MacQuake Front End

	MacQFE
12/4/1999 v1.3 Ą Abandoned the autoexec file editor, this is a feature that had been requested, but frankly this is covered by features within Quake. Anyone advanced enough to want to produce aliases and advanced keybindings would be better off using Simpletext. Ą Fixed some minor bugs with the Server panel. 23/1/1999 v1.21r5 BAD BUG - The system of aliases storing configs is BAD. It's gotta be redone storing the aliases to the mod folders - NOT the settings. Settings multiply - mod folders don't - or at least not so much. One folder "System Folder:Preferences:MacQFE:Mods" will hold all the aliases. FIXED! - That seems to work OK now. Ą Server panel gets a password box (not yet implemented). Autoexec/Configs now scan in OK - editing next. 22/1/1999 Ą Minor change to prefs file type. Work proceeding on autoexec/config editor. 16/1/1999 Ą When double-clicking a shortcut, you can now hold down the option key to load it rather than launch it. 13/1/1999 v1.21r1 Ą Fixed bug that stopped MacQFE from recognising .bsp files with the wrong type from the id1:maps folder. Ą Fixed bug with the GL Special effects flashblend setting not being removed if the GLSFX button was unchecked. 12/1/1999 v1.21 Ą File:Scan for new mods implemented Ą Mod folder names are checked to see if they conform to PC8.3 standards when they are imported. Ą Glide controls implemented for coronas, liquids and mirrors. 11/1/1999 Ą Successfully tested a QW shortcut. QW support is GO! >> Need to audit the preferences folder against the available settings files to avoid filling up the Preferences folder with junk! Ą Pictures for Name editor now 8 bit (saves Memory) Ą Save as Shortcut now in the File menu (makes sense!) Ą New menuitem File:Scan for new mods (not implemented yet) 10/1/1999 Version 1.2.1a2 (development) Dogstar (JW Corey Tamas) reviewed MacQFE and on the basis of his (valid) criticisms I'm rejigging some bits of MacQFE. >> A visual Autoexec file editor will be added with support for binds and aliases. Ą Servers have been added to the maps/save tabpanel Ą Shortcuts now remember the Quake App they're associated with. Ą (This will make MacQFE support QW) A flag, "isQuakeworld", has been added to tell MacQFE which prefs file to access. Ą Shortcuts get their own icon now. Ą The long wait/drop back into Finder on saving has been eliminated with the help of Seth Dillingham (RB-AppleEvent) guru. 6/1/1999 Ą Fixed a possible bug when the maxplayers option in Quake is set to less than the maxplayers requested by QFE. Ą Proofed the html docs. Ą Sent out a review copy to Dogstar (JWCT). 5/1/1999 Ą Neatened the code around save-changes and quit so that dialogs appear in the right order. Ą Completed writing the new html docs. 4/1/1999 The help files are 80% complete and look good! I must add a Help option to MacQFE's Help menu. Ą The last must-have item on the wishlist. A fix to moved or renamed references to mod folders has been fixed by using Applescript to make aliases of the mod folders referred to by items in the setting file and saving these in lists in the MacQFE preferences folder. Ą The preferences have been moved to a new MacQFE folder in the preferences folder. 1/1/1999 HAPPY NEW YEAR! Ą Added serial number protection, a registration reminder 'nag' box, and an automatic serial number generator/emailer. I must remember to send my Beta testers free serial numbers! Ą Resolved to register MacQFE with KAGI for my $10 a shot. Ą Discovered MacOS help files are an HTML variant, I'll give writing some MacQFE help files a shot & retype them as MacOS help. Ą More Balloon help! Ą Menu option file:Save As added. Ą Menu Option Apple:Register added. 31/12/1998 BUG - Dingo (aka Barf aka Nick) reports that the Name Editor is still broken, with characters not appearing correctly and suggets this may be down to using <<name>> rather than <<_cl_name>>, I'll try using <<_cl_name>> instead. Ą Added a dialog to ask whether to automatically construct a list of Mods from the Quake folder if one called "Standard" does not exist. BUG - MacQFE needs to check if a Mod folder dragged to it is a mod and is within the QUake folder, if not it should offer to move it there! Ą Changed the way MacQFE launches Quake. I've dumped the Applescript in favour of altering Quake's Preference file and then launching the Quake app directly from RB! It works a lot better than the 'script: it's much quicker, and means that MacQFE doesn't hang around after you click Launch. Which solves my "niggling worry", in fact I'm overjoyed - shortcuts become very fast indeed. SIDE EFFECT - the setting becomes FIXED because I set the "Always use command line" check box. I'll have to add a "reset to Plain Quake" button to MacQFE, and create a Plain Quake shortcut. 30/12/1998 Ą Added the -condebug checkbox to Misc. settings. As per the wish-list. Ą Neatened the Launch Quake code. It's now the App.Quake routine, calling the Applescript as the last thing before quitting. It works a bit better. 29/12/1998 Ą Major overhaul to the overcrowded Mod Settings dialog. Controls are now grouped onto a tab panel as "Player", "Multiplayer", and "Misc." Ą The "radio-button" controls have been replaced with simple 3way rocker switches of my own invention. Ą Color checkbox added and made functional. NIGGLING WORRY - MacQFE stil won't quit nicely before Quake runs. Sometimes (running omicron bots) this affects performance. DREAD FEAR - It's about time I wrote some proper docs. 28/12/1998 Ą Added the shirts/pants colour (color) pickers ala QuakeFinder. They're not functional as yet (need a checkbox to say [] Set Colors). 26/12/1998 Version 1.12 (aka v1.2a1) OK! I installed OS8.5 and am pleased to see MacQFE still running under it. Still struggling with the AS problem though! Ą Extended the memory MacQFE uses, the name editor uses a lot of memory for images, so it now gets an extra meg. Ą Added a REALLY COOL feature - Shortcuts. You can now save any setting as a Shortcut, ie. a double-clickable document that'll launch MacQFE and then immediately launch Quake with that setting. Nice, needs a little tidying. Incidentally a Shortcut file is just like a one item settings file with the MacType set to STCT. It gets the MacQFE icon. Ą Added a check box in Preferences that lets you select whether double clicking means "edit this mod" or "Launch this mod" and vice versa for the big button. That's one off of the wish-list. 23/12/1998 I just discovered that there is someone else (a kiwi) working on a Quake Front End in REALBasic. QFE Lite looks good, but doesn't appear to work (completely) yet. Ą Inspired! I added a player name editor that allows the use of all(most) Quake's special characters. Limited the player name to 15 chars and some of the characters (0..31 are excluded). NB Can't use first 32 chars, can't use quotes ["], seems other characters are a nono too. I gotta find out which... NB 15 character maximum player name length. PROBLEM If you launch Quake using the option key to access the command line and check the always use CLI box then this stops MacQFE from using the CLI when it launches Quake. 21/12/1998 - A wishlist for the next version (1.2 due January): »Resolve mod folder references on loading a settings file, to check the folders are valid. ie. They must conform to PC 8.3 name standard, without spaces, they must exist and be within the same folder as the chose Quake App. Offer to find, rename and move folders that fail. »New option -condebug, to log console output. »Offer a reverse of the interface - ie. double-click to launch, button to edit. »Offer to PAK a mod that's in folder form, UNPAK a mod in PAK form, and combine compatible mods [ie. with no clash of progs.dat, models or sounds] (Thanks to Chupa, Barf and Rick Hedges for inspiration for these improvements). 25/11/1998 v1.10b (first Beta release) Woohoo! Quake 3dfx rocks! And MacQFE launches it beautifully. 22/11/1998 Updated the docs, changed the quake icon to a Giles' Quake Tinkertoys "cogs" icon. I believe that once I've tested with 3dfx and RAVE I'll be able to release this as Beta & start charging shareware fees, so I'd better get thinking about serial numbers and stuff! 20/11/1998 v1.02a BUG The Applescript wouldn't launch the user's alternate choice of Quake App. -Fixed After doing some research and experimenting with AppleEvents (unsatisfactorily) I've modifed the 'script to a "double tell" script which seems to work - although until my 3dfx card is delivered by Parcel-Farce I won't be able to tell for myself. The mqfe site moves to jqt.quakeintosh.com tonight. 11/11/1998 v1.01 (Merits a 01% update!) Tidied up the quit application/close box code so it runs through the "don't-save/cancel/save" dialog once only. BUG There's a minor problem in that MacQFE doesn't recognise all the varieties of level file type that can be downloaded (thanks to Barf for pointing this one out). -Fixed MacQFE now regards maps as being of type "QBsp" or having ".bsp" or ".BSP" suffixes. Added the "change preferences" menu item / dialog. You can choose the Quake App to be used and the settings file. Settings files are now limited to open and save within MacQFE app's home directory. 4/11/1998 As expected (21/101998) there are problems when trying to use MacQFE with 3dfx Quake - and presumably with other Quake apps. A temporary solution seems to be to rename the Quake App as "Quake", but I'll make a change to the preferences to allow other app names. Think I got the quake app thing fixed (cross fingers) Added a crosshair switch. 31/10/1998 Halloween Got a bug report: << Nice app. Got a bug..when using Kaleidescope 2.1, you are unable to see the names of maps. They are there and you can click on them, but are white on white. steve@uol.com>> Hump! Can't test this easily, since I don't use collide'o'scape... Will have to look into it. 22/10/1998 Day 5 BUGS! For some reason newly added mods aren't getting saved! - Reason is, when MacQFE is launched by double clicking a MacQFE doc, what's loaded is OK but what's saved is the "Standard" doc. OpenDocument event of App wasn't setting MacQFE.modsfile -Fixed in OpenDocument event of App BUGS! +map/+load tag needs to be last thing before +exec (because some settings can't be changed once a server is running). -Fixed in cleanCLI method of info Dialog. Added import of maps from inside of mod's PAK files to complete import of all possible maps. 21/10/1998 v.1.00.3 Day 4 Did the redesign on the Map/Saved Game Picker and added the loading of saved games as an option. Added a reference to the Quake application to the prefs file. Consider - there are other Quake applications (GLQuake RaveQuake), how will I deal with these? Added File:Merge option to allow merging of settings files. MacQFE documents now get the proper icon. 20/10/1998 v1.00.2 Day 3 Altered the AppleScript - MacQFE now quits nicely before Quake is launched, avoiding nasty conflicts with the finder over which is the active Application. Removed the debugging alerts from the launching routines. Realised the Quake CLI will allow me to load either a map OR a saved game but not both without throwing up a "Save Untitled Game" dialog (because either option starts the server). So MacQFE will have to present those options as an either/or choice as well. Hence there will have to be a redesign for the Map/Saved Game picker. MacQFE settings files now get MQFE as creator and TEXT as type. Added recognition and opening of MacQFE setting documents when double clicked. 19/10/1998 v1.00.1 Day 2. Added loading of maps from the id1:maps folder for all mods. You can now make settings for plain, unaugmented Quake by choosing "Add Plain Quake Setting" from the "Edit" menu (plain Quake settings only load maps from the id1 folder ONCE). Changed the format of the CL widgets so all values are now enclosed by Quotes (""), which fixes a problem with spaces in names and filenames and stuff. Made major changes to tidy up the code so I can read it - ooh those bad old BASIC programming habits are back. Added exec file widget - for those BotBlast moments. Fixed a small problem with it (it has to be the last thing in the command line). Remembered that Quake is PPC only - so I don't have to build as a FAT app. Added a progress bar to keep the user's interest <G> while MacQFE looks for maps and files and stuff. Added a text editor for exec files. Trying to find a way to set the current file path for open/save dialogs. Added a custom file dialog for picking textfiles from a chosen mod folder. 18/10/1998 v1.00 I've had REALBasic one day. This is the first real build of MacQFE, there are bound to be bugs, particularly in the way it handles mucked up command lines (it's not very bright about such things - what? you want I should write grep routines?) It loads mod folders, gets their map folder contents, and you can edit some CL settings.	MacQFE Developments. Instructions and cheesy tutorial. Get the latest version. Back to Giles' Quake Tinkertoys

MacQFE
MacQFE

12/4/1999 v1.3

Ą Abandoned the autoexec file editor, this is a feature that had been requested, but frankly this is covered by features within Quake. Anyone advanced enough to want to produce aliases and advanced keybindings would be better off using Simpletext.

Ą Fixed some minor bugs with the Server panel.

23/1/1999 v1.21r5

BAD BUG - The system of aliases storing configs is BAD. It's gotta be redone storing the aliases to the mod folders - NOT the settings. Settings multiply - mod folders don't - or at least not so much. One folder "System Folder:Preferences:MacQFE:Mods" will hold all the aliases.

FIXED! - That seems to work OK now.

Ą Server panel gets a password box (not yet implemented).

Autoexec/Configs now scan in OK - editing next.

22/1/1999

Ą Minor change to prefs file type.

Work proceeding on autoexec/config editor.

16/1/1999

Ą When double-clicking a shortcut, you can now hold down the option key to load it rather than launch it.

13/1/1999 v1.21r1

Ą Fixed bug that stopped MacQFE from recognising .bsp files with the wrong type from the id1:maps folder.

Ą Fixed bug with the GL Special effects flashblend setting not being removed if the GLSFX button was unchecked.

12/1/1999 v1.21

Ą File:Scan for new mods implemented

Ą Mod folder names are checked to see if they conform to PC8.3 standards when they are imported.

Ą Glide controls implemented for coronas, liquids and mirrors.

11/1/1999

Ą Successfully tested a QW shortcut. QW support is GO!

>> Need to audit the preferences folder against the available settings files to avoid filling up the Preferences folder with junk!

Ą Pictures for Name editor now 8 bit (saves Memory)

Ą Save as Shortcut now in the File menu (makes sense!)

Ą New menuitem File:Scan for new mods (not implemented yet)

10/1/1999 Version 1.2.1a2 (development)

Dogstar (JW Corey Tamas) reviewed MacQFE and on the basis of his (valid) criticisms I'm rejigging some bits of MacQFE.

>> A visual Autoexec file editor will be added with support for binds and aliases.

Ą Servers have been added to the maps/save tabpanel

Ą Shortcuts now remember the Quake App they're associated with.

Ą (This will make MacQFE support QW) A flag, "isQuakeworld", has been added to tell MacQFE which prefs file to access.

Ą Shortcuts get their own icon now.

Ą The long wait/drop back into Finder on saving has been eliminated with the help of Seth Dillingham (RB-AppleEvent) guru.

6/1/1999

Ą Fixed a possible bug when the maxplayers option in Quake is set to less than the maxplayers requested by QFE.

Ą Proofed the html docs.

Ą Sent out a review copy to Dogstar (JWCT).

5/1/1999

Ą Neatened the code around save-changes and quit so that dialogs appear in the right order.

Ą Completed writing the new html docs.

4/1/1999

The help files are 80% complete and look good! I must add a Help option to MacQFE's Help menu.

Ą The last must-have item on the wishlist. A fix to moved or renamed references to mod folders has been fixed by using Applescript to make aliases of the mod folders referred to by items in the setting file and saving these in lists in the MacQFE preferences folder.

Ą The preferences have been moved to a new MacQFE folder in the preferences folder.

1/1/1999

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ą Added serial number protection, a registration reminder 'nag' box, and an automatic serial number generator/emailer. I must remember to send my Beta testers free serial numbers!

Ą Resolved to register MacQFE with KAGI for my $10 a shot.

Ą Discovered MacOS help files are an HTML variant, I'll give writing some MacQFE help files a shot & retype them as MacOS help.

Ą More Balloon help!

Ą Menu option file:Save As added.

Ą Menu Option Apple:Register added.

31/12/1998

BUG - Dingo (aka Barf aka Nick) reports that the Name Editor is still broken, with characters not appearing correctly and suggets this may be down to using <<name>> rather than <<_cl_name>>, I'll try using <<_cl_name>> instead.

Ą Added a dialog to ask whether to automatically construct a list of Mods from the Quake folder if one called "Standard" does not exist.

BUG - MacQFE needs to check if a Mod folder dragged to it *is* a mod and is within the QUake folder, if not it should offer to move it there!

Ą Changed the way MacQFE launches Quake. I've dumped the Applescript in favour of altering Quake's Preference file and then launching the Quake app directly from RB! It works a lot better than the 'script: it's much quicker, and means that MacQFE doesn't hang around after you click Launch. Which solves my "niggling worry", in fact I'm overjoyed - shortcuts become very fast indeed.

SIDE EFFECT - the setting becomes FIXED because I set the "Always use command line" check box. I'll have to add a "reset to Plain Quake" button to MacQFE, and create a Plain Quake shortcut.

30/12/1998

Ą Added the -condebug checkbox to Misc. settings. As per the wish-list.

Ą Neatened the Launch Quake code. It's now the App.Quake routine, calling the Applescript as the last thing before quitting. It works a bit better.

29/12/1998

Ą Major overhaul to the overcrowded Mod Settings dialog. Controls are now grouped onto a tab panel as "Player", "Multiplayer", and "Misc."

Ą The "radio-button" controls have been replaced with simple 3way rocker switches of my own invention.

Ą Color checkbox added and made functional.

NIGGLING WORRY - MacQFE stil won't quit nicely before Quake runs. Sometimes (running omicron bots) this affects performance.

DREAD FEAR - It's about time I wrote some proper docs.

28/12/1998

Ą Added the shirts/pants colour (color) pickers ala QuakeFinder. They're not functional as yet (need a checkbox to say [] Set Colors).

26/12/1998 Version 1.12 (aka v1.2a1)

OK! I installed OS8.5 and am pleased to see MacQFE still running under it. Still struggling with the AS problem though!

Ą Extended the memory MacQFE uses, the name editor uses a lot of memory for images, so it now gets an extra meg.

Ą Added a REALLY COOL feature - Shortcuts. You can now save any setting as a Shortcut, ie. a double-clickable document that'll launch MacQFE and then immediately launch Quake with that setting. Nice, needs a little tidying. Incidentally a Shortcut file is just like a one item settings file with the MacType set to STCT. It gets the MacQFE icon.

Ą Added a check box in Preferences that lets you select whether double clicking means "edit this mod" or "Launch this mod" and vice versa for the big button. That's one off of the wish-list.

23/12/1998

I just discovered that there is someone else (a kiwi) working on a Quake Front End in REALBasic. QFE Lite looks good, but doesn't appear to work (completely) yet.

Ą Inspired! I added a player name editor that allows the use of all(most) Quake's special characters. Limited the player name to 15 chars and some of the characters (0..31 are excluded).

NB Can't use first 32 chars, can't use quotes ["], seems other characters are a nono too. I gotta find out which...

NB 15 character maximum player name length.

PROBLEM If you launch Quake using the option key to access the command line and check the always use CLI box then this stops MacQFE from using the CLI when it launches Quake.

21/12/1998 - A wishlist for the next version (1.2 due January):

»Resolve mod folder references on loading a settings file, to check the folders are valid.

ie. They must conform to PC 8.3 name standard, without spaces, they must exist and be within the same folder as the chose Quake App. Offer to find, rename and move folders that fail.

»New option -condebug, to log console output.

»Offer a reverse of the interface - ie. double-click to launch, button to edit.

»Offer to PAK a mod that's in folder form, UNPAK a mod in PAK form, and combine compatible mods [ie. with no clash of progs.dat, models or sounds]

(Thanks to Chupa, Barf and Rick Hedges for inspiration for these improvements).

25/11/1998 v1.10b (first Beta release)

Woohoo! Quake 3dfx rocks! And MacQFE launches it beautifully.

22/11/1998

Updated the docs, changed the quake icon to a Giles' Quake Tinkertoys "cogs" icon.

I believe that once I've tested with 3dfx and RAVE I'll be able to release this as Beta & start charging shareware fees, so I'd better get thinking about serial numbers and stuff!

20/11/1998 v1.02a

BUG The Applescript wouldn't launch the user's alternate choice of Quake App.

-Fixed After doing some research and experimenting with AppleEvents (unsatisfactorily) I've modifed the 'script to a "double tell" script which seems to work - although until my 3dfx card is delivered by Parcel-Farce I won't be able to tell for myself.

The mqfe site moves to jqt.quakeintosh.com tonight.

11/11/1998 v1.01 (Merits a 01% update!)

Tidied up the quit application/close box code so it runs through the "don't-save/cancel/save" dialog once only.

BUG There's a minor problem in that MacQFE doesn't recognise all the varieties of level file type that can be downloaded (thanks to Barf for pointing this one out).

-Fixed MacQFE now regards maps as being of type "QBsp" or having ".bsp" or ".BSP" suffixes.

Added the "change preferences" menu item / dialog. You can choose the Quake App to be used and the settings file.

Settings files are now limited to open and save within MacQFE app's home directory.

4/11/1998

As expected (21/101998) there are problems when trying to use MacQFE with 3dfx Quake - and presumably with other Quake apps. A temporary solution seems to be to rename the Quake App as "Quake", but I'll make a change to the preferences to allow other app names.

Think I got the quake app thing fixed (cross fingers)

Added a crosshair switch.

31/10/1998

Halloween

Got a bug report:

<< Nice app. Got a bug..when using

Kaleidescope 2.1, you are unable to see the names

of maps. They are there and you can click on them,

but are white on white.

steve@uol.com>>

Hump! Can't test this easily, since I don't use collide'o'scape... Will have to look into it.

22/10/1998

Day 5

BUGS! For some reason newly added mods aren't getting saved!

- Reason is, when MacQFE is launched by double clicking a MacQFE doc, what's loaded is OK but what's saved is the "Standard" doc. OpenDocument event of App wasn't setting MacQFE.modsfile

-Fixed in OpenDocument event of App

BUGS! +map/+load tag needs to be last thing before +exec (because some settings can't be changed once a server is running).

-Fixed in cleanCLI method of info Dialog.

Added import of maps from inside of mod's PAK files to *complete* import of all possible maps.

21/10/1998 v.1.00.3

Day 4

Did the redesign on the Map/Saved Game Picker and added the loading of saved games as an option.

Added a reference to the Quake application to the prefs file. Consider - there are other Quake applications (GLQuake RaveQuake), how will I deal with these?

Added File:Merge option to allow merging of settings files.

MacQFE documents now get the proper icon.

20/10/1998 v1.00.2

Day 3

Altered the AppleScript - MacQFE now quits nicely before Quake is launched, avoiding nasty conflicts with the finder over which is the active Application.

Removed the debugging alerts from the launching routines.

Realised the Quake CLI will allow me to load either a map OR a saved game but not both without throwing up a "Save Untitled Game" dialog (because either option starts the server). So MacQFE will have to present those options as an either/or choice as well. Hence there will have to be a redesign for the Map/Saved Game picker.

MacQFE settings files now get MQFE as creator and TEXT as type. Added recognition and opening of MacQFE setting documents when double clicked.

19/10/1998 v1.00.1

Day 2.

Added loading of maps from the id1:maps folder for all mods.

You can now make settings for plain, unaugmented Quake by choosing "Add Plain Quake Setting" from the "Edit" menu (plain Quake settings only load maps from the id1 folder ONCE).

Changed the format of the CL widgets so all values are now enclosed by Quotes (""), which fixes a problem with spaces in names and filenames and stuff.

Made major changes to tidy up the code so I can read it - ooh those bad old BASIC programming habits are back.

Added exec file widget - for those BotBlast moments. Fixed a small problem with it (it has to be the last thing in the command line).

Remembered that Quake is PPC only - so I don't have to build as a FAT app.

Added a progress bar to keep the user's interest <G> while MacQFE looks for maps and files and stuff.

Added a text editor for exec files. Trying to find a way to set the current file path for open/save dialogs.

Added a custom file dialog for picking textfiles from a chosen mod folder.

18/10/1998 v1.00

I've had REALBasic one day. This is the first real build of MacQFE, there are bound to be bugs, particularly in the way it handles mucked up command lines (it's not very bright about such things - what? you want I should write grep routines?) It loads mod folders, gets their map folder contents, and you can edit some CL settings.

MacQFE Developments.

Instructions and cheesy tutorial.

Get the latest version.

Back to Giles' Quake Tinkertoys