I just tried Songbird in a VM, nice app. Yes that's what I am thinking. A collection of WAD is similar to a collection of MP3s. I want to be able to find it, browse it, rate it, play it, group it, without affecting how I organize it on the HD. In addition I want to maintain a set of relationships (certain wads requires or best played with certain ports, etc).
I was even thinking about generalizing this app to allow plugins. in addition to organize and manage WADs, one can come up with additional plugins for other games, like Quake levels, etc. sort of like adding a .dll to 7-zip to allow it to handle one more format, but the overall feel and use of the app remains consistent.
I am using Google Chrome at work. I do have firefox running because I really like Chatzilla. I certainly don’t mind a XUL app, my concern is whether I can still run the app 10 years down the road when some new thing has replaced firefox. A native windows app would probably be the most compatible. Some additional random thoughts:
- open source, others can contribute and pick up if the main author decide to have other priorities.
- can be run in portable mode (provide a .zip instead of a setup.exe)
- did I mention level map preview or 3D mode like Doom Builder?
One question about WADs. Is it possible to display the map of levels in the WAD without knowing what the corresponding IWAD is? (is it possible to display a map of xyz.wad without looking into doom.wad?) I am thinking about writing a small command line tool to dump the levels in the wad as an exercise..
Edit: found XWE. Exactly what I was thinking, a WAD browser. maybe the tool can just call XWE instead of reimplementing all these features... Would be nice if the map view is embedded inside the app instead of being external.
I just tried Songbird in a VM, nice app. Yes that's what I am thinking. A collection of WAD is similar to a collection of MP3s. I want to be able to find it, browse it, rate it, play it, group it, without affecting how I organize it on the HD. In addition I want to maintain a set of relationships (certain wads requires or best played with certain ports, etc).
I was even thinking about generalizing this app to allow plugins. in addition to organize and manage WADs, one can come up with additional plugins for other games, like Quake levels, etc. sort of like adding a .dll to 7-zip to allow it to handle one more format, but the overall feel and use of the app remains consistent.
I am using Google Chrome at work. I do have firefox running because I really like Chatzilla. I certainly don’t mind a XUL app, my concern is whether I can still run the app 10 years down the road when some new thing has replaced firefox. A native windows app would probably be the most compatible. Some additional random thoughts:
- open source, others can contribute and pick up if the main author decide to have other priorities. ;)
- can be run in portable mode (provide a .zip instead of a setup.exe)
- did I mention level map preview or 3D mode like Doom Builder? :)
One question about WADs. Is it possible to display the map of levels in the WAD without knowing what the corresponding IWAD is? (is it possible to display a map of xyz.wad without looking into doom.wad?) I am thinking about writing a small command line tool to dump the levels in the wad as an exercise..
Edit: found XWE. Exactly what I was thinking, a WAD browser. maybe the tool can just call XWE instead of reimplementing all these features... Would be nice if the map view is embedded inside the app instead of being external.