ZDoom Community Build

The ZDoom Community Build (also known as .96x or the unofficial build) was a ZDoom based source modification of ZDoom, version 2.0.96 which added several new features, primarily towards implementing the current implementation of DECORATE. It was iterated on through files from April 8, 2005 till August 8, 2005.

History
The ZDoom Community Build was made out of growing concerns about the (then) lengthy delay of the next ZDoom release. Graf Zahl started his own a few days after ZDoom 2.0.96 was released, on December 27, 2004.

Chilvence's ZDoom 2.0.96
In these early days, Graf Zahl worked together with Chilvence who also added his own customizations. A first build of Chilvence's version was released on December 30, 2004. However, this build combined customizations from both Graf and Chilvence, resulting in an unclean version. A second, clean release followed on January 13, 2005, sanctioned by Graf. It contained an early prototype system of DECORATE for weapons, generating considerable attention as up to then DECORATE was limited to superficial changes. This pre-Community Build version is also known as Chilvence's ZDoom 2.0.96.

Development of the first Community Build
Around this time Jan Cholasta, also known as Grubber, was already working on a custom build based off ZDoom, called GrbZDoom. On May 24, both Graf and Grubber decided to base the unofficial build on Grubber's codebase, with Graf Zahl implementing the majority of new features, with patch contributions from Martin Howe, Grubber and kgsws added in during its development. Much was ado on implementing only that what would be feasible to include in the forthcoming new ZDoom release. Due to the lengthy delay, the first ZDoom releases did not include any features from the unofficial build.

As such, the ZDoom Community Build's feature set remained relevant for fourteen months, from April 2005 till June 2006 when ZDoom 2.1.0 was released.

Legacy
Starting with ZDoom 2.1.0, most of the Community Build's features were incorporated into the main codebase (the exceptions being the user variables and the ability to use Pickup and Use states with any inventory item) so using the unofficial build is no longer recommended.

The final release of the ZDoom Community Build was on August 8, 2005. Unfortunately, this last release used a different host, meaning the latest archived version is from July 27, 2005.

After releasing the final ZDoom Community Build, Grubber returned to his former personal project GrbZDoom, making new unofficial builds based on 2.0.98 and 2.0.99. Graf Zahl would continue his own build of ZDoom, GZDoom.

People involved

 * Christoph Oelckers (Graf Zahl) (most of additions & bug fixes)
 * Jan Cholasta (Grubber) (maintainer, ACS modifications, other minor stuff)
 * Martin Howe (DECORATE user variables)
 * kgsws (custom railgun colors)

Derivatives
Several of the involved people created their own versions of the Community Build, with some mods, like Zen Dynamics being playable on these at the time of release where the Community Build would not be able to.

KGZDoom
This build was by kgsws and was worked on from May 28 till August 18, 2005 and is the most extensive derivative of the Community Build. Among its new features are:
 * Vehicle support for actors and other things
 * Particle flash light effects
 * A duration toggle to determine how long particles should exist before fading out

ZDoom 2.0.96x-2 (The Ultimate ZDoom)
This build was done by Graf Zahl and was released on June 22, 2005. The ZDoom Community Build had a release on the same day, but Graf's version includes contributions that were not at present in the Community Build of the time.
 * Additional DECORATE definitions for weapons and other improvements, most of which went into the Community Build later

ZDoomFX
This build was done by Martin Howe and was released near the end of the Community Build's lifespan, on August 2, 2005. Martin's improvements were done when DoomScript was the next big feature, his customizations took this development into account.
 * Additions for the use of ACS functions as delegates for block iterators and custom monster filtering

Trivia

 * ZDoom .96x was popular enough to be used as a minimum requirement for several mods, with twelve listed on the idgames archives.
 * The ZDoom Community Build served as the basis for the first GZDoom release (0.9.1) in August 2005.