Launcher for paradox games with linux support

[Jormundgand]

I wrote a simple launcher for linux which should be easy to adapt for os x and windows* (if those lucky ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s even care) as well as for eu4.

Screenshot for 0.3.3 (still valid, except that stuff is now sorted): http://firefield.dyndns.org/ck2l/ck2l_screenshot_0.3.3.png
Download 0.6: http://firefield.dyndns.org/ck2l/ck2l-0.6.tar.bz2

The old download site is no longer available. I exepct to move to http://firefield.dk "soon" (i.e. it's done when it's done it) -- not earlier than june though.

The default configuration file is setup for a standard steam installation but changing it is fairly easy (just edit ck2l.config).

Support for other games (EU4 and other paradox games) is a matter of editing the config file; I suspect Mac OS X support is a matter of changing the configuration file and a rebuild. Supporting Windows is a bit of a hazzle and is unlikely to happen. I do not have any way to test the launcher for any operating systems besides GNU/Linux.

Source code and a x86_64 build that works on Fedora 20 is bundled in the package. The launcher depends on Qt5 (Qt5Core and Qt5Widgets).

0.4 adds drag and drop installation of zip compressed mods.

* Windows is a ♥♥♥♥♥ -- nothing is standards compliant. I hate it.

[Jormundgand]

0.6 is up -- sorts the packages, moves the config file to ~/.config/ck2l/ck2l.config
The default configuration (in the tar) uses steam to launch the game to avoid disabling the content button.

[petri.piira]

A feature request - support for 1.111 (the last version of CK2 which was mostly bug free) and 2.0x (the last version which was still somewhat playable, in my opinion).

[Jormundgand]

Done. The launcher doesn't depend on the game version. You just need a local copy and refer to that in the configuration file.

[petri.piira]

ah, ok, thanks.

[machredsch]

Thx for the great launcher.
As an information, I've compiled it against Qt4 succesfully with modifying the Makefile and some #includes to adjust them to Qt4.
My system: Gentoo

[Jormundgand]

Awesome; great to know that other people find it useful and also that it's that easy to make it work with Qt4 -- I always suspect that it would be since I'm not doing anything fancy.

I have a new version almost ready for release -- no real new functionality; that's for later. Currently I'm planning saving your choices of which mods you have active and which dlcs you have deactivated so you don't have to pick it over and over gain. I'm also, sort of, planning to add support for settings (windowed, fullscreen, graphics effects and such), that's not going to happen just yet (I have a bachelors project I'm about three weeks behind on; I want to finish that before I spend too much time on this project). A proper progress dialog for mod installation and support for more formats (prolly going to use libarchive for that) is also in the pipeline.

You're welcome to publish your changes btw.

[machredsch]

Changes for Qt4 (- = remove this, + = add this):

Makefile

-QMAKE         = /usr/bin/qmake-qt5
+QMAKE         = /usr/bin/qmake

It should correct the rest automatically, when compiling, if it don't you have to change the libs and Linkage too.

ck2l.pro

-LIBS += -lQt5Widgets

src/main.cc

-#include <QtWidgets/QApplication>
+#include <QApplication>

src/window.h

-#include <QtWidgets/QListWidget>
-#include <QtWidgets/QVBoxLayout>
-#include <QtWidgets/QHBoxLayout>
-#include <QtWidgets/QPushButton>
-#include <QtWidgets/QLabel>
+#include <QListWidget>
+#include <QVBoxLayout>
+#include <QHBoxLayout>
+#include <QPushButton>
+#include <QLabel>

Steps to compile:

1. edit ck2l.config with your correct paths
   
2. (optional: edit src/main.cc and change the location to where you want to install the tool, here is mine:
   

   std::string conf_file = string_to_path("~/.paradoxinteractive/Tools/ck2l/ck2l.config");

3. open a terminal -> Enter these commands:
   

   cd <Path to your downloaded and unzipped ck4l directory>
   make

4. copy ck2l.config and the generated ck2l binary to the folder you specified in the src/main.cc
   
5. (optional: make a desktop shortcut to the ck2l or start ck2l from a terminal or use the delivered ck4l.desktop)

A nice desktop Icon you can find at:
~/<your steam library>/common/Crusader Kings II/gfx/CK2_icon.bmp

If you changed something and want to recompile, just run "make clean" before the above steps.

@Clearer
I'm not sure, if you could change the includes to mines generally under Qt5 too.
So if this is possible, we don't need a change there. I don't know that, because I only have Qt4 and I'm no programmer.

[Jormundgand]

I have no strong feeling about Qt4 or Qt5; changing it to Qt4 will allow more people to have access to the program, so I'll likely have your changes in a future version (when I'm done with this other project -- some time late may). I prefer having the config file in a standard location; the standard location for configuration files according to opendesktop.org (I believe) is ~/.config.

Regarding the icon file; paradox has copyright on that file, so I can't distribute it -- that also means I can't rely on it. I have set a png version of that very icon as the icon for the launcher on my local machine though.

[machredsch]

yes this is only optional and your choice not unusual. I wanted the launcher files together in a game related dir and not bloated them my .config dir. This was only a hint for others to feel free to install somewhere ;). Nobody need to do like me.

[Jormundgand]

I've been fiddling with the idea to load the confg from /etc and ~/.config and just uses the last value loaded from either file (so the one in ~/.config would overwrite the one in /etc) -- I don't see any problem with having a third option.

[machredsch]

I don't like a global config under /etc. I think this will be overdimensioned for this small gimmick to one special game. My steam and my games are only locally installed at one users home directory. The other users use their own local steam and games. If another user needs the launcher for his possibly installed CKII, he can install it himself at his own home dir with his own steam libraries. And to find even 2 different users on one machine, who play CKII might be rare ;), at least on my machine. But if you plan a global config, you should install the binary globally, too. I don't like this.

[Jormundgand]

Those arguments are the very reason I've only been considering the /etc thing. I think the best location to have the configuration file is prolly in the same dir as the exe and just fallback to ~/.config and finally fallback to predefined values.