I made a new Doom frontend... tell me what you guys think!

Hello world! I'm a 15 year old developer from Detroit area, Michigan (no... not *in* Detroit). Anyway, my most recent project is a Doom GUI frontend in C++ and Qt 4.7.1. This one is different! I got tired of the wad tree system that was frequently used in other frontends (wanna play a multiplayer game? remove all current wads from the menu, reconfigure the command line params, then play. Then wanna play single player? go back, remove all the params, remove the wads, and add the single player ones). Yeah, it's sorta tiring. So, I figure that as my first "big" programming project I'd create my own, easy to use for n00bs, fast (and eventually cross-platform) GUI frontend. You can create "profiles" and store up to 30, which can be easily configured and changed, and even store a screenshot of the game. Anyway, so far it only supports Mac OS X and Windows. I'm working on an Ubuntu version as well.
Since the frontend's "target audience" is new and inexperienced players who more than likely don't know what they're doing, I've taken the liberty of including Doom1 (shareware), Freedoom, and PrBoom for OS X.

The interface should be straightforward, let me know if you have any problems!
So far there are some issues...
-Graphics aren't automatically configured when you create a new profile. To do this, click the "Auto" button in the Audio/Video tab in the Edit menu.
You can find all of the versions at the Sourceforge page sourceforge.net/projects/doomrunner
Edit: Added links to images
Edit #2: Added Microsoft Windows version (32-bit, XP/Vista/7)
Edit #3: Updated description.
Edit #4: fixed links

Maybe you can take some screenshots for those of us who don't compile our own programs (or use a Mac). You might get some faster feedback if you showed us different parts of the user-interface.

Added some screenshots. It comes compiled for X64 Macs as a disk image file. Yeah, to my knowledge most Doom gamers use Windows (I am a frequent user of both) so I'm going to try to get a Windows version together asap.

I have no interest in such launchers (I prefer a command-line interface on my machines), but if you could get it to run properly on *NIX systems, it might help curb the rising number of people who seem to install Ubuntu without understanding how it works, and who then proceed to complain because they can't figure out how to launch PrBoom. :P

Either way, it looks like a decent start, though it seems like it might be cumbersome for people who load a new PWAD every second time they play. I assume the front-end probably handles drag-n-dropping the files or something though, so I don't know.

Hah, yeah for a while I was one of those people, when I first installed Ubuntu to program with Gambas :P. It handles adding files via a button that is connected to an open file dialog, so pwads are stored with the application. Switching pwads could get cumbersome, I guess. I'll see what I can do.

I added a Windows XP/Vista/7 version. It seems to work pretty well. It's compiled as a 32-bit program, so it'll run on most Windows mahines out there except pre-XP ones.
http://retronuggetdev.com/DoomRunner.zip

Wow, this looks neat. I'm impressed. :)

18 megabytes, though? :O

Thanks, that just made my day :D
It comes with the latest versions of Freedoom and Doom Shareware, since most of the beta testers (i.e. my friends at school who've never played Doom before) don't own the levels themselves.

Ah, okay. :)

Just gave this a quick run. Very cool stuff so far. :D

Only a few minor issues have cropped up:

• The program gives the option to specify which IWAD to use, but launching ZDoom with it still prompts the user with the IWAD selection screen.
  
• Selecting a custom image larger than the display won't shrink it down.
  
• When selecting "ZDoom + GZDoom" for the source port to use, and specifying the paths for both ZDoom's and GZDoom's EXEs, the GZDoom path seems to override the ZDoom path (rather than getting committed to the GZDoom path), meaning I have to re-set it every time I edit the configuration for my WAD.
  
• The resolution I use (1280x800) isn't listed, but 1280x1024 seems to set it to 1280x800 anyway. Oddness. :S

Very good work on this otherwise. :D Being able to set configurations for individual WADs with custom descriptions and images is something I should adore playing with. :P

As for the resolution, change the aspect ratio to "16:10". 1280x800 will be put on the resolution menu. Or, easier, press the "Auto" button next to the "Help" button at the base of the window.
I haven't tested it with ZDoom/GZDoom yet, but those should be some easy-to-fix bugs. I'll do my best to have a fixed version out this weekend.
As for the image scaling thing, I'll do my best to get that fixed too. In the meantime, the image frame's size is 171x151, so if you needed to you could resize images to that manually.

Jimmy91 said:

Wow, this looks neat. I'm impressed. :)

18 megabytes, though? :O

Still smaller than Doomsdays front end :p

Fixing the bugs was easier than I thought! Version 0.9.5 changes:
-Images are scaled.
-ZDoom/GZDoom bug fixed!
-Minor window behavior enhancements.
-"Cancel" button added to the "New" option.
-The "DoomRunner" tab in the "Edit" menu now has it's own section, click the "Settings" button located on the program's main page the image window to access it.

Edit: Oops, forgot the download link.
http://www.retronuggetdev.com/DoomRunner.zip

Whee, nice! Very good work, once again. ;)

A few more suggestions for you:

• Should it be necessary to enter some notes when creating a profile? It'd be nice to save that for later.
  
• Instead of having to click "Edit" once the profile has been created for the first time, it would be nice if the program automatically took you to the edit screen for that profile on clicking OK.
  
• Source port paths should probably be made global, rather than having to set them for each individual profile.
  
• Would it be possible, when creating a new profile, to have the settings in the Edit dialogs set to whatever they were in the last created profile? (Resolution, source port, mouse/joystick etc.)

Now a question: When the frontend accepts PWADs, is the selected file copied in its present state to the /wads folder once added to the list of WAD files, or is a "temporary" version of the selected file generated from the original every time the program launches the game? I ask because this frontend could really benefit users who are still making changes to their WADs (like myself) - and if the PWADs aren't kept up to date then problems could arise (unless the user continues to edit the WAD from within the /wads folder). Is this something you could answer/address?

Thanks for the suggestions! To answer your questions: IWADs are copied once to ./wads/iwads and PWADS are copied once to ./wads/. It doesn't create a temporary copy, so any added wad would technically stay outdated. I'll look at adding a feature that saves the original wad path as well as copies the wad to DoomRunner's specific folders, so that you could have a button that says "Update wads" or similar in DoomRunner's settings that grabs the wads and updates them (and in addition to that have a toggle for automatically updating- essentially making temporary copies in the folders). As for notes, they aren't technically necessary but I did make the "Add" button so that it would require them. I'll remove the requirement. As for the rest of your ideas, they're all very good, I'll add them to the next release. Like you said, it would make much more sense to have global source port paths and settings for new profiles to default to the latest created profile beforehand.

What's the point of copying wads? It's just a waste of disk space and time. I have a folder for all wads, pointed to by DOOMWADDIR environment variable. Does your frontend recognize this?

I was having a problem where I would select a wad using a different launcher, then move the file elsewhere and run into problems.

Pretty neat looking program, nice work.

On adding files, it should be a list so you can add as many as you can the way ZDL does.

Ok, I'll see about adding a list instead of the current wad adding system.

Looks good.

thanks _bruce_!
New version of DoomRunner for Windows! This version incorperates these features, as well as bugfixes:
-Global source port executable paths
-Notes are no longer completely necessary for new profiles
-the "Edit" screen is launched right after clicking the "New" button and entering the title and/or notes
-New profiles retain settings from the previously created profile
-some basic "Help" dialoges are added (some are incomplete)

What I'm working on right now, will be released in the next version:
-Up to 64 wad/deh/pk3 add-on files using a ZDL style menu
-updated Mac version
-more elaborate and helpful help in-program
-checking for updates in-program
-ability to disable copying files to ./wads, ./wads/deh, or ./wads/iwads

Planned updates for future versions:
-Drag-and-drop files
-multiplayer configuration
-demo recording configuration
-compatibility mode, for PrBoom users
-"share" profiles by creating an "export" verison that can be included with wads
-reading wads from the DOOMWADDIR enviornment variable while in Windows

As always, suggestions are welcome!

Windows download:
http://www.retronuggetdev.com/DoomRunner.zip

Edit: added some information

Nice one, mate. Good luck with the rest of your changes. ;)

Thanks! :D

Update: Version 1.0.0! In this version
-Up to 64 wads/deh files!
-PWADs and Dehacked files are NOT copied to ./wads or ./wads/deh respectively. IWADS are copied to ./wads/iwads though.
-minor tweaks/bugfixes
-full Help system. It's still not that elaborate, though.
-This update is for Windows and Mac!
Mac OS X version: http://www.retronuggetdev.com/DoomRunner.dmg
Windows XP/Vista/7 version: http://retronuggetdev.com/DoomRunner.zip

EDIT: Sorry for the bump. The previous post was about asking why the program fails to launch on my Windows Vista system... I restarted my system and somehow it runs. I can't seem to delete posts here. Sorry...

Nice work man, Jimmy just pointed me to this thread when I was asking for something very similar:
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31986

Would you mind taking a look at the thread and my ideas? Maybe you could implement something like that - D-Fend Reloaded - as well so it's easier to sort and load stuff.

Tormentor667 said:

Nice work man, Jimmy just pointed me to this thread when I was asking for something very similar:
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31986

Would you mind taking a look at the thread and my ideas? Maybe you could implement something like that - D-Fend Reloaded - as well so it's easier to sort and load stuff.

Hi. Sorry for the (very) late reply, I've been incredibly busy.
Anyways, your suggestions are great. Right now I don't have the time but maybe during the summer I'll get to it (no guarantees). In the meantime, I hope you don't mind working with what DoomRunner can already do.

Gave this a try and it's pretty cool. Relativity simple to use and effective. I even made custom images for all my iwads to show up in the main menu. Got Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Plutonia, Evilution, PSX Doom TC, and Doom 64 EX all set up on it.

It would be nice though to be able to load wads without having to edit the main entry.

One thing I noticed was that all my settings seem to have been reset once I started using it.

Would also be nice if the iwads didn't have to be copied to the doomrunner folder.

Something I've requested over at ZDoom.org which might turn this into a perfect match for everyone's needs:

Tormentor667 said:

Well, guys, I know there is ZDL and it is doing a fine job. Though, it isn't the best thing to organize and play our whole collection of wads in a nice, solid way with a beautiful GUI so I came up with an idea: What about a nice Windows/OS Frontend for your complete collection, that makes playing wads and original maps with various sourceports easy as hell and also displays various information about the project within the frontend?

Two very similar programs come to my mind here:
Emulation Control Center (for roms and emus)
D-Fend Reloaded (for DOS games and DOSBOX)

The idea behind this is that people can keep track of their wads and addons for Doom, rate them, have some kind of preview for them (e.g. showing the TITLEPIC if there is one, recording movies and screenshots which where displayed in the Frontend as well, showing all the info from the text file and stuff like that) and making it easy to play it with predefined sourceports and stuff.

Feature ideas are as follows

• Complete list of all wads/addons with various columns to sort them (year, type, author, personal rating, etc)
  
• Autoloading information directly from the text file (shouldn't be easy to code)
  
• Displaying the TITLEPIC lump if presend (other than that, no image will be display)
  
• Recording videos and making screenshots for the frontend (check D-Fend Reloaded for this)
  
• A search function (search by various tags)
  
• Some kind of interchanging format (so people can share their database content, check ECC datfiles for this)
  
• Configuration for sourceports, IWADs and stuff just like in ZDL3

These are ideas I am throwing out and for all this stuff you need at least a good programmer, but I guess this might be very useful - especially if it is OpenSource so the development is quick and aiming.

Well, I'd find this kinda useful, maybe other people as well :) Just share your thoughts!