Last month Godot 4.7 was released meaning that it was only a matter of time before Godot 4.8 development began. Godot have just released the first development release with the release of Godot 4.8 Dev1. These releases are obviously not meant for production use, but give us insight into the changes that are coming to the next Godot release.
Highlight features in Godot 4.8 Dev1 include:
- Docked Game View and Overhauled Toolbar: The embedded game view is now enabled by default for all new projects, changing from its previous floating window behavior. Accompanying this is a redesigned game view toolbar that improves usability and makes the embed options easier to find.
- Drag-Toggle Visibility in Scene Tree: A new quality-of-life feature allows developers to drag-toggle visibility across multiple nodes in the scene tree editor. Clicking and dragging the mouse will seamlessly apply the newly toggled visibility state to all subsequent nodes.
- 3D Viewport GridMap Axis Overrides: Viewports in 3D mode can now dynamically override the GridMap editor axis using a new “Allow Viewport Override” option that is enabled by default. Hovering your mouse over a specific side of a viewport automatically matches the currently edited axis to that side.
- In-Editor Pseudolocalization Preview: To streamline accessibility and internationalization testing, developers can now access and preview pseudolocalization from directly within the editor. This toggle simulates localization changes, allowing layout and text spacing issues to be caught much earlier in development.
- Sticky Tree Items: The Tree functionality has been improved to support “sticky items,” allowing specific lines representing a foldable region to stick to the top while scrolling. While enabled generally, hard-coded exceptions have been temporarily put in place for highly nested structures like the Skeleton3D tree.
- TextEdit and CodeEdit Touch Support: First-rate tactile input has been brought to the TextEdit and CodeEdit fields to improve the mobile and touch-screen experience. Users can now tap to position the cursor, drag to scroll through text and code completion popups, and use double-tap gestures for quick text selection.
- Exposed Fuzzy Search Core APIs: The core “fuzzy searching” capabilities used by the engine’s quick open search for the past two years have finally been exposed to the binding API. Developers can now utilize
FuzzySearchandFuzzySearchMatchdirectly in their own GDScript code to return approximate string matches.
Key Links
Godot 4.8 Dev1 Release Details
Master Godot Engine – Mega Tutorial Bundle
You can learn more about the Godot 4.8 Dev1 release and see several of the new features in action in the video below.