CharPad C64 Pro

Hello,
Thank you very much for your support :) ) much appreciated.

Please try doing a copy/paste from project1 to project2, doing a binary load will just overwrite the chars in project2 (colours/modes will be the same as the overwritten chars).

Copying/pasting should work out better and can be done as an overwrite if necessary (see the Chars menu when the Char-set window is active for all the Paste options).

Hi,

The ability to move characters with map/tile auto-correction already exists...

It is implemented in CharPad (and SpritePad) as a Swap operation...

1. Select the item you want to move (LEFT mouse button)...

2. Hold the CTRL key then select the item you want to swap with (LEFT mouse button).

The map (or tile-set) data will be automatically updated to appear identical.

It also works exactly the same way with the tile-set.

Hi,

The usual way to move characters around is just by using the cut/copy/paste features, you can also use the Insert/Delete keys and also the LEFT mouse button with CTRL held can be used to swap any two items in a set.

Use LEFT mouse button + SHIFT to select a range of items.

All of the various options will appear in the "Chars" menu at the top of the main window when the character set form is active.

Thank you for your support Bacchus, it really is greatly appreciated.

I've been having a think about your request.

It seems to me that things like PRG load addresses are very project specific and so would really demand to be saved IN the project file as opposed to as some general CharPad settings.

 I'm not sure I would want to expose all users to this sort of programming detail or even make them think about it, this is a graphics application after all.

CharPad already supports export to (raw) binary files (obviously), a whole export section is devoted to it and I wouldn't really want to basically duplicate this section just for PRG export .

So, on balance I would have to conclude that a better solution would be to handle conversion from BIN to PRG with a simple command-line tool.

A batch script could be tailored to perform the conversions very conveniently for any set of exported binaries and would allow very easy/quick modifications to be made (ie. in NotePad).

I would be surprised if such a tool doesn't already exist but if not then I can make one.

This may not be the reply you were hoping for but I genuinely do think this is would be a better way.

Cheers mate.

Thanks for your comment, your game idea sounds cool! :)

It's not currently possible to export data as C source code, only as binary and (65xx) assembly files.

I like the idea though, C programming on 8-bit systems seems quite a rare thing but I have added it to the list for a future version.

Hey, thanks for supporting these projects! it is really appreciated.

So there is nothing particularly built in to support multiple monitors, the apps use the classic multi-document interface (MDI), ie. child forms arranged in a parent window.

There is nothing to stop you from simply enlarging the parent window into/over a second monitor.

If you have any particular suggestions in this realm then I am happy to listen.

Thank you baardbi for your appreciation! I'm guessing the "consolidated sub-map export" is helping quite a bit?

Thanks for the suggestion MGB, yes, that sounds useful. Added to the todo list.

Thanks for the suggestions, I am reliably informed that it already works very well on Mac using WINE or Crossover, not sure about iPad but the same solution may be possible.
With current sales barely enough to keep a cat in munchies, don't hold your breath for any alternative native versions, sorry.

Hi, thanks for the feedback, yes the decision was taken many years ago purposefully NOT to include a "per-map-cell" matrix colouring method, with CharPad being primarily designed as a game-map editor the feeling was that few games would need/use such a method due to the effective doubling (or at least a 50% increase, 1 nybble per cell) in the size of required map data.

This and also the requirement for the user to manually paint the map colours as well as the map characters were the main reasons for it's omission.

However it actually IS something that has remained on the todo/maybe list and while it might not get added as a general feature, it MIGHT get added as an export option at some point,

ie. if you have a project using the "per-char" colouring method, we may add an option/tool that would create a converted set of data for a "per-map-cell" colouring method (for export/use/viewing on the C64), this would obviously allow a reduced number of character images in most cases as all of the colour data would be pushed over to the map.

It may not be the solution you were hoping for but it's the one that is most likely to happen as adding such a colouring method (and probably also "per-tile-cell" would likely take years to complete as general features.

When you say you have to scale and resize "the window", which window do you mean? the map, the charset?, the whole thing?

As every project is using different size charsets, tilesets, maps then I don't quite see how this would be helpful unless a layout were somehow saved for every project.

The main (parent) window itself should be starting maximized.

Hi, thanks for posting.. could you be a bit more specific? which CTM version are you exporting to? what is the resulting problem? if exporting to CTM5 then I can tell you that this format does not support tile tags or names, I should probably put in some friendly warnings about unsupported features when exporting to older project formats.