The first thing that I'll mention is the new open map dialogue. Until now, we've been using the same control that draws the main gameboard to draw the map previews when starting a new game. This is somewhat unnecessary, as we don't need the same level of detail for map previews.
We've now replaced that control with a much leaner one, taken from a version of the programme from way back when - when drawing was being done in a much simpler manner.
Since this new control draws map previews much faster, we can be a little more liberal in displaying them. Now, when in the process of opening an existing map, a preview of the highlighted file will be displayed. Should the file not be readable by our import code (eg. not a map), no preview will be displayed.
The larger, more detailed map control that we use to draw the main gameboard is faster for general redrawing and making small changes to the map like who owns a country, but it incurs a significant time penalty when first starting up. This one-time cost is not an issue with the simpler gameboard now used for small previews; hopefully, this will not only allow us to have previews of maps while opening them, but also also result in quicker responses from the dialogues used to start a new game.
