Release 1.2

[Danielku15]

The next release of alphaTab is done. The theme of this release was:

Main focus will be improving the visual display by avoiding collisions and improving some visual elements.

We tried to avoid any breaking changes on the API level and upgrades should be possible without any code changes.
But there are various behavior changes where you might want to adopt new settings, values etc.

This release brings you:

In alphaTab 1.2 we dropped support for Internet Explorer ❗

One of the biggest changes/decisions we took in version 1.2 is to drop support for Internet Explorer.
This allowed us to make various improvements in regards to performance and more modern code.
We made a poll whether dropping IE support is generally accepted, but in case you missed it and have need for Internet Explorer support, reach out to us via Discussions and we will see what we can do.

New Features 💡

• [General] JSON Serialization for the .net platform (Issue: Add support for JSON serialization in .net  #461, PR: Rework JSON Serialization mechanism for Data Model #466, Docs)

• [File Formats] Guitar Pro 7 Exporter (Issue: Guitar Pro 7 Exporter #443, PR: Add Guitar Pro 7 Exporter #447, Docs)
• [File Formats] Detect Lyrics from beat text for Guitar Pro 3-5 files (Issue: GP: Free text overlapping #402, PR: Added detection mechanism for beat texts as lyrics. #506, Docs)

Improvements 🚀

• [General] Respect original settings when printing and allow additional print settings (Issue: Print should respect any custom settings and allow better customizations #469, PR: Print Settings #486, Docs)
• [General] Compilation of alphaTab to ES6 code for smaller footprint and more modern code (Issue: Upgrade to ES6 compilation #508, PR: Compile alphaTab to ES6 #512)
• [General] Smaller copyright watermark (PR: Compile alphaTab to ES6 #512)
• [General] Removed various polyfills, usage of oudated APIs, better SVG generation (Issue: Remove outdated syntax, APIs and polyfills #509, PR: Remove outdated syntax, APIs and polyfills #514)

• [File Formats] Respect track volume in Guitar Pro 7 files (Issue: Support per track volume from Guitar Pro 7 file format #446, PR: Support Guitar Pro 7 track volume #445 thanks to @jordanske for the contribution)
• [File Formats] Respect track volume and balance in MusicXML files (Issue: MusicXML track volume and balance not importing #451, PR: Import volume and balance from MusicXML #451 #454 thanks to @jordanske for the contribution)
• [File Formats] Auto detection of instruments and tunings in alphaTex (Issue: Improved detection of instrument and tuning in alphaTex #484, PR: alphatex tuning piano notation is higher than it should be #449)
• [File Formats] Add support for full bar rests in Capella and MusicXML (Issue: Single Bar Rests are handled wrong for MusicXML.  #495, PR: Add support for full-bar rests #503)

• [Rendering] New Note Beaming algorithm which avoids collisions on rests (Issue: Note beams sometimes overlap rest symbols #296, PR: Improve Beaming algorithm to handle collisions #491)
• [Rendering] Render multiple tunings in multi-track rendering cases (Issue: Display tunings of all rendered tracks #463, PR: Add rendering of multiple track tunings #492)
• [Rendering] New Grace Positioning Logic (Issues: Grace notes are sometimes rendered on the same beat as the note that precedes them #227, Rework grace beat positioning  #335, PR: Rework grace beat positioning #493)
• [Rendering] Render HighDPI images for HTML5 Canvas (Issue: Consider high DPI displays for HTML5 canvas #496, PR: Add high DPI scaling for HTML5 canvas for better display #497)
• [Rendering] Displace Rests in multi-voice scenarios (Issue: Second voice - collisions #355, PR: Handle collisions on multi-voice rests #502)
• [Rendering] Fixed various alignment issues of notes, tuplets and beams (PR: Handle collisions on multi-voice rests #502)
• [Rendering] Use of IntersectionObserver for faster lazy loading (Issue: Use Intersection Observer API for better performance #510, PR: Add IntersectionObserver for initial load and lazy loading #515)
• [Rendering] Use of ResizeObserver for faster/more-reliable resize detection (Issue: Use Resize Observer API #511, PR: Added usage of resize observer if available. #516)

• [Audio] Removed max volume limitation (Issue: Track volume limited to initial value #453, PR: Remove max volume limitation #487)
• [Audio] More data on the midiLoaded event for synchronization with external audio sources (Discussion: expose endTime and endTick #520, PR: Added some event data for easier sync with audio. #522)
• [Audio] New event fors for obtaining midi events like metronome (Issue: expose metronome click events #450, PR: Expose played midi events  #523, Docs)

Bug Fixes 🕷️

• [Rendering] Correct display of accidentals on tied notes across bars (Issue: Accidentals added to the wrong note after tie #472, PR: Handle accidentals on tied notes across bars correctly #485)
• [Rendering] Various zoom related issues (Issue: Tab numbers position problem at some zoom levels #452, PR: Fixed some zoom related issues. #483)
• [Rendering] Added new property for WinForms control page background (replaces Foreground) (Issue: Add support for full-bar rests #503)
  If you had custom colors before, be sure to set the new NotationBackColor property.

• [Audio] Fixed wrong bend generations on tied bends (Issue: AlphaSynth output pitch too high for combined bends (bend following a bend) #470, PR: Fix wrong bend sounds #488)

Maintenance

• [General] Automatic generation of JSON serialization code (Issue: Add support for JSON serialization in .net  #461, PR: Rework JSON Serialization mechanism for Data Model #466)