why would you wanna the randmap command???
it is a most idiotic request i've ever heard 

To play a random map. 

It is certainly NOT an idiotic request. It actually says a lot about your own way of playing Quake !

As I already said several times, I have hundreds of custom maps in my id1/maps folder. Most of the times, when I launch QS, I simply don't know which maps I'm gonna play. And there's no way I can know in advance what a map is looking like, just by looking at its name in the map list.

So I start by launching a random map from the list. It's a pain in the ass to look up the whole list (hundreds of fucking weird names!), and type it in the console, then repeat the process again after I played the map.

The randmap command would ease that A LOT !

Is that so hard to understand !? WTF ! 

You do know the Quake Injector, right? It's what I use when I get a random craving. Just scroll randomly and click. 

Close your eyes, get your finger out, and point to your screen at random with the window with the maps open. Or input the ''maps'' command and press page down a random amount of secs.

Well, jokes aside, that feature isn't something that would make your life so easy that you need it for sure, judging by the amount of posts you are writing. It would save you just a little work.
The second point is that there is only a few people that would use it. Everyone has their own way of playing the maps. I for example delete them after playing.
Third what was already said before, it has conflicts with .bsp files in id1\maps\ that aren't maps. 

Apparently, Quake Injector don't work very well on OS X.

And I would **hate** to use an extra program just to launch a random map. It would be much easier to launch a random map directly from within QS.

Geez, I don't need all the Quake Injector functionalities built in QS, just a random map loading as an alternative to the usual map command, that's all.

Since nobody here appears to understand what I'm asking, I'll shut my mouth and wont participate anymore to this forum. 

You'd have better luck if you'd asked politely instead of petulantly demanding that others spend their hobby time, which they use for fun, to implement a feature for you.

And here's a really wacky idea:

Some time ago I wanted to make custom enemies for quake. So I opened up the qc and learned how to script it. Saying "I don't know how" is not an excuse - everyone starts like that. 

About your wacky idea :

So do you think it's possible to make some bsp file that would launch a random map from a list ?

I may be tempted in trying to do it myself, if it's possible to define such a random map process. 

How the feature could be made. There will be multiple solutions.

The one that comes to mind, that I know how to do, is write a simple qc randomizer and write a list of maps into it. Then launch it from a console command.

You'd need to update it and recompile to add new maps, but that's trivial.

Check out www.inside3d.com - it has lots of tutorials, maybe you can adapt one.

To compile the qc I recommend fteqcc compiler, though I don't have the website to hand.

I would actually write the qc you need for you (it's pretty easy) but I have to limit my time at the computer and prefer time I do spend there to used working on my current project. 

Barnak, everyone understands what you're asking. They got it the first time. Everyone's just like, nope 

Thanks for the info.

Do you have a code file that could help me start the project ?

And what app to compile quake code on OS X ?

I'm in total blackness void here. 

Should I start a new thread for this ?

I've found this code, but I don't know what to do with it :

http://www.inside3d.com/showtutorial.php?id=158 

firstly:
using a mod to select a random map is kinda silly.
the reason for this is two-fold, a) you need to load the mod somehow (gamedir command? means it can't work with (other) mods). b) you need to load a map before you can run any qc.
so really you're not that better off than using an external tool to pick maps.

I doubt QuakeSpasm supports DP_QC_FS_SEARCH, and I've no idea if it supports FRIK_FILE. Hardcoding a maplist is easy enough (yay arrays), but not for a user who wants everything to be straightforward.

secondly:
official fteqcc (svn) builds can be downloaded from here: http://triptohell.info/moodles/fteqcc/
latest and breakiest and all that.

I can't support mac. all the things on cross compiling *to* mac all seem to say 'you will need: 1 mac', which completely defeats the point of cross compiling.
if anyone wants to compile one for me, give me a link and I can link to your site as you desire, but I can't maintain it myself. 

Hmmm, sorry to be a shit fly, but I really didn't understood an iota of what you have written.

And apparently, it's a pain in the arse to compile QC codes on OS X. The old Quake tools on OS 9 aren't supported anymore.
(from http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4821 and other places) 

I know that szo has somehow set up a cross compilation toolchain for QuakeSpasm. He can do Mac builds on Linux, but I have no idea how he did it. 

Generally everyone is busy with other things. So the best way to get these things included is write/port the code yourself and submit it to the sourceforge project page patches. Probably worthwhile to use the feature requests forum too.

Maybe we need a cross platform QC compiler ?
I forgot about it... HoT has a comprehensive set of tools in-tree, but we'd probably package any QCC separately from the Quakespasm engine. 

Well, it does seem like a nice idea to have a QC compiler that runs on OSX (and command-line apps like that ought to be just a case of recompiling) but why don't we write it in the most cross-platform format: console scripts:

//create short alias commands for the maps we want to run
alias map01 "map e1m1"
alias map02 "map e2m2"
alias map03 "map e3m3"
alias map04 "map e4m4"
alias map05 "map dm5"
alias map06 "map dm6"

//create a looping sequence of aliases
//each one redefines rand_select to be one of the above commands
//each one also defines the rand_cycle to move to the next state
alias rand_cycle01 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle02; alias rand_select map01"
alias rand_cycle02 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle03; alias rand_select map02"
alias rand_cycle03 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle04; alias rand_select map03"
alias rand_cycle04 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle05; alias rand_select map04"
alias rand_cycle05 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle06; alias rand_select map05"
alias rand_cycle06 "alias rand_cycle rand_cycle01; alias rand_select map06"

//run the first alias to intialise rand_cycle
rand_cycle01

//add a key to repeatedly hammer to simulate randomness
bind F7 rand_cycle

//bind the key that loads the next map
bind F8 "rand_select;rand_cycle"

Usage: press F7 a few dozen times to seed the "random" selection, then press F8 to select one of the maps. If you extend the list, take care to ensure that the rand_cycleXX aliases create a full loop, so edit 06 to point at 07 and ensure the final one points back at 01 instead.

My model was the file from:
https://github.com/BenDoan/TF2-Config/blob/master/shittalk.cfg
This example has an extra layer using "wait" to make the randomness work better - in this one you hold down a key for a period of time to repeatedly cycle, then when you release it a selection is made. I tried to emulate this but in fitzquake it got stuck. Maybe other engines support a route to this...

An easier way to get the randomness without having to mash a key is to add the rand_cycle command to some other often used key, like the attack button:

bind mouse1 "+attack;rand_cycle"

Now the number of attacks you make on one map seeds the selection of the next, which feels pretty random. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that we did this trick with the F8 key already. This makes the F8 key cycles through the maps in order, which is handy to skip over repeats or maps you dislike. 

As example: no matter how many times you enter "cycle r_wateralpha 0.3 0.6 1" command, it uses only 1st value. 

Speaking about wateralpha, I am somewhat surprised that no one seems to have implemented a per brush alpha. That in combination with worldspawn settings (for lava, slime, water and teleporters) that are taken as default if none are specified on a brush would make a lot of sense to me. 

There is such a thing: make a func_wall (or a func_anything) and set the "alpha" keyvalue.

Can't have alpha on worldspawn brushes, though. 

Fixed in svn 

Cool, didn't know that. So can a func_wall function as water as well? Or other liquids? 

and it will do the warp animation, but it'll act like a regular solid - plays the axe hitting stone sound if you hit it, etc. The alpha key still works and lets you override r_wateralpha if you set it.

sometimes func_illusionary is used with a liquid texture for special effects, like to make swirling fog in a void pit, you stack layers of func_illusionary, with a low alpha and a liquid texture. 

I see. What I meant was more like have it so that you can set different alphas for different water in the same level. Like you might want to have some swampy water which is less or not transparent at all, and something that is more clear.

It would also be cool to be able to set a water fog amount. I am sure that can be faked somehow already perhaps. Not sure. 

alpha per brush requires a whole toolchain and bsp format change, probably. There is no concept of "brushes" in the bsp format, everything is converted to bsp leafs that contain polygons, and those polygons are not 1:1 with the original brush faces in the map file (some are split, others are merged.)

There is also no concept of brushes in quakec code, so per-entity alpha works much better with that part of the game as well.