January 31, 2012
* 2.2.26 release.
* Mac executables are now Universal Binaries for 32- and 64-bit architectures,
  we no longer produce PPC and Intel Universal binaries. The executable
  archive names remain unchanged.
* Added DELTA-BLAST - a new tool for sensitive protein searches
* Added makeprofiledb - a tool for creating a database for RPS-BLAST

Improvements:
* The blast_formatter application can now format bl2seq RIDs.
* PSI-BLAST can produce archive format, blast_formatter can format that output.
* PSI-BLAST has two new options that work with multiple-sequence alignments:
  ignore_msa_master and msa_master_idx (see BLAST+ manual).
* mkmbindex can now create masked indices from a BLAST database and ASN.1 masking data.
* An improved finite size correction is now used for blastp/blastx/tblastn/rpsblast.
  The FSC is subtracted from the query and database sequence length for the
  calculation of the expect value.  The new FSC results in more accurate expect
  values, especially for alignments with a short query or target sequence.
  Re-enable the old size correction by setting the environment variable OLD_FSC
  to a non-NULL value.
* The blastdbcmd -range parameter now accepts a blank value for the second parameter to signify
  the end of a sequence (e.g., -range "100-")
* There was a performance improvement for long database sequences in results with many matches.

Bug fixes:
* There was a blastn problem if subject_loc and lcase_masking were used together.
* There was a problem with multi-threaded blastx if the query included a long (10,000+) sequence of N's.
* The percent identity calculation was wrong if the best-hit algorithm was used.
* There was a problem with the multiple BLAST database statistics report in XML format.
* Makeblastdb failed to return an error when input was not available.
* The formatting option -outfmt "7 nident" always printed zero.
* The search strategy was not properly saving the -db_soft_mask option.
* An error message was emitted if there was a "<" in the query title.
* A problem reading lower-case masking from the query could cause a search to fail.

March 15, 2011
* 2.2.25 release
* Enhanced documentation, includes simplified setup instructions, available at
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1762

Improvements:
* Added support for hard-masking of BLAST databases.
* Improve performance of makeblastdb for FASTA input with large numbers of 
  sequences, improve error checking.
* Allow Best Hit options and XML formatting for Blast2Sequences mode
* Allow multiple query sequences for psiblast.
* Allow specification of any multiple sequence alignment sequence as the
  master with the -in_msa psiblast argument.
* Add an optional -input_type argument to makeblastdb.
* Added support for query and subject length to tabular output.
* Performance of -seqidlist argument improved.
* The minimum of the number of descriptions and alignments is now used for tabular and 
  XML output (consistent with the behavior of the older blastall applications).

Bug fixes: 
* Makeblastdb and blastdbcmd problems with parsing, storing, and 
  retrieving sequence identifiers.
* Missing subject identifiers in tabular output.
* Blast_formatter ignoring -num_alignments and -num_descriptions
* Blast archive format could be saved incorrectly with multiple queries.
* Blast_formatter established an unneeded network connection.
* Blast_formatter did not save masking information correctly.
* Rpstblastn might crash if searching many sequences.
* Indexed megablast would not run in multi-threaded mode.
* Query title in the PSSM saved by psiblast was not being stored.
* Possible failure to run in multi-threaded mode with multiple queries or large database sequences.
* Tblastn runs with database masking might miss matches.

October 30, 2010
* 2.2.24 bug fix release
* Improved makeblastdb performance and taxid_map option
* Fixed segmentation faults on blastn and megablast
* Fixed truncated output for sequence input with extra spaces in the defline
* Fixed problem with MacOSX binaries on MacOSX 10.5

August 2, 2010
* 2.2.24 release
* Added support for BLAST Archive format (see BLAST+ user manual)
* Added the blast_formatter application (see BLAST+ user manual)
* Added support for translated subject soft masking in the BLAST databases
* Added support for the BLAST Trace-back operations (btop) output format
* Added command line options to blastdbcmd for listing available BLAST databases
* Improved performance of formatting of remote BLAST searches
* Use a consistent exit code for out of memory conditions
* Fixed bug in indexed megablast with multiple space-separated BLAST databases
* Fixed bugs in legacy_blast.pl, blastdbcmd, rpsblast, and makeblastdb
* Fixed Windows installer for 64-bit installations

Feb 03, 2010
* 2.2.23 release
* Bug fix for tabular output formatting involving BLAST databases that do not
  have parseable deflines.
* Fixed problem displaying accessions in XML output format.
* Prevent collisions between queries and subject sequences with local
  identifiers.
* Fixed megablast performance regression when used with query masking.
* Fixed seg filtering failure for blastx and genomic sequences.
* Implemented saving search strategies in bl2seq mode.
* Fixed bug in tabular output format with qseq, sseq, pident and ppos keywords.
* Fixed bug with blastp-short task.
* Fixed blastdbcmd retrieval of taxids for BLAST databases without GIs.
* Added makeblastdb support for adding masking information to existing BLAST
  databases.

Nov 02, 2009
* Internal bug fix release for 2.2.22
* Fix issue dealing with opening BLAST databases which contain references to a
  BLAST database specified with a relative path.
* Prevent collisions between queries and subject sequences with local
  identifiers

Sep 27, 2009
* 2.2.22 release
* Added entrez_query command line option for restricting BLAST databases.
* Added support for psi-tblastn to the tblastn command line application via
  the -in_pssm option.
* Improved documentation for subject masking feature in user manual.
* User interface improvements to windowmasker.
* Made the specification of BLAST databases to resolve GIs/accessions
  configurable.
* update_blastdb.pl downloads and checks BLAST database MD5 checksum files.
* Allowing long words with blastp.
* Added support for overriding megablast index when importing search strategy
  files.
* Added support for best-hit algorithm parameters in strategy files.
* Bug fixes in blastx and tblastn with genomic sequences, subject masking,
  blastdbcheck, and the SEG filtering algorithm.

May 27, 2009
* First 2.2.21 release
* Added support for Best-Hit algorithm.
* Added support for -in_msa psiblast option. 
* Performance improvements and bug fixes to subject soft masking feature (note:
  the file format for the files containing the masking information has changed
  in a non-backwards compatible way).
* Changed command line option to specify single soft masking algorithm to mask
  BLAST databases from -mask_subjects to -db_soft_mask.
* Masked FASTA and subject masks can be obtained via blastdbcmd.
* Improved error messages when makeblastdb processes masking information.
* Bug fixes in tabular output for translated searches.
* Bug fixes to makeblastdb.
* Bug fixes to search strategies and megablast.
* Bug fixes to XML output.
* Bug fixes and performance improvements to multi-threaded execution.
* Bug fixes to lower case masking in blastx.
* Bug fixes to ungapped searches.
* Added support for smaller lookup tables for small queries.
* Added support for partial sequence fetching during traceback.
* Fixed the 2-hit algorithm so that no overlap between two hits is allowed.
* Implemented a new method to compute effective observations and new
entropy-based method to compute column-specific pseudocounts in PSI-BLAST.
* Remote BLAST database data loader is used as a fallback if local BLAST 
databases cannot be found.
* Bug fixes, improved error messages, and support for ASN.1 input in 
makeblastdb.
* Bug fixes and performance improvements to subject masking feature.
* Added the update_blastdb.pl script
* Updated BLAST+ user manual with documentation about configuring BLAST, 
automatic resolution of sequence identifiers, and a description of how the 
BLAST databases are searched.

November 3, 2008
* First 2.2.19 release
* Made sequence ID/title display uniform in sequence filtering applications.
* Fixed incorrect display of filtering options in XML output.
* Fixed handling of empty sequences in BLAST input. 
* Fixed negative strand handling for tblastn/tblastx.

October 14, 2008
* Added update_blastdb.pl script to distribution of BLAST+ command line 
  applications.
* Changed a few PSI-BLAST constants for pseudo-counts.
* Bug fix in blastdbcmd to distinguish non-redundant sequence titles.
* Bug fix to display BLAST database information remotely from outside NCBI for
  XML output. 

September 24, 2008
* Fix to prevent initial seed extension from going beyond context boundary.
* Improvements to reduce memory usage when query splitting is applied.
* Print the accession and version for blastdbcmd's %a output format.
* gilists/negative gilists are not saved in search strategies or supported in
  remote blast searches.
* legacy_blast.pl fixed for MacOSX, as well as extended support for megablast
  formatting options (-D, -f).
* Enhancements to Mac installer to add installation path to user's PATH.
* ASN.1 output is now of type Seq-annot.
* -lcase_masking option now applies to subject sequences as well as queries.
* Bug fix for creation of masked databases with non-redundant sequences that use
  a BLAST database as its data source.
* Bug fix for merging masking locations.

August 21, 2008
* First internal release
