[Nephilim]

I tried out tiled. The lack of documentation already mentioned is somewhat of a hindrance - just a quick overview would be helpful.

I had tiled stop responding two times when I used it, but I was unable to reproduce it.

Unlike Rainer, I find the layers metaphor for the tile editing scheme to be the most straightforward one, although I admit I don't really understand the interface feature he's describing in earlier posts. I have a hard time picturing how one would edit, say, the third element in an arbitrary stack if you are editing multiple layers at once. And it seems that a layer metaphor that can have an arbitrary number of layers is fundamentally the same thing as being able to have an arbitrary number of tiles in each cell - you just need to add enough layers, right? Wouldn't it just be a matter of collapsing layers at export time? Or am I misunderstanding what Rainer is describing?

Anyway, here are some things I'd like to see (apologies if any of these are already implemented):

The tile selection palette should retain its last size. I dragged it out to the appropriate size so I could see my sprite sheet at its original size (because the tiles were laid out with a particular organization), and when I went back to pick another tile, it was back to the palette's default size. I'd also like the option to leave the palette open so I don't need to do two clicks to change tile.

Eyedropper should be accessible with a modifier key (option), and you should be able to drag the map around by holding the space bar down (a'la Photoshop and similar apps). You shouldn't have to click between tools to navigate and grab.

A little window that shows all the layers in the currently pointed at cell, so you can, at a glance, know whether that barrel is in layer 2 or 3. (This would be especially useful for the arbitrary layers scheme that Rainer was describing, I think.)

Keyboard shortcuts for switching between layers.

Key command to toggle display of the tile palette, and to switch between palette sets.

Text layers and numeric layers, for adding engine-specific information to tiles, such as scripts, comments, numeric overlays, object placements, terrain notes, etc.

An option for saving it with non-gzip-encoded map layers, so the maps can be human-readable.

Anyway, looks good so far. The XML format you have is very straightforward except for the encoded layer info.

Keep up the good work!

[Guest]

Thank you again to everyone for the comments and suggestions.

And for anyone interested, you can get nightly WIP builds here. The first one that includes implementations of some of the suggestions will be tonight (16Jun04).

[biggerUniverse]

[Sirocco]

I have no use for it myself, but I do find it nice that it supports both tile and isometric maps.

.

[Bjorn]

We've released version 0.3.1, with the following changes since 0.3.0:

* Tile palette dialog remembers size and position and doesn't close when a tile is selected
* Saving unencoded layers is possible through config options
* The right mouse button now functions as eye dropper (tile grabber)
* Added "Preferences..." option under "Edit" menu
* First tile of tileset is selected when map is loaded
* Added toolbar buttons to zoom in and out
* Removed select button and print menuitem, will come back when functional

Grab it here.

We'll now be working on some larger changes, the next release is expected to be 0.4.0 and will take quite a bit longer.

[biggerUniverse]

Here's a tenative list of what you can expect to see in 0.4.0:

++ Object placement support
+ Integrated tile palette
+ Search/replace
+ View rotation
+ configuration defaults
+ *Documentation*
+ layer flipping/rotation
+ custom map properties
+ marquee selections

Please feel free to add wishlists...
_________________
We are on the outer reaches of someone else's universe.

[Bjorn]

Just today, Tiled 0.4.0 was released. Not everything noted above made it in, and some not noted things did. Here's the complete list of changes:

* TiledConfiguration defaults to preset values initially, Tiled should now work fine if there is no initial configuration file
* Layer rotation and flipping
* Map resizing (warning: cannot be undone yet)
* Custom properties on tiles and map
* A file filter on loading and saving for .tmx and .tsx
* Several UI improvements (usage of JSplitPane and JSpinner for example)
* Small changes to the map format (updated DTD)
* Implemented a better underlying architecture for Maps and Brushes
* Fixed several null pointer exceptions
* An Ant build target for tiled-core.jar, for use in Java engines
* Support for other than 2:1 isometric tile ratios (2:1 and 1:1 tested)
* Fixed redo for painting operations (paint, fill, erase)
* Improved undo/redo of layer organisation changes

Thanks to everybody for their feedback, a lot of the changes are based on user suggestions. The website has also got an update and now features a beginners tutorial.

[Adam]

Ya, it really needs to remember the last used folder for tiles and maps. Even after closing and reopening. I'd also like for it to remember the map saving options, with the embedding of images and such.

Otherwise it's pretty swank.
_________________
https://numbatlogic.com

[Bjorn]

We agreed with two other people suggesting the same, and this has been fixed in the repository. A 0.4.1 release is planned tomorrow, actually, with additional fixes but also some experimental additions like a Hex view, selection and search/replace.

The map saving options are saved when you exit through the menu actually, but we forgot about saving the config when you use the window close button, sorry about that. :-)

[Rainer Deyke]

Just took another look at Tiled. I see some potential, but some basic functionality is still missing which makes it unsuitable for real work IMO. Here's a list of features I'd like to see:

• The ability to flip and rotate individual tiles and blocks of tiles.
  
• A randomizing brush that randomly picks one of several tiles to draw.
  
• A block tool that lets me draw blocks of tiles with a single mouse drag. I can fake this with select-and-pour, but a block tool would be much more convenient.
  
• The ability to place objects, or failing that, the ability to attach properties to individual map cells.
  
• Animated tiles.
  
• "Deep" brushes that affect more than one layer.
  
• The ability to set properties for individual layers.

[Bjorn]

Thanks for the suggestions. We're writing them all down, in order not to forget anything later on. Many of your suggestions make sense immediately, and will be considered. There's one thing with the first suggestion, and it's that you're suggesting rotating tiles. This would either mean storing the rotation/flip or changing the tile image. Neither seem very inviting to support, as this sounds pretty specific. We will probably support rotation of blocks one day, but not the individual tile images.

If somebody hadn't noticed, we released Tiled 0.4.1 today. It features the following changes:

* Added search/replace functionality
* Added tooltips to buttons
* Added map save/load plugin support
* Added marquee selections
* Added HexMapView, contributed by Andreas Mross (experimental)
* Removed name and version attributes from map, custom properties suffice there
* Removed name attribute from tile for same reason
* More intelligent starting locations for file choosers
* Grid display is now configurable (opacity, antialiasing)
* Fixes to tileset editing dialog
* Fixed config file saving to stop adding newlines to the config file
* Fixed window close button to behave the same as File->Exit
* Fixed undo/redo for moving layers
* Fixed moving a duplicated layer to no longer move original too

Get it from the website.

[Rainer Deyke]

Just to clarify, I am talking about storing the orientation of each tile as it is placed on the map, not changing the actual tile image. This is a technique for getting more out of less tiles. For example, you could rotate a horizontally oriented road tile to get a vertically oriented road tile, or you could use a rotated snow tile to create more variation on the ground, or create a tree by using only the tiles that represent the left half of the tree and flipping them horizontally. I don't think this is very specific at all; it's a great technique that all tile engines should support.

Right now, if you rotate a layer, it often looks like ass because the the individual tiles are not rotated. Supporting individual tile rotation would fix this problem.

[janus]

[Bjorn]

[bay]