R4, Already

A new version of REXPaint has been released every day since its initial launch, though nothing really worth announcing until now since all known issues are finally fixed and there have been a few improvements like better image border representation and a layer merge command (though how many of you are actually using layers at this point...). We're now at R4.

Anyone who's already downloaded will want to upgrade to the latest version to avoid encountering any of the rare bugs that have now been squashed.

There will be more releases and new features in the future when I start using REXPaint on a greater scale with increasingly complex goals. In the meantime I'll be taking feature requests, but not just for the sake of adding something--you must intend to actually take advantage of them. Feel free to leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do for you.

Yesterday I completed some more of my own test art with REXPaint (which is how I've been discovering areas for improvement) and added it to the gallery. There you'll also find the first REXPaint art aside from my own, a roguelike mockup by qbicfoot.

For any game devs out there who are considering/planning to use ASCII art in their console game/roguelike, I've added details of the .xp file format specification to the manual so you can take advantage of the excellent compression they provide (better than PNGs!) and read images drawn by REXPaint directly into your game. If you'd like to reference or use code that does just that, check out BaconSoap's RexReader C# library which he's generously open sourced on GitHub.