Beta versions are not as thoroughly tested as stable
New File System plugin; 3D image points; usability improvements; faster Text objects & more
05 June, 2023 ()
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Notes
It's the start of a new release cycle and we have a big release for you today! First up is a brand new File System plugin which allows reading and writing files and even entire folders on disk. This relies on the File System Access API which is only supported in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome and Edge, and only on desktop systems (Android is not yet supported), for the time being. However it works in the NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters with no permission prompts. Previously this kind of file access was only possible with the NW.js plugin and export option, but the new File System plugin allows using these features in browsers (including preview) and other export options too. See the new Text editor example to see it in action.
This release also includes some rendering improvements. First of all there is now support for WebGPU in exported projects for the Web, Arcade, NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters (it remains disabled for other export options for the time being). This means you can now publish projects that make use of WebGPU! Please note WebGPU remains off by default and we're still working through some remaining issues before we enable it by default. Construct now also applies a default anisotropic filtering mode of 4x even for 2D projects, as it also helps improve the visual quality of objects resized in extreme ways, and should have a low performance impact. Finally we've found a way to significantly improve the performance of scaling Text objects - so now you should get a much better framerate in both the editor and runtime if you zoom a layout with Text objects.
There's also support for 3D image points - the 3D shape object has expressions to retrieve image points for each of the shape's faces, and even Sprite now has an ImagePointZ expression which takes in to account 3D mesh distortion. There's also a few usability improvements, various other changes and improvements, and as ever a batch of bug fixes. Happy testing!
Please note: due to staff time off, there will not be a beta release next week (12-16th June). The next beta release will be the following week (19-23rd June).
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Launch r345
New Features
New Additions
3D shape: expressions to retrieve image point positions in 3D for each face
Sprite: ImagePointZ expression, taking in to account 3D mesh distortion
New examples 'Text editor', 'Exfiltration', 'Portals', 'Volcano jumper'
Properties bar: allow showing common family instance variables, behavior and effect properties when multi-selecting instances from different object types
WebGPU now supported for web, arcade, NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters
Add anisotropic filtering modes 8x and 16x
Changes
NW.js plugin: deprecate clipboard features as now superseded by Clipboard plugin
Anisotropic filtering mode 'Auto' now always uses 4x for better 2D rendering quality
Project Bar: click search result to keep it expanded after clearing search
Project Bar: scroll to any remaining selected item after clearing search
Windows WebView2 export: update WebView2 SDK to v1.0.1774.30
Rename 'Form controls' category to 'HTML elements'
Bug Fixes
Scene graph: ensure mirror/flip of top parent affects whole hierarchy
Text editor: context menu appeared in wrong window when opened as a popup
Text editor: search toolbar displayed incorrectly when opened as a popup
Properties bar: focusing color in "multiple" mode and unfocusing incorrectly counted as change to black
Animations editor: work around Safari bug causing crash previewing animation
Tilemap: did not always correctly handle collisions across parallax layers
Event sheet view: 'Replace object' did not check for compatible custom actions
Event sheet view: 'Replace object' did not replace the object for a custom action block
Event sheet view: editing custom action object could allow creating duplicate names
OR blocks did not always process 'Pick by comparison' the same way as other conditions
Timeline bar: crash undoing pasting timelines which also required to create new sound/music files
Timeline bar: 'Scale X' & 'Scale Y' resize mode not working as expected in some occasions
Timeline bar: crash undoing while making a selection of multiple keyframes
Timeline bar: crash deleting a timeline while it is decoding an audio file
Animations editor: could become unresponsive after using a keyboard shortcut while dragging frames or animations
Tilemap bar: possible inconsistent state when the pane is docked that could lead to crashes
Performance Improvements
Significantly improve performance of zooming Text objects
Timeline bar: improve performance displaying feedback for large audio files
Scripting updates
3D shape: add getFaceImagePointCount(), getFaceImagePoint/X/Y/Z()
Sprite: add Z component to getImagePoint(); add getImagePointZ()
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