We're proud to announce the release of VhaBot 0.7.6.
This release is made possible by the great additions we've received from 3rd party developers.
We're very greatful to everyone who put spare time into developing plugins for VhaBot.
Again we've put a focus into new features and improved usability.
We recommend all users to upgrade to this new version as it includes several improvements and fixes.

Changes since 0.7.5
- Updated XML addresses as FC changed those
- Fixed some minor errors with !timers
- Fixed an issue with VhaBot on mono on windows
- Fixed an issue with !calc on mono (thanks Moepl!)
- Fixed the 'cleaking' device
- Added a user's history to !verify
- Added PocketBoss plugin (thanks Tsuyoi!)
- Added !aiarmor (thanks Neksus!)
- Added !random (aka !lootorder) to Common Tools (thanks Fayelure!)
- Added !plugins overview. This gives an overview of all plugins
- Added !inspect (thanks Neksus!)
- Added !aigen (thanks Moepl!)
- Added an option to !online to make it display on logon
- Added an option to !motd to make it display on logon
- Added an option to disable !motd to make it display on any tell

Download
http://dump.vhabion.net/vhabot/VhaBot%200.7.6%20CE.zip

Upgrading
First, be sure your bot is not running before upgrading.
Download the latest version and extract the zip in your current bot directory.
If asked, answer yes to the question "do you wish to overwrite these files?".
Now start your bot as normal.

We're proud to announce the release of VhaBot 0.7.5.
This release is another major step towards being a successful organization bot.
The focus of this release went into adding new features designed to help organizations.
Special thanks for this release goes out to Naturalistic who stayed up at unrealistically hours.
This release contains enough features that made us drop the "Technology Preview" state.

Changes since 0.7.4
- A new loader has been added, VhaBot.Lite. It accepts a config file as argument and loads only the first bot from the specified config file.
- Chat server addresses have been updated
- Fixed a problem caused by running bots with the same bot name and account on multiple dimensions
- Fixed the test live address
- Added naturalistic's aggdef command
- Added an automated membership plugin
- Added social commands (cybor is disabled by default. use "!commands vhsocial" to enable it)
- Added the !tokens command
- Added a Links/Bookmarks plugin
- Added Timers plugin
- Added AFK command
- Added alts to online display
- Updated the notifier to display a user's alts when he logs on

Download
http://dump.vhabion.net/vhabot/VhaBot%200.7.5%20CE.zip

Upgrading
First, be sure your bot is not running before upgrading.
Download the latest version and extract the zip in your current bot directory.
If asked, answer yes to the question "do you wish to overwrite these files?".
Now start your bot as normal.

I'm proud to announce the availability of gridnet beta accounts.
Beta accounts are available to all clan vhanet members with a main of level 205 or higher.
You can register your beta account by following the instructions on the register page.
You can reach the register page by clicking the 'register' button on the top right of this page.

Gridnet accounts are the base for all webbased vhabot services.
With such account you'll be able to access vhanet's webinterface, aswell as participate in the beta process of upcoming services.

I'm also proud to announce VhaBot.Tools, which is a new subsite within the VhaBot network.
This site will feature various tools and downloads to make your life a tad easier.

Any comments, suggestions or questions regarding these new features can be posted on the forums.

The central items database has been updated to 17.2 and now includes all new items and nano crystals the latest patch has brought us.
The updated database can be searched from ingame using Itemsbot or on any bot connecting to this database.
If your bot isn't able to search this database yet or if you just want more information, you can read more about the database here.

There's also bad news. Recent actions from IGNbot authors have forced me to restrict the access to the database.
All IGNbots using the central database will receive the following message while trying to query it:

The forum received a visual make-over.
It now follows the style of the rest of the site and should be a bit more pleasing to the eyes.
The forum skin itself is a modified version of a skin called blackTed (I'd link to the author, but his domain expired).

As for the changes coming up on VhaBot. In prepration of a public and more stable release I've begon on the 0.7.x branch of VhaBot.
The current 0.6.x branch of VhaBot uses a thing called Application Domains to seperate the several bots running within the same core.
While that at the time seemed like the perfect solution, it doesn't give me the isolation I desire.
In the 0.6.x release, a plugin on any of the bots going haywire can cause the entire core to fail and even leave bots unresponsive.

In 0.7.x I'm going to change this structure by seperating the different bots into different processes.
However, the different processes will still be managed by a single core.
The core will take care of launching and closing the processes and communicate with them.
Using a seperation of this level allows me much greater control of each individual bot and makes it alot easier to track errors and failures.
The core's function will be promoted to a watchdog for all running bots and verify their state.
The bots will communicate with the core using Remoting Channels (buzzwords like SOAP are involved here).
This also allows me to generate cool statistics like memory usage per bot.

Also sheduled for 0.7.x is a code restructuring.
To provide more efficient memory usage and code seperation, different parts of the code will be seperated into different libraries.
This will also aid future developers who wish to connect to VhaBot (There's a remote management protocol sheduled for 0.8.x or so).

Ofcourse, it wouldn't be a real release if there were no new features.
I'm going to enchance the Inter-Bot messaging system by adding features like broadcasts at bot and core level.
Depending on the time involving creating the rest of the changes, 0.7.x might even feature a real UI!

The characters database received a code cleanup and some additional features.

First of all, the character listing and character details have been seperated to different files, so remember to update any bookmarks and/or links you might have had.

As for the new feature, you can now view Auno.org's character history on the character page if available.
Ofcourse, full credit for building the history goes to Auno.

Update 27-02-2007:
The history listing now also lists the idle time between the entries in the history.
An example can be seen here.

Update 01-03-2007:
Just fixed a small error that prevented you from viewing organizations linked in the history.
Also, the history now also lists the change in level since the last entry.
And as free extra, there's now a quicksearch located on the index that allows you to navigate to a character quickly.

I'm proud to announce the release of our searchable characters database.

From the search page you'll be given a variety of search options.
Among other options you'll be able to search on:
- Wildcard nicknames by using *
- Wildcard organization names
- Various combinations of professions, breeds, genders, factions and dimensions
- Level and Defender Rank ranges

All the results are sortable by clicking on the titles.
The sort order can be reversed by clicking a second time on the title.

This database will form the base for a series of upcoming services.
But I'll leave those up to your imagination for the moment.