A big new build was issued today. This one is a "must" have with features like Style pane history and some other biggies, like a slippy, mobile website for the HTTP server. Next build should be around 16 August. Here's the announcement from the What's New page (easier to read with an illustration on that page):

Undo / Redo Styles + Much More

26 July 2026: Build 9.0.182.4 delivers several big, important features that improve workflow and provide better quality of life in GIS work: Style history with Back and Forward arrows, Layer reveal, a spectacular new Mobile and Slippy enabled web site, Word wrap in Comments windows, Slippy layout frames, Move all selected objects when editing geometry, new North arrows designed for mobile use, a shortcut to the Colors dialog, and PostgreSQL 18.4 support.

In addition to major new features the build provides a variety of small features and a few fixes. As always with Cutting Edge builds, users are advised to retain a backup copy of prior builds in case they would like to revert to an earlier build. The following release notes are preliminary information: documentation has yet to be updated.

Highlights

** Style Pane history with Back/Forward - Back and Forward arrows have been added to the Style pane. The Style pane now tracks the history of all Style changes made on a per-component basis (drawings, labels, images, layouts), allowing multistep Undo (Back arrow) and multistep Redo (Forward arrow). A new mfd_style table appears in the System Data folder and records all style changes made for a project. Back and Forward arrows allow stepping through the Style history for each individual component. Deleting a component deletes its entries in the mfd_style table. History is remembered across Manifold sessions: open a project six months later and the Style history will still be there if you want to revert style on a component back to what it was before changes were made.

** Layer reveal - This feature allows you to "peel back" any layer partially to see what is underneath. It's analogous to how Preview work: right click on a layer's tab in the tabstrip at the bottom of a window and choose Full (no reveal), Left (show the layer on the left side of the window and reveal what is below on the right side of the window) or Right (the other way around). A thin, vertical seam line appears with handles at the top and bottom borders of the window. Drag the seam line or the handles left and right to increase or decrease the proportion of the window in which layer reveal shows layers below the reveal layer. Layer reveal works with any layer in a stack and not just the topmost layer. With reveal on for a layer you can click layers on and off or change their opacity in the Layers pane. Layer reveal honors layer opacity settings, automatically negates occlusion culling, allows panning and zooming while in reveal mode, and automatically switches to Full when a higher layer is clicked on or when the current topmost layer is clicked off. Layer reveal works with drawings, images, and layers layers, including imageserver and other externally-served layers. If the reveal layer is a labels layer as you drag the seam line left and right and the reveal moves past labels it is fascinating to watch labels go partial and then flick out of or into existance. Composite layer tabs (a single tab for a folder of layers within the Layers pane) also work with Layer reveal: the multiple layers within the tab are peeled back at the same time for a multi-layer reveal. Amazing!

** New! Mobile, Slippy Web Site by Default - Manifold's HTTP web map server now serves a modern, mobile-native slippy map by default. The new web site is fully responsive for mobile/telephone browsers: It autosizes, adapts to high resolution phone displays and autorotates when phone rotates. It understands gestures: Tap with a finger to get info on a feature (by default the site lists info for all coincident features), double-tap to zoom, pan with a single finger or double finger gesture, and use pinch gestures to zoom. The site applies canvas/smooth zoom technology. Controls are placed by default in a thumb-friendly location with command line launching options to move controls to the left or right side of the display. Other options allow the map/website designer to add North Arrow, Scale Bar, Legend and Grid accessories in a way that they're available but a user can opt-in to see them via the Layers button. Options and notes:

-legacy - Option to use the prior, non-slippy default site.

-buttons:tl - or with :tr, :l, :r, :bl, or :br, a positioning option to place the column of control buttons on the display, respectively top left, top right, left center, right center, bottom left or bottom right. An invalid option will cause placement to fall back to the right-center position. Panes for control buttons open inward from the display border.

-extrasoff - Any decorations (North arrows, scalebars, legends, grids) in the source map will initially be hidden and will appear in the Layers button unchecked. Checking a decoration in the Layers button will display it. This option allows site designers to provide, say, a North arrow for those users who want one but have it off by default.

Info cards stay clear of controls - When an info card pops open when a feature is tapped, a 60 pixel clamp keeps the card clear of any control buttons.

Decorations listed in the Layers button - Unlike the prior site, decorations (North arrows, scalebars, legends, grids) in the source map are listed in the Layers pane and can be checked off and on as desired.

** Info cards compatible with legacy site - On a single tap (phone) or click (desktop) the slippy web site defaults to same Info handling as the legacy site, providing info for the tapped/clicked object from the topmost layer that is visible and pickable. Note that the topmost layer may change if the map designer has arranged for layers to turn off and on depending on zoom level - the Info handling takes that into account. A tap/click pops open an "Info card" (a small pane) with information from the fields for the tapped/clicked object, by default using the same logic as the legacy site so legacy sites will work by default with the new slippy interface. The info card popped up by the slippy version provides the name of the layer which has been queried by a tap/click in boldface at the top of the info card. If the layers pane is used to turn off the topmost layer, the tap/click will report from the new topmost visible layer. To report info from all objects that are coincident within all visible/pickable layers on a tap/click, add the -allinfo flag to the server command line.

** Improved messaging for the legacy web site - The legacy HTTP site has been edited to provide more understandable prompts and messages:

Named layers - The Info button combo box in the pull down menu now names the layer in use (replacing an uninformative "auto").

No Info is not No Data - When clicking the Info tool on an object in a layer other than the topmost (or specified) layer or on no object a "No info in specified layer" message appears instead of a generic "No Data" message.

No fields? No Info - When clicking the Info tool on an object in the specified layer that has no data in its fields a "No info" message appears instead of a generic "No Data" message.

** At last! Word wrap in Comments Windows - Right-click in a Comments window and choose Word Wrap from the context menu to wrap long lines to fit within the window. The Right-to-left choice toggles settings when using Right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew. Settings are remembered per component.

** Conversion of line endings - When copying and pasting text into Manifold windows, Comments, Script and Location windows now normalize non-Windows (web, Linux, etc) line endings into Windows style endings. This avoids run-together paragraphs and weird double spacing when copying text from web sites and pasting into Manifold windows.

** Slippy Zoom - Slippy zoom has been added to map windows (maps, drawings, images, labels) for wheel zoom. This is for zoom out (zoom in by definition uses only those regions already on display) and is useful for relatively small zooms, about one window's size outwards. When zooming out past the slippy overscan region non-slippy zoom takes over.

** Slippy Layout Frames - Frames within layouts when enabled for panning / zooming (double-click on the frame) now use slippy pan and also slippy zoom just like map windows.

** Move all Selected Objects - When editing an object, ALT-drag will move that object's vertices and also all vertices of all selected objects in the layer. That provides a way to move a picked object (or some of its vertices) and also moving all selected objects at the same time. The feature issues a message (which is localizable) to the status bar to alert the user that the ALT-drag will move / has moved selected objects, for example, 12 selected object(s) will move when changes are saved and moved 12 selected object(s). The wireframe previews of objects that are moved use blue preview color for the wireframe of the picked object and violet selection + preview color for the wireframes of any selected objects also being moved, taking the colors from those specified in the Tools - Options dialog, Colors tab.

** North Arrow dialog redesign - The North Arrow dialog has been redesigned to add a Center-N option. The Center-N option (enabled when the Text option to add N, E, S, W labels is on) removes any E, S, W text labels and uses only the N text label, drawing it in the center of the North Arrow shape on top of the North Arrow, and optionally surrounding it with a circle or rectangle box with the given padding. The Center-N option allows creating a new look from existing North Arrow shapes.

** 22 new North arrows - 22 new North Arrow symbols have been added to the North Arrow dialog's gallery. These are very simple shapes designed to work well with the new Center N option and are especially aimed at mobile devices as well as desktop maps where a simple, clean style is desired. A few in particular work outstandingly well to provide a modern, clean style on telephones. The illustration near the top of this pages shows the new

** Easy Schema Copies - A Copy button has been added to the Schema dialog's toolbar. Either the button or Ctrl-C copies to the Clipboard all selected rows that are visible, ignoring any selected rows that are hidden as a result of text matching in the filter box. Pasting from that copy works like paste of rows copied from a Table window: The first row that is pasted provides five field names - Category, Name, Type, Expression, and Attributes - that are separated by tabs. Subsequent rows provide values from the Schema dialog also separated by tabs. Note that in the Schema dialog the first field, Category, is indicated by an icon (which could indicate a field, computed field, index or constraint) in the dialog. The last field, Attribute, likewise is indicated by one or more icons in the Schema dialog (that symbolize Indexed, Indexed (secondary), Projection, Projection (Invalid) and Key). Multiple attributes within the same field are separated by a comma followed by a space.

** Teleport into More... - A SHIFT-click on color wells throughout the system will now directly launch the Colors dialog without need of choosing More... in a pop-up menu. This extends the shortcut added to colors wells within the Style pane to many dozens of other settings within the system. The Apply button in the Colors dialog now also works to push the current color up to the calling dialog wherever applicable, for example, updating the Preview pane in Area, Line and Point Style dialogs.

** Compact is better than Collapse - The Expand / Collapse button in the Colors dialog has been renamed to Expand / Compact to avoid unintended translations of "Collapse" by automatic translation engines when doing localizations.

** No more watermark - The manifold.net watermark has been removed from both the legacy web site as well as the new slippy web site for all license levels that include an HTTP server.

** PostgreSQL Update - PostgreSQL support within the system and the optional open source .dll file has been updated to version 18.4, including new version 18.4 client files and updated PostgreSQL user manual topics that now illustrate v18.4 and Windows 11.

** "Beta" designation dropped for Cutting Edge builds - Users have long treated Edge builds as full releases with no sense of them being beta builds, so the "Beta" tagged onto their build designation in the Log window and other settings has been dropped.

** Plus builds dropped - Instead of bundling multi-hundred megabyte grid files with optional open source .dll files in a huge "plus" build, Manifold builds are now distributed as both .exe Windows Installer installations or .zip portable installations, with huge grid files and optional .dll files in downloadable .zip packages.

** Adios ALT-drag - An ALT-drag no longer pans map windows. This was an undocumented option (everyone uses a simple drag to pan map windows), but ALT-drag has been retired to clear the way for an ALT-drag to be used unambiguously when editing geometry to move all selected objects.

** (Fix) Not a bug but poor GUI design - The Delete button in the Schema dialog would delete all selected rows, even those rows that were hidden by a text entry into the filter box. That's technically correct behavior but it could surprise a user that rows which were not displayed could have been deleted. The Delete button now follows the same protocol as the new Copy button: it only deletes those selected rows that are also visible, ignoring any selected rows that are hidden by the filter box.

** (Fix) Not a bug but possibly confusing - The Update Style button in the Style pane is now hidden when it has no function.

** (Fix) Fractional-seed truncation fixed in the query engine - Due to an incorrect fractional-seed truncation, in some cases an index seek might disagree with a scan path. This is an unlikely issue arising from structuring during query planning vs. execution that has never been observed in the field or during testing but was found during query engine optimization work. It has now been fixed.

** (Fix) Esc to Cancel - In the Colors pane, when the dialog is first launched before any action is taken a press of the Esc key should close the dialog, the same as pressing Cancel. That did not happen: the correct function now has been restored.

** (Fix) Hex sync - Swapping alpha meaning in the Colors dialog in prior builds desyncronized the hex readout combo control from the hex readout in the current color control. That's been fixed and they are now in sync.

** (Fix) BGR/HSV round trips drifting - Round trips between setting HSV values and BGR values in the Colors dialog could accumulate drift and be off by 1 for a parameter, for example, 127 instead of 128. Now fixed.

** (Fix) Border dragged with frame - Within a Layout window, during a pan inside a double-clicked frame that had a thick border, the frame's border could momentarily drag along with the contents before snapping back to its correct position on release. Thick border frames are now locked into position and are not dragged with the contents.

** (Fix) Page panned instead of frame - Within a Layout window, during a pan inside a double-clicked frame that had a thick border, clicking and dragging within the right border, the bottom border, or the outer rings could pan the Layout page instead of the frame. Now, clicking and dragging anywhere on the thick border will pan the frame on all four sides and all four corners.

** (Fix) Borders on top - Frame borders within layouts are now drawn on top of the frame contents. That ensures a border is never overlapped by contents and is always visible, including on a 0 padding, fully occupied frame, both on screen and in printed versions.

Wow!

First look at Layer reveal, works a treat. That schema Delete feature had caught me out in the past, good fix.

The whole mobile slippy map section looks to be really useful. Would make a great manifold how to video.

Slippy pan/zoom works great. It really adds a professionalism to the site. One quick question, as I can't seem to find any reference to it:

I have set my layers pane in the .map file to only show certain fields. That works as expected. But, when serving a web map, ALL the fields are shown during an info query. Is there something I am missing? I would like the internet map to honor the field categories that I establish in the layers pane.

when serving a web map, ALL the fields are shown during an info query.

Correct. The HTTP server has always done that, ever since Manifold Server was introduced for 9. It's always been up to the map designer / web designer to put only the fields that he or she has wanted available into the layer that the Info card displays. That's continued into the new slippy/mobile site so that by default projects created for the legacy site will continue to function.

What you're discussing is something new. If it's important, send it in as a suggestion. I suppose it could be implemented so it wouldn't break existing sites where the designer has arranged the layer served by Info without having to make sure all the fields of the table are ON in the Layers pane. For example, a new -fieldson (or whatever more sensible option name that gets picked) option would restrict the Info card only to fields that are turned on.

But also keep in mind that the intent for the server is to keep it simple, and the more options that get added for various special cases the harder it becomes for people to learn it.

Does anyone else get this warning and failure to install?

Attachments:
Manifold warning window.jpg

Yes. You have to uninstall the old version first

Run the portable install if you want to retain prior versions.