Rocket Launcher 2.0 - Cross platform Doom front end

[Hypnotoad]

Rocket Launcher 2.0 is a cross platform front end for all DOOM source ports. This is an open source GPL licensed sequel to the original Rocket Launcher front end, adding extended functionality.

Features:

Easy to Add files



With Rocket Launcher 2.0, you can easily add files to the load list. You can directly drag & drop multiple files on any of the list boxes on the Launch Wad tab from your file explorer, you can drag and drop files between each list box internally, and you can associate Rocket Launcher with wad/pk3 files so that double clicking on a wad/pk3 opens Rocket Launcher with the files in the 'files to load box', ready to be loaded into your source port of choice.

Easy to save and load configurations



If you're pleased with your particular combination of files to load, engine selection and launch options and wish to quickly recall this configuration for a later time, you can easily do so in the Load / Save Configs tab, where you can save the current configuration to your Favorites list, and with a click of a button, recall all your other saved configurations exactly as they were by selecting any item on the list and clicking "load selected". As before, you can also save configurations to external *.rocket files.

DOSBox support



As with the original Rocket Launcher: adding DOSBox as an engine, and the path to your original iD executable, will enable Rocket Launcher 2's DOSBox mode, which will pump in the necessary DOS commands into DOSBox, instantly launching Doom (or any other iD tech 1 engine you provided) along with the options you selected and files added to load. This allows you to quickly launch any pwad with Doom in DOSBOx without having to fiddle around with DOS command line.

Note that it is recommended that your path to your original Doom executable and additional pwads contain no directory names longer than 8 characters, as this is the form DOS expects - additionally, the original executable can only load the IWAD contained in its folder, rather than the one you selected.

Extended Engine customization



Rocket Launcher 2.0 also features a new tab allowing you to configure each engine that you added individually, as well as allowing you to add your own 'custom engine', which is particularly useful for when you wish to add multiple beta versions of the same engine.

Open doom files with Rocket Launcher 2.0 and let it be your middle man

If you're opening a new wad file, whether from your desktop file explorer or directly from a download, be sure to associate *.wad and *.pk3 files with Rocket Launcher 2.0, so that you can always quickly choose which engine and launch options you want to run the file with, and add any additional files or resources as needed. You can even drag multiple files at once onto Rocket Launcher 2.0 and they will all be ready loaded!

Qt Framework

This allows for this project to be cross platform, including support for Linux and OSX. For windows I provide a static build, which means it's provided as a single executable with no additional DLL's required or frameworks to install.

Download

Windows

Download executable here: https://github.com/Hypnotoad90/RocketLauncher2/releases/download/0.1.0.2/RocketLauncher2_v0102.zip

Linux

No binaries available as of yet. To compile, simply grab Qt5-default package, then run qmake, followed by make, on the source code.

edit: Sean has added this to his Arch Linux repo


Mac

Coming soon.

Thanks to:

Blzut3: for helping me with some Qt queries.
Arkore: for testing on Windows.
DevilHunter: for testing on Windows.
TerminusEst13: for originally coming up with the name 'Rocket Launcher' for the front end.

Source code

Here: https://github.com/Hypnotoad90/RocketLauncher2

Please note:

This is currently a work in progress - if you spot any bugs or have any specific feature requests, please let me know! And please check back here for updates.

[rossy]

Hi,

Something strange happens, when I start a WAD and warp to a level: The Viewpoint is turned a bit when starting the map. This depends on the position of the RocketLauncher2 window when starting.

This happens when Rocket Launcher is a "full screen" window:
http://imgur.com/ytKD2YB

And this happens, when Rocket Launcher is next to a another window:
http://imgur.com/KZiZIZb

Seems like QT somehow moves the mouse a bit when starting the game.

[Hypnotoad]

rossy said:

Hi,

Something strange happens, when I start a WAD and warp to a level: The Viewpoint is turned a bit when starting the map. This depends on the position of the RocketLauncher2 window when starting.

This happens when Rocket Launcher is a "full screen" window:
http://imgur.com/ytKD2YB

And this happens, when Rocket Launcher is next to a another window:
http://imgur.com/KZiZIZb

Seems like QT somehow moves the mouse a bit when starting the game.

I'm unable to replicate this, could you tell me which engine you're launching?

[rossy]

Only happens with prboom+. Just tested ZDoom and it works fine there. I'm using Linux btw.

[Hypnotoad]

rossy said:

Only happens with prboom+. Just tested ZDoom and it works fine there. I'm using Linux btw.

Hmm, well I can't replicate the problem on windows. It's possible that this is a problem with the linux build of prboom+, I'll test in my ubuntu VM shortly.

[rossy]

Oh. I just tried to start prboom+ with "-warp 01" per terminal and it has the same behaviour: Centering the mouse and using this mouse movement as input. I just never tried to warp to a level per command line before. So your Launcher works fine, the problem lies with prboom+.

[Fonze]

All hail the Hypnotoad! Always good to see a new, streamlined launcher for stuff like this. Sounds easy to use; I'll have to check it out. Good stuff man.

[vadrig4r]

rossy said:

Oh. I just tried to start prboom+ with "-warp 01" per terminal and it has the same behaviour: Centering the mouse and using this mouse movement as input. I just never tried to warp to a level per command line before. So your Launcher works fine, the problem lies with prboom+.

Huh, interesting. What window manager/desktop environment are you using, KDE?

[Coraline]

Awesome, and great work! Can you add 3DGE to the listing?

Its not 100% compatible with the original EDGE is all

[gemini09]

Wow, I think I might wake up extra early tomorrow, to try this out.

[rossy]

vadrig4r said:

Huh, interesting. What window manager/desktop environment are you using, KDE?

I'm uswing awesome.

[Hypnotoad]

rossy said:

Oh. I just tried to start prboom+ with "-warp 01" per terminal and it has the same behaviour: Centering the mouse and using this mouse movement as input. I just never tried to warp to a level per command line before. So your Launcher works fine, the problem lies with prboom+.

No worries, thanks for taking the time to report potential issues regardless.

[Hypnotoad]

Just a minor update, there is a new release that fixes a crash that occurs on the engine setup tab (thanks to Devilhunter for spotting).

Download here: https://github.com/Hypnotoad90/RocketLauncher2/releases/download/0.1.0.2/RocketLauncher2_v0102.zip

[TheNerdTurtle2]

Your link is broken

[Hypnotoad]

TheNerdTurtle2 said:

Your link is broken

Fixed, sorry.

[MFG38]

Sorry to bump such an old topic, but I have a bug to report: when I update a source port and run Rocket Launcher after doing so, the program deletes the source port's EXE file, thus preventing the game from launching. I've had this occur twice; the first time it happened, I had to do something very specific - I don't even remember what - to make it stop doing it. Just had it happen again with GZDoom and even removing and re-adding the source port within Rocket Launcher didn't fix it.

[Spectre.Charles]

I've gotta request, could you add support for an IWAD using Dosbox without it being in the Doom.exe directory or is that a problem with the .exe itself? It would make it easier to run IWADS without having to switch them out every time.

I also can't run any IWAD except Doom.wad and Doom2.wad, but not any other wad and I can only run the Ultimate Doom version of the IWAD, I can't get it to run Doom V1.9 or lower, but that's obviously a problem with the .exe itself and not the launcher.

[Skeletonpatch]

This looks interesting... I was planning to organize my loose cluster of sourceport folders, each containing its own copy of all the IWADs, into a central folder where all the IWADs, PWADs, PK3s and sourceports are all in separate folders and use ZDL3 to run them all. This looks kind of like a better alternative to ZDL3, so would anyone recommend switching to this instead?

 

The screenshots show a "Record Demo" option, this would probably be a lot better for testing maps for Community Projects. I could have totally used that while I was testing maps for HUMP.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Skeletonpatch

[dugan]

> This looks kind of like a better alternative to ZDL3, so would anyone recommend switching to this instead?

 

No. I tried to contribute to this a while back. The developer doesn't know how to use the framework he's using, resulting in a lot of avoidable bugs. QZDL has much more solid programming.

[tor000]

I've a problem starting Doomsday Engine 2.0.3 with Rocket Launcher 2.0: It simply won't start. The logo of Doomsday Engine appearing for several seconds, than disappearing and nothing happens after.

[Visplane Overflow!]

Wait does the eternity engine was developed by Quasar? The eternity engine logo and his profile are almost the same!

 

[Quasar]

7 hours ago, Visplane Overflow! said:

Wait does the eternity engine was developed by Quasar? The eternity engine logo and his profile are almost the same!

 

Not to be tooting my own horn, but... https://doomwiki.org/wiki/James_Haley_(Quasar)

[Gregory Stephens]

Just wanted to give you a heads up that with the DOSBox engine option, it does not seem to work with the Doom 2 directory being on any other hard drive/partition besides the C drive.

[Rad_Cacodemon]

hate to necro-post.... but i really like this launcher but i have an issue with DOSBox mode, it opens DOSbox then it immediately closes, i hit the "show command line" thing in the drop down and it has the "exit" command at the end of all the dos commands..... this makes Dosbox close! i cant edit the commands either just view them. any chance on a fix or a work-around?

[Overlandpage55]

[COMMENT DELETED]

[Overlandpage55]

it works... ok

[blackthorn]

My apologies for the necro-post, but I couldn't find any subsequent discussions of this frontend. I've been using this for a while and really like its simplicity and functionality - the ability to save an in-program list of all my WAD configs for easy loading is incredibly useful.

 

There are however a couple of minor changes which would make this perfect, and given the fact that the original author doesn't seem to have been active for years now, I was wondering if anybody out there has the skills (and more importantly inclination) to make any of them? I know there are a few forks of this project but I don't think any address the improvements I'd suggest, which are as follows:

 

- Add the ability to re-order the list of saved favourites through simple move up/down buttons. These are just stored as a numbered list in a human-readable .ini file. While technically possible to do manually it would be incredibly time consuming and laborious to do for any large number of configs (my list is several hundred items long).

- Add the ability to overwrite/update (and also rename) existing saved configs. At the moment attempting to do this just gives a message saying a config already exists with the specified name. The only way to do either of these currently is manually editing the .ini file containing all of the favourites.

 

Those few changes would really make this so much more usable. Additionally the following would be nice to have although functionally don't really add much:

 

- Store the various .ini files generated by the program in the program folder rather than buried off in the Users area (for portability and ease of access)

- Include the ability to import custom source port icons/graphics and edit the existing ones. This would just cater for new source ports missing from the original hardcoded set.

 

I realise this is probably a bit of a long shot but thought I would at least ask. If anyone has any suggestions for an alternative non-bloated frontend that offers similar functionality please let me know.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by blackthorn