Updated Ubuntu packages and daily builds

Thanks to the efforts of Erik Schilling, there are once again updated Tiled packages available for all recent versions of Ubuntu (or derivatives like Mint). Not only this, but the new official PPA also contains a tiled-daily package that is updated whenever changes are pushed into the repository.

Actually daily builds for Windows have been available since a long time, thanks to Stefan Beller. I've now added a link to these to the sidebar as well.

If you want to see what's new in the daily builds, keep an eye on the commit log of the master branch, on which these builds are based.

Tiled Qt 0.8.0 released

If all you wanted for Christmas was a new Tiled release, it's time to start thinking about a new present!

This release adds some major new features like polygon objects, JSON import and export, tile rotation and drawing offset. Many smaller changes and additions were made as well, so there should be something for everybody. The full list of changes:

• Added support for polygon and polyline objects (sponsored by Zipline Games)
• Added support for tile rotation (by Wade Brainerd)
• Added support for defining the color of custom object types (sponsored by Zipline Games)
• Added a Delete action to delete selected tiles or objects (by Stefan Beller)
• Added random mode to the stamp brush (by Stefan Beller)
• Added Flare export plugin (by Stefan Beller and Clint Bellanger)
• Added JSON plugin that supports both reading and writing (by Porfírio Ribeiro)
• Added ability to rename tilesets (by Maus)
• Added a mode in which the current layer is highlighted
• Added support for specifying a tile drawing offset (sponsored by Clint Bellanger)
• Added a shortcut (Alt+C) to copy the current tile position to clipboard (by Stefan Beller)
• Added a command line option to disable OpenGL
• Allow custom properties on tilesets
• Many automapping improvements (by Stefan Beller)
• Improved tileset dock to handle a large amount of tilesets better (by Maus)
• Made the 'Show Grid' option in the tileset view persistent
• Raised the tile size limit in the New Tileset dialog from 999 to 9999
• Correctly handle changes in the width of a tileset image (by Adam Rippon)
• Worked around a long standing crash bug
• Added Russian translation (by Alexander Komarnitsky)
• Updated the German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French and Brazilian Portuguese translations (thanks to all translators!)

As the above list shows, many of the new features were either sponsored or developed by contributors, thanks a lot to all who've helped shape this release!

Tiled Qt 0.7.1 released

Work is well underway on a future 0.8.0 release, but meanwhile also some bugs have been fixed that made it worth releasing 0.7.1. This release also updates the Czech translation and changes the way maps are exported to Lua so that they no longer rely on a global "map" variable.

• Select stamp tool when selecting tiles in tileset view (by Stefan Beller)
• Enable anti-aliasing in OpenGL mode
• Small improvement to the Lua export plugin (incompatible!)
• Fixed a bug in the Create Object tool that could lead to a crash
• Fixed reading of maps without tilesets but with a tile layer
• Fixed position of tile objects to center on the mouse on insertion
• Updated the Czech translation (by Petr Viktorin)

Tiled Qt 0.7.0 released

Tiled currently seems to be on a biannual release schedule regarding its new feature releases, though this is entirely unintentional. The important part is that quite some nice features have been developed again!

It's now finally possible to select multiple objects and copy/paste them. A bunch of other productivity enhancements were also made like cropping to selection, shortcuts to change layer, improved hand scrolling with spacebar, toggling visibility of other layers, etc.

A new feature was added that required changing the map format a little as well. Tiled is now able to flip tiles horizontally and vertically (using the 'x' and 'y' keys repectively). This information is stored in the highest two bits of the global tile IDs, so that tile layer data remains compatible if you don't use this feature.

The full list of changes:

• Added support for horizontal and vertical flipping of tiles (sponsored by Zipline Games)
• Added copy/paste support for objects
• Added merge layer down action
• Added Show or Hide all Other Layers action (by Christophe Conceicao)
• Added actions to select the previous/next layer
• Added Crop to Selection action
• Added a Lua export plugin (sponsored by Zipline Games)
• Added Droidcraft plugin to read and export the map files (by seeseekey)
• Added option to turn off grid in the tileset view (by Gregory Nickonov)
• Added hand scrolling while holding the spacebar
• Made the object context menu available in all object tools
• Display tile coordinates also when using object tools
• Various improvements to running external commands (by Jeff Bland)
• Automapping stability and memory consumption improvements (by Stefan Beller)
• Objects that fall outside of the map on resize are now removed (by Stefan Beller)
• Fixed problems with watching tilesets multiple times
• Fixed several issues related to restoring previously opened files (by Stefan Beller)
• Updated Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, German, Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew, Portuguese, Dutch and French translations (thanks to all translators!)

Lastly I want to say, Tiled is shaped by your feedback and those who help improve it. If you have an itch or a suggestion, please do report an issue. Or better yet, fork Tiled on github and work with us on the next release!

melonJS: Tiled based games in HTML5

Earlier this month I was made aware of the first public release of melonJS. It is a lightweight HTML5 game engine, with very close integration with Tiled.

I'm a complete newbie regarding new-fangled HTML5 and its opportunities for games. JavaScript still reminds me of some horrible experiences back in 2000, when it was slow and incompatible. However, I know the world has changed since then and melonJS basically confirms my suspicions. For small games there is little reason left to compile them to native machine code, and I wonder how many will still know what it means in a few years. The rendering, input and also audio support in modern browsers will suffice for a wide range of games, and deployment couldn't be easier.

As it stands melonJS is not finished yet, and at first sight it seems to be only good for creating the specific kind of platform game that its extensive tutorial takes you through. At least, there is a certain amount of convenience API available that is meant to do just that. However, behind that API lies a promising and well documented game engine with resource management, sprite animation and direct support for Tiled's TMX map format. Including some cool features like support for custom map objects that are directly linked to JavaScript-defined classes and parallax image layers.

How did I get to know all this? After one evening of fiddling around with the engine with the help from the tutorial, I had laid the basics for an HTML5 version of The Mana World, which I called TMW.js. It's lacking a few details, but I daresay it's possible to fill in the blanks!

Tiled Qt 0.6.2 released

This release fixes a few minor bugs reported by users. Since it didn't seem likely that much more fixes would accumulate, it was time to get them out there. The changes are:

• Fixed object layers losing their color when resizing the map
• Fixed the tabs in the Tilesets dock to use scroll buttons on MacOS X
• Fixed window title to update when saving a map with a different name

The 0.7.0 release is expected to be still quite a bit off, but meanwhile you can already compile Tiled yourself from the git master branch to try out some of the new features. These include merging layers, copy & paste support for objects and various improvements to the support for running external commands. Maybe you could even try adding your own favorite feature to the list!

Show or edit your maps on the go, with iTileMaps

A few days ago, Vsevolod Klementjev (KleMiX) released iTileMaps for iPad. Since quite a few of Tiled users are developing for iOS, this will be of interest to some of you.

iTileMaps allows you to view and edit your tile maps on your iPad. Even though it's just the initial release, it already supports most features of the TMX map format, including editing of object layers and properties (see its website for a list of features as well as current limitations).

The developer allowed me to try it out, and the main thing I noticed is that it runs very smooth. Also the interface looks pretty good. It's certainly not more efficient than editing the maps in Tiled (yet), but I think it has a good potential once there has been more time to learn what works and what doesn't for a touch based tile map editor.

If you find this interesting, don't hesitate to support KleMiX by getting your copy. He's also very open to feedback (just like me), so let him know how you think he could improve iTileMaps!