Oh hey, I've been hanging out in the Wizardry forum and I've only just noticed this thread in General :-)

Thanks for the thread and the kind words!

As you can see in my forum I've been hard at work releasing new updates since this thread was created.

Highlights include adding a toolbar and brush selection menu ( hold the <space> bar ), colour tinting of tiles to help pair up related stairs and teleporters, custom tile import and export of maps as an image file for making let's plays or perhaps for printing out for tabletop gaming. As well as a bunch of other smaller features and fixes.

I'm still looking to improve the program if possible, any suggestions would be great!

Just tried out the latest version. Very nice indeed, it's a big leap over the last version I was using (1.1.9). At this point, putting down $5 should be a no-brainer for anyone who even likes designing dungeon maps. Personally, I can't wait to see what I can do with this and Fractal Mapper when the Iceblink toolset is released :D

If you've picked up Might and Magic 6-pack, Stonekeep or Lands of Lore - why not check out Grid Cartographer :-)

Thanks for this program, man! I'm using it for Wizardry 6, found it in the sub-forum, planning on buying it as soon as I have an extra five bucks. Summer sale stole it, bought Wizardry 8 for later.

You're welcome! Can't argue with that buying priority either really :-)

I've just updated to v1.2.7. The main improvement is that you can now right or double-click the door, wall and ground tile in the toolbar to open the brush menu.

Grab it here: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/

Any feature requests? I'm all ears!

This went from good to fantastic since the last iteration I had installed a couple weeks ago. Thanks man, this is awesome. Love the color options, and nice touch with the animation on the button and rotating tile.

I do have a couple of feature requests. They might be difficult, I don't know.

One is that I think it would awesome to have a tab system at the top of the file so you can make multiple maps in the same file. So my Might and Magic file would have a tab to click for World Map, one for each town, dungeon, etc. That game is so huge you might need mutliple files anyway to keep track of it all, but I think it would be a nice feature for a lot of these games as they all have multiple areas to explore.

For the second request I'm going to bring up Might and Magic again, this time talking about the world map. So in Might and Magic 1 the world map is made up of a 5x4 grid of 16x16 area maps; A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, A2, B2, etc. Since your program has a nice zoom out and zoom in feature it would be cool to have the world map as one giant map. This leads to the request, and that is the ability to optionally change the grid numbers to repeat themselves every 16 numbers rather than to continue off into infinity. Possibly the option to add a name to each row and column.

Here is an image of the world map layout of the first Might and Magic. M&M2 is also the same layout:
http://www.digitpress.com/library/maps/apple2/might_magic.jpg

Edit: One thing of note: Even though numbered rows on the world map are descending in number, the grid numbering system for each area is exactly how you have it in GC. The bottom left corner of the world map is 0, 0, as is the bottom left corner of each of the areas (A1, B1, etc.)

Obviously these aren't necessary, but I they might be nice usability features. Thanks for the consideration.

Thanks for the feedback!

I can certainly add repeating grid numbers. Naming the sections might be harder though, mostly because there'd be a lot of new UI work required for that. I'll put it on my list.

Fortunately enough I had planned for some of this request before v1.0. In that the GCT file format that GC maps use has the ability to contain multiple 'regions'. There would be a fair bit of work needed to harness the power of that but I'll put it on my list and we'll see what happens! I imagine having little tabs along the bottom like an Excel workbook. Again naming them is lower priority in my mind, although could come in later.

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v1.2.8 is out now. I set myself the task of learning libpng and you can now export PNG files directly.

Link here: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/grid_cartographer

As mentioned before, god DAMN that is awesome man. I am probably gonna embark on a Wiz6 cartography LP when I am done with Strange Journey thanks to your program. Holy shit was it worth the 5bux.

Wow, thank you. That is rad. I will be converting my WIP M&M 1 map over from Excel now. .

I was wondering if it would be possible to have a variation of the Block tool that doesn't include the walls? I tend to draw the floors I've walked on and then add the walls later once I know they are solid or secret. Maybe others do that as well?

Thanks for the consideration, and for making this an awesome mapping tool.

Yep, no problem. This will be in the next version.

v1.2.9 has just been released here: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/

It's a bit of a mixed bag but the main changes are:

* Added fill icon to toolbar. Equivalent to Edit > Fill or CTRL+Backspace, this is another way to fill an area of ground quickly.

* Improved the notes system (pro only) so you can change position of where you're adding a note after you've started by clicking another tile. It also now draws a rectangle around the tile you're editing, for clarity.

* New 'Simple Block' ground tile. It's the like the traditional block but without automatic walls.

* Added several options to a new View > Toolbar sub-menu so you can configure what's on there. Great for smaller windows.

... and a bunch of fixes and tweaks..

Thanks man. This is fantastic.

Really liking the spacebar visual menu, that was a nice addition.

Thanks, glad you like it. It was the best way I could think of getting all those options there in a fast access way. Make sure to try opening it in CGA mode :-)

v1.3.0 released! I've added a note editing button and fixed a few bugs that crept in.

edit: v1.3.1 update is out now. Added exclamation mark and speech bubble icons for events and messages (or whatever you want them to mean!)