Linedef numbers

Is there an easy way to edit linedef numbers?

I mostly ask this because there are some hacky tricks that rely on the linedef number of a dummy sector pointing into another dummy sector being lower than any of the ones of the non dummy sector.

Does not seem like this is possible in GZDB. Is there any easy way to edit this stuff?

You need to learn sector surgery: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1517076

Or use an old editor, not sure which one.

essel informed me that you can also "just" cut and paste the entire level, sans the linedef you want to change to a lower number. That works pretty well actually.

Ideally GZDB could have some kind of function to select a linedef and bump it up or set its linedef number by hand directly. Would be very neat for certain vanilla hacks esp.

Yeah, I wonder why such a function doesn't exist yet. Is it somehow difficult to set up due to the way the editor works? Or it's just that nobody cares?

I agree that would be a nice feature to have. My guess for the reason why something like that hasn't been added at this point is because its a really niche editing trick.

Agreed also! It would be so great to have this as a GZDB feature. Another useful application of a map structure number editor would be easily changing the order of player starts so the player still starts in the correct place when adding voodoo dolls, or changing sector numbers to fix self-referencing sectors that aren't in the right order to play nicely with ZenNode.

I think the main issue is that most people don't use that much hacky stuff anymore, or even map for vanilla/boom. I dunno.

But yeah, it would be super nice to have something to generally renumber things which can not be renumbered atm without a lot of hassle.

You could always ask MaxED nicely, but you'd probably have a better chance if you make a case that this would make editing for GZDoom easier.

And an easy REJECT editing system please so that I don't have to edit the wad in XWE every time I rewrite it...

Linguica said:

You could always ask MaxED nicely, but you'd probably have a better chance if you make a case that this would make editing for GZDoom easier.

He implemented some other stuff that was mainly vanilla/boom related which I brought up recently.

But I don't know enough about GZDoom to know if this kinda trickery would even be needed there, I guess not, what with actual 3D sectors and all that.

esselfortium said:

easily changing the order of player starts so the player still starts in the correct place when adding voodoo dolls

I like to add a bunch of dolls in the void, stick the last one where the player starts, and then pick a doll from the void when needed.

The way DB2/GZDB works sidedefs don't even have a number.

I guess the trick I was doing where I needed this (changing floor texture without actually moving the floor height) relies mainly on linedef number, but maybe the sidedef numbers are somehow inferred from the linedef ones? I have no clue.

Linedefs don't have a number in DB2/GZDB neither :P

boris said:

The way DB2/GZDB works sidedefs don't even have a number.

boris said:

Linedefs don't have a number in DB2/GZDB neither :P

Nonsence.

But those numbers are implicit and not explicit as in old editors.

kuchitsu said:

And an easy REJECT editing system please so that I don't have to edit the wad in XWE every time I rewrite it...

Finish this thing and there you have it...

boris said:

But those numbers are implicit and not explicit as in old editors.

Yes. Sectors, on the other hand, have both "Index" (implicit) and "FixedIndex" (explicit) properties. I guess someone can try porting this to Thing/Sidedef/Linedef classes.

boris said:

But those numbers are implicit

Still, they do exist, and what's more, they can practically be changed - by swapping properties of a linedef with a particular linedef number with properties of another linedef with another number within the same map.

scifista42 said:

Still, they do exist, and what's more, they can practically be changed - by swapping properties of a linedef with a particular linedef number with properties of another linedef with another number within the same map.

How exactly does one do that? As in specifically swapping 2 numbers?