Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2010 4:11 am

Not sure if this is the right forum for this so apologies if I should have put this in the CMud Beta forum.

I finally made the plunge and purchased ZMapper and have been enjoying sprucing up my maps. I've waited for CMapper for a while now and figured maybe Zugg needs sales to convince him to work on that Wink

Knowing full well that's not going to be for a while I'm wondering if an interim solution (after the public version of Cmud v3 is out of course) could be considered:

Integrate the MapConversion program into CMud proper.

This could be as simple as just moving the entire Map Conversion program into a dialog box. Or perhaps, adding Import, Export, and Repair as menu items within the mapper itself.

It'd be nice to have the process a bit more streamlined is all. The real solution would be the integration of ZMapper features with the CMud mapper itself (which I still hope is on the table at least) but I think this would help in the meantime.

My two cents anyway!

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2010 4:43 pm

CMUD already has the map conversion to go from zMUD/CMUD2 *.MDB to the CMUD v3 *.DBM. The only thing you need the Map Conversion program for (available in the Downloads area) is to go *back* from CMUD v3 to zMud/zMapper format.

This will not be added to CMUD because it causes the Microsoft ADO/MDAC libraries to be needed by CMUD. CMUD can *read* the ADO/MDAC format using it's own JDBC library (ZeosLib) without needing to link to the Microsoft DLLs. But to convert backwards requires the Microsoft Jet OLE and ADO_X libraries to create a new *.MDB database file on disk.

One of the goals with CMUD was to remove the dependency on Microsoft ADO/MDAC so it would be easier to run CMUD on "emulators". So I have no plan to add this back to CMUD in the future. You'll just need to keep using the external conversion program.

As far as moving ZMapper features into CMUD, that is definitely the direction I am headed, rather than writing a new "CMapper" program. In fact, in the CMUD v3 Beta you will already see features such as Room Border color that was previously only available in zMapper. Overtime, more zMapper features will be added to CMUD or CMUDPro.