Beta 0.3.6 Update Notes (Patreon)

Greetings friends. I'm proud to share a new Foundry Virtual Tabletop  beta update. This update has some major and substantial updates to core  systems and software - focusing on improving the stability and  consistency of key systems. The biggest improvement in this update is  the new redesigned Configuration and Setup experience which gives a  centralized management panel for Systems, Modules, Worlds, and core VTT  software updates. The experience for installing and updating new  community content has never been easier. In addition to this major new  feature, there are a ton of quality of life improvements and bug fixes  designed to smooth out some of the rough edges introduced in previous  updates. 

I am proud of this set of changes and know it will serve me  well as I continue development of new tools and functions looking ahead  towards 0.3.7. Thank you all for your continued encouragement and  sharing of this project - your help in spreading the word and supporting  my work means so much to me.

Thank you all for appreciating my work, providing thoughtful  feedback, and encouraging me to do even more. As always, please keep an  eye on the development progress board here for visibility into what  features are in progress and coming up next!

https://gitlab.com/foundrynet/foundryvtt/boards

New Features

• Implemented a major new feature which redesigns the Configuration and Setup  page of Foundry VTT. This new page is far more powerful and  functionality rich. From this centralized landing page you can update  the core software, install and update Game Systems, install and update  Modules, and create and manage Worlds. Systems and Modules can be  installed directly with one-click by providing a link to their manifest  (module.json or system.json) file. Installed Systems and Modules can be  easily and automatically checked for updates and updated if a new  version is available. I am very excited for this change as I believe it  will make the process of installing and managing community created  content much easier in Foundry VTT, further empowering the awesome  module and system developers who are hard at work in the community.
• Redesigned the Game Settings menu to support separate tabs for  Core, System, and Module settings while sorting the displayed modules  alphabetically for improved organization.
• Due to the introduction of the new Configuration and Setup page  which handles Module installation and updates, the ability to update  Modules while inside an active World has been removed. This is a good  change, as updating modules "in flight" caused some problems and  complexitities which were not always well handled. You still configure  which Modules are active within a World using the same Manage Modules  application as before.
• The display of Tokens on Hexagonal Grids has been improved so the  bounding box for the token mirrors the hex dimension, instead of being  too wide or too tall for the shorter side of the hex.
• Files and Folders displayed in the File Picker will now be sorted  alphabetically in a case-insensitive way. Previously lowercase names  were sorted after uppercase ones (per Unix convention).
• Formatting of the exported text chat log file has been improved to  add more detail about dice rolls, showing both the initial formula, and  the rolled result (including all rolled dice).
• Incorporated localization support for the Scene Configuration  sheet. Thanks to Ayan for contributing an updated HTML template and  translation string keys.
• Improved the sorting logic for Combatants, adding an additional  sorting layer after initiative score and name for the Token ID to ensure  that the resulting sort order is always deterministic.
• You may now include some additional flavor text along with any dice  roll submitted in the chat window by separating the roll portion of the  command with a # character. For example /roll 4d6kh # Rolling for ability scores!.
• Added additional buttons to the Settings sidebar as an alternative  way to return to key setup menu screens. There are new buttons for  "Return to Setup", "Configure Players", and "Log Out".
• Added a new button on the Settings tab of the sidebar to render the  Community Wiki documentation in a pop-out iframe. Many thanks to  errational, CyberPathogen, and the many other wonderful curators and  contributors of the community wiki for creating this helpful resource.
• The ability to export-to-JSON and import-from-JSON has been added  for more Entity types - including Items, Journal Entries, and Scenes.  Previously only Actors had this capability.
• Added localization support for context-menu options on Sidebar Directory containers.
• Added a new Journal Entry context menu option to Duplicate an existing entry, as was possible for other Entity types.
• Improve the hit area definition of newly added Drawings from the  0.3.5 update so they are easier to select and manipulate once drawn.
• Made a change which allows chat commands to span multiple lines without being incorrectly truncated.
• Users who have "Limited" permission to a Journal Entry will now be  able to see Map Notes placed for that entry, but will not be able to  inspect the details of the note. This can allow GMs an alternative  option for label significant locations without revealing details about  those locations to players or needing to keep those details in a  separate entry.
• A User's chosen color is now shown as a border around all out of character chat messages sent by that User.
• The syntax for sending whispered messages in chat has been made more flexible to support /w and /whisper prefixes in addition to the previous @User syntax.
• Web URLs posted in chat messages will be automatically converted to a clickable hyperlink.

Core Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with attempting to add an Owned Item directly to an Item type compendium.
• Changing the Actor that a Token references would not fully take  effect until a hard refresh, as double-clicking the Token would continue  to open the old Actor's sheet.
• Fixed a problem with IP address identification which sometimes  resulted in the local and internet IPs not being properly displayed.
• Solved a problem for newly created Actors which prevented the img attribute from being initially present in their prototype Token data model.
• Hardened a loophole with EULA acceptance which previously allowed  you to simply close the window to dismiss the agreement without later  prompting.
• Applied a fix for the PIXI v5 update which caused a vertex buffer  overflow when rendering large Graphics objects (like big Hex grids).  This caused hexagonal grids to no longer render after some number of  polygons.
• Fixed a problem that occured when deleting a World-level compendium pack which had not yet connected to its database.
• Removed visibility of the "Delete All" button on the Measured  Templates layer for players who could not use that button as they lack  GM permission.
• Made a change to lock tiles while they are in the middle of a drag  workflow. Previously the Tile could be rotated via mousewheel while  mid-drag causing server desynchronization problems.
• Applied an additional check to prevent Compendium pack paths from  being written to world files as absolute paths instead of relative to  the World directory as intented.
• Fixed an issue since the PIXI v5 migration which prevented Scene background color from being properly applied.
• Corrected the rendering of large hex grids in 0.3.5 which produced an incorrect offset with artifact lines.
• Improve the vertical spacing of TinyMCE editors since the v4.x update in 0.3.5 to make better use of the bounding container.
• Fixed an order-of-operations problem with the unregisterSheet  method which caused it to incorrectly clear a previously registered  sheet for all Entity types, even if a specific type of entity to no  longer use the sheet for was specified.
• Improved the logic of the version comparison function used to  detect module and system update availability to work for more types of  versioning schema.
• Fixed a bug in the "Simple Worldbuilding" system which prevented Owned Items from being properly editable.
• An unintentional "feature" in 0.3.5 caused mousing over a Polygon  point during a drawing creation workflow to undo that point. This, while  sometimes nice, was an unintentional workflow that could sometimes  produce frustrating results and has been removed.
• Fixed a bug whereby an Owned Item could be dropped on the Actor who owns it, thereby duplicating the item data in that Actor.
• Drawing objects can no longer have no line, no fill, and no text -  causing them to become effectively invisible. Drawings must have at  least one of these values set.
• Remove the "Delete All" button from Players on the Drawing layer  since they do not have GM permission to delete the drawings of others.  This was a bug fix for now, but I may bring this back in the future  where the button would only delete drawings belonging to the user.
• Corrected accidental residual references to CONFIG.Token which has been removed in favor of other global configurations.
• Improved the approach towards regex matching for chat message  whispers and dynamic entity links to better support international  characters in Firefox where unicode regex escapes are not supported.

Core Software, APIs, and Module Development

• The server-side implementations of "Pakcages": System, Module, and  World have all been jointly refactored to extend the same abstract base  Package interface and share much more common code and implementation.  This has improved quality and consistency of how these packages are  managed and described within the VTT software.
• Broadly refactored and improved code quality for the Chat Log  sidebar and the messages that are rendered within it. This was some of  the oldest FVTT code, as chat was one of the first features I  implemented. It was well overdue for a fresh coat of paint.
• Refactored the sidebar directory templates and CSS rules to adopt a  flexbox layout which should be more friendly for mod developers who  want to add additional content into the sidebar.
• The ChatMessage Entity now has a required type  field added to its data model to more explicitly differentiate  different types of chat communication. The valid types of chat messages  are enumerated in CHAT_MESSAGE_TYPES.
• Some changes to keystroke handling have been implemented. Several  keys were previously only captured on keyup, which are now captured on  keydown with a repetition filter added. This provides a more responsive  experience when interacting with these controls.
• Performed some code cleanup in the Combat class to remove some  deprecated properties and bring greater consistency to the structure for  current and previous round tracking.
• Improved the informativeness of the error message thrown if the --world startup flag references a World which does not exist.
• An informative fatal error is now triggered if there are multiple  packages (systems, modules, worlds) which have the same "name" attribute  in their manifest files.
• A new structure is supported (and enforced) for defining  module-based translation files. Under this new approach, languages are  defined as an Array of Objects, and JavaScript code is no longer  required to manipulate the CONFIG object as this is handled  automatically. See this issue on GitLab for more details.
• English language translations are now always used as a fallback  option for any localization strings which do not have an available  translation in the designated preferred locale.
• Because of the new management strategy for module-provided  translation files, these translations are now accessible on the main  configuration and setup pages of the Application where modules were  previously not able to contribute content.
• Improved server-side zip file extraction to support an option to  de-dupe the folder structure during the extraction process if nested  directories are present.
• Added a confirmDialog() helper function to streamline the process of rendering standard yes/no prompts using less code.
• Revisit support for options.height = "auto" to be  specified in an Application render options - auto height applications  will be automatically resized (vertically) when they ar re-rendered to  accomodate changes to the internal content.
• Improve server-side Socket management to automatically learn the  Entity class names for which to open socket listeners instead of  hard-coding them.
• Added a very simple Number.isNumeric() helper method to test whether a string represents a numeric value.
• Enforce a safe Proxy environment for evaluating math expressions in  dice rolls. Thanks KaKaRoTo for pointing out this cool approach towards  evaluating code using a limited and controlled scope.

D&D5e System Improvements

• Stat blocks and actions for CR 1/4 monster compendium entries have  been added. Token artwork and biographies for these creatures are still  pending, but I want to push ahead on making sure the SRD Monsters  compendium has usable creature definitions for running encounters.  Expect further progress in this area on an ongoing basis.
• Right clicking a skill proficiency icon will cycle backwards in  addition to left click cycling forwards. Thanks Giddy for the  suggestion.
• Added support for a custom weapon attack critical threshold  configured as an additional special Actor trait. Thanks TimPosney for  the suggestion.
• Updated the character sheet to display the effective Initiative  modifier (after additional bonuses) instead of just the base modifier.  Thanks to RedReign for the suggestion.
• Added equipped, attuned, and rarity fields to every item type in the 5e system data model.
• Minor tweaks to the content displayed in the footer of spell cards.
• Fixed a bug with the "apply damage" chat dropdown which was  incorrectly setting current HP to undefined instead of applying the  relative damage difference correctly.
• Ensured that all Spells in the 5e Spells compendium have the  "prepared" attribute present in their data model (with a default value  of false).