Feedback on the new Adjust Grid dialog ?

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trevor
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Feedback on the new Adjust Grid dialog ?

Post by trevor »

Has anyone tried to use the new Adjust Grid dialog preview ?

I've gotten some feedback that it isn't as intuitive as I thought it would be, so I'll be making some updates.

You get to it by doing a Map->New Map, Bounded, Adjust Grid.

Here's the idea: click near each red line and move it to the furthest outside gridline on the map that you can see. Once you've moved all four sides you should have a red square that roughly lines up to the outside gridlines. Once you have the outside grid set up, use the sliders to change the number of grid cells on that axis. Eventually you should have a grid that comes very, very close to the map's grid. Don't worry that the red square doesn't fill up the entire map, it's just a visual structure to help calculate square sizes, the resulting grid will still fill up the entire map :)

It's one of the last major features before we go 1.0, and since we've got a slew of super sweet features lined up post 1.0 that I'm itching to implement I need you guys to help us get there ! So fire it up and send in your feedback :)
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Emryys
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Post by Emryys »

I tried it, but I think I need a zoom on larger bounded maps :o
It's easy to use I just found it hard to see my grid on a map I have that has square tiles, but no real grid so I just adjusted it when it was loaded... habit maybe ;)
It's one of the last major features before we go 1.0, and since we've got a slew of super sweet features lined up post 1.0 that I'm itching to implement I need you guys to help us get there ! So fire it up and send in your feedback
And I'm itching to try! :)
Where did I put my calamine lotion...
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Duo
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Post by Duo »

Greetings!

I just stumbled upon MapTool this evening and was trying a few things out with several cohorts of mine. Besides the fact that they couldn't connect, I did spend some time with the program trying to figure out what everything does, and what I need to do to get what needs to be done, done.

Now, if that wasn't convoluted enough for you, watch as I preform my next trick!

The Adjust Grid dialog preview box is certainly needed. However, I think you're going about it in an odd manner.

I'm going to echo Emryys and say that we need to be able to zoom. Second of all, I think creating the grid should go something like this:

1) Zoom in so that you can clearly see where the corners and edges of each tile are.

2) Switch tools and select the four corners of a tile. The program would then line them up creating 90° angles and also ensure that the lines are of equal length. You could then adjust the square slightly if you messed up a little bit.

3) Zoom out a bit and apply the grid. Zoom in to other places on the map to ensure that the grid stays close to your map and then apply it.

Basically, I think it would be easier to work with the image on a pixel by pixel basis, conforming to the pixels of the image itself.

Of course, I have no idea of how practical this would actually be. Nor do I know how much it would really help.

This idea isn't very well thought out, but it seems that you like raw ideas around here. Please feel free to mince, dice, chop, add, remove, ignore, flame, etc etc.

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Post by trevor »

Greetings and welcome ! Why yes, we do like raw ideas and thanks for your feedback.

Looks like zooming is overwhelmingly needed, so mark that one for implementation.

It might help if I explain some of the motivations behind the new design. The existing adjust grid functionality is based on pixels. It works super great for perfectly square grids. In fact, I like its simplicity over the new dialog. Unfortunately it starts to fail quite miserably when the grid isn't pixel perfectly square.

Take for example a scanned map. There are lots of them at WotC. The grids may or may not be square along either axis. It boils down to grids which have fractional pixel sizes. The result with the current implementation is grids which are perfect in one corner of the map, and totally off at the opposite end.

Which is where the new impl comes in. It is designed to handle fractional grid sizes, as well as make a closest fit across the entire map.

Let me make another pass at it and see what kind of simplifications (along with zooming) that I can make.
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trevor
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Post by trevor »

Duo wrote:Besides the fact that they couldn't connect
Tell us more about your connection issues. What method were you using to connect ? LAN, RPTools, or direct ?

Were you all on the same lan, or across the internet ?

What happens when the person hosting the server (presumably you) clicks on the 'Test Connection' button on the Start Server dialog ?
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Post by Duo »

The connection issues were probably user error on my part, now that I think about it. I was a little tired and forgot about the windows firewall. I'm going to give it another try when I get home.

Thank you very much for your concern.

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Post by trevor »

Cool, let me know how it goes :)
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Duo
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Post by Duo »

Welp, still not working for us.

The wierdest part is that for the two people connecting to me their client just freezes. We haven't tried the alpha, so that might be the next step.

When I try to connect to them I normally freeze for a minute or so and end up getting a connection time out error. To be more exact:

Code: Select all

IO Error: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect
I think I will try the alpha and see how that works.

[edit]Little update, I was using the alpha the whole time and didn't realize it. Even so, the problem did not go away when everyone was on the same version.

It could be a firewall issue, but we're all pretty competent and have the ports open etc. Not sure what to try next. :/
Last edited by Duo on Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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trevor
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Post by trevor »

Hmm, sounds like I need to tweak the code to run connections in the background.

What happens when you as the server clicks the Test Connection button on the Start Server dialog ?
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Duo
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Post by Duo »

It tells me: "Success! I could successfully connect to your computer from the internet."

We tried both RPTools connect, and direct connect.

I tried connecting to myself with another instance of MapTools with success.

If you want to try to connect, I'm currently running the beta and am on RPTools with game "Duo"

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Post by trevor »

Interesting. I've attempted to connect to your server, and am succesful, but apparently the server is having a hard time responding back. I'm going to need to see if I can reproduce it locally.

If I can't would you be willing to run a debug version while I attempt to connect ? This would be probably Wed evening.

I would love to work out what the problem is so that others can benefit.

On another note, you should use the Alpha version :) It's got some nice new features (check the changelog).
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Duo
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Post by Duo »

Aye, I was indeed running alpha most of the time.

I don't mind helping debug. I trouble shoot for a living ;)

Do you guys have an IRC channel? If not, I think you could come by ours for a while. Probably more convenient than this. :)

Wednesday is out for me. Playing in an Eberron campaign with some guys at work. Any other time is fine though.

My connection has been on and off tonight. Seems more stable now though.

Thank you once more for your concern in this matter. I truly appreciate it.

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Post by trevor »

How about thursday then.

We don't have an irc channel, but I could stop by yours while we work it out, we can also skype, or yahoo, msn, or aim IM :)
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