gzdoom/zdoom mod loader

Hello. As most of you guys know by now, playing mods in doom is as simple as dragging the wad over to the exe file and playing it (even though there are a few special people who can't figure it out). But I found this to be pretty inconvenient, especially when you have dozens of mods that each apply to a certain iwad. So I made a script to automate the process and make it a lot easier. Here's how it works.

Take the script and put it in the directory where gzdoom is (if the game is already in your system PATH, then you can put it wherever) and in that same directory create a folder for each iwad. The name of this folder will be wad_ followed by the name of your iwad without the extension, then move the corresponding iwad + any pwads over to the folder for your game.

For example, if I wanted to play unloved I would just make a wad_doom2 folder where gzdoom is and put doom2.wad and unloved.pk3 in there.

I'm pretty sure the command line options for gzdoom and zdoom are both the same so if your using zdoom you can just edit the source code and replace gzdoom with zdoom.

• Here's the windows version: http://www.mediafire.com/download/qrbolkqx451uzur/Doom.bat
  
• And here's the linux version: http://www.mediafire.com/download/2dlaaxe58cu0vwj/Doom.sh
  

I just load stuff with batch files. Easiest way that I've found, and no third party mod loaders required. Here's an example of my batch file loader for Ancient Aliens:

@echo off

start gzdoom.exe -file custom\pk_doom_sfx_20120224.wad custom\aaliens.wad custom\pk_anim3_png.wad

That's exactly what the thing is, a batch file. And for linux I made a bash shell file. What it does is it loops through all of your wads and goes:

Enter 0 to load doom
Enter 1 to load doom2
Enter 2 to load heretic
Enter 3 to load hexen
Enter 4 to load plutonia
Enter 5 to load tnt
0 <- That's what I entered.
Enter 0 to load AT.WAD
Enter 1 to load PAR.wad
Enter 2 to load Ritesmit.WAD
Enter 3 to load reelism_x3.1.pk3

Or hit enter to play vanilla doom.

I guess I wasn't clear enough on what exactly this thing does, sorry.

Meh, I just drag and drop.

I mean, sure.... I could make a batch file. But would I want to for 467 different mods?

Even better than batch files are Windows shortcuts; just set what would be the batch command line to the shortcut target. Then you can customize the icons and everything:

Even better than that is to associate .wad and .pk3 file suffixes with your favorite port, then double-click any .wad or .pk3 file anywhere on your computer to play it, and select the appropriate IWAD in (G)ZDoom's own IWAD selection window that appears upon startup (unless you disabled it).

scifista42 said:

Even better than that is to associate .wad and .pk3 file suffixes with your favorite port, then double-click any .wad or .pk3 file anywhere on your computer to play it, and select the appropriate IWAD in (G)ZDoom's own IWAD selection window that appears upon startup (unless you disabled it).

Thats what i did. Beats the drag-and-drop.

so this is easier than ZDL? I personally prefer IDE cause it has a lot more to offer e.g. IRC, Server browsing/hosting, buddy list, mod configuration save option, etc.

I use right-click->send to. I find it better than drag and drop since I don't need to have the ZDoom/GZDoom/Eternity icons around.

There are a ton of fully featured launchers around. I don't feel like I need them but if you want to use one, some look very sleek.

Voros said:

Thats what i did. Beats the drag-and-drop.

How does that beat drag and drop? What if you are wanting to play a particular mod with a different map? Would you have to edit your shortcut to include the desired map? Seems like too much extra work rather then just dragging both then mod and map into the sourceport exe.

Officer D said:

so this is easier than ZDL? I personally prefer IDE cause it has a lot more to offer e.g. IRC, Server browsing/hosting, buddy list, mod configuration save option, etc.

ZDL is my jam, personally. It's elegant and perfecto.

Update, I added search functionality to the linux version:

Enter 0 to load doom
Enter 1 to load doom2
Enter 2 to load heretic
Enter 3 to load hexen
Enter 4 to load plutonia
Enter 5 to load tnt
slayer
./wad_doom2/slayer.wad
reel
./wad_doom/reelism_x3.1.pk3
0
Enter 0 to load AT.WAD
Enter 1 to load PAR.wad
Enter 2 to load Ritesmit.WAD
Enter 3 to load reelism_x3.1.pk3

Or hit enter to play vanilla doom.
reel
Would you like to play reelism_x3.1.pk3?
y

ZDL is my jam, personally. It's elegant and perfecto.

Yeah, I've used ZDL. It's good, but in my opinion it's easier to type a few buttons and hit Enter rather than scroll with the mouse and click on what I want. Making a bunch of shortcuts is a good idea, but I certainly wouldn't want to make a shortcut everytime I get a new wad.

scifista42 said:

Even better than that is to associate .wad and .pk3 file suffixes with your favorite port, then double-click any .wad or .pk3 file anywhere on your computer to play it, and select the appropriate IWAD in (G)ZDoom's own IWAD selection window that appears upon startup (unless you disabled it).

Except this won't work if you want to load multiple files or mods together.

^ Fair enough. I rarely ever load multiple files together (when I do, I put the files into the respective port's directory and launch it from command line), but if someone does it frequently, he probably has to resort to shortcuts / launchers / etc.