knee deep in the, uh, sea

So, I took the plunge, and got the shareware DeePsea.

And, this is the bit Jack was waiting to hear out of my puritanical mouth.... I.... love it.

Really.

See, every other editor I've tried is either sector based, or a vertex-based DEU variant. Why? My love for WadEd stems from the fact that I see it as logical to draw lines.

Anyway, without going far too far off track, I'll continue and get to some kind of a point.

WinTEX's bugs finally got the better of me, creating about 150 new textures and finding out that I couldn't delete some, plus it screwed up most of the Doom2 defaults, replacing patches with my new ones.

Damn. In desperation, I downloaded DeePsea. Heh.

Jack. I got some questions for you. They may seem newbie-esque, and ill-informed, but I can't find the answers in the help file as yet (I've still to read all of it, but I've looked under relevant sections).

Anyway;

1) How do you drag vertices? I mean, grab them with the mouse, and see where thy're going. I don't like the idea of keying in values for them.
[Update: Found out myself. Never mind. Actually, I'm used to learning things on my own, through WadEd... heh]

2) Is there a less long-winded way to make textures? I want to visually drag the patches around. See, I'm hyper-accurate with my mouse, so those clicky buttons are somewhat obsolete and clumsy.
3) Why didn't you tell me, in my WadEd championing, that DeePsea is, in fact, really similar to the program? I mean, you basically draw the lines and that. Whee.

Actually, that last one is rhetorical. ;)

I appreciate your frankness and willingness to try something. I know it takes effort to learn a new interface.

Although drawing is one of the similarities with Waded (I agree that it beats mushing prefabs around), I hope you tinker with the "sensitivity" options in F5/Map from time to time - just depends on what one is doing. They control the variance allowed before merging/splitting occur. If you are very good with a mouse (as you indicate), then tight tolerances are for you.

Prefabs are useful sometimes - doing a lot of grunt work - mainly when making polygons and stairs and arcing existing lines.

From our little debate, I was motivated to make a "Vertical Tool Bar" with customizable commands. There are a few gotchas I still have to take care of, like stopping the launch of multiple instance of the same dialogs.

Right now it's all text buttons. Once the basics are out of the way, will look at doing optional "picture" buttons. My tester is probably wondering what I'm doing:))

Is there a less long-winded way to make textures?

Only for single patch textures - the "Auto Textures from BMPs". That will take your BMP, make a PNAMES entry and make a TEXTURE1 entry with the size of the BMP.

For multiple patch entries, no - just the old "clicky"s:) Most textures today are single patches and didn't know if it was worth the effort to replicate the stuff in the X/Y linedef dragging option (selection 8 on the sidedef menu) - a fair amount of grunt code. Just a question of time and priorities. Feedback gives me a good sense of priority:)

It seems that soon I'm the last WadEd user if this keeps going on...

Uhm, probably not.

For two reasons (I'm currently unemployed -read BROKE-, and WadEd still works better with the way I draw maps) I won't be registering DeePsea... yet. ;)

There *are* things that I dislike about DeePsea - I guess I was a little quick off the mark to report to Jack that I like it, and thus enter 'neutral' debating territory ;)

But, they're mainly small, niggly, puritanical things, like having to key in light levels, of SHIFT-PAGEUP (?) to alter them. I want a clicky button to increment/decrement by 16! Waa...

Heh, but the main thing is (And I don't actually want to say this, as I'll bet Jack is getting sick of this old chestnut) I'm uncomfortable with it making the sectors for me.

Yes, I know, I know -- I actually championed auto-sectors in that awful WadEd debate, but I also declared that I'd prefer the option to be togglable -- for people like me that tend to draw unconnected lines in void space as references or bearings, to join onto sectors _later_.

It's ironic, isn't it? The one view I _didn't_ share with other WadEd users turns out, in practice, to be the niggle that annoys me most... C'est la vie.

Well, I have two options, 1) Wait for the new 'Rellik-WadEd', or 2) GET USED to DeePsea.

Actually, being the person I am, I'll probably take both. ;)

"like having to key in light levels, of SHIFT-PAGEUP (?) to alter them"

You can alter the default ctrl+Pgup/Dn increment for light level increment in F5/Textures. Shift+Pgup/Dn/Cursor is for floor/ceiling heights. Directly changing the light level to some value is fastest by clicking on the sector information "light" level box - way faster than "clickies" - for those used to keyboard entry.

Now that I think about it, it may be using the keyboard for the various things is a bit foreign, since the texture patch thing is similar. There I don't use the Up/Down scrollers (that there you don't like), but instead key the values in directly - having them well in my mind. I use the scrollers for minor adjustments like for a switch.

Usually there are at least 2 ways to do something - one is with the mouse, the other with the keyboard. Exceptions occur when the mouse is already "busy", so the only choice is the keyboard (like in the prefabs). The Esc key exits most things. So a mix of mouse and kb is what most users end up with - depending on one's memory:)

"I'm uncomfortable with it making the sectors for me."

If you think about it, overall it's not any extra work. Most of the time the values are correct and the few times you have to tinker far exceeds having to always "make sector". Even then, it's the same once one learns how to do it "fast" by letting the pgm do most of the work. All you have to do is figure out what the "last" reference sector should be.

"draw unconnected lines in void space as references or bearings, to join onto sectors _later_"

I admit I don't understand how this gives one bearing, but not a prob. Remember, a sector is NOT an area - so you can draw unconnected lines and then drag same lines to wherever. Of course you have to "fix" any sidedef sector references - but that's not a big deal, since the whole interface is geared towards dealing with level details directly. WYSIWYG - just look at the feedback info boxes and watch the sector numbers display - that's a quick way to know the values.

It doesn't really matter that a disjointed line has some invalid sector assignments - just like in Waded - you have an invalid line that you have to "fix". In the end, the total independence of individual parts make doing "tricks" very easy to do. Nothing is hidden and you are never at a loss of what part is referencing what part.

My tester is probably wondering what I'm doing:))

I wonder what Jack is doing.... ;-)

I wonder what Jack is doing.... ;-)

Kicking the vertical tool bar code around:) Customization is lots of grunt work. Work on those bitmap ideas:)