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WadGadget is a console-based, interactive WAD file editor for Doom engine games (and others that reuse the WAD format).

The program is a love letter to TiC's New WAD Tool, a '90s WAD editing tool that I have continued to find useful even two decades after its last release. The user interface is inspired both by orthodox file management tools like Norton Commander but also by the unfinished 1.4 beta release of NWT which was going to have a two-pane interface for viewing two WAD files simultaneously.

A two-pane WAD editing tool has several advantages. Firstly, when editing Doom WAD files, one develops PWADs as a patch against the original IWAD file. The result is a merger between the two, and it's helpful to be able to explore this and see the effect of one on the other. Secondly, WadGadget fully integrates both the filesystem and WAD views; the actions of importing, exporting or copying between WADs all take place through a consistent interface.

WadGadget aims at minimum for feature parity with NWT; this goal has not yet been met. It also adds new features and a more logical GUI, but is likely never going to include as many features as other tools like the excellent SLADE.

The following table gives a brief summary of the current state:

Can I use this under Microsoft Windows?

There is not yet a native Windows version. You can probably make it work by using Windows Subsystem for Linux; I have not yet heard from anyone who has tried this.

Will you add {my favorite feature here}?

Firstly, WadGadget is never going to implement every feature found in other editors like SLADE. Some of the planned features are listed in the table above. If there is a particular feature that you think is important to add to the program, file a feature request.

What features will never be implemented?

The goal of the project is to develop a curses-based Doom WAD editor. This necessarily means that various features will always be out of scope. Some examples are:

• It will never include a level editor, or anything else that requires a graphical display (like an image editor). It's better to delegate that kind of thing to other programs.
• It is unlikely to ever include any kind of GUI or GUI integration
• It is unlikely there will ever be support for other archive formats, like .zip/.pk3 (used in some Doom source ports), or formats like .pak or .grp used in other games.

The project also tries to avoid "useless" features -- for example, configuration options to change the colors of the interface (Commander Mode is the one such feature that is the exception).

Why is this ugly/slow on FreeBSD?

The version of curses shipped with FreeBSD seems to be very limited or an old version for some reason. Make sure you compile against the version from the ports database, and also install the terminfo database. You can do this with pkg install ncurses terminfo-db.