GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 131

What's new in this version:

GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 131
Improved the game publishing on Liluo.io:
- Display a summary of the game that will be live before publishing
- Add a helper message explaining how to change the game thumbnail
- Add an option to save project when publishing
- Allow to set if your game should be discoverable on the categories pages of Liluo.io or not
- Allow to specify a "nice URL" (also called "slug") for your game Liluo.io address
- From your "Game Details" dashboard, you can now select a username and a game name to create a custom unique URL for your game on Liluo.io

Editor improvements:
- Allow to define a default value in behavior properties for a "string with options" property
- Update the button label in the dialog of an extension to show if the extension will be updated or (re)installed
- Display an icon for the Home tab (instead of the label "Home")
- Improve the events sheet search with new shortcuts
- Show again the buttons to paste/copy a variable in the variable editors when no variables are shown
- Add autocompletion for the "Simulate control" action of the Top Down movement behavior

Game engine improvements:
Top-down movement extension improvements:
- Add a condition to check which key was used or simulated and actions to change the current velocity
- Fix the velocity value that wasn't exactly 0 when moving horizontally or vertically
- Add a condition to check if the mouse is inside the window

New extension: CloneCamera:
- Copy the camera settings of a layer and apply them to another layer
- Add the SmoothCamera extension to follow an object
- Exponential following (a bit like lerp but frame rate independent)
- Linear following for old school games
- Jump stabilization for platformer games
- Noise extension: Add 4d noise, looping, multiple generators
- Noise looping allow to generate maps acting like a globe
- Several noise generators can be used by giving them a name

A new extension: Draggable Physics:
- Enables users to click and drag on objects to move them. The object will retain velocity when the click is released, which can allow users to fling objects across the screen.
- This extension will only work on objects that have the physics behavior
- This extension is similar to the standard "draggable" behavior, but that behavior will not work on objects using the physics behavior

A new Extension: Object Spawner:
- Can be used to create enemies, NPCs, environmental objects, etc

Updated the "object selection" example:
- A new advanced scene details avanced object picking concepts by using collision conditions
- It provides methods to select instances including "any matching", "any not matching", "all matching", and "none matching"
- Add an example for the Text Input object

Fixed:
- Fix the camera rounding to work when following objects with even dimensions and pixel perfect mode is enabled

Internal changes (for developers):
- Add Linux zip and deb target to the packaged desktop app


GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 130
UI Improvements:
- Add D as shortcut to toggle disabled event, also added in right click context menu in the event sheet
- Allow users to reorder editor tabs by dragging them (not available on touchscreens)
- Add possibility to replace text in text events (Comments and Groups names) with search and replace
- Add a "get started" button at the center of empty lists for variables, behaviors, effects and events
- Make context menus in scene editor and in object list consistent
- Fine tune search in instruction selector and stores to better handle short words in main field
- Clarify separation between object and instance in instance properties panel
- Show warning when accessing builds for a game you don't own

Game management improvements:
- Allow game owners to share their ownership with other users
- When you are defined as a game owner, you can now edit the game details as well as publish new builds to it
- Make your game thumbnail configurable in the icons dialog, used for Liluo's game listing
- Allow defining up to 4 genres for a game, to be displayed on the game's page, as well as for future listing in categories pages

Engine improvements:
- Add an action to ensure the camera is inside specified boundaries
- Add size actions and conditions for Sprites and Tiled Sprites objects:
- Add conditions for the height and width of Sprites,
- Add action to set the size of Sprites and Tiled Sprites
- Allow extensions to use the Audio category
- Add possibility to use custom collision masks for draggable behavior
- Added a toggle in draggable behavior parameters so that users can chose to use custom collision mask or not

Extensions, assets, and examples:
- MarchingSquares: Collision optimization
- Add a "pop-up" extension: this exposes the browser native popups as actions
- Add a new "Swipe" example for mobile and desktop: this shows how to use the Swipe extension
- You can swipe on a touch screen or with the mouse. You can get using expressions values like the direction, angle, and positions.

Fixed:
- Fix the "Is moving" condition of platformer characters by removing the 1 pixel per frame detection limit
- This can be important for games with low resolution
- Fix text input wrongly staying visible even if hidden or layer visibility turned off
- Fix rendering so that sprites no longer bounce by one pixel when the camera is moving and pixel perfect is activated
- Fix extensions scene lifecycle events launched more than once after a hot reloading
- Fix some missing translations in the Pathfinding behavior
- Fix resource list not updated when adding some with tab opened
- Fix duplicated extension after rename
- Fix a crash on Windows when the Documents folder is missing
- Fix various typos


GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 129
UI Improvements:
- Add D as shortcut to toggle disabled event, also added in right click context menu in the event sheet
- Allow users to reorder editor tabs by dragging them (not available on touchscreens)
- Add possibility to replace text in text events (Comments and Groups names) with search and replace
- Add a "get started" button at the center of empty lists for variables, behaviors, effects and events
- Make context menus in scene editor and in object list consistent
- Fine tune search in instruction selector and stores to better handle short words in main field
- Clarify separation between object and instance in instance properties panel
- Show warning when accessing builds for a game you don't own

Game management improvements:
- Allow game owners to share their ownership with other users
- When you are defined as a game owner, you can now edit the game details as well as publish new builds to it
- Make your game thumbnail configurable in the icons dialog, used for Liluo's game listing
- Allow defining up to 4 genres for a game, to be displayed on the game's page, as well as for future listing in categories pages.

Engine improvements:
- Add an action to ensure the camera is inside specified boundaries
- Add size actions and conditions for Sprites and Tiled Sprites objects
- Add conditions for the height and width of Sprites,
- Add action to set the size of Sprites and Tiled Sprites
- Allow extensions to use the Audio category
- Add possibility to use custom collision masks for draggable behavior
- Added a toggle in draggable behavior parameters so that users can chose to use custom collision mask or not

Extensions, assets and examples:
- MarchingSquares: Collision optimization
- Add a "pop-up" extension: this exposes the browser native popups as actions
- Add a new "Swipe" example for mobile and desktop: this shows how to use the Swipe extension
- You can swipe on a touch screen or with the mouse. You can get using expressions values like the direction, angle, and positions.

Fixed:
- Fix the "Is moving" condition of platformer characters by removing the 1 pixel per frame detection limit
- This can be important for games with low resolution
- Fix text input wrongly staying visible even if hidden or layer visibility turned off
- Fix rendering so that sprites no longer bounce by one pixel when the camera is moving and pixel perfect is activated
- Fix extensions scene lifecycle events launched more than once after a hot reloading
- Fix some missing translations in the Pathfinding behavior
- Fix resource list not updated when adding some with tab opened
- Fix duplicated extension after rename
- Fix a crash on Windows when the Documents folder is missing
- Fix various typos


GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 128
- Let users define the game description
- Let users define an orientation on mobile
- Let users define if their game can be played with a keybord, a gamepad or a mobile
- Improve wording and design across the publishing flow to Liluo
- Improve the export to warn when the game is too big to be uploaded
- Display game consolidated analytics on the analytics page of the game dashboard

New "Text Input" object:
- This object displays a field where the player can type a text
- The cursor can be moved and the text can be selected and entered like any other input field according to the platform. For example, you can use all the usual keyboard shortcuts or emoji pickers on desktop. On mobile, all the usual gestures are supported, emoji pickers, text selection, clipboard...
- You can choose between different input field types: text, text area, email, password, phone number... This allows the keyboards to be adapted on mobile devices. The password field will also hide what is entered by the user.
- Because the object is way more convenient to use (and actually works on mobile devices) than the Text Entry object, it is recommended you use it almost always instead of the Text Entry object.
- This object has 2 limitations, because it's using the native capabilities of the platform to display a "native" input field: the Z order can't be changed (the object is always displayed on top of the game) and no effects can be displayed. Because it's handled by the operating system, it may also slightly differ on each platform.
- It's recommended you avoid displaying the object outside of a menu or a static UI, as it may not always display exactly at a position synchronised with the rest of the rendering of the game, especially if used in a fast paced or moving scene.

UI improvements:
- Improve user experience with translation
- Disable auto translating in search results to prevent crashes due to conflicts between search results highlight and dom handling by translators
- Add language selector in Preferences dialog
- Automatically set gdevelop language on first use based on browser language
- Show a warning message and a warning underline in the events sheet when a variable name looks wrong (quotes, spaces, wrongly looking expression)
- Sort actions/conditions in categories add icons to their groups
- This should make it easier to identify and find actions/conditions. Categories give more clarity and icons help to identify what's available without reading everything.
- Add autocompletion for external layout fields
- Clarify actions in object removal dialog regarding references
- Do not select sprite when using mouse middle click to pan in the scene editor
- Also select the instance under the cursor when doing a right click in the scene editor
- Improve copy pasting objects on the scene
- When pasting objects, the pasted objects are selected
- Fix the possibility to undo/redo an object paste
- Move the deprecated property of the platformer object behavior into a specific group
- Select parameter content when editing it from the event sheet
- UI minor improvements and fixes
- Change help link for light object
- Set new object default name depending on its type
- Make object input sticky at the bottom in ObjectGroupEditor
- Force loss of focus on sliders when mouse is up
- Add possibility to close editor tabs with mouse middle click
- Use user preferred theme to set IDE loading screen background color
- Use the extension name as file name when saving it
- When browsing search results in event sheet, start from currently selected event
- Rework slightly the true/false and yes/no fields to make clearer they are switches
- Add an expression to use Tween easing functions
- This is useful to do easing with other formulas rather than the classic "lerp".
- Improve search and highlight results when searching for a condition/action/object/group
- Switch the game engine documentation to TypeDoc
- This adds link between types, a more readable rendering, a better search and, more generally, makes the game engine documentation much easier to browse.
- Increase contrast of the buttons to add events

Extensions, assets and examples:
- Update Extended variables extension
- Add functions to copy variables to another one, type and value(s) are copied
- Rework the sentences to fit the wording style from the engine
- Add backward compatibility
- Update ExtendedMath: Change ToFixed() to return a string instead of a number
- "ToFixed()" now returns a string instead of a number. This matches the javascript function and is helpful because whole numbers will now show the right number of zeroes.
- NOTE: This is a breaking change. If you upgrade to this version, make sure to update every expression that uses "ToFixed()".
- Add various improvements to Drag Camera With Pointer extension
- Allow user to specify mouse button to use for dragging the camera
- Cleaned up logic to use fewer events
- Added prefix to variables to prevent collision with user variables (best practice)
- Updated descriptions
- New extension CameraZoom to zoom at a given speed
- Add actions to zoom with a specified anchor point
- [GamePad] Remove console.error when no buttons are pressed

Fixed:
- Fix the platformer extension to avoid characters to be pushed downward when colliding a jumpthru while landing on another platform at the exact same time
- Fix displaying the "game update" link for Liluo.io when the user is not the owner of the game
- Fix usage of the legacy trajectory for platformer objects for old project files.
- Fix shortcuts removed by user still displayed, even if not working
- Fix various UI alignment issues
- Action/condition icon aligment
- Aligment of true/false or yes/no switches
- Fix scrollbars shown when the action/condition parameters editor is too tight
- Fix help buttons for some objects
- Fix resources sometimes duplicated when scanning resources in the project folder on Windows


GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 127
UI improvements:
- Improve the search accuracy and speed for the Example & Extension lists. The search results now display with text highlights.
- Group fields inside some object editors to make it easier to find them and quickly understand their usage
- Display objects in categories when creating a new object
- Improve consistency of behavior descriptions by starting them with a verb
- Improve the display of the list of functions (and behavior methods) in an extension
- Show an icon when a condition, action or expression is set to be private
- Show icons according to the kind of function

Make the usage of timers clearer:
- Update the sentence "Start (or reset) the timer" in the events sheet
- Add warnings that timers must be started using an action

Platformer-related improvements:
- Reorganise some platformer actions/conditions/expressions in different groups

Add an option to allow the platformer objects to go down from a jumpthru platform:
- When activated, you can press the Down key and the character will fall from the jumpthru.
- Add an action to change the current horizontal speed of a Platformer object (useful to "dash" horizontally)
- Add actions to abort a jump and change the fall speed immediately of a platformer object
- This is useful to allow to "dash" toward the ground
- Add a parameter "try to preserve the current air speed" in the "max falling speed" action for Platformer object
- This is useful to allow "gliding" or reducing the fall speed (for wall sliding) without riskying the object to go back up in the air
- Add an option to automatically grab platform ledges
- Platform ledges can be grabbed without having the left or right key pressed when this option is activated

Other improvements:
- Allow the possibility to choose a start scene in the project manager
- Allow to set a default value for boolean parameters in extensions functions (or custom behavior methods)
- Allow to set an empty color property value in custom behaviors
- Also fix the color property condition in behaviors
- Allow to edit the public information of a published game directly from the Game Dashboard
- This will be useful if you want to publish easily online - more about that soon

Extensions, assets, and examples:
- Add support for vertical slider and many improvements to the slider extension
- Dozens of fixes (notably fixed a bug in a parameter option for thumb shape)
- Improved performance of the rendering
- New animated halo when the slider is used
- Sliders can also be rotated to any angle
- Add an action for change the fire rate in the Fire Bullet extension
- Update various examples to use the new timer conditions
- Update the auto-typing example to use the behavior of the same name

Fixed:
- Fix jumping again disallowed when a platformer object is falling, even if jumping was allowed again at the beginning of the jump
- Fix Physics2 behavior editor overflowing on small screens
- Remove the ability to install extension via a shortcut or click outside to prevent mistakes
- Fix the "Animation" field not shown as a number field in the instance properties editor and wrong values displayed in it
- Fix buttons layout on mobile or small screens in the behaviors editor
- Fix locked instances wrongly moved when using keyboard in the scene editor
- Fix focus loss when editing the name or path of a new project
- Remove the duplicate "Angle" action and condition for Tiled Sprite objects
- Fix the error variable to set it to a predefined value if web request couldn't be sent
- Remove offending name from project name generator

Internal changes (for developers):
- Add developer documentation about jump trajectory theory in the Platform extension
- Make various CI fixes in GDevelop-Extensions repository


GDevelop 5.0.0 Beta 126
Game building and publishing:
Publishing to the web is now giving you a stable, unique URL to your game:
- A unique URL is now available for each game, hosted on liluo.io (more about it later!)
- The list of "builds" has been improved to allow opening web builds and decide which one to publish live on the stable url. This allows to continue making regular exports (you will get an "instant-build" URL) to the web and choose which one to show to your players (the unique URL).
- The list of builds per game is now in the game dashboard

Engine improvements:
- Add a condition to the Platformer character behavior to check if a control is pressed (or simulated)
- Improve calculations for the Top Down movement, the Platformer and the Pathfinding behaviors to make them more precise when accelerating or decelerating
- This makes the movement less prone to approximations when there is a drop in your game framerate, making your game more precise.
- Add support for rotating, scaling and flipping a Shape Painter object
- A custom center point can be set (and will be at the center of the drawing if not specified)
- The collision mask is now a rectangle surrounding what is drawn on screen
- If this changes something in your game, or you want another collision mask, you can use the action to set a custom rectangle as the collision mask of the object
- Improve the timer conditions to allow to check if the value of the timer is greater or less than a value

Extension discovery:
- Add buttons to add an extension, or a behavior to an object, when adding a condition or an action in the event sheet
- Open extension details first when clicking on an extension imported from the extensions library, in the project manager
- This is useful to read again the extension description and learn how to use it
- Change the way filters are applied when searching for extensions/behaviors/examples in the stores (you can now search them by typing in the search box, and click one to apply it)

Miscellaneous:
- Add logs to audio actions when trying to manipulate a sound/music on a non-existing channel
- Add autocompletion for fields and expressions asking for a function parameter name
- Update the new behavior method dialog "step icon" to be hollow
- Make the GDevelop Windows version signed with a certificate to avoid warnings when opening the installer
- The Windows warning should be gone once a sufficient number of people install the app
- Improve the mouse conditions to autocomplete possible values
- Add possibility to use Cmd+Enter/Ctrl+Enter to apply changes or validate a dialog.
- Show objects position instead of origin in the in-game debugging view
- Still show the "origin" point for rotated/scaled Sprite objects.
- Add missing keys in the keyboard expression autocomplete
- Allow multi-selection and sorting in the instances list
- Also allow to lock/unlock by clicking on the lock icon
- Add context menu items to collapse all events and expand events to certain levels
- Group properties in some behaviors for enhanced clarity
- Also allow custom behaviors made in the editor to define property groups
- Also allow actions/conditions/expressions created in the editor to be sorted in groups
- Add notification badge on user chip and achievements (to know when you get a new achievement)
- Improve the homepage layout to make the "Create blank project" easier to find

Extensions, assets and, examples:
- Update flexbox extension with various improvements
- Show the options in the parameters of the Gamepad extension
- [SpriteMasking] Fix unmasking being limited to sprites
- [Noise] Add octaves handling to make procedural generation easier
- [MarchingSquare] Various improvements:
- Add an action to set the field value of a grid point.
- Add expressions for the grid dimension (the number of rows and columns)
- Add an action to "clamp" the field with an upper and lower bound
- Add the "Multiplication" and "Division" operations for the "merge" action
- Fix: the field is cleared if its size is changed so that its size actually updates
- Add DiscordRichPresence extension
- Add space-asteroids example from GDevelop's Youtube tutorial
- Update IAP example to 1.1.0
- Mainly a simplification of the example
- Add circular pong example
- Paint example

Fixed:
- Display timed out builds instead of infinite loader
- Fix crash on web-app for users using automatic page translations
- Fix some typo in the interface or codebase
- Fixes presence of ghost collision masks for objects with platform behavior
- Fix the special 'Not' condition not working with some conditions related to objects
- Fix the expression to get the user home path
- Fix toolbar not centered on the extensions screen
- Fix wrong network preview address shown when running in VirtualBox/VMware