The Company Community Forum

Hi there at TheCompany!
A few days ago i stumbled across your website and found the concept of single-.EXE Amiga games very intriguing.
So i thought a launcher (GUI) would come in handy and looked at the forum. There i found syncro's various Launcher-Projects which surely are well done and stand on their own.

But then i thought a tiny micro-launcher for all .EXE's would fit the concept of your website very well.
Now 4 days and nearly 52 hours of work later i would like to show you something that *could* be the official TheCompany launcher.




Some more infos:
- The Launcher needs no extra .dll's or lua-scripts etc. - just a single .EXE.
It uses a simple modifyable Text-file which contains all Filename (without the .exe prefix)
- Included is a help panel (Help Button or F1-Key).
- You can play (launch) every game with a single click or keypress (Play Button or <ENTER>).
- For nearly all the games there's a manual included (.pdf-file - click the Manual-Button or F2-key)
- One of 22 pieces of Amiga game music in .mp3-format can be played - (Music Button or F3-key).
- For EVERY game there are screenshots - obviously ripped from the site.
- You can fold-in the screenshots so that the GUI get's even smaller.
- Exit the GUI via Exit Button, <ESC> or <Alt-F4>.

Maybe somebody is interested in testing the GUI. If so, i would upload a dummy
(just 1-2 games, 1-2 .pdf's and a bunch of screenshots) somewhere
and we can discuss everything here.

I take no credit for the GUI - It's all for TheCompany and their users.
Please tell me what YOU think about it. or .
I can upload more screenshots if somebody wants them.

Greetings,
Gordon

1. (c) Gordon must be added.
2. If is compilation (example: Black Lotus Trilogy) you can use commandline -g 1, -g 2, - g 3 for EXE!

This feature is only for exe's v2.6
3. If you change extra exe settings - you can use settings.cfg - example: example settings.cfg

Hello Gordon.
Please, upload your launcher somewhere, i will be interest for testing it. Especially on Win 8

yeah gordon, it looks really amazing. can u share it for testing great work, keep continue

Ok, i see there is a certain demand for a launcher...?
Let me find a hoster and i will quickly compile a "dummy set" and upload it.
I'll post the link here, but give me a few hours.

Some con's on the launcher i didn't mention in the first place:
There's only one screenshot for ech game (consists of all screenshots on each game's website.
You can't view a bigger screenshot - it's just what you see in the launcher.
I left out "The Feeble Files" (too big) and all polish ONLY games, but i included all polish ML games
and the demos. Anyway, you can modify your collection anytime by altering the AmiEXE.lst file which
is a simple .txt-file. The Screenshots have exactly the same name but with the .jpg prefix, then.

So i just wanted to have that said.

anthrox: I'm just a hobby programmer and i don't know how to manage the command-line in VB6.
But i think the launcher is something that stands on it's own and therefore i'll leave the game selection
to Demonic Windows because the entry "Pinballs 19in1 (1987-97)(+t)" suggest that the user chooses the exact game later, right? I know it's somewhat limited, but it's tiny!

roki76: The launcher is written in VB6 so it will work on Windows 8, too!

Till later folks!

-- 22 May 2013, 16:20 --

So i quickly crammed a dummy together.
Some notes on the dummy version:

- All Screenshots are included.
- All Background music is included, but only the first 15 secs or so).
- only 3 games, 3 demos and 3 pdf's are included -most of them dummys.
The only game launching is "Captain Dynamo" because it was the smallest to include. The Rest are dummy .exe's.

http://www.file-upload.net/download-762 ... y.zip.html

So feel free to "test" the launcher and give me some feedback or ask-a-ton of questions.

I know it's not much but i need a free file hoster to upload the complete or incomplete package.
Suggestions, anyone?
The "complete package" (206 games/3 demos) would be ~3.3GB.
The "incomplete package" with screenshots, manuals & music would be ~966MB.
(you have to put in the games & demos yourself)

BTW: It's all "portable" and i won't upload ANYTHING without the permission of The Company!

Later folks,
wizzel

Launcher looks and works (music samples rules ! ) awesome, but i cannot run any game.

roki76 wrote:Launcher looks and works (music samples rules ! ) awesome, but i cannot run any game.

Hey roki76,
you can't run any game in this "dummy launcher". I've only included "empty" .exe files that simply do nothing.
Only the game "Captain Dynamo" can be run, because i included it.

Don't get fooled by the game names i used. I renamed all games eliminating the suffix "-theCompany" from every title to shorten things a bit. You can't simply put your .exe's in the games folder, you have to rename them or edit
AmiEXE.lst with Notepad or similar.

Hope i could help.

Wizzel, your'e a one, awesome mothafucka'

Rekkimaru wrote:Wizzel, your'e a one, awesome mothafucka'

Thanks-a-ton, Rekkimaru.
Any suggestions for the GUI?

wizzel wrote:Any suggestions for the GUI?

Maybe add disable/enable md5 verification (online) in Demonic (Black) Window?
(How to = Private Message)

i would love to see a launcher, which takes list of games from selected folder, so you can have only what u want.

Maybe add disable/enable md5 verification (online) in Demonic (Black) Window?
(How to = Private Message)

Sorry Anthrox, but i'm just a poor VB6 GUI creator and i don't see any reason for implementing MD5-verification.
The GUI is ment to be just a tiny launcher for your collection (complete). Nothing more and nothing less.
I won't blow it up to some huge sua-dupa MegaMenu. Think of it as something like the Amiga Player by Cloanto.
but thanks for the feedback.

What i CAN and will implement next, is a better screenshot preview window.
In the current window only one screenshot is shown. I will create 4 virtual screens in that frame
so you have 4 *REAL* Screenshots. When you click on one of them it will be shown in it's original size.

i would love to see a launcher, which takes list of games from selected folder, so you can have only what u want.

OK, this is quite a good idea and i will think of it (how it's technically done), but i can't promise that it will be in soon. This will take a while to implement. First i will improve the screenshot section.

But there's a method how you can quickly add your games to the Amiga.lst file:

Goto your games directory and type dir *.exe >Amiga.lst.
Then Open the file with Note/Wordpad press Ctrl-H and replace the string ".exe" with nothing.
Remove the date-code in front of each entry (that can be done with UltraEdit in Column-Mode)
and save the file.
Or wait a little. When i'm finished with implementing the screenshot-section,
i'll find a hoster where i put up the "complete pack", but The Company has to give permission to it.

I'll be back, soon...

take your time its better do somethin longer then do it like shit

A little status report on how work on the GUI progresses:

- Launcher now scans the "data/games" and "data/demos" folder for files and lists them in the launcher.
means: "AmiExe.lst" is no longer needed! (Pancio)
- 6 preview screenshots instead of one fake shot implemented.
means: every screenshot can be clicked and will then be enlarged.
- exchanged the help-panel for a more "reasonable" one.
- fixed a few minor bugs and misbehaviours.

on the downside all entries in the list do show the ".exe" ending, but it's far beyond my VB6 abilities to fix that.
(fucking ListBox... )

Now i have to collect all (large) screenshots from The Company's website and rename them.
This will that a while (a week or two, don't know?) because 6 shots * 209 screens = ~1200 screenshots...

When this task is completed, i'll post the new preview version for testing here.
In this version you'll just have to throw your .exe's to the games and demos folder, that's all!




Have fun,
wizzel

-- 25 May 2013, 02:48 --

Hello again, folks,
worked my ass off the last 8 hours or so, just to deliver a *new preview* of AmiEXE.

download it here:

http://www.workupload.com/file/dQxYcpt

Please read the included ReadMe.txt - I included instructions on how to customize AmiEXE.

MD5-Checks for screenshots are not implemented yet and i doubt it's technically possible for me to do that
(but at least you can put in your own .exe files, no more list!).

Note: The ".exe" shown in the GUI is gone!
Please report your bugs/suggestions!

Good Nite,
wizzel

-- 19 Oct 2013, 00:48 --

Since there is a need for an "apps" folder because of Deluxe Paint 5.2, i've added it to AmiEXE.
Not sure, but nobody seems to be interested in the gui, so i don't upload it until someone says it is needed.

wizzel wrote:Not sure, but nobody seems to be interested in the gui, so i don't upload it until someone says it is needed.

Why not?
A few people are using it

This looks really cool. Considering how awkward Amiga emulation has been in the past between the Company and your launcher life is looking good!

Where is new version?!
@wizzel - if you want http://wizzel.thecompany.pl / http://launcher.thecompany.pl - contact me

V3.0 has new feature - improved commandline:
- g <position>
and!
- g <position>.<kidposition>

Is possible run activate/skip intro without TC Window (naturally kid position e.g. activate trainer must ba available in TC Window)
Example:
Run Lotus.exe - position 3 + activate trainer: