My Feature Requests and Bugs I found - MapTool
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:06 am
Hi, I wanted to post some bugs I found and post some feedback/requests as well, but because of forum rules I went here to create this topic first. So, lets get to it. First of all, I'd like to thank you for this amazing tool. It is absolutely awesome thing and I love it, with my whole nerd being. Which is reason why I am here, to attempt to give some feedback and hopefully help you get it even better. So, lets get to things I think are bugs. In general, I am running 2 MapTool instances on one computer, with one as my DM screen and one on secondary monitor as player screen, and I'm on Win7 64bit, MapTool version 1.4.0.5. Rules I'm used to are Pathfinder and D&D 5e ones, which means that we might not agree on something, but more about that beneath bugs. I'm also new here, so my apologies for any bug reports or feature requests which have already been posted - I don't really have time to read though whole forum. The last thing I'd like to say is that I'm no native speaker, so I'd like to apologize for something not being clear or correct for grammar nazi eyes . Lets get to my notes now.:
1. Whenever I as a GM select any token which isn't within sight of players (obviously, with vision set to either day or night) and move it, players can see my token and whole path token is traveling. Turning off "Show Movement Distance" didn't help. So while players can't see NPCs behind a corner, they can see their movement. Yes, I can make a workaround and just copy NPC tokens to new places and delete originals. Anyway, couldn't paths be displayed only for tokens which are, at the start of their movement (or at the last "waypoint" created by spacebar), at least partially visible for players, while all other paths would be hidden from players?
2. Darkvision seems to not work at all, there are actually 3 issues I've got with it.:
- Darkvision should show darkness as a dim light. Its shown as a bright light in MapTool.
- Darkvision should show dim light as a bright light. It shows dim light as simply a dim light instead, which produces a very strange effect especially when joined by previous issue.
- Darkvision shows 60ft circle, even during day. Nothing more. It ignores both day and light sources, it just keeps showing only 60ft. During night, 60ft circle seems to be extended by like 2.5ft in directions towards light sources. But token with darkvision can't see anything outside his 60/62.5ft circle, even what is directly beneath a light source.
What Darkvision should really do is show bright light as a bright light and within 60ft dim light as a bright light, no light as a dim light (again within 60ft).
3. When I put some picture (especially large one) into map, move it to desired place and then move a camera, picture often moves. So I basically need to wait a second or two until picture gets... saved or whatever. Can this be dealt with by using some value like "these are coordinates camera was on when this object was placed, use them as a refference while "saving" it and don't use current ones"?
4. Lets say I've got thing A (especially hidden/object/background with free size and no snapping to grid). I've got thing B, which is in Arrange order going over thing A. I select A, move it to space occupied by B. When I stop holding mouse button, I immediately get selected B. Which means that if I move A beneath B, A is immediately deselected. This interferes with for example possibility to resize A after being moved beneath B. I'm also completely unable to select A now, as B is overlapping it, and the only way out of this mess is moving B aside (thus deconstructing already built parts of map...). First of all, stuff shouldn't be selected by releasing mouse button after moving something. And, if A is moved beneath B, I shouldn't be unable to move A out of there or resize it. Right now, when I attempt this, I get A deselected and B selected, as B is over A.
5. Grid coordinates overlap window with description of Object/Hidden thing when it clicked on in Token mode. That gets into way, can they be beneath that window, so they don't interfere with it?
Now some feature requests...:
1. Customizable vision (in Has Sight i Token's Config). Current system doesn't allow different, nonstandart ranges (for example darkvision 30ft). It also doesn't allow multiple vision types joined together (darkvision 60ft, blindsight 30ft). Blindsight is btw completely missing. And if darkvision and stuff like that are interpreted in different pen and paper games in different ways, some configuration options would come in handy (like does darkvision mean that you can see only within 60ft, or further and so on).
2. Customizable conditions. There are many conditions which are just missing in MapTool (especially 5e ones), and maybe someone wants to homebrew his own conditions. In general, I'd allow creating own, custom conditions.
3. Customizable condition icons. This would be a very useful thing, because some colored crosses and circles... they don't really tell me much, and have habit of overlapping each other (and in terribly looking fashion which just obscures Token and does little more). I'd much preffer some small icons which would be showing next to each other in probably bottom right corner of Token's occupied space (each one of them would be like... 1/5 of size of grid big, in pixels). Color of icons and small symbol on them (horizontal line for prone, skull for poisoned and so on) would indicate way, way better, what is actually "wrong" with that PC/NPC. Possibility to change those icons or create new ones as well as new conditions, like I said, would be really appreciated.
4. Tracking how long are conditions there (for how many turns, if Token in in Initiative), would be yet another useful feature, as tracking duration of effects can be tedious work to do.
5. When I have some objects in Background snapped to grid and decide to change them to actual Objects, a lot of them get scattered and move. Objects are apparently being snapped to grid in a different manner than Background stuff. I suppose there is a good reason for this (as long as it isn't just a bug), but please, can there be a checkbox in eithere Prefferences or Map settings which would enable user to say "I want to have everything snapped to grid in the same manner, to prevent this from happening"?
6. Shortcut for showing/hiding grid coordinates. They are clutter I don't like to have turned on all the time, but sometimes I need them as players want to navigate me to certain field on grid they want to move on. So I'm switching it on and off quite often and having to do that by going to menu is kind of meh.
7. Random generators. Those could be used for literally anything, be it NPC or environment. It could be a window where one would just select one of proposed lists (NPC bonds, NPC flaws, NPC appearance and so on - stuff which can be found all around 5e's DMG basically) and be able to just click for random selection out of that list. Possibility to create your own lists or customize existing ones would be very useful as well. Maybe even implementing this right into Tokens can be nice (create a token, click on it, click on "Roll random appearance - and I've got full random NPC in 5 seconds, written down and generated in my MapTool).
Now, just a question, I'm working on my own resource pack, when it gets done (or rather to decent size), who am I supposed to contact if I want to share this with you and post it to MapTool resources for download from application itself? [email protected]?
Thats (hopefully) all. Like I said, this is absolutely wonderfull tool, but it would use some polishing to become even greater. Cheers guys, thanks for making this happen and thanks for reading this wall of text of mine!
1. Whenever I as a GM select any token which isn't within sight of players (obviously, with vision set to either day or night) and move it, players can see my token and whole path token is traveling. Turning off "Show Movement Distance" didn't help. So while players can't see NPCs behind a corner, they can see their movement. Yes, I can make a workaround and just copy NPC tokens to new places and delete originals. Anyway, couldn't paths be displayed only for tokens which are, at the start of their movement (or at the last "waypoint" created by spacebar), at least partially visible for players, while all other paths would be hidden from players?
2. Darkvision seems to not work at all, there are actually 3 issues I've got with it.:
- Darkvision should show darkness as a dim light. Its shown as a bright light in MapTool.
- Darkvision should show dim light as a bright light. It shows dim light as simply a dim light instead, which produces a very strange effect especially when joined by previous issue.
- Darkvision shows 60ft circle, even during day. Nothing more. It ignores both day and light sources, it just keeps showing only 60ft. During night, 60ft circle seems to be extended by like 2.5ft in directions towards light sources. But token with darkvision can't see anything outside his 60/62.5ft circle, even what is directly beneath a light source.
What Darkvision should really do is show bright light as a bright light and within 60ft dim light as a bright light, no light as a dim light (again within 60ft).
3. When I put some picture (especially large one) into map, move it to desired place and then move a camera, picture often moves. So I basically need to wait a second or two until picture gets... saved or whatever. Can this be dealt with by using some value like "these are coordinates camera was on when this object was placed, use them as a refference while "saving" it and don't use current ones"?
4. Lets say I've got thing A (especially hidden/object/background with free size and no snapping to grid). I've got thing B, which is in Arrange order going over thing A. I select A, move it to space occupied by B. When I stop holding mouse button, I immediately get selected B. Which means that if I move A beneath B, A is immediately deselected. This interferes with for example possibility to resize A after being moved beneath B. I'm also completely unable to select A now, as B is overlapping it, and the only way out of this mess is moving B aside (thus deconstructing already built parts of map...). First of all, stuff shouldn't be selected by releasing mouse button after moving something. And, if A is moved beneath B, I shouldn't be unable to move A out of there or resize it. Right now, when I attempt this, I get A deselected and B selected, as B is over A.
5. Grid coordinates overlap window with description of Object/Hidden thing when it clicked on in Token mode. That gets into way, can they be beneath that window, so they don't interfere with it?
Now some feature requests...:
1. Customizable vision (in Has Sight i Token's Config). Current system doesn't allow different, nonstandart ranges (for example darkvision 30ft). It also doesn't allow multiple vision types joined together (darkvision 60ft, blindsight 30ft). Blindsight is btw completely missing. And if darkvision and stuff like that are interpreted in different pen and paper games in different ways, some configuration options would come in handy (like does darkvision mean that you can see only within 60ft, or further and so on).
2. Customizable conditions. There are many conditions which are just missing in MapTool (especially 5e ones), and maybe someone wants to homebrew his own conditions. In general, I'd allow creating own, custom conditions.
3. Customizable condition icons. This would be a very useful thing, because some colored crosses and circles... they don't really tell me much, and have habit of overlapping each other (and in terribly looking fashion which just obscures Token and does little more). I'd much preffer some small icons which would be showing next to each other in probably bottom right corner of Token's occupied space (each one of them would be like... 1/5 of size of grid big, in pixels). Color of icons and small symbol on them (horizontal line for prone, skull for poisoned and so on) would indicate way, way better, what is actually "wrong" with that PC/NPC. Possibility to change those icons or create new ones as well as new conditions, like I said, would be really appreciated.
4. Tracking how long are conditions there (for how many turns, if Token in in Initiative), would be yet another useful feature, as tracking duration of effects can be tedious work to do.
5. When I have some objects in Background snapped to grid and decide to change them to actual Objects, a lot of them get scattered and move. Objects are apparently being snapped to grid in a different manner than Background stuff. I suppose there is a good reason for this (as long as it isn't just a bug), but please, can there be a checkbox in eithere Prefferences or Map settings which would enable user to say "I want to have everything snapped to grid in the same manner, to prevent this from happening"?
6. Shortcut for showing/hiding grid coordinates. They are clutter I don't like to have turned on all the time, but sometimes I need them as players want to navigate me to certain field on grid they want to move on. So I'm switching it on and off quite often and having to do that by going to menu is kind of meh.
7. Random generators. Those could be used for literally anything, be it NPC or environment. It could be a window where one would just select one of proposed lists (NPC bonds, NPC flaws, NPC appearance and so on - stuff which can be found all around 5e's DMG basically) and be able to just click for random selection out of that list. Possibility to create your own lists or customize existing ones would be very useful as well. Maybe even implementing this right into Tokens can be nice (create a token, click on it, click on "Roll random appearance - and I've got full random NPC in 5 seconds, written down and generated in my MapTool).
Now, just a question, I'm working on my own resource pack, when it gets done (or rather to decent size), who am I supposed to contact if I want to share this with you and post it to MapTool resources for download from application itself? [email protected]?
Thats (hopefully) all. Like I said, this is absolutely wonderfull tool, but it would use some polishing to become even greater. Cheers guys, thanks for making this happen and thanks for reading this wall of text of mine!