OK... I need an editor.

[Eponasoft]

I need an editor that is as close to yadex as possible, but for Windows. Any suggestions? I have doom builder 1.68 but it's a pain to use in comparison (plus it automatically deletes linedefs that my maps need... bigtime nono), and doom builder 2 uses .NET, which I .R.E.F.U.S.E. to support in ANY way. I don't want to waste time trying out a bunch of different editors, so I'm just wondering which has the closest functionality to yadex in terms of interface and keystrokes.

[esselfortium]

Eponasoft said:

I have doom builder 1.68 but it's a pain to use in comparison

Doom Builder 2.

doom builder 2 uses .NET, which I .R.E.F.U.S.E. to support in ANY way

Okay, but you're going to be wasting your--

I don't want to waste time

Well, good luck with that.

[killingblair]

What's wrong with .NET? Are you on Linux? Are you on Windows 95?

If you think 1.68 is terrible on Windows, then God help you trying to emulate it on WINE.

[Eponasoft]

Well, I said "to hell with it" and tried DB2 anyways... and it doesn't work. It just displays a bunch of vertical lines when it loads a map.

So you mean to tell me that there are no editors for Windows that are as good as yadex? Do I have to port the bloody thing myself? :( Well, I guess I have time...

OK... yadex allows you to move a vertice after you've placed it by clicking and dragging. DB1 doesn't seem to have this capability. And then there's the issue of it removing linedefs I need... it seems to think that they are unneeded, so when it removes them, my maps get the typical missing-linedef-shear in-game...

I've also tried a few other editors while waiting to see if anyone would respond to my odd request, and either I can't figure them out or they simply don't have proper visual editors... windeu, slade, etc.

Yeah, I'm annoying and kind of stupid, I know. :P I'm just pretty picky I guess...

And what's wrong with .NET? Aside from being the heaviest, most bloated and inefficient framework to date, you mean? :) But even that doesn't really explain why DB2 doesn't seem to work... oh well... it almost makes me wanna reinstall a Unix just to get yadex back. :)

[esselfortium]

Eponasoft said:

Well, I said "to hell with it" and tried DB2 anyways... and it doesn't work. It just displays a bunch of vertical lines when it loads a map.

Sounds like something's wrong with your graphics card, if I had to guess.

So you mean to tell me that there are no editors for Windows that are as good as yadex?

I'm not responding to this. Words fail me.

OK... yadex allows you to move a vertice after you've placed it by clicking and dragging. DB1 doesn't seem to have this capability.

Hit V to go into Vertex Mode, then right-click and drag?

And then there's the issue of it removing linedefs I need... it seems to think that they are unneeded, so when it removes them, my maps get the typical missing-linedef-shear in-game...

No clue what you're referring to here; DB1 often even lets you get away with stacking linedefs directly on top of each other, so I don't know what you're doing that's getting it to delete stuff.

And what's wrong with .NET? Aside from being the heaviest, most bloated and inefficient framework to date, you mean? :) But even that doesn't really explain why DB2 doesn't seem to work... oh well... it almost makes me wanna reinstall a Unix just to get yadex back. :)

Have fun with that :-\

[Super Jamie]

Eponasoft said:

OK... yadex allows you to move a vertice after you've placed it by clicking and dragging. DB1 doesn't seem to have this capability.

Sounds like you just need to read the DB1 manual.

Press V to enter Vertices Mode
Move the mouse cursor over the Vertex you wish to move, it will change color to indicate it's highlighted
Click with the Right Mouse Button and drag
Release the mouse button to place the Vertex

I don't know what you mean by "automatically deletes lines" but you can turn Autostitch off if you want, just click it in the statusbar at the bottom of the window. If stitching is such a huge problem for you, I respectfully suggest that you actually aren't laying your sectors down properly.

[Eponasoft]

esselfortium said:

Sounds like something's wrong with your graphics card, if I had to guess.

Probably. I'll try it on the other systems here to see what the problem is. Well, at least it did work in 3D mode... but I find editing like that to be a bit perverse, hehe. :)

esselfortium said:

I'm not responding to this. Words fail me.

I didn't think it was that difficult a question, really... yadex is pretty straightforward and powerful, and I just want something that is just as good.

esselfortium said:

Hit V to go into Vertex Mode, then right-click and drag?

Yes, I ended up figuring this out just now. It's not the behavior I'm used to. Maybe I can get DB1 to work after all...

esselfortium said:

No clue what you're referring to here; DB1 often even lets you get away with stacking linedefs directly on top of each other, so I don't know what you're doing that's getting it to delete stuff.

...if I can just get it to stop doing *this*. OK... basically, I have linedefs in some maps that go along with lifts, and DB1 deletes all the linedefs that face outward... so when you go up to those lifts in-game, all you see is linedef shear. Is there any way to configure it to not optimize the map? I know exactly what I'm doing with vertices and linedefs and I don't like tools that automatically "fix" things when they are designed a specific way on purpose.

esselfortium said:

Have fun with that :-\

I won't.

[Eponasoft]

Super Jamie said:

I don't know what you mean by "automatically deletes lines" but you can turn Autostitch off if you want, just click it in the statusbar at the bottom of the window. If stitching is such a huge problem for you, I respectfully suggest that you actually aren't laying your sectors down properly.

Unfortunately, even after doing this, is still deletes the linedefs when loading the map, and resets it back to ON. The sectors are all correct; the only thing I ever have problems with is texture alignment, which I'm getting better at. :)

EDIT: My bad... it's not removing linedefs, it's removing sidedefs, and it's doing it from all of my normal maps. I need those sidedefs, dangit...

[esselfortium]

Eponasoft said:

...if I can just get it to stop doing *this*. OK... basically, I have linedefs in some maps that go along with lifts, and DB1 deletes all the linedefs that face outward... so when you go up to those lifts in-game, all you see is linedef shear. Is there any way to configure it to not optimize the map? I know exactly what I'm doing with vertices and linedefs and I don't like tools that automatically "fix" things when they are designed a specific way on purpose.

I've never seen any editor do anything like this, DB1 included. I honestly have no clue what you're describing.

[Super Jamie]

*shrug* You are making maps in an inefficient (if not incorrect?) way. Doom Builder corrects this :)

There is the option "Compress Sidedefs when exporting" under Nodebuilder but I'm not sure that will fix compress-on-open.

As for the rest, any new editor is going to be a learning curve, though I think it's worth your time to learn. I prefer DB1 because I spend most of my time in Linux and it runs in Wine perfectly, though I do realise DB2 has some good features which I'm missing out on.

If you have so much against .NET for your above stated reasons, you probably shouldn't be running Windows at all ;)

[Super Jamie]

esselfortium said:

I've never seen any editor do anything like this, DB1 included. I honestly have no clue what you're describing.

Sidedef compression on open. Open a few 94 wads and you'll see a dialog saying "Doom Builder removed X sidedefs" or similar.

I think that only happens when sidedefs are stacked on top of each other unnecessarily - say you create one square, create another separate square, then drag them next to each other without stitching.

I've always stayed away from that myself, it seems to go against the mapping format? Hell, Boom fucks up if two Special Linedefs are too *close* to each other, never mind on top!

[esselfortium]

Super Jamie said:

Sidedef compression on open. Open a few 94 wads and you'll see a dialog saying "Doom Builder removed X sidedefs" or similar.

That's not sidedef compression, that's it removing sidedefs that aren't referenced by any lines in the map. Some old editors wouldn't dispose of them, and being that they're not attached to any lines, there's no way to do it manually. This should never cause problems with anything, because they aren't referenced by any lines in the map, meaning they have no location in the level and functionally don't exist at all.

[Eponasoft]

Super Jamie said:

*shrug* You are making maps in an inefficient (if not incorrect?) way. Doom Builder corrects this :)

No... those sidedefs are there for a reason, and as I stated before, there is shearing when they are removed. I also noticed that the editor removes unlinked vertices when you hit the Save button... is there any way to stop this?

I have the PDF documentation for DB1 but a lot of things do not match up so I don't know what is correct and what isn't.

[Super Jamie]

Eponasoft said:

No... those sidedefs are there for a reason, and as I stated before, there is shearing when they are removed.

Probably because your front/back sector references on the remaining sidedef get messed up. Why do you have stacked lines anyway?

I also noticed that the editor removes unlinked vertices when you hit the Save button... is there any way to stop this?

By not placing extraneous vertices that do nothing ;)

[Eponasoft]

Super Jamie said:

Probably because your front/back sector references on the remaining sidedef get messed up. Why do you have stacked lines anyway?

I don't. It only seems to happen on lifts where the two sectors are at certain heights.

Super Jamie said:

By not placing extraneous vertices that do nothing ;)

I save a lot during development. I often place a large number of vertices to form certain geometry before I place linedefs, then I save the immature structure to finish afterward. This action completely ruins my development process, making this editor absolutely useless unless this action can be disabled.

[Super Jamie]

Try WinDEU, WadAuthor, Deepsea or SLADE then.

[esselfortium]

Eponasoft said:

I save a lot during development. I often place a large number of vertices to form certain geometry before I place linedefs, then I save the immature structure to finish afterward. This action completely ruins my development process, making this editor absolutely useless unless this action can be disabled.

Huh.

This is going to sound rude, but unless it takes you hours to decide what direction you want a wall to face, I honestly can't imagine any possible reason to not just draw the lines to begin with. Actually, even then. In DB there's no need to place the vertices separately. The only things you ever really need Vertex Mode for are splitting existing lines or moving existing vertices.

[Eponasoft]

esselfortium said:

This is going to sound rude, but unless it takes you hours to decide what direction you want a wall to face, I honestly can't imagine any possible reason to not just draw the lines to begin with. Actually, even then. In DB there's no need to place the vertices separately. The only things you ever really need Vertex Mode for are splitting existing lines or moving existing vertices.

That's pretty interesting... that explains why I was getting overlapping vertices for no apparent reason while making some new additions to MAP01. Well then, the previous point is now relatively moot... I guess I can use this editor after all. Thanks for the tip; that's all I needed.

[esselfortium]

Eponasoft said:

That's pretty interesting... that explains why I was getting overlapping vertices for no apparent reason while making some new additions to MAP01. Well then, the previous point is now relatively moot... I guess I can use this editor after all. Thanks for the tip; that's all I needed.

You still shouldn't be getting overlapping vertices, though. If you are, this most likely means you've disabled Stitch Vertices. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn it on and off, and for regular mapping you want to have it on 99.9% of the time. With it turned off, any time you draw any structure that uses any existing vertices, you'll get two overlapping vertices instead of it connecting to the existing one in the same place. There are some special cases where you'll want to turn it off for a second, but for the most part, you're going to want it on. I recommend turning down the stitch range in the preferences (or configuration, or whatever it's called) dialog, though, so it won't snap to stuff from a mile away. (In DB2 this isn't nearly as much of an issue; if you can get it to run on your computer, I'd highly recommend it.)

[Eponasoft]

esselfortium said:

You still shouldn't be getting overlapping vertices, though. If you are, this most likely means you've disabled Stitch Vertices. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn it on and off, and for regular mapping you want to have it on 99.9% of the time. With it turned off, any time you draw any structure that uses any existing vertices, you'll get two overlapping vertices instead of it connecting to the existing one in the same place. There are some special cases where you'll want to turn it off for a second, but for the most part, you're going to want it on. I recommend turning down the stitch range in the preferences (or configuration, or whatever it's called) dialog, though, so it won't snap to stuff from a mile away. (In DB2 this isn't nearly as much of an issue; if you can get it to run on your computer, I'd highly recommend it.)

OK that makes sense then. AutoSnap was most certainly not needed, but AutoStitch can stay on. Thanks again for the help.

[Super Jamie]

esselfortium said:

If you are, this most likely means you've disabled Stitch Vertices. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn it on and off

and whatever it is, it's way too easy to hit by accident. I clear both the Autosnap and Autostitch keyboard shortcuts completely.

[Eponasoft]

I don't think I've run into that particular problem yet but I'll be sure to watch out for it.

I've been working with DB1 for the past couple of hours now, kind of getting the hang of it... some of the autofixers are indeed useful. The fact that I can just draw linedefs and it handles vertices automatically is a nice feature, but I'm still worried about the sidedef removal... oh well, I guess I'll just figure out another way of doing those linedefs so it doesn't wipe out my sidedefs.

[Super Jamie]

Personally I think you are just drawing new sectors the wrong way, probably without even realising it.

Say you have an empty room. How do you draw a raised ledge at one end? How do you then add a lift to the ledge to get up there?

[Eponasoft]

Super Jamie said:

Personally I think you are just drawing new sectors the wrong way, probably without even realising it.

Say you have an empty room. How do you draw a raised ledge at one end? How do you then add a lift to the ledge to get up there?

The room would be one sector, the raised ledge another, and the lift yet another. Three sectors, with some of the linedefs being double-sided. The problem comes in on some of those double-sided linedefs... DB1 erases some of the sidedefs, producing the shearing effect. I noticed it when the sector that is the lift is aligned with the higher sector... it doesn't seem to happen in reverse. But I'll find a way around it.

[Super Jamie]

I meant more what's the exact process you follow? I suspect you are drawing lines or sectors incorrectly.

[Eponasoft]

I haven't done it with DB1 yet, and it's been many months since I did it with yadex so I honestly couldn't tell you the exact process I used. :(

[myk]

I don't use Doom Builder 2 either, mainly because I do my DOOM stuff on a Windows 98 computer, where .NET support is limited.

Eponasoft said:
I need an editor that is as close to yadex as possible, but for Windows. Any suggestions?

I haven't compared them, but maybe DETH isn't too different. Yadex and DETH are both enhanced DEU 5.21 derivatives.

Well, I said "to hell with it" and tried DB2 anyways... and it doesn't work. It just displays a bunch of vertical lines when it loads a map.

You might be missing some service pack or update for it.

[audiodef]

Eponasoft: I just installed yadex on my Linux machine, but when I try to run it, I get:

Yadex 1.7.0 (2003-12-28)
Reading config file "/etc/yadex/1.7.0/yadex.cfg".
Error: sizeof u32 is 8 (should be 4)

Any idea what this is and how to fix it?

[Eponasoft]

32/64 bit malconfiguration? Never seen that before with yadex since my system was 32 bit and everything was built that way... did you build it from source?

[Eponasoft]

OK... the only thing I don't really like about DB1 thus far is that it seems you cannot create sectors without also creating linedefs. That's taking some getting used to.