README for lotrmap version 0.9

lotrmap is Copyright (C) 1998-1999, 2001 by Iwan Mouwen 

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version. See the file COPYING for more details.



-Description-

This is lotrmap (Lord of the Rings Map), an atlas of Middle-Earth. The idea of
lotrmap is actually quite simple: Show an image of a map and provide the user
with a list of places on that map. When you select a place the map will display
it. What is nice is that you can have different lists with places, which is
handy because the names in Middle-Earth have been translated in many languages.
With the help of a mapeditor (which is not yet included) you can easily edit
these names or create a new list. Several transtations are provided.


-Quick start- 

* Compile lotrmap. Read the instructions in INSTALL. "make install" isn't
very useful at the moment so you can skip that.  

* Get an appropriate imagefile. The included datafiles currently only work
properly with middleearth2_c.jpg.  You can download it from
http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/maps/middleearth2_c.jpg. Save it to the
directory that contains the compiled executable.

* cd /lotrmap/lotrmap
* ./lotrmap
* Select File - maps - Middle-Earth
* Select File - translations - 
* Enjoy.


-History-

Originally I wrote lotrmap in Delphi. The first version, for windows, came out
in 1998. Development was pretty constant back then. But, the last version
(0.83) was released in 1999 because in december of that year I started to use
Linux as my daily OS. Of course I didn't want to go back to windows to develop
my applications and I didn't know C/C++ so development grinded to a halt.

With the release of Kylix open-edition, my desire to work on lotrmap came back
and I decided to rewrite it from scratch. However, I found that Kylix wasn't
the right tool for me, so I had to think of another solution. I decided that
enough is enough and I should learn C++ and code lotrmap in that language.  It
took only slightly longer than a week.

So, this is actually my first _real_ C++ application (apart from usual tutorial
exercises), but please don't hesitate to flame me when I have made stupid
mistakes ;-)