fixed: Installer's "old BOSS version detected" dialog ignoring the language previously selected.
• Fixed: User rules sorting groups after the last recognised item, or sorting the last recognised item itself, causing recognised plugins to appear in the BOSS Log as unrecognised and vice-versa.
• Fixed: A crash if the BOSS Log could not be created.
• Removed: Support for Masterlist Formats below 2.2, and Masterlist Format 2.2's conditional message shorthand. All masterlists have been updated so that there should be no noticeable changes.
• Removed: The bNoVersionParse, BOSS Log filter and CSS settings from the BOSS.ini.
• Removed: Text from installer regarding what to do if you have multiple copies of a supported game installed, as this was confusing users and was pointed out to not apply to anyone that would make use of multiple copies in a sensible manner.
• Removed: BOSS Updater download CRC check.
• Changed: BOSS now uses the exact filenames of installed plugins instead of their filenames in the masterlist, preventing any case-sensitivity issues (eg. Skyrim's launcher).
• Changed: Large update to the documentation:
  • Changed: All documentation uses Helvetica as the default font.
  • Changed: The main readme has had a large restructuring, with new sections being added on translations and general load order information. More images have also been added showcasing BOSS's various UI elements.
  • Changed: The BOSS User Rules Readme has been renamed BOSS Userlist Syntax to reflect its focus.
  • Changed: The BOSS Masterlist Syntax document has been rewritten to only include information relevant to the latest available version of the masterlist format.
  • Changed: The version history is now contained within a separate document.
• Changed: Lots of refactoring of code.
• Changed: Implemented more accurate comparison of versions in the masterlist, using Dirk Jagdmann's implementation of Dave Koelle's Alphanum Algorithm.
• Changed: Updated libcurl from 7.25.0 to 7.27.0, wxWidgets from 2.9.3 to 2.9.4, and Boost from 1.49.0 to 1.50.0.
• Changed: BOSS now displays the date of the last masterlist update to occur according to ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD).
• Changed: Installer/uninstaller now uses solid LZMA compression for a smaller file size.
• Added: Support for TES III: Morrowind. A Morrowind value for the sGame BOSS.ini setting has been added.
• Added: Support for translations of BOSS. A sLanguage setting has been added to the BOSS.ini, with accepted values of english, spanish, german, russian and chinese.
• Added: German language option for installer/uninstaller. Translation by Scharesoft.
• Added: Spanish language option for installer/uninstaller. Translation by Sharlikran.
• Added: Simplified Chinese language option for BOSS and its installer/uninstaller. Translation by bluesky404.
• Added: Russian language option for BOSS. Translation by Tokc.D.K.
• Added: Confirmation dialog to uninstaller abortion.
• Added: CRC check to installer to avoid corrupted installs.
• Added: Support for Masterlist Format 2.3.
• Added: bCloseGUIAfterSorting BOSS.ini setting.

BOSS Log Changes

• Fixed: Some plain text formatting issues.
• Removed: The link to GNU General Public License, copyright notice and version release date.
• Removed: Labelling and filtering of ghosted plugins.
• Removed: The Hide Rule Warnings, Hide 'Ghosted' Label and Hide Ghosted Mods filters.
• Removed: The Execution Complete footer.
• Removed: The General Messages section. General messages now appear in the Summary section.
• Removed: The ghosted plugin count in the Summary section.
• Changed: All parsing errors from all files are now displayed, instead of only the parsing error last encountered.
• Changed: The HTML BOSS Log now supports a minimum browser version of Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 3.5, Chrome 4, Safari 4, Opera 10.5 or their equivalents in other browsers.
• Changed: The HTML BOSS Log now primarily consists of a fixed-position left-hand sidebar and a scrollable right-hand main display panel. See The BOSS Log for a screenshot.
• Changed: The Use Dark Colour Scheme filter has been renamed Use Alternative Colour Scheme. The colour scheme itself has been altered to reduce text contrast, making it easier to read.
• Changed: Filters are selectively enabled and disabled based on what section is currently visible, so you cannot apply a filter to a page where it has no effect, to avoid confusion.
• Changed: Renamed the Userlist Messages section to User Rules.
• Changed: Rewrote the BOSS Log's Javascript to make it tidier and have better cross-browser support.
• Changed: If an error is encountered when trying to change a plugin's timestamp, it is now displayed as an error message below the plugin, rather than inline with the plugin's filename.
• Changed: The tables in the Summary section are now colour-coded green, amber or red to give some indication of whether the number for a row is good or bad and, if bad, how sever.
• Changed: The User Rules section now displays the full text of the rules in your userlist, whether each rule was applied and why a rule was not applied, if applicable, in a table. The rows are coloured coded such that applied rules are coloured green, rules that were not applied as they are disabled are coloured amber and rules that were not applied due to errors are coloured red.
• Changed: The font used in the BOSS Log is now Helvetica to make it easier to read.
• Changed: The general background colour is now a light grey, from white, to reduce eye strain.
• Changed: Quoted file text in parsing errors is now displayed in the browser's default monospace font.
• Added: A Submit Plugin dialog that allows the anonymous submission of unrecognised plugins to the BOSS team.
• Added: A Display Settings panel that allows the activation and customisation of an alternative colour scheme (previously known as the dark colour scheme), and back up and restore functionality for custom settings.
• Added: Settings memory functionality that restores the last used configuration of filters and colours when the BOSS Log is opened.
• Added: A Log Feature Support panel that indicates what BOSS Log features the user's browser supports.
• Added: An active plugin count in the Summary section.
• Added: Some CSS3 effects for browsers that support them.

API Changes

• Fixed: The SortMods function no longer includes groups and plugins that are not installed in its outputs.
• Removed: The BOSS_API_ERROR_MASTER_TIME_READ_FAIL return code.
• Changed: The CreateBossDb now takes the path to the game executable's folder, rather than the path to the game plugin's folder.
• Changed: The CreateBossDb now accepts a non-null empty path, treating it in the same manner as a null path (ie. BAPI tries to autodetect game install location).
• Changed: The DumpMinimal now includes conditionals in the file it creates.
• Changed: The API now caches the load order and active plugin list and does not re-load them unless the files/folders they are derived from have changed.
• Changed: The API now returns BOSS_API_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND if a plugin that is not installed is passed to any of the load order or active status modification functions, aside from when deactivating a single plugin through SetPluginActive.
• Changed: The BOSS_API_ERROR_MOD_TIME_READ_FAIL has been renamed BOSS_API_ERROR_TIMESTAMP_READ_FAIL to be less misleading.
• Changed: The BOSS_API_ERROR_MOD_TIME_WRITE_FAIL has been renamed BOSS_API_ERROR_TIMESTAMP_WRITE_FAIL to be less misleading.
• Added: BOSS_API_ERROR_FILE_RENAME_FAIL return code.
• Added: SetProxy function.
• Added: SubmitUnrecognisedPlugin function.

GUI Changes

• Fixed: Crash when deleting the last remaining rule in a userlist via the User Rules Manager.
• Fixed: Text boxes in the User Rules Manager not displaying correctly, with borders often not appearing until mouseover.
• Fixed: Non-ASCII text not being displayed or recorded correctly for user rules.
• Fixed: The last character of the last message attached to a plugin by a rule in the User Rules Manager being cut off.
• Fixed: User Rules Manager silently skipping invalid rules, instead of causing an initialisation error.
• Fixed: Cancelling User Rules Manager initialisation not cancelling display of the window.
• Removed: Display Plugin Versions setting.
• Changed: Renamed the User Rules Editor to User Rules Manager to reflect that the editing of rules is only part of its functionality.
• Changed: Renamed the User Rules Manager's Rule Creator/Editor box to Rule Editor.
• Changed: Renamed the User Rules Manager's Masterlist Mod Messages box to Default Plugin Messages to make its purpose clearer.
• Changed: Renamed the User Rules Manager's Installed Mods tab to Installed Plugins to avoid confusion between the terms mod and plugin.
• Changed: Renamed the User Rules Manager's Move Up and Move Down buttons to Move Rule Up and Move Rule Down respectively to make their purpose explicit.
• Changed: Minor tweaks to the spacing of rules listed in the User Rules Manager and options in the main window.
• Changed: When the user enables ADD rules that were disabled because they add plugins that are in the masterlist, the User Rules Manager now also changes them to OVERRIDE rules.
• Changed: The text in the drop-down boxes in the User Rules Manager's Rule Editor has been lowercased to read better.
• Changed: The User Rules Manager now disables the Save Edited Rule, Delete Rule, Move Rule Up and Move Rule Down buttons when there are no rules present in the rule list.
• Added: The Select Game dialog now displays the BOSS icon in the title bar, matching the other GUI windows.
• Added: Options for selecting Morrowind in all game selection controls.
• Added: The GUI now records the game it was last run for using the sLastGame BOSS.ini setting. If the sGame setting is set to auto (or the corresponding Default Game GUI setting set to Autodetect), then the GUI will first attempt to run for the game it was last run for. If the game cannot be detected, or the sLastGame setting is set to auto, then it will then prompt the user to select a game to run for.
• Added: Close GUI after running BOSS setting.
• Added: Prompt to download the latest masterlist if the User Rules Manager is opened and the masterlist cannot be found.
• Added: Messages now have their syntax checked before a rule is saved, and an error message is displayed if invalid syntax is found.
• Added: A Language setting to control the language BOSS displays its UI in.

CLI Changes

• Removed: -n [ --no-version-parse ] parameter.

2.0.1 - 6 April 2012

• Fixed: Masterlist regular expression errors being reported in an endless loop.
• Fixed: Crash when BOSS is running for Skyrim and plugins.txt is read-only.
• Fixed: Crash when a user rule overrides a masterlist group position.
• Fixed: GUI's User Rules Editor disabling OVERRIDE rules on load.
• Fixed: Plugins referenced in user rules that are not installed getting added to loadorder.txt when running for Skyrim v1.4.26+.
• Fixed: Update.esm not being labelled as active in the BOSS Log when it is missing from plugins.txt and BOSS is running for Skyrim.
• Fixed: Crash when a single non-local game install is detected.
• Fixed: Games that are not installed being detected.
• Changed: Uninstaller's User Files option is now unselected by default.
• Changed: Switched installer from NSIS to NSIS Unicode.
• Added: Russian language option to installer/uninstaller. Translation by Tokc.D.K.

2.0.0 - 27 March 2012

• Removed: BOSS Updater for manual installs. When an update is checked for and found on a manual install, BOSS will notify the user of the update and its download locations, but not download or install the update itself. Behaviour on installer installs is unchanged.
• Removed: iRunType ini setting, as it was unnecessary.
• Fixed: GUI mixing up Nehrim and Fallout: New Vegas in the Game drop-down box.
• Fixed: Masterlist parser getting confused when a plugin filename shared starting characters with a keyword.
• Fixed: Invalid regular expressions in masterlist-format files causing crashes.
• Fixed: Plugins with filenames containing international characters causing the GUI's User Rules Editor to fail to load.
• Fixed: Masterlist-format files beginning with blank lines will no longer create an initial empty item in their data structures.
• Fixed: The tooltip intended for the new messages text box was attached to the masterlist mod messages box in the User Rules Editor.
• Fixed: The masterlist displayed GUI's User Rules Editor was unevaluated for conditionals and regex entries.
• Fixed: Saving a masterlist-format file no longer omits its conditionals. This bug was never exposed.
• Fixed: Conditional parsing errors not being reported correctly in the BOSS Log. This bug was never exposed.
• Fixed: Messages being outputted in the format set globally instead of the outputters local format. This bug was never exposed.
• Fixed: Version number comparisons being sometimes evaluated wrongly for versions of the form a.b.c.d where a, b, c and d were integers. This bug was never exposed.
• Changed: This utility's name has been changed from Better Oblivion Sorting Software to BOSS.
• Changed: Tidied up code, making better use of class inheritance and swapping Boost filesystem paths for strings in plugin names.
• Changed: Updated libcurl from 7.23.1 to 7.25.0, wxWidgets from 2.9.2 to 2.9.3, and Boost from 1.48.0 to 1.49.0.
• Changed: GUI's User Rules Editor is now resizeable and the Installed Mods and Masterlist lists are now tabbed to give them more space.
• Changed: The GUI now uses the User Rules Editor to edit the userlist by default.
• Changed: Only a single instance of the GUI is now allowed to run at any one time.
• Changed: BOSS no longer quits with an error message without sorting plugins when both Nehrim.esm and Oblivion.esm are present in the same Data folder, as this arrangement may be valid for modders porting mods, so long as Oblivion.esm remains inactive when Nehrim is run.
• Changed: BOSS update release notes are now displayed before the update download confirmation.
• Changed: Pretty pictures now in the main readme! Also updated content to reflect various changes and additions.
• Changed: Rewrote NSIS installer to reflect various changes and additions, and simplified the installer code greatly.
• Changed: You can no longer sort non-master plugins before master plugins, or master plugins after non-master plugins, using user rules. Masters are commonly .ESM files, and non-master plugins are commonly .ESP files, but whether a plugin is a master or not is actually decided by a variable in the file, not the file extension. (An example of this in action would be Wrye *ash's ESMify Self function, which makes a plugin into a master without changing the file extension.)
• Changed: BOSS now enforces the game's masters before plugins rule for load ordering when reading the current load order and sorting plugins.
• Added: Support for multiple games from a single BOSS install:
  • BOSS now has two different install types: local installs place the BOSS folder beside a game's Data folder. Non-local installs place the BOSS folder anywhere else. Local installs will always run for the local game by default. Non-local installs will look for supported games and prompt the user to choose one to run for each time BOSS is run. If only one game is found, BOSS will run for it without user prompt.
  • BOSS game files (masterlist, BOSS Log, etc.) are now stored in separate sub-folders within the BOSS folder for each game to avoid conflict.
  • The --game,-g [ game ] command line parameter and corresponding ini and GUI settings now behaves slightly differently: when BOSS is run with the game not set to autodetect, and it is not set to only update the masterlist, the game parameter specifies the default game to run for. If the default cannot be found, BOSS falls back to autodetection.
  • The GUI now prompts the user to choose which game it should run for on startup. Games that are not detected are selectable, but will only allow their masterlists to be updated.
  • The Game drop-down list in the GUI has been moved to the Settings window.
  • An Active Game menu has been added to the GUI that allows you to change which game BOSS is currently active for without closing the GUI. Undetected games are greyed out, unless the Update Masterlist Only run option is selected. If you have an undetected game active and switch from Update Masterlist Only to another run option, the BOSS automatically switches to the first detected game in the list.
• Added: BOSS API for use by third party utilities to access BOSS information and functionality. See BOSS API Readme for details.
• Added: BOSS can now read the plugins.txt file that the supported games use to store their active plugin list in. BOSS also adapts to the value of the bUseMyGamesDirectory setting in Oblivion.ini when running for Oblivion.
• Added: An Active label to the BOSS Log for plugins that are active when BOSS is run, and Hide Inactive Mods and Hide 'Active' Label BOSS Log filters.
• Added: Support for the load order mechanism used by TES V: Skyrim version 1.4.26+. This outputs load order of active plugins to plugins.txt, and outputs the full load order to loadorder.txt, which is created in the same directory as plugins.txt.
• Added: BOSS now checks for false-flagged plugins and moves any found to the correct side of the master/non-master partition. False-flagged plugins are those with an extension that does not match the state of the plugin's internal master bit flag.

1.9.1 - 1 January 2012

• Fixed: Mods in the last group of a masterlist being unrecognised when one or more user rules were enabled.
• Fixed: Masterlist-format files saved by BOSS that contain messages cannot be loaded successfully by BOSS. This bug was never exposed.
• Fixed: Every second link in a message displayed in the BOSS Log not being displayed as a hyperlink when using the HTML BOSS Log.
• Fixed: MF1 legacy conditionals always being evaluated for Oblivion, even when BOSS was run for other games.
• Fixed: Masterlist parsing errors were not correctly reported in the BOSS Log.
• Fixed: BOSS Updater version checking not returning correct result with some versions.
• Changed: Masterlist conditional evaluation now occurs separately from masterlist parsing.
• Changed: BOSS Log's Unrecognised Plugins section is now only displayed if there are any unrecognised plugins present.
• Changed: Some tidying up of the BOSS Log text and formatting.
• Changed: Code type safety work. BOSS can now be built to 32 and 64 bit binaries, although 64 bit binaries will not be distributed.
• Changed: Copyright license is now GNU General Public License v3.0 for everything but the documentation, and GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 for the documentation.
• Changed: Updated version of libcurl used from 7.22.0 to 7.23.1, and updated version of Boost libraries used from 1.47.0 to 1.48.0.
• Changed: Expanded/Collapsed indicators added for masterlist groups in the GUI's User Rules Editor.
• Changed: GUI's User Rules Editor will now auto-scroll the rule list so that the currently selected rule is visible whenever the rule list is altered.

1.9.0 - 13 November 2011

• Changed: Major refactoring of BOSS code into a common library, a Command Line Interface and a Graphical User Interface.
• Common Library:
  • Removed: Checking for changes to the recognised mod list since last run for the plain text BOSS Log, as this did not work correctly and is not feasible to fix.
  • Removed: Command line parameter -T [ --proxy-type ] [ type ] and BOSS.ini setting sProxyType Internet proxy type specification options. Proxy type is now automatically determined.
  • Fixed: A bug where if a plugin filename started with "SET" or "GLOBAL" (or case variations) then BOSS would incorrectly classify it as a variable or global message line and so result in syntax errors.
  • Fixed: User Rules which failed to add a plugin into the beginning or end of a group still incremented the number of recognised plugins as if the rule application had succeeded.
  • Fixed: Userlist rules which reference plugins that are not installed now have warning messages reported instead of error messages.
  • Fixed: Masterlist conditions now detect ghosted mods correctly.
  • Fixed: The online Fallout: New Vegas masterlist's revision being checked instead of the online Fallout 3 masterlist's revision when updating the Fallout 3 masterlist.
  • Fixed: The Hide Messageless Mods BOSS Log filter not acting when another filter resulted in all a mod's messages being hidden.
  • Fixed: The last group of mods in a masterlist being unrecognised.
  • Changed: More robust error handling.
  • Changed: User rules can now only use up to one sort line and/or one REPLACE message line per rule, and cannot sort mods/groups relative to themselves.
  • Changed: Updated version of libcurl used when building BOSS.exe and BOSS GUI.exe to 7.22.0 from 7.21.7.
  • Changed: Content and slight formatting changes to BOSS Log:
    • Masterlist Update section removed. Update information is now displayed in the Summary section. Updater errors are displayed in the General Messages section.
    • Javascript optimisations for filters.
    • Execution Complete text is now centred.
    • All BOSS Log output now has special characters escaped so that it is valid HTML.
    • The date of the user's masterlist is now displayed in the Summary.
    • Ini parsing errors are now displayed in the General Messages section.
    • The filters are now laid out in a more grid-like fashion.
    • Added whitespace characters between plugin filenames, versions, ghosted labels and CRCs to make copy/pasted text more readable.
    • Coloured links in the dark colour scheme so that they are easier to read.
    • The number of plugins and messages hidden at any one time is displayed below the filters box in italics.
    • The Script Extender And Script Extender Plugins section is now always displayed, with CRCs only being calculated if the Display File CRCs option is set.
  • Changes to BOSS.ini variables:
    • Removed GUI.Settings and GUI.LastOptions sections.
    • DoStartupUpdateCheck moved to a new BOSS.GeneralSettings section.
    • Removed DisableMasterlistUpdate setting.
    • Added variable type prefixes to variable names (s, i, b).
    • Boolean variables now accept true or false instead of 1 or 0.
    • CommandLineVerbosity renamed to iDebugVerbosity.
    • Debug renamed to bDebugWithSourceRefs.
    • Added bLogDebugOutput setting to BOSS.RunOptions to control the logging of debugging output.
    • Added bUseUserRulesEditor setting to BOSS.GeneralSettings to control how to the GUI chooses to edit user rules.
    • Default values for the BOSSLog.Styles settings are now given, and values are no longer enclosed in {} brackets.
  • Changed: Major rewrite of most of the common code, including more object-orientation of code, removal of some unused functions, implementation of an class for formatted output using generic placeholders and much more.
  • Added: Hide Clean Mods and Hide 'Do Not Clean' Messages BOSS Log filters.
  • Added: Support for TES V: Skyrim and the Skyrim Script Extender.
  • Added: Support for MF2.2 syntax, including C-style comments, regular expression conditions, case-insensitive keywords and expanded conditional shorthands.
  • Added: Built-in debug output logging support.
  • Added: DISABLE keyword to user rules that can be placed before a rule's rule keyword to disable it, instead of commenting it out to do the same.
  • Added: Support for authenticated proxies, using the sProxyUsername and sProxyPassword BOSS.ini settings.
    • Note that the support is untested. Feedback from users with authenticated proxies would be appreciated.
• Command Line Interface:
  • Changed: The command line parameter --debug, -d is now --debug-with-source, -d.
  • Added: Progress indication for downloads.
  • Added: A new command line parameter log-debug, -l to allow logging of the debug output to the BOSSDebugLog.txt file.
  • Added: BOSS Updater functionality.
• Graphical User Interface:
  • Added: A User Rules Editor to allow creation and editing of user rules without manually editing the userlist.txt.
  • Changed: The GUI is now completely independent of the CLI interface.
  • Changed: Settings window overhauled:
    • Debugging-related settings moved to the from the main window.
    • Settings catagorised into tabs.
    • Added settings for controlling the default state of the BOSS Log filters and the BOSS Log CSS.
    • Added a Log Debug Output setting to allow logging of the debug output to the BOSSDebugLog.txt file.
    • Added an option to select whether to use the GUI's User Rule Editor or to manually edit the userlist when editing user rules.
    • Updated proxy settings to reflect changes to proxy support.
  • Changed: Simplified layout of main window options.
  • Changed: Renamed some options to reflect their functions better.
  • Changed: Opening files from the GUI no longer causes a command line window to display.
  • Changed: The Check For Updates feature no longer causes the GUI to stop responding, either run on startup or through the menu option.
• (Installer) Changed: Updated to support Skyrim.
• (Docs) Changed: Major updates to main readme to reflect changes.
• (Docs) Added: Masterlist Syntax HTML documentation for BOSS team members and interested third parties.

1.8.0 - 6 July 2011

• Fixed: Junction-linked data folders not being scanned for plugins.
• Fixed: Links being displayed incorrectly in the BOSS Log if more than one was given in a message.
• Changed: Masterlist updater now runs by default.
• Changed: Updated version of libcurl used when building BOSS.exe and BOSS GUI.exe to 7.21.7 from 7.21.4.
• Changed: Overhauled the Plugin Numbers section of the BOSS Log:
  • Moved the section to the top of the BOSS Log.
  • Renamed the section from Plugin Numbers to Summary.
  • Added message counts, with numbers of total messages, warning messages and error messages.
  • Added a notice that is displayed when there has been no change in the recognised plugin list since BOSS was last run.
• Added: A settings file (BOSS.ini) to allow users to set default behaviours, options and BOSS Log formatting styles.
• Added: Support for unauthenticated proxies to the masterlist updater and the GUI's Check For Updates functionality.
• Added: Five new command line parameters:
  • --proxy-host,-H [ hostname ] to specify a proxy's host server for the masterlist updater.
  • --proxy-port,-P [ port ] to specify a proxy's port for the masterlist updater.
  • --proxy-type,-T [ type ] to specify a proxy type for the masterlist updater.
  • --trial-run,-t to run BOSS without actually changing the load order.
  • --no-update,-U to inhibit automatic masterlist updating.
• Added: Support for Fallout: New Vegas plugins that use the Fallout 3 master file, such as A Requiem for the Capital Wasteland.
• Added: Support for MF2.1 regular expressions, conditional incompatibility and conditional requirement messages in the masterlist.
• Added: BOSS Log filter option to hide userlist warning messages.
• (GUI) Fixed: The Enable File CRC Display and Enable Mod Version Display options getting confused between their values under the Sort Mods and Undo Changes run options.
• (GUI) Fixed: The icon not appearing in the title bar.
• (GUI) Fixed: The GUI hanging when BOSS is launched.
• (GUI) Changed: The Masterlist Update checkbox now sets the --no-update command line parameter if unchecked to override BOSS's default behaviour.
• (GUI) Changed: The look of the About window.
• (GUI) Changed: Overhauled the Check For Updates functionality:
  • Removed the masterlist update checker, as it has been made redundant by BOSS's automatic masterlist updating.
  • Added automatic updater functionality. Replaced Check For Updates output window with a series of notification dialogs asking if the update should be downloaded and installed. If no update was found, or there was an error, relevant dialog messages are displayed.
  • Check For Updates now also automatically runs when the GUI starts. This only displays a message if an update was found.
• (GUI) Changed: Renamed a number of options, simplifying their names slightly.
• (GUI) Changed: Options selected are now saved on exit and loaded on start.
• (GUI) Added: Perform Trial Run option.
• (GUI) Added: Settings page for specifying how the GUI behaves.
• (Installer) Changed: Updated to reflect various changes to programs.
• (Installer) Changed: Installer now runs uninstaller before installing if a previous installation of BOSS is found.
• (Docs) Changed: Significant content and formatting changes to main ReadMe, slight formatting changes to User Rules readme.

1.7.0 - 10 June 2011

• Fixed: A bug in the masterlist updater causing the wrong masterlist version to be displayed.
• Changed: Ghosted plugins must now be referenced in user rules without their ".ghost" extension.
• Changed: Moved all BOSS's files into a new BOSS folder, located in the game's installation directory, one level above the Data folder.
• Changed: Switched to using the Unicode character encoding, allowing the sorting of plugins with international characters in their names.
  • BOSS now uses the UTF-8 encoding for all its operations.
  • All BOSS files must now be encoded in UTF-8: this includes the modlists, masterlist and userlist.
  • Converted the masterlists and modlists to use the UTF-8 encoding.
  • Added a UTF-8 validator to ensure that the correct encoding for the required files is being used.
• Changed: Removed batch files as they are no longer necessary.
• Changed: The release date of updated masterlists is now displayed beside the revision number in the BOSS Log.
• Changed: Significant rewrite of source code, resulting in performance gains.
• Changed: Implemented new file parsers for the masterlist, modlists and userlist.
• Changed: Improved the formatting of the BOSS Log, making it more readable.
• Changed: Links in the BOSS Log are now hyperlinks that can be clicked on to take you to the given URL.
• Added: A unique icon to the executables, made by Hickory.
• Added: Support for Masterlist Format 2, which offers an alternative syntax and a wide range of new features and capabilities.
• Added: Display of the numbers of recognised, unrecognised, ghosted and total plugins to the end of the BOSS Log.
• Added: Javascript-based filter options and collapsible sections to the BOSS Log.
• Added: A Graphical User Interface (GUI) that can be used to launch BOSS with whatever options are desired without having to use the command line.
• Added: Three new command line parameters:
  • --game,-g [ game ] to override game autodetection. To be used in conjunction with -o to allow updating of the masterlist on computers where the specified game is not installed.
  • --crc-display,-c to calculate and display in the BOSS Log the CRCs of all your plugins. CRCs can be used as accurate version checks in masterlist conditionals.
  • --format,-f [ type ] to select the BOSS Log format, choosing from either HTML or plaintext. HTML formatting is the default.
• (Installer) Changed: Updated installer to reflect the various changes to BOSS's files and folders.
• (Docs) Changed: Significant content and formatting changes to main ReadMe, slight formatting changes to User Rules readme.

1.6.5 - 1 December 2010

• Fixed: Userlist parser giving incorrect error messages for rules inserting plugins into groups.
• Fixed: BOSS reporting some plugins as unknown when they are ghosted.

1.6.4 - 28 November 2010

• Fixed: Keywords, plugins and groups in user rules being unrecognised if they are padded by spaces.
• Fixed: Non-ASCII characters in plugin filenames causing crashes.
• Changed: Slight improvements to user rule error reporting when sorting groups that do not exist.
• Added: --only-update,-o command line parameter to only update the masterlist without then sorting any plugins.
• Added: BOSS - Print Debug Info.bat file to make debugging of BOSS errors simpler.
• Added: Nullsoft Scriptable Install installer for simpler BOSS installation.

1.6.3 - 15 November 2010

• Fixed: Crashing when updating the masterlist if downloading an incorrectly formatted masterlist.
• Fixed: Plugins with duplicate masterlist entries causing load order errors.
• Fixed: Another crash when parsing an incorrectly formatted userlist.
• Changed: User rule keywords are now case-insensitive.
• Changed: User rules can no longer sort a plugin relative to a plugin that is not in the masterlist and has not been sorted by another rule.
• Added: Check to userlist application of override rules to prevent incorrect usage resulting in load order errors.

1.6.2 - 1 November 2010

• Fixed: Crashing when userlist contains badly formatted lines.
• Changed: Many code portability enhancements.
• Changed: Command line parameters to be more standardised:
  • --disable-version-parse,-V is now --no-version-parse,-n.
  • --silent-mode,-s is now --silent,-s.
  • --revert-level,-r [ level ] is now --revert,-r [ level ].
• Added: Support for Fallout: New Vegas.
• Added: Ability to insert plugins into groups to user rules functionality.
• Added: Ability to sort plugins relative to plugins that are not installed, but are in the masterlist, to user rules functionality.
• Added: Three new command line parameters:
  • --verbose,-v [ level ] to enable logging statements, where level goes from 1 to 3 with increasing verbosity.
  • --version,-V to show BOSS version.
  • --debug,-d to add filename and line numbers to log messages.

1.6.1 - 19 October 2010

• Fixed: Non-lowercase plugin extensions not being recognised and causing crashes and load order mistakes.
• Fixed: A potential bug with the masterlist updater causing memory issues.
• Fixed: Several compiler warnings when compiling on Linux.
• Changed: Increased timeout delay for the masterlist updater to prevent the updater failing when Google Code is slow.
• Changed: Improved masterlist updater error handling.
• Added: --silent,-s command line parameter to suppress the automatic opening of the BOSS Log when BOSS is run.
• Added: Version info to BOSS.exe to make Wrye Bash integration/debugging easier.

1.6.0 - 8 October 2010

• Fixed: Fallout3.esm being reported as an 'unknown mod file'.
• Changed: Removed need for BOSS.bat.
• Changed: Moved BOSS's input and output files to Data\BOSS\.
• Changed: Converted BOSS Log from plain text to HTML format.
• Changed: Improved error handling to catch more errors and provide more useful error messages when BOSS doesn't work properly.
• Changed: Improved portability of source code.
• Changed: Merged BOSS and BOSS-F source code, allowing one BOSS.exe to work with all the games BOSS supports.
• Changed: Major refactoring and rewrite of BOSS source code, resulting in a significant performance improvement.
• Added: Fallout Wanderers Edition (FWE) specific message type for the Fallout 3 masterlist.
• Added: Plugin version display to BOSS Log output.
• Added: Three new command line parameters:
  • --update,-u to update the masterlist before sorting plugins.
  • --disable-version-parse,-V to disable version display in the BOSS Log.
  • --revert-level,-r [ level ] to allow undoing of BOSS's changes. level can be either 1 or 2, to go back to the load order before the last run of BOSS, or the load order before the run before that respectively.
• Added: BOSS - Update Masterlist.bat file to allow updating of the masterlist without having to use the command line.
• Added: Sorting of ghosted plugins.
• Added: Custom user rules functionality to allow users to customise how BOSS sorts their files, and more.
• Added: Support for the Nehrim - At Fate's Edge total conversion for TES IV: Oblivion.
• (Docs) Changed: Converted Readme from RTF to HTML format.

1.5.0 - 24 March 2010

• Changed: Switched source code project and solution files to Visual Studio 2010.
• Added: Four new message types:
  • OOO-specific messages.
  • Requirement messages.
  • Incompatibility messages.
  • Better Cities-specific messages.
• Added: A separate masterlist for Fallout 3.
• Added: A version of BOSS specifically for Fallout 3 (BOSS-F).

1.4.1 - 31 August 2009

• Fixed: Incorrect master file defined for Fallout 3.
• Fixed: Error messages not being displayed on some machines.

1.0.0 to 1.3.5 - 22 October 2008 to 24 June 2009

• Changes Not Recorded.

License

This document is part of the BOSS documentation.
Copyright (C) 2009-2012 BOSS Development Team.
See the file BOSS ReadMe.html for copying conditions.