LibGDX 1.8 Released

LibGDX, the cross platform open source Java based gaming library, just released version 1.8 today and unlike many recent releases, there is a ton in this release.  The biggest aspect of this release is probably the change to LWJGL 3 on the backend.  LWJGL is a Light Weight (that’s the LW part) Java (the J) based Game Library (GL, tada!) that LibGDX desktop targets were built on top off.  Some of the limits of LWJGL 2 were holding back what LibGDX could do, such as multiple monitor support.

From the announcement blog post, the big wall of text of new features:

[1.8.0]
- API Change: Rewrote FreeType shadow rendering (much better).
- Added spaceX/Y to FreeType fonts.
- Higher quality FreeType font rendering.
- Hiero updated to v5, now with FreeType support and other new features!
- GlyphLayout now allocates much, much less memory when processing long text that wraps.
- Added LWJGL 3 backend, see https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/issues/3673 for more info.
- Added Graphics#getFramebufferWidth and Graphics#getFramebufferHeight for HDPI handling
- API Change: Added HdpiUtils. Instead of calling GL20#glViewport and GL20#glScissor yourself
  please use HdpiUtils instead. It will ensure that you handle HDPI monitors correctly when
  using those OpenGL functions. On HDPI monitors, the size reported by Gdx.graphics 
  getWidth/getHeight is in logical coordinates as dictated by the operating system, usually half
  the HDPI resolution. The OpenGL drawing surface works in backbuffer coordinates at the full
  HDPI resolution. If you pass logical coordinates to glViewport and glScissor, you only 
  affect a quarter of the real backbuffer size. Use HdpiUtils instead, it will do the right thing, while letting you continue to work in logical (aka returned by Gdx.graphics.getWidth/getHeight) coordinates.
- API Change: Graphis#getDesktopDisplayMode() has been renamed to Graphics#getDisplayMode() and
  returns the current display mode of the monitor the window is shown on (primary monitor on
  all backends except LWJGL3, which supports real multi-monitor setups).
- API Change: Graphics#getDisplayModes() return the display modes of the monitor the monitor
  the window is shown on (primary monitor on all backends except LWJGL3 which supports real
  multi-monitor setups).
- API Change: Graphics#setDisplayMode(DisplayMode) has been renamed to 
  Graphics#setFullscreenMode(). If the window is in windowed mode, it will be switched 
  to fullscreen mode on the monitor from which the DisplayMode stems from.
- API Change: Graphics#setDisplayMode(int, int, boolean) has been renamed to 
  Graphics#setWindowedMode(int, int). This will NOT allow you to switch to fullscreen anymore, 
  use Graphics#setFullscreenMode() instead. If the window is in fullscreen mode, it will be
  switched to windowed mode on the monitor the window was in fullscreen mode on.
 - API Addition: Graphics#Monitor, represents a monitor connected to the machine the app is
  running on. A monitor is defined by a name and it's position relative to other connected
  monitors. All backends except the LWJGL3 backend will report only the primary monitor
 - API Addition: Graphics#getPrimaryMonitor() returns the primary monitor you usually want
  to work with.
 - API Addition: Graphics#getMonitor() returns the monitor your app's window is shown on,
  which may not be the primary monitor in >= 2 monitor systems. All backends except the 
  LWJGL3 backend will report only the primary monitor.
 - API Addition: Graphics#getMonitors() returns all monitors connected to the system. All
  backends except the LWJGL3 backend will only report the primary monitor.
 - API Addition: Graphics#getDisplayMode(Monitor) returns the display mode of the monitor
  the app's window is shown on. All backends except the LWJGL3 backend will report the
  primary monitor display mode instead of the actual monitor's display mode. Not a problem
  as all other backends run on systems with only a single monitor so far (primary monitor).
- Added option to include credentials on cross-origin http requests (used only for GWT backend).
- Added option to specify crossorigin attribute when loading images with AssetDownloader (GWT), see #3216.
- API Change: removed Sound#setPriority, this was only implemented for the Android backend. However, Android itself never honoured priority settings.
- API Change: cursor API has been cleaned up. To create a custom cursor, call Graphics#newCursor(), to set the custom cursor call Graphics#setCursor(), to set a system cursor call Graphics#setSystemCursor(). The Cursor#setSystemCursor method has been removed as that was not the
right place. Note that cursors only work on the LWJGL, LWJGL3 and GWT backends. Note that system cursors only fully work on LWJGL3 as the other two backends lack a means to set a specific system cursor. These backends fall back to displaying an arrow cursor when setting any system cursor.
- API Addition: Added Lwjgl3WindowListener, allows you to hook into per-window iconficiation, focus and close events. Also allows you to prevent closing the window when a close event arrives.

There are a lot more details available on the announcement post if you want more details on the specifics of the update.