Thump is a nice graphical map-making program for BattleTech MUXes (ie, 3030MUX at btech.dhs.org:3030). It was designed with ease-of-use as a primary goal, so you should be making beautiful maps in very little time.
I'm going to assume you're familiar with how maps work on the BTech MUXes. If not, try looking at the training pages at: the 3030MUX Home Page for more information.
Thump requires Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.4.1 or higher. If you are running Mac OS X, this is already installed on your computer. If you are running Windows, Linux, or some other operating system, you may need to download the proper files from Sun's web site.
Once Thump is installed, you can run it by double-clicking on the .jar file, or using a command line, navigating to the location where it is saved, and typing:
java -jar Thump-1.1.jar
Using Thump is very straightforward. Choose "New" from the File menu to create a new map. It will ask for what size you want to make it (only square maps are currently supported). The Paint Tool You can then choose the type of terrain you want to paint from the Terrain Palette, the elevation you want to paint at from the Elevation Palette, and the brush size you want from the Brush Palette. You can either click on a single hex to paint there, or drag the brush around to paint lots of hexes at once.
If you want to select hexes, you can use the Select Tool, indicated by a dashed rectangle on the Tool Palette. When a hex is selected, the border will be drawn in bold. To select multiple hexes, hold down the Shift key. The hexes you select do not have to be next to each other.
Once you have some hexes selected, you can Copy them by using Copy from the Edit menu, then paste them somewhere else by choosing Paste, then clicking where you want the hexes to appear.
The most powerful tool in Thump is the Selective Undo tool. You can either choose the tool from the Tool Palette or right-click on a hex (if you have a multi-button mouse) to use the tool. Using the selective undo tool will revert that hex to whatever terrain and elevation was there before the last time you painted on it. This is very useful if you accidentally draw over part of a building, wall, or road when laying down surrounding terrain (like a forest).
To zoom in and out, check out the Map menu.
There are lots of keyboard shortcuts in Thump. Here they are:
| % | Select rough terrain |
| . | Select plain terrain |
| " | Select heavy forest terrain |
| ' | Select light forest terrain |
| / | Select bridge terrain |
| # | Select road terrain |
| = | Select wall terrain |
| @ | Select building terrain |
| ~ | Select water terrain |
| ^ | Select mountain terrain |
| & | Select fire terrain |
| Cmd/Cntrl-1 to 5 | Select a brush size |
| 0 to 9 | Select an elevation |
Thump is (c) 2003-2004 Anthony Parker