[Gtkradiant] old q3map2 in trunk, patches to q3map2

[Maik Merten]

Hello,

apparently the q3map2 in trunk identifies itself as 2.5.11. It seems
([1]) that there already was a version 2.5.16 and having a quick glance
over the q3map2 history reveals that this fallback to an older version
may impact on some content out there (many new q3map_* shader keywords).

Over at http://svn.icculus.org/nexuiz/trunk/misc/gtkradiant/ there are
patches fixing known q3map2 bugs for both the current trunk and the old
"more recent" q3map2 version which got overwritten (by accident?).

Those have proven to be extremely valuable to the Nexuiz mapping
community (e.g. the snapplane patch fixing players dropping through
floors on rare occassions, the decompilation fixes allowing us to
retrieve *useful* sources where map sources were lost etc. etc.) and
it's a bit unfortunate that users getting an official radiant version
are guaranteed to get inferior tools.

Those patches are not only useful for Nexuiz and I'm convinced they'll
prove valuable for other q3bsp projects as well. Thus I'd like to
request that those patches get included into trunk.

I think I remember that last time this topic was raised inclusion was
rejected due to concerns that legacy content may break. Given that those
patches have been in active use for several months to no ill effect,
that true legacy content is rather unlikely to ever see a fresh q3map(2)
version and that there are several projects for which new content (which
may benefit from a few q3map2 fixes) is produced (e.g. Warsow,
Tremulous, Urban Terror, World of Padman, Nexuiz - and I assume Quake
Live may also renew interest for "Quake 3" content creation) I think it
makes little sense to freeze q3map2 as-is when some low-hanging fruits
are available to sweeten the lives of content creators.

If q3map2 cannot be touched at all for reasons I'm currently not
thinking of a possible solution may be to ship a patched "q3map2-exp"
along  q3map2 "classic" so users/projects may choose what fits best,
satisfying both "legacy" needs and saving current content creators from
horrors that are fixed in the patched q3map2-exp.

Thanks,

Maik "SavageX" Merten
Nexuiz project manager


[1]
http://www.qeradiant.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/browser/GtkRadiant/trunk/tools/quake3/q3map2/changelog.q3map2.txt?rev=183