A few comments/responses:
A, H, and Z values are all used in SHowEQ. Look in mapcore.cpp at the MapData::loadMap(const QString& filename) routine.
Eliminate the L lines, by conversion to M (z=0, unless known)
Don't! It will accomplish nothing for SEQ but decrease map painting performance and increase the memory footprint for everybody. Unless you are actually changing the Z to different values along the line, don't change L lines to M. Many lines actually don't need a varying Z, others may, it very much depends on the line and it's purpose. Lines around buildings, platforms, and ponds/lakes rarely if ever need a varying Z.
Eliminate double lines at waters edge, and other places where not useful, on some maps.
Just make sure not to eliminate double lines near certain cliff faces (this is very useful when running through Paludial caverns at SOW speed without Levitate).
Ensure colours (colors) are properly named, used. (no more grey or SkyBlue for example, using source as guide)
You can actually use any color that appears in the X11R6 rgb.txt file (see attached) and they will appear properly in ShowEQ (except for drawmap.cgi which will be fixed) and the MapFiend viewers. BTW, to use the attached rgb.txt files with the MapFiend viewers rename it to RGB.txt and remove the first line of the file.
Format of zone file. The format in the current version of ShowEQ is:
Code:
longname, shortname, width, height
where width and height are in EQ distance units (whatever you wish to call them). Previous versions of ShowEQ 2.x and 3.x series had some screwyness where they actually loaded the format with the width and height following, but then turned around and saved the map in different formats (some versions using the 6 digit form to which Mr Suspicious refers). Some other non-ShowEQ tools for generating maps (using /loc info in a log for example) may write the top line of the file in one of these screwy formats. The common screwy format (used for save but not load in ShowEQ 3.0.6 and ALL versions of SINS) was:
Code:
longname, shortname, screenCenterX, screenCenterY, screenLengthX, screenLengthY, width, height
The screenCenterX,screenCenterY, screenLengthX, screenLengthY are all very viewer dependent and of limited utility. No version of ShowEQ that I can find in CVS has ever read this long format (they always read the format with just width and height). MapFiend's viewers don't actually use any of the information beyond the longname and shortname.
The width and height values don't matter that much, they are merely a starting point, and starting with width and height equal to 0 will generate a perfectly acceptable map, the width and height will automatically be increased within ShowEQ to encompass all points appearing on the map, and then by all points that spawns appear. The only values that would impact ShowEQ would be if the width and height were larger then the actual zone sizes. ShowEQ will save the new X and Y values upon saving changes to a map. The extra info that appears in these other map variant formats is not useful and actually misread/misused by all versions of ShowEQ and SINS.
Also, one word of warning about editing maps with a mouse, there is a large loss of accuracy in the transition from screen space to map space. This is part of why we never added a window for map editing.
Enjoy,
Zaphod (dohpaZ)