Alternative launcher v0.2.0 (with sorting, filtering, ping)

[Gohla]

Xciles and me made an alternative launcher because we weren't happy with the filtering and sorting capabilities of the current launcher. Here's a screenshot of the server browser:

Latest download: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.2.0/rxl-setup.msi

The latest version of the .NET framework is required. You probably already have this installed, if not, you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40773

Source code: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher

Current features:

• Server browser
  
• Filter out empty, full and servers that require a password
  
• Search servers by name
  
• Sort servers by name, number of players and latency (ping)
  
• Copy address of server to clipboard (right click a server)
  
• Shows server version
  
• Auto updates launcher to latest version

Note: the background, RenegadeX logo, icon, and map images are copyright of their respective owners (Totem Arts).

Edited December 23, 2014 by Guest

[martijnjs]

Nice! I like it, looks a bit like Battlelog! Maximizing the window could work better though, and some of the highlight colors and the scrollbar look out of place, other than that, cool! I'm all for open sourcing, so if you are considering it, go for it. It won't do you any harm, and may provide valuable additions. Anyway, I'll try it out for a while. Thanks for your work!

[Gromb]

I'd really appreciate open source as well.

[Methanoid]

chat feature for the future? vnice how are you going to go about that, using IRC/quakenet/freenode/etc as a chat medium so as not to require your own chat server?

nice ability tho, like making a lobby system for the game, could be quite interesting.

[iran]

I'm interested in checking out the code, so I advocate open-sourcing it. Probably won't do anything other than reading it, though.

[AlienXAXS]

What a lovely looking launcher, very impressive - I will be downloading and using this when i get home.

I am also a c# programmer, mainly in networking based applications, i would like to see this project become open source as the community has massive potential and could assist to make this launcher even better.

[pr0master]

I prefer a Java desktop application (JavaFX) because of the portibility on different operating systems. Great job, anyways.

[Pr0eX]

Nice! Really like it.

One point tho.. how have you got that 1k+€ licence to use Xceed WPF? I'd like that too

[Gohla]

Thanks for all the feedback and comments

I see a lot of people are interested in open sourcing this, I'll see if we can do that.

@ martijnjs

Indeed, Xciles based the design on Battlelog because we think it's one of the nicest server browser designs.

Currently the width is fixed, which means it only maximises in the height. This is a bit weird, we might allow the width to be changed.

The highlight colors for some buttons and the scrollbar still need to be styled properly

@ Methanoid

I was thinking of using IRC yes, like the current launcher does. Could also be used for some kind of friend system in the future.

@ pr0master

That is indeed an advantage of using Java. It is however possible to run .NET code on OSX and Linux using Mono.

The downside is that WPF (the user interface library) is not cross platform, so we'd have to re-do the user interface design on other platforms. All of the code can be re-used though, since it does not use WPF.

It might also be possible to run this on wine, I'll try this later.

@ Pr0eX

I'm pretty sure we're only using the WPF toolkit from Xceed (https://wpftoolkit.codeplex.com/), which is free, but I'll ask to be sure.

[iran]

Do you guys have some information about the differences between WinForms and WPF? I'm not much of a GUI programmer and I've only seriously used WinForms while doing GUI code. To me WinForms seems to be a "wrapper" for the Win32 GUI sub-system while WPF seems like an advanced GUI subsystem built over DirectX with its own markup language (using XAML).

[Rockfire]

Nice, question, does the launcher hook onto your steam name like the default?

[Wintermute]

One thing I am missing from both launcher is an easy way to copy the server IP address with port number. Would be really nice if you could get that in.

[Gohla]

@ iran

That is a bit offtopic, but it is completely different. You separate your logic completely from the view, and specify the view in XAML, which is kind of like an advanced markup language for GUIs. This way you get a nice separation between the view and the logic of your application.

@ Rockfire

We don't do anything special there, I think RenegadeX itself will always use your steam name if connected to steam. But I'm not entirely sure, maybe a RenegadeX developer could clarify.

@ Wintermute

That shouldn't be too hard, I'll write it down and see if I can implement that some time.

[iTweek.]

Nice! good job

[Gohla]

@ [AoG]iTweek Thanks!

We've open sourced the project, it can be found at: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher.

If you'd like to contribute code-wise, just fork the repository and make a pull request, or contact us if you'd like to do more regular work on the project. We also appreciate any issues or feature requests on the github repository.

I've also fixed several crash bugs and made the error handling look a bit better, you can download the new version at: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.1.1/RXL.exe

[mcc]

tested it.

Very good afaics.

Keep up the good work, guys

[dommafia]

Awesome effort!

[Gohla]

Thanks

One thing I am missing from both launcher is an easy way to copy the server IP address with port number. Would be really nice if you could get that in.

I added this, it's not in the released version yet but you can download the version that has this feature from: http://home.gohla.nl:1337/job/renegadex-launcher/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/RXL.WPFClient/bin/Release/RXL.exe

[mjolnir]

http://i.imgur.com/26XDkvz.png

[Dellta_34]

Seriously,i tried it and it worked like a charm(for me anyway).

Ping shows up correctly,players in servers show up correctly(already something the default launcher fails miserably at)and most importantly,I can actually join the server that I want instead of some random server,makes playing with friends SOOO much easier.

Thanks OP

[Pvt. Gump]

Sweet!

Especially the instant ping refresh and the proper display of player numbers (unlike the default launcher) make this one an absolute must have. I've a little suggestion, it would be nice if you include the version number and an option to check for updates. Maybe even an auto updater.

Thanks for your amazing work, keep it up!

[StonerMk2]

Now that there is one sexy launcher. At least until the devs get the chance to get the official one straightened out.

[Jam]

Stickied!

[Gohla]

@ mjolnir

Have you tried the latest (non-release) version: http://home.gohla.nl:1337/job/renegadex-launcher/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/RXL.WPFClient/bin/Release/RXL.exe? If not, try it out to see if that fixes your problem. Also make sure that you have .NET framework 4.5 installed, you can install it from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40773

@ Pvt. Gump

Thanks, we're indeed thinking about adding an auto update in the future.

@ Dellta_34, StonerMk2

Thanks!

@ Jam

Awesome, thanks for stickying!

[sLaYer]

Hey!

I downloaded your launcher and put it in my Renx Folder, but it crashes every time i try to run it. It doesn't even open a new window, crashes before that.

Any ideas whats wrong?

[lone0001]

Something under all the settings of the selected server to show what version of RenX the server is would be useful.

[Gohla]

@ sLaYer

I've just released a new version that fixes several crashes, you can download it here: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.1.2/RXL.exe.

If that doesn't help, make sure you have the latest version of the .NET runtime intalled. You can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40773.

@ lone0001

Seems like we forgot to show that one, will add that

[sLaYer]

@ sLaYer

I've just released a new version that fixes several crashes, you can download it here: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.1.2/RXL.exe.

If that doesn't help, make sure you have the latest version of the .NET runtime intalled. You can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40773.

Hey, thanks!

Yeah, even this crashed on startup. But then i tried installing the latest version of .NET runtime, and it works perfectly now

Cheers!

And Nice work on the launcher! its aewsome!

[dommafia]

Hope to see an update so it shows the beta version now that there's a string for it. The new official launcher shows you which version the server is on (open beta 2). Thanks for the work so far !

[Gohla]

We've added the server version to the server list and server detail, so you can now see which server to join. Download at: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.1.3/RXL.exe

I'll try to get auto updating working this weekend, so you don't have to check this post for updates all the time

[Pvt. Gump]

Nice, now you can see whether a Server runs Beta1 or Beta2!

Thanks a lot for this useful update!

[Gohla]

We've just released v0.2.0, you can download it here: https://github.com/Gohla/renegadex-launcher/releases/download/release%2F0.2.0/rxl-setup.msi

There's two changes in this version:

1. Xciles completely redid the design of the launcher, it looks even more awesome now!

2. Instead of an executable we now ship an installer that installs the launcher and keeps it up to date.

Enjoy!

[dommafia]

Amazing work !

[Havoc89]

That is awesome. Great work you guys!

[Rancid]

Nice one guys

[XD_ERROR_XD]

looking smexy!

would you guys consider adding a feature to show all players in a specific server?

[Gohla]

Thanks

@ _ERROR_

We would like to, but the RenegadeX master server does not provide this information.

[djlaptop]

Great work! Only thing that I can think is missing is a button to launch the game without connecting to a server.

[djlaptop]

One bug (although it's not REALLY a bug... just might be nice to protect the user from their own stupidity)! If you get excited and quadruple-click a server, it will launch two instances of RenX. Should probably check to make sure there's no RenX process running already, and one hasn't been launched within the last few seconds. Just a suggestion, great work on this!!!

[Terekhov]

Is this going to be the new official one come next patch? Would be sweet.

[[TmX]Sean]

I definitely prefer this to the original as well.

It's obvious that there's tonnes of talent in the Renegade X community - I think it would be a great idea to make this launcher the default one, as long as it's properly updated of course.

Very nice job Gohla.

[Gohla]

@djlaptop

Thanks! We should indeed add a launch game button to get into the menu.

About protection against starting multiple instances, we actually wanted to put some kind of overlay over the server browser after starting a game, so you cannot start multiple instances, but we did not get around to it yet. I've been quite busy lately but hopefully have some spare time next week

@Terekhov, ShadowPrime

Thank you. We would be honored if the RenegadeX developers would like to use this launcher as the default one. The project is open source, and we think it is properly structured, so anyone can change it to their liking. I have not had time to work on the project myself lately because of work, but hopefully I can squeeze in some time next week. We would also not have any problems with transfering the project to the developers, as long as it stays open source, so that anyone can contribute to it.