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ReX

Feature requests for XWE

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Hi Csabo:

There were a couple of features I thought would make XWE easier to use:

1. I find that moving lumps around in XWE is somewhat inconvenient. A new entry is always created at the bottom or the lump list. Say it is a graphic for a sprite, and the sprite markers are at the top of a very long list. Even holding down Alt-U to move entry up can take a long time. Plus, with the view of the list remaining unchanged, I can't tell when I've reached where I want the new entry to be. Eventually I do get there, but it takes time and some trial and error.

Therefore, I was wondering if there was a way to drag and drop a selection of entries quickly and exactly where I want(perhaps include a scroll bar too?)

2. Inserting custom textures takes several steps more than it does with WinTex. Aside from inserting, say, a patch and the relevant marker entries (which I have no problem with), TEXTURE1 and PNAMES entries need to be created. I could not figure out how to do it from within XWE. In the end, I copied the TEXTURE1 and PNAMES entries from DooM2.wad, and then edited TEXTURE1 to include the custom patch.

Is it possible to have an automatic insertion of TEXTURE1 and PNAMES entries when XWE detects that a custom patch has been added? Or at least prompt the user for such an insertion.

I haven't yet tried the map editor. Do you have any documentation for it? As always, keep up the good work.

ReX

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Hi Rex,

1. I will work on this, it bothers me too. I think what I will do is creating or importing new entries will go to the current position instead of the end - so there is no need to move them.

2. This is already possible. Once you imported a patch, just right click it on the list, then click "Add to Texture" or "Add to Patch Names" if you don't want a texture to be created. This does create a new TEXTURE1 or PNAMES entry if they don't exist in your WAD yet. (So you should copy and paste those two entries from the DOOM2.WAD...) The problem here is that XWE doesn't care about what kind of WAD you are editing (e.g. DOOM1, DOOM2, HEXEN, etc.) Once it keeps track of that, it will also have to know where the 'base' WAD is, so these kind of things (copying those two entries) can be automatic.

The map editor works to some extent, but it's really just a toy for now. Be careful with it, it definitely is far from perfect. No docs on it so far, the few functions that are in are just like in WadAuthor.

In the past weeks I've been adding support for more games: Adrenix, Dark Forces (which will probably be used by no-one, since your excellent Darkest Hour), Descent, Witchaven, EOB1. In the new version (due soon) there will be better WAV and VOC handling, and PCX support. I'm also working together with Russell^ (rtc_marine) on adding support for Realms of the Haunted.

Plus anything else you guys ask for, that I can do... ;-) Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming.

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Once you imported a patch, just right click it on the list ....

Damn! I didn't think of right-clicking. I'm such a menu-slave, that right-clicking didn't occur to me. Btw, so far only the PNAMES entry is created; selecting "Add to Texture" doesn't seem to work. Could it be because I'm still using an older version (v1.0) of XWE?

(So you should copy and paste those two entries from the DOOM2.WAD...) The problem here is that XWE doesn't care about what kind of WAD you are editing (e.g. DOOM1, DOOM2, HEXEN, etc.) Once it keeps track of that, it will also have to know where the 'base' WAD is, so these kind of things (copying those two entries) can be automatic.

Does this mean that the TEXTURE1 and PNAMES entries must be copied from DooM2.wad before a patch name can be added?

One more thing. I wonder if you could add a prompt when someone is getting out of either the TEXTURE1 entry or a hex-type entry (e.g., MAPINFO) that reminds them to save their changes. I made the mistake of not saving when editing both those types of entries. Luckily I hadn't made extensive changes and it didn't take long to go back in and re-do them.

Heh! I opened About... from the Help menu, and noticed a familiar name :)

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Hi, Rex:
This (was) fragg, I changed a letter. How've ya been? I see you're still hard at work. You're a dedicated guy, which is good for doom community. I been away from here for a while, doing some things had to be done. So my map has been at standstill. Also I upgraded to 1.3 Tbird, and the new mobo turned out a piece of junk, I'm looking for a better one. But the Tbird is awesome. As soon as I get the system going right the way I want it, I'll jump back into my map.
BTW, (stupid question) what the heck is XWE?
Also, wonder if Phileosophos ver finished the new WadAuthor Editor he was working on. Heard anything?
bragg

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Hi there, F/Bragg:

Good to hear from you. Yes, the rumors about my continued (and occasionally futile) efforts at DooM editing are true. About your questions, XWE is a multi-game lump editor of sorts (although it also includes rudimentary map editing for DooM) developed by Csabo. You can find more info on it here.

About WadAuthor, the last I heard was in an email from Phileosophus in June, where he said he'd be getting back to making enhancements to the program. No news since then.

Welcome back.

ReX

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ReX thanx for the info, dang I gotta get back into mapping.
I sent e-mail to John, saying "hello", wishin' him well and offering to post any message he might have for the guys in Editing. If his work schedule is tight it could save him a little time that way, since he wouldn't get caught here in a ton of questions.
bragg.

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If his work schedule is tight it could save him a little time that way

I think John's priorities are probably elsewhere right now. The last update to his site about WA was in March, and the last anyone seems to have heard from him was in June. Ah, well.

Btw, while you were gone I managed to put together a few levels based on a Star Wars & Dark Forces theme. My main site is inaccesible atm, but you can get some info from Piper at the Gates of DooM. If you're interested, I'll post a link to the download.

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Thanks for the link offer, ReX, I'll take you up on it.
I got a note from Phileo, and will post it in a new thread so more people can see what he said.
bragg

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Thanks for the link offer, ReX, I'll take you up on it.

Go here for the link. As with all my recent projects, it requires ZDooM. This one requires ZDooM v1.23 beta 24 or higher. Ask if you need the ZDooM links.

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ReX: I've uploaded the new version yesterday. XWE now gives a warning if you try to exit from any editor without saving your changes. About textures: unless you are planning on not using any of the original Doom textures, you should first copy the TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps from you Doom/Doom2 WAD, so XWE adds the new ones there. I still haven't done anything about moving the entries, I will do it in the next release.

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Hi Csabo:

I see you've been quite busy with enhancing XWE and adding game support. Terrific. No hurry on the feature to make it easier to move lump entries. One of my current projects has hardly any non-map lumps, and my other project has a manageable lump list (which I hope that I don't have to modify). So I won't need this feature any time soon. The Darkest Hour, on the other hand, had in excess of 1300 entries and moving lumps around was time-consuming.

In the New DooM editing forum there were people who expressed an interest in XWE, but were having difficulty using it. There were some requests for documentation, but I was able to answer their questions. Are you considering doing something in your help file?

ReX

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Although updating the help file and writing docs is not as much fun as coding, I know I have to do it. I have received such requests myself. I'm just not quite sure what kind of help is needed - to me XWE is plain an simple. So ReX, could you help me out by giving me some pointers on what kind of questions people are asking?

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I was wondering why XWE makes so many .bak files? Would'nt it be better if it made say, 2 at the most of whatever wad your working on. I recently cleaned these things out of my XWE and DooM folder. Since I'm messing around with a copy of the doom2.wad I ended up with an xtra 30mb of files. Maybe XWE should make a dir within a common folder for these .bak files? Ignore this if you fixed this in the last release, since I didn't download it yet.

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I always like to keep the older backups too, until I know I don't need them for sure. That's why XWE always creates a new .BAK file, but I knew that one day someone is going to ask for this behavior to change. I will add an option to do so in the next version.

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