launcher.txt

Crossplatform "Launcher" ideas:

provides facility for commands like "--install-ra-packages", etc instead of having to reinvent the wheel on each platform.
    Command ideas:
        --list-mods: Simple list of available mods
           - This is already done on game init, just needs pulling somewhere generic
        --mod-info <mod>: Metadata on specific mod
        --list-mod-heirarchy: Like above, but shows mod heirarchy
            Is this needed? With a combination of listing and mod info, you can easily build the tree yourself. But if every platform has to do this, we may as well share the code. *shrug* its not a big deal at this stage.
        --install-ra-music <path to cd>: Extracts scores.mix and copies it to the ra/packages dir
        --install-cnc-music <path to cd>: Copies scores.mix from cnc disk to cnc/packages dir
        --download-(ra|cnc)-packages: downloads ds and extracts packages from web
        --install-(ra|cnc)-packages <path to cd>: copies required files from ra/cnc cd

Implementation:
    Either separate exe or in the OpenRA.Game executable as a cli interface for modifying
    the game install.
    Platform specific guis that call the appropriate commands, and launch the game itself.
    
    Separate Exe: <-- lets go with this for the first version. It can link against Fileformats to get
                                 the mix extraction and mod list stuff.
        Pros:
            Small
            Doesn't clutter main executable with functionality not used elsewhere.
        Cons:
        
    OpenRA.Game executable:
        Pros:
        
        Cons:
        
Platform specific gui scope:
   -- Allow setting basic settings before launch? (toggle fullscreen is frequently asked for)
        This would be a nice feature given setting them in game requires a restart.
        Lets limit this to graphical settings. I'd rather not reinvent the wheel for things that 
        don't need it.
  -- Give an overview of installed mods.
  -- Install new mods from site/downloaded archive.
  -- Install new maps for a mod.
  -- Update core game and mods
  -- Launch game with a selection of mods.
       -- Also allow the user to set custom commandline args
           Via GUI selection? Via a textfield below the mods checkbox
               That would be unfriendly to a lot of users or is this for "power user" options?
               Power users. It can be hidden behind a toggle/pref if necessary.

Gameplan:
  -- Start by building the cli interface, and hook up the existing postinstall scripts to use them
        -- Code for listing mods exists, move this into fileformats (for --list-mods)
        -- Code for extracting files from mixes exists in fileformats (for --install-ra-music).
        -- Copying files: filesystem permissions? Do we require root? How do we handle this?
            We do on Windows and Linux at least. Unless we do per user.
            -- Is installing files to the support dir acceptable?
                For mods, perhaps. For core game: no.
            -- Gui launchers can run the cli app with appropriate permissions. cli can be dumb.
         -- Require code to download files from intarwebs, and report progress to stdout.
                This is about the only non-trivial code that we need to write. Its still relatively trivial.
  -- Platform-specific maintainers work on their own launcher later
  -- ????