Add 4.4-dev7 article (#980)

Co-authored-by: clayjohn <claynjohn@gmail.com>

_data/versions.yml

@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
 - name: "4.4"
-  flavor: "dev6"
-  release_date: "5 December 2024"
-  release_notes: "/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-6/"
+  flavor: "dev7"
+  release_date: "19 December 2024"
+  release_notes: "/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7/"
   releases:
+    - name: "dev6"
+      release_date: "5 December 2024"
+      release_notes: "/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-6/"
     - name: "dev5"
       release_date: "21 November 2024"
       release_notes: "/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-5/"

collections/_article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7.md

@@ -0,0 +1,175 @@
+---
+title: "Dev snapshot: Godot 4.4 dev 7"
+excerpt: "One last build before the holidays!"
+categories: ["pre-release"]
+author: Thaddeus Crews
+image: /storage/blog/covers/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7.webp
+image_caption_title: "Pest Apocalypse"
+image_caption_description: "A game by Kikimora Games"
+date: 2024-12-19 18:00:00
+---
+
+Season's greetings, everyone! As our team winds down for the holiday season, we present you with one last gift before
+the new year: our final development build of the year!
+
+After having a few notable regressions in dev 6, we intended to do a quick turnaround for dev 7 with high priority bug
+fixes. But we got greedy and ended up making dev 7 another feature-packed new release so you will have plenty of things
+to check out while we are on holidays.
+
+Keep in mind that while we try to make sure each dev snapshot is stable enough for general testing, this is by
+definition a pre-release piece of software. Be sure to make frequent backups, or use a version control system such as
+Git, to preserve your projects in case of corruption or data loss.
+
+[Jump to the **Downloads** section](#downloads), and give it a spin right now, or continue reading to learn more about improvements in this release. You can also try the [**Web editor**](https://editor.godotengine.org/releases/4.4.dev7/), [**XR editor**](https://www.meta.com/experiences/godot-game-engine/7713660705416473/), or the **Android editor** for this release (join the [Android editor testing group](https://groups.google.com/g/godot-testers) to get access to pre-release builds).
+
+-----
+
+*The cover illustration is from* [**Pest Apocalypse**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506810/Pest_Apocalypse/), *a hyper-realistic post apocalyptic physics based pizza delivery action rogue-lite! It is developed by [Kikimora Games](https://www.kikimora.games/). You can purchase the game [on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506810/Pest_Apocalypse/), and follow the developers [on BlueSky](https://bsky.app/profile/kikimora.games) and [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/sSmGbJSa4E).*
+
+## Highlights
+
+In case you missed them, see the [4.4 dev 1](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-1/), [4.4 dev 2](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-2/),
+[4.4 dev 3](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-3/), [4.4 dev 4](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-4/), [4.4 dev 5](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-5/), and [4.4 dev 6](/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-6/) release notes for an overview of
+some key features which were already in those snapshots, and are therefore still available for testing in dev 7.
+
+Here are highlights of a few new features in dev 7 that you might find particularly exciting!
+
+### Jolt Physics module
+
+Ever since its inception in late 2022, [godot-jolt](https://github.com/godot-jolt/godot-jolt) has become the de-facto 3D
+physics engine for many of our developers. Much of the history behind why this was the case is documented in [this
+proposal](https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/7308) by [Adam Scott](https://github.com/adamscott), but
+the main takeaway was a strong push for this tool to be recognized as an official addon. In doing so, users would be
+able to find this amazing resource in a way that was promoted by the engine itself; an exciting prospect!
+
+The Godot Jolt maintainers, [Mikael Hermansson](https://github.com/mihe) and [Jorrit Rouwe](https://github.com/jrouwe),
+took this idea one step further: integrating the tool as part of the engine *directly*. There was already a symbiosis
+between their team and the Godot engine, with many features being added to Godot *and* Jolt to accommodate both, but the
+integration of an official module was no small feat; their pull request
+([GH-99895](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99895)) ended up adding over 500 files and 115 **thousand** lines
+of code! So while this was one of the most rigorously tested PRs relative to the amount of time it's been up, it'd be
+impossible for any team to account for *everything* this behemoth introduced, so we eagerly await your feedback (and bug
+reports) on one of the most highly-requested features of 4.x.
+
+**Note:** At time of writing, this does **not** replace Godot Physics as the default 3D physics engine.
+The Jolt Physics integration in Godot is considered experimental, and may change in future releases. It also lacks some features of Godot Physics so isn't a full drop-in replacement. If your interests/use-case are supported, the
+tool can be enabled by changing the `physics/3d/physics_engine` project setting to `Jolt Physics`.
+
+### .NET 8.0
+
+[Paul Joannon](https://github.com/paulloz) and [Raul Santos](https://github.com/raulsntos) have put the final pieces in
+place for moving both the GodotSharp library and user projects to .NET 8 ([GH-92131](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/92131) and
+[GH-100195](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100195)). All new projects will use .NET 8 by default and
+existing projects will automatically update to .NET 8 once opened with this release or any newer 4.4 build.
+
+### Improved Scene Tree editor performance
+
+The amount of performance boosts that have been crammed in between dev 6 and dev 7 has been staggering. Of note are the
+recent improvements to the engine's core including many optimizations throughout the String class, spearheaded by
+[Ivorforce](https://github.com/Ivorforce). But perhaps the most obvious improvement comes from [HP van
+Braam](https://github.com/hpvb) and their modifications to the SceneTree system
+([GH-99700](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99700)). While this will prove beneficial across all projects,
+these changes result in especially complex scenes having a tenfold performance in the editor when moving or renaming
+nodes in the SceneTree.
+
+### Documentation tooltips
+
+Thanks to [Danil Alexeev](https://github.com/dalexeev) the GDScript code editor will now display a tooltip containing
+information about functions, variables, classes, etc. when you hover over them, including the documentation you have
+written using our documentation system ([GH-91060](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/91060)). This makes using
+the integrated documentation system even more powerful as you no longer have to bounce between the code editor and the
+related docs to quickly get information.
+
+![Documentation tooltip](/storage/blog/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7/documentation-tooltip.webp)
+
+### Baked shadowmasks for lightmaps
+
+Until now, you have always had to choose between fully baked or fully dynamic shadows when using LightmapGI. However,
+sometimes you want to have dynamic shadows up close where detail matters, but use static shadows in the distance where a
+low resolution is acceptable. Finally it is possible thanks to the hard work of
+[BlueCube3310](https://github.com/BlueCube3310) in [GH-85653](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/85653). You can
+now enable shadow masks while baking your LightmapGI to combine dynamic and static shadows for the best quality.
+
+Additionally, this allows you to drastically shorten the range of your dynamic shadows which is a very important
+optimization, especially for mobile devices.
+
+This feature is still experimental and it will change in response to feedback, so please test it out and let us know
+what you think!
+
+![Baked Lightmap](/storage/blog/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7/shadowmask.webp)
+
+### And more!
+
+There are too many exciting changes to list them all here, but here's a curated selection:
+
+- 3D: Add 3D translation sensitivity to Editor Settings ([GH-81714](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/81714)).
+- 3D: Add ruler mode to 3D ([GH-100162](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100162)).
+- Animation: Add animation node extension ([GH-99181](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99181)).
+- Audio: Add Web MIDI support ([GH-95928](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/95928)).
+- Buildsystem: Add loongarch64 support for Linux/*BSD ([GH-97822](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/97822)).
+- Buildsystem: Make Godot compile on `FreeBSD` ([GH-100047](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100047)).
+- Core: Fix `JSON.{from,to}_native()` issues ([GH-99765](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99765)).
+- Core: Optimize StringBuilder by using `LocalVector` instead of `Vector` ([GH-99775](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99775)).
+- Core: Optimize String construction from statically known strings by evaluating `strlen` at compile-time ([GH-100132](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100132)).
+- Core: Add move assignment and move constructor to Variant ([GH-100426](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100426)).
+- Documentation: Document `_process()` and `_physics_process()` delta behavior at low FPS ([GH-94636](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/94636)).
+- Editor: Add ability to create a new inherited scene from code ([GH-90057](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/90057)).
+- Editor: Add profiler autostart indicator to EditorRunBar ([GH-97492](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/97492)).
+- Editor: Allow dragging to specific folders in filesystem dock ([GH-99453](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99453)).
+- Editor: Make the Script Editor's parser execute sooner on edit after error was found ([GH-87542](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/87542)).
+- Editor: Show String properties' text in a tooltip in the inspector ([GH-76231](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/76231)).
+- Export: Use temp dirs instead of cache dirs for export ([GH-100150](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100150)).
+- GDExtension: Fix `Variant` modulo operation ([GH-99559](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99559)).
+- GDScript: Add `@warning_ignore_start` and `@warning_ignore_restore` annotations ([GH-76020](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/76020)).
+- GUI: Change default Arabic font to Vazirmatn ([GH-100053](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100053)).
+- GUI: Fix Tree drag-and-drop scrolling having low FPS at low Physics Ticks per Second ([GH-98766](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/98766)).
+- GUI: Improve emoji SVG parsing by caching ([GH-100300](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100300)).
+- GUI: Save color palette as resources to reuse later ([GH-91604](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/91604)).
+- Import: Consider all texture types for resource thumbnail generation ([GH-100247](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100247)).
+- Input: Add `Tablet/Trackpad` 3D navigation preset ([GH-97985](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/97985)).
+- Navigation: Despaghettify NavigationServer path queries ([GH-100129](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100129)).
+- Plugin: Export `EditorInspector::instantiate_property_editor` for use by plugins ([GH-87375](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/87375)).
+- Rendering: Add Blend Distance property to ReflectionProbe ([GH-99958](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99958)).
+- Rendering: Allow changing the anisotropic filter level at run-time per Viewport ([GH-88313](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/88313)).
+- Rendering: Further performance improvements from The Forge ([GH-99257](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99257)).
+- Rendering: Automatically compress new lightmap textures ([GH-100327](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100327)).
+- Rendering: Optimize PointLight2D shadow rendering by reducing draw calls and RD state changes ([GH-100302](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100302)).
+- Rendering: Implement `RD::buffer_get_data_async()` and `RD::texture_get_data_async()` ([GH-100110](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100110)).
+- Shaders: Avoid error spam when shaders fail to compile by freeing shader_data version when compilation fails ([GH-100128](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/100128)).
+- XR: Allow locking the camera to the `XROrigin3D` for benchmarking or automated testing ([GH-99145](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/99145)).
+- XR: OpenXR: Add support for binding modifiers ([GH-97140](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/97140)).
+
+## Changelog
+
+**113 contributors** submitted **263 improvements** for this new snapshot. See our [**interactive changelog**](https://godotengine.github.io/godot-interactive-changelog/#4.4-dev7) for the complete list of changes since the previous 4.4-dev6 snapshot.
+
+This release is built from commit [`46c8f8c5c`](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/commit/46c8f8c5c5874c7c56ea5b1384259de9402d3449).
+
+## Downloads
+
+{% include articles/download_card.html version="4.4" release="dev7" article=page %}
+
+**Standard build** includes support for GDScript and GDExtension.
+
+**.NET build** (marked as `mono`) includes support for C#, as well as GDScript and GDExtension.
+- .NET 8.0 or newer is required for this build, changing the minimal supported version from .NET 6 to 8.
+
+{% include articles/prerelease_notice.html %}
+
+## Known issues
+
+With every release we accept that there are going to be various issues, which have already been reported but haven't been fixed yet. See the GitHub issue tracker for a complete list of [known bugs](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Abug+).
+
+There are currently no known issues introduced by this release.
+
+## Bug reports
+
+As a tester, we encourage you to [open bug reports](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues) if you experience issues with this release. Please check the [existing issues on GitHub](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues) first, using the search function with relevant keywords, to ensure that the bug you experience is not already known.
+
+In particular, any change that would cause a regression in your projects is very important to report (e.g. if something that worked fine in previous 4.x releases, but no longer works in this snapshot).
+
+## Support
+
+Godot is a non-profit, open source game engine developed by hundreds of contributors on their free time, as well as a handful of part or full-time developers hired thanks to [generous donations from the Godot community](https://fund.godotengine.org/). A big thank you to everyone who has contributed [their time](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/blob/master/AUTHORS.md) or [their financial support](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/blob/master/DONORS.md) to the project!
+
+If you'd like to support the project financially and help us secure our future hires, you can do so using the [Godot Development Fund](https://fund.godotengine.org/) platform managed by [Godot Foundation](https://godot.foundation/). There are also several [alternative ways to donate](/donate) which you may find more suitable.