Saros Release 14.10.31

The Saros Team is happy to announce release 14.10.31. Since the previous release we mostly removed unnecessary code, refactored, removed again, refactored again: There were over 500 commits since the last release.
As a result, the Saros binaries' file size shrunk from 9.9 MByte to 7.0 MByte. So don't expect many new features, but an improved user experience.

With this release we also set a record we are not particularly proud of:
Instead of intended one-week release process, it took us eleven months to push Saros 14.10.31 out of the pipeline.
One reason for that: We're busy working on the IntelliJ IDEA version and a shiny new GUI for both Saros versions. Stay tuned!

New and improved Features

• Your account information is now stored in your home directory inside a ".saros" folder. It's therefore independent from one specific IDE instance.
• Away messages of XMPP contacts will be displayed
• Alternative minimalistic chat layout in "IRC style" (which is way more compact than the default layout)
• Newly implemented, now session-independent file transfer
• Choose the Socks5 proxy candidates
• Starting a session with multiple projects at once is now faster since all files are put into one archive (instead of multiple per-project archives put into one big archive)

Disabled Features

• The optional feature "Concurrent Undo" was disabled due to Bug #836. This needs further investigation; as of now, activating this feature would do more harm than good.

Removed Features

• Need-based synchronization
• Screensharing
• VoIP

Improved GUI

• Sorting of contacts in session view: Now by display name (i.e. optional nickname), not by Jabber ID
• Improved explanation on how to get started with Saros
• Improved UPnP explanation in network preferences
• Notification when receiving projects using unavailable charsets
• States of the invitation process have better labels
• Optional: better looking remote selections (cursor and blocks for multi-line selections)
• Restructured the "Add XMPP Account" dialog
• The 1-to-1 chat is no longer colored with session user colors

Fixed network-related issues introduced with last release (13.12.6):

• Local Socks5 Proxy was always enabled, i.e. the options to only allow connections over IBB and an external Socks5 Proxy Server (under Saros > Network) were not honored.
• Changing accounts on-the-fly without clicking reconnect was not possible

Additionally, you will find many minor fixes and usability improvements.
(For details, see the changelog.)

For stability reasons some internal changes have been made.
As a consequence Saros 14.30.31 is not compatible with previous versions, so that all session participants need Saros 14.10.31 to work together.

Install and update Saros 14.10.31 via our Eclipse Update Site: http://dpp.sf.net/update

For more information visit http://www.saros-project.org.

Many thanks to the users who participated in our survey (although it is currently offline) and to everyone who helped us improve our plug-in!

Best Regards,
Saros-Team