As promised, we’ll try to do bi-weekly releases. If we miss one for some reason (vaccation, life), don’t be angry with us. You can always work off of the snapshot releases, which you can select in the setup ui or manually change to in the build.gradle file.

You’ll also notice that we increased the minor version (2nd number) instead of the patch version (3rd number). The reason is that we introduced a small API change in the Matrix4 class. While this is unlikely to hit more than 0.001% of our users, it’s still an API change. As per our policy (which is not exactly semantic versioning) we thus increment the minor version, so you know an API has changed.

Without further ado, here’s what’s new:

• Updated to RoboVM 0.0.13 and RoboVM Gradle plugin 0.0.9
• – Big improvements to setup-ui and build times in Intellij IDEA https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/pull/1865
• Setup now uses android build tools version: 19.1.0
• BitmapFontCache now supports in-string colored text through a simple markup language, see https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/wiki/Color-Markup-Language
• Added i18n localization/internationalization support, thanks davebaol, see https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/wiki/Internationalization-and-Localization
• Possibility to override density on desktop to simulate mobile devices, see https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/pull/1825
• Progressive JPEG support through JPGD (https://code.google.com/p/jpeg-compressor/).
• Mavenized JGLFW backend
• Box2D: Added MotorJoint and ghost vertices on EdgeShape
• Updated GWT Box2D to latest version
• Updated native Box2D to latest version 2.3.1, no API changes
• API CHANGE: Matrix4.set(x,y,z, translation) changed, z axis is no more flipped
• API addition: Matrix4.avg(Matrix4[],float[]) that lets weighted averaging multiple matrices, Quaternion.slerp(Quaternion[],float[]) that lets weighted slerping multiple Quaternions
• fixed the long standing issue of the alpha=1 not actually being fully opaque, thanks kalle! https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/issues/1815
• down to 25 issues on the tracker, 8 bugs, 17 enhancement requests 🙂

Note: it is very important that you update to the latest RoboVM Eclipse plugin if you use Eclipse!

If you want to update an existing project, read this wiki article. Use “1.1.0” for the latest release and “1.1.1-SNAPSHOT” for the latest nightlies.

If you create a new project, the setup app will already allow you to specify the latest release and snapshot.

Many of you may already know Excelsior JET. For the few who haven’t heard of it, here’s the shortest possible description of what Excelsior JET does for you:

Excelsior JET enables you to distribute and deploy your Java™ applications as optimized native executables that start and work faster, do not depend on the JRE, and are as difficult to reverse engineer as if they were written in C++. Excelsior JET currently allows you to create native executables for Windows and Linux and will soon also support Mac OS X.

Dmitry and Excelsior LLC aren’t unknowns to the Java game development community. They’ve been roaming the Java Gaming forums for ages and have been very supportive to all kinds of folks, from amateurs to more established players. They are currently doing a fund raiser, and i think it’s a cause worthy of our support. Here’s the deal.

• You pay whatever you want for an Excelsior JET license (Standard Edition, no support, commercial use permitted).
• Excelsior donates the net price to the Save Life Foundation on your behalf. Save Life is a local charity that helps children and young adults fight cancer.

The fund raiser ends on the 31th of May 2014 so you have about two more weeks to do something good and get something awesome in return!

I also wrote a little guide that walks you through your first Excelsior JET build!

Yes, i told we’d do bi-weekly releases from now on 🙂 Here’s what’s new!

Note: you’ll have to update to the latest RoboVM (0.12) and Android build tools (0.10) to use this new release!

Note: it takes a while for the new version to be synched to Maven Central (an hour or so). If you update your build.gradle or generate a new project with the latest gdx-setup.jar, the download of libGDX will fail until Maven Central has the JAR files. You can refresh this site every 2 seconds and ask “is it live yet?!”

There have been other fixes as well, you can follow the full commit history on GitHub.

We also wrote a guide on how to update/change the libGDX version your project uses. Please consult that one to update your 1.0.0 projects. It’s super easy.

Last note: look at the new version, it’s 1.0.1, that is we only updated the patch number. This means no API breaking happened, only API additions and/or bug fixes! This also means it is save for you to update your project from the previous version to the new version. If the new version would be 1.1.0 you’d know that a breaking API change was introduced, which we’d document in the release notes.

Funny bonus: i did a Hangout on Air that let’s you follow what goes into a release. It’s VERY long and boring, ymmv.