History of Gridarta
This document describes the history of the Gridarta project (newest to oldest).
2026
In 2026, the documentation and the website were brought up to date with the current build: README, INSTALL and the FAQ describe the Gradle 5.3 build with JDK 8 to 11 and the Docker build environment, and the website sources describe git instead of Subversion. A new script, build-website, builds the website with Saxon-HE and uploads it, and gridarta.sourceforge.net was published again for the first time since the old Ant build was removed.
The Docker build image was moved to archive.debian.org after Debian 11 (bullseye) reached its end of life, and the Windows installer now uninstalls a previous version silently. For Crossfire, the "carrying" attribute is allowed in all object types, with a new Useless "carrying" field map validator, and the "no_steal" attribute was added to flesh and monster types.
2025
In 2025, the Crossfire editor learned to extract smoothface information from .face files, I/O errors during --collectarches are reported, running plugins from the user interface works again, and map files may contain lines with empty values. The Gradle build files were updated so that they also work with Gradle 8.
2024
In 2024, the Crossfire editor gained a Duplicate Monster map validator and a move type for walls, and the Java runtime bundled with the Windows installer was upgraded.
2023
In 2023, a memory leak when closing map views was fixed, the Crossfire editor gained support for the "insert below" (is_floor) attribute, and the Replace dialog retains elevation attributes.
2022
In 2022, map validation was extended with an Invalid Map Enter Location validator and an improved Invalid Exit validator. Scripts can be edited with an external editor, a --use-mapdir command line option was added, the Crossfire editor supports the "reset_group" map attribute, and maps with objects outside the map boundaries no longer crash the editor.
2021
In 2021, Nicolas Weeger added a Gradle task that builds a Windows installer for the Crossfire editor, with a bundled Java runtime. The Crossfire editor gained Tools|Export Map As Image..., a "Suspicious msg value" map validator, and support for Player Changer objects and the "blocks_prayer" and "damned" attributes. Existing map views are reused as much as possible, and a memory leak when closing map views was fixed.
2020
In 2020, the build moved to Gradle 5.3 and Java 8, maps and archetypes consistently use ISO-8859-1, and a script for updating the built-in Crossfire archetypes was added.
2019
In 2019, the build was upgraded to Gradle 5.1.1, Java 8 became the minimum Java version, and Checkstyle was updated to version 8.17.
2015
In 2015, the build was upgraded to Gradle 2.3, and the Gradle distribution was embedded in the project so that building needs no downloads.
2014
In 2014, the third party libraries were moved into a local Maven repository, the Gradle Wrapper was added, and support for building with Ant was removed: since then Gradle is required to build Gridarta from sources. At the end of 2014, development moved from Subversion to git.
2013
In 2013, the Java sources were moved into a common source directory, Gridarta 0.10 was released, and Gradle build files were added next to the Ant build.
2011
In 2011, Gridarta 0.9 was released.
2010
In 2010, Gridarta 0.8, the first release, was published together with Debian packages for the three editors.
2009
In 2009, Andreas Kirschbaum added AtrinikEditor, the editor for Atrinik, to Gridarta, and the code that AtrinikEditor and DaimoninEditor share was moved into the common Gridarta code base.
2007 and 2008
In 2007 and 2008, the busiest years of the project, more and more code of CrossfireEditor and DaimoninEditor was merged into the common code base, and both editors gained BeanShell based plugins.
2006
In 2006, Christian Hujer, Daniel Viegas (Daimonin) and Andreas Kirschbaum (CrossFire) decided that it would be a good idea to reunite the development effort of these two editors. They created "Gridarta" as a project for merging the two editors CFJavaEditor and DaimoninEditor into a single one.
The name "Gridarta" was chosen as a combination of the words "grid" and "art". It's an imitation of the original "Gridder" name. It's reminiscence of "Siddharta" is a nice coincidence.
2005
In 2005, Christian Hujer started lead maintenance of DaimoninEditor, adding numerous features.
2002
Since 2002, CFJavaEditor and DaimoninEditor were projects developed independently of each other.
In 2002, Michael Toennies created Daimonin as an independent branch of CrossFire out of ISO-CrossFire, the version of CrossFire with isometric graphics. For Daimonin, CFJavaEditor became DaimoninEditor.
2001
In 2001, Andreas Vogl started maintaining CFJavaEditor, adding a lot of features.
2000
In 2000, Pasi Keränen published Gridder, a simple level editor for 2D games. Based on Gridder, Michael Toennies created CFJavaEditor, a map editor for the popular MMORPG CrossFire, which soon replaced the original crossedit application for editing maps for CrossFire.