Other World Mapper Forum

A minor feature I'd like added would be a small enhancement to the item selection tools so that they at least default to selecting items with visible pixels, rather than items whose bounding box is the highest order element. In other words, if I have a large 5x5 mountain whose 4x4, 4x5, 5x4, and 5x5 coordinates are all 'empty' (full alpha transparency in a PNG file, for example) and I place a 1x1 sized town icon at 4x5, and the 5x5 mountain is higher in the layer order than the town icon, I should be able to click on the town icon to select it. Currently, it won't select the town icon - it'll instead select the mountain because the town is within the mountain's bounding box and the mountain is 'above' the town in the layer order.

Another minor feature for features I'd like would be to make it so when scaling an already-placed item, it is scaled with respect to the central coordinate of the feature (or a selectable corner/central coordinate, similar to the map size scaling feature) rather than scaling it to the top-left coordinate. By scaling features based off of the central coordinate you'd do a better job of keeping relative geometry intact.

Thanks!

Langy wrote:A minor feature I'd like added would be a small enhancement to the item selection tools so that they at least default to selecting items with visible pixels, rather than items whose bounding box is the highest order element. In other words, if I have a large 5x5 mountain whose 4x4, 4x5, 5x4, and 5x5 coordinates are all 'empty' (full alpha transparency in a PNG file, for example) and I place a 1x1 sized town icon at 4x5, and the 5x5 mountain is higher in the layer order than the town icon, I should be able to click on the town icon to select it. Currently, it won't select the town icon - it'll instead select the mountain because the town is within the mountain's bounding box and the mountain is 'above' the town in the layer order.

Another minor feature for features I'd like would be to make it so when scaling an already-placed item, it is scaled with respect to the central coordinate of the feature (or a selectable corner/central coordinate, similar to the map size scaling feature) rather than scaling it to the top-left coordinate. By scaling features based off of the central coordinate you'd do a better job of keeping relative geometry intact.

Thanks!

Sorry for the very late reply! Regression testing is draining all our time.

1. We have a further out plan to create a transparency mask when loading the artwork, so that it could do exactly what you describe. We don't have a time frame for adding that, since it's probably a significant effort.
What I can suggest:
a) Change the Z-Order so the town is above (you can select and access the edit menu from the layers
b) Change the feature tool placement to Auto Z-Order. Depending on the scenario that may automatically place the "correct" feature on top on the Z-Order.

2. That is actually a bug that we hadn't noticed. When done from the properties and not dragging from the box, it should be scaling in reference to the center. Good catch! I'll try to squeeze that into this release.
Note: From the drag box it will still be in reference to the opposite corner.

Thank you again!!

- Alejandro

Langy wrote:A minor feature I'd like added would be a small enhancement to the item selection tools so that they at least default to selecting items with visible pixels, rather than items whose bounding box is the highest order element. In other words, if I have a large 5x5 mountain whose 4x4, 4x5, 5x4, and 5x5 coordinates are all 'empty' (full alpha transparency in a PNG file, for example) and I place a 1x1 sized town icon at 4x5, and the 5x5 mountain is higher in the layer order than the town icon, I should be able to click on the town icon to select it. Currently, it won't select the town icon - it'll instead select the mountain because the town is within the mountain's bounding box and the mountain is 'above' the town in the layer order.

Thanks!

Hey!

FYI that V0.9.2 will be adding this feature . We went ahead and prioritized it seeing as it's very helpful with maps with lots of features.

V0.9.2 should be coming out soon as we're moving to shorter release cycles.

Thanks again!

- Alejandro

Thanks for adding this! I've been building out my map (very slowly, ever since the February release) for a while now, and that feature really is quite helpful. However, I'd like to add a follow-on request.

This currently works A-OK for regular features, but it doesn't work for colligated features. I'd like to request this be added for colligated features. I tend to colligate my mountains together into large ranges, and that results in huge sections of the map being covered in a colligated object's bounding box, since the ranges aren't all straight up/down left/right. Even without this functioning on colligated features it's still a huge help - it's relatively trivial to turn off the offending feature when I need to select something that's within its bounding box - but it'd still be a nice-to-have.

I don't think this has been said enough - I really do love this program. *Much* easier to use (and with a much more modern GUI) than Campaign Cartographer and with more map-focused tools than Photoshop, both of which I've used before.

Langy wrote:Thanks for adding this! I've been building out my map (very slowly, ever since the February release) for a while now, and that feature really is quite helpful. However, I'd like to add a follow-on request.

This currently works A-OK for regular features, but it doesn't work for colligated features. I'd like to request this be added for colligated features. I tend to colligate my mountains together into large ranges, and that results in huge sections of the map being covered in a colligated object's bounding box, since the ranges aren't all straight up/down left/right. Even without this functioning on colligated features it's still a huge help - it's relatively trivial to turn off the offending feature when I need to select something that's within its bounding box - but it'd still be a nice-to-have.

I don't think this has been said enough - I really do love this program. *Much* easier to use (and with a much more modern GUI) than Campaign Cartographer and with more map-focused tools than Photoshop, both of which I've used before.

I second this motion! Lots of forests with other features inside I can't click without doing other steps first.

Langy wrote:Thanks for adding this! I've been building out my map (very slowly, ever since the February release) for a while now, and that feature really is quite helpful. However, I'd like to add a follow-on request.

You are welcome! We try to add as much of the feedback we receive into Other World Mapper

Langy wrote: This currently works A-OK for regular features, but it doesn't work for colligated features. I'd like to request this be added for colligated features. I tend to colligate my mountains together into large ranges, and that results in huge sections of the map being covered in a colligated object's bounding box, since the ranges aren't all straight up/down left/right. Even without this functioning on colligated features it's still a huge help - it's relatively trivial to turn off the offending feature when I need to select something that's within its bounding box - but it'd still be a nice-to-have.

We'll look into it. It shouldn't be a problem to add, but we'll need to make sure there are no side effects. We may have to have a setting to turn the behavior on/off

Langy wrote: I don't think this has been said enough - I really do love this program. *Much* easier to use (and with a much more modern GUI) than Campaign Cartographer and with more map-focused tools than Photoshop, both of which I've used before.

Really happy to hear that!! We hope to continue improving it, so please keep the feedback coming

Thank you!

Speaking of scaling, I've found a problem where I cannot utilize the handles on the transform bounding box if they are outside the canvas.

FoaS wrote:Speaking of scaling, I've found a problem where I cannot utilize the handles on the transform bounding box if they are outside the canvas.

So, for instance, trying to scale an item past the top left corner?

Thank you!