Tuesday, August 07, 2007

WED Lives!!

WED went public beta yesterday. You can find it under the tools section of the X-Plane scenery web page.

I want to say thanks to the users who helped me with the alpha testing of WED. These users tested new builds quickly, wrote up great bug reports, and put a lot of effort into using WED at a time when it was really no fun to use.* Thanks guys!!

To reiterate a few points about WED:
  • WED 1.0 edits only apt.dat files, not DSFs or DSF overlays. WED will be the platform for additional editing features, but for now it only edits apt.dat files, and it will be like this for a while.
  • WED is still in beta, so use caution! Save backups, save often! Save earth.wed files and export to apt.dat for extra safety.
  • WED is free and open-source. It is not distributed with X-Plane, and you don't need to buy X-Plane to use WED.
Enjoy!


* Remember, "alpha" software means "we can test all functions, but they could all be broken", while beta means "we think there are no bugs that would cause data loss or crashes". So...while WED was alpha, it tended to crash or trash files, so the alpha testers couldn't get any real work done.

8 comments:

Bruce Cowan said...

"WED is free and open-source."

Where is the source then?

Benjamin Supnik said...

Hi Bruce,

As the blurb on the tools page says, it's on the code page of the scenery site.

What might not be obvious is that the download labeled "XPTools" on the code page contains the WED source (as well as a lot more).

Bruce Cowan said...

Fair enough, it wasn't obvious it was in the XPTools bit.

Benjamin Supnik said...

I'll try to improve the labeling next time I update the site!

Benjamin Supnik said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Easyglider said...

Hi,
I really enjoy your tool. Will there be a possibility to get an expansion in future? I am missing red signs (discribing the way to the runways) and red lines or red lined areas (discribing restrictetd places). Or am to stupid to find it in WED.

Anonymous said...

When can we expect to move/correct roads and river, add powerline and railroads ? I am tired about misplaced/missing network elements which is so important for VFR !!! IHMO, this is the largest weakness of x-plane

Tom said...

Hi

I am having trouble with viewing the changes that I make in WED. I have x-plane 8.64 and have been trying to add taxi ways and signs to make the sim more realistic. I have the photographic scenery for england and wales; by circle software. Through this I can import the .apt files needed to change the airports but when I come to save and export the .apt files back I can't view any changes in x-plane. Can any one offer suggestions on what I could be doing wrong?
Thanks very much.
Tom.