OpenOrienteering Mapper 0.4

[puzzlepaint]

Hi UK orienteers,

probably many have noticed it already: OpenOrienteering Mapper is a free alternative to OCAD. Today version 0.4 of the software was released, which brings many new features and improvements.

Among them are for example the possibility to follow existing objects while drawing, a ring menu for quick access to the most common drawing tools and the ability to load templates which are georeferenced with world files. Furthermore it is possible to setup a map grid, the application loads the Swiss Scool symbol set correctly and supports a new XML based map file format which makes it easier for other programs to access the files.

We recommend the update for all users of the 0.3.x versions, and in case you're a mapmaker and haven't tried it yet I'd of course recommend to do that
The complete list of improvements and the download link is in the official announcement:
http://oorienteering.sourceforge.net/?p=126

Best regards,
Thomas Schöps

[Angry Haggis]

This looks great!

Previous releases have advised that use for "production" orienteering maps is not advised, as the file format was unstable. Is this still the case?

[puzzlepaint]

The file format still changes from time to time, however we make sure that it's possible to load old files in later versions of the software. The main reasons for the warning were first the theoretical possibility of all kinds of software bugs which might in the worst case corrupt map files, and second the lack of some features, which might be an even bigger problem if someone discovers late that a feature important to him or her is missing.

The feature set becomes bigger with every release, but the danger of bugs is still high as the release is still new. But if you do regular, frequent backups of the map file, I would personally not advise against using the program for "real" maps anymore.