ANN: Python Imaging Library 1.1.4 beta 1

[PythonWare]

PIL 1.1.4 beta 1 is now available from:

    http://effbot.org/downloads

The distribution is available in source form (look for Imaging
tarballs), and as prebuilt installers for Python 2.1, 2.2 and
2.3 (beta 1) on Windows.

A list of changes can be found here (also below):

    http://effbot.org/zone/pil-changes-114.htm

...and a draft handbook can be found here:

    http://effbot.org/books/imagingbook/

(the main release will be available from www.pythonware.com,
as usual)

enjoy,
the pil team at secret labs ab

    "Secret Labs AB -- makers of fine pythonware since 1997"


*** Changes from release 1.1.3 to 1.1.4 ***

(1.1.4 beta 1 released)

+ Added experimental EXIF support for JPEG files.  To extract EXIF
  information from a JPEG file, open the file as usual, and call the
  "_getexif" method.  If successful, this method returns a dictionary
  mapping EXIF TIFF tags to values.  If the file does not contain EXIF
  data, the "_getexif" method returns None.

  The "ExifTags" module contains a dictionary mapping tags to tag
  names.

  The "_getexit" interface will most likely change in future versions.

+ Fixed a bug when using the "transparency" option with the GIF
  writer.

+ Added limited support for "bitfield compression" in BMP files
  and DIB buffers, for 15-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit images.  This
  also fixes a problem with ImageGrab module when copying screen-
  dumps from the clipboard on 15/16/32-bit displays.

+ Added experimental WAL (Quake 2 textures) loader.  To use this
  loader, import WalImageFile and call the "open" method in that
  module.

(1.1.4a4 released)

+ Added updated SANE driver (Andrew Kuchling, Abel Deuring)

+ Use Python's "mmap" module on non-Windows platforms to read some
  uncompressed formats using memory mapping.  Also added a "frombuffer"
  method that allows you to access the contents of an existing string
  or buffer object as if it were an image object.

+ Fixed a memory leak that could appear when processing mode "P"
  images (from Pier Paolo Glave)

+ Ignore Unicode characters in the BDF loader (from Graham Dumpleton)

(1.1.4a3 released; windows only)

+ Added experimental RGBA-on-RGB drawing support.  To use RGBA
  colours on an RGB image, pass "RGBA" as the second string to
  the ImageDraw.Draw constructor.

+ Added support for non-ASCII strings (Latin-1) and Unicode
  to the truetype font renderer.

+ The ImageWin "Dib" object can now be constructed directly from
  an image object.

+ The ImageWin module now allows you use window handles as well
  as device contexts.  To use a window handle, wrap the handle in
  an ImageWin.HWND object, and pass in this object instead of the
  device context.

(1.1.4a2 released)

+ Improved support for 16-bit unsigned integer images (mode "I;16").
  This includes TIFF reader support, and support for "getextrema"
  and "point" (from Klamer Shutte).

+ Made the BdfFontFile reader a bit more robust (from Kevin Cazabon
  and Dmitry Vasiliev)

+ Changed TIFF writer to always write Compression tag, even when
  using the default compression (from Greg Couch).

+ Added "show" support for Mac OS X (from Dan Wolfe).

+ Added clipboard support to the "ImageGrab" module (Windows only).
  The "grabclipboard" function returns an Image object, a list of
  filenames (not in 1.1.4), or None if neither was found.

(1.1.4a1 released)

+ Improved support for drawing RGB data in palette images.  You can
  now use RGB tuples or colour names (see below) when drawing in a
  mode "P" image.  The drawing layer automatically assigns color
  indexes, as long as you don't use more than 256 unique colours.

+ Moved self test from MiniTest/test.py to ./selftest.py.

+ Added support for CSS3-style color strings to most places that
  accept colour codes/tuples.  This includes the "ImageDraw" module,
  the Image "new" function, and the Image "paste" method.

  Colour strings can use one of the following formats: "#f00",
  "#ff0000", "rgb(255,0,0)", "rgb(100%,0%,0%)", "hsl(0, 100%, 50%)",
  or "red" (most X11-style colour names are supported).  See the
  documentation for the "ImageColor" module for more information.

+ Fixed DCX decoder (based on input from Larry Bates)

+ Added "IptcImagePlugin.getiptcinfo" helper to extract IPTC/NAA
  newsphoto properties from JPEG, TIFF, or IPTC files.

+ Support for TrueType/OpenType fonts has been added to
  the standard distribution.  You need the freetype 2.0
  library.

+ Made the PCX reader a bit more robust when reading 2-bit
  and 4-bit PCX images with odd image sizes.

+ Added "Kernel" class to the ImageFilter module.  This class
  allows you to filter images with user-defined 3x3 and 5x5
  convolution kernels.

+ Added "putdata" support for mode "I", "F" and "RGB".

+ The GIF writer now supports the transparency option (from
  Denis Benoit).

+ A HTML version of the module documentation is now shipped
  with the source code distribution.  You'll find the files in
  the Doc subdirectory.

+ Added support for Palm pixmaps (from Bill Janssen).  This
  change was listed for 1.1.3, but the "PalmImagePlugin" driver
  didn't make it into the distribution.

+ Improved decoder error messages.

-end-