MapTool 1.2 Development Release Build 1

New build announcements plus site news and changes.

Moderators: dorpond, trevor, Azhrei, Craig

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

MapTool 1.2 Development Release Build 1

Post by trevor »

Here it is, the very first build of 1.2 !

NOTE/DISCLAIMER: because 1.1 is available, I've taken the liberty to really break things pretty good by inserting a couple major incomplete features. There are things that are broken. We know that. It's important that you know the risks by using it. If you need something stable, use 1.1, and wait until 1.2 builds get into the late teens.

That being said, I really need your guidance on fleshing out the topology and docking framework, please please provide your thoughts. Not so much about why it's broken as is (we know that already) but where you think it should go.

DOCKING BUG: The layout of the docking layout is not persisting correctly. That's a flexdock bug I'm trying to figure out. Also, sometimes it gets confused and puts cpu at 100% and never returns. In that case you'll need to kill the process and start again.

TOPOLOGY BUG: Performance. There's lots of optimizations to be done. Right now I'm more interested in usage than performance.

... Enjoy !

Build 1 (12/30/2006)
* Double clicking an image in the image explorer brings up the New Map dialog
* Fix background widths and heights being off by one pixel when scaling
* Put macro buttons into their own panel
* Fix bug: creating a new campaign and using File->Save no longer overwrites previous campaign save file
* Fix bug: stamp popup menu now correctly shows Free Size selected state
* Background objects no longer show their original location when moving (less clutter during move)
* Fix arrow keys, now correctly move token or stamp
* Holding SHIFT when moving a stamp will move it by one point allowing fine tuning of location
* Introduce docking framework
* Introduce vision and map topology
* Fixed an error in the .bat file to properly launch MapTool
* Added a 1G Memory .bat file
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Post by trevor »

Oh yeah, there's also a new collapsed version of the toolbar. It's got bugs too, but thought I'd let you guys play with it and decide if you thinks it's a good direction before I invest a lot of time in it.
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

Emryys
Dragon
Posts: 780
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:01 pm
Location: Beneath the Aurora Borealis
Contact:

Post by Emryys »

Loving the flexibility of the docking feature! :)

So far my favourite setup is to have the IE, Tokens and IE, unpinned left and chat macro's pinned right as two tabs, although having the all unpinned and mouse over works great for a full map area :)

Flexibility is the key!.... awesome :)
Game On!
Image

User avatar
dLANbandit
Dragon
Posts: 636
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:43 pm

Post by dLANbandit »

I also prefer to have the macro and chat as windows on the right side. Maybe, that should be the new default.

Next levels of awesomeness due to the windowing:

Macro:
A way for us to add more Macro pages.
A way for us to control the number of macro buttons in a page.
A way for us to save off the Macro pages, and share them.

Chat:
This tabbing and windowing is going to work perfectly for the requested multi-chat channel feature.

This windowing is awesome.

User avatar
dLANbandit
Dragon
Posts: 636
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:43 pm

Post by dLANbandit »

how do I mess with the collapsing tool bar?

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Post by trevor »

dLANbandit wrote:how do I mess with the collapsing tool bar?
Not collapsing, collapsed ;) It's a compressed version of the previous toolbar
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

User avatar
dLANbandit
Dragon
Posts: 636
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:43 pm

Post by dLANbandit »

:shock: Oh!

User avatar
Tetsuro
Kobold
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:13 pm

Post by Tetsuro »

The Flexdock is a bit slow on my computer, (When Unpinned and using roll over). Else it's been working great with the expected slow down from the calculations for the walls on my rather slow computer.

Why oh why, is there not a (width selectable) line tool for topology? The tools work great otherwise, but how useful a line one would have been for all those walls. Maybe I'm missing something about how complex it'd be to do?

Otherwise great release, can't wait to see some of the networking issues fixed.[/code]

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Post by trevor »

Thanks for the feedback Tetsuro. There's actually a technical reason raw lines are not supported in the topology. The geometry calculations I'm using depend on solid areas, and lines do not have any "mass" (as it were). So I can't add and subtract a line to the topology geometry. I know it looks and works similar to the draw tools, but it's actually an entirely different system. We might be able to find some other solutions though, let's think through some
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

User avatar
ltwally
Cave Troll
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 12:16 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ, USA
Contact:

things I noticed....

Post by ltwally »

Things that I noticed, right-off:
  • I minimized the Macro window & the Chat window... I was able to get the Chat window back. The Macro window is now perma-gone. Even restarting MT will not restore it. (Upon restart, the little "Macro" button is on the status bar -- but clicking on it does not bring the window back. It just makes the button disappear)
  • Tool -> Chat has absolutely no effect on anything. The menu entry is now completely worthless. Needs fixed! Also, add an entry for the Macro window!
  • Aesthetically, the Macro window could use a slight revamp: make the first 9 buttons named "01, 02, 03" etc. Why? Because it will make them the same width as the higher numbered buttons, creating a consistency.
  • Honestly, I prefered the 3 tool windows on the left side as they were... mostly. I recommend against giving each one a push-pin. Instead, allow each one to be able to collapse down (as in previous versions), and give the entire left side a push-pin. However, I do appreciate that I can now resize those tool windows.
  • I think it's high time we had a dedicated set of erasers, instead of having to constantly switch erase mode on/off on the normal draw tools.
  • Edit menu: For a long while now, I've thought that "Delete Map" should be located underneath "New Map" & "Quick Map >", instead of way down at the bottom.
  • With all the quick 'n dirty hacks your throwing in, you should probably add a "Restore Defaults" button somewhere. (Maybe under the Help menu?)
One thing that I have not had a chance to check out yet:
  • Is the chat history bug fixed, yet? That is, by far, the one that aggrevates my players and I the most. Please bump it to the top of your list.
Other features I'm still eagerly awaiting (most of these revolve around ... Security?):
  • A right click menu for the Connections window, with features such as "kick", "ban", "connection details", "disable new tokens", "allow only x number of tokens", etc etc
  • It would also be cool if we could change it so that dragging and dropping images no longer created new maps. Players often have a hard time lining up when they're dragging and dropping token images, and inadvertently create a new map. Forcing us to use Edit -> New Map is not a major inconvenience for most of us -- it's not like we add a new map every 5 minutes!
  • Along those same lines, an option to remove the ability for players to create new maps would be cool. I mean... how often do you have the players uploading the map, anyways?
  • This one would have to be OS specific... but it would be awesome if you could fix it up so that there was an actual hyperlink handler for MT. Just throw a link on my game's webpage, and players click on it and MT automatically loads. something along the lines of {a href="maptool://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx"}
Not sure if all this should be posted here, or in the MT forum.... so I'll just let you guys move it if need be.

All requests/suggestions/complaints aside, I really like MT, and I like where you're taking it. Keep up the excellent work.

-ltwally[/list]

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Post by trevor »

Thanks for the great feedback itwally ! I'll parse through them and put in appropriate trackers :)
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

Phergus
Deity
Posts: 7132
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 8:56 pm
Location: Middle of Nowhere, NM
Contact:

Re: things I noticed....

Post by Phergus »

ltwally wrote:
  • Honestly, I prefered the 3 tool windows on the left side as they were... mostly. I recommend against giving each one a push-pin. Instead, allow each one to be able to collapse down (as in previous versions), and give the entire left side a push-pin. However, I do appreciate that I can now resize those tool windows.
Must admit I don't really care for having them collapse into the sidebar of the window. Takes away from map area. I'm already losing 20 pixels off vertical and horizontal to get rid of the map and chat areas.

And I'm really, really hating having the chat and macro windows pop up when I move the off the map.

The resizing is great but I don't need the pushpin stuff. I liked being able to completely hide the Information Panel with Ctrl-P and my players will need the full screen option.

I think being able to undock them and drag them around would be more useful along with hotkeys to hide/reveal the individual areas.
ltwally wrote:
  • I think it's high time we had a dedicated set of erasers, instead of having to constantly switch erase mode on/off on the normal draw tools.
That would probably be nice though I rarely use the erase mode switch. Holding down the shift key with the drawing or FoW tools swaps mode.
ltwally wrote:
  • It would also be cool if we could change it so that dragging and dropping images no longer created new maps. Players often have a hard time lining up when they're dragging and dropping token images, and inadvertently create a new map.
I thought I had the worlds clumsiest players. You actually have people accidently drop tokens on the mini-maps?

Granted I never use that feature but just being able to disallow players from creating maps would fix this issue.
ltwally wrote:
  • Along those same lines, an option to remove the ability for players to create new maps would be cool.
This should be the default behavior.

User avatar
AidyBaby
Dragon
Posts: 383
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:55 pm
Contact:

Post by AidyBaby »

Tetsuro wrote:Why oh why, is there not a (width selectable) line tool for topology? The tools work great otherwise, but how useful a line one would have been for all those walls. Maybe I'm missing something about how complex it'd be to do?
This would be a really useful tool. I understand the limitation that the vision algorithm requires 'areas', therefore would it be possible to create an area automatically from a line tool operation i.e. two clicks start and end, and have the tool automatically generate a width in the other direction based on the selected line width and draw an area (albeit possibly only 1px wide)?

One other thing: where's the line width selection disappeared to?

-AidyBaby-
D&D qualities are related inversely to those of Poker... and I love both.
http://www.yorkpoker.co.uk

User avatar
AidyBaby
Dragon
Posts: 383
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:55 pm
Contact:

Post by AidyBaby »

I've noticed that when a token has multiple visions only the first vision created exposes visible area FOW when that option is used from the context menu when used on a single token. When this option is used on a selection of multiple tokens (all with visions set), sometimes some tokens do not reveal FOW whereas others do. I've tried to reproduce this but cannot spot in what particular instance this occurs.

Also visions can only be created or modified for one token at a time, rather than being able to modify several at once. Hopefully there are plans to allow vision setting and altering for multiple token selections.

Are there plans to make the appearance on screen of the vision area to be customisable (a bit like the light source dialog)? I'd much prefer to have the vision only show a border of a thicker line and no shaded fill as it can make seeing the map difficult with the current settings.

This may have already been suggested but it would be fantastic if the light source displays are limited to LOS too!
D&D qualities are related inversely to those of Poker... and I love both.
http://www.yorkpoker.co.uk

User avatar
trevor
Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
Posts: 11311
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Re: things I noticed....

Post by trevor »

ltwally wrote: [*]It would also be cool if we could change it so that dragging and dropping images no longer created new maps. Players often have a hard time lining up when they're dragging and dropping token images, and inadvertently create a new map. Forcing us to use Edit -> New Map is not a major inconvenience for most of us -- it's not like we add a new map every 5 minutes!
This has been fixed in 1.2b2, you can no longer drop images onto the mini maps to create a new map
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

Post Reply

Return to “Announcements”