v7.7.0-rc.1

This is a release candidate for Rojo 7.7.0. It contains a rewrite of Rojo's core networking loop to use a websocket connection over long-polling. This should result in improved performance and reliablity when syncing, but it may also introduce bugs. While we've taken time to test for bugs, you should be wary of using this release for important work. Here be dragons.

If you encounter any behavior that is unexpected, please report it.

If you normally get the Rojo plugin from the Roblox Marketplace, you will have to manually install it to use this release. We will not update the plugin on Roblox until 7.7.0 fully releases.

Changes since Rojo 7.6.1

Additions

• Added rojo syncback. Syncback is a feature designed to solve the long-standing problem of converting an existing place file into a Rojo project. Go to the section in this release for more information. (#937)
• Added support for .jsonc in all places where you can use .json. (#1159)

Changes

• Changed rojo serve to use websockets instead of long polling (#1142)

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where passing --skip-git to rojo init would still create a file named gitignore.txt (#1172)
• Fixed bugs and improved performance & UX for the script diff viewer (#994)

Syncback

Syncback is a feature designed to solve the long-standing problem of converting an existing place file into a Rojo project. It is configured by a new field in projects, and is invoked with a CLI subcommand rojo syncback.

The command itself is rojo syncback path/to/project --input path/to/file.rbxl. This will run syncback and pull things from the provided file to place on the operating system. Instances are attempted to be written in a reasonable manner but what Instances become what is still up in the air.

Instances will only be pulled from the file system if they are a descendant of a node in the provided project file. That is, in order to syncback the children of Workspace, Workspace must be in your project file. You may wish to have a separate project.json for running syncback as a result.

To control the behavior of syncback more, there's a new field in project files named syncbackRules:

    {
        "syncbackRules": {
            "ignoreTrees": [
                "ServerStorage/ImportantSecrets",
            ],
            "ignorePaths": [
                "src/ServerStorage/Secrets/*"
            ],
            "ignoreProperties": {
                "BasePart": ["Color"]
            },
            "syncCurrentCamera": false,
            "syncUnscriptable": true,
            "ignoreReferents": false,
        }
    }

A brief explanation of each field:

• ignoreTrees is a list of paths in the roblox file that should be ignored
• ignorePaths is a list of paths in the file system that should be ignored
• ignoreProperties is a list of properties that won't be synced back
• syncCurrentCamera is a toggle for whether to sync back the Workspace's CurrentCamera. Defaults to false.
• syncUnscriptable is a toggle for whether to sync back properties that cannot be set by the Roblox Studio plugin. Defaults to true.
• ignoreReferents is a toggle for whether to sync back referent properties like Model.PrimaryPart. Defaults to false, which means that they will be included.

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Rokit

Add a line to the [tools] section in rokit.toml:

rojo = "rojo-rbx/rojo@7.7.0-rc.1"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.88.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.7.0-rc.1

v7.6.1

Changes since Rojo 7.6.0

Additions

• Added support for JSON comments and trailing commas in project, meta, and model json files (#1144)
• Added sourcemap.json into the default .gitignore files (#1145)

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the last sync timestamp was not updating correctly in the plugin (#1132)
• Improved the reliability of sync replacements by adding better error handling and recovery (#1135)
• Small improvements to stability when syncing massive projects (#1140)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Rokit

Add a line to the [tools] section in rokit.toml:

rojo = "rojo-rbx/rojo@7.6.1"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.88.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.6.1

v7.6.0

Changes since Rojo 7.5.1

Additions

• Added flag to rojo init to skip initializing a git repository (#1122)

• Added fallback method for when an Instance can't be synced through normal means (#1030)
  This should make it possible to sync MeshParts and Unions!

  The fallback involves deleting and recreating Instances. This will break
  properties that reference them that Rojo does not know about, so be weary.

• Add support for the plugin auto-reconnecting to the Rojo server (#1096)

• Added an option to make sync reminders more aggressive (#1096)

• Add support for syncing yml and yaml files (behaves similar to JSON and TOML) (#1093)

• Added an update indicator to the version header when a new version of the plugin is available. (#1069)

• Added --absolute flag to the sourcemap subcommand, which will emit absolute paths instead of relative paths. (#1092)

Fixes

• Fixed colors of Table diff (#1084)
• Fixed sourcemap command outputting paths with OS-specific path separators (#1085)
• Fixed nil -> nil properties showing up as failing to sync in plugin's patch visualizer (#1081)
• Fixed Auto Connect Playtest Server no longer functioning due to Roblox change (#1066)
• Fixed applying gameId and placeId before initial sync was accepted (#1104)

Changes

• Changed the background of the server's in-browser UI to be gray instead of white (#1080)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Rokit or Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in rokit.toml or aftman.toml:

rojo = "rojo-rbx/rojo@7.6.0"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.83.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.6.0

v7.5.1

This release fixes a problem in the Rojo plugin that caused it to spam the output when syncing in .rbxm or .rbxmx files.

If you are looking for Rojo 7.5.0's changes, see https://github.com/rojo-rbx/rojo/releases/tag/v7.5.0.

Changes since Rojo 7.5.0

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where having Instance.Capabilities set would cause the plugin to emit a warning (this property exists on every Instance loaded from a .rbxm or .rbxmx file)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman or Rokit

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml or rokit.toml:

rojo = "rojo-rbx/rojo@7.5.1"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.5.1

v7.5.0

This release contains a variety of changes. They are listed below.

Changes since Rojo 7.4.4

Additions

• Added support for Roblox's Content type. This replaces the old Content type with ContentId to reflect Roblox's change.
  If you were previously using the fully-qualified syntax for Content you will need to switch it to ContentId.

• Projects may now manually link Ref properties together using Attributes. (#843)
  This has two parts: using id or $id in JSON files or a Rojo_Target attribute, an Instance
  is given an ID. Then, that ID may be used elsewhere in the project to point to an Instance
  using an attribute named Rojo_Target_PROP_NAME, where PROP_NAME is the name of a property.

  As an example, here is a model.json for an ObjectValue that refers to itself:

  {
      "id": "arbitrary string",
      "attributes": {
          "Rojo_Target_Value": "arbitrary string"
      }
  }

  This is a very rough implementation and the usage will become more ergonomic
  over time.

• Projects may now specify rules for syncing files as if they had a different file extension. (#813)
  This is specified via a new field on project files, syncRules:

   {
    	"syncRules": [
    	 	{
    	 	 	"pattern": "*.foo",
    	 	 	"use": "text",
               "exclude": "*.exclude.foo",
    	 	},
    	 	{
    	 	 	"pattern": "*.bar.baz",
    	 	 	"use": "json",
    	 	 	"suffix": ".bar.baz",
    	 	},
    	],
    	"name": "SyncRulesAreCool",
    	"tree": {
    	 	"$path": "src"
    	}
   }

  The pattern field is a glob used to match the sync rule to files. If present, the suffix field allows you to specify parts of a file's name get cut off by Rojo to name the Instance, including the file extension. If it isn't specified, Rojo will only cut off the first part of the file extension, up to the first dot.

  Additionally, the exclude field allows files to be excluded from the sync rule if they match a pattern specified by it. If it's not present, all files that match pattern will be modified using the sync rule.

  The use field corresponds to one of the potential file type that Rojo will currently include in a project. Files that match the provided pattern will be treated as if they had the file extension for that file type.

  use value	file extension
  serverScript	.server.lua
  clientScript	.client.lua
  moduleScript	.lua
  json	.json
  toml	.toml
  csv	.csv
  text	.txt
  jsonModel	.model.json
  rbxm	.rbxm
  rbxmx	.rbxmx
  project	.project.json
  ignore	None!

  Additionally, there are use values for specific script types (#909):

  use value	script type
  legacyServerScript	Script with Enum.RunContext.Legacy
  legacyClientScript	LocalScript
  runContextServerScript	Script with Enum.RunContext.Server
  runContextClientScript	Script with Enum.RunContext.Client
  pluginScript	Script with Enum.RunContext.Plugin

  All sync rules are reset between project files, so they must be specified in each one when nesting them. This is to ensure that nothing can break other projects by changing how files are synced!

• Added support for Enum attributes

• Added support for .plugin.lua(u) files - this applies the Plugin RunContext. (#1008)

• Added blockedPlaceIds project field to allow blocking place ids from being live synced (#1021)

• Added support for a $schema field in all special JSON files (.project.json, .model.json, and .meta.json) (#974)

• Added popout diff visualizer for table properties like Attributes and Tags (#834)

• Added update notifications for newer compatible versions in the Studio plugin. (#832)

• Added experimental setting for Auto Connect in playtests (#840)

Fixes

• Fixed an edge case that caused model pivots to not be built correctly in some cases (#1027)
• Updated Undo/Redo history to be more robust (#915)
• Fixed notification and tooltip text sometimes getting cut off (#988)

Changes

• Significantly improved performance of .rbxm parsing
• Updated Theme to use Studio colors (#838)
• Improved patch visualizer UX (#883)
• Improved settings UI (#886)
• Open Scripts Externally option can now be changed while syncing (#911)
• The sync reminder notification will now tell you what was last synced and when (#987)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman or Rokit

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml or rokit.toml:

rojo = "rojo-rbx/rojo@7.5.0"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.5.0

v7.4.4

This release fixes a crash caused by a recent Roblox change and an edge case caused by setting Archivable to false for one Instance but not setting it for anything else.

Changes since Rojo 7.4.3

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with reading recently generated Lighting files
• Archivable is now set to true by default when building to binary (rbxm/rbxl) files, which fixes an edge case where it was set to false for one Instance but not set for anything else

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml:

rojo ="rojo-rbx/rojo@7.4.4"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.4.4

v7.4.3

This release contains a bug fix for a breaking issue introduced in Rojo 7.4.2 when building binary (rbxm and rbxl) files. It also corrects some warnings that were emitted by the plugin on initial sync.

Changes since Rojo 7.4.2

Fixes

• Fixed issue with building binary files introduced in 7.4.2
• Fixed value of type nil cannot be converted to number warning spam in output. (#955)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml:

rojo ="rojo-rbx/rojo@7.4.3"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.4.3

v7.4.2

This release contains a handful of bugfixes and a minor UX improvement to the property's patch confirmation.

Changes since Rojo 7.4.1

Fixes

• Fixed removing trailing newlines in scripts (#903)
• As always, the internal property database has been updated. This fixes an issue with SurfaceAppearance.Color among other things. (#948)

Changes

• Added option to select 'Never' for plugin patch confirmation (#893)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml:

rojo ="rojo-rbx/rojo@7.4.2"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.4.1

v7.4.1

This release contains a handful of bugfixes and small improvements.

Changes since Rojo 7.4.0

Fixes

• Fixed incorrect results when building model pivots (#865)
• Fixed incorrect results when serving model pivots (#868)
• Fixed Rojo plugin failing to connect when project contains certain unreadable properties (#848)
• Fixed various cases where patch visualizer would not display sync failures (#845, #844)
• Fixed Rojo plugin erroring out after attempting to destroy services (#845)
• Fixed http error handling so Rojo can be used in Github Codespaces (#847)

Changes

• Made the name field optional on project files (#870)

  Files named default.project.json inherit the name of the folder they're in and all other projects
  are named as expect (e.g. foo.project.json becomes an Instance named foo)

  There is no change in behavior if name is set.

• Rojo now converts any line endings to LF, preventing spurious diffs when syncing Lua files on Windows (#854)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml:

rojo ="rojo-rbx/rojo@7.4.1"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

[WARNING: this method will not work because we've had some trouble publishing Rojo 7.4.1 to crates.io. We should have it resolved in a future patch, sorry!]

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.4.1

v7.4.0

This release is a long time coming and carries with it the changes of the last 9 months. It is the first full release handled by Rojo's new maintainers.

Important Notice: There is a new place to install Rojo's plugin from Roblox's website. If you are using the version on the website, it now lives here.

Changes since Rojo 7.3.0

Additions

Project format

• Added support for .toml files to $path (#633)

• Added support for Font and CFrame attributes (rbx-dom#299, rbx-dom#296)

• Added the emitLegacyScripts field to the project format (#765). The behavior is outlined below:

  emitLegacyScripts Value	Action Taken by Rojo
  false	Rojo emits Scripts with the appropriate RunContext for *.client.lua and *.server.lua files in the project.
  true (default)	Rojo emits LocalScripts and Scripts with legacy RunContext (same behavior as previously).

  It can be used like this:

   {
   	"emitLegacyScripts": false,
   	"name": "MyCoolRunContextProject",
   	"tree": {
   		"$path": "src"
   	}
   }

• Added Terrain classname inference, similar to services (#771)

  Terrain may now be defined in projects without using $className:

   "Workspace": {
   	"Terrain": {
   		"$path": "path/to/terrain.rbxm"
   	}
   }

• Added support for Terrain.MaterialColors (#770)

  Terrain.MaterialColors is now represented in projects in a human readable format:

   "Workspace": {
   	"Terrain": {
   		"$path": "path/to/terrain.rbxm"
   		"$properties": {
   			"MaterialColors": {
   				"Grass": [10, 20, 30],
   				"Asphalt": [40, 50, 60],
   				"LeafyGrass": [255, 155, 55]
   			}
   		}
   	}
   }

• Added better support for Font properties (#731)

  FontFace properties may now be defined using implicit property syntax:

   "TextBox": {
   	"$className": "TextBox",
   	"$properties": {
   		"FontFace": {
   			"family": "rbxasset://fonts/families/RobotoMono.json",
   			"weight": "Thin",
   			"style": "Normal"
   		}
   	}
   }

Patch visualizer and notifications

• Added a setting to control patch confirmation behavior (#774)

  This is a new setting for controlling when the Rojo plugin prompts for confirmation before syncing. It has four options:

  • Initial (default): prompts only once for a project in a given Studio session
  • Always: always prompts for confirmation
  • Large Changes: only prompts when there are more than X changed instances. The number of instances is configurable - an additional setting for the number of instances becomes available when this option is chosen
  • Unlisted PlaceId: only prompts if the place ID is not present in servePlaceIds

• Added the ability to select Instances in patch visualizer (#709)

  Double-clicking an instance in the patch visualizer sets Roblox Studio's selection to the instance.

• Added a sync reminder notification. (#689)

  Rojo detects if you have previously synced to a place, and displays a notification reminding you to sync again:

  

• Added rich Source diffs in patch visualizer (#748)

  A "View Diff" button for script sources is now present in the patch visualizer. Clicking it displays a side-by-side diff of the script changes:

  

  

• Patch visualizer now indicates what changes failed to apply. (#717)

  A clickable warning label is displayed when the Rojo plugin is unable to apply changes. Clicking the label displays precise information about which changes failed:

  

Miscellaneous

• Added plugin flag to the build command that outputs to the local plugins folder (#735)

  This is a flag that builds a Rojo project into Roblox Studio's plugins directory. This allows you to build a Rojo project and load it into Studio as a plugin without having to type the full path to the plugins directory. It can be used like this: rojo build <PATH-TO-PROJECT> --plugin <FILE-NAME>

• Added new plugin template to the init command (#738)

  This is a new template geared towards plugins. It is similar to the model template, but creates a Script instead of a ModuleScript in the src directory. It can be used like this: rojo init --kind plugin

• Added protection against syncing non-place projects as a place. (#691)

• Add buttons for navigation on the Connected page (#722)

Fixes

• Significantly improved performance of rojo serve and rojo build on macOS. #830
• Significantly improved performance of rojo sourcemap (#668)
• Fixed the diff visualizer of connected sessions. (#674)
• Fixed disconnected session activity. (#675)
• Skip confirming patches that contain only a datamodel name change. (#688)
• Fix Rojo breaking when users undo/redo in Studio (#708)
• Improve tooltip behavior (#723)
• Better settings controls (#725)
• Rework patch visualizer with many fixes and improvements (#713, #726, #755)

Changes

• rojo init now generates scripts with .luau as the file extension rather than .lua (#831)

Upgrading

To install the Roblox Studio plugin, there are a few options:

• Run rojo plugin install from the Rojo CLI
• Download the attached Rojo.rbxm and place it into your Roblox Studio plugins folder
• Install from the Roblox plugin page

There are also multiple ways to install the Rojo CLI:

With Aftman

Add a line to the [tools] section in aftman.toml:

rojo ="rojo-rbx/rojo@7.4.0"

From GitHub Release

Download one of the attached binaries on this release page!

From Crates.io

You can use Cargo (1.70.0+) to build the release yourself from crates.io:

cargo install rojo --version 7.4.0

New Contributors

• @Miizzuu made their first contribution in #669
• @u-train made their first contribution in #730
• @Corecii made their first contribution in #633
• @sasial-dev made their first contribution in #765
• @jackTabsCode made their first contribution in #816
• @cozywitchcraft made their first contribution in #819

Other Contributors

A very big thank you to @Barocena, @boatbomber, @Boegie19, @chriscerie, @Dekkonot, @filiptibell, @kennethloeffler, and @nezuo for their work in this release!