Matter Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

Unreleased​

Added​

• Added Debugger.raycastParams property.
  • This allows users to customize the RaycastParams that is used by the mouse highlight feature. For example, a different CollisionGroup could be specified.

Changed​

• World:get() now has fast paths for up to four components.
  • Getting one component is now more than 2x faster and this scales with more components.

Fixed​

• The debugger now gracefully handles cyclic tables.

0.9.0-beta.0 - 2024-11-15​

Added​

• Added a Loop:setWorlds({ World }) method for informing the Loop of your Worlds.
• Implemented a deferred command mode for the registry.
  • The Loop turns deferring on for all worlds given to it.
  • The command buffer is flushed between systems.
  • Iterator invalidation is now only prevented in deferred mode.
• The debugger now supports Loop parameters with nested worlds.
  • For example, you can now have a single Loop state table that contains your World, and the debugger will display both properly.
• The Debugger system list can sort by run time via button.

Changed​

• The Loop now requires a setWorlds call to be made before it can be used.
  • Consequently, the Debugger also requires this.
• The internal storage layout has been completely reworked.
  • Queries bottlenecked by iteration speed will see a 7.5-15x performance improvement.
  • Archetypes are now their own data structure and their layout tries to keep all information densely packed and cache friendly.
• Loop system names are now cached, resulting in fewer calls to debug.info.
  • This reduces overhead as debug.info is a slow operation.

Deprecated​

• Deprecated the return type of World:remove() because it can now misleadingly indicate a component is removed or vice versa.
• Deprecated World:optimizeQueries() because it no longer does anything.

Fixed​

• Fixed archetypes being skipped in queries and World:queryChanged missing entities.

0.8.4 - 2024-08-15​

Added​

• Better assertions / error messages added to World methods that accept variadic component arguments. At least 1 component must be provided. These assertions have been added to get insert replace remove
• Ability to sort the world inspect table by clicking the table headers (entity count and component name)
• Ability to disable systems in the debugger list by right clicking them.

Changed​

• The alt-hover tooltip's text is smaller and the background is slightly darker for improved legibility.
• Component data now has syntax highlighting applied. This is present in the alt-hover tooltip and the entity inspector panel in the debugger.

Fixed​

• The alt-hover tooltip now displays component data properly, with each component being displayed on a new line.
• Removed extra new-lines in component data strings within the debugger entity inspect tables.
• Fixed alt-hover erroring when hovered entity is despawned.
• Fixed flashing buttons ("View queries" and "View logs") in system inspect panel

0.8.3 - 2024-07-02​

Fixed​

• Converted the remaining lua files in the example project to luau files.
• Iterating empty views properly iterates over nothing rather than the data structure members.

0.8.2 - 2024-06-25​

Changed​

• Optimized Views performance.
  • No longer allocates a table for each entity in the view, making it much cheaper for queries that match against many entities.
• Converted the lua files to luau files.

Fixed​

• Calling :view() on an empty query will no longer error.
• Fixed :snapshot() on an empty query returning nil instead of an empty array.
• Fixed an error that would happen when calling an empty Query.
• Reverted the changes to the format of the debugger table.

0.8.1 - 2024-04-23​

Fixed​

• QueryResult:without now correctly matches against entity archetype after cache has been invalidated from transitioning archetype.

0.8.0 - 2024-04-22​

Changed​

• Added Views for random-accessing entities within queries.
  • Views are optimized for terse indexing, making them useful for traversing graphs of entities.
• Added Debugger.loopParameterNames which allows for labelling things passed to Loop.
• Disabled AutoLocalize on many Plasma Widgets.
  • This removes unnecessary computations for LocalizationService::attemptLocalization.
• Improved QueryResult:without to narrow archetype invariants.
  • The filter now works on the archetype-level rather than filtering entities ad-hoc which will immensely improve query performance.

Fixed​

• Fixed the Scheduler not respecting priorities of systems.
• Fixed padding of items in the Debugger's state view.

0.7.1 - 2024-01-31​

Changed​

• Improved overall usability of the world inspect widget in the debugger.
  • The widget now displays a more table-like view of the world's entities and their components.
• Improved query unpacking performance when querying 5 components or fewer.
  • This covers the majority of use cases.
  • Querying more than 5 components remains unchanged.
• The debugger UI is more compact and includes minor layout improvements.
• The debugger panel now better displays system order and performance.

Fixed​

• Slider now properly supports passing only a number rather than a table.
• TestEZ is now a dev dependency rather than a regular dependency.
• Fixed regressions with system scheduling.
  • Scheduling systems with dependencies on other systems no longer incorrectly detects cycles.
  • Scheduling no longer occasionally produces non-deterministic ordering.

0.7.0 - 2023-12-19​

Added​

• Created a debugger configuration Debugger.componentRefreshFrequency to change the unique component list's refresh frequency.

Changed​

• Change Matter.log to return nothing as expected.
• Exported Matter object is now read only, which prevents invalid mutations to it.
• Improve documentation for Matter.useEvent.
• Systems with both after and priority defined will error.
• Error message for cycles should be more descriptive.
• Systems with dependencies should be scheduled after the system with the highest priority in it's "after" list.
• Improve error message for when a component instance is passed where a component is expected, e.g world:remove(id, componentInstance()).
• Improve implementation of the debugger's mouse hover feature, which now supports debugging the player's character model.

Fixed​

• Fix the debugger not showing a system's widgets properly when switching from one to another.
• Fix slider debugger widget returning 0 when not being rendered.

0.6.2 - 2022-07-22​

Fixed​

• Debugger no longer interferes with queryChanged in order to display it in the debugger view. Previously, this caused the storage to get reset. This feature may return in the future.

0.6.1 - 2022-07-10​

Added​

• Added Matter.log, and a logs viewer per-system to the Matter debugger.
• Added error logging and inspection to the Matter debugger.
• Added Query inspection to the Matter debugger.

Fixed​

• Fixed bug with server-side debugger when game was in deferred events mode.

0.6.0 - 2022-07-08​

Changed​

• The first time you call queryChanged, all existing entities in the world that match the component are now returned as "new" change records. Previously, nothing was returned.
• Improved Debugger with highlight selections and tooltips.
• Matter.useEvent now supports events that have a Connect, connect, or an on method. Additionally, it also supports custom connection objects (returned by custom events), which have a Destroy or a Disconnect method, or are just a cleanup function.

Fixed​

• Debugger: Fixed bug with profiling when disabling a system and then closing the debugger.
• Debugger: Fixed bug with system list automatic sizing.

0.5.3 - 2022-07-05​

Added​

• Added performance information to debugger.
• Add World inspector to debugger.

Fixed​

• Fix confusing error when a system yields inside a plasma context.

0.5.2 - 2022-07-01​

Fixed​

• Fixed debugger panel not scrolling.
• In the debugger panel, the module name is now used when function is not named.

0.5.1 - 2022-06-30​

Fixed​

• Fix custom debugger widgets not using the Plasma instance the user passed in.

0.5.0 - 2022-06-30​

Added​

• Added Matter debugger.

Changed​

• Middleware now receive event name as a second parameter.

0.4.0 - 2022-06-25​

Changed​

• Modifying the World while inside World:query can no longer cause iterator invalidation. All operations to World while inside a query are now safe. 🎉
  • If you aren't using Loop, you must call World:optimizeQueries periodically (e.g., every frame).
• If a system stops calling queryChanged, its internal storage will now be cleaned up. It is no longer a requirement that a system calls queryChanged forever.
• Matter.merge (an undocumented function) now only accepts two parameters.

Fixed​

• replaceSystem now correctly works when other systems reference a system being reloaded in their after table.
• If spawnAt is called with an entity ID that already exists, it now errors as expected.

0.3.0 - 2022-06-22​

Added​

• Added World:spawnAt to spawn a new entity with a specified ID.
• Added World:__iter to allow iteration over all entities in the world the world from a for loop.
• Added Loop:evictSystem(system), which removes a previously-scheduled system from the Loop. Evicting a system also cleans up any storage from hooks. This is intended to be used for hot reloading. Dynamically loading and unloading systems for gameplay logic is not recommended.
• Added Loop:replaceSystem(before, after), which replaces an older version of a system with a newer version of the system. Internal system storage (which is used by hooks) will be moved to be associated with the new system. This is intended to be used for hot reloading.
• The Matter example game has been updated and adds support for both replication and hot reloading.

Changed​

• The first entity ID is now 1 instead of 0.
• Events that have no systems scheduled to run on them are no longer skipped upon calling Loop:begin.

Fixed​

• Old event listeners created by useEvent were not properly disconnected when the passed event changed after having been already created. The event parameter passed to useEvent is not intended to be dynamically changed, so an warning has been added when this happens.

0.2.0 - 2022-06-04​

Added​

• Added a second parameter to Matter.component, which allows specifying default component data.
• Add QueryResult:snapshot to convert a QueryResult into an immutable list.

Changed​

• queryChanged behavior has changed slightly: If an entity's storage was changed multiple times since your system last observed it, the old field in the ChangeRecord will be the last value your system observed the entity as having for that component, rather than what it was most recently changed from.
• World and Loop types are now exported.
• Matter now uses both __iter and __call for iteration over QueryResult.
• Improved many error messages from World methods, including passing nil values or passing a Component instead of a Component instance.
• Removed dependency on Llama.

Fixed​

• System error stack traces are now displayed properly.
• World:clear() now correctly resets internal changed storage used by queryChanged.

Removed​

• Additional query parameters to queryChanged have been removed. queryChanged now only takes one argument. If your code used these additional parameters, you can use World:get(entityId, ComponentName) to get a component, and use continue to skip iteration if it is not present.

0.1.2- 2022-01-06​

Fixed​

• Fix Loop sort by priority to sort properly.

0.1.1 - 2022-01-05​

Fixed​

• Fix accidental system yield error message in Loop.

Changed​

• Accidentally yielding or erroring in a system does not prevent other systems from running.

0.1.0 - 2022-01-02​

• Initial release