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"There's an app for that."
-- Aragorn

Version 2: Rivendell is now live.

Instructions:
1) You still have to make a .jpg or .png version of your official maps. Sorry, I haven't gotten around to linking to other maps yet. So open up your LM maps, and "Export as..." .jpg. Resolution no longer matters: the app will adjust to whatever resolution you use.
2) Go to http://thawing-shore-2005.herokuapp.com/ and from the gear icon tab in the upper left click "Choose File" and open your map images.
3) Click on the Journey tab.
4) Click on some hexes (click-drag or shift-click for multiple selections.)
5) Profit

The Index and Info tabs are working, too, although they're primitive. Info gives you mouseover information. Index lets you find things on the map.

NOTES:
- I'm computing each terrain type ("Severe", "Daunting", etc.) separately, with at least 1 roll per terrain type encountered on the journey. In a future version I may break it up into discrete legs.
- Including "Impassable" terrain will currently give you bizarre results. Ignore.
- Eventually I will include more modifiers, like "Good Roads" and boats.
- I will also add in Corruption checks for Wild/Shadow/Dark lands.

You'd better like this because I spent way too much time tagging all those hexes.

*********

Announcing the latest life-changing product from Elfcrusher Enterprises: the Interactive Plot Hook Wiki! (Sorry about the title, the marketing director position here at Elfcrusher Enterprises is currently vacant.)

THIS IS JUST A PROTOTYPE (I literally just got the postgres database hooked up a couple hours ago.)

How it works:
1) Open up your official C7 map of Middle Earth, either Loremaster or Adventurer edition. Now save it out as a .jpeg or .png.
2) Go to http://thawing-shore-2005.herokuapp.com/
3) From the Map tab in the floating control panel, load that map image you just saved.
4) Click on "Browse"
5) Click on a hex cell in the Grey Mountains Narrows. The label "Reticent Dwarves" should appear in the "Browse" list. Click on that title, and a very brief description should appear (this is just a test item so I didn't type much).

6) Now click on the "Create" tab
7) Select some cells, give your Plot Hook a title, write a description, and hit Commit.
8) OOPS! You have to be logged in to do that. Try username 'TORGuest' and password 'sauronrules'.
9) Go back to Browse; your new Plot Hook should be visible.

Please test it out and give me feedback...including desired features...here or via PM.

Notes:
- I haven't done any pretty formatting to Browse and Create panels. It will get better.
- I'm going to add more meta-data options, such as Hazards vs. Encounters and even party role for Hazards (e.g. Lookout, Guide, etc.)
- Oh, and plot hooks will be attributed to their authors, and you'll also have the option to block authors if you don't like their plot hooks.
- I could also do a "reverse browse" where you search/sort plot hooks, and when you click on one the map gets highlighted in relevant locations.
- (That functionality could have other uses...)
- In theory this tool could be used to compute travel roles, but it would require tagging every grid cell. Huge typing job. If somebody wants to volunteer to do that, PM me. A giant .csv file would do it. (The hex "rows" zig-zag, but otherwise it's just an x,y grid.)

Ooh, very interesting. Might be interesting if you could do a reverse lookup, but clicking on Reticent Dwarfs, it would highlight the affected hexes?

Heilemann wrote:Ooh, very interesting. Might be interesting if you could do a reverse lookup, but clicking on Reticent Dwarfs, it would highlight the affected hexes?

Yes, that's what I meant by "Reverse Browse." Pretty easy programmatically, but some UI issues to resolve. (I.e., if you select one hex then click Reticent Dwarves and it highlights the whole pass, does the filter list include every other item in the highlighted area? So somehow need to distinguish the two modes without duplicating a bunch of the UI.)

And what do you do if you don't have the TOR map on your comp (I assume you mean from the Rulebook pdf) - I have a version of the map but it doesn't seem to be working with your instructions.

It is possible I am being stupid though

poosticks7 wrote:And what do you do if you don't have the TOR map on your comp (I assume you mean from the Rulebook pdf) - I have a version of the map but it doesn't seem to be working with your instructions.

It is possible I am being stupid though

The TOR maps from the PDF are not in JPG or PNG format which is required for this application.

You will need to convert it from a pdf to a jpg or png format.

IIRC Francesco put up a link to such a map although I can't remember if it's the LM map or the player map. You'll want the LM map version with the hexes on it.

Edit: Either map will do as the app puts hexes on as an overlay.

Poosticks: In whatever software you view your PDFs in, there's probably an option in the File menu to "Export..." into different formats. If you export as .jpg or .png you should be able to load it.

I didn't want to host the file myself for copyright reasons, but if there's a .jpg/.png version that somebody else is hosting I could use that.

And it doesn't have to be the C7 map...this would work with any map of Middle Earth. Scale is the only downside; but I could probably do some tricks so that it's only drawing hexes on relevant sections.

Ok, here's the latest plan:

I'll change the "Map" tab to be a list of various maps of Middle Earth from around the web. (I will manually calibrate them to fit the same coordinate system, assuming that's possible.)

If folks have favorites they'd like to see I can always add them in.

Heilemann wrote:https://static.squarespace.com/static/5 ... rmat=1500w

I'll take a crack at that. If nothing else it will help me refine the steps for calibrating different maps.

Does that map extend west and south, or is that the whole thing? I'd love to "future proof" this map by having other regions to support future expansions.

Want to use my map? I can do a zoomed in version for Rhovanion. The hex version is the same scale as the C7 maps.