Release notes for 0.14.1

release_notes/changelog-0.14.1.md

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+What's New in 0.14.1
+====================
+
+Release 0.14.1 brings many incremental improvements over 0.14.  It does not
+break consensus; 0.14 nodes are compatible with 0.14.1 nodes.
+
+Release Highlights
+------------------
+
+* **Fast Synchronization**.  In its default setting, Blockstack needs to index
+the underlying blockchain in order to construct its name database and Atlas
+state.  This can take days.  To improve the user experience, 0.14.1 adds a
+`fast_sync` command that allows the user to fetch, verify, and bootstrap off of
+an existing node's recent state.  Synchronizing with `fast_sync` takes only
+a few minutes.
+
+* **RESTful API**.  Blockstack now comes with a RESTful API, available by
+default at `http://localhost:6264`.  The API enables external applications to
+register and manage names, send and receive wallet funds, fetch and store
+off-chain data, and query the Blockstack network state.  Users control which
+applications have access to which endpoints, so they have the final say over
+which capabilities each application may access.  Documentation is available
+[here](https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-core/tree/master/api).
+
+* **Zone file wizard**.  The CLI interface in 0.14.1 comes with an interactive
+zone file wizard that makes it easy to add, remove, and change the priority of
+URLs to off-chain data.  Before, users were expected to craft new zone files by
+hand, which proved tedious and error-prone.
+
+* **Data Stores (experimental)**.  This release comes with an experimental API
+for creating data stores.  A data store is a per-application and per-name
+filesystem whose data is replicated across a set of storage providers (specified
+in the name's zone file).  The intended use-case is to give an application a way to 
+persistently store a user's data in the place(s) the user chooses.  This way, users
+always have access to their data and can take it with them from application to
+application, and developers are no longer responsible for hosting it.
+
+* **Merged Repositories**.  Blockstack's CLI, indexer, integration tests, and
+  registrar are all now present in this repository.
+
+Upgrade Notes
+-------------
+
+If you are upgrading from a previous installation of Blockstack:
+
+    * In `~/.blockstack/client.ini`, you should change `rpc_token=...` to
+    `api_password=...`.
+
+    * You should upgrade your wallet to the latest supported format.  This can
+      be done with `blockstack setup_wallet`.  Be sure to back up your wallet
+      first, for safety (the wallet file is at `~/.blockstack/wallet.json`).
+
+    * You must start the API server before carrying out name operations.  This can be done
+      with `blockstack api start`.
+
+Selected Bugfixes and Fixes
+---------------------------
+
+* You can specify the wallet password on the CLI with `--password PASS`.
+
+* You can enable debug output on the CLI with `--debug`.
+
+* You can have the CLI assume the default response with `--yes`.
+
+* You can try out name registration commands with 
+
+* Name registration commands are much more responsive now, due to
+parallelization of the internal safety checks and queries the CLI tool needs
+to make.
+
+* Various ad-hoc safety-checks and error-reporting are now consolidated,
+and the error-reporting logic has been made consistent.
+
+