New Project File Formats

FinalBuilder has used an xml file format since version 1, however a common complaint over the years, has been that it is difficult to diff file versions. FinalBuilder 8 has tackled this in two ways.

A new DSL style project file format (.fbp8) is now the default format, it is very easy to diff.  

project
begin
	projectid = {04710B72-066E-46E7-84C7-C04A0D8BFE18}
	target
	begin
		name = Default
		targetid = {E6DE94D6-5484-45E9-965A-DB69885AA5E2}
		rootaction
		begin
			action.group
			begin
				id = {D860420B-DE46-4806-959F-8A92A0C86429}
			end
		end
	end
end

A new xml format (.fbx8), much less verbose than the old format.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<finalbuilder>
	<project>
		<projectid>{6A717C24-D00F-4983-9FD0-148B2C609634}</projectid>
		<target>
			<name>Default</name>
			<targetid>{E6DE94D6-5484-45E9-965A-DB69885AA5E2}</targetid>
			<rootaction>
				<action.group>
					<id>{D860420B-DE46-4806-959F-8A92A0C86429}</id>
				</action.group>
			</rootaction>
		</target>
	</project>
</finalbuilder>

Compressed project files (.fbz8) use the dsl format internally (compressed projects are just a zip file with a project.fbp8 inside it).

The default project file encoding is now UTF-8, which is more version control friendly (some version control systems treat utf-16 as binaries),

Debugger

One of the most asked for features now available in FinalBuilder 8, stepping into included projects. In FinalBuilder 7 and earlier, you could only step over included projects, and wait for them to return. In FinalBuilder 8, you can step into the included project, if it is not already opened the IDE will open the project and switch to it automatically. To make this possible, there are now "Step Into" and "Step Over" functions. The Step into/over now also applies to targets (see below).