Release 13.341

Built for Comfort (UX and UI)

V13 brings with it sweeping changes to the UX and UI of Foundry VTT. We set out in V13 to update all of our existing Applications to use the new ApplicationV2 framework, and we have succeeded on that front!

In moving to AppV2, we also set ourselves the goal of breathing some new life into the user interface through Theme V2. We wanted to achieve a more modern look and feel for our entire UI, but it was also important to us that we not make the new UI less approachable and intuitive than the UI that preceded it. Those of you who have any experience in UX and UI design know just how challenging it can be to renovate instead of construct new, but we think we've managed to hit the sweet spot here!

Foundry VTT's interface elements now automatically adapt to the settings from your operating system or browser— if you've configured your preference for a darker theme, Foundry VTT's UI will be dark; if you prefer light mode, it will be light. This preference can be overridden with a world-level setting found in the game settings menu. Speaking of settings, the settings menu now also contains a number of controls for numerous UI elements, including options for rescaling, changing the degree of opacity in the automatic fade, disabling the fade entirely, and more!

More than just a mild retheming, the UI also got a new level of polish. Most UI elements are now sharper, a little more visually striking. The "Game Paused" display is now centralized and has a slightly more subtle, less spin-related animation. The canvas controls are now a little smaller but more visually distinct by way of additional spacing; the previous scene navigation bar is now a collapsed navigation menu instead. The macro hotbar is now more centralized, balanced on each side with additional controls. The sidebar is now more of a 'cabinet' style which occupies the complete vertical space, collapsed by default in order to draw the eye to the canvas. The chatlog maintains a cleaner display of its cards without a background, and foregoes the previous dropdown menu for Roll Mode selection for four handy icons instead. The chat entry field remains displayed regardless of what tab of the sidebar you are on, and a minimalist chat notifications tray will show the previous few messages for a short period of time without needing to open the chat log. Additionally we managed to squeeze some very clean feeling animations into the UI for that smooth modern feel without sacrificing performance.

Community developers can also rejoice as we've migrated entirely to using CSS Layers for Foundry VTT-controlled UI elements, which should make it easier for developers to more specifically target and reskin our UI while also making it easier to identify just how far those changes are going to go. This lets everyone (our team included) be a little less specific with their CSS selectors without having to worry about it obliterating whole sections of the UI. We're also in the process of deprecating jQuery, for those of you who might want to rejoice over such things.

A few last notes to bring up about user experience and interface: the canvas now supports cut and paste in addition to copy and paste, so you can save yourself a few delete operations when you want to move your party! Also, as a boon for those using a touchpad or certain touch interfaces, we've corrected some issues with multitouch interfaces and pinching should now zoom in and out the way you might expect instead of trying to rotate your token.

Token Drag Measurement was the winner of the patreon-voted priotization poll for V13, and it has finally arrived! This feature comprehensively changes the way token movement works in Foundry VTT, allowing you to drag a token around the canvas and have the distance of that drag measured as you go. Token Drag Measurement features two styles of movement:

• Simple Movement - This type of movement occurs by simply clicking and dragging your token from one space to another on the grid, and will display the distance your token will move with a visible ruler until you drop the token, at which point the move will immediately execute, relocating the token to its new position.
• Complex Movement (Waypoints) - This type of movement occurs by beginning your drag operation with a CTRL + click (⌘ CMD + click for macOS) of the token, and while holding CTRL (⌘ CMD for macOS) allows you to left click multiple times to place additional waypoints. You can also increase or decrease elevation as part of the waypoint by using your mousewheel. Right-clicking removes existing waypoints, and clicking with CTRL (⌘ CMD for macOS) released will execute the movement operation, moving the token to each waypoint along the way. You can also press escape to erase all waypoints and cancel the move. In keeping with the standard operations for other canvas tools, holding the ALT key while performing this operation as a GM hides the movement ruler from your players.

The updates to incorporate a hybrid ruler measurement and drag movement system also brought a few additional UX changes we hope you'll enjoy. Tokens now automatically rotate to face their movement direction when being moved, for the topdown token users who prefer it (portrait style token users can lock their artwork rotation under the appearance tab of their tokens to disable this behavior). Tokens can now have their "type" of movement configured from the Token HUD, with a number of preconfigured Movement Action options already included, and users can now cycle through those movement types by pressing the TAB key when performing a complex (waypoint) move.

Moving Right Along

Additionally, since we now have more detailed measured movement thanks to Token Drag Measurement, we've added a new Scene Region Behavior. Modify Movement Cost provides a simple way for users to create regions that multiply the value used when calculating how much a grid space is considered to be when moving through it. This allows for systems that have rules about things like "difficult terrain" to easily multiply the cost of movement without having to resize the grid. Likewise, this region behavior can be configured to apply only to certain types of movement, allowing a token to swim at normal speed but walk at half speed, for example.

Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured (Lights, Doors, and Turn Markers)

It wouldn't be an update to Foundry VTT without including new features for the canvas and this Version is no exception. This time around we've got a suite of small but significant changes for lighting, doors, and a couple of small perks for tokens.

Lights and Sounds

A lot of RPGs have a concept of light and darkness competing for visibility in game terms. Does that magical darkness snuff out a torch? is it blasted away by a magical light spell? Does the black hole outside the ship consume any light you shine into it? Previously, there was no real way of handling these competing light options, but light sources now have a field for defining "priority". Setting a priority on a light or darkness source determines its relative importance— higher priority lights will overwrite lower-priority darkness, unless both have the same set priority, in which case darkness sources will always win out.

Speaking of darkness sources, we've also expanded the radius of the visible effect for darkness sources just slightly in order to allow players to benefit from some of the cool darkness source animations and visual effects while also providing a visible way for them to understand that there is something causing that chunk of the map to prevent their ability to see. We've also taken the time to extend the types of lights that Tokens can carry to include darkness sources the way they carry light sources now, configurable via the token menu.

If that wasn't enough, we've also introduced a new type of light source animation. Sound reactive lights automatically synchronize with game sound, pulsing in time with the beat for those times when you want to set up an encounter in a nightclub or for those deep dark cavernous goblin raves.

That's Right, The Door's Opening.

One of the first features to move from the Ember project into the main Foundry VTT codebase is a set of new options that allow animating doors. Doors can now be configured to animate when opening or closing, using one of the included default textures from our good friends at Forgotten Adventures, or using your own custom texture if you are so inclined. With them comes a suite of options allowing you to configure the speed of animation, direction of opening, and how far they open when activated. There are a variety of animation options available, including:

• Ascend - When opened, the door will appear to rise into a recess in the ceiling.
• Descend - When opened, the door will appear to lower into a recess in the floor.
• Slide - When opened, the door will appear to slide away to its left or right.
• Swing - When opened, the door will move with a traditional hinged swing from a side pivot point.
• Swivel - When opened, the door will rotate on a central pivot point.

The Mark Has Been Made (Combat Turn Markers)

One final canvas feature to highlight is the addition of Combat Turn Markers— the option to configure a simple marker indicating whose turn it is during combat, adding a little icon beneath their token. This is a feature that has been on our roadmap for a long time, but it was often managed by a variety of community-developed modules, so it was fairly low urgency. In V13, however, we've added core software support and we hope that community developers will expand on the feature and leverage our API to add their own custom animations and symbols in their modules. This feature allows a GM to switch which texture (both image and video assets are supported) will be used beneath a token to indicate their turn, and they may also configure from amongst a short list of animation styles to make those images a little more eye-catching.

Papa Got a Brand New...Build

One final significant change worth highlighting might seem slightly less glamourous, but is no less important. Beginning in the testing cycle of V13 we began packaging and releasing a few new types of software build to offer more support for specific users. The Linux/NodeJS build is no more. Instead, we offer a separate NodeJS build and a separate Linux electron build, to allow those users who don't have interest in running the electron build of the software to run a simple headless copy through Node directly. The Linux electron build also received a small upgrade to offer support for ARM64 architecture natively for those users who want to run the electron client on ARM64 systems. While these changes are smaller, there's one slightly more significant change that benefits a wider array of users:

Windows Portable Build

For quite some time it has been possible for users of our macOS and Linux builds to set up portable configurations of Foundry VTT by placing the software on a USB drive and configuring the userdata folder to one that resides on the same drive. Now we have brought that possibility to Windows users.

The Windows Portable build comes as a single zip file which, when unzipped, contains an App folder that holds the Foundry VTT software. When the application is first run, it automatically creates three new folders in its parent directory- Config, Data, and Logs, and it is configured to use those folders by default, making it convenient to unzip onto a USB drive in a single FoundryVTT folder that will house it.

The Portable build operates the same as any other Foundry VTT instance, but spares the need for Windows users to follow standard installation procedures, allowing you to take Foundry VTT with you on a convenient portable drive and use it from any computer, without needing to wonder whether you left your data behind. Additionally, this is particularly beneficial for Windows users who would like to try out a new version of Foundry VTT without risking any changes to their existing setups.

E:\
    ├──FOUNDRYVTT-PORTABLE-13.341
            ├───App
            ├───Config
            ├───Data
            └───Logs