3.3.0

[sirjuddington]

Release Notes

Modern OpenGL Rework

• All OpenGL functionality (gfx view, texture editor, map editor, etc.) has been updated to use more modern features, now requiring a minimum of OpenGL 3.3. This should improve performance and compatibility with newer hardware
• For systems that don't meet the requirements (or have other issues with OpenGL), software-rendered fallbacks are now also available for everything except the map editor. If OpenGL fails to initialize, these fallbacks will be used, or they can be forced by setting the use_gl_canvas cvar to 0

General

• The Preferences dialog (now 'Settings') has been redesigned, replacing the left side tree with a simpler list of sections. Also reworked the layout of some of the individual pages to be a bit cleaner
• The Start Page has been redesigned and is no longer a web page, with a more minimalist look
• Removed the embedded documentation browser, docs will now be opened in the system default browser instead
• SLADE now keeps a program database which tracks various useful info, and will be expanded on in future releases
• For each archive opened, certain UI state is now remembered between sessions:
  • Entry list column widths and visibility
  • 'Run Archive' settings
  • Map editor game/port configuration
• Configuration text files (user and internal) are now in JSON format instead of the previous custom c-like format
• Improved DPI scaling on all platforms
• [Linux] SLADE config files have been moved from ~/.slade3 to ~/.config/slade3 following best practices. Previous configs will be migrated here when converted from the previous SLADE 3.2.x format(s) to JSON
• The colour configuration system has been reworked, and now allows separate configurations for each relevant part of the program (Map Preview, Map Image Export and Map Editor), instead of them all being linked
  • The settings UI for colours has also been changed, and map editor colours are now under the Map Editor Display section
• The Help -> About dialog has been improved with a new layout, showing system information and a list of contributors
• Various UI fixes and improvements
• Lots of under-the-hood rework and code cleanup to improve performance and stability

Game Formats & Features

• Added support for opening and saving 7-Zip archives
• Added support for opening Outlaws LAB archives (thanks @SupSuper)
• Added support for HROT pak archive format (thanks @wolfmanfp)
• Added detection of 3ds model format (thanks @wolfmanfp)
• Added support for loading and saving SiN Reloaded archives (thanks @Paril)
• Added support for loading Daikatana pak archives with compression (thanks @Paril)
  • As the format is not easy to distinguish from regular pak archives, a new cvar pak_enable_daikatana was added to enable it
• Fixed recognition of JPEG images without a JFIF or Exif header (thanks @wolfmanfp)

Resource Editor

• The map preview can now be panned and zoomed via the mouse(wheel), similarly to the map editor 2d view
• Maps in zip archives can now be previewed and opened directly from the entry list, rather than having to open the map's wad file separately
• Added basic support for editing ANSI screens
  • Edit tool - allows (multi-)selecting cells and changing their foreground/background colour and character
  • Paint tool - click(+drag) to apply the currently selected foreground/background colours and character at the mouse cursor
  • Text tool - click to select a cell and type text at that location using the selected colours
• The entry list view can now be toggled between tree/list on the fly via toolbar button
• Added a button to reset the gfx view panning
• The default gfx view is now centered (optionally, on by default)
• Added a button to swap colours on the palette gradient dialog (thanks @ribbon-otter)
• Various improvements to the audio player:
  • Added ability to seek during MIDI playback
  • Switched from dumb to libxmp for improved module playback
  • Improved the layout and controls
• Added options for additional padding and monospace font in the data grid view
• The translation editor dialog can now be resized
• The default map preview theme now uses system colours for background and lines
• Fixed viewing XNOD and ZNOD node entry types, added support for ZGL3 nodes (thanks @electricbrass)
• Fixed palette translations generating incorrectly when the source and destination ranges have mismatching sizes
• Fixed issues with full file paths being used when importing a directory or building an archive from a directory
• Fixed wrong success/failure message after compiling ACS/DECOHack (thanks @electricbrass)

Text Editor

• Added support for BRGHTMPS, DMXMIDI, SKYDEFS and NUGHUD entries (thanks @wolfmanfp)
• Highlighting support for final and transient ZScript keywords
• Added support for Odamex HORDEDEF and SPREEDEF text entries (thanks @electricbrass)
• Added an option to display a 'minimap' scrollbar for the text editor. This can cause slow performance on large text files so is disabled by default

Texture Editor

• The texture editor has been given an overhaul:
  • Improved UI with a simpler layout and less wasted space
  • Instead of one tab per TEXTUREx, the texture list is now shown as a tree view. Selecting a TEXTUREx root item in the tree displays all textures in that list in a browser view, double-clicking a texture in the browser will open it in the editor
  • The patch table (PNAMES) is now displayed as a sidebar tab on the right instead of its own full tab, along with a small preview and list of textures the selected patch is used in. Patches can be dragged from the patch list directly on to the current texture, and double-clicking one of the 'used-in' textures will open that texture in the editor
  • Full undo+redo support

Scripting

• Changed the lua binding library from sol2 to luabridge. For the most part this has no effect on compatibility with previous lua scripts, with one exception:
  • Editor scripts now must return a function that takes the appropriate parameter, rather than defining an Execute function
• Added ability to modify and create map geometry via scripts (thanks @deviant-syndrome)
• Lua language version updated to 5.5.1

Map Editor

• With the OpenGL rework, the 2D map view has also received an upgrade, with nicer looking lines and things. Performance has also been improved significantly
• 3D mode has also received an overhaul with the OpenGL rework, and is now significantly faster (most maps can be rendered with unlimited view distance at high framerate) with various improvements and changes:
  • The camera now works differently by default - instead of the mouse cursor being permanently locked into panning the camera, the pointer can now move freely to select walls/flats/things. Holding the right mouse button will pan the camera view. This has the advantage of allowing the UI to be accessed while in 3D mode and avoiding some issues that could come with locking the mouse cursor to the window the whole time 3D mode was active. The previous 'always mouselook' behaviour can be toggled via keybind (default M)
  • Improved support for 3D floors
  • Support for previewing dynamic lights
• When deleting an item, the relative index of all other items should now be kept intact (eg. deleting vertex 5 will move all vertices above index 5 down by 1)
• Various improvements to the properties panel
  • Modified properties are shown in bold text
  • Colour properties are now only shown if they have a non-default value set
  • Empty groups are now hidden
  • Basic line flags are now always shown
• Added support for UDMF moreids properties for sectors and lines
• Added an option to fill missing textures after changing sector heights (on by default)
• Added partial ID24 support (thing types and action specials) (thanks @Gaerzi)
• Added support for the ElfBSP node builder (thanks @electricbrass)
  • ElfBSP v1.3.1 is also added to the bundled tools on Windows
• Fixed default thing flags not including sp/coop/dm in hexen format maps
• Fixed very high scrolling sensitivity on touchpads with 'smooth' scrolling support
• Fixed issues with thing types greater than 32767

Additional Thanks

Additional thanks to @107zxz for their contributions since the first 3.3.0 beta release

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This discussion was created from the release 3.3.0.