RPTools.net

The ability to export/import maps would be awesome. My campaign file is only about 50 MB but I've only been using MT for a month or so. I can imagine a file growing to absolutely massive proportions. If the ability to export/import is available then less frequently used maps can be exported and saved outside of the main campaign file but easily brought back if needed.

The ability to share maps would also be awesome. If someone were to remap, say, the entirety of Under Mountain with MT and make it available for others to import . . . . wow. Awesome sauce!

Yes, I agree.
this feature is a *must have.* I have a few maps out of different campaign files that I need in my main campaign file.
Allowing people to create maps (with objects included) and export them for other people to use would be a huge boost to the community and bring lots more people in.
I am currently mapping the entire Melvaunt section of the Mysteries of the Moonsea book for a campaign and it seems a shame that others won't be able to import them into their own campaign files.
Many of the maps I see online are not high enough resolution to use in maptools or have too many objects painted in that I dont want in there (monsters, chests, etc)

Azhrei,
Is there a way to enable those patches (warning acknowledged)?
Being on Linux, I'm somewhat accustomed to recompiling with an extra switch or two if thats needed.

or... can you make a 'very unofficial' version available? Cross my heart that I won't start whining about crashes and mishaps when I make use of that

I asked previously if anyone wanted to "test it" and I only got one reply, so I figured I wasn't going to build it with just a single tester.

However, if I now have three, I'll give it a shot. I'll put together a JAR file over the weekend and you'll be able to drop it into the directory where you unpacked the ZIP download and try it. I'll provide more info this weekend when I attach the JAR to a posting here (or if it's really large, it'll be a link to my website).

YES!! I too would like to throw my name into the testing of this program (I use windows, but I have used gentoo linux since 2001 so I know my way around and know where to look in case I run into problems)

PLEASSSEEEEE!

i must have completely missed that. Or i would have thrown myself up way earlier. Question though: the fact that you designate us as 'testers' does that mean that you actually want us to whine (albeith constructively)
In which case I have the first q for you: what happens when you 'copy paste' a map in the same campaign? (so export and import it again so you have two instances' ?
If you that manually MT ignores one of the two cause of ID duplication
Im looking forward for the test

@ Azhrei: I'd be interested in testing this too

Yep, that would be great. What I'm proposing is a simple import of the graphics assets and nothing fancy with regard to campaign properties (sight, light, states, etc).


The code that is there currently saves the map using the map's name as the filename with any funky characters stripped out, IIRC. Loading the map back in again should use the name embedded inside the file so it would be the same as an existing map. These maps are managed internally using GUIDs (essentially a globally unique ID number) so the program won't be confused, but I imagine that macros that use the map's name might be??

But then that's what testing is all about, isn't it?

I'll get the JAR file built this evening or during the day tomorrow. It certainly sounds like we have more than one person interested in testing. I've used this code myself for simple stuff and it works, but I know what I'm doing and how the program should react to certain things which is why having someone else test is always a good idea.

Stay tuned.

Okay, this took a little longer than planned. I had "things to do" (*) and a couple of technical glitches(**), but here's a link to a replacement JAR file to try (visit the link and click on "Java_and_JAR_Files", then right-click the JAR file and save it).

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(*) "Things to do" means the wife had some chores for me that I couldn't put off.

(**) "Technical glitches" involves code changes elsewhere in MT that caused exceptions when I enabled this code and did preliminary testing. Nothing major, but annoying because I hadn't been keeping these patches up to date.
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The code related to importing and exporting individual maps is hidden inside a "development" section of the code. This means that without the proper command line option, this JAR file will work exactly like the maptool-1.3.b63.jar that is in the downloadable ZIP. But with the proper command line option you'll have two new menu options on the Map menu: Import Map... and Export Map....

To enable the import/export menu functions:

1. Download and unzip the 1.3.b63 version of MapTool into a new directory.
2. Replace the maptool-1.3.b63.jar file with the one described above.
3. Edit one of the .BAT scripts and add -DMAPTOOL_DEV=true before -jar.
4. Execute the modified .BAT script.

If you want to test this out, copy one of your campaigns to a new filename (I wouldn't want to risk something bad happening to an in-progress campaign!). Execute the new JAR as described above and load the campaign. (I suggest using the largest memory size that your OS will support for Java, since this gives you the most room for loading/saving maps and will minimize "out of memory" errors.)

Now try the Map -> Export Map... menu option and save the map. It will receive the .rpmap filename extension. You can immediately import the same map if you like, but it will come in with the same name that it had when it was saved, so you may want to rename the current map first. When you're all done goofing around, save the campaign. It will be saved with "1.3.b63" as the version of MapTool so you will need at least that version to read the campaign file.

Now try using your original version of MT 1.3.b63 to open the campaign. Play around with it a lot (!) and make sure both the original maps and the imported maps don't have any strange problems related to campaign properties, token properties/macros, VBL, and so on.

Particular problems: nothing is done about tokens with an invalid Property Type (such as "D&D3.5" used by tokens on the map when that property type doesn't exist in the campaign), tokens with Lights that don't match those defined in the campaign, and so on. I do reset some fields: last path, ownerList is emptied, and sight type is set to "Normal". I expect fields which are NOT reset WILL cause some kind of problem, but it may not show up right away.

BE CAREFUL BEFORE USING THE NEWLY SAVED CAMPAIGN FOR A LIVE GAME! And be sure to keep copies of previous campaigns as backups. THIS IS VERY ALPHA and you are hereby warned the campaign could be screwed up, hence the need for backups.

Good luck, and please report your results. Did it work for you? If not, what can I do to recreate the problem? Note that no attempt is made to convert property types. The macros on the existing tokens should be preserved, but I'm not that familiar with the macro handling code and there might be more needed...

Great, with any luck (read without (*)) I'll start with it tonight!

I'll also take a look at it today.

Awesome! I'll give this a try tonight.

EDIT: It works! It works! Your creation has life!

You sir are TeH awSum!

Well, just make sure you test it THOROUGHLY. There is likely to be some aspect that I didn't get right -- I did a pretty quick run-thru on the token properties to see what might need to be reset or emptied and I could easily have missed something. Sometimes the data structures descend two or three levels before referencing something in the campaign (for example) and things like that could cause tokens to break.

If you do get errors because of a token, you should be able to select it and delete it off the map. (Hmm, I should've added an option to not import items on the various layers, defaulting to Token & Hidden. That might prevent importing references to things that don't exist in the current campaign...)

Prelimanary test results. I haven't come round to thorough testing but:
-I've loaded my biggest campaign file containing about 10 quite huge maps.
-Exported these and imported them again in a new framework (which is under dev).
-I also loaded multiple instances of the same map
-saved it and opened it in original b63
--->no errors or strange occurances

-I checked the token properties, the ones that matched were copied, the ones that didn't didn't. New properties were set to default value, this can lead to problems, but eventually this is for me the most ideal situation (not the potential problems but how it handles it)

So A ok so far. More testing will follow!