HeroScribe lets you produce high quality HeroQuest maps (with
European or US layout). It reads an XML description of the quest
and transforms it into an EPS
or a PNG
file.
If ghostscript
is installed, HeroScribe can use it to produce
PDF files.
EPS files can be opened by almost any CG application (I recommend ghostscript: a free as in freedom application) or directly sent to a postscript printer.
HeroScribe is free as in freedom. You are welcome to use it under the terms of the GPL 2. You should read the GPL 2 as it's the only actual binding document here; anyway, if you - just like us 8^) - hate legalese, we'll tell you in an informal way that you can do almost anything you want with this program and its source code, but the code (wheter modified or not) can be redistributed only under the GPL, mentioning us as the original coders.
HeroScribe uses icons from the HeroQuest
game system: those icons are copyright of Milton Bradley Co. .
HeroQuest is discontinued by MB: this program was written with the intent
of helping the HeroQuest community creating new quests and, by doing so,
extending the life of the game.
Start the program - this can be done in a number of ways:
You'll see some command buttons, a menu bar and a hints bar.
The Add object command is self-explanatory. You select an object and add it to the map 8^)
The Select/Remove object command is used to select the
objects on a board square and to remove, to rotate or to change the
zorder of those objects.
The zorder defines the "depth" of the objects. A low zorder object
is drawn before a high zorder one. So the former could be covered by
the latter, but not the other way around.
So if you want to
draw an orc near a door and you want to prevent the door from covering part
of the orc, you have to set the orc zorder to a value higher than the
door one.
From versione 1.0a2, HeroScribe sports a default zorder system designed to keep
the number of zorder changes low - meaning: you can safely ignore the existance
of zorder 8^).
The Dark/Bridge command is used to make the board squares
dark or white and to add bridges between boards (in multiple boards maps).
Left-clicking a board square makes it dark; right-clicking (or
ctrl-clicking) a square clears it.
To put a bridge on an infra-board square (a square between two
boards), left-click that square. To remove a bridge, right-click (or
ctrl-click) it.
The File menu does everything you expect it to. Particularly:
EPS files can be read by almost any CG application (try GNU Ghostscript, if you're lost).
The Region menu sets the board region (european or american).
Before version 1.0, HeroScribe was a python program; there were
many differences, the most important being the lack of a GUI.
We have not received any feedback from users of the python version:
we therefore concluded that there are no such users and used all our time
on the java version stopping the development of the python one.
We can of course reconsider if a consistent number of python users will ask us so.
We'd really like to mention Dirk Rombauts for providing us most of the original icons' scans: thank you man.
Thanks to Luis "Wolf" Bermudez for drawing the Dwarf icon: a true piece of art!
And thanks to the GNU, python (used for many devel scripts), ghostscript, NSIS - and surely a whole lot more - crews for providing us the free (as in freedom) software needed and used in this project.
We'd be glad to hear from you; send us bug reports, so we can try to squash the bugs and make HeroScribe better. Suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome too.
Web Page: http://lightless.org/heroscribe
E-Mail: hqcadarn@yahoo.it