RPGDX > Forums > General Discussion > Questions / thoughts about Tiled 0.5.0

Nephilim · Mage Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 414

I was just tinkering with Tiled 0.5.0, and I thought I'd post some of my thoughts and questions on it, since there seems to be several people here who are interested in it, including its developers.

* First off, it's a strong release. For the most part, it's pretty intuitive, responsive, and usable. It runs without issues on my Mac powerbook.

* When you load up the snowy_trees example file, there's a "snowman" object sitting there, but I can't seem to interact with it. Is that there as a demo of what the format will look like when objects are supported? Or am I missing some key interface feature? How do I add/define/move/remove objects?

* When you perform a transformation, it doesn't appear to respect the currently selected tiles that you've selected with the marquee tool. Since you might only want to flip or rotate part of your map, it seems like it should restrict the transformation to the selected area if it's reasonable (for instance a non-square rectangular area could be flipped, but not rotated, in which case those options would be grayed out). Even if you decide to leave it as a global transformation, the menu items should read "Flip Layer," "Rotate Layer," etc., so it's unambiguous.

* Layer properties and map properties are nice, but what about tile properties? It would be nice to be able to tag specific tiles on the map with properties like cutscene triggers, exits to other maps (and which maps they lead to), etc.

* Similarly, tileset entry properties might be nice, so that you can assign, say, a 'blocking' property to a wall and a 'damaging' property to hot lava.

* Finally, there are several minor interface tweaks that would be helpful. I mentioned these in my review of Tiled earlier, but I'll post 'em again here for completeness:

* Key commands to switch between tools
* Key command to hide and show the tileset palette (tab)
* Key commands to switch between layers (control-1 for first layer, etc.)
* Hold down the space bar and drag to scroll the map around
* Modifier key (option) to eyedrop for single-button mice
* Ability to set the background color for the tileset palette (since you can't tell the difference between an all-black tile and a transparent tile)
* Ability to rearrange the tileset order for a map.
* Disallow drawing if you can't see the currently selected layer.
* Ability to lock layers so you don't accidentally change them.

Anyway, it's a good little app, and I hope to see its continued development.

Rainer Deyke · Demon Hunter Joined: 05 Jun 2002 Posts: 672

Nephilim · Mage Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 414

Bjorn

biggerUniverse · Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:07 am Post subject:

I agree, Bjørn is right in saying that we are working on other projects, so Tiled is kind of on a backburner. Though for me at least, it is also that response to Tiled has been good, but not as much as I expected, so that verifies for me that it should be given a lower priority. I'm actually rather sad about it, but what more can we do? :(

On the transformations, I wanted to leave them there because it seemed a logical place, since transforming is editing. I want to extend the functionality so that the same GUI operations pertain to either the selection, if there is one, or the layer by default.

I've had the developer of Mighty Bubbles ask for a timeline for 0.5.1, but I really do not have one. Hopefully, it will not be too far out.

On object support, it is something that some games support and some do not, like most things in Tiled. It will be "the" key feature of an 0.6.0 release, but that may not come for a little while.

Thanks for your questions and comments. They are welcome as always.
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Nephilim · Mage Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 414

Thanks for the responses.

I kinda figured that object support was forthcoming when I couldn't figure out any way to interact with that snowman. Heh.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that the response you've hoped for hasn't materialized. I suspect that this is the sort of tool that only slowly gets adopted. (After all, you really only go shopping for a map editor at the start of a project, and Tiled .0.5.0 hasn't been around all that long.) Hopefully object support will help with this, because that will give it a major step forward in its flexibility to be used with people's home-grown game systems. I know it will certainly make it more useful for the sorts of games that I make.

But really, I want to stress that these comments are minor concerns compared to the value of the app already. Keep up the good work.

DanKirby · Monkey-Butler Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 54

Just wondering: why does it try to access the floppy drive whenever I save or load a map file? Is this happening for anyone else? I didn't notice it on previous releases.

It's not really a big problem though. Tiled has been a pleasure to use while working on Shifter's maps. Keep up the good work!

Bjorn · Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:

biggerUniverse · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 8:03 am Post subject:

Ah well, I'm not doing it all for the attention (lies), and work will continue. 0.5.1 will hopefully come before too long. Actually, I have been quite pleased to not hear of any major bugs (or any bugs at all?) So that's a definite plus. Some of your suggestions will make the 0.5.1, nephilim. The tile order rearrange in the tileset is something we intentionally left out. And thanks for using it, and making some of the first suggestions for Tiled. :)
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