What's the point of showing line angle in GZDoom Builder?

Tough question.

It's quite useful if you're work predominantly with certain θ*n angles and don't want to mentally trace out squares and rectangles to draw the angle right, particularly when the lines are longer.

I do work with weird angles but i still don't find it very useful. Line lengths are good for texture alignment but for angles there's practically no discernible difference to just eye it out.

Plane scrolling.

To accurately determine how one line relates to other. Isn't it obvious?

Well. It's just that I think I never ever needed to know this stuff. It just fills my head with pointless poop.

I'd prefer if the angle was displayed as a simplified x:y ratio instead of an angle, for example 1:2 for a linedef with 64 units difference between its endpoints on x axis and 128 units difference between its endpoints on y axis. That would help with both easily determining exact parallel-ness / orthogonality to another linedef, and with discovering (possibly accidentally-)weirdly angled linedefs (with ratio for example 11:4 or 351:2).

Line angle is used for some special effects, notably for Boom scrollers as Arctangent mentioned.

scifista42 said:

I'd prefer if the angle was displayed as a simplified x:y ratio instead of an angle, for example 1:2 for a linedef with 64 units difference between its endpoints on x axis and 128 units difference between its endpoints on y axis. That would help with both easily determining exact parallel-ness / orthogonality to another linedef, and with discovering (possibly accidentally-)weirdly angled linedefs (with ratio for example 11:4 or 351:2).

This. Let's say you have a wall with a strange angle (like x:y ratio of 5:17) and you want to create an alcove or something in it, you want to keep the same angle before and after the alcove, and the alcove walls correctly perpendicular and parallel to the wall.

The only problem with that is that a fractional display can be quite difficult make sense of at a glance, unless you keep a constant denominator. You need to do mental math to determine whether 514:6 is more or less vertical than 732:8 or whatever.

An alternative might be to wrap the values at 180 degrees, so that for instance an east<->west line is always 90, N<->S vertical always 0, SW<->NE always 45, etc.
It doesn't tell you which way the line is "pointing" but you can see that visually anyway looking at the front side indicator.
You can kind of do this already in your head by just subtracting 180 from anything over 180.

Gez said:

Line angle is used for some special effects, notably for Boom scrollers as Arctangent mentioned.

The general angle of the linedef is intuitive just by looking at the linedef, so the purpose of displaying the number should be to let the mapper know the angle precisely. The problem is that most possible angles do not correspond to a precise integer number. Two very slightly differently angled linedefs may display the same number for their angles. Displaying x:y ratio would be actually precise, and it wouldn't matter that the number doesn't reflect the line's "quadrant" of orientation (top-left / top-right / bottom-left / bottom-right), because that's apparent intuitively just by looking at the linedef in the editor's standard top-down view, as I said earlier.

Thinking about it, the angle is visualized as a property of the linedef, while it would make more sense to have it as a property of the angle. Or better, to show the values of all angles formed by the selected linedef with the other adjacent linedefs which share a vertex.

Oh hey! Is this yet another one of those "Wonderful idea everyone wants to be implemented in a different way and there's nobody to implement it in any way" threads?

Sounds like it, doesn't it?

All I have to say is: An angle is an angle, not an x/y ratio. If at all, alternative displays should be an option.

scifista42 said:

The problem is that most possible angles do not correspond to a precise integer number.

So request the angle display to be changed from integer to floating point? That one shouldn't be too hard, just a minor change on one or perhaps two lines.

scifista42 said:

Displaying x:y ratio would be actually precise

Keep in mind that UDMF allows to put your vertices at non-integral positions, so what do you do if your ratio is 6.768554:23.998714? And besides, even with just integral position, are you sure that 113:179 would be all that useful?

Gez said:

So request the angle display to be changed from integer to floating point?

No, because most angles can't be precisely displayed as a floating point number with finite amount of digits, either.

Gez said:

Keep in mind that UDMF allows to put your vertices at non-integral positions, so what do you do if your ratio is 6.768554:23.998714?

If these non-integral positions are still limited to being rational numbers (aren't they?), then the ratios could always be extended to involve integers only. In your fraction's case, 6768554:23998714, plus some simplification, as both numbers are apparently divisible by two and maybe other numbers.

Gez said:

And besides, even with just integral position, are you sure that 113:179 would be all that useful?

Yes, because:
1) High numbers in a simplified ratio would immediately make it clear that the ratio is not any "basic" one, such as 1:2 or 3:4, which the mapper could be wanting to use most of the time.
2) Comparisons of angles of seemingly same-angled linedefs would be actually precise, even if they were so similarly angled that the approximated integer or even floating point number was the same for both of them.
3) Scrollers could be easily set up to move things so that for each 3 unit movement on x axis, there will be 4 unit movement on y axis. See how ratios make this intuitive, as opposed to angles?

Actually, since Slade 3 has it already...

Almost. If it was displayed as "7:8", that would be it.

For you, personally. And nobody else.

For me, personally, the numbers on the edges would be far more useful than x:y ratio.

!!!!!
I updated GZDoom Builder and this thing disappeared.
THANK YOU

Ah, the old "angles vs ratios" argument...

No matter which way you do it, we're all wrong ;D

I updated gzdoom builder and thing disappeared.
How do I get it back?

Cool, ty.