Wesnoth 1.11.8

[goblinThing]

I noticed the new things on the map editor... the unit and decoration and whatnot tabs. How long has that been going on? Just this most recent update?

I like it, but I'm really curious how it will work.

[fabi]

I noticed the new things on the map editor... the unit and decoration and whatnot tabs. How long has that been going on? Just this most recent update?

I like it, but I'm really curious how it will work.

Hello GoblinThing,
we (LordBob, myself and some others) are working on the improved UI (including the Theme) for a longer time now (about a year),
the new editor is in work for almost 3 years (or even 4?) now.

Yes, the first version with user visible changes is only the latest development version.
Although we provided mock ups and screenshots on the forum regularly.

The slider under the minimap is used for adjusting the zoom level,
its biggest advantage is the fact that you can zoom to a certain level without the need to recalculate every zoom step in between.
I hope it will make the zoom feature being used more often.

Under the slider we have from left to right:

"Default Zoom"
This button toggles between the last selected zoom level and default zoom. The function is not new only the button is.
It was bound (and still is) to the "0" since ages.
The default is the default zoom level.

"Toggle Minimap Terrain Drawing"
Enables/Disables the drawing of the terrain in the minimap.
The default is to draw the terrain.
It was requested by a visual impaired user who wanted to have the possibility to see only the units and not the (for him) distracting noisy terrain around them.

"Toggle Minimap unit drawing"
Enables/Disables the drawing of units.
The default is to draw the units.

"Toggle Minimap village drawing"
Villages were not marked in the map explicitly nor the owner of them.
The new version draws them in the same color used for the player's units.
The default is to draw the villages.
One of the next versions will draw them in a different shape than the units.

"Toggle Minimap unit coding"
The new version features two kinds of color encodings for units and the villages:
The old one, displaying them in the color of the side.
The new one, using the orb colors.
This one is meant to have a better overview about where are friendly/enemy units and where you are still able to move your units or not.
The default in the latest development version is the new encoding, the default in the next stable one will be the old encoding.

"Toggle Minimap terrain coding"
This button switches between the old "satellite view" and a new one I call "semantic view".
The satellite view takes an image (the one which represents the terrain in the editor in most cases) and scales it to fit the size of its area in the minimap.
Thus the minimap is more or less a smaller version of the gamemap itself in this mode.
Semantic view encodes a terrain regarding how it works in the game.
Meaning every "flat" terrain will be drawn in the same color, no matter if it is brown dirt or green grass. The color used is the same we use to display the background of the new terrain type icons beside the hex coordinates.
The default in the dev version is the new one, the stable release will default to the old.

Note that the game stores the selection (except the zoom level) and keep it even if you quit the game and restart it years later (as long as you keep the preferences file, of course).
Thus the defaults don't matter that much.

[goblinThing]

Wow, that was a very...thorough response.

Yeah, I did notice all of the different options for the minimap. I'm still getting used to them, but I think they are really, really cool... especially the indicators of villages in combination with turning units off. I haven't been able to play with the zoom much, yet... but it seems like on the insanely massive maps (I'm thinking Htth) it could be useful. Thanks for the thorough response; I love this forum/community because everyone is both polite and helpful...which is hard to find elsewhere.

But I was asking about the map editor, and how it interacts with map/scenario files. I haven't been able to keep pace with WML because I'm learning several other languages, so I'm quite interested in the map editor's continuing improvements in functionality.

[fabi]

Wow, that was a very...thorough response.

Yeah, I did notice all of the different options for the minimap. I'm still getting used to them, but I think they are really, really cool... especially the indicators of villages in combination with turning units off. I haven't been able to play with the zoom much, yet... but it seems like on the insanely massive maps (I'm thinking Htth) it could be useful. Thanks for the thorough response; I love this forum/community because everyone is both polite and helpful...which is hard to find elsewhere.

But I was asking about the map editor, and how it interacts with map/scenario files. I haven't been able to keep pace with WML because I'm learning several other languages, so I'm quite interested in the map editor's continuing improvements in functionality.

Yes, I should have spend reading your question more carefully than composing the thorough response.
Let's try again

The new map editor interacts with old (pure map) files just like older versions of it.
All of the new features are disabled, you just edit and save in the old format.

Only if you create a new scenario from the menu item or use "Save as Scenario" when editing an old map you switch into scenario mode.

The new features won't replace much WML coding.
It only supports some location related stuff to be placed more easily.
No more manual pasting of the coordinates for them.

You can save working MP scenarios, but nothing event coding related will be in them.
Still you can define areas which can then be addressed in manual event coding easily.

The produced file can be included into a handwritten file containing the event coding easily.

Does that answer your question?

[goblinThing]

Yes, thank you.

I really like the sound of the new features; I hated having to tediously collect and correct coordinates...