Golly Help: Changes

Changes in version 5.0 (released October 2025)

- Created a new application icon (with help from Claude) to celebrate Golly's 20th anniversary.
- Removed the Convert Old Rules command from the Control menu. Golly no longer supports .table/tree/colors/icons files.
- Added Add Folder and Remove Folder commands to the File menu. Using Add Folder is the best way to allow quick and easy access to your own patterns/rules/scripts (see the first item in Hints and Tips).
- Added a Stop If Dead option to the Control menu.
- Added a Show XY State option to the View menu.
- Added support for @NAMES in a .rule file. The names are displayed to the right of the scroll bar used to change the drawing state, and in the status bar if the Show XY State option is ticked. To see examples, open circuit.mcl or worm-1040512.rle.
- Added support for @RULE data in a .rle file. For example, open calcyman-primer.rle.
- Added "-" and "+" buttons to the help window for changing the text size.
- Golly now uses C++11's Mersenne Twister for randomly filling a selection, rather than rand(), since rand() has a somewhat low period (about 2^31 or 2^32 on various platforms).
- The maximum grid size in the Larger than Life algorithm has been increased from 100 million cells to 1 billion cells (note that Golly will use about 4.5GB of memory if it gets near that limit).
- Fixed slow scrolling at some scales when using arrow keys.
- Fixed Control > Reset being called via a keyboard shortcut while the mouse is drawing or selecting cells.
- Fixed cosmetic problems with the state boxes and directory icons in the macOS app.
- Fixed a problem with the About dialog in the macOS app.
- Updated Lua to version 5.4.8.

Changes in version 4.3 (released October 2024)

- Added the new Investigator rule family to the Super algorithm.
- Adjusted Super conversion scripts to handle Investigator rules, including a new toInvestigator.lua conversion script that will be mapped by default to Alt+I (Option+I on Mac) whenever Golly creates a new GollyPrefs file.
- Minor improvements to error-checking and recovery in toHistory.lua and toSuper.lua conversion scripts.
- Various changes to the RLE parsing code, mainly for consistency with LifeViewer (see details here).
- Fixed a crash due to a bug when freeing icon bitmaps.
- Fixed a crash on Silicon Macs when running an overlay script like 3D.lua.
- Fixed a crash on Windows that could occur after disconnecting an audio device.
- Fixed a potential crash in NVIDIA driver on Windows.
- Fixed a crash by limiting the scale to no more than 2^(2^20) cells per pixel.
- Fixed a bug that affected all multi-state hashlife algorithms (changing a cell in a very large pattern could result in a corrupted universe).
- Fixed some bugs handling filenames with underscores or ampersands in the Open/Run Recent submenus.
- Fixed orientation of Custom neighborhood in the Larger than Life algorithm.
- Fixed an assertion in progress bar update when downloading a file from a web server using gzip compression.
- Better support for .rule files with very long lines. An error message is now displayed if a line exceeds the maximum length of 4,000 characters.
- The Pattern Info window displays Unicode characters correctly (assuming the comments are UTF-8 encoded).
- 3D.lua has a Pattern Info command (in its View menu) which will display the current pattern's comments in the help window. You can also click on the new "i" button.
- The Larger than Life algorithm now supports Aligned Checkerboard neighborhood (ND).
- New script safeopenclip.lua will attempt to open the clipboard as a pattern. If the pattern contains a legacy rule it will first be converted into a supported rule. If the pattern contains an unsupported rule it will be opened in a benign 256 state rule so it can be manually manipulated and an HTML page with a download link to the LifeWiki rule repository will appear. The default key binding for this script is Alt-O (Option-O on Mac).
- Modified goto.lua to check for a number too large for Lua (if so then the script exits and recommends using goto.py instead).
- File > Run Clipboard displays a nicer error message if the clipboard doesn't contain Lua/Python code.
- Removed optional support for Perl.
- Updated Lua to version 5.4.6.
- Added a query command (for Lua or Python) that displays a modal dialog with customizable button labels.
- Lots of new patterns:
  g3b3s23-breeder.rle, 4c-212-roomba-bug.rle, 50c-spaceships.rle, 996c-2-spaceship.rle, crystal-chaos.rle, factorio-small-objects.rle, hexagonal-grid-diagonal-solid-ship.rle, hexagonal-grid-orthogonal-solid-ship.rle, quadratic-bugs-spaceships.rle, quadratic-replicating-bug.rle, slow-backrake.rle, triangular-grid-orthogonal-solid-ship.rle, triangular-grid-Sierpinski-generator.rle, 34-oscillators.rle, b3578s23-2d-replicator.rle, b3578s23-failed-2d-replicator.rle, gems-c5648-spaceship.rle, sqrt-replicator.rle, die-1120271.rle, three-halves-growth.rle, millionaire-puffer.rle, two-glider-collisions-lh.rle, 1-cell-methuselah-538.rle, four-interacting-sierpinski-generators.rle, infinite-photon-factory.rle, kite-sierpinski-generator.rle, log3-5-fractal-generator.rle, pascal-mod-3-generator.rle, pascal-mod-5-generator.rle, pascal-pseudo-mod-4-generator.rle, sierpinski-like-log5-12.rle, sierpinski-variant-fractal.rle, agaric-1.rle, agaric-2.rle, bounded-rule-90-oscillator.rle, comparison-2.rle, comparison-3.rle, comparison-4.rle, comparison.rle, five-margolus-media.rle, five-margolus-media2.rle, less-obvious-medium.rle, m10-duoplet-shaped-medium.rle, m10-miniaturized.rle, m10-plus-shaped-medium.rle, m10-pond-shaped-medium.rle, m10-self-similarity.rle, m10-sparky-medium.rle, m10-spiky-medium.rle, m11-miniaturized.rle, modulo-2.rle, modulo-3.rle, modulo-5.rle, modulo-7.rle, p3-m11-antimedium.rle, replicator-mod-2.rle, replicator-mod-3.rle, replicator-mod-5.rle, replicator-mod-7.rle, big-pseudocyclic-whitespace-oscillator.rle, cloverleaf-chain-emulation.rle, cloverleaf-chain.rle, loopability-104-rro.rle, oblique-frontend-rro.rle, p17490.rle, power-of-two-extensible-oscillators.rle, rro-interactions-and-glider-gun.rle, rro-p420.rle, two-cell-p195.rle, two-cell-p410.rle, branching-triangles.rle, chaotic-1d-replicator.rle, chaotic-2d-replicator-q1.rle, chaotic-2d-replicator-q2.rle, chaotic-2d-replicator-r1.rle, chaotic-2d-replicator-r2.rle, fading-plus-shapes.rle, flying-sierpinski-triangles.rle, fractal-envelope.rle, glider-emitting-linear-replicator.rle, lightspeed-rule-150-replicator.rle, linear-replicator-with-replicating-strings.rle, looping-bee.rle, one-and-a-half-fractal.rle, partial-fractal-tracer.rle, polyglot-replicator.rle, quadratic-replicator-produces-gliders.rle, quadratic-replicator-puffer.rle, quadraticish-ruler.rle, rhombic-ruler-resembling-replicator.rle, rule-30-replicator-p2.rle, rule-30-replicator-p3.rle, smaller-sqrt-replicator.rle, space-filling-Sierpinski-triangle-replicator.rle, space-filling-line-triangle-replicator.rle, spaceship-producing-quadratic-replicator.rle, three-way-replicator.rle, waves-triangle.rle, whitespace-quadratic-replicator.rle, ironic-spaceship.rle, rebellious-lwss.rle, single-cell-slow-ship.rle, thighlife-replicator-based-spaceships.rle, cross-puffer.rle, whitespace-puffer.rle, langton-s-ant-simulator.rle, novelty-cross.rle, rectangle-with-crystallographic-defect.rle, self-similar-radial-pattern-generator.rle, strange-x.rle, sweet-revenge.rle, temporary-superbreeder.rle, whitespace-breeder.rle, circle-generator.rle, smosmosmosmos.rle, so-many-ships-2.rle, triangular-replicator-turmite.rle, von-neumann-merge.rle, p126-christmas-tree.rle3, rokicki-replicator-rule.rle3.
- Reformatted and renamed many Larger than Life and Generations patterns to use Golly native HROT format and/or an .rle extension instead of .mcl: banner.rle, bloomerang.rle, burst.rle, caterpillars.rle, delta.rle, ebb-and-flow.rle, fireworks.rle, lava.rle, lines.rle, meteor-guns.rle, nova.rle, perfect-spiral.rle, sedimental.rle, steeplechase.rle, transers.rle, what-a-mess.rle, blinkers.rle, bosco.rle, bug-collection.rle, bug-gun.rle, bug-reactions.rle, butterfly.rle, globe.rle, gnarl.rle, gun-collection.rle, jitterbug.rle, liquid-methuseblob-soup.rle, majority.rle, modern-art.rle, r100-alien-bug.rle, r100-neumann-bug.rle, r50-unknown-fate-bug.rle, r500-alien-bug.rle, slow-ship.rle, soldier-bugs.rle, waffle.rle.
- Deleted pattern: oscillator-stamp-collection-12August2022.rle
  (replaced by oscillator-stamp-collection-31January2023.rle).
- The comments in a large number of existing patterns have been modified (broken links deleted or fixed, and the formatting of paragraphs made more consistent).
- Added new rules required by some of the new patterns: Circle, Display256, MarBlocks-3-rep, MarBlocks-5-rep, MarBlocks-7-rep, MarBlocks3-OT-2x2-minimal, MarBlocks5-OT-2x2-minimal, MarBlocks7-OT-2x2-minimal, SMOSMOSMOSMOS_Rule, SoManyShips2, TriRep.

Changes in version 4.2 (released August 2022)

- The default stack size for Golly (and bgolly) on Windows has been increased from 1MB to 32MB.
- Fixed a bug in script commands like g.setpos that accept integers as strings (large negative values less than -1 billion were not parsed correctly).
- Fixed a number of bugs that could result in an "illegal operation while calculating" warning (after which Golly usually crashed).
- Performance improvements to Larger than Life NL (Triangular) and NB (Checkerboard) rules.
- Updated Lua to version 5.4.4. All Lua functions that take a file path (dofile, io.open, etc) now support UTF-8 paths on Windows.
- Added support for https links when downloading files from online archives.
- New patterns contributed primarily by GUYTU6J, mostly in OCA (non-Conway's Life) rules, plus updates to Life stamp collections by Matthias Merzenich:
  Added to Generations folder: 9-43-at-knight-rake-gun.rle, flying-sierpinski.rle, p8009-gun.rle, snake-square-oscillators.rle
  Added to Non-Totalistic folder: 5c101-technology.rle, b2-a4s1-wavestretcher.rle, bubbles-in-phoenician-agar.rle, chaos-boxes.rle, cross-puffer.rle, double-sierpinski-builder.rle, exponential-block-pusher.rle, five-margolus-media2.rle, flying-and-oscillating-diamonds.rle, goldilocks.rle, modern-art-puffthing.rle, p17490.rle, p532-checkerboard-puffer.rle, slant-sierpinski-generator.rle, slow-expanding-box.rle, sparse-c7.rle, w110-rosary-example.rle
  Added to Non-Totalistic/Guns folder: atpp-48c336-repship-p4032-gun.rle, glider-24mer-gun.rle, p56-gun-in-strobing-checkerboard.rle
  Added to Non-Totalistic/Replicators folder: thickening-replicator.rle, wave-producing-replicator.rle, whitespace-adjustable-replicators.rle
  Added to Life-Like folder: b026s1-unidimensional-spaceships.rle, mortality.rle, waffle-rake.rle
  Updated in Life-Like folder: drylife-p480-rake-gun.rle (typo fix).
  Added to Life folder: p148-B29-gun.rle 20-cell-quadratic-growth.rle
  Updated in Life folder: spacefiller.rle, quartermax.rle, honey-farm-hasslers.rle, traffic-light-hasslers.rle, c2-orthogonal.rle, c4-diagonal.rle, c4-orthogonal.rle, short-thin.rle, smallest-low-period.rle, spaceship-types.rle, oscillator-stamp-collection-12August2022.rle
- Moved/renamed whiteboard-17c2415-spaceship.rle, sierpinski-builder.rle, wolfram22.mc.
- Reorganized patterns in HashLife folder into subfolders "Construction", "Eventful", and "Metacell".
- Links and dates in many pattern comments updated to standard format (e.g., "https" instead of "http", no "www" before "conwaylife.com").

Changes in version 4.1 (released November 2021)

- Golly's audio support is now enabled by default. The overlay's "sound" command has been removed and replaced by an equivalent sound command with a nicer syntax (for Lua or Python). Note that you no longer have to create an overlay to play sounds. See pop-sounds.lua or pop-sounds.py for simple examples. Other scripts that play sounds are breakout.lua and credits.lua.
- The Mac app is a universal binary that runs natively on Intel or Silicon and requires macOS 10.11+.
- The cell population inside and outside of a selection can now be displayed in the status bar. Use Edit Preference: "Show selection population" to enable (default is disabled). To prevent lag the population is only displayed if the calculation takes less than 5ms while selecting or less than 500ms when the selection is complete.
- Lua's sleep command now has a resolution of about 1ms on Windows (previously it was about 15ms).
- The setoption command now recognizes "showcellborders" for showing or hiding cell borders when zoomed in > 2x.
- If the "Save Extended RLE" option is ticked then the store command now ensures a non-zero generation count is included in the saved file's #CXRLE comment line.
- Fixed a bug in Mac app when drawing while a pattern is generating (only on Retina screens).
- Fixed a bug in Larger than Life weighted neighborhoods with negative counts.
- Fixed some problems in hexgrid.lua.
- The performance of the QuickLife algorithm on patterns in bounded grids has been significantly improved (and a problem fixed that could cause a gradual slowing down of patterns in partially bounded grids).
- Updated Lua to version 5.4.3.
- New patterns, primarily in OCA (non-Conway's Life) rules: b3-s23-g3-spaceship-breeder.rle, isotropic-rule-wire-construction-gun.rle, 52513m.rle, oscillator-stamp-collection-24Nov2021.rle, crystallizing-dirty-superstring.rle, liquid-methuseblob-soup.rle, r50-unknown-fate-bug.rle, binary-counter-and-iterated-log-gun.rle, drylife-p480-rake-gun.rle, highlife-c98o-spaceship-p1728-gun.rle, lfod-flying-rule110-simulator.rle, pedestrian-life-oblique-rake-gun.rle, 52513m.rle, conga-line-switch-engine-extender.rle, ordovician-radiation.rle, sawtooth177.rle, 1d-turing-machine.rle, checkerboard-spaceships-and-growth.rle, elastic-growth.rle, moving-crystallographic-defects.rle, five-margolus-media.rle, justfriends-p8256-c4-rake.rle, loopability-104-rro.rle, oblique-frontend-rro.rle, whitespace-puffer.rle, wickstretcher-explosion.rle, leaplife-p361-glider-gun.rle, myrtlelife-rake-gun.rle, ripples-p1366-gun.rle, glitter2-p312-2c12d-gun.rle, fractal-making-replicator.rle, rulerish-replicator.rle, triangular-replicator.rle, irregular-triangular-replicator.rle, pascal-mod-3-generator.rle, replicator-blooming-spaceships.rle, rule-110-replicator.rle, sierpinski-like-log5-12.rle, weird-replicator-generator.rle, c2-p146808-orthogonal-spaceship.rle, 16engine-74,46c378-spaceship.rle, adjustable-slope-spaceships.rle, hive-spaceship-collection.rle, omosso-p79576-spaceship.rle, spaghetti2-spaceship-collection.rle. tlife-8c282-spaceship.rle, tubular-geminoid.rle, whitespace-1176c4704o-spaceship-predecessor.rle, whitespace-17c2415-spaceship.rle, crystal-cathedral-09-novelty.rle, exploratorium.rle.gz.
- Updated 2c5-orthogonal.rle, c4-orthogonal.rle, honey-farm-hasslers.rle, phase-shift.rle, pure-nonfiller-LifeHistory.rle, short-thin.rle, spaceship-types.rle, traffic-light-hasslers.rle.
- Moved/renamed patterns b2ein-spaceships-and-rakes.rle, horiship-guns.rle, intergalactic-cruise-ship-factory.rle, rr14gun.rle, justfriends-p137loop.rle, justfriends-oscillators.rle, justfriends-p384drifter.rle, justfriends-spaceships.rle, p42-knightship.rle, pondpuffer-spaceship.rle, unit-fraction-orthogonal-spaceships.zip, calcyman-primer.zip, cambrian-explosion.rle.
- Removed patterns: DRH-oscillators.rle, p8256c4dirtyrake.rle, sawtooth6b.rle.

Changes in version 4.0 (released October 2020)

NOTE: This release coincides with the 50th anniversary of Martin Gardner's Scientific American column that introduced John Conway's Game of Life.

- Golly no longer supports 32-bit systems.
- Golly now requires Python 3.3+ (64-bit) to run .py scripts.
- Updated Lua to version 5.4.1.
- A new Super algorithm has been added.
- The Larger than Life algorithm now supports HROT format rules, B0 emulation and many new neighborhoods including weighted and custom neighborhoods.
- New script create-custom-ltl.lua creates Larger than Life custom rule strings.
- The maximum number of characters in a rule string has been increased from 500 to 2000.
- Rule strings with more than 63 characters are displayed in the main window's title bar using this shortened format: [first30chars ... last30chars].
- showinviewer.lua: LifeViewer now fills the browser window and resizes with the browser.
- New script update-viewer.lua downloads the latest version of LifeViewer to use with showinviewer.lua.
- browse-patterns.lua can now open the current slideshow pattern in LifeViewer.
- The new getgridtype command can be used to get the current grid type.
- Fixed a bug in g.setrule that could result in a later undo not restoring the correct rule.

Changes in version 3.4 (released August 2020)

NOTE: This is the last version that will support 32-bit systems. It's also the last version that will support Python 2.x. All future versions of Golly will only run on 64-bit systems and will require a Python 3.x (64-bit) installation to run .py scripts.

- Mac app now supports Retina screens (no more fuzzy text).
- Keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to these new actions: Open Recent Pattern and Run Recent Script.
- New script showinviewer.lua opens the current pattern in LifeViewer in your default browser. Examples of LifeViewer scripting commands can be found in the Patterns/Life/Rakes folder. (Note that lifeviewer.lua is no longer needed and has been removed.)
- New pattern: Devore/Mahler-rep.zip in Self-Rep.
- Fixed a bug that caused incorrect pattern comments to be displayed.
- Fixed a bug in the Mac app that caused ctrl-O to generate two key down events.
- Fixed a problem with Mac app not seeing certain key combinations (ctrl-Q and option-EINU`).

Changes in version 3.3 (released September 2019)

- Major speed improvements to 3D.lua via custom-purpose ovtable commands.
- 3D.lua now natively supports cell history with fading.
- Added a new gplus module called NewCA.lua which makes it easy to write scripts that implement new types of cellular automata.
- Two new scripts show how to use NewCA.lua: 1D.lua supports one-dimensional CA rules, including all of Wolfram's 256 elementary rules, as well as totalistic rules with up to 4 states and a maximum range of 4. Margolus.lua lets you explore rules using the Margolus neighborhood.
- Updated Lua to version 5.3.5.
- The optimize overlay command now returns the minimum non-zero alpha bounding box of the clip.
- The blend overlay command now has a faster blend mode ("blend 2") which should be used when the destination is opaque.
- Some fixes and improvements to the replace overlay command.
- Performance improvements to the drawcells overlay command.
- The C parameter in a Larger than Life rule can now specify up to 256 states.
- Fixed a bug where the canonical form of Generations rules in MAP format was incorrect.
- Fixed a bug caused by simultaneous clicks of different mouse buttons.
- Fixed flickering selection size message when extending the selection on Windows.
- Fixed a performance bug in QuickLife where changing the rule each generation caused a significant slowdown.
- Fixed bugs in the Mac app that caused memory leaks when running Lua or Python scripts.
- Fixed a bug that could cause "PyRun_SimpleString failed!" warnings when running Python scripts.
- Fixed a bug in Larger than Life that could cause a cut/copy operation to create an empty clipboard pattern.
- Fixed a fatal "bad increment" error by limiting the size of the step exponent if necessary.
- Fixed a crash caused by buggy NVIDIA drivers.
- New patterns: demonoid-c512-hashlife-friendly.mc.gz in HashLife, one-cell-thick-quadratic-growth-2596x1.rle in Life/Breeders, infinite-Corderships-gun.rle.gz and period-52-glider-gun.rle in Life/Guns, c3-forward-rake-p159.rle and removed c3-forward-rake-p333.rle in Life/Rakes, animated-pixel-art-sample.zip, dragon-curve-generator.zip, b2ein-spaceships-and-rakes.rle, and NoTimeAtAll-demo.zip in Other-Rules, Flow6.zip and JvN/small-JvN-self-replicator.rle in Self-Rep, loafer-mwss-signal-loop.rle.gz and updated reflectors.rle in Signal-Circuitry.

Changes in version 3.2 (released July 2018)

- Three-dimensional cellular automata can be explored using a new script: 3D.lua.
- HashLife and the other hash-based algorithms are faster and more responsive.
- Larger than Life now supports circular neighborhoods.
- Added a Show Population option to the Control menu.
- Added a Show Scroll Bars option to the View menu.
- MAP rules can optionally end with base64 padding characters "==".
- The overlay's paste command now supports multiple locations for batch draw.
- Added new overlay command lines which can draw multiple unconnected lines.
- Added a new ovtable command which provides a high performance table API for a subset of the overlay commands.
- Added draw_line and fill_rect functions to the overlay's oplus package.
- The oplus package also has new functions for creating a menu bar, pop-up menus and radio buttons. Menu buttons now support custom colors and shadows.
- Added a round function to Lua's gplus package.
- Added timing functions to the gplus package which can be used to profile Lua scripts.
- Added savechanges, settitle and sleep commands for use in Lua scripts.
- The getevent command now returns a "file" event when a user tries to open a file while a script is running. 3D.lua uses this event to open a .rle3 pattern or to run a .lua script.
- The note and warn commands have an optional parameter to specify whether the dialog has a Cancel button.
- The setoption command recognizes two new options: "showscrollbars" for showing or hiding the scroll bars, and "showtimeline" for showing or hiding the timeline.
- Mouse wheel sensitivity can be adjusted in Preferences > View to make zooming in/out easier to control.
- Fixed a bug when setting/getting cell values in very big hash-based universes.
- Fixed a bug where patterns larger than bounded grids were not correctly clipped.
- Fixed various problems with UTF-8 encoded text in the clipboard and in Lua/Python scripts.
- Fixed a bug that could crash Golly if a .rule file contained invalid XPM data.
- The new credits.lua script displays animated credits and can be launched from a link in Help > Credits.
- New patterns: CY_Lee_computer.zip, switch-engine-ping-pong.rle, honey-farm-hasslers.rle, weekender-distaff.rle.gz, slow-salvo-MWSS-oscillator.rle.gz, syntheses-of-c2-spaceships.rle.gz.
- Updated patterns: phase-shift.rle, traffic-light-hasslers.rle, 2c5-orthogonal.rle, c3-orthogonal.rle, c4-diagonal.rle, c4-orthogonal.rle, short-thin.rle, smallest-low-period.rle, spaceship-types.rle.
- Removed pattern: Patterns/Life/Syntheses/make-lightbulb.rle.
- Updated the Life Lexicon to release 29.

Changes in version 3.1 (released October 2017)

- Fixed a couple of bugs in the Larger than Life algorithm that caused Golly to crash.
- Scripts can call g.setoption("showprogress",0) to prevent the progress dialog from appearing (useful for scripts that you want to run in the background).
- Updated the Life Lexicon to release 27.

Changes in version 3.0 (released August 2017)

- Golly has a new algorithm that supports the Larger than Life family of rules.
- This version introduces a new feature called the overlay. Lua scripts can call a new overlay command to create, modify and delete the overlay.
- There are three new items at the top of the Layer menu: Save Overlay..., Show Overlay and Delete Overlay.
- The getevent command can detect a number of new events: a mouse click in the overlay, the release of a mouse button (anywhere), zooming in/out via the mouse wheel (either in the current layer or in the overlay), and the release of a key.
- The setoption command recognizes two new options: "showbuttons" (with a value from 0 to 4) for controlling the position of the translucent buttons, and "showoverlay" (with a value of 0 or 1) for controlling the appearance of the overlay.
- The getview command now takes an optional parameter so scripts can get the pixel dimensions of a specified layer.
- The dialog boxes displayed by the note and warn commands now have a Cancel button that can be used to abort the script.
- The new os command allows scripts to detect the current operating system.
- The new getinfo command can be used to get the comments from the current pattern.
- The new getpath command can be used to get the pathname of the current pattern.
- The new millisecs command allows Lua scripts to get the elapsed time since Golly started up.
- A new version of pop-plot.lua creates an overlay to display a much nicer looking plot.
- The new hexgrid.lua script creates an overlay to display a true hexagonal grid over a layer that uses a rule with a hexagonal neighborhood.
- The new lifeviewer.lua script creates an overlay to display patterns like LifeViewer with history and smooth non-integer scaling and rotation.
- The new overlay-demo.lua script demonstrates most of the overlay functions.
- The new browse-patterns.lua script allows you to browse through patterns in a folder manually or automatically.
- The new breakout.lua script shows how to use the overlay functions together to create a working game.
- The new toLife.lua and toLifeHistory.lua scripts make it easy to convert LifeHistory patterns to Life and vice versa.
- The flood-fill.lua script uses a faster scanline algorithm.
- The move-*.lua/py scripts now wait for the mouse button to be released instead of waiting for a second click.
- Added support for MAP rules to QuickLife, HashLife and Generations.
- QuickLife, HashLife and Generations now support much longer rule names.
- Non-totalistic rules containing B0 are now supported.
- The Generations algorithm now supports Hex, Von Neumann and non-totalistic Moore neighborhoods.
- Pattern rendering is significantly faster when zoomed in.
- Drawing cell borders when zoomed in > 2x is now controlled by a View Preference: "Zoomed cells have borders".
- File > Open Clipboard will center the given pattern within a bounded grid.
- Fixed bug in Linux app that caused buttons to lose their bitmaps.
- Fixed bug that could result in a "Bug detected in SyncUndoHistory!" warning.
- Fixed bugs that could occur when undoing a script that called reset().
- Fixed a crash caused by bad state value in a rule table.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur while rendering a generating pattern.
- Fixed a crash that could occur if Golly was quit during pattern generation.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Wolfram rules containing the digit 9.
- The Life Lexicon has had a major update.
- The Banks, Codd, Devore, and JvN folders have moved into a new top-level "Self-Rep" folder, to emphasize their common focus on self-replication.

Changes in version 2.8 (released August 2016)

- Golly no longer supports Perl scripting. In its place we've added support for Lua using a statically linked interpreter, so no need to download an installer or set a path to a shared library. See Lua Scripting for all the details.
- QuickLife and HashLife now support non-totalistic rules. A number of interesting examples can be found in the new Patterns/Non-Totalistic folder.
- OpenGL is used for rendering patterns.
- Timers are used to control pattern generation and timeline recording/playback.
- The File menu items Show Patterns and Show Scripts have been replaced by a single Show Files item for consistency with the recommended way to organize your Golly folder.
- The shrink command has an optional flag that can remove the selection if it has no live cells (the default is to leave the selection unchanged).
- Two new scripting commands, setview and getview, can be used to set/get the pixel dimensions of the viewport.
- The View menu has a new Smarter Scaling option for displaying correctly colored patterns when zoomed out at scales from 2:1 to 16:1.
- The Buffered item has been removed from the View menu.
- Paste patterns are covered with a translucent rectangle instead of being enclosed by thin border lines.
- Correct colors/icons are now displayed when pasting a pattern with a rule different to the current layer's rule.
- Better reporting of errors in a .rule file.
- Fixed a bug that could result in a spurious error message when loading a .rule file without any TABLE or TREE section.
- Fixed a crash on Linux when typing in the Keyboard preferences.
- Fixed some bugs that could cause Reset/Undo to restore an incorrect pattern.
- Fixed a timeline bug that could show incorrect population for a bounded grid.
- bgolly now supports rules that specify bounded grids.
- Fixed a bug in bgolly that prevented use of the RuleLoader algorithm.
- bgolly has a new -s option (or --search) for specifying the folder in which the RuleLoader algorithm will look for .rule files before looking in the supplied Rules folder. For example, assuming SlowLife.rule is in a folder called My-rules, you could type a command like this:
  `bgolly -a RuleLoader -s My-rules/ -r SlowLife My-patterns/foo.rle`

Changes in version 2.7 (released May 2015)

- The middle mouse button can now be used for panning, regardless of the current cursor mode.
- Fixed potential crash when pasting a text pattern into any hash-based algorithm.
- Fixed crash on Mac OS 10.9 when opening a modal dialog like Save Pattern.
- Fixed crash on Windows 8 when opening the Set Rule dialog.
- Fixed bug in QuickLife algorithm that could cause cells at the bottom/left edges of the viewport to disappear every odd generation.
- Fixed bug in QuickLife algorithm that could cause the selection rectangle to appear offset by one pixel (left or right).
- The shift.pl/py scripts save the given parameters for the next run.
- The evolve command aborts the current script with an error message if the given number of generations is negative.
- Fixed minor problem with the Fit Pattern/Selection menu commands not centering a pattern/selection accurately in some cases. Ditto for the fit and fitsel script commands. The visrect script command is also more accurate.
- Fixed bug that could cause Undo to fail due to a temporary macrocell file containing comment lines not prefixed with #C.
- Start-up message now shows if this version of Golly is 32-bit or 64-bit.

Changes in version 2.6 (released December 2013)

- Fixed menu problems on Ubuntu when using Unity.
- Fixed a nasty bug that could cause Golly to crash when doing a paste.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the paste image to disappear after a flip/rotate.
- Fixed bugs in Mac app caused by non-ASCII characters in some file paths.
- Fixed a problem that prevented Golly starting up on Mac OS 10.9.
- Tool bar buttons are no longer disabled when the main window is inactive.
- The save settings in Preferences > Layer are now obeyed by scripts. For example, let's assume you've ticked the option to be asked to save changes on creating a new pattern. If the current layer has changes and you run a script that calls new() then you'll get the standard dialog asking if you want to save those changes. If you cancel the dialog then the script is aborted.
- To avoid potential data loss, you now get a warning if you save a non-starting generation and earlier changes exist. The warning can be disabled in Preferences > Layer.
- Created an online archive for very large patterns.

Changes in version 2.5 (released June 2013)

- This version introduces a new rule format. A file in the new format has a .rule extension and contains all the information about the rule: its name, description, table/tree data, and any color/icon information. More details here.
- The RuleTable and RuleTree algorithms have been replaced by a new algorithm called RuleLoader. If asked to load a rule called "Foo", RuleLoader will look for Foo.rule first, then Foo.table, then Foo.tree.
- The Control menu has a new command called Convert Old Rules that can be used to convert all your old .table/tree/colors/icons files into new .rule files (it won't overwrite any existing .rule files). After the conversion finishes you're given the option of deleting all the old files.
- If File > Open Clipboard or Edit > Paste sees clipboard text starting with "@RULE rulename" then Golly will save the text as rulename.rule in your rules folder and switch to that rule.
- All Python scripts that created a .tree file (and possibly .colors/icons files) now create a .rule file containing the same tree data (and any color/icon info).
- Two new scripts allow Golly to be used as an icon editor. First, run icon-importer.py to import any icons for the current rule and display their bitmaps in a new layer for you to edit. When you've finished, run icon-exporter.py to extract the icon images and create or update the @ICONS section in the appropriate .rule file, then display the icons in a separate test layer.
- A script has been added: goto_expression.py. It works like goto.py, except that it also accepts expressions. An example of an "expression" is "17*(2^(3*143)+2^(2*3*27))".
- The status bar now displays quantities larger than 10308 in scientific notation. Golly can easily exceed this in both the Generation and Population statistics. For example, open the pattern puffer-train.rle, then run the script goto_expression.py and enter "f10^2000".
- Added a new pattern: partial-constructor.mc.gz.
- Patterns can now be displayed at scale 1:32. If you want to use that scale when creating a new pattern then choose the appropriate pop-up menu option in Preferences > File.
- Support for monochrome icons has been extended to allow grayscale icons, where shades of gray can be used to do anti-aliasing. See the icons in WireWorld.rule for a good example. Most of the default icons are now grayscale bitmaps.
- The current directory is now inserted at the start of sys.path for Python scripts.
- The "Load Icons" button in Preferences > Color has been removed (it's no longer possible to change an algorithm's default icons).
- The RuleTableToTree program is no longer included (you can use the RuleTableToTree.py script instead).
- Fixed bug in Linux app: the shift key wasn't toggling cursor mode.
- Fixed bug in Linux app: the space key wouldn't stop a pattern generating.
- Fixed bug in Mac app: resizing the window could cause the sash position to change unexpectedly.
- Fixed bug in Mac app: the first keyboard shortcut after a Paste command might be ignored.

Changes in version 2.4 (released June 2012)

- Fixed bug that prevented 64-bit Windows app using more than 4GB of hash memory.
- Fixed bug that caused corrupted macrocell files if saved with timeline data.
- Fixed bug in Langtons-Ant.tree that had ants colliding incorrectly.
- Fixed Mac app crashing if user's language setting is non-English.
- Clipboard data on the Mac now uses LF as the end-of-line character rather than CR.
- A pending paste is aborted if the main window becomes inactive.
- Error messages from each algorithm are shown if a pattern file can't be loaded.

Changes in version 2.3 (released November 2011)

- QuickLife and HashLife support rules using the von Neumann neighborhood or the hexagonal neighborhood. More details here.
- The default icon for most rules is now a circular dot rather than a diamond. A diamond is the default icon for rules using the von Neumann neighborhood and a slanted hexagon is the default icon for rules using the hexagonal neighborhood.
- A number of new script commands have been added to allow mouse interaction and better keyboard interaction: getevent, doevent and getxy. The getkey and dokey commands still work but are deprecated. In particular, there is no longer any need for scripts to call dokey(getkey()). See the description of getevent for more details.
- Some scripts have been added to take advantage of the new commands: draw-lines.py, flood-fill.py, move-object.py and move-selection.py.
- New patterns: ComputerArt.rle, CrittersCircle.rle, CrittersOscillators.rle, HPP.rle, HPP_large.rle, Sand-Test.rle, TMGas.rle, TMGas_largeWithHole.rle, TripATron.rle, TripATron_BlockAligned.rle.
- Scripts that create table/tree files have been moved into Scripts/Python/Rule-Generators.
- Langtons-Ant-gen.py now accepts turns 'U' and 'N' (U-turn and no-turn) as well as 'L' and 'R'.
- The hash() command uses a better hash function in a two-state universe.
- Pattern rendering is faster at scales 1:16 and 1:8, especially in the Linux app.
- The mouse wheel now zooms in/out from the current cursor location rather than the middle of the viewport.
- Patterns can be saved as gzipped files (*.rle.gz or *.mc.gz).
- If an algorithm can save patterns in macrocell format then the Save Pattern dialog now prefers that format over RLE; ie. the file type order is *.mc, *.mc.gz, *.rle, *.rle.gz.
- While waiting for a paste click, the keyboard shortcuts for flipping or rotating a selection now modify the paste pattern rather than the current selection.
- Fixed a bug in Win and Linux apps that prevented keyboard shortcuts being used while waiting for paste click.
- Pasted patterns are no longer truncated if the RLE header info is incorrect.
- Quitting Win app no longer clears clipboard.
- Fixed unwanted cursor changes while running a script.
- Fixed bug if layer was changed while recording a timeline.
- Fixed bug in EmulateMargolus.py when using square4_* neighborhoods.
- Removed emulate-Margolus-table.py script (use RuleTableToTree.py instead).
- Fixed bug that could result in all buttons and menus being disabled after hitting the tool bar's Reset button.
- Fixed cursor problems if shift key is used in a keyboard shortcut.
- The Mac app now runs on Lion (10.7). There are two Mac apps: a 64-bit version for 10.6 and later (based on Cocoa), and a 32-bit version for 10.4 and 10.5 (based on Carbon).

Changes in version 2.2 (released November 2010)

- Golly supports bounded grids with various topologies (plane, torus, Klein bottle, etc.). Such grids are created by adding a special suffix to the usual rule string. The details are in Help > Bounded Grids.
- Two new script commands, getwidth and getheight, return the size of the current grid.
- The new scripts, make-torus.py and make-torus.lua, can be used to convert the current selection into a toroidal universe.
- Any BOARD and WRAP settings in an MCell file are now obeyed (e.g. Bloomerang.mcl).
- Golly can record and play back a pattern's "timeline", a sequence of steps saved by the new Start Recording item in the Control menu. Use the Delete Timeline item to delete a timeline. Timelines are supported by all the hashlife-based algorithms.
- Show Timeline in the View menu toggles the new timeline bar below the viewport window.
- If a timeline exists when you save a .mc file then all the steps will be stored in the file. On opening such a file, Golly will load the timeline and automatically show the timeline bar.
- Multi-color icons are supported and allow both icon and color information to be stored in the one file (more details here).
- Rule tables now support hexagonal and oneDimensional neighborhoods and the permute symmetry.
- Added a section on naming conventions for .table and .tree files.
- Added a new Python script, make-ruletree.py, that allows you to write rules in Python and have them installed in the form of .tree files. See the comments at the top of the script.
- Added RuleTableToTree.py for converting rule tables to trees. It provides emulation for several neighborhoods not natively supported by Golly: triangularVonNeumann, triangularMoore, Margolus, etc. More details here.
- New Turmite scripts, e.g. Turmite-gen.py, for generating rule trees and icons for relative- and absolute-movement turmites on square, hexagonal and triangular grids.
- The goto.py script is much faster (thanks to PM 2Ring).
- Hitting escape aborts a script that has called a lengthy run() or step() command.
- Langtons-Ant.table has been replaced with Langtons-Ant.tree. The new rule is faster, handles multiple ants correctly, and matches most other implementations of this CA.
- Reorganized the Patterns folder: moved Conway's Life patterns into Life subfolder, moved rule subfolders out of Other-Rules to top level under Patterns, added Life-Like folder.
- Added new Turmite patterns, e.g. WormTrails.rle.
- Other new patterns: golly-ants.rle, Langtons-Ant.rle, JvN-loop-replicator.rle.gz, h-to-h-collection-26Aug2017.zip, Boustrophedon-replicator.rle.
- Increased the maximum base step from 10,000 to 2,000,000,000.
- Help > Keyboard Shortcuts lists unassigned actions at the end.
- The drawing state can be changed by creating keyboard shortcuts for two new actions called Next Higher State and Next Lower State (see Preferences > Keyboard).
- You can turn off the beep sound by unticking the option at the bottom of Preferences > Edit.
- Loading a pattern won't proceed if the "save changes" dialog appears and you select Save but then decide to cancel the "save pattern" dialog.
- Fixed bug that caused cells to be created in the wrong location when editing very large patterns.
- Fixed bug drawing incorrect selection rectangle if very large.
- Fixed cursor problem if the shift key is used in a keyboard shortcut to open a dialog/window.
- Fixed weird bug on Mac that could cause the viewport to lose keyboard focus after clicking in the layer bar's "delete layer" button.
- Fixed undo history getting out of sync if you tried to reset to a saved starting pattern that had been deleted.
- Fixed a bug drawing incorrect icons when layers are stacked.
- Fixed a bug not updating the paste image when colors are inverted.
- Fixed a problem with the hash() command in a multi-state universe.
- Fixed problems using a keyboard shortcut or menu command while a script is running.
- Dropped support for Mac OS 10.3.9.

Changes in version 2.1 (released September 2009)

- Golly can download patterns, rules and scripts from various online archives. You can change the location of downloaded files using the new button at the bottom of Preferences > File.
- Zip files can be opened and processed as described here.
- If the mouse moves over a link in the help window then the link reference is displayed at the bottom of the window. Ditto for links in the Set Rule dialog.
- The algorithm info in the Set Rule dialog can now be accessed from the new Algorithms help item.
- Translucent buttons for speed/scale/scroll functions now appear in a corner of the viewport whenever the mouse moves over that corner. The initial location is the top left corner, but you can use Preferences > View to specify any other corner or disable the buttons.
- Layer bar buttons now show each layer's name rather than its numeric position.
- New rules: Codd2, Devore, DLA, Ed-rep, LifeHistory, Perrier, Sand.
- New patterns in Other-Rules/, Self-Rep/Codd/, Self-Rep/Devore/, Margolus/, Loops/.
- New scripts: FredkinModN-gen.py, make-Devore-tape.py, Margolus/emulate-Margolus-table.py, Margolus/convert-MCell-string.py.
- All Python scripts now need to explicitly import the golly module. This wasn't strictly necessary in previous versions, but only because it was an undesirable side-effect of the way Golly ran scripts.
- The open command can now be used to run a given Python script.
- New scripting commands: opendialog, savedialog, getclipstr, setclipstr, getdir, setdir.
- The appdir and datadir commands are deprecated; use the new getdir command.
- The color of dead cells (state 0) is now handled like all other states, so it's possible for each algorithm/rule to have a different background color.
- The setcolors and getcolors commands can be used to set/get the color of state 0.
- Golly restores a layer's default colors whenever you create a new pattern or open a pattern file (and not just if the algorithm or rule changes). If you have any scripts that use setcolors then make sure it is called after calling new/open.
- The base step can now be changed temporarily via the new Set Base Step dialog in the Control menu. Golly will restore the default base step (set in Preferences > Control) when you create a new pattern, open a pattern file, or switch to a different algorithm.
- The setbase command also changes the base step temporarily, so if you have any scripts that use setbase then make sure it is called after calling new/open/setrule/setalgo.
- The setoption/getoption commands can use "drawingstate" to set/get the edit bar's current drawing state, and they can use "restoreview" to set/get the state of the "Reset/Undo will restore view" option set in Preferences > View.
- Paste now supports "And" mode.
- The RLE reader allows alphabetic characters other than "o" to represent live cells.
- Menu items can show single-character keyboard shortcuts.
- When a lexicon pattern is loaded, Golly automatically switches the current rule to B3/S23 (and changes the algorithm to QuickLife, if necessary).
- Fixed a bug with Random Fill. Golly wasn't initializing the seed, so the internal rand() calls were returning the same sequence of "random" integers each time!
- Fixed a bug that prevented the getkey command from returning uppercase letters.
- Fixed oscar.pl/py to handle B0-and-not-S8 rules correctly (they no longer report some spaceships to be stable patterns).
- Fixed a couple of bugs when duplicating a layer's undo/redo history.
- Fixed crash in Mac app if a script saved a pattern and the progress dialog appeared.

Changes in version 2.0 (released December 2008)

- Golly now supports multiple algorithms and multi-state universes (up to 256 states).
- The Generations algorithm supports an entire family of new rules, including Brian's Brain (/2/3), Star Wars (345/2/4), and Transers (345/26/5).
- The JvN algorithm implements John von Neumann's classic 29-state CA, plus a couple of 32-state variants created by Renato Nobili and Tim Hutton. See Patterns/Self-Rep/JvN for a variety of self-replicators.
- The RuleTable and RuleTree algorithms allow you to add new rules by creating .table and .tree files and storing them in the Rules folder or your rules folder. A number of example rules are supplied, including Langtons-Loops, Evoloop, LifeOnTheEdge and WireWorld.
- The tool bar has a new button for switching algorithms, or you can use the Set Algorithm submenu in the Control menu. The Use Hashing option has been removed.
- The Control > Set Rule dialog also has a menu for changing the current algorithm. A help button can be used to expand the dialog and display information about the current algorithm, along with examples of the rules it supports.
- Golly can read some MCell files (if an algorithm supports the given rule).
- The ten layer-specific colors have been replaced by a more flexible approach to cope with multi-state universes. Each algorithm has a default color scheme that can be changed in Preferences > Color.
- Each algorithm also has a default set of icons, small bitmaps that are only drawn at scales 1:8 and 1:16, and only if the Show Cell Icons option (in the View menu) is ticked. The default icons can be changed by using the Load Icons button in Preferences > Color.
- Rule-specific colors and icons can be created by adding suitably named .colors and .icons files to the Rules folder or your rules folder. Golly looks for these files whenever it switches to a new rule.
- The Layer > Set Layer Colors dialog can change one or more colors used by the current layer (and its clones). These changes are temporary and only remain in effect while the layer exists, or until the layer's algorithm or rule changes.
- The View > Swap Cell Colors option has been changed to Invert Colors.
- New script commands have been added to support the above changes: setalgo, getalgo, numalgos, numstates, join, setcolors and getcolors.
- Some script commands have been modified to handle multi-state patterns. Lua users should read the section on cell arrays. Python users should read the section on cell lists.
- The getrule command now returns a canonical rule string.
- The setcursor/getcursor commands now accept/return strings.
- Modified oscar.pl to use arbitrarily big integers.
- It's now possible to open a pattern or run a script from the Help window by clicking on special links. For example, open golly-ticker.rle or run bricklayer.py.
- Diagonal scrolling is supported. Open Preferences > Keyboard and assign keys to the new scrolling actions: Scroll NE/NW/SE/SW.
- A new check box in Preferences > View can tell Reset/Undo not to restore the view.
- View > Show Edit Bar toggles the new edit bar. The cursor mode buttons have been moved from the tool bar into the edit bar.
- View > Show All States toggles the display of colors and icons for all states in the current universe. A box is drawn around the current drawing state.
- Help > File Formats describes the various file formats used by Golly.
- Rendering speed in the Mac and Linux apps has been improved.
- Fixed a problem with ampersands not being displayed in the recent pattern/script menus.
- Fixed a bug in the Linux/GTK app if a recent pattern/script path contained an underscore.
- The Linux and Win apps require Perl 5.10 or later to run .pl scripts (older Perl versions are not binary compatible).
- The Linux/X11 app is no longer supported due to limitations in wxX11.

Changes in version 1.4 (released May 2008)

- Editing and other actions are now allowed while generating a pattern.
- Golly saves files in the standard user-specific data directory on each platform rather than in the application directory. However, you can still keep the GollyPrefs file in the application directory if you prefer that option.
- Right-click or control-click on a pattern/script file to open the file in a text editor. Use the new button in Preferences > File to select your preferred text editor.
- Pasting a clipboard pattern can now change to the specified rule, depending on the option set in Preferences > Edit.
- The Preferences dialog can be opened from the help window by clicking on special links like the examples above.
- Added Reset button to tool bar and Duplicate Layer button to layer bar.
- A duplicated layer now gets a copy of the original layer's undo/redo history.
- Improved the automatic detection of Perl/Python code used by Run Clipboard.
- Added help command to open given HTML file in help window.
- A warning is displayed if a bad rule string is detected while loading a pattern.
- Added support for reading WinLifeSearch output.
- An error message is displayed if you try to load a JPEG file.
- Fixed some problems if you quit Golly while running a script.
- Fixed problem shrinking selection while generating a pattern.
- Fixed "Rules differ" warning when undoing/redoing generating changes using hashing.
- Fixed problems with incorrect file selections in Win app's directory pane.
- Fixed bug in Mac app's activate event handler.
- Fixed bug in Linux/GTK app that prevented using shift-space as a keyboard shortcut.
- Mac app allows option-E/I/N/U/` to be used as keyboard shortcuts.
- Golly can be built for 64-bit platforms.

Changes in version 1.3 (released November 2007)

- Added unlimited undo/redo; see the Edit Menu help for details. For consistency with Undo, the Reset item now restores the starting selection and layer name.
- Keyboard shortcuts are now configurable using Preferences > Keyboard. Note that you can also specify key combinations to open a pattern, run a script, or show any HTML file in the help window.
- Golly can be scripted using Perl.
- Added pop-plot.pl/py to the Scripts folder for creating population plots.
- The metafier.py script now creates the metafied pattern in a separate layer.
- Added getstring command for getting user input via a dialog box (glife's getstring function still exists but is deprecated).
- Added hash command to speed up oscar.pl/py.
- The parse and transform commands have optional parameters.
- A script is aborted if a progress dialog appears and you hit Cancel.
- The Open/Run Recent submenus show relative paths for files inside the Golly folder.
- Added a Clear Missing Files item to the Open/Run Recent submenus.
- The Control menu's Go and Stop items have been replaced by a single Start/Stop item for consistency with the tool bar's start/stop button.
- The Control menu has a Set Generation item for changing the generation count, or you can click in the "Generation=..." text in the status bar. Scripts can use the new setgen command.
- Flip operations are much faster.
- The About box uses Brice Due's Golly ticker.
- Reduced chances of out-of-memory error while loading a large .mc file.
- Fixed crash if a pattern update occurred while saving a .mc file.
- Fixed bug pasting a macrocell pattern.
- Fixed bug reading an empty macrocell pattern.
- Fixed bug not marking a layer as modified after clearing the entire pattern.
- Fixed bug if apostrophe was in Python script path or file name.
- Fixed drawing problems on Mac OS 10.3.9.

Changes in version 1.2 (released April 2007)

- Golly supports multiple layers; see the new Layer Menu help for details.
- Added layer-related scripting commands. See heisenburp.py and envelope.py in the Scripts folder for how these commands can be used.
- Added other useful scripting commands: exit, check and note.
- The putcells command has optional parameters, including a new mode parameter.
- Clicked lexicon patterns are loaded into a separate "lexicon" layer (and the clipboard is no longer changed).
- If a pattern has been modified then its layer name is prefixed with an asterisk and a "save changes" dialog will appear before certain actions, such as opening a pattern file or quitting Golly. The dialog can be disabled via check boxes in Preferences > Layer.
- Scrolling is optional if the pencil/cross/hand cursor is dragged outside the view window; see Preferences > Edit.
- The hand cursor no longer has a pointing finger.
- A .py file selected via Open Pattern is run as a script.
- If golly-start.py exists in the same folder as the application then it is automatically executed when Golly starts up.
- New tool bar buttons, including a single start/stop button.
- Reset and Use Hashing can be selected while a pattern is generating.
- Renamed Flip Up-Down to Flip Top-Bottom.
- GTK app no longer does unnecessary buffered drawing.
- X11 app has a vertical tool bar which can be toggled.
- Mac app has a creator code (GoLy) and .mc/rle files are saved with an appropriate type and creator.
- Fixed a bug if Win app given a long-running script on command line.
- Fixed a bug in the advance and evolve commands if using hashing with Wolfram rule.
- Fixed a delay bug.

Changes in version 1.1 (released November 2006)

- Added Save Extended RLE option (initially ticked) to the File menu. An extended RLE file stores the pattern position and generation count (if > 0) so they can be restored when the file is loaded.
- Macrocell files also store the generation count if > 0.
- Non-extended RLE files are now loaded so that 0,0 is at the top left corner of the pattern rather than in the middle of the pattern.
- Golly can read BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF files and paste bitmap data. All non-white pixels become live cells.
- Golly can read pattern files using David Bell's dblife format.
- Starting patterns are saved in a temporary file rather than in memory. This is much faster when hashing (saving a macrocell file is very quick).
- Random Fill is much faster in typical cases.
- Escape key can be used to stop generating.
- Numerous additions and updates to the pattern collection.
- Added fuse-watcher.py, metafier.py and shift.py to the Scripts folder.
- More mouse interaction is allowed while a script is running. A script can be aborted by clicking the stop button in the tool bar or by selecting Stop in the Control menu.
- Resizing the help window no longer changes the scroll position.
- Fixed a bug loading huge macrocell files.
- Fixed an obscure bug in the non-hashing algorithm.
- Path to Scripts folder is only added to Python's sys.path once.
- Fixed rect bug in Scripts/glife/__init__.py (thanks to Dan Hoey).
- Golly's code can be compiled with a Unicode build of wxWidgets.

Changes in version 1.0 (released June 2006)

- Added Python script support; see the new Python Scripting help.
- Golly is available for Linux/GTK.
- Mac app is a Universal Binary (4 times faster on an Intel Mac).
- Added ability to change various colors via Preferences > Color. The Black on White option has been replaced by Swap Cell Colors.
- Increased the base step limit from 100 to 10,000.
- Added Show Hash Info option to the Control menu.
- Added Show Exact Numbers option to the View menu.
- Save Pattern preserves comments when writing to an existing file.
- Added tool bar buttons for toggling patterns and scripts.
- Included the latest release of the Life Lexicon.
- Renamed Flip Horizontally/Vertically to Flip Up-Down/Left-Right.
- Fixed disabled menu item bug after closing a modal dialog on Mac OS 10.4.
- Fixed a couple of rule-related bugs in the non-hashing algorithm.
- Fixed crash due to very long rule strings.
- Fixed paste positioning bugs at scale 1:2.
- Fixed error if Win app is closed while script is running.
- Fixed problem if Win app is closed when window(s) minimized.

Changes in version 0.95 (released January 2006)

- Stephen Silver's Life Lexicon has been integrated into the help. Note that clicking on a lexicon pattern loads it into the Golly window.
- Added an Open Recent submenu to the File menu.
- Added Show Patterns and Change Folder to the File menu.
- Added a Preferences dialog to the File menu (app menu on Mac).
- Added more items to the Edit menu: Clear Outside, Shrink Selection, Random Fill, Flip Vertically, Flip Horizontally, Rotate Clockwise and Rotate Anticlockwise.
- The clipboard pattern is displayed when pasting.
- Pasting large, sparse patterns is much faster when using Or mode.
- Added more items to the View menu: Fit Selection, Restore Origin and Set Scale.
- The thumb scroll range is adjustable (see Preferences > View).
- The Reset item now restores the rule, scale, location, step size and hashing option to the values they had at generation 0.
- Removed Max Hash Memory from Control menu (now set in Preferences > Control).
- The Rule dialog lets you select/add/delete named rules. If a rule has a name then it's shown in the main window's title bar.
- Hit control-space to advance the selection, or shift-space to advance everything outside the selection. The generation count will not change.
- The delete key is a shortcut for Clear, or shift-delete for Clear Outside.
- F5 to F9 can be used to set cursor modes.
- Hit "s" to shrink the selection and fit it in the current view.
- Hit "0" to change the origin to the cell under the cursor.
- Hit "9" to restore the true origin.
- Hit "6" to set the scale to 1:16.
- Hit "," to open the Preferences dialog.
- If the help window is in front, hit "+" and "-" to change the font size.
- While dragging the mouse to make (or modify) a selection, the escape key can be used to cancel the operation and restore the original selection.
- The escape key can no longer be used to stop generating.
- In zoom in/out mode, right-click or control-click zooms in the opposite direction.
- The mouse wheel can be used for zooming, regardless of cursor mode.
- Commas are used to make large status bar numbers more readable.
- Fixed a hashing bug that could cause advancing by the wrong step.
- Fixed a bug in Mac app when returning from full screen mode.
- Fixed a bug in Win app that prevented space bar being used to stop generating.
- Fixed Win app's cross cursor (now visible on a black background).

Changes in version 0.91 (released October 2005)

- Return key can be used to start/stop generating.
- Space bar can be used to stop generating.
- Win app puts CR+LF in clipboard data.
- Fixed occasional bug when +/- pressed while hashing.

Changes in version 0.9 (released October 2005)

- Implemented pattern saving (as RLE or macrocell format).
- Implemented cell editing and selecting.
- Implemented scrolling via hand cursor.
- Edit menu has a Cursor Mode submenu (items match new tool bar buttons).
- Hit "c" to cycle through all cursors.
- Win app can now read gzipped pattern files.
- Can now display comments in pattern files.
- Added Patterns folder to distribution.
- Toggling the hashing option doesn't change the pattern or generation count.
- The Reset item is smarter about restoring the starting pattern.
- Fixed colored frame after dropping pattern file onto Mac app's main window.
- Fixed horizontal scroll bar problem in Mac app's help window.
- The help window's cursor now gets updated while generating.
- Fixed problem with location of help window in X11 app.
- Added limited clipboard support to X11 app.
- Golly has a new app icon based on Galaxy, a period-8 oscillator.

Changes in version 0.2 (released July 2005)

- Added support for B0 rules.
- Golly comes to the front after dropping a pattern file onto main window.
- The help window can move behind the main window in Win/X11 apps.
- Text in the help window can be selected and copied to the clipboard.
- Fixed keyboard shortcuts in the help window.
- Fixed RLE rule problem in Mac app.
- Fixed menu and tool bar update problems in Mac/Win apps.
- Fixed some cosmetic problems in Win app.

Initial version 0.1 released July 2005