I've made tons o' mapeditors myself (the quickest one in 90 minutes, including load/save/macro-edit etc.), so over the years I got quite some experience on the matter :)
So, my tips are purely a list of what my own mapeditors would look like.
- map must always be dynamic regarding width&height, should be able to expand/shrink at all 4 sides (north, west, south, east)
- the format of a tile is prolly either a byte for small games, or a short for bigger games. I always take a short as standard. In the ideal case this is dynamic however.
Tiles however must really have any size, just 32x32 won't do.. it makes the project dependent on the map-editor, while this should be the other way around.
- stamps, I call them macros, there should idealistically be on screen a list/menu with macros visable, rather than just one. Also, rather than a seperate editor you could think about grabbing a macro from the actual mapeditor. This way your 'macro-editor' always has the same features as the map-editor.
- the mapviewport should be customizable, if your game has 24x16 tiles on-screen, then it's a bit messy if your viewport allows 32x32 orso. The extra tiles on screen distract the design.. you tend to think that you are drawing a map for a 32x32 game.
- copy/paste = important :P
- additionally you could give each tile a lock-flag, to protect them from wrong paste/draw-actions.
'nuf for now .. maybe more l8r :P
Bottomline is that the mapeditor should be as dynamic as possible.
So, my tips are purely a list of what my own mapeditors would look like.
- map must always be dynamic regarding width&height, should be able to expand/shrink at all 4 sides (north, west, south, east)
- the format of a tile is prolly either a byte for small games, or a short for bigger games. I always take a short as standard. In the ideal case this is dynamic however.
Tiles however must really have any size, just 32x32 won't do.. it makes the project dependent on the map-editor, while this should be the other way around.
- stamps, I call them macros, there should idealistically be on screen a list/menu with macros visable, rather than just one. Also, rather than a seperate editor you could think about grabbing a macro from the actual mapeditor. This way your 'macro-editor' always has the same features as the map-editor.
- the mapviewport should be customizable, if your game has 24x16 tiles on-screen, then it's a bit messy if your viewport allows 32x32 orso. The extra tiles on screen distract the design.. you tend to think that you are drawing a map for a 32x32 game.
- copy/paste = important :P
- additionally you could give each tile a lock-flag, to protect them from wrong paste/draw-actions.
'nuf for now .. maybe more l8r :P
Bottomline is that the mapeditor should be as dynamic as possible.