Strange Eons
A Custom Component Design Tool for Arkham Horror

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Contents

Introduction
Download
Getting Started
Known Issues
Guide for Translators
Frequently Asked Questions
Customization
Version History

Introduction

Strange Eons makes it easy to create new investigators, Ancient Ones, monsters, items, allies, and other custom content—even whole new "big box" expansions—for the Arkham Horror board game. Using its plug-in system, it can be extended to support custom content creation for other games.

Some Features

• Dedicated editor lets you concentrate on game design: it does the math, rule-checking, spell-checking, layout, and typesetting. Created cards closely mirror official components.
• Simple image importer automatically scales and rotates portraits to fit on cards and tokens. Just pick the image file. You can even grab an image right off of the Web by entering a URL.
• Design aids let you focus on being creative, and provide new ideas when you're stuck.
• Print characters directly from the program, export them as a .zip archive of .png or .jpg images, or organize them into a "deck" of related materials formatted for printing.

Download a Sample Pack of 8 Characters Created with Strange Eons
Download the Gilman Memorial Exhibit Deck

For a summary of new features in the current version, see the History page. For more details, see the Release Notes.

Download

Want to be notified of updates? Join the SE Update Mailing List.

What's the difference between Experimental and Stable releases? Experimental releases are recent updates that have not been tested as much as Stable releases, and which therefore might contain more serious bugs. In reality, serious bugs are rare and are usually confined to any new features added for that version.

Getting Started

Installing Java 6

Strange Eons is written in Java and should run on Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD, among others. To run it, you must have the Java 6 or newer runtime installed. You can install a Java JRE by pressing this button:

If the button does not work (for example, if you have disabled JavaScript in your browser), use one of the following links instead:

• Linux, Solaris, and Windows
• OS X: Apple JRE (download through Software Update) / Sun JRE (SoyLatte)  (see below)

Windows Users

Download and run the Windows installer package. In addition to installing the software, the installer can create Start menu shortcuts for you and associate .eon files with the editor. You must install a Java 6 runtime (see above) before the application will run.

Windows Vista: When using certain video cards, the menu items are shown as solid black when starting the program using the executable (.exe) launcher. This appears to be a video card issue. Try installing the latest drivers for your video card. If that does not help, you may wish to file a bug report with the card's manufacturer. The problem does not occur when the program is started using the JAR (.jar) file.

OS X Users

OS X 10.5.2: Apple has released an implementation of Java 6 for 64-bit, Intel-based Macs running OS X 10.5.2 or later. If you meet these criteria, install Java for OS X 10.5 Update 1 (or newer) through Software Update. Then download the OS X release above and unzip the file. Follow the instructions in the Read Me file to complete the installation.

OS X 10.4: Strange Eons works with the free SoyLatte port of Sun's Java environment. See the included Read Me file in the OS X download above for more information. Note that at the time of this writing, SoyLatte is in the early stages of development.

Other Platforms

For all other operating systems, download and unpack the .zip file and place the .jar file somewhere convenient on your computer. Usually, you can double-click the .jar file and it will run. You may wish to write a shell script to start the program with a useful maximum memory setting. A typical command would be "java -Xmx512m -jar strange-eons.jar", replacing the strange-eons.jar with the path to your .jar file.

Known Issues

For issues with the current status of a translation, check the Status Table on the translator's guide page.

Open

• OS X: Font selection issues due to a bug in Apple's Java implementation.
• Windows Vista: starting with the Windows .exe wrapper may cause menus to have a black background. Starting directly from the JAR file does not cause this problem. The most likely cause seems to be a graphics card driver issue, as it only appears with certain cards.

 an issue not listed here? You can let me know via the Feedback form. You might also check the FAQ page in case your issue is a common problem but not really a bug.

Recently Closed

• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 5] Project: tasks may not be removed from the view after deleting them with the delete action.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 5] Deck editor, Print setup dialog: when adding a custom paper type, if a type is deleted (so nothing is selected in the list) then the set of custom paper types is not updated.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 5] Regression: MarkupRenderer cannot make the height of any line in a paragraph shorter than the tallest line so far. (This bug was a side effect of the changes made to support PageShapes.)
•  [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 4] Deck editor: double-click on card list tab throws a CastClassException.
  [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 4] Regression: printing a case book produces blank pages.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] Partially Fixed: OS X: handles in deck editor can now be dragged (to resize text boxes, move line endpoints, etc.; however, the correct drag cursor only appears on the first page of a new deck (not one opened from a file).
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] OS X 10.6 application launch issues.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] Windows installer: option to create a copy of SE resources creates an empty folder instead (attempt to run resource tool fails due to change in thread preconditions in ResourceKit.initialize()).
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] When experimental key not set, remove experimental menu items instead of hiding since visibility ignored on OS X.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] File|Print for game components updates list when custom paper sizes are created/deleted.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2]  Code Editor: obeys platform-specific popup trigger (right button up on OS X).
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] closable tab pane: can only drag tabs by dragging the edges of the tab, not the label; the custom tab component now translates and forwards mouse events to the enclosing tabbed pane.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] double-clicking on background colour swatch on text box style dialog throws NPE instead of opening colour dialog
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2] various issues related to "close all tabs"/"close all tabs but" commands in deck editor.
• [Fixed in 2.1 alpha 2]  Windows: proxy splash window no longer appears in task bar.

See the rest of this list in the Version History. Or, for more details, see the Release Notes.

Game and User Interface Translations

Strange Eons can use two different languages at the same time: the game language and the user interface language. The game language determines the language used on the cards and characters created by the program. The user interface language is the language that the windows, menus, buttons, and other controls are presented in. To choose a game or user interface language other than the default, open the Settings dialog (Edit | Settings..., or Strange Eons | Preferences... in OS X)  and change the settings in the language drop downs lists. You will need to restart Strange Eons before the changes take effect.

If you are interested in adding a new language or dialect, contributing to an existing translation, or reviewing the current status of a translations, refer to the Guide for Translators.

Frequently Asked Questions

A list of Frequently Asked Questions is maintained here. If your question is not answered there, try asking your question on the Fantasy Flight message board, or ask me directly.

Customization

Strange Eons allows extensive customization of the components it produces. If you are interested in experimenting with this capability, start with the basic instructions on this page. You might also want to investigate the plug-in authoring kit.

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November 9, 2006  — Updated November 17, 2009