WadAuthor Progress Update #1

[Phileosophos]

As many of you have read, no doubt, I've been soliciting feedback on WadAuthor since I've been working on it as of late. Let me express my gratitude to all for the suggestions. I've received some genuinely useful feedback, and I hope that I won't be letting anyone down with the next release. Toward avoiding that, I thought I would start posting periodic progress updates in this forum so that all of you can have a better idea where things stand. Having said that, let me continue onward with the first of those progress updates to let you know how things are going at present.

The Really Big News
At present, the WadAuthor code base is in a state of flux, but today marks a real milestone: the awful, no-good, very-bad zooming code that has been in place since the very beginning is finally dead! This might not mean much to you, but to me it represents the exorcism of a personal demon named “ignorance of Windows GDI mapping”. In short, when I first wrote the drawing code in WadAuthor, I really didn’t understand the Windows GDI mapping functions at all. To keep things simple, I coded everything using the MM_TEXT mapping mode, which basically requires the developer to do all the work.

This would have been alright except for both (1) Windows 3.x’s 16-bit limitations on GDI and (2) my own silliness in implementing the zoom as I did. Basically, WadAuthor used to handle the zoom by multiplying distances. In other words, if a given thing was at position (10, 10) with respect to the origin, and the user had zoomed in to 200%, then I would simply draw the thing at (20, 20) with respect to the origin. Well, given that the Win16 GDI took coordinates in 16-bit values, the zoom had to be clipped to a lousy maximum of 250% while the maximum map size had to be clipped to something like (12,500, 12,500) in order to avoid wrapping problems with large maps. Sadly, Windows 9x didn’t provide me any way out as the so-called 32-bit operating system that is Windows 9x still uses 16-bit GDI coordinates (sigh). Naturally to confuse matters even further, Windows NT removed this limitation, which is why I went ahead and supported a higher zoom under Windows NT than I did under Windows 9x.

Make sense? I imagine it’s probably clear as mud, but that really doesn’t matter. Here’s the bottom line: I now understand how best to implement zooming features in WadAuthor. And to prove it, I’ve changed the code around so that the theoretical maximum zoom is now infinite! Earlier today I got it working completely for the first time, and let me assure you that a vertex is the size of my fist when zoomed in to 1000%. That’s pretty neat. I’ll probably still clip the maximum zoom to something like 1000% as it just doesn’t seem practically useful to go any further. But for all of you detail fiends out there--and you know who you are!--you won’t be fighting with WadAuthor any more to get the resolution that you have wanted for the last half-decade or so. Of course, scrolling is still broken at present, but I’m assuming I can fix that. I’ll have to let you know in a future update.

Multi-map Support
The other main feature that I’ve added to WadAuthor thus far is the ability to manage multiple maps from within the editor interface. This was something I should have done some years ago, but I was basically (1) unsure of how to do it right, and (2) too lazy to investigate the issue at any length (grin). The latest build of WadAuthor now has a “Maps” menu to which some of the standard features (e.g., statistics) have been moved and to which the new “Add Map…” and “Delete Map…” commands have been added.

New Hotkeys
In response to suggestions posted in this forum, I have added two new hotkeys to WadAuthor. Pressing ‘G’ now toggles the grid display setting, while pressing ‘Ctrl+G’ toggles the snap-to-grid feature. This seems like a completely stupid omission on my part in retrospect, but then I suppose hindsight is always 20/20.

Conclusion
Well, that’s all for the moment. Right now I’ve got to focus on fixing all the things that are broken as a result of completely ripping out all of the old zooming code (e.g., scrolling, panning, drag and drop, etc.) and replacing it with new code. Assuming I can fix these things, I intend to move on to some of the other features I’ve long wanted to implement, but a description of those will just have to wait for another update…

[Guest fragg]

Wow. You're goin' at the "upgrade" like a tiger.
Since u're so busy I don't even DARE request (for the "weak eyes" among us)....
An "Option" to have toolbars with TEXT on buttons.
"Optional"(because some might prefer the symbols).

But you're already up to yer eyeballs in work so I won't even mention it. <g>.

[Wildman]

Sounds great. Something to evaluate (if you haven't seen it already) is a WCF editor plug-in or a stand alone WCF editor. I'd be willing to spend a few bucks on it. :)

Thanks for keeping us up to date. Looking forward to the new stuff.

[Guest D|RE]

All i have to say is good work. I cant wait for the next release.

[ReX]

We have awakened a sleeping giant!

Now all you need to add is graphics editing support and lump management capability and we'll have an all-in-one utility that even id Software would envy.

Thanks, man.

[pming]

Whoohoo! Maybe my semi-yearly pestering has had some effect! (Ok, probably not much, but hey...;)

Personally, I dont' have any problem with the 'scrolling' (I just use the Ctrl+Shift+LClick to get the 'hand' and move the map around). The zooming extra's is a nice thing though. Mulit-maps is also a blessing. Thanks!
Something I think really needs a fix: Graphics Viewing/Selection! Being only able to see 3-4 textures at a time sucks royaly. DeepSea is the best implementation of this that I've seen (zoom in or out, shows generally between 9 and 40'ish textures...yummy!) Oh, and for actual 'bugs': when you are browsing for a texture, and you know the begining letters of the name, say "Br????", and you type BR...it jumps to BRONZ01 (say), and highlights it, but if you then simply click "OK" or click on the texture picture, you 'jump' back the top of the texture sellection ("AASHITY"); now, you have to hit enter before you click "OK". Just a little pest of mine. :-)

Keep it up!

[Phileosophos]

>Whoohoo! Maybe my semi-yearly pestering has had some
>effect! (Ok, probably not much, but hey...;)

Well, it's hard to say, really. I think what had more of an effect than anything was the realization that the DOOM-era community is still going. I am personally stunned and amazed by this, but it is nevertheless the case. WadAuthor is the program that just will not die!

>Personally, I dont' have any problem with the 'scrolling'
>(I just use the Ctrl+Shift+LClick to get the 'hand' and
>move the map around). The zooming extra's is a nice
>thing though. Mulit-maps is also a blessing. Thanks!

Yeah, I just finished cleaning up the new panning support yesterday. It's nice to see that someone actually uses that feature. I found it pretty handy, but I'm not sure too many people are even aware of it. Right now a problem remains with scrolling the map correctly because of integer roundoff errors. I've got to find some way to handle that or else one will have to frequently press F5 to redraw the map when the display has been corrupted.

>Something I think really needs a fix: Graphics >Viewing/Selection! Being only able to see 3-4 textures at a >time sucks royally.

I doubt seriously whether this is likely to change, though I shall look into it. The simplest fix, of course, is for me to change the dialog box size, which I could probably do now that 640 x 480 is largely a thing of the past.

>Oh, and for actual 'bugs': when you are browsing for a
>texture, and you know the begining letters of the name, >say "Br????", and you type BR...it jumps to BRONZ01 (say),
>and highlights it, but if you then simply click "OK" or
>click on the texture picture, you 'jump' back the top of
>the texture sellection ("AASHITY"); now, you have to hit
>enter before you click "OK". Just a little pest of
>mine. :-) Keep it up!

Strictly speaking, this wasn't a bug; rather, it was a deliberate feature. The idea was that the list-box incremental search window would *only* finalize the selection change if you pressed the 'enter' key--you know, for safety's sake. Since you're not the only one to complain, however, I've bowed to masses and have changed it so that you can type a couple of characters and click the OK button, click the texture (or another texture), etc. Perhaps that will please some folks.

[Jon]

Can you zoom in infinately now?

[stphrz]

1000%. He decided to clip it there. Verticies are as big as fists at that point. No need to go further than that.

[Biffy]

John, way to go! Those are my most-desired things, more zoom and
ability to add multiple maps. Thanks, I can't wait for the update. Mike Blakely - registered WadAuthor user.

[Liberation]

Phileosophos not Being checky or nothing but are you still gonna
charge for WadAuthor after 15 days?

[Guest fragg]

Liberation, the "free 15 days of use" is so you can use and check out the Wauthor editor. If you like it, you send Phileosophos $20 fee -- and Wauthor is yours for life (PLUS any and ALL "future versions" of it -- like the one he's working on now).

He can't give the Editor away for free, because its also used by Business's which pay him money to use the code in it.
We don't wanna rob him of his honest living. I'm sure you don't and I don't.
$20 bucks is dirt-cheap "give-away price" for such a superb editor.
(BTW, "Deepsea", the other superb new editor, also has to be paid for).

Let's all "support" these guys, with our $$. They're the ONLY "Fully-supprorted/Regularly-updated" map Editors we Doomers have.
All the rest of the map Editors seem to have been abandoned long ago, by their Authors. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong there).

Hope this clears up the confusion that a lot of guys have.
I'm waiting till end of month to get the $20. and will then send it in gladly. Best o'luck.........
fragg