Just a quick update to say that forum registration should be working again (you're no longer always under 13 years of age, heh). Also due to some problems it was causing, the mancubus.net websvn software has been disabled, so for now the only option for browsing the svn is browsing it directly here.

And finally, SLADE v3.0.2 is released. The final version doesn't really have any new features over beta 3, but here's an overview of the major changes since 3.0.1:

- Many improvements to the texture editor:
-- Extended ZDoom TEXTURES support
-- Textures can be copied and pasted, including between different archives, patches and all
-- Added shortcut keys and context menu for the texture list
-- Added 'Texture' menu when a texture editor is open
- New 'Graphic' menu for gfx entries, with some basic gfx editing functions such as flip/mirror, rotate, colourise and colour translation
- Typing the first few characters of an item to jump to it in lists has been re-implemented
- Added the ability to open entries in separate tabs
- Dumped Audiere as the sound/midi library in windows, and swapped to SFML-audio. Upsides are much better/faster audio support and audio support in linux (and mac). Downsides are no mp3 or module format support (though I'll look into adding these back at a later date)
- Fluidsynth is now used to preview MIDI in both windows and linux
- Palettes can now be exported in various formats: raw, png image, csv and jasc palette
- Many other bugfixes and small improvements

With that out of the way, I now plan to focus on the map editor/3.1 for the most part, although I imagine there will be at least a version 3.0.3 before it is finished as there are still quite a few things I want to add to the general editor. Another thing that needs to be looked at is some proper documentation of editor features, but this is one of those things I'm not so good at, I wouldn't know where to start I may put up a few basic tutorials at some point, though, detailing how to perform some common editing activities such as importing, texture editing, etc etc. I imagine there are quite a few minor features many people don't know about

Well the last few things I wanted to do for 3.0.2 are now done, and therefore 3.0.2 beta2 is now up at the downloads page. Now all it needs is some polish and bugfixing before 3.0.2 final

All that's really new since beta 1 is the ability to use textures as patches for ZDoom TEXTURES, and the ability to copy and paste textures from one list to another, patches and all.

So I hear some people have been having trouble registering over at the SLADE (mancubus.net) forums. Anyone who did (or does ), please read this post. I'd like more people to use the proper SLADE forums as it's preferable for discussion/reporting over the wiki or threads in other, unrelated forums. Don't let the need to register scare you off

In other news, nearly all the new features I wanted for 3.0.2 are now implemented, so I figured a new beta release is in order. So yeah, try it out and report any bugs so they can be fixed for 3.0.2 final

What's new or changed? Well, this:
- Texture editor now supports ZDoom's enhanced TEXTURES format
- New 'Graphic' menu for gfx entries, with some basic gfx editing functions
- Typing the first few characters of an item to jump to it in lists has been re-implemented
- Added the ability to open entries in separate tabs
- Dumped Audiere as the sound/midi library in windows, and swapped to SFML-audio. Upsides are much better/faster audio support and audio support in linux (and mac). Downsides are no mp3 or module format support (though I'll look into adding these back at a later date)
- Fluidsynth is now used to preview MIDI in both windows and linux
- Many other bugfixes and small improvements
Before 3.0.2 final I still want to finish off some stuff with the TEXTURES editor, namely allowing textures to be used as patches, offsets previewing and copy+paste for textures. Hopefully proper lzma/bz2 compression support for zips will be done before then too. Once 3.0.2 final is done, I'll really get around to implementing the map editor, something I've been itching to do lately

As per usual, go to the downloads section to grab the beta, and get testing etc.

A bit later than I would have liked, here is SLADE v3.0.1. It's for the most part a bugfix/improvements release after 3.0.0, but there are a few new things in there too. Below is a list of the major changes and additions in this version:

- Support for more game formats: Wolf3D/SoD, Dark Forces, Descent, Unreal/Half-Life WAD3, Half-Life texture, Quake2 wal
- Fixed many problems with the texture editor
- New 'Save Map Image' button on map preview
- The archive menu now has its own associated toolbar
- Swapped the top and bottom bars of controls in the entry viewers (mostly to get the 'save changes' button to a more convenient location)
- Entry names containing / or \ are now valid in wad archives
- Added the ability to drag files onto the program window: dropping files on the entry list will import them to the archive, dropping them anywhere else will attempt to open them as archives
- Many general bugfixes and small improvements
The map editor is coming along slowly but surely, hopefully it'll be done before the end of the year at the latest...

With all the features (and more) of SLumpEd, and (hopefully) all the bugs from beta gone, it's finally time - for SLADE v3.0.0 Go grab it at the downloads page!

The only real new feature added since beta7 is an 'Export to PNG' function for gfx entries, to alleviate the hassle of having to convert manually before exporting. Apart from that, many bugs were fixed and various interface-related oddities were fixed up, and the entry type detection code was optimised significantly.

To coincide with the release, the old SLADE/SLumpEd forums have been cleared, and in their place is a new SLADE3 set of forums. Feel free to post any bug reports, feature requests, or anything else SLADE-related there.

Aaaand it's beta 7. New stuff ahoy:

- Enhancements to TEXTUREx editing:
  - More information shown about patches in the patch table tab
  - New patch browser to select patches when editing textures
  - Added 'Add to Patch Table' and 'Add to TEXTUREx' to the entry context menu ala SLumpEd
- Added map preview - supports doom, hexen, doom64ex and udmf format maps
- Added an entry type filter to the entry list
- Added 'Remove Unused Patches' feature
- Finished start page, with recent files, links and a 'tip of the day'
- Finished text editor functionality: autocomplete, syntax hilighting, calltips, and more
- Support for more archive formats: Quake PAK, Quake WAD2, Jaguar Doom, Duke3d GRP, Blood RFF
- Support for more gfx formats: Duke3d/build tiles, Heretic2 mipmapped pictures, various ROTT formats
- Added 'Revert' entry action, does the same as in SLumpEd - reverts the entry data to it's last saved state
- Implemented audio preview. Supports wav, doom sound, d64ex sound, creative voc, various module formats, midi, mus, mp3, flac, ogg, and more
- Added global palette chooser to the toolbar
- Added ANSI text screen viewer
- ACS script compilation
- Many bugfixes and improvements
With beta 7, SLADE 3 now has all the features of SLumpEd (and more of course). This means that I won't be adding any new major features for v3.0. Before the final 3.0 release, though, I'd like to get it as bug free as possible, so I encourage people to test beta 7 as much as they can, and report any bugs or annoyances via either the forums (preferrably), email or on the wiki.

Hopefully I can get the final 3.0 out before the end of the year

I figure it's about time I released beta 6. It's been a few months since the last one (so much for monthly betas ), but hey, the SVN builds should be enough to keep those most interested in development up-to-date. Many things are improved over beta5 in this version, so be sure to get it asap if you're still using 5.

New stuff? Here:
- TEXTUREx editor is fully functional (not entirely complete yet though, just needs a proper patch selector)
- Implemented proper mass rename/import/export
- Support for opening/viewing more archive and image types: Shadowcaster, Amulets & Armor
- Implemented 'recent files' (in the file menu and also in a tab in the Archive Manager)
- New Bookmark system: In a fourth tab in the Archive Manager is a list of bookmarks. You can right-click on an entry in the Entry Panel to bookmark it. Then you can quick-jump to it with a double-click
- Massively improved entry list speed
- Entry list can now be filtered by name
- Added a basic preferences dialog
- Added a proper hex viewer
- Entry extensions are automatically updated if their type gets changed somehow (via gfx conversion, file import, etc)
- Base resource archive can now be selected from the toolbar
- MANY bugfixes, minor features and general improvements
3.0 is getting closer, gradually...

Well the SLADE website has been down for a week or so, during that time a few things have happened.

Gez has setup an SVN builds page over at DRD Team. So if you're feeling adventurous, try out the latest (win32) SVN build of SLADE while waiting on the next proper beta version

I've also setup a Wiki for SLADE over here, which will be added to over time with documentation, tutorials, information etc etc.

That's all for now, hopefully within the next few weeks I'll get beta6 up, if all goes well...

Well I didn't get everything I wanted finished before this release, but it's been longer than a month so it's time for beta 5.

New stuff in this release:
- The usual bugfixes and improvements (and possibly new bugs introduced :P)
- TEXTUREx editor redesigned, now is opened by double-clicking a texture related entry. The editor itself still isn't finished, though
- Basic colourisation (comments+strings) and line numbers in the text editor
- Gif support
- Detection for a bunch more entry formats
- Ability to import multiple files at once (with 'Entry->New from File')The list isn't all that impressive I know, but a lot of the work since beta4 has been under the hood, so to speak. Anyway hopefully next beta will have the TEXTUREx editor done (finally), and perhaps the text editor too...

Well a lot sooner than I planned, here's beta 4. I would have waited longer to up the version but beta 3 had some nasty problems. So, here's what's new:

- The usual bug fixes and improvements
- Added "Convert to ANIMDEFS" function to context menu when ANIMATED and/or SWITCHES lumps are selected
- TGA and TIFF support
- Added new cvar gl_tex_enable_np2 which will completely disable non-power-of-two textures if set to false (set it in slade3.cfg)
- Fixed problem where saving an archive took much too long
- Added support for viewing BMF fonts
- Colormaps and translation tables can now be viewed (temporary, i plan to get a full colormap editor/previewer going eventually)
- Can now open embedded zips
- Several new text types recognised
Barring any real problems I'm hoping to have the TEXTUREx editor mostly complete by the next beta release

Well I figure it's about time to release another beta. A lot of stuff has been added since the last beta version, most of it added by Gez (a huge thanks to him, I probably would never have gotten around to putting in most of that stuff ). So anyway, in ancient SLADE tradition, here's a list of new stuff:

- Many bug fixes and small improvements
- Support for many new graphic formats:
   Various Doom alpha/beta gfx formats, AUTOPAGE, planar (Hexen STARTUP), ZDoom IMGZ/FON1/FON2, VGA-ROM, PCX
- TEXTUREx entries can now be viewed (still very WIP though)
- Support for Strife and Doom alpha/beta TEXTUREx entries
- Can now view all PLAYPAL palettes (instead of just the first)
- Gfx preview should now work on video cards that don't support non-power-of-two OpenGL textures
- Added ability to scroll the gfx viewer (via up/down/left/right keys or dragging right click)
- Added support for ZDoom alPh/tRNS chunks
- Added ability for 'portable' install, where all configuration files etc are stored in the application directory (currently activated by creating a file called 'portable' in the SLADE application directory)
- ANIMATED and SWITCHES entry viewer (editing coming eventually)
- Can now open/edit archives within archives (wad maps within pk3s, for example)

Perhaps I'll try to get a monthly beta release going from now on. Still a fair few things to go before the final v3.0 release...

Well it's about time I actually got around to updating this place - nearly 3 years gap is much too long, especially considering I actually hadn't (completely) stopped SLADE development over that time.

What's happened since the last update? Many things . SLADE 2 was abandoned not too long after the beta release, mostly due to waning interest on my part but also because I was becoming increasingly unhappy with the way I coded a lot of it. Not to mention the editor was fine enough for me to get by with. But of course over time my interest in coding it gradually returned. Attempting to continue work on the SLADE 2 codebase, though, made me realise just how badly i'd done some things, and I found it quite hard to understand some of the stuff I'd written myself

The thought of rewriting the map editor yet again to do (pretty much) the same thing was also quite offputting though, so I decided to do something different. Another program of mine, SLumpEd, was in a similar situation to SLADE 2. Why not combine the two into a complete editing package? SLADE3 aims to be just that

Since then it has been coming along slowly but surely, and recently I've released a couple of beta versions for testing - which you can grab from the downloads section (at your own risk, mind you - it's a 'testing' release for a reason ). As of now I hope to have the wad/resource editor stuff finished soon, and the map editor in a working state by the end of the year.

More to come, soon!