Drawpile 0.9.7 released

Version 0.9.7 of Drawpile is now available for download, a bit earlier than planned.

This release fixes two major bugs discovered in the previous version:

• The remote host selection dropdown would not work correctly if it contained more than one address
• Drawpile would crash when reordering layers in certain circumstances

Additionally, this release adds one very interesting new feature: lag-free painting in network mode. Previously, network latency was hidden (with varying success) by painting to a temporary layer while the drawing commands were making their way to the server and back. This worked OK for the basic brushes, but poorly with certain blending modes and not at all with the new Watercolor brush.

The new version now lets local drawing happen immediately without waiting for the commands to finish their roundtrip. Of course, this open up the chance that brush strokes get applied in different order on different computers. This is where the new synchronization method comes in: when an inconsistency is detected (we draw something, but later find out someone else had drawn in the same spot earlier) the program will automatically undo the actions and then redo them in the correct order! In practice, this should happen very rarely, so this new method should actually be more efficient than the old preview based one. Those interested in the technical details can read more here.

While this new feature fixes some old bugs/problems, there is a chance that it introduces new ones. If you find any, reports are much appreciated!