afaik Mappy is only for windows... which sucks because i'm not developing on windows. Any equivalent that's possibly multiplatform?

There's my MapSlapper program .... it's kinda beta though and uses Win32 .... if you're bored you could make a pure Allegro version since it's open source.

There's this TEGEL thing you could try out. It's quite good.

You can compile Mappy from source on Linux, which is what I did quite a while ago. I don't know how it compares with the Windows version though. IIRC the interface wasn't nice at all so I got frustrated with it and removed it from my PC.

There is http://annie.kezako.net/eme/ as well,
which is a native Linux tile editor with a lot of functionality
and you can write your own plugin/map format if you can't get
the one you want with the supplied default plugin.

I just write my own mapmaker app. With some work, you can make something very versatile.

TEGEL does look really good... and I don't think I'm a good enough progammer to write my own... although I want to add support for it in my game... I also may try and compile mappy on linux... oh the posibilities...

Anyway... thanks for the help... and my game design continues...

Writing it is no problem. I stink at programming, but I have already written one. Here is some sample code, but untested, using Allegro and the mouse:

if (mouse_b & 1)
{
     tile[mouse_x/TILE_SIZE][mouse_y/TILE_SIZE] = this_tile;
}

nest that within a test to see if the mouse is in the map preview, and poof!, you have a map maker. Use file_select_ex() to save it, then add another part of the window to let the player select a tile to paint, like this:

if (mouse_b & 1)
{
     this_tile = tile_set[mouse_x/TILE_SIZE];
}

for a horizontal selector, or this:

if (mouse_b & 1)
{
     this_tile = tile_set[mouse_y/TILE_SIZE];
}

for a vertical selector.

Anyway, it shouldn't be too hard.