README for libdmtx version 0.4.0 - December 7, 2007
-----------------------------------------------------------------

One year is a long time to wait for new software -- especially
when the software is held beyond reach by a single arbitrary
decision.  I hope the new features in version 0.4 are significant
enough to at least partially justify the wait, and useful enough
to keep people involved while the last remaining pieces are
written.

In addition to several minor improvements and bug fixes, version
0.4 introduces some major pieces of the ECC200 Data Matrix
specification:

  * Multi-Region Barcodes
  * Rectangle Barcodes
  * Encoding Optimizer (beta)
  * All Encodation Schemes Supported (partial Base 256)

as well as some technical additions that should either improve
things or at least make them interesting:

  * GNU Autotools
  * Regression testing suite (at least a start)
  * Overhauled region detection
  * Valid PNG output
  * Python bindings (thanks Dan!)
  * Data Mosaic experimental barcodes (non-standard)

Almost none of this new code has been tested in the real world
and we /will/ find regressions.  If you encounter problems then
please let me know so we can work on stabilizing the release.
The libdmtx "Help" forum at SourceForge is a great place for your
questions and problems:

   http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=153603

I want to thank everyone who has contributed code, sample images,
and comments over the last year.  In some cases I received code
that didn't make it into this release, but I am eager to get it
included for next time.