
                             DOOM Text Edit 2.11
                            written by Dylan Hicks
                         (C) 1999  FrogTumor software


DOOM Text Edit, (DTEDIT for short), is a small editor for ID software's
game: DOOM.

The program allows you to make changes to the DOOM.EXE file, or whatever
the file name is.  The parts of the EXE that it edits are the text data,
and all the cheat codes.


===================================COMMANDS=====================================

If you need to know how to use the program, simply start it and press F1
anytime to open a help box which lists all of the different keyboard
commands for that part of the program.



===============================WHAT DTEDIT EDITS================================

The text data DTEDIT accesses is the data that DOOM uses when
it displays game messages, error messages, and verification messages,
plus a few others. Here is just some examples of what the
text messages are:

   picked up the red keycard

   when you come back, i'll be waiting with a bat
         (press y to quit to DOS)

   you can't quicksave when dead


Now the cheat codes are, of course, what they say they are: just cheat codes.
They will always be at the bottom of the main list in DTEDIT.

A couple of the codes that respond to numbers, like IDCLEV, (change level),
need a few extra bytes of space to store a string which DOOM recognizes
as a place to enter numbers, so it may look as if you could make the
code longer, but you can't because of this.


When you edit any of the entries in the main list, you can only make
the new data as long as the old data was, which includes blank characters
which are represented by a "" in the view box. They are automatically
added to the end of the data string when you save the edit changes
to fill the space left over, if any.




=========================== VARIABLE MARKERS ==================================

A variable marker is a letter, followed by a % symbol, these little
bastards are recognized by the game as a place to insert variables
when the message is displayed.
These markers only work in specific entries, such as:

  do you want to quicksave over your game named: '%s'? press y or n

The main entry list explains the letter and the use of the markers in
entries wherever there is one.




=============================== CHEAT CODES ===================================

The game will only activate the first match it comes to when
you type the codes, so this means that you can't have identical codes
that will work in DOOM... only the first one will.

The cheat codes for DOOM probably were designed to handle any keyboard
key, but I did not include every single one in the cheat code editor,
so the Function keys, the escape key and a few others are not available.

The keys that can't be typed directly, such as the arrow keys,
need to be inserted by entering a number which represents them.
To do this, you must hold down ALT and enter the number on
the KEYPAD, and only the keypad.

A table of these keys, their value, and the character that
represents them in DTEDIT can be found in CKEYS.TXT

But instead of bothering with that file, just push CTRL+F1 when you
are in EDIT mode to see the same listing.




========================== ENTRY TABLE FILES ==================================

An entry table file is DTEDIT's work file, you can save
your changes to a file like this, without having to save
to DOOM's EXE.
You can also use them to transport your custom entries,
without having to move the big fat DOOM.EXE file around on a disk.


To level builders, WAD authors, and other DOOM editing crazies!:

Have a look at ETF2EXE.EXE, it allows you to load ETF files into
the DOOM EXE from the command line. Very useful in your custom
theme packages.


========================== ABOUT DOOM VERSIONS ================================

DTEDIT supports 3 DOOM EXE versions: ULTIMATE DOOM 1.9, DOOM 1.666, and DOOM 1.9.
(Note that versions 1.666 and 1.9 of DOOM are the same with DOOM 2)

If you don't have any of these versions, then you will need to get a patch
from Id software's web site: http://www.idsoftware.com


You dont need to worry about saving an entry table for one
version of DOOM to another, because DTEDIT can convert the
table when you save to the EXE.







============================ EDITING TRICKS ===================================

A trick you can do with the cheat codes is make one of them activate
when you press any key. This can be accomplished by replacing the
body of the code with null characters, (ASCII 0), which
can be inserted like any normal character by pressing: ALT+KEYPAD 0

Another trick you can do with the cheat codes is to completely
disable them. This is done by replacing the code with one CR,
(ASCII 10), by pressing CTRL+ENTER.




======================== STUFF TO WATCH OUT FOR ==============================

WATCH OUT when you edit data that supports/has multiple lines, if you let
one of the lines get long enough to go off the screen in DOOM,
this can make the game crash, and return a bad V_DrawPatchDirect
error, which does not make any sense to me as it probably doesn't to
you.

This goes for vertical lines too, so don't put enough CR's in
the data to make it go off the bottom of the screen.


...And also remeber that even though you can put a CR in
the text, does not mean it will work in the game.
All messages besides the exit messages, and level completion messages
will not work with a CR in them.



============== BIG HAIRY PROBLEM WITH v2.0 ENTRY TABLE FILES! ==================

The entry table files created with version 2.0 will not work with version 2.1!
WHY?
Because in version 2.1 the "marked spot" entry was incorrectly
defined... It was fixed, but this required adding a single entry to
the list right after it. So now any old ET files you load into the new
DTEDIT will become out of sync after the "marked spot" entry.

To fix this problem, you will need to convert the files using
the ETF2ETF converter I've included with DTEDIT.
Type ETF2ETF /? to get help on how to use it.



If you encounter any problems with Dtedit, please feel free to
e-mail me at this address:
                      dylan@coldcomfort.com

I also appreciate comments or suggestions if you have any.
