Release Notes for PCGen v5.8.0

Table of Content

What's new for v5.8.0

It's been a bit over a year since last stable release. As you might expect, a lot has happened since then. Go here for a summary of the changes.

A bunch of very dedicated peoples put a lot of effort in bringing you the software you are holding in your hands today. There is far to many of us to list here so I encourage you to take ten minutes and look at the credits in the About menu -- and don't forget to give every one a pat in the back ;-). If you have contributed to the project and your name is not there, that's a mistake. Drop me a line and I'll correct it.

We really hope that you will have as much fun using PCGen as we had making it. And if you feel like it, you are welcome to join our mad club :-).

Éric "Space Monkey" Beaudoin for the PCGEN Team -- May 25, 2005.

Backward Compatibility

With so many changes, it's no wonder that PCGen 5.8.0 is not backward compatible with the previous stable release version. Be warned that neither the old character files (.PCG) nor the old data files (.PCC and .LST) will work properly with 5.8.0. There is no way to really migrate/update the old files to the new version.

For data files upgrade, there is the prettylst.pl script that can help you a bit but you still will have to do a lot of work by hand.

For the character files, your best bet is to recreate your character from scratch with the new version. Even if you manage to load the old character file with the new version, the calculated values will probably be incorrect. You have been warned; use the upgraded .pcg file at your own risk.

We are very sorry about this but we feel that the improvements to the application and the data files are well worth the inconveniences.

Installation

Prerequisites

Java 1.4.x or Java 5. PCGEN 5.8.0 is not compatible with Java 1.3.x and it is NOT SUPPORTED. To get the latest version of Java, go to java.com.

Windows Users

We recommend that you use the Windows installer.

Mac Users

Use the installation DMG file unless you are using OS X Tiger (there is a bug with the Mac executable when running on a Tiger machine).

Others (or advanced) users

Pick the package with the features you want and unzip it. It is highly recommended to use a new directory with every new release. Once the package is unzipped, see docs\index.html for the full documentation.

Alpha Data Sets

The Alpha packages contain data sets that were not judged to be "production" grade. They vary from "better then nothing" to "nearly ready for production". To install them on Windows, use the Windows Alpha installer. Otherwise, unzip the data sets to your PCGen data directory.

Read the doc!

Please make sure you read the docs to familiarize yourself with the changes. You can access it from docs/index.html located in the PCGen directory.

Summary of the Changes

Code Changes

New Tags

New Data Sets

System Reference Documents

Alderac Entertainment Group

Behemoth3 - Masters and Minions - Horde Book 1

Fantasy Flight Games

Mongoose Publishing

Data Features of Note

Output Sheet News

Docs Main Changes

OGL Main Events

Useful Links

Change Log

PCGen Bugs Closed

PCGen FREQs Closed

GMGen Bugs Closed

PCGen Release Trackers Closed

DATA Bugs Closed

DATA Feature Requests Closed

DATA New Source Material Requests Closed

DATA Tag Addition Requests Closed

DATA Tag Modification Request Closed

List File Fixed/New Source Material Requests

OS Bugs Closed

OS Freqs Closed

DOC Bugs Closed

DOC FREQs Closed

Tag Creation and Modification Requests