[crossfire] Collaboration on a Java-based map editor? (repost)

[Andreas Kirschbaum]

Rick Tanner wrote:
> About two weeks ago (or maybe longer..) on IRC one of the developers
> who worked on and updated the map editor for Daimonin asked about a
> collaboration on a Java based editor that had a central or common core
> with specific side packages(?) for Crossfire and one for Daimonin.

> For those who can *and* are willing to contribute Java development
> interested in persuing this? Or discussing it further?

I'm interested since I did plan to fix/improve the editor for quite a
while now (but never found time to really start work). And since both
projects do not have that many developers, IMHO it would be a good idea
to share resources.

OTOH I still see some obstacles to consider when merging the editors:

 - Both editors are quite different (code-wise but maybe not
   feature-wise); it seems that both editors have been changed quite a
   bit since fork time.

   Since the Daimonin editor has no ChangeLog file, and the CF-Editor's
   ChangeLog file was not updated for all changes, it is probably not
   too easy to make sure all existing features are kept in a merge.

 - Into which repository should the merged code go? I don't think we
   should keep two copies (one in Crossfire, one in Daimonin) since it
   would be hard to maintain.

   Moving the CF-Editor into another project should not be hard to do
   since it is a standalone repository as far as I can tell. But the
   Daimonin editor is part of a combined server/client/editor/etc.
   repository. Therefore it probably has more dependencies to other
   parts of the project.

 - The Daimonin editor requires Java 1.5. The CF-Editor still works with
   Java 1.4. Since switching back to 1.4 does not really make sense to
   me, 1.5 would become a requirement for Crossfire.

 - I *think* some config files are not completely compatible anymore:

    - Spells are objects in Crossfire but (I think) still hardcoded as
      numbers in Daimonin.

    - Treasurelists in Daimonin use some "&" syntax (I think). Not sure
      if the treasurelist format has changed, or if it is only the
      syntax of the string referencing the treasures.