Author Topic: Launcher discussion......; (Read 5746 times)

captain-custard · **on:** May 31, 2009, 06:08:12 am

In IRC the other evening i was talking with a few other ppl and after a day of helping ppl sort out setting issues for linux , Mac , windows , single and multiplayer.... i realised that this would be so much easier if we had a truly cross platform launcher ..; and as this seems like we will need a new launcher soon anyway , i was wondering how hard it would be to make a launcher that would run on all 3 platforms without too many hassles , just drop it in the folder and choose your options .....;

so as most ppl know i am completely useless when it comes to any thing more complicated than flying in circles and eating cake , im looking for honest opinions and ideas...

so , lets throw this one out there and hope that it intersts some ppl

portej05 · **Reply #1 on:** May 31, 2009, 06:26:35 am

I've been chatting with Goober recently about this exact topic.
Looks like it'll be in the pipeline and starting work on after 3.6.10 is released.
(hope you're OK with me mentioning this, Goob)

Goober5000 · **Reply #2 on:** May 31, 2009, 06:29:42 am

Sure. I hadn't planned on mentioning it until it was released, but there's no reason to keep it secret.

The plan is to release Launcher 6.0 for 3.6.10 (basically a hardened/rewritten/bugfixed version of 5.5d) and then convert it to wxWidgets for 3.6.11. This kills two birds with one stone: it provides a single SCP-supported launcher for all three platforms, and it gives us wxWidgets practice and experience for wxFRED.

captain-custard · **Reply #3 on:** May 31, 2009, 06:37:43 am

thanks guys , this will really make a big difference when helping ppl set things up ....

is there any chance that there wll be a couple of new features in the launcher ?

karajorma · **Reply #4 on:** May 31, 2009, 06:39:26 am

We should move the standalone GUI over to wxWidgets at about the same time. It's a much smaller task than FRED. In fact it's probably smaller than the launcher.

Goober5000 · **Reply #5 on:** May 31, 2009, 06:47:36 am

I hadn't even thought about that; that's a great idea. That could even be something that portej could work on now, so he doesn't have to wait for me to finish Launcher 6.0.

karajorma · **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2009, 07:19:22 am

Yep. Just start in network/stand_gui and stand_gui.unix and with the resource options for the Freespace2 project.

chief1983 · **Reply #7 on:** May 31, 2009, 12:17:53 pm

With a move to wx, will that make compiling on Windows a bigger pain than it already is? I'm guessing we wouldn't be able to add the wx libs to the SVN like we do with other stuff since they're probably a lot bigger?

portej05 · **Reply #8 on:** May 31, 2009, 12:42:51 pm

Quote from: chief1983 on May 31, 2009, 12:17:53 pm

With a move to wx, will that make compiling on Windows a bigger pain than it already is?

Probably - it needs to be compiled before you can use it, but we'll only be using one or two configurations, not the gazillion in the workspace.

Quote from: chief1983 on May 31, 2009, 12:17:53 pm

I'm guessing we wouldn't be able to add the wx libs to the SVN like we do with other stuff since they're probably a lot bigger?

No. wx is about 18mb, and a hell of a lot larger once unzipped and compiled.
We shouldn't really be keeping the other stuff in SVN - it makes upgrading to the next version slightly harder, and there's always the chance that someone will edit headers they're not supposed to, and then when they're replaced with the next version things break.

Aardwolf · **Reply #9 on:** May 31, 2009, 08:36:00 pm

Would it be too hard to make the launcher also be able to run FRED for the currently selected mod?

chief1983 · **Reply #10 on:** May 31, 2009, 11:49:14 pm

That might be a feature in the launcher 6.0 that's being talked about, although I'm pretty sure if you just run FRED right now it uses the launcher's settings. You just can't run it straight from the launcher.

FUBAR-BDHR · **Reply #11 on:** June 01, 2009, 12:56:16 am

I thought that was only a feature of some of the branches and not implemented in trunk.

Zacam · **Reply #12 on:** June 01, 2009, 03:05:25 am

Fred does currently read the launcher to some extent.

This can be ignored or over-ridden by the command line options set by shortcut. However, sometimes it will attempt to do both.

I had not remembered this until just now, so I am a bit fuzzy on the details.

Tolwyn · **Reply #13 on:** June 01, 2009, 04:26:41 am

Are you going to get rid of registry hack at some point and move over to INI stuff?

portej05 · **Reply #14 on:** June 01, 2009, 04:37:09 am

The idea is to get rid of as much registry stuff from everything over the next little while

chief1983 · **Reply #15 on:** June 01, 2009, 10:03:30 am

We've also discussed making sure this is done in a backwards compatible manner, such that when the FSO builds start reading from another source besides HKLM, they report that to the launcher, so the launcher can be changed and still maintain compatibility with old builds, and even retail FS2 executables like it does now. That's one reason I decided against switching to HKCU right now to solve some problems, it would just create more.

Tolwyn · **Reply #16 on:** June 01, 2009, 11:45:15 am

It would make sense - right now you write values into virtual registry on Vista/Win 7 systems I believe.

portej05 · **Reply #17 on:** June 01, 2009, 11:50:38 am

Anybody got a list of EXACTLY what is written into the registry by each application?
I tried breaking the registry stuff (deliberately...) in a build, and didn't notice much go wrong.
Backwards compatibility is going to make a ***** of maintenance of this if we go down that path.

chief1983 · **Reply #18 on:** June 01, 2009, 01:42:16 pm

Everything on the graphics, network, and Sound/Joystick tabs I believe, is in the registry. That's resolutions, what joystick, what type of internet connection, what port, I think even your PXO information that's set in game is in the registry (and there was talk about letting you configure that in the launcher as well, not sure what happened with that). Maybe one or two of the options on those tabs is in a config file, but I'm pretty sure most of that is registry-bound. Easiest way to tell is when the screen resolution changes don't seem to have any effect.

FUBAR-BDHR · **Reply #19 on:** June 01, 2009, 02:47:25 pm

Language gets written there as well I believe.

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Author Topic: Launcher discussion......; (Read 5746 times)

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