Moved

This repo is has been replaced by: https://codeberg.org/Taffer/atlas-launcher

Everything in this repo should be considered out of date.

Atlas Launcher

Portable MMO downloader/launcher using manifests.

Current Status: getmanifest.py is works as a command-line downloader/launcher (essentially the same as Penguin On The Rocks) for Linux! Now I just need to get a GUI going on it, then I can start working on the more complex bits (like threading, partial downloads, caching MD5 tags, and finding the best download target).

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NOTE: The Homecoming folks recently put a new launcher into beta. It's doing all the things Atlas was going to do, except for the "runs native on Linux and MacOS" part... works well under WINE though. So I might be abandoning this project.

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Atlas uses an XML-based manifest to download the files associated with an MMO:

• Downloads any files you don't already have.
• Checks existing files against provided digests; downloads any changed or corrupted files.
• Launches based one one of the included profiles.

The goals of Atlas are:

• Portable (Linux, MacOS, Windows, possibly others).
• Threaded design to lessen the impact of slow downloads.
• Able to recover from partial downloads.
• Smart about not reading/hashing files that haven't changed since the last check.

Current state (2020-09-21):

• proto/getmanifest.py grabs the manifest, checks/downloads files, and launches the game; it uses caching to speed up subsequent launches... it's essentially "good enough" to be used thusly:

/path/to/getmanifest.py --dir /path/to/city-of-heroes http://url.for/manifest.xml

• Tested only with Linux and Homecoming, since that's the OS and server I play on.

• Working on "real" version's UI; it's slow going because I've never done GTK before.

Open Questions

If you've got answers to these, or can point me in the right direction (yeah, I know how to use DuckDuckGo) let me know!

• I can't figure out how to get GTK's WebKit2 on MacOS, let alone get its Python bindings there. Until then, Atlas will be less flashy than Tequila or Island Rum.
• Still not entirely sure how to package Atlas in a sane manner.

Why "Atlas"

Atlas is named after Atlas Park, one of the starting zones in my favourite MMO of all time, City of Heroes.

(Image courtesy of Paragon Wiki. It was actually used in-game while loading the Atlas Park zone.)

Requirements

The getmanifest.py prototype requires Python 3, but nothing extra.

The real launcher will also require GTK 3 and its introspection-based Python module.

Manifest Format

The manifest is an XML file with the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<manifest>
    <label>MMO Name</label>
    <profiles>
        <!-- Launch profiles; architecture defaults to x86 (32-bit). -->
        <launch exec="path/to/binary.exe" order="0" params="command line args"
            architecture="x64">Display Name</launch>
        ...
    </profiles>
    <filelist>
        <!-- MD5 is used only to detect file changes, not to ensure security. -->
        <file name="path/to/filename" size="num_bytes" md5="MD5 digest">
            <url>...</url>
            ...
        </file>
        ...
    </filelist>
    <launchers>
        <!-- Supported launchers, to check for new versions. -->
        <launcher id="name" size="num_bytes" md5="MD5 digest" version="version_string">
            <url>...</url>
            ...
        </launcher>
    </launchers>
    <forums>
        <!-- Display names/links to game forums. -->
        <forum name="Display Name" url="..." />
        ...
    </forums>
    <!-- URL to the game's main web page. -->
    <webpage>...</webpage>
    <!-- Web page to display inside the launcher during check/download. -->
    <poster_image url="..." />
</manifest>

This isn't the cleanest XML format, but it grew over time.

License

This code is covered by the included MIT license.