This being the last development week of the year, I've been rushing to get some tasks done leading up to the last release of 2023 (which ended up being two last releases because of a late bug introduced by a typo, which snuck past other checks). There are a few things I wanted to get to but didn't have time for, but overall I'm pretty happy with where it sits going into the new year.

Recent discussion of SIDE_MAP and its inadequacies has led to a spark of new ideas and a recent fix, with more stuff on the way. In BYOND 516 I have plans to alter the way this works, hopefully the last time changes will be needed. There's also a related issue with client.dir and non-square views which I had wanted to deal with in this latest release but I realized the potential for raising new issues was way too high, so it waits for January—but not for 516.

I'm still pushing for 516 to be more of a feature-light release (more specifically, avoiding any big features outside of WebView2) and getting off this track of insanely long beta cycles. 515 has been in beta way too long, although there are good reasons it ended up being that way. But we're at the point where the only reason I haven't moved it to stable is because of time pressures at the end of the year. It would've been nice to transition 515 to the stable channel back in November but I think the writing was on the wall even then. Anyway, 516 has WebView2 and the rest of it is gonna be relatively low-key, even though there will be a fair share of good stuff beyond the browser.

Again I really want to extend my thanks to everyone who made the new development machine possible this year, especially the huge outpouring of support from the SS13 community who've been absolute legends. And thank you to all the BYOND Members and supporters on other platforms who keep the lights on day to day.

Christmas is nearly here, and I wish all of you a very merry one. Frost the cookies, mak gam, be excellent to each other, and I'll see you back here in 2024.