SLADE vs. XWE?

I'd like to start WAD editing and because of some non-important reasons, I can't use SLADE, only XWE.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of SLADE and what are of XWE?

XWE is no longer maintained and has some bugs which have claimed victims. I'd strongly suggest using SLADE3 instead, which is under continuous development.

There might be some fringe reasons to use XWE, whenever SLADE3 fails to do something, though. Just be careful never to have the file in XWE also open in another editor. Or instead of XWE you might try SLumpEd if SLADE3 doesn't work. Most of the time SLADE3 has worked for me, but it was failing to convert WAV sounds to Doom sounds for example.

EDIT: Slade3 doesn't work for you? Damn. Well I guess, I like XWE all the way, just don't open the wad in Doom Builder at the same time! Also make sure to activate automatic backups.

Thanks, printz!

I think many people prefers Slade over XWE, but I actually downloaded Slade only to find out that like XWE more. For example, when you're importing patches, XWE automatically creates/updates TEXTURE and PNAMES lump with your patches as one-patched textures, and when you're exporting patches, it saves them as .bmp (while Slade saves them as .lmp (unless I missed some hidden options, but I doubt)). These are extremely useful features. And I don't know if I ever nedeed to use XWE and DB at the same time.

I forgot to mention that XWE can damage your TEXTURE1/2 collection by randomly deleting or replacing the data of a random texture occasionally. I would often edit textures in XWE, only to observe a weird inconsistency in Doom Builder later, that a texture was gone.

I'd really suggest you stop using XWE unless you f***ing know what you're doing. SLADE3 is more user-friendly and safe.

Scypek2 said:

I think many people prefers Slade over XWE, but I actually downloaded Slade only to find out that like XWE more. For example, when you're importing patches, XWE automatically creates/updates TEXTURE and PNAMES lump with your patches as one-patched textures,

Right-click, Add to TEXTUREx

and when you're exporting patches, it saves them as .bmp (while Slade saves them as .lmp (unless I missed some hidden options, but I doubt)). These are extremely useful features. And I don't know if I ever nedeed to use XWE and DB at the same time.

Right-click, Export as PNG

Scypek2 said:

automatically

That is the most important difference, design-wise, between XWE and SLADE 3. SLADE doesn't perform actions unless you tell it to. XWE guesses (with varying amounts of luck) what the user wants and performs it automatically.

SLADE 3 didn't go with such an automatic approach because Doom isn't stuck. With some source ports constantly evolving and adding new features, trying to guess what the user wants is bound to fail eventually. If you import a set of 32-bit PNG images to use as a skybox in an OpenGL port and XWE automatically turns them into paletted Doom patches, that might be what the user would have wanted in 1994, but that is unwanted behavior now.

Another example is the "transparent color". When you convert an image from a format to another, you can choose to make one color transparent. In XWE, it's hardcoded to cyan, in SLADE you can choose which color -- even click on a pixel of the image to choose the color of this pixel, like in IrfanView -- so it doesn't need to be cyan anymore.

There are a few non-Doom game file formats that XWE supports and SLADE doesn't, as I recall, but not ones you're likely to need. That's the only thing I would use it for; as far as Doom editing is concerned I don't think there's anything XWE does that isn't in SLADE, unless you count "accidentally ruin your WAD".

Yeah, like the others said, SLADE3, if you find a way to run it. It does what I want it to do, but XWE did one thing I hope SLADE3 implements in the future: ENDOOM editing, seriously. I'd like a custom end screen.

Eh, other than that problem, as I said before, SLADE3. XWE sounds risky.

I personally prefer Slade 3 all the way, I used to really like XWE when I was learning the basics in importing/exporting stuff. But in the end Slade 3 is the better editor, much cleaner interface and much more user friendly.

I started with XWE, and it's still my main WAD editor despite Slade's extensive Decorate help. I just feel that XWE...is more comfortable to me, since I've been using it for years before I tried Slade.

xwe is great easy to use and just awesome.

BloodyAcid said:

I started with XWE, and it's still my main WAD editor despite Slade's extensive Decorate help. I just feel that XWE...is more comfortable to me, since I've been using it for years before I tried Slade.

Well, understandable. As I said, I still think it had more editing, like limited demo editing (3 seconds only, unfortunately), ENDOOM editing, and automatic conversions (Must've really been handy before I switched to SLADE3). If XWE didn't corrupt/destroy WAD files, I might have it somewhere, but that risk is huge for me, so I stick to SLADE3.

SLADE3 is definitely my go-to these days. Too many unique and useful features to not use, and the lack of the ridiculous auto-save XWE has (which has lost me an entire map at least once) makes everything way more tolerable, not to mention a host of other bugs present.

Plus, learning how to use it felt like a much simpler process to me. Much cleaner presentation overall.

I think XWE has never corrupted any of my WAD files and I did use it a lot. Now I think the only thing I could need it, is to edit the game palette, and maybe that becomes possible in SLADE when I actually need to do it.

SLADE made copying textures from one WAD to another so painless I could never go back to XWE. It's way, way less buggy under Windows 7, too.

Sorry XWE. SLADE stole my heart.

Slade. I've always had a problem with XWE. Bugs and other issues. I also find slade easier to operate.