I'd find it very useful to be able to use relative file paths when specifying image locations in OWM (e.g., when using a PNG image on the canvas as a backdrop). My use case is that I use OWM on a dual-boot machine, switching between the Linux and Windows versions and, where /path/to/map/MyMap.owm loads /path/to/map/MyMap.png in Linux, that directory is C:\Users\ndervish\to\map\ in Windows. If I could set the image path to ./MyMap.png, then it would work in both OSes despite that difference. It would even still work if I were to move the whole thing to /new/path/to/map at some point.
I am aware of the Art Library and that I could probably import the backdrop image into the library to resolve this, but I don't find that satisfactory because:
a) it's a pointless extra copy of the image
b) by default, at least, it would need to be added to the library separately in each OS (two pointless extra copies!), since they're separate OWM instances
c) it spreads the parts of a single project across multiple locations on the disk
d) if I edit the backdrop image, then I need to re-import it (on each OS) in order to re-synchronize all the copies of what should be a single file
Art Library is great for resources that are intended to be shared between multiple maps/projects, but, when there are assets that are specific to a single project, it should be possible to keep them together in a single location.
Another minor (but unrelated) pain point when moving back and forth between OSes: Every single time I switch, I get a popup saying that the map uses a font that isn't installed on the system - even if there is no text on the map, so no font is being (visibly) used. The popup should probably be suppressed in that case, and the text tool settings (which is the only place I can think of where it might be seeing a font in use) should silently revert to the current OS's defaults. (Tips on identifying fonts that are present on both OSes would be nice, too, but that's a bit out of scope.)
Relative file paths
Moderator: Kyete