Problems with areas

[Wookey]

The area control is better than it used to be, but is still a major pain in
the arse.

I have put very few areas in the Terikan survey because I know they cause
trouble. I've just tried putting some in and it was a rather frustrating
experience. I'll detail the problems I had so we can decide how to make
things more user-friendly.

First one question - what to do about areas which join across scraps?

Obviously we try to avoid areas which cross scrap joins but cannot always do
so. Other considerations like altitude colouring make it difficult, and in a
cave which has a lot of mud or water we could find that most scrap joins
have areas crossing them.

Currently if an area crosses a scrap join we just put an area either side -
one in each scrap. This needs a 'border -subtype invisible' line across the
passage at the join on _both_ scraps - these lines are directly on top of
each other. The problem here is that you can't click on the line which is
'below' so you can't complete one of the areas without first moving the top
line to the side temporarily. This is clearly not satisfactory. Is there a
better way? If not then selecting the new scrap should move the border line
to the 'top' for the purpose of clicking.

There is also a big problem with line id's disappearing. I find I sometimes
need to split a line (e.g. a very long wall, or a wall passing behind a feature
that I want to include in the area boundary (e.g. a mudbank) (if the wall
has the same id either side of the mudbank then the mudbank tends to get
ignored when setting the area outline). The problem is that if a line has
been used in another area anywhere, then splitting it loses the id and
breaks the area.

When this happens I get an error saying 'id does not exist at line nnnn',
but I can see no way to find the offending area in the map editor. I have to
find it in the text editor, then try to work out where it is in the map
editor, and having both open at once leads to the usual problem of which
changes end up getting saved last.

Ultimately, so far as the user is concerned id's that have been used
shouldn't  'disappear' unless the line is deleted. Obviously there is a
problem of knowing which id to use when a line is split but xtherion could
probably make a good guess...

One other comment - the 'show area' button is useful but it only seems to
show 'border' lines, not walls or contours, so it's difficult to know whether
an area is broken or not.

Bit of a whinge that, sorry - I've just had a rather frustrating hour.
Thought it was best to record the problems before I forget.

Wookey
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