ABX/doc/versions.txt

I started ABX very informally, so I did not really have logical version numbers
initially, and I'm not sure about the earliest packages I made.

In April 2021, I started trying to formally package with a consistent version
number, with the following meanings:


0.1.0 (<2021):
	Versions before 2021, with "Copy NLA" and "L.Ink Compos" and not much else.
	
	There were some experimental version of context.py, file_context.py, and
	blender_context.py in the source, but they were unused and buggy or incomplete.
	
	
0.2.0 (2021-02 to 2021-05):
	Versions from April/May 2021, with major design changes:
	
		* "Copy NLA" became "Copy Animation", and acquired new options:
			- NLA (Old NLA behavior)
			- Dopesheet (copy the "active action", which appears in the dopesheet).
			- Copy/Rescale (instead of linking the animation, copy it, possibly rescaling)
			- Scale Factor (if other than 1.0, the animation is scaled when copied)
		  
		* "L.Ink Compos" became "Ink/Paint Config", and also got new options:
			- Ink-Thru (Freestyle ink workaround for transparency, can now be turned off)
			- Billboards (Accurate alpha-billboard ink masking technique)
			- Separate Sky (Generate sky on a separate render layer for accurate compositing)
			
		* "Lunatics! Properties" got a new field for the scene "suffix" or title, used
		  exclusively to give some extra information in the scene name. This was to
		  accommodate short shot codes I was using, like "G.PoV" meaning "Georgiana 
		  point-of-view shot", to clarify the letter-codes for the shots, especially
		  since I was changing some of them around.
		  
		  
0.2.5 (2021-05):
	The last version before introducing the file_context data system into the main
	functions of the program. It contains fully-working and tested file_context.py
	and accumulate.py, but they haven't been updated with specific changes to
	accommodate the Blender UI yet, and the abx_ui.py module doesn't use them.
	
	I made this version as a stable fallback for production with all of the recent
	bugfixes, but none of the new (and likely buggy) data system features.
	
	Includes:
	
		* render_profiles feature in the Render panel. This is a quick select for
		  changing the render settings and output filepath to be named consistently
		  and use the correct settings for the most common pre-visualization renders
		  I make, and the full PNG stream render.
		  	- The profiles are hard-coded, because there's no contextual data yet.
		  	- EXR files may be generated from previz. I didn't make any attempt to
		  	  stop this, because it's usually not relevant (they'll be clobbered by
		  	  the full PNG renders, which are done last -- but this could be a problem
		  	  if I tried to regenerate the previz later)
	
	
		  	  
ROADMAP (for 2021?):

0.2.6 (2021-05):
	The first attempt to incorporate YAML configuration into the program.
	
	* Introduce better fallback behavior when project YAML files aren't found,
	  and give informative messages to the user about them.
	  
	* Move program defaults into abx.yaml and project.yaml files in the ABX
	  source code. Load these before project files to guarantee default requirements
	  are met.
	
	* Use abx.yaml 'render_profiles' block to set options for render_profiles
	
0.2.7:
	Replace "Lunatics! Properties" with "Project Properties" (the project name will
	be one of the properties, and probably read-only). Parse the "role" field.
	Generate read-only data from file_context and appropriate data-type fields
	for unspecified ranks.
	
0.2.8:
	Fix the schema override issue to allow for use with library assets or other
	hierarchy besides episodes. Improve the handling of "rank" (possibly refactor
	the code to make rank-handling more intuitive?)
	
0.2.9:
	Write / save / update to filepath to allow changing the name based on the
	input from the Project Properties (Not 100% sure I want this).
	
0.3.0:
	0.3.0 should have full data support driving the program features.
	
0.3.1:
	Pop-up report generation? I had this working experimentally, years ago, and
	it'd be useful to generate pop-up reports for some of the introspection
	features I want to add.
	
0.3.x:
	Improvements to data system and other capabilities.
	
	* Name context by group, rather than scene? Would be handy for library assets.
	
	* Possible integration with KitCAT? There's significant overlap between ABX
	  and KitCAT and I already call the metadata files "kitcat" data in the sources.
	  Will they be merely interoperable, or should I actually make ABX into the KitCAT
	  plugin for Blender?
	  
	* Port ABX to Blender 2.8+, keeping 2.7 support, if possible. If I'm really
	  going to use 2.8 for compositing, I will need this.
	
0.4.x (hopefully during 2021, because these would be very useful to have!):
	New features. Hopefully:
	
		* Recognize/use "role" field.
		* Ink/Paint Config for compositing (as opposed to rendering)
		* Appropriate config tools for anim, mech, etc -- other roles
		* Automate Freestyle "Ink-Camera" clipping system.
		* Character Armature comparison (find misnamed or extra bones)
		* Insert characters into an animation file
		* Find/report broken dupligroups and/or animation proxies
		* Generate linking report(s) -- information to support correct
		  linking diagrams, or possibly source for auto-generating them?
	
0.5.x:
	Integration with Papagayo / Lipsync data for animation?
	Maybe find the appropriate data files and run the lipsync importer on them?
	Or perhaps incorporate the lipsync importer code?
	

0.6.x:
	Automated management of credits & licensing? (Or does this all fall under
	the heading of KitCAT?)