                   
                    <<----------------------------------->>
                    <<     SLADE: It's A Map Editor      >>
                    <<  by Simon "SlayeR" Judd, 2005-06  >>
                    <<----------------------------------->>

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
ABOUT:
SLADE is a modern, portable map editor for id software's Doom series of games.
It also supports the enhanced editing features of modern source ports, like
ZDoom.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
BACKGROUND:
When I first started I pretty much set out to create a Doom editor as a kind
of learning experience. I was perfectly happy with CodeImp's Doom Builder,
but there were a few things I thought it was missing, a major one being
support for non-Windows operating systems.

I had previously started on writing a Doom editor, first using the vanilla
windows drawing functions (ugh), and secondly using OpenGL, which proved to
be much nicer. That editor never got far though, and like a lot of my
programming projects it ended up collecting dust somewhere on my hard drive.

Sometime in 2004 I started writing what would become SLADE, an SDL based
editor. Eventually it grew to have all the major features of Doom Builder,
while remaining cross-platform compatible. One of the main pitfalls, though,
was the lack of a user-friendly UI, and so the editor was never really used
by anyone except me :P

So, after releasing v0.6 of the SDL version, I stopped work on it, and began
writing yet another iteration of the editor, this time using GTK for the user
interface. The GTK incarnation didn't last long though, and now I've rewritten
it to use the wxWidgets GUI API, which works much better in windows than GTK,
and uses GTK in linux anyway.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
FEATURES:
 - Supports Doom/2, Heretic and Hexen games, as well as Boom,
   ZDoom and GZDoom source ports.
 - OS-native, cross-platform user interface via wxWidgets,
   similar to that of Doom Builder.
 - ACS Script editor.
 - 2d map drawn in OpenGL, allowing for nice features such as
   antialiased lines, etc.
 - 3d editor mode, with support for some ZDoom features (TranslucentLine,
   slopes)
 - Easy line and rectangle drawing.
 - Texture and thing type browsers, for easy selection.
 - Quick thing angle editing.
 - Support for new things defined with ZDoom's DECORATE lump.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
PLANNED FEATURES:
 - Support for more source ports (legacy, doomsday, etc)
 - GZDoom/Legacy/Vavoom 3d floors support in 3d mode
 - Some kind of scripting language for generating map architecture and
   interesting stuff like that ;)

PLANNED IMPROVEMENTS:
 - Reduce memory usage

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
REQUIREMENTS:

Hardware
 - 300mhz (abouts) or better processor
 - OpenGL capable video card (~GeForce 2 or higher for 3d mode)
 - 128mb RAM, 256+mb for large maps

Software
 - MSVC 7 runtimes on Windows (included in dllfiles.rar)
 - An up-to-date OS

TESTED (and works) ON:
 - AMD Athlon 2500+, GeForce 6600GT, 1024mb RAM,
   Windows XP Pro +SP2 / Ubuntu Linux 1.10 (Breezy Badger)
 - AMD Sempron 2600+, Radeon 9600Pro, 512mb RAM,
   Windows XP Pro +SP2
 - Pentium II 350mhz, GeForce 2 MX, 128mb RAM, Windows 2000

TESTED (and works but not too well) ON:
 - Pentium II 350mhz, Voodoo Banshee, 128mb RAM, Windows ME
 - Virtual machine, Windows 98

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
HISTORY:
7 June, 2007: v2.00 beta 1
NEW FEATURES:
 -> Near complete rewrite
 -> Major rework of the internal map handling and a bunch of other stuff
 -> New default colour scheme, changed the way colour schemes work too
 -> PK3/Zip format support
 -> ZDBSP now built-in as the gl-node builder and default nodebuilder
 -> Greatly improved line/shape drawing
    (it's now possible to draw 'over' existing lines)
 -> Multiple bindings for controls now possible
 -> No more 'setting up' 3d mode (except for building gl nodes), so it should
    start up much faster
 -> Basic sky preview in 3d mode
 -> Much improved 2d editor speed
 -> Moved resources to slade.pk3 (instead of 'res' and 'games' folders)
 -> 'Hide Unused Textures' option in the texture browser
 -> Added some useful console commands (see console.txt)
 -> Configuration is now saved in the user's home directory rather than the SLADE
    application directory
 -> Hopefully much more stable than 1.x ;)

MISSING FROM PREVIOUS (will come in later 2.0 betas / 2.0 final):
 -> 3d Mode slopes
 -> Fancy script editor with hilighting etc
 -> Few more things I'm sure



23rd May, 2006: v1.13
 -> 'Hide IWAD Textures' option in texture browser
 -> DECORATE things are now parsed (scaling and transparency also supported)
 -> Many improvements to the ACS editor, including hilighting and autocomplete
 -> Map panning
 -> Various bugfixes and (slight) performance improvements

14th March, 2006: v1.12
 -> 'Import Map' feature
 -> Grid level now shown on the status bar
 -> Rotate feature
 -> Affected line lengths are shown while moving vertices/lines/sectors
 -> X/Y Axis mirroring (map architecture and things)
 -> 'Run map' option (configurable)
 -> Node builder paths are now configurable (plus added bsp as a nodebuilder)
 -> Improved context menus
 -> Changed rectangle draw to 'shape draw'. A drawing options sidebar is now
    available to select the type of shape to draw, and options for that shape
 -> New 'Theme' sidebar, to select default textures/properties for new sectors
 -> Line drawing controls are now configurable
 -> Added new controls 'edit_createitem2', '3d_reset_xoffset' and
    '3d_reset_yoffset' (check the online documentation for details)
 -> Also added controls to copy/paste offsets in 3d mode
 -> View related controls now work while line/shape drawing
 -> 'Paint room' for 3d mode now works on flats (paints adjacent flats of the
    same height)
 -> Bugfixes and random improvements

22nd February, 2006: v1.11
 -> Line and sector specials are now shown on their respective edit dialogs
 -> Thing and line flags are now defined in game configurations instead of
    being hardcoded
 -> Page Up/Down keys now work in the texture browser
 -> Greatly reduced loading time, textures are no longer all loaded at startup
 -> Tab and Return keys now work in the input preferences dialog
 -> Simple 'create sector' function (doesn't work in all situations though)
 -> Hexen-format line and thing information is shown on the infobar (args etc)
 -> 'Light gradient' function
 -> Added ability to set a 'background texture' in 2d mode, useful for aligning
    map architecture to flat textures
 -> Thing args are now saved properly when changed
 -> Added back the 'Checks' menu
 -> Reimplemented support for HIRESTEX textures (defines and remaps)
 -> Bugfixes

6th February, 2006: v1.1 *Initial wxWidgets release*
 -> Moved UI to wxWidgets, which looks much better in Windows while keeping
    cross-platform capability
 -> Map preview in the wad manager
 -> Improvements to the args editing UI stuff
 -> Option to scale text messages in 3d mode
 -> Improved hilight lines in 3d mode
 -> Context menus in line and sector edit mode (pops up the edit->line or
    edit->sector menus. Right click by default)
 -> Middle click to snap to the nearest vertex in line draw mode
 -> Mouse wheel is now configurable and usable for 3d mode controls

1st January, 2006: v1.02
 -> Added keys to copy/paste Sidedef data in 3d mode
 -> Texture browser textures can be sorted by usage frequency
 -> Status bar on the editor window
 -> Improvements to line drawing (drawing 'over' vertices now works correctly)
 -> Changed input system to include mouse buttons, so now they are properly
    configurable
 -> Added keys to increase/decrease sector(s) light level in 2d mode
    (; and ' by default)
 -> Grid snap is now toggleable
 -> Bugfixes etc

24th November, 2005: v1.01
 -> Copy+Paste
 -> 3d mode resolution selection
 -> Fixed some problems with slopes in 3d mode
 -> Window properties are now saved
 -> Scroll wheel now works in the 2d editor (zoom in/out)

22nd November, 2005: v1.0a
 -> Many bugfixes
 -> Toggleable gravity in 3d mode
 -> Invert mouse option for 3d mode
 -> 'New Map' button in the Wad Manager window now works

22nd November, 2005: v1.0 *Initial GTK release, 1 year after SLADE v0.1 ;)*
 -> New GTK Interface
 -> ACS Script editor
 -> Improved 3d mode: Much faster, no more 'flickering' subsectors
 -> ZDoom TranslucentLine special now preivewed in 3d mode

35th August, 2005: v0.6 *Last SDL version*
 -> Slopes in 3d mode
 -> Merge/Join sectors (j or ctrl+j by default)
 -> 'Extrude lines' feature.
 -> Smaller zoom increments with + and - keys (mouse scroll for large increments)
 -> Changed handling of non-power-of-two textures. They should tile correctly in
    3d mode now. As a side-effect, drivers with OpenGL 2.0 support are now needed
    to display these textures correctly (if gl_filter isn't set to 3)...

31st May, 2005: v0.5
 -> New 'draw rectangle' feature, shift+space by default
 -> Changed how keys.cfg works, now it looks uglier, but I don't
    have to include it with every SLADE release any more, so you
    get to keep your controls config when you update SLADE ;)
 -> New 'create stairs' and 'create door' options in the edit menu
    when in sectors mode
 -> Thing editing in 3d mode (only change angle and z-height for now)
 -> ZDoomGL hires textures support (via HIRESTEX lump)
 -> Different sort modes for the texture browser: 'alphabetical' and 
    'frequency of use'
 -> Most menu options should work now ;)
 -> 'Change skin' option in the menu. Also there's a new section in
    slade.cfg to define your own skins
 -> 3 new skins: 'flatish', 'simple' and 'simple2'
 -> Crosshair and mouse pointer now skin-independant (you can specify
    what crosshair/pointer you want in slade.cfg)
 -> The usual random bugfixes

11th May, 2005: v0.4a
 -> Random bugfixes
 -> Align textures feature for 3d mode
 -> 'Paint room with texture' in 3d mode
    (just hold shift while selecting or pasting a texture)
 -> 'Quick Angle Select' for things, simply hold middle click
 	or ctrl+left click and any hilighted/selected things will
 	face towards the mouse pointer.
 -> 'Browse Things' feature, somewhat easier than going through
    multiple menus to choose thing types (and leads the way to
    basic thing editing in 3d mode)
 -> Added menus for most configuration options

9th May, 2005: v0.4
 -> Editing in 3d mode
 -> Thing sprites in 2d and 3d modes
 -> ZDoom maps support (minus generalized sector types, for now)
 -> Now reads textures from ZDoom TX_ markers (PNG and Doom Patches)
 -> Mouse can now be used to select menu items
 -> Console in 3d mode (for testing mainly)
 -> Line Drawing
 -> Lots of other stuff

(Unknown Date), 2005: v0.3a
 -> Various bugfixes
 -> Hexen format map support

15th February, 2005: v0.3
 -> (almost) Complete rewrite
 -> Custom editor skins support
 -> Other small features added as part of the rewrite
 -> Source released

(Unknown Date), 2004: v0.2
 -> Added 3d preview mode
 -> Started on ZDoom support

22nd November, 2004: v0.1
 -> Initial release.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------->>
CONTACT:
Website: http://slade.mancubus.net
Email:   hotmail, mister__bungle