This is a notice and request for comment on upcoming API changes. This will resolve a number of outstanding issues (#15, #25, #28).

The next tagged release will adopt the following changes:

• TMX files will no longer be specified by filepath. Instead, the Map object will be created using an already-opened file object. While this will require additional file and resource management from the user, it will eliminate any filesystem dependencies from TiledSharp. This will also allow compilation as a Portable Class Library, and run on a greater number of platforms.

• The ObjectGroup and ImageLayer lists will be merged into Layers, which more closely resembles the TMX layout format. Elements can still be accessed by layer name, so this should not introduce any major problems.

  If two layers of different types were using the same name, then there may be some internal namechanges, but this is probably not a major issue.

The following change is also being considered:

• Removing the DotNetZip code dump and replacing it with a .NET 3.5 compatible zlib library (possibly ZLib.Portable). This would address issues PCL Support #15 and Replace DotNetZip with Zlib.Portable #16.

The following changes have been completed:

• Tiles within Tileset are now stored as an id-index Dictionary, rather than a list (as suggested in Suggestion to change TmxTileset.Tiles to a Dictionary #38)
• DotNetZip has been removed, zlib support now provided by DeflateStream over data section

Any comments on these changes (including approval) can be posted here.