Mirek's Cellebration (MCell) v.2.20
Copyright (c) 1999 Mirek Wójtowicz, Lublin, Poland
All rights reserved.

Mirek's Cellebration (MCell) is a feature-rich 32-bit Windows
program whose main purpose is exploring existing and creating new
rules and patterns of Conway's Game of Life and other Cellular Automata.

MCell is free for non-commercial use.

You are free to put this program on a CD-ROM, but if you do so
please send me a notification and a copy of the CD, is possible.
And of course spread this program complete with all files.


Contacting the author
=====================

E-Mail:   mirwoj@homemail.com
          mirwoj@opus.chelm.pl
WWW Page: http://www.mirwoj.opus.chelm.pl



What's new in MCell 2.20
========================


2.20.0.383, 31.10.1999
- User palettes got automatic hot keys in the menu.
- Coloring method - Standard/Alternate, is selectable also via the "Colors" menu.
- Much improved scrollbars handling and layout. Scrollbars thumbs' size represents
  the proportion of the visible area.
- RunN - the cycle at which the animation will stop is shown in the left panel of
  the status bar.
- New rules: Bombers, Ebb&Flow
- #COLORING - new keyword in .MCL files allowing specifying the coloring method,
  1 (standard) or 2 (alternate).
  Example: #COLORING 2
- New "Neumann binary" game.
- New "Neumann binary" game rules (from Tomoaki Suzudo):
  Aggregation, Birds, Crystal2, Crystal3a, Crystal3b, Fredkin2, Fredkin3, Lake,
  Plankton, Pond, Typhoon.
- Seeding - possibility to select the statistical / exact randomizing.
- Seeding - possibility to show density in % or as decimal values.
- Windows resources usage radically reduced (by 50%).
- Status bar - small buttons opening game/rule/speed popup windows.


2.10.0.341 Beta, 29.09.1999
- RunN dialog - possibility to run up to the end of the page - most useful in
  1D rules.
- General settings - possibility to configure if randomizing should reset the
  file name and the pattern description.
- Possibility to configure the minimal zoom level at which the grid can be
  displayed.
- New command-line parameter 'LOGGED' allows monitoring and logging the program
  startup.


2.10.0.340 Beta, 27.09.1999
- Correlations analysis.
- Correlations can be saved to and loaded from .CRL files
  (MCell\System\Correlations\folder).
- Program got faster by 40% (big thanks to Johan Bontes for his tips!)
- Weighted Life rules settings - Shift-clicking the "Randomize" button
  does not reset weights.
- Population log to an external .PLG file. File is loadable to Excel.
- New toolbar button for setting the grid on / off.
- Alternate coloring method for all rules without history (Life, Weighted Life,
  1-D, Traffic CA).
- Possibility to copy selection to the clipboard as semigraphics (.*oO)
- Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+C
- Semigraphics can be pasted from the clipboard to the board.
- Statistics - a new checkbox allows enabling/disabling updating.
- New Weighted life rules: CrossPorpoises, Bricks, Fleas, Hogs, MazeMakers,
  Stampede, Simple hex crystal, Upstream, Vineyard, Vineyard2, Starbursts2,
  ZipperMakers


2.10.0.321 Beta, 09.09.1999
- "Undo all cycles" got a [Ctrl+Alt+Z] shortcut and a button.
- Error in RunN dialog initialization causing forcing "Run up to"
  option removed.
- "Repeat last seeding" got a [Ctrl+Shift+R] shortcut and an entry in
  the "File" menu.
- New "Colors" menu options: next / previous state, shortcuts '[' and ']'.
- New "Colors" menu option: Change state of all alive cells to...
- New "Colors" menu option: Change state X to state Y...
- New "Colors" menu option: Swap two states...
- Renamed Traffic CA parameters: Epsilon->Alpha, Gamma->Beta.
- Traffic CA new syntax: TRCA,A,B,D1,D2
- New "Animation" menu option - Run N cycles, that runs the animation
  using settings in the RunN dialog.
- New button "RunN cycles".
- RunN dialog contains now two action buttons:
  "Ok" - accepts changes and closes the dialog,
  "Run" - runs the pattern, the dialog stays open.
- All dialog windows save and restore their last screen positions.
- RunN dialog window is non-modal.
- Dialog windows open when program terminates open automatically upon next startup.
- RunN, Randomize dialogs - action buttons renamed to "Apply".
- Statistics dialog - possibility to show bar for state 0
- Statistics dialog - option for statistics of a defined area
- Statistics dialog - option for statistics of current row in 1D rules.
- Colors bar - Shift-click on any color panel sets the count of states.
- Alternate coloring schemes for Traffic CA. Selectable via Settings.
- Settings - new button allowing to reload settings from the program.
- Statistics - possibility to show distribution as % or as a decimal number.
- Transitions analysis
- 'Run' button stays depressed while the pattern is running.
- Transitions definitions are preserved between sessions.
- Transitions can be saved to and loaded from .TRN files
  (MCell\System\Transitions\folder).
- New "Analysis" menu with Statistics, Transitions, and, soon, with logs.


2.0.0.305,03.08.1999
- Improved detection of non-standard RLE files.
- Hot key for the Colors Bar (F2)
- Error with bad names of seed files removed.
- Possibility to configure randomizing rules tables sparseness
- Many new rules: FrostM, FrostN, Cars, Pond, Cheops, Cooties 2,
  Crawlers, EcoLiBra, Fire sticks, Ladders, Piranha, RanBrain.


2.0.0.302, 21.07.1999
- Error with saving color palettes removed.
- Many new patterns (in Career, Star Wars, etc.).
- User DLLs can be also programmed in C. Included are projects for MSVC.
- New "DNA" rule by Christopher G. Langton.
- User DLLs handle also 1-D rules.


2.0.0.296 Beta, 12.07.1999
- Subzooms 1/2 .. 1/64 (where single screen pixels correspond to more
  that 1 cell).
- Undo activity was not restored from previous sessions.
- Esc and Help are handled in RunN dialog.
- File Manager - new options in a local menu: Rename file and Delete file.
- File Manager - list of files is updated after "Save as...".
- Lines marking the universe border are thicker.
- "Generations" game rules can be defined using Rudy Rucker's NLUKY codes.
- "Rules" settings - additional spin button allows easy game selection.
- "Board" settings - Optimized redrawing in subzooms. Faster, but of
  lower quality.
- #PALETTE - new keyword in .MCL files allowing specifying color palettes.
  Example: #PALETTE 2_2_1
- When grid is not displayed, cells fill the whole fields, without
  1 pixel gap.
- Error with saving color palettes removed


2.0.0.281,04.07.1999
- New colors bar, easy active state selection.
- Reorganization of menus, new "Colors" menu.
- New module creating bitmaps: either of the window,
  or of the whole universe.
- Randomizing dialog: circular areas, interior/exterior,
  saving/restoring sets.
- Program properly restores the window size after terminating in
  maximized mode.
- Width of the File Manager is saved and restored.


2.0.0.260 Beta, 27.06.1999
- MCLife name changed to Mirek's Cellebration (MCell). 
  The author of the new name is David Griffeath.
- New logo and program icon.
- Removed bug with <Tab> and <arrows keys> usage in dialog windows.


2.0.0.258 Beta, 25.06.1999
- Easy color palette selection from the 'Colors' menu.
- A new "Run n / Run to n cycles" dialog, possibility to specify how
  often should the board be redisplayed.
- New rules.


2.00.0.205 Beta, 02.06.1999
- New rule "Transers" (345/26/5) from John Elliott.
- Possibility of selecting the active drawing state/color.
- The "Colors' button" allows looping between available states/colors.
  Shift-click activates the previous state (color).
- The active color is displayed in the status bar, before
  the count of colors.
- Drawing with the Shift key pressed clears cells.
  Drawing with the Ctrl key pressed creates cells with state 1,
  regardless of the active color.
- Count of states increased to 25 (24 alive + 1 dead).
- "Faders" rule definition changed from 2/2/8 to more accurate 2/2/16
- New "Rules Table" Game, supporting Moore 8/9 and
  von Neumann 4/5 neighbourhoods.
- Weighted Life - buttons clearing all S or B rules from the list.
  Shift+Del button is no longer supported.
- Rules Table - button Clear;
- Randomizing the Rules Table.
- New David Griffeath's "Cyclic CA" Game.
- New Statistics dialog, the distribution graph. Shortcut: F9
- New pattern randomizing dialog, with many options.
- Shift-clicking the "Randomize" option performs randomizing
  using last settings, without opening the dialog.
- First "Cyclic CA" rules: CCA, 313
- Greenberg-Hastings Model in Cyclic CA.
- New "Colorize the pattern randomly" dialog. Shortcut: F4
- Possibility to save/load user color palettes
- Many new Cyclic CA rules:
  Perfect, Maps, GH Macaroni, Turbulent phase, Fossil debris,
  3-color bootstrap, Stripes, Cyclic spirals, GH, GH Weak spirals,
  GH Percolation mix, GH Multistrands.
- New "User DLL" Game - MCell got programmable from outside!
- Many new rules
- F5 refreshes also the list of files in the File Manager.
- The board does not have to be a square, x size can be
  different than y size.
- Increased board size, up to 100000 x 2500.
- Possibility to configure the max. count of cells in the
  universe that can go to Undo.
- The notation of the max. count of colors has changed -
  now it includes also 0, and is greater by 1 than in previous versions.
- New game type - "Specific rules", that contains hard-coded rules,
  otherwise impossible to specify.
- Traffic CA, 1-dimensional rule in Special rules game.
- Next big extensions in Random patterns generator.
- New concept of pattern seeds;
  available in the new  option "Seed / randomize" universe.
- Scroll bars added to the lattice area.
  The visibility of scroll bars can be set in the View menu.
- Settings - possibility to specify that only the top line should
  be saved in 1-D CA.
- Faster redrawing of large patterns

