Example updates; Bug fixes.
There was no intentional change to how the "Preview" button works. Any intentional change would have been covered in the changelog. Note you can change what the "Preview" button on the main toolbar does by clicking the dropdown arrow next to it and selecting a new option under the "Main button" submenu.
I understand, but I believe a change was indeed made because I have 2 layouts. In my project settings the "First Layout" is set to Layout Number 1. And so far, while being on Layout 2 in the main view and clicking the dropdown, selecting either "Preview Project" or "Debug Project" it was playing Layout 2 directly. Now this behavior has changed it does start playing from Layout 1. So my question was, was this an intentional change? I can confirm it has changed as I just re-tested it with the previous R395 version. Hence my surprise as this isn't in the changelog and you guys are usually thorough :)
Comparison video R395/R396: imgur.com/a/336ZhRL
I tried this out in r396 with Space Blaster and it all appears to be working correctly for me. In general if you believe there is an unexpected problem with Construct, please file an issue following all the guidelines.
If your project uses loader layouts, it is possible it was changed due to a bug fix related to them - perhaps your project was previously relying on the bug to happen.