phpbb bbcode addition for wesnoth maps?

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 22nd, 2006, 11:45 am

I made a map, and I PM'd someone the "source code" for it (the textual content of the map file) since I didn't want to bother with an attachment for something so simple. It occured to me that it would not be particularly hard to write a phpbb addon to make a bbcode tag for maps. A simple html <table> could be used, along with inline terrain images. It wouldnt have to be as fancy as the real game terrain engine, no tile borders or concave/convex tests, just the base hexagon tiles.

Opinions? Would something like this be useful? You could include a "screenshot" of your map without having to take a picture or upload it, just paste in this:
[map]
aaabbbb
aaabbcc
ddddbbb
[/map]
or whatever the text of your map is.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 22nd, 2006, 12:31 pm

the result might look something like this attachment, which i produced with some mockup html and a bunch of random tiles from the terrain folder.

Post by **Ken_Oh** » March 22nd, 2006, 2:31 pm

very cool. of course it wouldn't look as good as the maps made by the actual game, but i don't think that's the point.

as is the slogan of open source communities: if it's not that hard, then go ahead and do it.

i'm sure if you do a good job with it, someone will insert the phpbb addon.

Post by **turin** » March 22nd, 2006, 10:31 pm

Doing that for 10*10 maps is fine, but when you get much larger the image starts getting pretty large. It would be much better to do a scaled-down version.

Post by **Ken_Oh** » March 22nd, 2006, 10:47 pm

He's right. How about if you shrunk the images down by 1/2 or 1/3?

Post by **zookeeper** » March 22nd, 2006, 10:50 pm

The images could automatically be scaled down by any % number with a single CSS declaration, so that wouldn't be a problem.

EDIT: Err, nevermind this. It still wouldn't affect positioning, so the resulting map would be screwed.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 23rd, 2006, 2:14 am

I have implemented it in bbcode, with automagic scaling to keep the maps ~720 pixels wide (since i know some people still browse at 800x600). I had to overlap the hexes by 2 pixels horizontally to eliminate artifacts of browser image scaling. At this point its usable, but not perfect. I need to find a way to display player start positions over the images, and I am going to have to build a tropical forest tile since that seems to be missing from the images.

I don't want to link to my local web server here, the traffic would hurt... so heres a screenshot of the post on my forum.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 23rd, 2006, 2:44 am

And, to show off the ugly ass scaling, I give you 4p_Siege_Castles...

scott · Post by **scott** » March 23rd, 2006, 2:55 am

That's really neat.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 23rd, 2006, 5:04 am

ok, i just threw some public-domain-font text on top of the keep tile to represent player start positions. this is the first productive thing ive ever done in php, gonna work on cleaning up the code a little (its only a few dozen lines, mostly the mapletter->imagefilename replacements).

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » March 23rd, 2006, 2:19 pm

impressive.

the terrain files with "-tile" at the end of the name are designed to show up on the mini-map. If a tile is transparent, many layered or not perfectly hex-shaped there should be a flattened, hex shaped "-tile" file.
If not let me and/or frame know.

I'd also recommend yellow text for the player start position numbers.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 23rd, 2006, 9:01 pm

i redid the player starts, colored text according to the default side colors in the game. the only completly missing tile was for tropical forest, and i addressed that elsewhere, although i used non-"-tile" files for many of them (dirt, etc).

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » March 23rd, 2006, 9:18 pm

sparr wrote:although i used non-"-tile" files for many of them (dirt, etc).

Yeah, there won't be "-tile" files for single layered terrains, like dirt. But there should be for the forest.

sparr · Post by **sparr** » March 23rd, 2006, 9:26 pm

i made a tropical forest tile here http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

ill do a few more demo screenshots of the "finished" script when i get home this evening. clean up the source a little more, then it will be ready for use if anyone actually wants it.

if anyone has suggestions, speak now or for a few hours hold your peace

Post by **turin** » March 23rd, 2006, 11:05 pm

Seems to me that the numbers on the keeps need to be brighter. Perhaps make them red.

This is looking really cool. Could there also be a "download" button, so you don't have to attach the map separately? I know nothing abou PHP, this may or may not be possible.