Alpha v0.15.0

This update contains a decent amount of quality-of-life changes. We have some new systems in place for making the experiences with inputs better (which will be brought to more nodes in the future), as well as some general UX improvements.

We also now have an opt-in experimental features setting that we are starting to use in order to get feedback on unfinished features, but without interrupting the regular experience of chaiNNer.

Major Changes

• Variable-length inputs (#1176, #1184)
  • Now certain nodes can have more than just 4 inputs, with a button that lets you add more.
  • This is limited to just Text Append and Text Pattern at the moment, but will be brought to more nodes in the future.
• Conditional inputs (#1200)
  • Now certain nodes can show or hide some inputs based on things like items selected in a dropdown.
  • This is currently only present in the Save Image node, but will probably be used with more nodes in the future.
• Experimental Features Toggle (#1142)
  • We now have a setting (in the advanced tab) for turning on "experimental features". This will opt you into using anything we deem "experimental" that is in chaiNNer but not quite ready for prime-time. I will list anything new that is experimental under a new Experimental Features heading in the changelog.

Minor Changes

• Drag N' Drop support for more filetypes (#1215)
  • This mainly includes all model file types (.pth, .param/.bin, .onnx)
• Added "WEBP (Lossless)" option to Save Image (#1186)
  • We had previously accidentally made it impossible to save lossless WEBP, and now you can
• Better "Save Changes" popup (#1191)
  • The "Save Changes" dialog box that appears when you try to quit with unsaved changes is now a more standard format, with "Save", "Don't Save", and "Cancel" options.
• Show the current position of alerts in the alert box queue (#1193)
• Added menu entry for manually reloading/refreshing starting nodes and their previews (#1194)
• Added "Copy to clipboard" button for all alerts (#1203)
• Added type tags to strings and directories (#1216, #1226, #1244)
• Changed placeholder text on some inputs (#1223)
• Added custom installation animation on Windows (#1230)
• Moved update check to after the main window opens (#1232)

New Nodes

• Normal Map Generator (#1181, #1208)
  • Generate Normal Maps from images, with a variety of customization options similar to Nvidia Texture Tool

Experimental Features

• Presets (#1142, #1240, #1241)
  • We now have some built-in bundles of nodes that we figure could be useful for setting up a variety of chains. However, they are not what we would consider feature complete yet (hence why they are behind the experimental features toggle). We would like to hear feedback from users as to what they think would be helpful (for example, clusters of nodes they tend to use all the time) and we can change/add presets accordingly. There is also still a lot of UI to be done around these, but they are at least usable at the moment.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed being unable to read MKV video duration (#1189)
• Fixed saving as GIF in Save Image (#1201)
• Fixed pressing arrow keys inside text and number inputs moving nodes around (#1205, #1212)
• Fixed FP mode not being loaded correctly for NCNN (#1210)
• Disable shortcuts while alerts are open (#1214)
• Fixed clear not affecting text inputs (#1217)
• Fixed iterator helper node type persistence (#1222)
• Reset invalid dropdown values (#1227)
• Fixed supported video format list in file open window (#1242)

Thanks as always to the main contributors: @joeyballentine @RunDevelopment @theflyingzamboni