Everyone here familiar with MapTool?

A member from the rptools.net forums pointed me here to this great online tool. I was just curious if everyone here was familiar with MapTool?

I discovered it a couple of years ago and started out slowly just using it on a large screen tv. But then I moved away and continued to use it to run remote games with friends and strangers from around the world.

I lurve me some Maptool. I just wish I knew more about how to code up big macro packages. There's a really solid and comprehensive Pathfinder macro set that makes play really smooth, and I'd love to see some other games that well supported. But I still dig Maptool.

You're missing some options on that poll:
No, I don't do virtual.
Yes, I'm currently trying to learn it

Personally, I'm in my second option.

I'm with Jacob. I answered "Yes, but I don't use it." but that due to time restraints and lack of knowledge. I'm trying to learn it and would love to use it in my games but just haven't had the time to figure it all out yet.

At the very basic (no macros) it's just an image viewer/ battle map. You drag images from files on to the work area. You can resize images as you want, put them on different layers and move them around. That's what I did when I first started gm'ing with it. I hooked it up to my friends large screen tv and we did all the game mechanics on the table top.

That's the easy way to ease in to using it. But then you learn how to write macros and use them to roll dice for you. There are a couple of "drop-in's" that add functionality and the people who wrote them are happy to explain how to use.

The big confusing secret that takes programmers and non-programmers to wrap their head around is the "lib token". That's just any token that has a name starting with "lib:". So, "lib:token" is lib token, "lib:jellow shots" is a lib token. On these lib tokens you add your macros. It's just a button with a name that can be referenced from anywhere. So, you can call it from the chat screen or you can create another button that calls the other button, that's it. Clicking a macro button executes the code inside (the big text area when editing the button).

As an example, I create a token (drag image to game board) and name it "lib:dice roller". On "lib:dice roller" I create a macro (button) and call it "d20" (use the "Select" window in interface). Inside that button I put my script "[r: 1d20]" (all macro statements begin and end with []'s. "r:" is short for "show results" and 1d20 tells the parser to roll 1 20-sided die and put the result in it's place.) I now have created a lib token with a macro I can call to do any number of calculations, get input from user and output formatted data.

I can now add a player token to the map (drag/drop image). I then "call" another macro from that token by creating a macro button on that token. I'll name the token "player1" and the button "roll". Inside the "roll" button I put [macro("d20@lib:dice roller"): ""]. Now, as a player, I can select my token and access that button when I click it, it will read the code which calls the lib token "lib:dice roller", looks for a macro named "d20" and executes the code inside which rolls 1d20 for me.

If you can understand that bit of logic, then that's half the battle. Being a programmer is helpful in scripting your code (for good practices and knowing what to expect) but there are a lot of non-programmers who do this. There's also a lot of support from the members to help you along, doing some or all the work for you.