This post is about two development snapshots. This happened partly because I didn't get around to properly announcing last week's snapshot, and partly because last week's snapshot actually failed to launch on Windows, so we had to fix that first. I'm sorry for those who had already downloaded it anyway!

Tiled 2019.07.16

I couldn't find any particular thing to highlight in this snapshot. There is support for a new compression format, Zstandard, which provides some speed benefit over zlib. Switching maps within a world now keeps the same layers selected when possible. The tmxrasterizer learned to load plugins and now supports all map formats. Possibly a long standing issue with handling tileset image reloads when saved from Photoshop was fixed (let me know, Photoshop users!). Finally, the scripting API is again a little more complete and some bugs were fixed.

BRULE Herman Jacques Roger and Michael de Lang

• Added support for Zstandard compression and configurable compression level for tile layer data (#1886)

Justin Zheng

• Keep same layers and tileset selected when switching maps in a world (#2087)

Markus

• Added custom output chunk size option to map properties (#2130)

Nathan Tolbert

• tmxrasterizer: Load plugins to support additional map formats (#2152)
• Improved how file system watcher handles replaced files (#2158)

Thorbjørn Lindeijer

• Scripting: Enable executing of custom commands
• Scripting: Added functions to open, close and reload files
• Scripting: Added access to the properties of text objects
• Console: Focus the text input when the console becomes visible
• Fixed exporting to a file name with multiple dots (#2149)
• Fixed possible crash in AutoMapper (#2157)

Tiled 2019.07.24

Tiled 2019.07.16 wouldn't start on Windows because it was missing zstd.dll. It was meant to be linked statically, which is what happens now. Various improvements to libtiled-java were finally merged.  The refresh of the map view when using a world with hundreds of maps no longer takes several seconds. The Objects view gained a search filter! And of course some bugs were fixed as well.

Michael de Lang

• Link zstd static library instead of dynamic library on Windows (#2173)

Sergey Savchuk

• libtiled-java: Added support for bit flags (flipped tiles) in TileLayer (#2006)
• libtiled-java: Added ImageLayer reading (#2006)

Simon Parzer

• Optimized refreshing of map view for worlds with many maps (#2159)

Thorbjørn Lindeijer

• Added search filter to the Objects view (#1467)
• Fixed layer IDs getting re-assigned when resizing the map (#2160)
• Fixed adjacent maps within a world not being properly clickable
• Fixed duplicated entries in Objects view after grouping layers
• Fixed restoring of expanded group layers in Objects view

Pavel Bondoronok

• libtiled-java: Fixes issues due to different path separators on UNIX systems vs. Windows (#2006)
• libtiled-java: Optimization for TMXMapReader.unmarshalClass(Node, Class) (#2006)

The Near Future

So are we just going to continue like this, you're asking? Well, hopefully not! Despite the need for bugfixing and reviewing the many community contributions (thanks a lot everyone!) and responding to the rather overwhelming number of feature requests and questions, I will keep trying to focus on finishing the Tiled 1.3 release. It will be wonderful, even for those who don't like scripting or for those who had wanted it to support project files. By now it has something for everyone, so it's time to get it done!

And btw, I am relying entirely on your support to be able to develop Tiled for two full days/week. A big thanks to everyone who is supporting me as a patron or who pays for Tiled on itch.io! If you are not yet supporting Tiled, please consider signing up. There's so much work left to do!