BYOND 515 is finally in the stable channel, and that means the new map editor is in place. This has understandably altered the workflow for a lot of people, and naturally there are mixed opinions about that. As with any change, most of those opinions are negative.

Map editor improvements are an ongoing process. I'm eager to make further changes that will help people use it, and I'm open-minded about those changes. To that end, I want to get us all on the same page as to how we can talk out feature requests on this going forward.

First, it's important to say that "I don't like it, change it back" isn't helpful. The old map editor was structurally a mess; the new one is less so. Many, many changes had to be made under the hood. A number of UI elements were changed because they no longer made sense with the new system, and in many cases parts of the UI (like how mouse clicks work) were completely revamped from the ground up in order to jettison old cruft that had built up in the code.

That doesn't mean the way it is now is the way it will be forever, nor that some aspects of the old behavior weren't better. But there were good reasons for the changes, so I'd rather focus on future changes moving things forward. If a part of the UI were to change closer to what it used to be, then there needs to be a sensible way to blend that into current ideas, or perhaps make certain behavior optional. This process is going to involve a lot of compromise, since there's no one way everyone uses the editor.

Also I'm not a huge mapper myself, and some people will be quick to point out that it shows. That's more than fair. All throughout the beta cycle I was trying to get feedback from people who do use the editor and could explain what parts of the UI needed to be changed, and which parts were especially helpful. I still want to hear from the rest of you who didn't participate much, or at all, in that process. My better understanding your workflow, and how it's changed, can only help improve this.

Any feature requests you have should be made individually. Some users have tended to make large omnibus posts with a laundry list of things they'd like to change. I understand the temptation to lay it all out like a design document, but:

1. It's difficult to track which of the features have been implemented and which haven't.
2. The bug/feature trackers work on the basis of individual posts, which can be discussed separately and also closed separately.
3. In any document of that length, TL;DR is gonna set in and inevitably stuff will be missed.

So for all our sanity, keep your feature requests separate. If someone has already made a request along the lines of what you want, you can bump that if it hasn't seen action in a while, and add your thoughts on how to implement the idea. And if a couple of ideas dovetail together, feel free to post a link to a related request if you think it's helpful.

Another key to this is communication: sticking around to discuss questions and ideas. Because 515 was in beta forever, a lot of people who tried out the new map editor and didn't like it quickly went back to 514, instead of using separate installs and playing around with the beta some more so they could help guide development in a better direction for them. The loss of those voices was not good. A lot of discussion about features goes on in BYONDiscord, but the individual feature request posts on the forums are fine places to discuss this too. Usually I have questions or concerns that need to be talked out; that's a normal part of the process.

Lastly it's important to remember that development takes patience. Often when a batch of feature requests came in for the map editor, it was when I was bogged down in a different area of the beta and couldn't switch gears fast enough. So it wasn't uncommon, especially if people would just go back to the old version and vanish for a while, for their requests to get buried. Feature requests are not a fire-and-forget thing. It helps to keep discussing them, keep going over ideas for how they can be implemented, and that helps ensure they get the attention they deserve.

And as a side note, I'm aware there are some unresolved bugs. Bugs in the map editor are often very difficult to reproduce. My suggestion is to document them thoroughly to recreate an exact process, whenever possible, that reproduces the bug. Another option that may be helpful is using a screen recorder that can show mouse and keyboard presses. I'm going to continue to hammer on bugs.

So that's it. Let's keep chatting and keep working out improvements for the editor. I'm now working on 516 beta stuff, but map editor improvements will still be made for 515 maintenance releases, and some bigger improvements might end up in 516. We'll make this better together.

tl;dr

• Stick around to talk out features and how they can be implemented.
• Help a non-mapper understand what works well for you and what doesn't, and why.
• Some changes had to be made; some things can migrate back to an old way, and some can't, but we can find compromises and new ideas.
• Please post all feature requests separately, and keep the discussion going. There will be followup questions and thoughts.
• No really, please stick around and talk! Communication is the key to making the map editor better.