I'm much in favor of clean exe (and dll if required) releases. Additional files like paks or folders are clutter.

id1/quakespasm.pak is purely optional, not required for operation. The real clutter was the way we used to violate the engine for content customizations, and now not. 

Was it really necessary to include that custom background image in the first place? I mean, it's nice and all, but still. 

FWIW: if an engine has custom content, I prefer that it squirrels it away in a custom directory, rather than id1. E.g. the approach used by super8, reQuiem, Qrack, ezQuake, etc. 

including stuff like an id1/*.pak infects other engines (having to take care with numbering paks is stupid). we really don't want quakespasm branding etc in other engines because users are already stupid enough.
custom/private gamedirs are indeed the way to go if you're trying to push custom stuff for a specific engine. 

including stuff like an id1/*.pak infects other engines (having to take care with numbering paks is stupid). we really don't want quakespasm branding etc in other engines because users are already stupid enough.
custom/private gamedirs are indeed the way to go if you're trying to push custom stuff for a specific engine.

I see. How about not using any subdir for it at all and loading directly from com_basedir and/or com_userdir? 

Append it to the end of the exe if you want to be fancy about it, like self extracting zips.
Shoving it in the basedir should be safe I guess, no worse than a dll.
Either way, you might need to come up with some cunning way to not break mod-specific (as opposed to engine-specific) conbacks etc, especially if its a tga. That's more of a general problem though. meh. 

Append it to the end of the exe if you want to be fancy about it, like self extracting zips.

We used to embed the pic by perversely violating the engine, and I managed to persuade Steve about using a pak, so no, I won't do that :)

Shoving it in the basedir should be safe I guess, no worse than a dll.

Yeah, easiest and non-infectious solution, IMO.

you might need to come up with some cunning way to not break mod-specific (as opposed to engine-specific) conbacks etc, especially if its a tga. That's more of a general problem though. meh.

The pak is loaded just and only after id1/pak0.pak, so any other mod with a customized conback or anything else are safe, those include the hipnotic and rogue mission packs. 

Someone over at quaddicted reported this:
http://i.imgur.com/gvkld5W.jpg 

Seems that the issue happens with screen widths that aren't a multiple of 4. Fixed in the quakespasm svn repository at rev 909:
http://sourceforge.net/p/quakespasm/code/909/
Fix will be integrated in the next release, whenever that happens. 

Would it make sense to change the default sv_aim value to 1 in Quakespasm (to disable aim-assist)?

and maybe make it CVAR_ARCHIVE since most of the other control preferences are saved too? 

Maybe something along the lines of "if mouselook=on -> autoaim=off". 

Autoaim sucks. 

+ CVAR_ARCHIVE 

Please, add CVAR_ARCHIVE to gl_cshiftpercent
... and pretty much everything else. 

please let us "record demo", "load quick.sav" without stopping the demo record.

Fitz does it, DP does it, reQuiem does it. In fact I think it is possible in stock Quake engines too. 

there are features even i didn't know about :) 

Fitzquake does it but on my pc you have to hit the console button to make it work (otherwise it stays stuck) 

It seems everyone is doing something slightly different which is a headache for mod makers, because I wanted to switch music tracks during a map.

DP/FTE are using CD command, like for example:
CD PLAY TRACK04
(Music tracks can be several places)

QS is using a MUSIC command, like for example:
MUSIC TRACK04
(Music tracks must exist in ID1/MUSIC)

Is it possible QS could have a CD command to match the other client engines? 

to use external ent file which I know is supported by DP and am pretty sure is also supported by FTE seeing how versatile an engine FTE is.

And the next step is to use bat files or other means to switch different ent files depending on the choice of engine. 

 

requiem uses "cd play X" too. 

@sock
cd play not cd loop?
incidentilly, fte has a 'music' command for compat with q3, which needs an extra argument to control/disable looping ("-" to disable).
so take your pick. :P

@dooomer
ent files won't help with music/named faketracks. they're technically limited to numbered tracks only, which are a pain however you look at it.
you need qc for anything else, which at least prevents the need for horrendous user intervention (which you just know would go horribly wrong).

@ijed
I assume he's stuck on the step after that - the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. 

Make another standard!

Play them from Qc... 

Yeah it's annoying, I always felt you should be able to use "cd play 4" in quakesapsm and have the track04.ogg play.

But, as ijed says, the right way for a mod to do it is with qc; this should work in DP and QS:

WriteByte (MSG_ALL, SVC_CDTRACK);
WriteByte (MSG_ALL, 2); // 2 is track number
WriteByte (MSG_ALL, 2); // 2 is track number

courtesy of Baker. http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4552&p=41367&hilit=svc_cdtrack#p41367

There's some useful info on how different engines handle soundtracks here: http://neogeographica.com/site/pages/guides/soundtrack_solutions.html

In short, both QS and DP handle music in the form: moddirectory/music/track02.ogg 

"cd play" doesn't save to a savegame file.

So if you use cd tracks for "mood music" and use "cd play", saving the game and reloading it you will notice it didn't preserve.