About This File
This is the current public beta version of the W3D-Asterisk Connect Tool - A direct connect tool built to be a spiritual successor to the legacy RenIP connect tool. This tool is compatible with all Renegade W3D-engine mods.
It includes:
- A universal server connect tool, compatible with all Renegade-based mods on the W3D engine.
- A universal single-player game launcher. Save an entry for all of your W3D-based games and easily run them from here!
- The ability to save multiple server profiles for quickly changing between your various favorite games and servers.
- Multiple config options (with many more to come!) so that you can have things just the way you like them.
- Adding execution arguments to the game - useful for developers!
- An IRC !auth feature for players with protected nicknames. No more joining IRC just to run one command and leave, this will do it for you!
- GSA Query (functional but incomplete).
- Many features are still being developed. Stay tuned for updates!
Design choice notes:
- For simplicity's sake, I have chosen to not attempt to disallow the user to delete saved items in the Games and IRC Profiles lists even if those items are currently associated with a Server Profile (this will break the associated profiles). There are warnings, but the user may do as they wish (since they can manually edit the file anyway).
- I have also chosen to not force uniqueness in IRC Profiles. Due to the way it is coded currently, this makes sense as these profiles do not have actual names but rather are identified by a concatenated string of all contained information, minus the password. I hope to fix this in the future.
Still to come!
- Data management rewrite (for saving/loading all the user-entered data)
- GSA query improvements
-
Themes (re-worked, better than before!) - Bug fixes
What's New in Version 0.47 See changelog
Released
Its been all of four and a half years since I last released an update to Asterisk! I feel like I just started this project yesterday. Wow.
Given the time since the last release, and the fact that I have been slowly working on this when I have time, adding a few things, trying to polish it a bit more, etc, I and a couple other people (namely @ ChopBam ) felt that it was time to let out another update.
ChopBam has been very helpful in shaping several of these new changes listed below. Many of them are the product of his request and/or suggestion.
-
Updated UI
- Shortened program title to "Asterisk Connect Tool".
- Changed window title from "W3D*" to "Asterisk".
- Changed program windows to open centered in screen instead of at a random default position.
- Changed cursor behavior, so that it will always be in the "Nickname" field at program start.
- Color palette is now "Dark", instead of "Dark, but confused".
- Colored Toolbar menu items now participate in the color scheme.
- Re-arranged some elements, and moved the "Add", "Delete", and "Edit" buttons from the "New" and "Edit" menus onto the main window.
- Removed "New", "Edit", and "Theme" menus.
- Updated Help -> "About" screen Credits and fixed some poor formatting.
- Updated Help -> "Report a Bug" screen message to correctly display the new forum URL, as well as the Discord URL.
- Fixed the incorrect version number displayed on the "About" and "Report a Bug" screens.
- Updated GSA Query window. The feature is still not complete, but it is slightly improved.
- Added option to remove Pre- and Post-launch application entries by clicking on the program path displayed in the menu. Also improved existing feature logic.
- Added option to configure the behavior of the Return (Enter) Key within text fields, such that it can launch the selected game, connect to the selected server, or simply do nothing (default).
- Added option to open wwconfig.exe for the selected game (if the wwconfig.exe file exists in the normal place for the selected game).
- Themes module upgraded from "kneecapped" to "disabled". Feature to be completely removed in favor of a single color palette, due to lack of user interest and added maintenance time cost.
- Compiling with a newer version of Visual Studio fixed the bug with the "Port" field, where the cursor would not always start at the beginning of the field.
- Cleanup - Removed some orphaned code.
In the future, I hope to not wait so long between releases. However, progress is solely dependent upon my spare time. Thanks for checking out Asterisk, and I do hope that you find it useful.
-Einstein
