Vala 0.18.0 + GTK 3.4.2 for Win32

This is an update of the unofficial build of the Vala programming language for Win32 kindly contributed by tarnyko. His announcement is as follows:

I come back to announce a bundle for Vala 0.18.0 and GTK+ 3.4.2 on Windows. for Vala 0.18.0 and GTK+ 3.4.2 on Windows.
Download link here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=node/13
or here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/dl/vala.htm
(A helpful being told me that my formers installers had the bad habit of emptying the PATH variable if it was longer than 1023 characters: http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=comment/307#comment-307. It is now fixed for all installers ; please re-download them just in case.)

News for ValaWinPKG users

• The repos for Vala 0.16.0 and 0.18.0 are finally up !
• There are some packages regressions:
• FreeGLUT VAPI doesn't seem to work with Vala > 0.12.0. Needs some fixes from its original maintainer;
• Poppler doesn't work anymore, should apparently be updated. Will do this when I have time.
• There is a new package: LibUSB.
• If you want to use these new repos, you should really update ValaWinPKG before (http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=node/12). Sorry, but it's the last time it should be necessary.
• The new version of ValaWinPKG allows you to have multiple Vala installations and maintain their packages separately. See this tutorial (http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=node/14) for more info.

Regards,
Tarnyko

Gee 0.8.0 released

Together with Vala 0.18.0, the Vala collections library has also released the major 0.8.0 version, due to changes to the ABI.

Changes

• Fix Traversable.chop (bug #684348)
• Remove unnecessary method
• Update README
• Move everything to GenericAccessor

For more information and downloads see the Gee homepage.

Vala 0.18.0 released

The new stable branch of the Vala programming language has reached the 0.18.x version. There are major fixes and enhancements since the 0.16.x that are described below.

Changes since 0.16.0

• Add libgnome-menu-3.0, gstreamer-1.0 core, gst-plugins-base-1.0, gobject-introspection-1.0 bindings.
• Support subclassing of GLib.Source.
• Switch pango bindings to .gir.
• Warn when accessing static members with an instance reference.
• Recompute length when casting between array types. 
• Support [GenericAccessors] attribute for interfaces.
• Deprecate implicit .begin for async methods.
• Drop Dova and POSIX profile.
• Require and target GLib >= 2.18.
• Support async creation methods.
• Improve assertion messages.
• Add --enable-gobject-tracing commandline option. 
• Support simple method-level profiling.
• Add VALA_CHECK_MODULES and VALA_PROG_VAPIGEN to vala.m4.
• Bug fixes and binding updates.

The [GenericAccessors] attribute allows using generics in interface methods. Before this change, it was impossible to access the generics information of a subclass from within an interface method. Adding this attribute on top of an interface will autogenerate virtual methods at the C level that are automatically implemented by subclasses. It must be noted that using this feature on an existing interface will break the ABI.

The method-level profiling is enabled by adding the [Profile] attribute on top of your methods. When your application terminates, some stats will be printed to the output.

For more information and download see the Vala homepage.

Vala bundle for Windows

Hi,
tarnyko contributed an unofficial Vala bundle containing Vala 0.12.0 and GTK+ 3.4.2 for Windows XP/Vista/7.
This one contains GTK+ 2.20.0, too, so you can still compile older GTK+ programs without modification.
Download here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=node/1
or here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/dl/vala.htm

For ValaWinPKG users, the corresponding repository has been uploaded. A few notes:

• you should definitely update the program (here: http://www.tarnyko.net/dl/valawinpkg.htm) because 0.9b is broken with this bundl; 
• newer GLib allows use to have a Clutter package 
• newer GLib, however, gives problems with older LibGee and WebKit, so they've been removed from this new repo (should only be temporary);
• LibMX package is planned.

Final note:
A Vala 0.16.0 for Win32 bundle is WIP. It already works, only needs a few tweaks before uploading.

Original discussion here: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/vala-list/2012-September/msg00065.html

Vala 0.17.5 has been released

Hello, the new 0.17.5 development version of the Vala programming language has been released with lots of enhancements, bug fixes and language bindings.

Changes

• Support subclassing of GLib.Source.
• Switch pango bindings to .gir.
• Add gstreamer-1.0 core bindings.
• Add gst-plugins-base-1.0 bindings.
• Add gobject-introspection-1.0 bindings.
• Bug fixes and binding updates. 

More information and download at the Vala homepage.

Vala 0.17.4 released

The 0.17.4 development version of the Vala programming language has been released. Some interesting changes have been introduced, while others have been dropped toward a more cleaned up code base.

Changes

• Warn when accessing static members with an instance reference.
• Recompute length when casting between array types.
• Support [GenericAccessors] attribute for interfaces.
• Deprecate implicit .begin for async methods.
• Drop Dova profile.
• Drop POSIX profile.
• Bug fixes and binding updates. 

The [GenericAccessors] attribute allows using generics in interface methods. Before this change, it was impossible to access the generics information of a subclass from within an interface method. Adding this attribute on top of an interface will autogenerate virtual methods at the C level that are automatically implemented by subclasses. It must be noted that using this feature on an existing interface will break the ABI.

More information and download at the Vala homepage.

Vala 0.17.3 released

The new 0.17.3 version of the Vala programming language has been released. We'll include the changes of the 0.17.1 release as we haven't posted them previously. We skipped the 0.17.2 and 0.16.1 versions as they haven't enhanced any feature.

Changes (both 0.17.3 and 0.17.1)

• Require and target GLib >= 2.18.
• Support async creation methods.
• Improve assertion messages.
• Add --enable-gobject-tracing commandline option.
• Bug fixes and binding updates. 

More information and downloads at the Vala homepage.

Vala 0.17.0 released

The new 0.17.x development cycle has started. This is the first release introducing several bug fixes and some enhancements.

Changes

• Support simple method-level profiling.
• Add VALA_CHECK_MODULES and VALA_PROG_VAPIGEN to vala.m4.
• Bug fixes and binding updates. 

The method-level profiling is enabled by adding the [Profile] attribute on top of your methods. When your application terminates, some stats will be printed to the output.

More information at the homepage of Vala.

Vala 0.16.0 released

The new stable version of the Vala programming language has been released.

Changes since 0.15.2

• Add udisks2 bindings.
• Bug fixes and binding updates. 

More information and downloads at the Vala homepage.

Vala 0.15.2 released

The new 0.15.2 version of the Vala programming language has been released. This version includes several bug fixes (including some regression fixes) and small but worthy enhancements.

Changes

• Switch poppler-glib bindings to .gir.
• Many bug fixes and binding updates.

 More information at the Vala homepage.

Valadoc website renewal

The valadoc website for unstable packages gets renewed:

• A fast search for looking up symbols
• Tooltips to read signature and short descriptions of symbols without leaving the page
• Ajax loading of the web pages
• It has a slightly new look that resembles gnome.org

Planned features:

• Comments by the community, for sharing experience and examples
• Proper syntax highlighting

This new version will be soon available for stable packages as well.

Valadoc is a tool for generating documentation for Vala projects and external projects featuring a GIR file, and much more.

Vala 0.14.2 released

The new 0.14.2 stable version of the Vala programming language has been released. This version doesn't only include many bug fixes but also many enhancements.

Changes

• Add libnl-3.0 bindings.
• Add packagekit-glib2 bindings.
• Add xtst bindings.
• Many bug fixes and binding updates. 

More information at the Vala homepage.

Vala 0.15.1 released

The new 0.15.1 version of the Vala programming language has been released. This version introduces a lot of enhancements and regression fixes with regards to the previous 0.15.0 release.

Changes

• Support arrays with nullable elements.
• Add support to .gir reader and writer.
• Switch clutter-gtk-1.0 bindings to .gir.
• Switch gio-2.0 bindings to .gir.
• Add cogl-pango-1.0 bindings.
• Add gdl-3.0 bindings.
• Add libnl-3.0 bindings.
• Add packagekit-glib2 bindings.
• Add xtst bindings.
• Many bug fixes and binding updates. 

Important breakage note
Now captured parameters of array type are no more copied implicitly by Vala. A captured parameter is one of the following:

• Either it is a parameter of an async method
• Or it is a parameter used inside of a closure

The advantage is that async methods in GIO that have arrays as parameters (like buffers) can finally be overridden, otherwise impossible. Same goes parameters referred by closures.
Therefore, if you were relying on the implicit array copy made by Vala in these cases, please take care of this change.

More information and downloads at the Vala homepage.