Psychopy

Highlights:

- Can now insert new Routines from templates (such as Fixation, 2-alternative forced choice, etc)
- Improved interface for searching, syncing and viewing Pavlovia projects from within the PsychoPy app
- Dynamic loading of resources in online experiments so that not all resources in a study need downloading in the first dialog box
- QUEST handlers now available in PsychoJS including interleaved staircases
- Most visual stimuli now have an "anchor" parameter to control how it's laid out relative to its position, and you can now set the
alignment of text within a Textbox (with a handy demo to illustrate the difference between anchor and alignment!)
- Added support for Pupil labs eye trackers (thanks to Pupil Labs themselves) directly from the Builder

... and many more. For full list of changes see the [PsychoPy Changelog](https://psychopy.org/changelog.html)

Fixes:

- on macOS the long-standing issue of the **app freezing in the dock** has now been fixed [4214](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/4214)
- smoother handling of trying to run an experiment on a computer with different mic hardware than where the experiment was created [4210](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/4210)
- Minolta LS100/110 was not working due to broken bytes/unicode conversion [4186](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/4186)
- ElementArray was not honouring the contrasts (contrs) parameter [4196](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/4196)
- Code Components were giving unnecessary warning about namespace issues. Should only warn if a variable name is being _shadowed_ not if it's being _used_ [4193](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/4193)

Bug fixes for release 2021.2. See changelog for the new features in the 2021.2 release series

- Builder outputs weren't fully honouring the `userVersion()` request, resulting in broken PsychoJS code 5f10b0a12 017c18f2f31e
- Better documentation of (high-performance) VLC movie backend
- iohub.Mouse.setPosition was not handling units correctly when given a float
- Builder boilerplate for Microphone was looking for a transcription even if none was requested 4163

Bug fixes for release 2021.2. See [changelog for the new features in the 2021.2 release series](https://psychopy.org/changelog.html#psychopy-2021-2-0)

- macOS was crashing on launch (caused by missing files from psychtoolbox stripped by macOS GateKeeper)
- added cryptography lib explicitly to requirements for pip install 267483d00
- Runner local debug of PsychoJS experiments was failing with MIME-type errors (Runner didn't know about new psychojs packaging) 4153
- extended timeout when querying Pavlovia from the app (e.g. searching for projects) 4148
- corrected reset of clock for new Button Component
- DlgFromDict was crashing if `labels` were used (in code) 4137
- short (<0.5s) sounds were not labelled as finished in PsychoJS boilerplate 4117
- contrast parameter was not being applied to ShapeStim 4111

*Highlights:*

- Unified Eyetracker support via ioHub is now integrated into Builder for easy-to-use eyetracking studies, many improvements and a "MouseGaze" option to simulate eye movements while testing
- Mic recordings for voice responses (Python and JS)
- Transcription (speech-to-text) via Google Speech or using CMU Pocket Sphinx (free but currently on the Python lib only)
- Improved JavaScript outputs from the Builder, providing more seamless migration to web-based studies

*Compatibility Changes:*

- <span style="color:red">CHANGED: In Python the random number generators for TrialHandlers etc use an improved algorithm (PCG64) and are now indendent of each other but seeded random sequences will differ from previous versions</span>

For the details of all changes see the [Changelog](https://www.psychopy.org/changelog.html#psychopy-2021-2-0)

[Update: 2021.2.0.1 Standalone downloads include an updated version of msgpack_numpy due to an issue with the previous version. The PsychoPy code itself within that download is not changed]

FIXES:

- Py Lib: Sounds from files were being truncated [3689](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/3689)
- Py Lib: TrialHandlerExt now compatible with current numpy (had an index error before) [3705](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/3705)
- Py Lib: MoviStim raising an error if opacity was None [commit:50334df2f](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/commit/50334df2f)
- Py Lib: RIFT backend not working [commit:428f62f80](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/commit/428f62f80)
- Builder: When letter height was set to a variable it raised an error at run time `TypeError: len() of unsized object` [commit:b1a77ca3a](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/commit/b1a77ca3a)
- Builder: Raising an error when floats looking like file names [3719](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/3719)
- Builder: better handling of failure to updateVersion [commit:afec41226](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/commit/afec41226)
- JS: TextBox when editable was not being reset on each trial [3706](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/3706)
- JS: Keyboard should stop consuming keypresses at end of trial, even if not storing data [3706](https://github.com/psychopy/psychopy/issues/3706)
- JS: Add Sound.setSound() method to allow for dynamically deciding audio source psychopy/psychojs154
- JS: Allow for PIXI updates when dynamically adjusting opacity, including on polygons psychopy/psychojs203
- JS: Give Form radio type support psychopy/psychojs281
- JS: Improve ImageStim.setImage() attribute checking psychopy/psychojs292
- JS: Give TrackPlayer fades on play / stop psychopy/psychojs296
- JS: Fix TextBox eating up key presses psychopy/psychojs302