Could someone give me some additional directions how to import text into betacreator. It is looking for a .bcd format but I'm not familiar with this and cannot find this option when saving a Word file. Specifically could you walk me thru taking a text title from Word into betacreator? Thanks in advance to anyone that could help me. Mark

Alma, a really great tool!

Suggestions for your feature list:

1. A dotted (as opposed to the current dashed) line tool to make it easier to indicate when a route passes behind a feature. Perhaps also another pattern, say dash-dot, for drawing variations and/or alternatives to the primary route.

2. A solid background text option for situations when no text color stands out from the background clearly.

3. An arrow tool that would allow a bit of remote text to reference a feature or route detail.

4. It would be very nice to be able to select a portion of a drawn line, erase it, and then redraw the deleted section, rather than having to select and delete the entire route line in order to correct a mistake in one portion.

5. It would also be nice if the ENTER key created a new line in the same text box. As it is now, you have to start a new text box for every line.

6. If route diagrams are to be editable, then the data layer must be exported BEFORE the document is saved. Once the document is saved as a .jpg, the data cannot be edited. But if the data has been exported, then a fresh copy of the underlying photo can be opened, the saved data imported to it, and editing can happen. Accidentally saving without exporting the data layer renders all that data uneditable because the layers have been merged. So I think the save option should always ask whether the data layer should be exported, with "yes" as the default option, and the data layer should automatically given the same name as the route diagram with an appended DL, so that the correct data layer will always be easy to identify.

Thanks for reporting that bug verticon. I'll release 1.3.1 soon to fix that.

I'm putting it to use around here. Thanks for writing it together. It would be nice to be able to change text color after it's entered.

Thanks,

Anthony

Cool program. Here's my 2 cents so far:

1. For large pictures I need to be able to zoom and move the entire frame. As it is now, you can only zoom in and out on the center of the picture

2. Different line shapes (dot's, dashes, etc..) as mentioned earlier.



And Anthony. It's nice if you add the route info on the actual picture so it can be printed out and taken to the crag. Just name and rating is good.

Great fun to watch the "feature creep" on this software development project. Pretty soon it'll be another PhotoShop.

P.S. - Great work. It's just the software engineer in me can't help but notice the usual trends playing out.

Version 1.3.1 (8/10/09)
- Changed text tool to allow multiple lines
- Fixed bug with panning after saving a file
- Fixed bug with text boxes to allow color change
- Fixed minor bug with text tool after initial placement

Alma, I find the data layers (in the latest version) don't work properly for editing. If I load a picture, import a data layer, edit it, and then export the data layer to the same data file, all that happens is the picture reverts to the original data layer. Subsequently importing the presumably modified data layer on top of a new picture also confirms that no changes have been recorded. (The changes I've tied to make at this point have been to add text in places where there was none.) It seems that, in spite of the warning, exporting does not overwrite an already-existing data layer file.

Saving the data to a new data layer file seems to be the only way around this.

A second problem occurs with text size. Text typed and exported in size 2 returns, when imported, in size 3.

Nice little app. I just created a simple topo for The Grand Wall.

Thanks for the bug report rgold. They should be fixed now.

Version 1.3.2 (8/11/09)
- Fixed bug with overwriting data files
- Fixed bug with style of imported text
- Fixed bug with color and size tools after import
- Color picker and size selector now match selected objects

Oooh, that's much better. Thanks, Alma

Hi Alma,
Disclaimer: I'm not a bug-chaser, just trying to help ;o)

When trying to edit a selected text, the letters which match shortcuts cause selection to lose focus and activate other tools (i.e. "a" activates the anchor tool, "p" the piton, etc.).

Also, the delete key erases the whole text instead of one letter (however the Backspace key works well)

And I appreciate all the bug feedback. I kind of designed the delete key to delete objects. If you all would rather I change it so the delete key doesn't delete a text field, (you can also remove one by clearing it's contents) let me know. I'll fix the text editing/toolbar shortcut bug soon. (I thought I had that one fixed, but I guess not.)

Edit: On second thought I'll just fix the text boxes so the delete key works as it should. To clear/delete a text field, just delete it's contents.

Version 1.3.3 (8/12/09)
- Fixed bug with editing text fields
- Fixed bug with belay tool panel

Bump. Thanks Alma, this is sweet, very well done.

Nice work. Let me know if I missed it, but is there a way to delete things?

Hi Alma,
The latest version is really great. As rgold and Jordan Ramey mentioned, the only missing feature for the program to be perfect is a couple of different line patterns (dotted, dash-dot), for drawing hidden parts of the route, alternatives or variants. For the moment I draw independent lines with different sizes, but changing size alters the line-weight and the result is inconsistent with the rest of the drawing.
Thank you.

Well, I'd still like to have another "missing" feature, one that would be very helpful, which would be a way to fill text boxes with a color, typically the color of the route they refer to. I don't think this is a "bell or whistle," because sometimes it is really quite hard to read text against the background the environment provides.

Now it isn't hard to switch over to a photo editing program for this as I've done in the sample below cropped from a much bigger image:



(The shading of the text "lozenges" here is a conceit that I included merely because it was available; there is certainly no need for that.)

Of course the entire route diagram can be done in a photo editing program too, and the advantage of Alma's terrific work is the very considerable labor-saving devices for drawing in the route lines. It sure would be nice to get the whole job done in BetaCreator!

Version 1.4.0 (8/18/09)
- Added line style selector
- Added text background toggling

To toggle the background on a text box, just have it selected and hit Ctrl + /

Also, while the background is turned on, the text color is automatically adjusted to white or black based on what will contrast best with the selected background color.

Let me know if you find anything I inadvertently broke. :)

The background color for the text and the two additional line types are very useful. Thank you for your work.