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Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:55 pm

The format used in the Shape Editor is Microsoft's "MetaFile" format. Honestly, this is about as "standard" as you can get within Windows. For example, you can actually use Microsoft Draw (within Word) to draw a shape and then copy/paste it directly into zMapper. That's why I chose the format.

Also, Windows has very good support for scaling and drawing MetaFile data, and it makes good use of graphics card capabilities. The new mapper will probably use DirectX, and I don't yet know if there is MetaFile support in DirectX yet, so that might force a change. But using MetaFile format still seems to be the best choice that I can make.

Sorry, but it's not my fault that Inkscape doesn't recognize the MetaFile format, especially since the support for it is built into Windows.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 4:50 am

Perhaps the icons used could by done with custom styles that could check various fields.

#IF (%room.terrain="Forest") {%room.icon="forest.icon"}
#IF (%room.boss) {%room.iconOverlay="boss.icon"} //boolean

Or however styles are made to look internally..
That could then be applied to the map when it is drawn to the screen.

Have a self drawing {river|road|wall|ect} that could be applied, weather it cuts through the room from any combination of directions, between rooms, or just runs along the edge(s).

Custom fields could possibly then be made that would only have relevance to these styles or room scripts.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 6:25 am

Well, now you are getting into the graphical mapper stuff, which I have planned, but not for the initial rewrite. Lots of fun stuff to come along those lines, but it will be later in the year.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:52 am

I whole-heartedly vote for the mapper.

I'd even buy Cmud again if that'd help.

Novice Joined: 01 Dec 2007 Posts: 49

Reply @ Original question: I vote for the mapper as well.

Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 5:14 pm

See also this post and the one after.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 5:08 am

One suggestion for when the mapper is re-written. Right now non-standard exits are not fun to work with and you can only have 1 'other' exit with default map exit placement. Also, in Cmud you can't automatically do 'other' exits at the moment as changes from Zmud prevent it. So at the moment I have to manually edit every single non-standard exit I come across.

Could all the exits be made configurable so that a user can define all their exit types and exit placements? I'm envisioning a way to specify any type of exit with its corresponding map exit placement and for it to be expandable to as many exits as the user has and that all the defined exits work together flawlessly as if they were standard exits.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 6:31 am

You can change the command given on standard cardinal directions with the 'Other Com' field of the 'Directions' tab of the 'Room Properties' window.
I tend to do this instead of using the other direction so that the map stays traversable with the keypad.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 6:42 am

I do this sometimes as well. If say 'ne' isn't being used I'll map 'in' or 'out' to the 'ne' direction so I can use the keypad. However there are some rooms that completely use all the standard directions and you are simply out of luck for that method. There just needs to be more flexibility in non-standard directions than there is now.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:21 pm

Using the keypad for in and out: make macros for them. I use / and * on the numpad so they're close to the rest of the movement macros.

You can also define non-standard exits very easily with the mapping character:

>enter portal

on the command line will create an "other" exit whose other com is "enter portal", and

>enter portal>e

will create an east exit from the current room whose other com is "enter portal". Very useful.

I think you need to be more specific about what you mean by "Could all the exits be made configurable so that a user can define all their exit types and exit placements" and "a way to specify any type of exit with its corresponding map exit placement and for it to be expandable" because from that description, it seems like you can already do that. Exits can go from any direction to any direction and can have any command you like. So what exactly do you want?

Oh, and what problem with CMUD prevents automatic creation of 'other' exits? What do you mean by that, anyway?

Sorcerer Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 706 Location: USA

One thing I would like is the ability to show a small zone as a room on another map. I have found that sometimes I will have separate zones for big buildings, in the city map I would like to represent them as a room instead of a link to the zone name. This would make them cleaner to look at.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 10:24 pm

Fang:
http://forums.zuggsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30306