About this beta
---------------

Ok, hi, and welcome, etc.  Be sure to change 'dmapedit.ini' if you doom
files aren't as follows..

doom:     c:\doom\doom.wad
doom II:  c:\doom2\doom2.wad

Ok, new stuff..  If the last version you used was v3.01 (or below) then
there's so much new stuff I couldn't begin to list it all here.  Play
around and you should find it all.  Or, of course, read the docs.. :)
Dunno really what state the docs are in, though.  Probably not very up to
date, but might be half up-to-date.  For those who had a recent beta,
though, here's what's new:

Beta 7:
-------

* 3D preview now allows you to use coloring in solid rendering mode that
	most closely matchs the texture on that wall.  Use 'C' to toggle this.

* Preference menu items and the editor state can not be saved and restored
	on exit/startup.  This is used by the demo functions, to keep a demo
	played back in a fixed state.  As a result, previous demos, if you have
	recorded any, won't work.  If you really want to convert them over,
	let me know and I'll explain how to do it.

* Multi-map is in and working.  I have done quite a bit of testing on it,
	and it's working pretty good now, but I really can't say how stable it
	is.  However, as beta testers, I would appreiciate it if you used it a
	lot, as long as you aren't working on anything important.  If you are,
	you could make a backup of it and then heavily test it. :)

* Grid style (solid or dotted lines) is now selectable in the dmapedit.ini
	file.  Variable is 'grid lines', and can be 'solid' or 'dotted'.  So, lets
	have a vote.  Try them both out and tell me which one you like better.  I
	will make the one that the most number of people like best the default
	grid style.  Also, if you zoom out too far, and the distance between
	grid lines gets below 8 pixils, DMapEdit will draw every other/every
	fourth/etc grid line until they are 8 or more apart.  That's not new.
	What's new is that the grid will be drawn in red now if all the grid
	lines aren't being drawn, so you know that the grid you see doesn't
	represent the true grid size indicated.

* Hold down the Alt key in rectangle creation mode while dragging out a
	rectangle will now force that rectangle to be a square instead.

* Fixed a bug with the 'grid' setting used in the dmapedit.ini file.

Before beta 7:
--------------

* 3D preview.  See above for more information of this.

* Auto staircase-builder.  Type 'b' to get it going.  Should work without
	and problems.  The ceiling problem has been fixed.

* Polygon generator.  Selectable from the misc menu.

* Convert sector to door function.  Type 'd' to activate it.

* Demo record/playback.

* Rectangle mode is in.  Only way to get to it right now is with F5.
   So, press F5 and drag yourself some boxes.  I think you'll enjoy it.  
   Currently only overlapping horizontal and vertical lines are checked 
	for and merged, but the other checks are on the way.

* Sidedef edit mode is in.  Use F6 to get to it.  It displays textures on
   the currently highlighted sidedef, and it is also handy for editing
   groups of sidedefs.  Ever wanted to edit all the sidedefs of a sector
   at once?  Just mark a sector in sector edit mode, switch to sidedef
   edit mode, and press spacebar.  Well, kinda.  I'm still working on it
	so it probably won't work correctly, but it will soon.

* Pretty minor, but when box-marking, or making a rectangle in rectangle 
   mode, you can press the delete button/key to cancel.  You will be 
   holding down one of the buttons already (for stretching the box), so 
   the remaining buttons (excluding the delete button) will switch you 
	to the opposite corner of the box.  Handy if you started the box but
   found you slipped slightly from where you wanted to start.

* New lines are created smarter now.  If the line is single sided, it 
   won't have a '-' for the middle texture.  If it's double sided, but 
   has a multi-patch texture for the middle, it'll change it to '-' 
	automatically for you.  So, creating lines shouldn't introduce
	sidedef errors of any type anymore.

* The merging problems with rectangle mode I decided to handle in the 
   add new line function.  So, new lines you create from line edit mode 
   will also merge.  Like I said, though, only the horizontal and 
   vertical overlap cases are currectly detected.

* add/remake sector function has been fixed up and improved.  Void
	detection worked much better now, and should be flawless.  It also
	won't alter anything if it fails during the process.  It's also much
	faster, since void checking is done 'as it goes' instead of before it
	even attempts to do anything.

So, what is multi-map?  Well, in MS-Windows, you can have several windows
open at once.  Now in DMapEdit, you can have several screens open at once.
Only one screen can be displayed at once, however.  I think that's good,
though, since it won't cut down your viewspace any.

There are 10 screen slots.  One is for the clipboard, and the rest are
numbered from 1-9.  You start in slot #1 at startup.  You can switch slots
at any time by selecting a slot to switch to from the view menu, or using
the hotkeys Alt-1 thru Alt-9.  Alt-0 will bring up the clipboard.  Yes, you
can view and edit the clipboard just like any other map.

The current slot you are viewing is displayed in the lower right corner of
the screen, in front of the map position display.  This slot number
indicator will be surrounded with either square brackets [] or angle
brackets <>.  This indicates if a map is linked or not.  Square brackets
indicate the map is linked with one or more slots besides this one.

You can load up completely different maps or start new maps in different
slots, or you can use a slot as a an additional view of a map in another
slot.  This is known as linked maps.  When you first switch to a new slot,
it hasn't been initialized yet.  By default, it will take on the settings
of the map you are switching from.  Since it's the same map in another
slot, it becomes a linked slot.

Since linked slots all share the same map, changes made to the map in one
slot will be reflected in all slots linked to it.  The clipboard is a
special case, and can't be linked.

A new 3D previewer has been added!  It is very fast, but only on computers
with a math coprocessor.  If you don't have one, it may be very very slow.
Sorry, but the nature of 3D graphics as I am employing it requires floating
point numbers.

It utilizes a bsp tree (nodes structure), if available, to render the view.
While there may or may not be much of a speed change between the two
methods, using the bsp tree will render the view correctly, while the
non-bsp renderer will occasionally draw walls in the wrong order, making
walls that should be behind other walls actually in front.  This makes the
view 'look funny', like it's an optical illusion or something.  So, if you
want it to look right, build the nodes.  The node generator works flawlessly
and very quickly.  Actually the fastest node generator available.

Not quite perfect yet, though, even with the bsp rendering mode.  What am
I refering to?  Floors and ceilings.  These are quite a bit trickier than
walls, since walls are always rectangles, but floors and ceilings can be
non-convex polygons.  They can also have holes inside them, etc.  Basically
any shape a sector can have.  I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to
go about solving this little dilemma, so until I do, you'll have to live
without solid floors/ceilings.

You can view the whole map, or you can mark some lines/sectors and just
view those instead.  This is very handy when you want to limit rendered
view to just a certain area of study.

While in the 3D preview mode, you can control the view in many ways.  First,
there are 3 mouse button functions to alter the rotation, the scale, and the
position.  These functions, their current values, and the button used for
each are shown at the top of the screen.  You can click on one with another
mouse button to make that mouse button control that function, just like you
do in normal editing mode.

In addition, there's a bunch of keyboard keys to control the rendering
options:

W - select wireframe rendering mode
S - toggle solid walls rendering
X - toggle x-ray viewing backs of walls (see note below)
H - toggle hiding of backs of walls
B - toggle between black/gray coloring of backs of walls
O - toggle axis display
C - toggle texture-majority coloring of solid walls

note: Backs of walls are the non-visible sides of walls.  If you can't see
      the front of the walls, you will, of course, see the back sides of
      them.  X-ray viewing lets you see right through these back sides,
      rendering them as wireframe, while the front sides of walls are
      rendered solid still.

Lately memory has been the biggest problem of all.  Not anymore, though!
DMapEdit has been ported to DJGPP, and it is working great.  It can use
all available memory in your machine, instead of just conventional memory
(640k area), allowing very huge maps to be created if you wish.  Also, it's
a lot faster than the Borland version.  Node generation went from 28
seconds on the Borland version to 10 seconds.  Error checking also zipped
by at warp speeds.  I've went through it and fixed whatever problems I
could find, so it should be working fine, but I may have overlooked
something.  So, please let me know if of anything not working correctly
in it that worked fine in the Borland version.

Node generator has been fixed up.  Guess there were a bug I introduced 
when I rewrote some of it.  Fixed it though.  As far as I know, it is 
now flawless.  Every map I've run through it has worked perfectly.  If
you have a wad it fails on, let me know.

Blockmap generator has also been rewritten, and is working great now.  
It also creates a packed blockmap, merging all empty blocks, so it uses 
less space usually.  I have tested it out, and it has worked fine for 
me.  If anyone runs into problems with the blockmap, let me know.

Btw, might interest you to know that both the nodes and blockmap I 
generate is smaller than the original ones id generated for their maps.  
My nodes also eliminated the 'sliver' bug that id had.  One such sliver
was in beginning of the zig-zag room of E1M1.

So, being a beta, feedback would be appreciated, both bug reports and 
ideas or impressions, etc.  However, there are some bugs that I already 
know about..

* Fix lines stills seems to have some problems.  I know why, but I don't
	really have a clever plan to fix it yet.  If you only have one outer
	group, it should work fine.  If not, well, it could get confused.

* Not really a bug, but the global commands summary isn't quite up to date.
   I'm going to hold off on updating it until pretty much everything is
   done, because I'm getting tired of changing it all the time.

* Also, not everything is finished yet.  That's why this is a beta. :)
	Things not done yet include: Rotate, scale, and stretch objects.

Happy beta testing!

  -Jason

