Cross platform Java game library PlayN v1.6 was released

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Version 1.6 of the cross platform Java based game library PlayN was released recently.  PlayN enables you to target desktop, HTML 5, iOS and Android all using a single Java code base. 

 

  

Here are the release notes for this release:

PlayN v1.6

  • The complete API changes are summarized in this JDiff report.
  • Below is a summary of the interesting changes.

Project Layout

  • The way projects are organized has changed, please see Migrating15to16 for details.

Core

  • Implemented tinting for layers (only on GL backends). See Layer.setTint and Layer.tint.
  • Added Log.setMinLevel to allow suppressing log messages below a certain level. (Recommended by Google for Android release builds.)
  • Added Sound.release for releasing audio resources sooner than waiting for GC to do it.
  • Added Assets.getMusic which allows backends to make some optimizations relating to large audio files.
  • Graphics.setSize was removed, and special setSize methods were added to individual platform backend code that can reasonably support them (e.g. HtmlGraphics.setSize).
  • Added GLContext.Stats for debugging rendering performance on GL backends. (See Triple Play’s HUD class for an easy way to display these stats.)
  • Deprecated Canvas.setTransform because it interacts poorly with automatic scale factor management in HiDPI modes.
  • Added CanvasImage.snapshot which can be used to create an immutable snapshot of a canvas image which has higher render performance.
  • Added TextLayout.ascent/descent/leading for cases where an app needs to know more about the text that will be rendered by aTextLayout (for underlining, for example).
  • Added Json.Writer.useVerboseFormat to cause the JSON writer to generate pretty printed output (rather than compact, everything on one line output).
  • Added support for nested clipping regions (e.g. clipped groups inside of clipped groups).

Java

  • Made the Java backend look for .wav audio files and then fall back to .mp3. This allows a game to use uncompressed .wav audio files, and only compress them when preparing an Android, iOS, or HTML build.
  • Made playback of large MP3s work (when loaded as music).

HTML

  • Added HtmlAssets.ImageManifest which can be used to pre-load the dimensions of all images known to your app, and enableAssets.getImageSync to (sort of) work in the HTML backend. A wiki article explaining this will be forthcoming.
  • Added support for HiDPI mode. See HtmlPlatform.Config.scaleFactor and HtmlAssets.setAssetScale.
  • Added HtmlGraphics.registerFontMetrics for overriding the (hacky) measurement of font line height.
  • Removed source code from the stock POMs. HTML backends now need to add the source jar files to their html/pom.xml. See playn-samples for an example.

Android

  • Fixed issue with audio not stopping when device was put to sleep.
  • Images loaded locally are now marked as “purgeable” and “input shareable”. Google for “android” and those terms to learn more.
  • Added AndroidGraphics.setCanvasScaleFunc which allows games to use lower resolution canvas images if desired. This is useful on devices with low memory.
  • Added AndroidAssets.BitmapOptions which allows games to downsample images if desired. This is useful on devices with low memory.
  • Added GameActivity.prefsName for customizing the name of the Android preferences file.
  • Added GameActivity.logIdent for customizing the Android log identifier. It defaults to playn which is what was hard-coded before.
  • Rewrote sound backend based on SoundPool. Music (large audio files) still relies on the old more-hardware-resource-intensive approach.

iOS

  • Added IOSPlatform.Config for specifying configuration options.
  • Added IOSPlatform.Config.frameInterval for specifying target FPS on iOS.
  • Added IOSImage.toUIImage for custom platform code that needs to manipulate an image loaded via IOSAssets.getImage.
  • Numerous bug fixes and performance improvements.

 

Additionally, TriplePlay 1.6 was also released.  TriplePlay is a library built over top of PlayN to support higher level functionality like UIs and animation.

The following are TriplePlays release notes:

 

TPUI:

  • Added Scroller makeVisible.
  • Added LongPressButton which supports both a normal press interaction and a long-press interaction.
  • Added AxisLayout.Policy CONSTRAIN off-axis sizing policy.
  • Added Field MAXIMUM_INPUT_LENGTH style.
  • Added TableLayout colspan for configuring a column span on an element.
  • Added ValueLabel.
  • Added Style ICON_CUDDLE and UNDERLINE (the latter for underlined text).
  • Added TableLayout.Column free to allow weighting of free columns.

TPAnim:

  • Added AnimGroup for creating a group of invoked-in-parallel of animations that are either added to an Animator later, or are added to a serial animation chain.
  • Moved animation creation methods from Animator to AnimBuilder. Animation then now returns an AnimBuilder which is a cleaner design.
  • Clarified behavior of Animator add and then, made then freak out if used incorrectly.
  • Fixed bugs with repeating animations.

TPSound:

TPParticle:

  • Added Transform randomScale and randomOffset.

TPFlump:

  • Various bug fixes and small API improvements. See API changes.

TPPlatform:

  • Added NativeTextField Validator and Transformer for (native) text validation and transformation.

TPShader:

  • TintingShader was removed as PlayN layers now support tinting directly.

TPUtil:

 

 

For existing PlayN 1.5 developers, there is a guide for migrating to 1.6.

PlayN

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