v0.1.0 release notes; add astype API docs

Author: alimanfoo

docs/astype.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+AsType
+======
+.. automodule:: numcodecs.astype
+
+.. autoclass:: AsType
+
+    .. autoattribute:: codec_id

docs/index.rst

@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ Contents
     packbits
     categorize
     checksum32
+    astype
     pickles
     msgpacks
     release

docs/release.rst

@@ -6,13 +6,63 @@ Release notes
 0.1.0
 -----
 
-TODO
+New codecs:
 
 * Two new compressor codecs :class:`numcodecs.zstd.Zstd` and :class:`numcodecs.lz4.LZ4`
   have been added (`#3 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/3>`_,
   `#22 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/22>`_). These provide direct support for
   compression/decompression using `Zstandard <https://github.com/facebook/zstd>`_ and
   `LZ4 <https://github.com/lz4/lz4>`_ respectively.
+* A new :class:`numcodecs.msgpacks.MsgPack` codec has been added which uses
+  `msgpack-python <https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack-python>`_ to perform encoding/decoding,
+  including support for arrays of Python objects
+  (`Jeff Reback <https://github.com/jreback>`_;
+  `#5 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/5>`_,
+  `#6 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/6>`_,
+  `#8 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/8>`_,
+  `#21 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/21>`_).
+* A new :class:`numcodecs.pickles.Pickle` codec has been added which uses the Python pickle protocol
+  to perform encoding/decoding, including support for arrays of Python objects
+  (`Jeff Reback <https://github.com/jreback>`_;
+  `#5 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/5>`_,
+  `#6 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/6>`_,
+  `#21 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/21>`_).
+* A new :class:`numcodecs.astype.AsType` codec has been added which uses NumPy to perform type
+  conversion
+  (`John Kirkham <https://github.com/jakirkham>`_;
+  `#7 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/7>`_,
+  `#12 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/12>`_,
+  `#14 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/14>`_).
+
+Other new features:
+
+* The :class:`numcodecs.lzma.LZMA` codec is now supported on Python 2.7 if
+  `backports.lzma <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/backports.lzma>`_ is installed
+  (`John Kirkham <https://github.com/jakirkham>`_;
+  `#11 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/11>`_,
+  `#13 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/13>`_).
+* The bundled c-blosc library has been upgraded to version
+  `1.11.2 <https://github.com/Blosc/c-blosc/releases/tag/v1.11.2>`_
+  (`#10 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/10>`_,
+  `#18 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/18>`_).
+* An option has been added to the :class:`numcodecs.blosc.Blosc` codec to allow the block size to
+  be manually configured
+  (`#9 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/9>`_,
+  `#19 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/19>`_).
+* The representation string for the :class:`numcodecs.blosc.Blosc` codec has been tweaked to
+  help with understanding the shuffle option
+  (`#4 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/4>`_,
+  `#19 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/19>`_).
+
+Maintenance work:
+
+* CI tests now run under Python 3.6 as well as 2.7, 3.4, 3.5
+  (`#16 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/16>`_,
+  `#17 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/17>`_).
+* Test coverage is now monitored via
+  `coveralls <https://coveralls.io/github/alimanfoo/numcodecs?branch=master>`_
+  (`#15 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/15>`_,
+  `#20 <https://github.com/alimanfoo/numcodecs/issues/20>`_).
 
 .. _release_0.0.1: