Abiathar v2.0 has been released to the community on the forums and in the auto-updater! The following is my release post on PCKF describing the update:
First, there's an entirely new way of starting a project! It's called the New Project Wizard, and it is intended to replace the Dependency Collector. (You can bring the DC back in the config file, ShowAdvancedMenuOptions/LegacyDepsCollector.) As I said, it's a wizard, so it steps you through every part of creating a project and offers a lot more features than the old DC.
The features introduced by the New Project Wizard are amazing. Abiathar now supports Bio Menace: choose to input settings manually, select "TED5 MapTemp/MapHead" for the level format, open the GFXINFOE file that comes with Bio Menace, and run the wizard as usual. You should also be able to open other TED5-created games with that or the other TED5 option (MapTemp/MapTHead).
The NPW also permits you to use tile sheet bitmaps as your graphics source. It supports ModKeen and KeenGraph bitmaps (plus KG grouting), automatically detecting what type it was given. You can also take advantage of Infoplane Override to show a different set of tiles in the infoplane layer than in the foreground layer for the same IDs.
Then, even after you're done with the NPW, you can always come back to it to modify your project setup later, using "Project Settings" under Edit. Also, if you get inexplicable errors in the NPW, you can use its new error reporter to send me a report of the issue so I can help tell you what's wrong.
You know the level maps on KeenWiki? You no longer need a separate tool to make them - just use Abiathar's new "Export Image" option under View. The config file lets you do things like clip the outer 2-tile border, use a custom zoom level, or automatically choose a filename based on level properties instead of specifying one every time.
MoffD and wiivn were very kind and made some icons for Abiathar! There are three of them; they appear in various places.
The Row and Column Adjusters have been extended with the ability to update links only if the foreground tile property makes it appropriate. This is not the default, though, because it takes a little longer to complete and doesn't work if the foreground tile changes in-game (such as on the Keen 5 world map). If you don't want to update links for some reason, there's also an option for that. Press Space while using those tools to choose your link update policy.
The Level Inspector has been made more efficient, and given better detection routines (as has the inspection mode of the Tile Property Modifier). It also has a better report GUI, which allows you to scroll through the list, sort it, or save the list to disk.
Performance has been improved, especially while using the Tile Tweaker. Some miscellaneous improvements all over the place speed up other tasks as well.
The Tile Instance Locator (find tool) now allows placing tiles, and updates when you pick a tile from the tile palette.
Translucent colors are now rendered as the normal color with 50% opacity, as opposed to not showing up at all. This works best when loading from EGA resources.
The Reload Graphics command now uses Shift+Enter as a hotkey, and works a lot better. The crashing has been eliminated and the level no longer vanishes while the reload is in progress. (It does still show the "Abiathar" splash screen while reloading on Linux, though, due to a missing API method.) Speaking of keybind changes, the undo command is now simply Z, as opposed to Ctrl+Z. Tile Instance Locator and Tile Instance Remapper have been given shortcuts.
Code cleanliness has been improved, increasing stability and making it easier for me to maintain it and add more features!
A rare level corruption bug involving Dreams levels with embedded tileinfo has been fixed.
Using Assimilate Infoplane no longer disables the infoplane-only palette, and the strangeness with right-clicking in the combined tileset has been removed.
Finally, the plane controls have changed. As you will see quite clearly, the plane state labels give a more obvious visual indication of how active they are. The business with function keys to set plane state is no longer default; the TED5 style is in. You can still use the menu options or the labels to change the state, or switch to the old behavior in the config file. Tilesets can be called with the spacebar and switched between with 1 through 3 while in palette mode, and remember their Y offset. If you don't want to press Space to access them, use Simultaneous Tileset mode or use the appropriate key in the 7-9 range.
Happy modding,
Fleexy
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