[Sticky] Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta24 release notes

Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta24 release notes

• Upgraded development platform to Oracle GraalVM JDK21

  We upgraded from GraalVM 20 to GraalVM 21. The internal memory management has not changed so performance will likely be identical to the previous APP version with GraalVM20. But the upgrade is preparing us for more optimizations and more speed to come.

• Improved application startup

  We have added a new startup dialog that indicates the application starting. We decided to introduce this because on some computers the application was a bit slow to start. This dialog when finished will automatically be closed and the startup log will be shown in the General Console window/panel. While working on this, it was clear that we could improve on the startup time of the application by separating different tasks like the OpenGL initialization and loading of native libraries like LibRaw, or the license verification which does take 1-2 seconds as well. We also had to address a problem with application startup problems on Windows which are solved now as you can read below, which also resulted in better startup performance. Depending on the computer and the Operating System, users will experience startup times 2x or even 5x faster than before. On my own main develop computer with Windows 10, startup time is now 2-3 seconds, it used be about 10seconds.

• Fixed Windows startup problems

  As reported here https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/windows/app-no-longer-starts/ some users experienced startup problems on Windows 10 and 11. Some problems were caused by a faulty graphics installation which gave problems to OpenGL initialization. Other problems were caused by that same part, the OpenGL initialization, this triggered Windows or security software to perform scans of what APP was doing, because the OpenGL library needed to unpack native libraries for it's operation. That caused huge slowdowns on some computers. Some as long as several minutes. That particular issue is solved by supplying the native libs ourselves for the OpenGL library, so it does not need to unpack it and thus the security scans are not done. The startup times are now consistent and fast as a consequence.

• Improved native library loading and error handling for OpenGL and LibRaw

  To fix the above issue with OpenGL initialization we had to refine our native library management which deals with providing and actually loading the native libs into our platform. We have added extra information about this in the general console, so we can see better what is happening at startup:

•  Improved and adjusted license management

  As indicated in the 2nd release note for this version, the license verification is done earlier in the startup phase. If the license verification is successful, you will not even see a dialog like before indicating that your license is being checked. Only when license verification fails, a window will pop up after application launch, asking you to enter a license to be able to use Astro Pixel Processor. This should improve startup experience as well.