elvanos

ANNOUNCEMENT - Fantasia Archive early builds

As the program slowly grows in complexity and features, so do the bugs start to amount which leads to more and more hotfixes being pushed out which results into annoyance and mass-pinging on Discord.

To solve this issue I decided to start early builds for the Patrons only since they seem most invested into what is going on the with app.

For those who aren't patrons: Don't panic, nothing bad is happening! This choice does not mean the app updates won't be available to you anymore; they will simply come  a few day later in (hopefully) less-buggy and more polished state.

For those among you who are Patron and are reading this: For you this means access to shiny new features before anyone else, but also the danger of possible bugs, data loss, etc. 

Therefore if you do take a part of this feature, always remember to back up your project before jumping into the early-access build!

RELEASE - Fantasia Archive 0.1.2

The app got quite a few updates mostly aimed at UI, useability, and better user experience. These changes are a set of progressive updates that will be happening over the coming months in order to arrive at the first roadmap node - the full Project management.

As usual, the download link can be found on Discord on this invite link: https://discord.gg/JQDBvsN9Te

I apologize for the previous announcement about releasing the app on Cartography Assets in the current version - the app will be released once it reaches the 0.2.0 version; the one containing the promised project management.

This is mostly done in order to minimize user inconvenience as some parts of the app are currently rather unintuitive to control and use. Right now, this is not an issue with the relatively small user base, but as the numbers grow, I do not wish to get swamped with questions of how even use the software that could have been used for adding new features instead.

If you wish to preview some of the features before downloading, there are a couple of screenshots from the app waiting for your viewing pleasure at the bottom of this post!

CHANGELOG:

0.1.2

Bugfixes

- Fixed a safeguard for opening multiple overlapping dialogs unintentionally

New features

- Reworked hierarchical left tree

- Added "Add under parent" button to the hierarchical tree, document page view, and quick search existing documents

- Added mouse button support and improved keyboard support to the hierarchical tree

- Reworked the top bar of the app to include tabs, window control elements, and basic menus of the app

- Added a check upon closing the app to avoid unintentional loss of data due to unsaved documents

QoL adjustments

- Added middle-click closing for the tabs

- Added automatical opening of the project page after opening an existing project from a folder

- Reversed default custom sorting for the "Order" field in the left side tree

- Modified auto-closing behavior of hierarchical left tree nodes when moving/adding/removing documents

- Added a delay for tooltip popups on fields of documents

- Remove persistence from the document with an active edits confirmation dialog

- Unified graphical interface coloring of Quick-add and Quick-search dialogs to work consistently with the coloring of individual documents/document types same as the left hierarchical tree

Cartography Assets mass asset update

As you might or might now not know, I have a rather extensive collection of custom assets for Wonderdraft (or any other software that can handle PNG files) on the wonderful website CartographyAssets.

However, since the movement of the CA to the new hosting, my assets, and even the asset manager Mythkeeper have been rather neglected - often having nonsensical descriptions, lacking preview images, and suffering from various other issues like missing or wrongly filled in licenses.

As of today, all of that has been amended! All of the assets have been fixed, previews added, licenses corrected and even Mythkeeper's page has been "prettified" to at least somewhat recapture the original looks.

Below, you will find links to my whole collection - Mythkeeper, my assets, and even my beloved Ralia theme for wonderdraft; happy mapping and see you soon!

LINK: Elvanos' CA collection

RELEASE - Fantasia Archive 0.1.1

After a fairly long break, a new release for FA is coming out!

You can look forward to a whole truckload of new, smaller features in store for you coupled with numerous QoL changes and a few bug-fixes.

As usual, the download link can be found on Discord on this invite link: https://discord.gg/JQDBvsN9Te

Please note that this will likely be the last or pre-last release via Discord. Any following after this or the next will be hosted on the Cartography Assets website once the software is in a state where I feel comfortable posting it on a public website like that.

If you wish to preview some of the features before downloading, there are a couple of screenshots from the app waiting for your viewing pleasure at the bottom of this post! 

CHANGELOG: 

0.1.1

Bugfixes

- Fixed a bunch of typos

- Fixed names not changing with single/multi relationships if one gets name updated showing on the others properly

- Fixed forced lower-case for notes in lists and relationship fields

- Fixed a bug that prevented documents with the same names properly working in the hierarchical tree

New features

- Added keyboard shortcut support

- Added quick-add new document pop-up

- Added quick-search existing document pop-up

- Added keybinds cheatsheet pop-up

- Added control buttons for keybinds cheatsheet, quick search, and quick add

- Added document coloring support for the document hierarchical tree and tabs on the top

- Added category/document switch for handling custom subcategories

- Added tooltip support for all input fields

- Added "Color picker" type field

- Added "Switch" type field

QoL adjustments

- Alphabetically sorted most predefined lists (eg: types of political groups) with "Other/Unique" fields at the bottom. The fields that are ordered logically (eg: severity of racial weakness/strength) remain ordered via logical sorting and not by alphabet

- Added explanation via tooltip to "Belongs under", "Order" and "Color" fields

- Adjusted tooltip font-size to be actually readable

- Added program FAVICON support

- Moved the document edit/save/delete buttons to the top

- Adjusted text selection to look better with the aesthetics of the app

- Adjusted scrollbars to look better with the aesthetics of the app

- Added auto-focus on name field when opening edit mode of a document

- Added auto-focus AND auto-select of all text of the name field when creating a new document

- Renamed "Lore notes" to "Other/Notes" for more intuitive usage

- Renamed "Other names" to "Other names & Epithets" across all document types

- Renamed "Power level" to "Combat rating" in "Characters" document type

- Renamed "Level of sentience" to "Level of sapience" in "Species/Races" document type

- Added "Oldest known" and "Average adulthood" fields to "Species/Races" document type

- Added "Continent" and "Landmass" to prefilled options to "Location type" field in "Locations" document type

- Added "Ethnicity" field in "Characters" document type

- Added "Titles" field in "Characters" document type

Fantasia Archive new QoL additions for 0.1.1 release

A new minor release of FA is coming at either end of this week or sometime during next week.

You can towards the following:

• Keyboard shortcut support for quicker and more intuitive control of the app
• The document control buttons (Save/Edit/Delete) moved to the top of the screen
• A brand new Quick Add and Quick Open dialogs that allow you to quickly add a brand new document of any type or open an existing open - both triggered by keyboard shortcuts from anywhere within the app! (both found on screenshots)

Asset preview - Ralia Mountains

Before the long hiatus I mentioned in the previous post, I had a set of new mountains in works - HD, less cartoony, and more flashy than my previous creations.

Currently, I have 3 of them to show to you, but more will be coming soon with a whole set of somewhere between 6 to 12 eventually releasing - as usual, free of charge and available for whatever evil deed you will require them for!

Current Fantasia Archive roadmap - 04/07/2021

DISCLAIMER: There will be no timetable or time-map for now as this is a free hobby project as as such can only have so much of my time allocated. I can't guarantee WHEN the features will arrive, but I can at least offer a roadmap in which order the features will be coming

Please that some of the entries have the same numbers on them - these will be decided via a community poll at some later point as they do not need to finished in the same order as those set in stone.

Also please note that that the roadmap contains ONLY major updates. There will be occasional bug fix/QoL/small feature updates among the big ones.

Currently, the software has the following roadmap:

1. Project management

1.1 - Non-fancy JPG/MD exports (maybe PDF)

1.2 - Simple @ mentions in text editor fields

2. Image/Media support

3. Map support

4. Advanced @ mentions in the text editor fields

5. Export into fancy PDF/MD

6. Templates/custom field/page management

7-10. GM/Player mode

7-10. Timeline/calendar of some sort

7-10. Family-tree/relationships graphical generator

7-10. Mutli-world support

Details:

Project management

Project management implies an overhaul of how different projects are being handles. This will allow for a much smoother and more intuitive user experience much more similar to some more standardized desktop software.

This is also a necessary step in order to support future image and map integration features.

Image/Media support

This one is fairly self-explanatory - an ability to add featured images and an unlimited gallery of images.

As a bonus, this update will also add an option to use images instead of the icons for both the fields and the page itself - allowing for more unique and diversified icons in both tabs and the hierarchical tree in the left column of the app.

Map support

Not much to explain here - image with pins that contain a page of their own and link to either sub-maps or individual documents elsewhere in the app (think WA/Legend Keeper functionality to some degree).

Advanced @ mentions in the text editor fields

Advanced support for @ mention linking inside text editors. I have a few features planned for this that are not currently available in any of the competing apps so you can expect something a little more than mere @ mentions.

Export into fancy PDF and other formats

Self-explanatory - a fancy export of one or multiple pages into a PDF/JPG format for easier handling when needing to print or showcase your work.

Templates/Custom field/Page management

Support for adding custom fields and pages to the projects along with editing the existing ones. This will allow basically unlimited dynamicity of the app when it comes to storing and displaying data but will require arguably the most work out of all mentioned features.

This will allow users to create custom templates for each of the predefined categories.

A template implies a set of prefilled information that can be auto-filled for any document (for example a Dark elf necromancer will have a race "Dark elf" and certain stats along with certain spells linked to him).

As a bonus, this feature will also allow for hiding and light modification of existing data-fields for the particular category while using this template: For example, if you are using FA to write a book, you will not be needing the stats so you will be able to hide such fields.

GM/Player mode

An addition that will allow GMs to set their projects to GM/Player mode upon exporting - This will allow for progressive discovery of the world being done by the player party while preserving the world with its all intricate connections.

Timeline/calendar of some sort

Some form of timeline/calendar view for your world-building needs to show a fancy and organized look of how your world has been developing over the centuries.
Or just a character's life and all the scary things that happened to them along the way. ,)

Family tree/relationships graphical generator

Graphical representation of a family tree or a relationship web between characters, political groups, or anything else - pretty self-explanatory.

Mutli-world support

Ability to add multiple world-categories at the very top of the hierarchical tree with each of them having a separate set of the main categories underneath it.

Fantasia Archive & Revival of my Patreon

To all my patrons, followers, and all others reading this; both old and new:


After a very long hiatus from the map-making and world-building community, I am finally returning after sorting out a lot of things in my personal life that previously prevented me from focusing more on my passions - hopefully, my stay will be longer-lived than the previous one that was somewhat abruptly interrupted about a year ago.

With the semi-official statement out of the way, let's get into the more "meaty" stuff of this announcement:

Along with resuming my work on a remastered version of my Wonderdraft assets I have been working on a brand new project called the Fantasia Archive - a free and fully offline world-building software not dissimilar to the community's favorites - Legend Keeper and the World Anvil.

The motivation behind this was some fundamental functionality lacking from either of these solutions and personal frustration stemming from it when trying to order my own world-building notes along with the fact that neither of those apps ever made me feel like I own my own data as they are only accessible through an app on someone else's server (similar reasoning as to why I personally prefer Wonderdraft to Inkarnate).

Fantasia Archive recently entered its very first open alpha release and while the project isn't online yet for the broad public, it can be downloaded via a temporary link on the discord server below and tested out before a more public version will be released through the CartographyAssets.com platform.

FA discord server invite link: https://discord.gg/JQDBvsN9Te

Before closing this post, I would also like to give a special shoutout to all the Patrons that kept supporting me through my long break - that you so much guys!

Ralia theme update 1.1 is out!

 A colorful, fantasy-styled theme for  Wonderdraft inspired by the art style of Inkarnate and similar. The  purpose of this theme is to capture a slightly "cartoony" atmosphere  found in a lot of fantasy art, movies, series, and games while trying to  keep at least semi-realistic color scheme.

The  theme itself comes in 3 different tints (dark, normal and light) and  with custom fonts to play nicely along - this obviously means that you  will have a wide selection of premade custom Labels using the said fonts  as well.

If  you wish to use the most of this theme, I suggest trying to pair it up  with at least some of my assets as the theme was specifically designed  to work hand in hand with them.

Download here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ooXl_Ujlj-Ou_rAU5lrAmtl8prZTmY-U