ZDoom Executor new ZDoom (and related projects) Frontend.

[Bloodbat]

*UPDATED*

Hello.
I've created a new ZDoom frontend called "ZDoom Executor".
Why create a new frontend if people seem to be content with ZDL?
Well, actually the idea came about after some ZDL stuff annoyed the hell out of me (mostly crashes when loading its own profiles and what I find to be some poor interface design decisions, along with the fact that development seems either dead or really stalled).
ZDoom Executor (zde for short ) features:
-What I believe is a saner, prettier interface.
-The program saves your options automatically on exit: no need to reconfigure your IWADs for every profile: they're always accessible after initial configuration from a convenient combo box.
-Exposes most of ZDoom's options (like controlling resolution from the command line, the idea was gathered from these very forums), as well as exposing everything ZDL does.
-It's fast to compile and fast to execute (It's written using Lazarus/Free Pascal).
-It should mostly compile and work for platforms other than Windows with minimal or no code changes (the code has been provisioned to account for several cases of Windows exclusive stuff).
-It's free! Both as in freedom and as in beer (GPL v.3 License).
-No need to have extra libraries cluttering your drive: it works out of the box and requires no external libraries (not even under Linux).

*Update 1.0.2*: Added the missing games (Chex Quest 1 and 3, Action Doom 2, Harmony and Hacx).

If you want to look at some screenshots; take it for a spin and maybe fall in love with it, or get your very own copy of the source code (SVN enabled, too) you can get it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zdexe/
Only Windows binaries are available at the moment.

If you find any bugs, please don't hesitate to tell me, you can use this forum; if you have any suggestions, please do tell as well (though not every one will be used), also if some great artist from this community wants to contribute a better icon, it would be great.

Best regards

Bloodbat, author of ZDoom Executor (you can look at my other free software projects from my Sourceforge profile).

[Zhs2]

You know what I think would be really awesome? Everyone wants to create a ZDL-alike, but as far as ZDoom productivity goes, nobody has done a "multi-session" launcher that I feel would be amazing considering we have oh-so-many different gameplay wads and a roughly larger number of map PWADs to play through - imagine Terrorists! + TNT Evilution in one tab, Accessories to Murder + Plutonia in another tab, Guncaster + Heretic in yet another... And this is not counting the love of switching up after completing a map wad or some such! Sometimes it's too easy to start multiple saves and then lose track of all you were playing! Plus, in this way it makes less sense to have multiplayer in its own tab when some tabs could have their own options - I could be playing another PWAD combination with friend one, another with friend two... Loading separate profiles from file for this is slower and clunkier, I feel.

On that note, if there was an option to save manually while the program was open, that would be good too. Sometimes I leave ZDL open for hours only to have my computer restart after a second's power outage and then - whoops! - there goes all my settings because I never closed the program! I hate closing the program too because then I have to go and find it again to open it instead of leaving it in memory for easy access to all my ZDoom needs. In fact, if the program also saved tab profiles to disk at, oh, say, 3-5 minute intervals, in a temporary fashion for backup that wouldn't interfere with user-saved profiles, I would never need another ZDoom launcher ever again in my life.

Sorry to leave all this here so late in development - I know it's probably never going to happen for the multiple tabs, which would rely on the underlying program architecture to be designed around, but it's too late, I've already pressed submit and shot my ideas at a possibly existing developer for a currently WIP launcher. Enjoy!

[Bloodbat]

Let me see if I get this straight...you want to launch several games in sequence automatically, after the prior one closes, with different mods? If so...it could probably be done; but it would require a separate module and some user scripting.
As for autosaving the program options (or would that include the active profile as well?) it can be done, even have it be user toggled.

[Zhs2]

Well, no, not automatically. That's a bit silly. A bunch of tabs with different IWAD/PWAD/Engine/Multiplayer/Save/Skill/You get the drill options lists to fill out per "game session" to be launched at whim with the convenient launch button would just be nice. Kind of like, say, tabs for a web browser, but each one launches a different game session you've been playing. It gets annoying to change all of the options every time you want to play a new combination, though this suggestion is more a matter of convenience since having several user-made profiles stored to disk to save and load would do the same thing. (It's also like having multiple launchers open, but that's a bad idea because, with save on quit, only the last launcher closed's settings would be preserved.) Thanks for the consideration!

[Average]

^
+1

[Sh4d0wS14d3]

It's rather nice, but I found a few problems while I was using it.

1. If the file path is too large for a PWAD, you can't figure out which file it is. (D:\Program Files (x86)\GZDoom\Wads is as far as it reads.)
2. The Skill Level, Very Hard, is actually UltraViolence, not Nightmare, and you can't select Nightmare Difficulty, even if you wanted to. (You could recreate it with the variables, though.)
3. I could not insert the paths for Chex Quest, Chex Quest 3, Action Doom 2, Harmony, and Hacx IWADs.

I'll post again if I find any other problems.

[Enjay]

D:\Program Files (x86)\GZDoom\Wads

Program Files probably isn't the best place to keep your WADs BTW. IIRC, there have even been problems in the past with (G)ZDoom being in program files. Not sure if that's still a thing though.

[Bloodbat]

It's rather nice, but I found a few problems while I was using it.

1. If the file path is too large for a PWAD, you can't figure out which file it is. (D:\Program Files (x86)\GZDoom\Wads is as far as it reads.)
2. The Skill Level, Very Hard, is actually UltraViolence, not Nightmare, and you can't select Nightmare Difficulty, even if you wanted to. (You could recreate it with the variables, though.)
3. I could not insert the paths for Chex Quest, Chex Quest 3, Action Doom 2, Harmony, and Hacx IWADs.

I'll post again if I find any other problems.

1.-Could be fixed, probably, with a tooltip, I'll look into it.
2.-Not always (not in Heretic, for instance) so the idea was to make it as agnostic as possible yet descriptive (-skill 0-4).
3.-I'll fix that. Thanks for reporting

[Bloodbat]

The problem related to the Chex, Chex 3, Action Doom 2, Harmony and Hacx has been fixed, version 1.0.3 is up.

[QBasicer]

Well, actually the idea came about after some ZDL stuff annoyed the hell out of me (mostly crashes when loading its own profiles and what I find to be some poor interface design decisions, along with the fact that development seems either dead or really stalled).

What crashes? Nobody's told me about crashes.

I definitely welcome fresh blood in the launcher arena - ZDL's interface is over 10 years old now.

[Hellser]

I never had ZDL crash on me either. It does seem to like forgetting settings though. However with this new launcher - I like it. I agree though that the pwad file path is too long. It should be a toggle option to turn the filepath on and off. Being able to resize the program will be nice too. But that's me being too used to ZDL.

[xenoxols]

Am I the only one who makes shortcuts and puts parameters on them to launch mods? Well actually that's only on windows. On linux, I just use the command line. On Mac OS X, well I haven't played much with it. Mostly because I prefer GZDoom over ZDoom, and GZDoom doesn't work very well on OX X. Especially considering it has an HD4000. Well, at least I think that's what it has. It sure as hell has no discrete GPU. Although my old mac did. Sorry, but I felt like ranting.

[Bloodbat]

What crashes? Nobody's told me about crashes.

I definitely welcome fresh blood in the launcher arena - ZDL's interface is over 10 years old now.

It always crashed for me when using .zdl profiles and sometimes it killed the .ini files too and I had to rebuild them.
Thanks, anyway

It should be a toggle option to turn the filepath on and off. Being able to resize the program will be nice too. But that's me being too used to ZDL.

I'll think about adding that option

[Bloodbat]

ZDoom Executor 1.0.4 has been released; it implements some community suggestions and contains small changes and bug fixes:
-Added option to hide file paths (the whole path will be show as a tooltip for external files, engines and IWADs).
-Options save themselves every 5 minutes when program is idle.
-Added icons.
-Program will alert when VOICES.WAD is not found for Strife.
-Program will not abort loading profile when a component is not found.

[Zhs2]

"Invalid type cast" error when attempting to reorder external files in the file list.
Dragging and dropping a file in the external file list produces a "(line 1 pos 3): Invalid character" error no matter what file is attempted, plus doing this clears the list of external files.