tkBoom Notes

Project Milestones

• 0.6
• re-write of module to be launched from launcher.plx
• finish conversion of %z variable reference system
  
• addition of DoomLegacy
• DocBook Docs, linked out from PortaBoom
  
• 0.7
• addition of online help system
• addition of other ports

program flow

All screens must fit into a 640x480 window, and possibly into a 320x200 window

1. startup screen - shows program name, maybe a graphic. also shows if it knows the location of prBoom, and has already been configured 
2. main screen - shows launcher buttons, and a list of WAD's that will be passed to prBoom. WADs can be moved up/down in the list so that they replace specific levels in a specific order. Also shows prBoom options as option buttons, and has a box to add the hostname for TCP/IP networked games. status bar at the bottom of the screen shows what the program is doing 
3. Add wads - dialog box that lets you add wads. When the dialog first launches, it has a status bar at the bottom, and the script will start recursively searching for WAD's in /usr/share/games/doom, and adding any to the list that it finds. has Add-Close-Cancel-Change Path buttons: 

• Add adds WAD files (after they are checked to be valid WAD files)
• Close closes the dialog and returns to the main screen with a list of WAD's to be added
• Cancel closes the dialog without adding a list of WADs
• Change Path changes the WAD search path for the dialog box As the search is going on, the status window will update with the current search path, and for each wad found, the name of the wad is displayed breifly in the status window. The Add WAD's dialog will filter files based on the extension *.WAD and *.wad. The wads listed will have the game type and level info pulled out of the wad, and the game type will have icons for Doom I, Doom II, Hexen, Heretic etc.

1. during a prBoom session, the main window will disable the controls on the main window, and in the status bar it will say that's in a game, with the PID of the prBoom process (may not work in Windows)

Related sites

• Angdoom - random doom map generator 
• http://interreality.org/~tetron/technology/angdoom/ 
• Linux Doom Editor
• http://interreality.org/~tetron/technology/lde/ 
• PSX/N64 WAD file
• http://razorback.yi.org/pub/psxsound.zip 
• wad2svg - draws an SVG map of Doom WAD levels (Also by Colin Phipps) 
• http://doombsp.sourceforge.net/wad2svg/
• (Colin also put up some perl WAD info files on that same page, need to find out what they do) 
• DeuTex - wad file builder 
• http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/deutex/
• FreeDoom - a free Doom IWAD
• http://freedoom.sourceforge.net/index.shtml

Misc things to watch out for

• Tk::FontDialog opens a window, so the user needs to make his X accessable using xhost + or ssh root@localhost 
• Tk::Pod needs Text::English Tk::Text
• ANSIColor wants Test, Test::Harness and Term::ANSIColor 
• Tk::XMLViewer requires XML::Parser, XML::Parser requires Expat 

Misc statements that do wierd wonderful things

• win32: perl -e "print $^O . \"\n\"" -- prints OS (dollar sign, carat, letter O) 

prboom command list

• -complevel lvl sets the compatibility mode that PrBoom runs in 
• -deathmatch No longer used. 
• -nosound Disables all sound effects and in-game music. 
• -nosfx Disables sound effects during the game. 
• -nomusic Disables playing of music in the game. 
• -nojoy Disables joystick support. 
• -noaccel For prboom, this prevents it using the MITShm server extension for passing the screen data to the X server. 
• -devparm Development mode 
• -debugfile debug_file 
• -nodrawers Causes no rendering to be done 
• -noblit Causes no copying to the screen from the rendering buffer to be performed. 
• -config myconf Loads an alternative configuration file, named myconf. 
• -save savedir Causes prboom to save games in the directory specified by savedir instead of ~/.prboom/ 

• -width w width of the PrBoom window, Default is 320, must be greater than 320 
• -height h height of the PrBoom window, Default is 200, the height must be greater than 200 
• -{1,2,3} Specifies the scale factor by which to enlarge the window. The default, -1, displays the normal 320x200 pixel Doom screen 

• -iwad iwadname Specifies the location of the IWAD filetypically doom.wad or doom2.wad (or doom2f.wad) 
• -file wad1 Specifies a list of PWAD files to load in addition to the IWAD file Main screen options: 
• -loadgame [0-7] load the specified saved game immediately. 
• -warp { map | epis level } episode and level number to begin at, or the map to begin at 
• -skill [1-5] begin the game at skill level n -respawn monsters that die should respawn 
• -fast all the monsters move react faster -nomonsters include no monsters in the game 
• -net hostname[:port] Specifies that a TCP/IP network game is to be started 
• -port portnum Specifies the local port to use to communicate with the server in a netgame 

• -record demofile Instructs PrBoom to begin recording a demo, to be stored in demofile.lmp 
• -playdemo demofile Play the recorded demo demofile.lmp 
• -timedemo demofile Play the recorded demo demofile.lmp, reporting information about the length of the demo (in gametics) afterwards. 
• -fastdemo demofile Play the recorded demo demofile.lmp as fast as possible Useful for benchmarking PrBoom, as compared to other ver- sions of Doom