Map Maker Alpha version

By Nostromo, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I'm not sure why it isn't there... maybe Nostormo is making an update and uploading a newer version...

Hopefully!

updated. Had to pull it down to replace the new one and apparently i didn't ftp the new msi over correctly.

Nostromo said:

updated. Had to pull it down to replace the new one and apparently i didn't ftp the new msi over correctly.

Thank you! I'll take a look at this and get back to you immediately.

I know I'm not great at computers, but...

It launches, runs, and as soon as I click on a map tile it crashes.

Ideas?

Check your Available RAM. I am thinking that since the image sizes are huge in size the app take a ton of memory to execute--i am looking at pruning the sizes of everything.

Otherwise you are hitting a bug, is it any image you double click on or a specific one?

It only seems to do it if I get impatient or click one too many times on any of the tile menu options. If I make sure I don't do that, it doesn't crash. I have 2GB of RAM on my computer for what its worth.

I will say, apart from that I do like it so far, but a couple of potentially stupid questions:

EDIT: Hahha, god I'm stupid. Its called a help file. Open it.

Nostromo said:

Check your Available RAM. I am thinking that since the image sizes are huge in size the app take a ton of memory to execute--i am looking at pruning the sizes of everything.

Otherwise you are hitting a bug, is it any image you double click on or a specific one?

I crap out on my laptop the instant that I click anything, and I run 1 gig of memory on my laptop. Haven't tried it on the desktop yet.

You seriously don't need high resolution scans for building maps. It is, after all, a reference.

Otherwise, it looks like it's shaping up nicely!

I haven't had much time since I'm in the middle of moving but I was experiencing crashing on startup with 4GB, so it's not a RAM issue. Also running Vista, don't know if you were able to test in multiple OSs or anything.

EDIT: redownloaded, repaired, works fine. One note: CTRL click is usually reseverved for multiselect. Might want to reconsider your delete button. Any consideration being given to multiple piece editing at once?

Thanks for the feeback everyone.

Based on your feedback I found a couple stupid thing I forgot to watch for. I don't have exception handling for double clicking the tree view when an image is NOT selected. Meaning: IF you double click in the treeview anywhere that is not on an image it will crash. It's a simple fix and i will get it up in the next update...i essentially need to put a try/catch block around everything.

EDIT: So just single click on the arrows in the tree view to expand the nodes dont double click to open...that's broken--err crashes. And if you do double click in there make sure you are clicking on an image.

And I also agree about high resolution scans I need to rescan some stuff...but honestly I have spend more time on scans then the actual program :)

Also, do you guys mind the "hold a button down' to click with mouse to rotate, zorder and delete? I figured it would faster making maps with key input instead of: cick on rotate then go rotate some stuff, then click on delete to delete some stuff etc etc. But point noted about the current key mappings, its easy enough to change those.

I won't have a ton of time to update this week but I may get a few things in...ill update as necessary. As long as I am still getting feedback I will continue to enjoy updating the thing.

ANyone printed to PDF or XPS yet? THoughts?

Thanks!

Hotkeys are preferred by advanced users for sure, but I would stay away from common hotkey setups like the ctrl click that naturally makes me think of multiselect. I would try to setup something like 3d studios hotkey layouts or something. I believe they use QWER for move, delete, rotate and scale, but not all of those are relevant (and they also use those to switch states instead of immediate action). Or use a standard setup by photoshop or something that a lot of people use.

You might also look at context menus just for more ways to access the options. Link the cms items to the methods that handle the current delete/rotate/zorder processing. I probably would stick with the hotkeys personally, but for usability, the more options you give people to do something the more likely they are to find it on their own.

Whatever you decide is fine, you've done a lot of great work there already.

Well done.

Nostromo (love the name BTW), if you have the original scans still, don't rescan, just resave the originals as a copy, at half to 1/3 the quality/resolution/whatever.

Dunno about anyone else, but I'll gleefully trade some image artifacts for program size and speed of use.