SBuilderX - what can be fixed?

[Holger 0]

When drawing a polygon, the default color is an opaque yellow. The opacity prevents seeing the underlying map, making it somewhat difficult to draw.

Hi Luis,that's a good idea for an request. The way I get around this right now is by drawing the poly as a line and then just convert that line into a poly once I'm done. Cheers, Holger

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Thanks, Holger, a good work-around. The "Convert to Poly" is also very interesting; I use it to change roads into polygons to avoid them flattening the mesh (for any that might do that.) Unfortunately in FS polygon widths are strictly horizontal measurements and if the road polygon is on a hillside it is stretched hideously.Best regards.Luis

[Guest luissa]

... While we can set the color and opacity of the default polygon attribute in the ini file, the initial polygon has no attribute when being drawn and is always completely opaque...Luis

Hi Luis,The initial polygon uses the parameter DefaultPolyColor. Therefore an INI file as below should solve the problem. Regarding the system memory referred to in the other post, I can generate an EXE version for 64 bit CPU. May be that would allow "64-bit users" to deal with large images. Version 310 was compiled with "Target CPU = ANY" and I will change that to x86 (or 32 bit) to avoid 64-bit Vista problems or will have 2 versions if that proves to be useful for 64 bit Vista users.Regards, Luis[Polys]DefaultPolyAltitude= 0PolyFILL=TrueDefaultPolyColor=80FFFF00 <<< format is ARGB and A=80 is 50% opaque.PolyColorBorder=FF000000

[Misha_K 0]

Hi Luis,The initial polygon uses the parameter DefaultPolyColor. Therefore an INI file as below should solve the problem. Regarding the system memory referred to in the other post, I can generate an EXE version for 64 bit CPU. May be that would allow "64-bit users" to deal with large images. Version 310 was compiled with "Target CPU = ANY" and I will change that to x86 (or 32 bit) to avoid 64-bit Vista problems or will have 2 versions if that proves to be useful for 64 bit Vista users.Regards, Luis[Polys]DefaultPolyAltitude= 0PolyFILL=TrueDefaultPolyColor=80FFFF00 <<< format is ARGB and A=80 is 50% opaque.PolyColorBorder=FF000000

Can this fix be used in 2.06 as well?

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Thank you very much, Luis. I am usually a very curious person and like trying different things, but this slipped by me. I assumed that entry was for default polygon attributes.Best regards.Luis

[ahaka 0]

Hello Luis,Thanks a lot for continuing work with SbuilderX! It is my favourite scenery design tool, and I'm glad to hear that there will be the automatic tile downloading function for different zoom levels.Is there already some public beta available of the new version? I would love to try that out.

[Guest luissa]

Hello Luis,Is there already some public beta available of the new version? I would love to try that out.

Hello,There is a group of SBuilderX users already testing some improvements but I antecipate some more weeks before the release of a public version. If your interest is just to "make" scenery, please wait a couple of weeks. On the other hand, if you do not mind to work with a version that may have bugs and have time to "test" SBuilderX, please write me and I will be glad to add you to the testing group. Regards,Luis

[lsteere 0]

I recently started using SbuilderX to customize the land class for upstate New York since the default and all the after market land classes I've tried don't do a good job for my area. SBX is a great tool! Thank you.A couple changes that would be helpful:1) Disable zoom in/out while the mouse wheel is pressed. I use a trackball and It's very hard to scroll the image without accidentally zooming at the same time.2) Scroll image using the arrow keys.3) Ability to insert additional points into an exising vector.4) Ability to "palletize" the most used land classes for faster selection. I generally use only 6 or 7 land classes in a given area and it would be nice if I could create a "pallet" (like a painters pallet) with just the few land classes I use most often so I don't have to scroll through the whole list everytime I select a different land class.

[Guest luissa]

Hello,Thank for your suggestions. If you want to participate in the testing please write me an email.In Line or Poly modes, press and hold the key I while clicking where you want a point to be inserted. There is another way to pan. You press P and hold it while you pan the screen with the left mouse.Kind Regards,Luis

[lsteere 0]

In Line or Poly modes, press and hold the key I while clicking where you want a point to be inserted. There is another way to pan. You press P and hold it while you pan the screen with the left mouse.

I only had a few minutes this morning to try the above. Inserting a point using the 'I' key works great and is much appreciated. Using the 'P' key and left mouse button worked (and is also appreciated) but may have a small bug. I fired up SBX twice and both times the 'P' function seemed to not work at first. After poking around in the program for a bit, it then started to work and seemed to work well until I restarted the program.Is there any documentation anywhere of the available hot keys in SBX? The above two are very handy but you wouldn't know they existed unless you were told. I'm sure there are probably more that I'm unaware of.A couple other changes that would be nice:* Remember the transparency settings when changing the polygon type. If I change the land class type assigned to a polygon, the polygon always reverts to fully opaque and forgets the transparency setting I had previously assigned to it. * This suggestion is probably out of the scope of a simple tweak, but I'll just throw it out there and see what happens. There are times I wish I could temporarily make all land class tiles ~80% transparent so I can see the satelite image below the tiles. Maybe toggle tile transparency on and off with a hotkey? Just a thought...Again, thanks for your program. It's obvious you've put a lot of work into it.Regards,Larry

[Guest byoungblood]

Another suggestion...When viewing the "background" using a map from Google, Yahoo, MS, etc., I can only see a rectangle of the image that covers maybe 70% of my screen on a 1900x1200 display. Would it be possible to make the image fit the screen size? This would allow me to zoom in an extra level for most of the airports I design scenery for, thus giving me more precise placement of my polygons. Also, an auto-save feature would be nice. I've had the application crash on me a few times, and I end up losing the last 5-10 minutes worth of work as a result. It is rather frustrating as you may imagine! Thanks for working on updating this wonderful application!

[Guest luissa]

Hi Larry,You are right about the lack of documentation. May be you could get the Help file for SBuilder205. It is old but it was complete for that version. Things like pressing B and holding while clicking to Break lines are documented and have not changed. Another thing is to open the INI file. For example there is an AutoSaveTimer. The transparency for landclasses will be considered. The background is an image of 7 x 5 = 35 tiles. For your display I would need 9 x 7 = 63 tiles. This fixed 7 x 5 is used in, for example, make a photoscenery from the background after right clicking the background. If I make the "7 x 5 size" dependent on the window display I will have to change a number of things due to wrong programming habits!Do you want to join the testing group?Regards,Luis

[lsteere 0]

Sure, I'll help if I can. Not sure how useful I will be since so far I've only worked with a few features the program offers - placing land class tiles, and in certain spots creating vectors and assigning land class values to the vectors. I'll drop you an email.

Hi Larry,Do you want to join the testing group?