Stable 53 - final Java 7 release

[Cervator]

We're officially on Java 8 in develop now, with the stable 53 just released being the final version of Terasology that'll work on Java 7. Main feature in this release is probably the auto-updating server list, woo

Full changes listed in Jenkins - as stable 51 actually broke due to a version number quirk, whoops. And 52 as well. Didn't want those release numbers anyway.

Along with Java 8 we've adjusted Javadoc a bunch and are officially dropping author tags for various reasons - see the earlier announcement for details, no objections so far. Easy item to do if somebody is bored or trying to get set up to contribute.

Release contents and related news:

• The global server list (and related tweaks) was added by @msteiger - http://forum.terasology.org/threads/master-server.1269 - you can now also get information about a server on the join page before actually connecting
  
• More multiplayer polish by @Florian like remembering names/colors and showing an online player list when holding down the tab key
  
• Render-factoring by @manu3d as pretty much always
• Loading screen is different than the main menu again and can be changed by modules (like PolyWorld)
• Log files have been moved into timestamped directories + more related improvements
• World gen utility tweaks
• Our Gestalt libraries are growing up, @Immortius has finished with a split out asset system
• WorldViewer is getting really shiny as well, quick intro video coming soon
• Pull requests submitted to the engine repo are now test-built in Jenkins with metrics and such to determine if any unit tests break before we try to merge
  
• Our build server Jenkins can now spin up worker bee servers to add more build capacity - needed for said PR test builds as well as future improvements to module releases

On the horizon:

• Flowing liquids again, finally! @Skaldarnar has put a SimpleLiquids module online that handles the basics. @Linus did a cellular automata approach in the past and we'll pull what inspiration we can from that
• PolyWorld and its awesome islands should be bundled any day now - c'mon @msteiger it is good enough, ship it!
• We have block variants for all the minerals now done by @metouto who is back to work (welcome back!). Now we just need an actual block variant system and to push further with making distinct minerals useful
• Updating our release process to do away with stable releases tied to the engine version number. We're outgrowing it and need to start including update notes for related modules as well

 

[chessandgo]

"We have block variants for all the minerals"

now all we need is a ingot form, nugget form, dust form,and perhaps even a liquid form (looking at you minecraft smeltery mod).

makes me quite happy that we won't be having all those annoying duplicated ore type problems (time to add this that and the other mod, .....aaannd now i have 10 different types of tin ore, dust, bar, and block)

 

[Cervator]

now all we need is a ingot form, nugget form, dust form,and perhaps even a liquid form (looking at you minecraft smeltery mod).

True that

@Josharias has some of the dusts etc in JoshariasSurvival, and we even have an ingot stack shape, so it would take very little work before you could stack properly textured ingots into block spaces in a world.

Need to do a bit of a write-up on what's next for Minerals, so far as building a better and more intelligent "global store" that can be used (and extended) by modules