Long time users of MapTool know the problem with doors, columns, statues, and Vision Blocking Layer (VBL). You want MapTool to block vision through these objects but you want the players to see them without their vision being blocked by VBL. Thanks to the RPTools craftsmen, you can now have your object and VBL too.

A new feature in MapTool 1.4.1.8 is Token VBL. It allows the GM to place VBL on an object yet still allow full visibility of that object to the players. What’s more, the VBL moves with the object so if a door swings open, the VBL moves with it. You’ve seen a preview of this capability in a previous post. In this article, we show you who to use this new feature.

Here is a drawing of a standard dungeon, with PCs exploring a corridor ending with doors.

Note that the doors of fully visible but completely blocking the sight of the PCs. This is a great improvement of the previous versions of MT which had the GM clearing VBL as the characters opened doors. Now all the GM does is rotate the door to reveal to the PCs what’s beyond the doors.

In the picture below, the hero cracks to the door open to see what’s inside. Note that the VBL associate with the door moves with the door as it swings open.

The elf now opens the door a bit further to reveal more of the creature within.

Joy, it’s a dragon. The battle is joined.

To create token VBL, simply double-click the token or object to bring up the edit feature of MapTool. A few things to make note of. You can both generate and clear the VBL associated with a token. Making the token or object ‘Always Visible’ means the image will appear ‘above’ any fog of war and thus always be seen from PCs with vision and line of sight.

Visibility tolerance indicates how much of the object must be seen in order to see any of it. There are nine points on any token to be considered – four for each corner, four each midpoint between corners, and 1 for the center of the object. Thus a Visibility tolerance of 2 indicates that if any 2 points from that list are seen then the entire object is seen. In most cases, 2 is sufficient.

You can also have the VBL fully encompass the entire image (VBL Sensitivity 0 seen above), or ignore the transparent portions of the image by increasing the VBL Sensitivity. (see below).

The final effect allows for this functionality.

This new feature, combined with the new Draw Explorer, makes custom maps in MT much easier to manage and create. Token VBL reduces map creation time by automatically doing what used to be a manual effort for vision blocking objects. It also speeds up games by removing the need for VBL manipulation during the game.

Token VBL is available in MapTool 1.4.1.8 forwards which is available on our DTRPG Publisher’s Page. or from the RPTools Downloads page.

RPTools is proud to announce a new version of TokenTool, Rewritten in JavaFX to bring a modern and updated UI as well as a few new features! TokenTool 2.0 now supports PSD format for ‘overlays’ to allow for better masking by supporting ‘layers’. To create your own ‘overlay’ you can use any version of PhotoShop or GIMP and add your masking layer as the first (bottom) layer and your overlay image as the second (top) layer.

This release represents a critical milestone for RPTools development. For those of you interested in a bit of history and some technical details, the original RPTools products user interfaces are written using Java Swing. While Swing is still part of Java, Oracle stopped making enhancements to it a long while back. Some developers left the RPTools project as they felt they were working on a project without enhancing their core skills. As a reminder, RPTools is Open Source software with volunteer developers who work for free. One of the benefits of working on RPTools products is the experience gained from a large and complex code base.

Thus to move to JavaFX for TokenTool will pave the way for moving MapTool to JavaFX. This is a good thing.

The summary of benefits to the new TokenTool are summarized below.

• Over 150 Overlays
• Ability to rotate via shift-mouse wheel
• New ‘Use as Base’ feature for Overlays
• Tree/folder organization for Overlays
• Touch support (for you touchscreen users)
• Better drag/drop support
• The ability to copy image or image URL from the browser and paste into TokenTool!
• All settings saved on exit
• Last 10 overlays used saved as Recent for quick access
• Embedded JRE with native OS installer

The new TokenTool has the ability to manage overlays from within the tool. You can now create and edit them directly and it now supports photoshop PSD files.

New portrait options that all assignment of a background and the setting of opacity, blur, and glow.

You can find the new TokenTool from the GitHub Downloads page or find it on our DriveThruRPG publisher’s page.

In celebration of our release of TokenTool 2.0, we are proud to announce a set of exclusive artwork from Devin Night for Starfinder.

Devin Night has gamed since the early 80’s and is a long-time supporter of RPTools with content in multiple MapTool art packs to his credit. Devin is best known for his overhead tokens which, outside of MapTool art packs, you can find his token site. He can also create customer tokens at reasonable rates in case you roll your own universes or need a specific character token.

These new tokens are available for download now in MapTool. To get MapTool  Download from this site or see our DriveThruRPG publisher’s page. Once you have MapTool up and running, go to File->Add Resource to Library

This brings up the window below. Select the RPTools logo to see a list of downloadable art packs.

Select ‘Devin Knight’s Starfinder Characters to install them in your resource library. From there you can drag and drop them onto MapTool.

We’ve included the Low-Resolution versions as part of this post so you can use them in TokenTool. You can find the High-Resolution by clicking on the icon below.

This Set of Character Tokens uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc.,
which are used under Paizo’s Community Use Policy. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content.

This set of tokens is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc.

For more information about Paizo’s Community Use Policy, please visit paizo.com/communityuse.
For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, please visit paizo.com.

MapTool 1.5 allows the transfer Vision Blocking Layer (VBL) to and from tokens. To access this new capability, simply edit a token and go to the VBL tab.

There are several options on the VBL tab. You can generate VBL to cover the token. However, depending on the type of token, this can create complex VBL that will slow down vision rendering during a game.

To create simpler VBL, you can now draw the VBL over the token on the map and transfer it to the token. You can then copy, move, or save the token and the VBL will remain. In the image below I’ve drawn an X with the VBL tools then transferred it onto the token.

A few other notes about this panel.

• Visible Over FOW indicates that the token can always be seen over the Fog of War but still respects vision. However, if you have vision turned off on the map (Map->Vision-Off) the token will be visible regardless of VBL.
• The VBL Sensitivity determines what level of image transparency respected when generate the VBL for the token. The levels run from 1 to 255. The higher the number the more transparency is revealed.
• Visibility Tolerance determines how much of the token is seen before the entire token is revealed. If you imagine the token divided into a 3×3 grid, the Visibility Tolerance is the number of those segments that must be visible to the observing token before the entire token is made visible.

You can download the RPTools’ Products from our Download page or our DriveThruRPG publisher’s page. If you’re a coder you may also want to download the source from GitHub. While you’re in there, fork a branch and fix a bug. It’s the Open Source way.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

With the release of Maptool 1.5 comes a much-requested feature to the Draw Explorer. You can name drawings or groups of drawings via the Draw Explorer interface. This might not sound like much, but it greatly helps you navigate your way those around large, complex maps.

Being able to name drawings opens up functions that previously only applied to images. So now, with the aid of the Maptool script language, you could hunt for all drawings with a specific name and move them to a different layer on the map, and in doing so perhaps hide them from player view.

You can download the RPTools’ Products from our Download page or our DriveThruRPG publisher’s page. If you’re a coder you may also want to download the source from GitHub. While you’re in there, fork a branch and fix a bug. It’s the Open Source way.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

The spacebar in MapTool has several features that GMs find useful during games.

New in MapTool 1.5: If you are the GM, Ctl+Shift+Spacebar centers your players to your current map. The clients return to their original positions and zoom percentage once the GM releases the spacebar.

Spacebar changes the mouse cursor to a blue arrow visible on all clients. It helps you point out things on the map. Any player can use the blue arrow functionality.

Ctl+Spacebar to turn the mouse cursor into a speech bubble. You might use this to indicate In-Character speech. The name associated with the connection appears in the bubble.

Shift+Spacebar turns the cursor into a thought bubble. You might use this to indicate Out-Of-Character speech. This is a test to see how far this thing will go to wrap the text over and over again.

Alt+Spacebar brings up the system window dialog which changes based on the operating system being used.

Ctl+Spacebar in the new Macro Editor to perform code completion. You can type a partial function name, hit ctl+spacebar, and be presented with a list of functions matching the first letters with a brief description of what the macro function does. It will also give you the parameter list for the macro. If you don’t have anything typed, you’ll be presented with the full function list.

Note that this is a work in progress and not all the functions are yet fully documented.

Bonus keyboard command: Ctl+Enter toggles the chat window. This one has the interesting side effect of locking your mouse cursor in its current state so you can persist your thought/speech bubble or the blue arrow.

You can find a complete list of keyboard shortcuts on the MapTool Wiki.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

As part of the 1.5.0 release, MapTool included a popup window to allow for multiple-line editing of properties. Prior to this release, you would need to copy a long properties entry to another editor, make your changes, then copy it back. With 1.5, you can simply click into the properties field, then on the down arrow next to the property value to bring up an editing window.

So those huge JSON properties can now be formatted and save to make for easier editing without resorting to a copy and paste to another editor.

The current implementation does not word wrap so you’ll need to insert carriage returns to get the multi-line aspect. This feature should be greatly enhanced with the 1.5.2 release coming at the end of April to include word wrap and have syntax highlighting for JSON objects.

Thanks to Darinth for enabling this feature and naciron for expanding on it.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

We interrupt our Blast from the Past series to bring you a fix to a potentially irritating problem plaguing Windows 10 users.

Windows introduced DPI scaling to help with readability issues on monitors with high resolution. This appears to cause problems for some applications, like MapTool. According to this help article, when you use a high-DPI device you may experience the following issues:

• Elements such as applications, the taskbar, icons, toolbars, text, and dialog boxes appear to be fuzzy.
• Elements are too large or too small compared to the rest of the desktop.
• Blurry text appears in applications or in the Windows interface.

Follow the instructions below if the text in MapTool has become hard-to-read when upgrading from 1.4 to 1.5.

Below is a screenshot showing MapTool 1.4.0.5, Nerps 1.4.5.4, and MapTool 1.5 demonstrating the problem. Different users report different issues but it all seems to revolve around making the adjustments below to fix narrow or small text.

To adjust the displayed text’s behavior, right click on Win10 desktop, hit display settings, then navigate to Advanced scaling settings.

There are two advanced settings which affect your font display in MapTool 1.5. We recommend you first turn on ‘Let Windows try to fix apps so they’re not blurry’. Restart MapTool to see if that fixes the fonts to your satisfaction. If not, adjusting the scaling should fix the issue. You can go either up (to something like 150%) or down (to 100%) until the fonts work correctly for you.

Once you save the settings and restart MapTool the fonts should be better behaved.

Special thanks to @phergus and community member Drew Sibbing for helping us track down and solve the issue.

DPI scaling may affect your MapTool experience in odd ways. We’ve previously discussed the effect on the readability of MapTool text as well as a workaround to fix it.

Recently, community member Vishika complained the templating tool has issues in the new version of MapTool. We discovered DPI Scaling had once again bit MapTool. However, through the diagnosis, we discovered how to turn off DPI Scaling on an application by application bases.

To fix for MapTool only without affecting the entire display right click on the MapTool icon in the task bar and select Properties.

From the Compatibility Tab, select Change High DPI Settings. On the popup screen, adjust the DPI settings to those below.

The template tool and the rest of MapTool for that matter should work as usual.

The RPTools team continues to work on this issue. We’re investigating how to make this setting change within MapTool. We also hope the move to JavaFX will eliminate the need for this configuration change going forward.

For help with MapTool, TokenTool, or other RPTools products, please see the RPTools Forums or live chat on Discord.

It is with a heavy heart that we inform our beloved community that two of our most prolific contributors are moving on to their next adventure.

Az and Jamz were approached by Roll20 with an offer they couldn’t refuse. They will be merging much of the current functionality of MapTool and TokenTool into a new mobile application to be released later this year. Unfortunately, due to their Non-Compete Agreement with Roll20, they will be unable to contribute to RPTools products. We wish them the very best going forward. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into MapTool and TokenTool. You will be missed.

Their departure, however, leaves us in a bit of a bind. Our lead developer, Craig, is not taking the move well. He has the keys to the kingdom from a permissions point of view and has already locked Jamz and Az out of our source code control system and is threatening to make our GitHub pages private. This will, effectively, lock everyone out that is not part of the project. @Phergus and I have high hopes we can dissuade him but he’s a bit stubborn when it comes to these things.

So, as a precaution, if you would like to make sure you have the latest and greatest code set, please create a GitHub account and fork the RPTools projects.

In other bad news, it looks as though we’re losing Jagged as well. He’s a resident of the UK and, for reasons not completely understood, he’s being banned from RPTools contribution as part of the various packages being forwarded as part of Brexit. He’s legally obliged to comply with the order which is, for some reason, part of every proposal – even the ones that keep Britain part of the EU. You can read more about it in this London Times article.

RPTools will survive but we need your help. If you’re a Java developer or someone who knows GitHub automation, we could use your talents to help reform the project if Craig uses the nuclear option. To learn more ways to help, go to this page and fill out a brief questionnaire regarding areas of need and how you might fill them.

You can download the latest builds of TokenTool and MapTool below. Also feel free to wish them all well on one or our many social media outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

TokenTool Latest Release

Version 2.1 Change Log

Happy April Fools’ Day!

This will begin a series of articles on GitHub to help our community better understand what goes into the production of MapTool and TokenTool and how to us it to check on your favorite open source project.

So what is GitHub?

GitHub is a web interface for Git – a popular distributed version control system. In simple terms, it’s how the RPTools staff manage the contributions of source code to create new versions of MapTool and TokenTool. It allows the staff to resolve code conflicts which can occur as different developers work on the same section of code and roll back changes that aren’t quite ready for primetime.

But it does much more than that. By linking GitHub to Travis CI and AppVeyor and using GitHub automation, the team is able to rapidly build and deploy new versions of RPTools products. It’s not simple but it is much easier than it used to be.

GitHub also functions as a social networking site for programmers and/or developers. On GitHub, they can show off their skills, projects, and contributions to the broader open source world. It has discovery tools that allow developers to find other projects that may be of use to their current project.

A Quick Tour of RPTools on GitHub

The first thing to do is to create a GitHub account if you don’t have one already. Simply go to github.com and register. Next, you’ll want to navigate to RPTools home on GitHub: github.com/RPTools. There you’ll be on the factory floor of all RPTools development. The two most important project here will be MapTool and TokenTool. Note that we have other projects in the work such as a new Dice Library being worked on by Craig.

Clicking on either link will take you down into the repositories themselves. What you’ll see is the guts of the project including all the source code and other files that make up the RPTools products.

As a non-coder, there are a few things you might want to do on this page. All these options are near the top.

The Issues tab gives you a list of past and current issues along with the GitHub conversations regarding them. You can create an issue here as well. The devs are pretty good at responding in short order.

The Insights tab is interesting as well. It shows you who’s working on what and how many issues have changed state during a given period of time.

• Merged indicates a change has been merged into a branch (usually the development branch used for the next release).
• Proposed are Pull Requests that have been submitted. A Pull Request is the developer requesting the Release Manager pull their bright and shiny new code into one of the products i.e. MapTool or TokenTool.
• Closed means the Release Manager or another member of the staff has closed the issue meaning all the work is complete or the issue will not be worked.
• Opened Issues are items that have been created but no conversation has yet occurred for them.
• Open Issues are those with conversations. They will eventually be assigned to a project and worked as time allows.

The Fork Button will create a copy of the code in your GitHub space. If you plan on working with either MapTool or TokenTool, this will be one of your first steps.

There are two other buttons to note:

• Follow will send you all the updates that occur to a project. We’re very active right now so you’ll get a lot of emails or notices if you pick this.
• Star lets the project know you like it and it will allow you to select it easily from your space.

We’ll continue discussing GitHub in the coming days including how to set up for MapTool Development.

RPTools is an international community. We see this on the social sites as well as in our developer group. There are also several native language support sites. Translating the text in MapTool is one of the many ways we support each other.

To date, we have translations for German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian and Chinese. The language files are located in the GitHub Repository resources directory if you care to view them.

The format of the file name is i18n_xx.properties with xx being the language description from W3C Internationalization Activity. RPTools uses English as the base — new keys are added here first. Then the descriptions for those keys are translated and put into the other language files by members of our community.

So if you see a language you would like to add, grab the i18n.properties file and rename it based on the country code above. Translate the file and submit it to the forums, GitHub or Discord. The most important thing is to submit changes in UTF-8 or use the `\u` notation in the description. Your favorite search engine can tell you how to do this or you can simply ask how on one of our social media outlets.

These translations will serve to expand the RPTools community and eventually bring about world peace through gaming.

If you changed the JVM memory settings under Edit->Preferences, there is a possibility of adding an invalid value that will keep MapTool from starting.

The first method is to pass the -reset option to your MapTool executable. The location of the MapTool executable will vary based on operating system.

• Windows: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\MapTool\MapTool.exe -reset
• Linux: /opt/MapTool/MapTool -reset
• Mac: Varies but may be open /Applications/MapTool –args -reset

You can also manually edit the config file on your system to set the appropriate values. Deleting the CFG file has the same effect as the reset flag.

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/net.rptools.maptool.client/packager/jvmuserargs.cfg
• Windows: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\net.rptools.maptool.client\packager\jvmuserargs.cfg
• Linux: ~/.local/net.rptools.maptool.client/packager/jvmuserargs.cfg

The contents of the file will look something like

[JVMUserOverrideOptions]
-Xmx=4G
-Xms=4G

You then modify the -Xmx= to be something your computer will digest. We generally recommend setting -Xmx (max) and -Xms(min) memory to the same settings. The -Xss defaults to 4M which satisfies the stack size for most frameworks. Note that only altered entries show up in the file.

For help with MapTool, TokenTool, or other RPTools products, please see the RPTools Forums or live chat on Discord.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.2
Change Log

The RPTools elves have been hard at work bringing you new and wonderous functionality in MapTool. We are proud to announce MapTool 1.5.5 which brings improvements to existing functionality, new capabilities, as well as new and improved macro functions.

Note: It appears this release has issues on Macs. If you or your players use a Mac you should skip 1.5.5 and wait for 1.5.6.

Highlights

• New audio capabilities – MapTool now supports playing/managing audio streams at the local client through new macro functions. A volume slider and mute button have also been added to the toolbar.
  
  • playStream() – plays local or remote audio files (.mp3 & .wav).
  • stopStream() – stops the specified stream.
  • editStream() – modifies a playing stream.
  • getStreamProperties() – get the properties of loaded/playing streams.
• New JSON path functionality – New macro functions for accessing deep into JSON objects with a single call.
  • json.path.add()
  • json.path.delete()
  • json.path.read()
  • json.path.set()
  • json.path.put()
• Faster, better image pane in Resource Library – Performance and Quality of Life changes improve quality of thumbnails and speed.
• Better error messages for macro functions – function name now reported in error message about the number of parameters.
• Significant improvement to the getToken() macro function – expect to see significant speed improvements.
• New macro function json.toVars() converts the key values of a JSON object to variables holding the associated values.

For a full list of changes and bug fixes please see the MapTool 1.5.5 changelog.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.6
Change Log

One of the overlooked features of MapTool 1.5 is the introduction of RESTful functionality in the MapTool scripting language – MTScript. For the non-programmers, RESTful is a software architectural style that defines a set of constraints to be used for creating Web services. These take the form of an HTTP call, like when you put a web site URL into your web browser. The industry term for exposing a RESTful interface is called an Application Programming Interface or API.

But enough of the Geek Speak.

To the rest of us, pun intended, a RESTful service is just a call to a web endpoint who’s purpose is to return data, not web pages. You can test out the GitHub API for our RPTools repository by placing the following into your web browser.

https://api.github.com/users/RPTools/repos

The call returns a large JSON array detailing the contents of the RPTools repository. Simple, right?

The gist of all this is that MapTool, via macros, can communicate with other online systems. You can leverage this to bring sounds into your campaign via Syrinscape as demonstrated in the video below.

MapTool is able to utilize Syrinscape’s REST API via a macro. You simply copy the URL and auth token by clicking Show Remote Control Links from the Syrinscape Master interface. Once you have the URL, you construct a macro call to Syrinscape with something like the following:

[r: REST.get('https://www.syrinscape.com/online/frontend-api/moods/19/play/?auth_token=<insert your auth token here>')]

Once run, the macro will start playing to all the connected players.

Of course, with MapTool’s powerful scripting engine, you can do a whole lot more, like fire off one-shots when a players Initiative comes around or that awesome Heal Light Wounds (from Kyra’s sound set) every time your Channel Healing macro is used. You could also bake in some tokens on a map for quick links to selected moods for easy access.

The Path Forward

The RPTools contributors are currently in the process of adding audio streaming into MapTool. This will start with the macro calls to local or remote files and end with a GUI interface and preferences. It was made quite clear by some of our users they don’t want sound due to limited bandwidth and other considerations so you will always have the ability to keep MapTool mute. You can look for the first version of the new streaming ability in version 1.5.5.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.6
Change Log

MapTool framework developers often use HTML frames and dialogs for character sheets and other interactive displays utilizing the frame() and dialog() macro functions. However, it has often been challenging to see the actual HTML code generated by MapTool.

Phergus discovered that Ctl-A, Ctl-C in a MapTool Frame or Dialog will copy the HTML code behind the window. You can then paste the code into an HTML friendly editor like Notepad++. Below is an example character sheet from a Savage Worlds framework.

Clicking on the window and doing a Ctl-A selects all the text within the window.

Clt-C will copy the selected text to your computer’s clipboard. Now navigate to the Online HTML5 Editor and paste your clipboard there.

You can now diagnose the problems with your HTML form in a nice visual format.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.6
Change Log

The RPTools elves have been hard at work bringing you new and wonderous functionality in MapTool. We are proud to announce MapTool 1.5.7 which brings improvements to existing functionality, new capabilities, as well as new and improved macro functions. MapTool versions from 1.5 onward are 64-bit OS only.

Highlights

• New accessibility features allows the user to apply Perlin noise to tiled textures to reduce obvious patterning.
• New user preference (Edit -> Preferences -> Application -> Performance) for Max Frame Rate allows users to set a desired Max Frame Rate.
• More updated macro functions for improved performance and reliability.
• New GM macro panel for GM only macros. These macros are saved as part of the campaign.
• Bug fixes!

For a full list of changes and bug fixes please see the MapTool 1.5.7 changelog.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.7
Change Log

The MapTool elves have been busy providing even more holiday goodness. We are proud to announce MapTool 1.5.8 which brings improvements to existing functionality, new capabilities, as well as new and improved macro functions. MapTool versions from 1.5 onward are 64-bit OS only.

Highlights

• Macros on copied tokens having duplicate UUIDs problem fixed.
• Toolbar/ribbon in MapTool can now be hidden to give you more screen space.
• Additional parameters and improvements to various macro functions.
• New translation team members, Deniz Köse and Vitaly Karpenko have bumped our Russian translation up to 74%.
• Fog of War exposure fixes.
• Tooltips added to all menu items.
• Bug fixes!

You can find a full list of fixes and enhancements on the MapTool 1.5.8 Changelog.

We’ve also moved to CrowdIn, a cloud-based localization technology that is free of charge for open source projects. If you’re interested in volunteering for translations and getting your name on the big board, visit the CrowdIn Volunteering Site to learn how.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.8
Change Log

RPTools products are used worldwide and support 11 languages as of this writing. We’ve always relied on volunteers to provide translations for the menus, tooltips, and labels in MapTool and TokenTool. We’ve now made it easier to contribute by leveraging crowdin, a third-party translation site.

Crowdin allows users to add new or edit existing language files for the MapTool user interface. You will need to create an account on crowdin or log in with an existing Facebook, Google, Twitter, GitHub or GitLab account. Once you have an account, go to the MapTool project to view the current languages and the progress in translating them.

You select the language you wish to work on and submit a join request for the project. Once added, you’ll be able to edit the language files and provide translations. If your language is missing, contact one of the MapTool project managers about getting it added via Discord or the Forums. Please read the Intro for Volunteer Translators before starting your translation efforts.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.

MapTool Latest Release

Version 1.5.8
Change Log

The MapTool elves have been busy this holiday season. They’ve introduced two new macro functions to produce HTML5 dialogs and frames. The new macro functions frame5() and dialog5() can be used in place of the HTML3 frame() and dialog() macro functions.

The new functionality allows the use of CSS3 and Javascript within the HTML frame/dialog so your formatting options now include those available to modern web applications. It has the limitation of not being able to access external assets.

You should now be able to do things like conditional displays like the code below.

[frame5("MyFrame"):{
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    [r:"
        function toggle_visibility(id) {
            var e = document.getElementById(id);
            if (e.style.display == 'block')
                e.style.display = 'none';
            else
                e.style.display = 'block';
        }
        "]
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Online Help</h1>
    <p class="boxtitle"><a href="#" onclick="toggle_visibility('help_topics');" class="boxtitle">Show/Hide Help Topics</a></p>
    <ul id="help_topics" style='display:none;'>
        <li>Products - blah blah blah.</li>
        <li>Blogs - blah blah blah.</li>
        <li>Documentation - blah blah blah.</li>
        <li>Partners - blah blah blah.</li>
    </ul>
</body>
</html>
}]

If you are a framework developer or web developer, please download the MapTool 1.6 alpha release and put the frame5 and dialog 5 through its paces. Please report problems back to our Discord server or the RPTools forums. You can download the alpha release of MapTool 1.6 here.

Excited about the new functionality? Let’s discuss in the comments below or on one of our many social outlets.