maps as folders

[SuaveSteve]

Instead of having maps in wads under /maps, why not let us organise our map lumps in folders/files as well, like the rest of the archive?

This will also make it easier to use tools like SLADE3 to work on map scripts while another works with the text/things/whatever lump as neither has to worry about packing/unpacking the wad file. Or even allow authors to edit the text lump with their own tools more easily.

This will probably be more useful for UDMF, but it shouldn't matter as long as the file = lump convention is followed. Right?

[Xaser]

For UDMF, this unfortunately isn't doable without changing (or violating) the UDMF spec. The trick is that lump order matters (see section "II.B : Storage Within Archive Files"), and there's no enforced order in folder-land. It was done this way since WADs don't have the luxury of folders and there needed to be some way of determining when a sequence of map lumps ends (i.e. ENDMAP).

Though adding support for this is theoretically possible, that'd require additions to the UDMF spec, the engine, and all relevant editors (GZDB-BF, DBX, and SLADE at a minimum). Frankly, the payoff is minimal at best, so it's really not worth pursuing, I'm afraid.

[_mental_]

that'd require additions to the UDMF spec, the engine, and all relevant editors (GZDB-BF, DBX, and SLADE at a minimum)

... and node builder(s). So most likely [No]. The idea is good but requires too much efforts.

[Kotti]

I remember having read a lengthy discussion about this a few months ago and a quick search brought this up:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10459

It looks like both Graf and randi were dead set against the idea for well justified reasons.

[GFD]

For further reading, here's an old feature suggestion topic for this same thing, which was [No]'d.