<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">I am pleased to announce the alpha release of the new Netrek MacOS client. 100% written in Swift! A few screenshots below.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here’s my webpage with info and the download: <a href="https://networkmom.net/netrek/" class="">https://networkmom.net/netrek/</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here’s a direct link to the binary: <a href="https://networkmom.net/download/netrek-alpha.zip" class="">netrek-alpha.zip</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The binary is signed by my Apple developer account, notarized by Apple, and uses “Apple’s hardened runtime” feature to protect you from malicious software. The only access it requests is “outbound network connections”, which is obviously required to play.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The app requires MacOS 10.14 Mojave.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I am committed to making the source code freely available. But hope you’ll forgive me for waiting until after Mac App Store approval before doing that. The app will be free. I’m hoping having it in the app store will get us some new players.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My next milestone is a beta “Mac app store candidate” release Friday March 21.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If anyone has a nice 80x80 .jpg set of ships that would be great. I’ve removed ships which could be considered “Star Trek” copyright infringement. But that’s left the fleet a bit sparse. A new “yellow” fleet for the Federation is most needed.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I thank all the previous developers (particularly James for answering questions) and server maintainers.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Please send me feedback, even if it’s just “I played it and it pretty much worked” or “I played it and the 10fps was awful”.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For reference, Swift Netrek comes in at about 5000 lines of code (although it is not yet complete). For comparison:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">MacTrek: 31000 lines of source code</div><div class="">Gytha: 7650 lines</div><div class="">BRMH-2.4.0: 36000 lines of source code</div><div class="">COW-3.2.8: 52000 lines of source code</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">Current known issues:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Set login information needs to be toggled back and forth to trigger non-guest login.<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Client may ignore your “preferred team"</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Need to allow keymapping of all keys<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• A few commands may not be implemented (speed 11? speed 12?)</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Player list needs more information<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Experiment with position extrapolation to allow faster than 10fps updates (should make this a switch)<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Improved 80x80 ship bitmaps<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Need to review planet names and messages to avoid copyright infringement.</div></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Select server still has my test server at 192.168.0.10 hardcoded. Need to remove that and allow login to arbitrary server.</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Darrell</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="3F98CAFE-D867-4AC8-BC44-5F29530BCE5D" src="cid:1FBD9FD8-27F1-4425-9D83-025B9B181058@hsd1.ca.comcast.net." class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="99B8F115-BE3E-4B69-8ACA-500DFBAAEBC7" src="cid:8B3E08F7-79F0-4616-A346-7688942122B2@hsd1.ca.comcast.net." class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="92CEBA5F-4D7A-46A7-9BF9-CB5B40008758" src="cid:E44D02B8-A4CA-4E60-BC97-2723702FC089@hsd1.ca.comcast.net." class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>