Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b9!

This version now includes some (hopefully useful) web-based features using the QtWebKit module. The most important one is the new MAWS lookup feature implemented as a new game detail tab containing an integrated web browser.

The QtWebKit module was introduced in Qt 4.4, but is only really working since Qt 4.5 (4.5.1 recommended), so unfortunately this also means that Qt 4.4 is no longer supported — please upgrade to Qt 4.5!

Note that on Windows — even with Qt 4.5.1 (latest stable release as of this writing) — QtWebKit still has some glitches like for example missing backgrounds when rendering web pages. Basically though, it works. On UNIX/Linux, there should be no (major) issues left. We have no report yet as to how it works on Mac OS X.

Configuration-wise, all MAME variants are synced with version 0.132. Template updates for MESS 0.132 will follow here if required, but as MAME didn’t introduce any new options since 0.131, this is not to be expected.

In summary, the most important changes since 0.2.b8 include:

  • Integrated (mini) web browser based on QtWebKit (with just a subset of typical browser features), including HTTP proxy support and a simple download manager
  • MAME variants only: new MAWS lookup feature as an additional game detail tab, including on-disk and in-memory caching of MAWS pages (this is using the global browser functionality intensively, but adds some optimizations to speed things up)
  • Free reordering & (de)activation of all available game/machine details
  • Qt 4.5.0+ required now (Qt 4.5.1 recommended)
  • On Windows, the executables (qmc2-emulator.exe) now include the respective application icon to make it look nicer in the Explo(r|d)er :)
  • General layout face lift for all UIs (especially smaller layout content margins, and some fixed minor UI bugs)
  • The option dialog now uses scrollable content to make it better suited for small resolution displays
  • A few (more or less important) bug fixes

See change-log for more information.

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team