Okay, so this may be way harder than it sounds in practice, but I thought of one potential way to begin a possible merge of the two source ports that are essentially two sides of the same coin.
The idea would essentially be if a GZDoom/Zandronum merge were to ever take place, due tot he size and scope of such a thing the original two engines would still be selectable on the same window that loads up when you choose the other options as well. I don't know if it would actually be a real merge would take place due to the code being so different, so there's a chance that such a thing would likely be some kind of a rewrite, if ever enough people were gathered to make such a thing a reality.
Making that image also gave me two other ideas to improve the pop-up window, if they're ever done:
* Make QZDoom another option to load up on this screen, perhaps just have a mark you can check labeled "Experimental Features"?
* I wonder if some kind of ZDL-lite could be built into this interface eventually so people won't have to download a separate program for loading mods in a more mainstream fashion?
Okay, now that I'm not just waking up and still half asleep I'm confused even as to what I meant lol. Still, the other two ideas I has that weren't involving merging Zandronum slowly via the launcher, the one about QZDoom and adding the ability to load mods still sound valid.
Loading mods, no; that would have been done long ago if this was desired. I see at least three reasons why it hasn't happened in the past 19 years, and there might be others I haven't thought of:
The IWAD launcher is a relatively minimal UI widget. Which is good because that's entirely system-dependent code. The Windows, Linux, and Mac are all separate code. If you start adding more features, like a PWAD list, interfacing with the system API for opening a file browser/selector, etc. that's more work you'll need to triplicate. Alternatively, to avoid triplicating your work, you design it in a GUI library that will take care of the crossplatform stuff for you -- Qt or wxWidgets or whatever. And then you add a dependency on Qt or wxWidgets or whatever for a very minor part of the engine, a part that some users skip over entirely.
Furthermore, since we're talking about skipping -- the more features you put in, the less optional it becomes. Currently ZDoom has a few ways to just skip over the selection box entirely, such as by including a GAMEINFO lump telling it which IWAD to use. IWAD is known -> no IWAD selection box display -> user cannot change settings before playing the game.
Finally, there are dozens of frontends available. People who want a frontend are probably going to be better served using one. No matter how good the hypothetical integrated frontend ends up being, there will always be more features that some users will want (profiles for example) and no. It's just out of scope for what ZDoom aims to be. The focus has always been on the game part, not the pregame part.
On to QZDoom: there are currently no reason to use QZDoom. There will probably be a reason to use QZDoom in the future -- Rachael had plans for split-screen, C/S netcode, etc., all kinds of features that would be well suited for a QZDoom revival -- but then after that there won't be a reason to use QZDoom again. See the issue? Why put an exe selector for something that will only be intermittently relevant? I believe the user can be trusted to click on qzdoom.exe instead of gzdoom.exe if they want to launch QZDoom instead of GZDoom. Same for Zandronum. Besides, having to bundle several exes together would require coordinating releases and it would be a major logistical hurdle.
Ooo, I'm excited to hear about C/S support being considered. If that went through then what would Zandronum end up doing? Would their team join with GZDooms at that point and develop the port together? I don't see any reason for Zandronum to exist beyond being the best multiplayer GZDoom option.
Zandronum will continue being developed. If nothing else, a focus on stability is a huge reason to keep the port, and the name, around.
Plus, they need their own community still, because merging the communities together would be kind of ... eh. (It's been brought up before) Our admins and their's are in mutual agreement that a merge would not be healthy for our communities right now.
Ah, I see. They are very different communities as it stands. I don't see any reason if they get close enough to merge the ports but keep the communities separate, though.
