Gds editor version 1.4 change log

Name Change

Following multiple recommendations from users, I have decided to take their advice and change the launch name of GDS Plus to GDS Editor. "GDS Plus" was not a descriptive name for the application. Although "GDS Editor" seems rather bland, it will have to do for now.

Behavior Changes

Importing a new asset will now place the asset in the center of the scene where you're working, instead of at the 0,0 [top-left] point. You no longer have to navigate the scene to find newly imported assets.
Newly imported assets are automatically added to the selection. Previously selected assets will be unselected.
Zoom speed has been slowed by 5%.
Zoom level can now be selected from the canvas bar as an input.
Changes to the "Add Component" menu on the scene palette in preparation for upcoming pro features. The aesthetic "Add" side tab has been removed to avoid clutter.
Minor style changes to the scene palette.
Removed the scene palette quick icon ["resize scene bounds"] and moved it to the scene settings menu. The Control + B key can still be used to rebind the scene.
Improved UI dialog management: dialogs are now displayed in the order they are opened, ensuring that the last opened dialog is always on top.
Moved the new scene creation button to the scene tab holder menu, instead of in the top bar.
You can now directly rename your scene using the scene name holder, without having to open the scene settings menu.
The art object properties inspector button will now display red if the selected component has switchable attributes.
Background alpha checkers can now be saved to the scene save state and toggled on and off as needed.
E key export behavior has been modified. Now, when pressing the E key, there are three distinct export behaviors:
- Pressing E with no objects selected will export a PNG of the scene area. Components outside the scene area will be clipped.
- Pressing E with a single component selected will export an isolated PNG of that component.
- Pressing E with multiple components selected will export the area of the scene occupied by the selected components' bounding box.
Selected components will now only display a thin border to indicate they are selected. The blue background for selected components has been removed, as it interfered with visualizing color balance and contrast with components behind the selection.
Window panning: if you wish to move a selected component to a part of the scene outside of the current window, hovering the mouse at the edge of the window will pan the scene in that direction. Once you stop panning, your selection will be updated to reflect the new window offset.
The scene palette grid snap and grid toggle buttons now reflect the current grid state.
Added hotkey Alt + G.
The new scene button has been moved to the scene tab list.
Scene meta information is now displayed above the canvas.
Improved and easier-to-read layout in the transform and position inspector.

Batch operations have had a major overhaul. The selection inspector has been removed, and stroke and color operations on multiple selected objects are now handled by the respective dialog boxes.
Batch hue, saturation, and color effects are now handled by the color slider dialog. This dialog provides access to color groups, which are extracted from all selected components. Although limited to a maximum of 100 color groups, the sliders will affect matching color groups across multiple components.
The stroke weight adjustment and selectable properties dialogs will now handle multiple selected components. Matching switchable features across themed asset packs can be triggered simultaneously.
The transform and component properties dialog now handles multiple components, displaying the size and dimensions of the selection area and the number of selected items. Furthermore, available actions are managed depending on whether multiple components are selected.
The export dialog will now also handle export operations on multiple selected components. You can export the selection area as a PNG, export selected items as individual PNGs, or send selected items to a new scene.
The text component dialog now handles multiple selected texts, although the text content of a text component cannot be changed in batch mode.

The exporter tool has been completely overhauled. You can now precisely export any area of the canvas while you work.

Once an export area has been selected with the exporter tool, the size and area can be tweaked and modified instead of immediately exporting the area.
The bounds of the export area can be extended via the edge handles.
The area can be dragged and repositioned by dragging the middle of the export area.
The width and height of the export area are displayed on the bottom left of the area.
As well as exporting a PNG to your local disk, you can export a PNG to the current scene for further editing.

Selecting one color in the color scan window will now deselect all other color selections across all color domains (stroke, fill, gradient).
Holding the Shift key will allow you to select and swap multiple colors across all domains. However, non-keyboard users can still use the multi-select switch.
Minor improvements in color scan and replace layout.
All color select inputs will now use the new native color picker window, offering more options and a clearer way to pick colors. (See New Functions.)

New functions

As well as changes to the existing behaviour of the application, new features have been added to help you compose, edit and modify assets quicker and easier.

Added invert selection function CTRL + 1
Convert an SVG to a PNG - save to local disk or add to scene via the export dialog in the right-hand inspector panel.

GDS Editor 1.4 moves away from using browser color inputs for selecting colors to a more comprehensive color selecting solution. The color picking dialog starts as a good base to build in better color solutions. As a start, the color picker dialog provides the following color methods:

Replacement for all color input selectors across the entire application.
HSL sliders and a color panel.
Direct exposure of the hexadecimal color value, with setting and copy-paste capability.
Last selected color list. The color picker will store any previous colors you have selected, with a maximum history of 20.
Save color. If there is a specific color you need to save, you can add it to your saved color list and select it at a later time.
Color swatches. Although there are only a few available swatches with this release, I plan to add a more comprehensive selection of color swatches in the next minor update or patch.
Color theory. The color picker window will build color theory palettes for you, including common color combinations such as split complementary, triadic, tetradic complementaries, and monochrome scale.

Although GDS Editor 1.3 had Post-it categories, their management methods were not exposed, and they were only available in prebuilt GDS scenes.

Create subcategories in your palette to manage components on your scene. Use side tabs to easily select components in the scene subcategory.
Manage subcategories by right-clicking or double-clicking on their tabs. Rename, select color themes, and delete categories using the category editor options.
Deleting a category sends components to the main category.
Creating a category with selected components sends the selected components to the category.
The category add button at the base of the palette can be used to move components between categories.

Line height, letter spacing, and text shadow have been added to the simple text component.

There are still some loading issues and font issues which vary across browsers.

You can now copy and paste objects to and from applications outside of GDS Editor. If the component base is an SVG, you can use the Alt + C to copy out the SVG. If the component base is an image, it will copy the image.

Due to the browser environment, you can only copy one item at a time as most browsers don't support copying multiple elements. Furthermore, due to security in the browser, you may be asked for permission to allow the editor to use your external clipboard.

Furthermore, in GDS Editor, external copy and paste is a separate mechanism compared to internal application-specific duplicating, copying, and pasting. Use Alt + V to paste and Alt + C to copy a component. More work is anticipated to improve the use of the external keyboard.

GDS Editor now supports the editing of PNG and JPEG files, allowing you to incorporate and modify PNGs and JPEGs from other sources. PNG and BMP filters can also be added to SVG sources, increasing the modification capacity of GDS Editor. PNG and JPEG editing does not have the power and flexibility of GDS Plus art objects. However, the filter functions editor will allow you to perform some basic image modification tasks. Available filters are:

Hue - rotate the hue of the image (raster only).
Saturation - adjust the saturation of an image (raster only).
Luminance - adjust the luminance of an image (raster only).
Contrast - intensify images both raster and SVG.
Pixelate - convert vector art to pixel art.
Blur - useful for creating drop shadows on components.
Brightness - adjust light value for getting assets to sit with your environment.
Reduce antialias - reduces alpha pixels on edges depending on the threshold.

As Google Fonts are open source fonts and free to use in your games, I've gone through the font library and selected some of the best-suited fonts for use in your games. However, you can always upload a font. The new fonts are as follows:

Three new color sliders for SVG art components - contrast, hue shift, and color blends.
Dropper tool now approximates art component colors.

Please be aware that changing HSL after applying contrast, blend, and shift will remove these filters.

Bug fixes

Fixed grid active/inactive toggles to reflect the current grid state.
Fixed color group window not opening when selecting components with an already open window.
Fixed bug with component locking; components became unlocked when using the tool.
Locked components cannot be selected with the rubber band tool.
Fixed SCML component export always detecting SCML in scene.
Fixed export JSON data for exporting atlases.
Fixed a bug when undoing color swaps on strokes.
Some spelling mistakes fixed (spelling mistakes are a trademark of all GDS services; yes, that was deliberate :)).
Fixed bug; the editor wasn't creating a new scene when importing into a project without scenes.
Fixed font upload bug; custom fonts could not be uploaded.
Changes to art objects are also reflected in the scene palette thumbnail.
Fixed SVG export not exporting color changes.
Fixed UI bug; components in the scene appearing next to the scene dialog could not be selected.

Performance updates

Icons have been placed on a single texture sheet, reducing requests and load times.
Improvements in speed when selecting large numbers of components.