Nexus - The Jupiter Incident > General Discussion

Nexus Launcher beta - need feedback

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Arparso:
In preparation for the Freespace mod release, I've been cooking up a new launcher tool for Nexus. The goal is for tighter mod integration with latest news feeds, links to mods' homepages, etc.

Download Nexus Launcher (Beta)



Capabilities:
- start vanilla Nexus (single/multiplayer) or any installed mod
- displays RSS news feeds for supported mods (*)
- allows setting graphics options, including resolutions and windowed/fullscreen modes

Planned stuff that's missing in this beta:
- welcome page with some content...
- working uninstall button
- setting texture detail doesn't work yet
- (skippable) automatic intro movie playback for mods (*)
- displaying extended infos about the selected mod (*)

Requirements
- working Nexus installation, obviously
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Client Profile)

(*) - in order for these features to work, the mod needs either his own "modinfo.xml" in the mod's base folder or needs to have his information already included in the launcher

modinfo.xml?
This file includes some basic information about your mod: name, version, author, website, intro movie and an RSS news feed can be specified right now. You just have to place the file in mod folder and the launcher will pick it up. I'll give an example of such a file:


--- Code: ---<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mod xmlns="http://arparso.de/nexus">
<name>Battlestar Galactica</name>
<version>beta 4.1</version>
<author>Nexus BSG modding group</author> 
<web>http://www.moddb.com/mods/nexus-battlestar-galactica/downloads/nexus-battlestar-galactica-beta-41</web>
<rss>http://rss.moddb.com/mods/nexus-battlestar-galactica/news/feed/rss.xml</rss>
<intro>intro.wmv</intro>
</mod>
--- End code ---

Hopefully that's rather self explanatory. As for the RSS feed: currently only the moddb-news-feed is properly supported... I can't guarantee for other feed formats to work as expected.

Regarding the intro playback: it's not included yet, but it's planned to play the intro movie specified in the modinfo.xml when launching the game with your mod. There'll also be a checkbox "Skip intro" so you're not forced to watch it every time. I didn't really find a way to make Nexus play an intro movie upon startup, so that's the reason behind this feature... its a bit boring to just be thrown into a mission-selection menu, when you start a new mod, isn't it?

Feedback and suggestions welcome
Am I missing something vitally important? Does the launcher not work for you? I'd like to hear all of that, so please try the tool and send some feedback my way ;)

If you want me to already include your modinfo.xml in the launcher - possibly also for older versions of your mod, so they'll get the news feed treatment as well - feel free to post the file(s) here along with the actual folder name of your mod.

DreamorCZ:
Firstly, great idea. Secondly, great tool.  8) Only thing witch is a little anoying is opening of the original nexus launcher after quitting Nexus.

Also, thanks to this tool is fullscreen mod finally working properly for me.

Two ideas. One, welcoming page containing news about all mods that will participate or at least news about all installed mods using modinfo.xml. Two, somehow add AA to the config if possible.

Mularac:
Wow... this certainly came out of nowhere....
Anyway, excellent! This is so awesome!

I wanted to point out the same things that Dreamor posted about, plus, our mod's modinfo.xml, as well as B5's one.

Folder names:
Stargate mod: Well... this is embarrasing. I actually don't have it in my drive... And my blasted internet won't let me download big stuff withouth freezing in the middle... But it should be Stargate Mod War Begins Beta 10
B5 mod: B5 Conflicts of Loyalty 2 PB v6

 if you would be so kind as to add them to your exe for now, at least until our following release.

Also, I'd like to report a bug: If there's no internet connection, the program will freeze and crash after a few seconds.

Arparso:
Thanks for the feedback, guys :)

Original Nexus launcher starting after the game ends:
Will look into it, although there's not that much to do about it. I could keep my own launcher running in the background and looking for the nexus.exe process to come up and then kill it right away. Seems a bit messy, though.

Welcome page:
Good ideas to present a mod overview or the last news for these mods or something like that. Might look into it, although I'll still need some fallback solution for if the user hasn't got installed any modinfo-enhanced mods or if there's no internet access available

Adding AA to the config:
Not gonna happen, sorry. The game doesn't offer this feature, so it'd need to be activated through the graphics driver... and I'm not gonna mess with drivers (too many variants of those around with no consistent way to enable AA). If you want AA in Nexus, you'll have to enable it for yourself in your driver.

Crash when there's no internet connection:
Yeah, forgot to uncomment a few lines of code ... shouldn't happen in the final version ;)

jstubbles:
This is really fantastic, Arparso! I'll try to come up with any critiques later on :)

We'll add the modinfo.xml to Nexus BSG in our next release, so you don't have to clutter up your code with our info once it's out :D

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