Ive been working on a little launcher to replace starthere.bat over the last couple days.
Its only about 16 hours accumulated time, not much.

It requires the .NET 2.0 framework to be installed to be used.

http://downloads.polserver.com/Tools/POLLaunch.exe

To-Do List:
1. Improve the threading so it will show the output of uoconvert.exe and ecompile.exe in real time - rather than when the process exits.

2. Improve the realm tab's stuff to have some sort of an external file like XML for map dimensions (currently hard coded)

Here are pictures
http://poldistro.polserver.com/FrontEnd/


Thanks to the IRC hecklers: ncrsn and phao for feedback as well as RunTest.
And.. Luth.. who kept finding the theme variances between vista and xp >_< I hate colors as a result.. which is good because he picked out the foreground color.

I tried running it through mono (1.2.6), and it works... Linux users rejoice!

Austin has hardcoded some stuff in there, but make sure to try it out, and report any issues so he can work on them (for the right amount of beer that is).

Future versions will be more configurable. This stuff is best done in baby steps.

Looks great Austin.

Why not add a section to the pol.cfg file or the map dimensions since this will likely become an integral part of POL?

I gather it's written in C#?

I have uploaded a new one that will show the results of ecompile.exe and uoconvert.exe in real-time.

Don't forget to save a compiled PolLaunch.exe to the downloads page when you update the source ......
I don't have a compiler for it and so rely on the exe download, and it's getting a tad old.

Ask Nando or Turley to keep it updated for me. I was away for so long, everything has changed so I can't upload

New Announce post for the Project. Will keep updated EXE and DLL there also in the Main Post (along with SVN Update Logs so you can see the progress).

Fantastic. I've been trying to follow progress with the svn logs in the e-mails, but this will be the first time I've seen it since September.

A few observations on PolLaunch after playing with it.

* It warns me I have more ecl files than src files, but doesn't realise I have ASP files that compile.
* Once I got it to load ecompile cfg options and it crashed. Other times it worked fine.
* POL configuration page is blank and can't find the changelog anymore to see if this is yet to be done.
* The Downloads link on the webpage still points to an old pollaunch.
* When using pollaunch to start POL it actually crashes pollaunch after about 20 seconds. System tray sometimes still has pol still starting up though - not found consistent behaviour in that though.

I don't have an auxservice configured on pol so don't expect account creator to work.
Using Windows 2000 server.

Ok, will check into your reports before moving forward on much else (baby steps!).

The ECL one, hrm... may just have it count ASP too and add that to the report (you have xx of xxx and so on, plus xxx asp pages." Etc.

If it crashed while loading the the ECompile config path may not have been saved yet (was it before using Configurations or before the first time closing the new version?) If that's the case, my bad. I'll throw in some checks for redundancy anyway.

Configuration page Blank, as in, NOTHING in the form at all, or just the paths are not set?

I can't access FTP yet, still to get with Austin to remedy that.

I will try to add more instances for catching exceptions/crashes, so it gives a more detailed report to you if it happens. In the meantime, ANY info it tells you about the crash, please feel free to send that on to me.

Oh yeah, the Account Creator btw, is 100% compatible with Distro Account System AuxSvc (just so you know)

And I never saw a changelog on the SVN, only reason I haven't been using the file. If you want a to-do and changelog, I can start that for yas

Plan:
Fully functional UOConvert tab (including ability to edit realm map sizes and that get saved... OHHHH)
Fully Functional ECompile Tab (including path editors) and MORE FLAGS AVAILABLE (Than what the .cfg offers, talking about cmdline only flags).
Fully Functional POL Config editor (this edits the pol.cfg, sets up servers.cfg, servspecopt.cfg, and the other KEY files).
Fully Functional Data Directory backup (WITH ZIP SUPPORT!), Account Modifications (enable/disable, reset pass, reset email), Acct creation (already there).
that's what is left to put in, so far. Nando and austin was working on the Cfg part (backend code), so unsure where they are with that just yet.

I am thinking of adding SVN tab too, to update via SVN (If you have the SVN directories etc), but unsure about that. I REALLY DO NOT WANT to add an SVN DLL to the project (unsure if a C# or .NET one exists yet anyway, and I am NOT writing one, lol). But you never know. Would be a bit pointless imo anyway.

Might add a checkbox on POL Tab to "keep it running" so that if it exits, it re-fires it. Dunno.

Here is what I get when trying to start pol with pollaunch

This is the windows 2000 application error log entry:

EventType clr20r3, P1 pollaunch.exe, P2 1.0.0.0, P3 49558cf4, P4 pollaunch, P5 1.0.0.0, P6 49558cf4, P7 89, P8 a, P9 system.entrypointnotfound, P10 NIL.


0000: 63 00 6c 00 72 00 32 00 c.l.r.2.
0008: 30 00 72 00 33 00 2c 00 0.r.3.,.
0010: 20 00 70 00 6f 00 6c 00 .p.o.l.
0018: 6c 00 61 00 75 00 6e 00 l.a.u.n.
0020: 63 00 68 00 2e 00 65 00 c.h...e.
0028: 78 00 65 00 2c 00 20 00 x.e.,. .
0030: 31 00 2e 00 30 00 2e 00 1...0...
0038: 30 00 2e 00 30 00 2c 00 0...0.,.
0040: 20 00 34 00 39 00 35 00 .4.9.5.
0048: 35 00 38 00 63 00 66 00 5.8.c.f.
0050: 34 00 2c 00 20 00 70 00 4.,. .p.
0058: 6f 00 6c 00 6c 00 61 00 o.l.l.a.
0060: 75 00 6e 00 63 00 68 00 u.n.c.h.
0068: 2c 00 20 00 31 00 2e 00 ,. .1...
0070: 30 00 2e 00 30 00 2e 00 0...0...
0078: 30 00 2c 00 20 00 34 00 0.,. .4.
0080: 39 00 35 00 35 00 38 00 9.5.5.8.
0088: 63 00 66 00 34 00 2c 00 c.f.4.,.
0090: 20 00 38 00 39 00 2c 00 .8.9.,.
0098: 20 00 61 00 2c 00 20 00 .a.,. .
00a0: 73 00 79 00 73 00 74 00 s.y.s.t.
00a8: 65 00 6d 00 2e 00 65 00 e.m...e.
00b0: 6e 00 74 00 72 00 79 00 n.t.r.y.
00b8: 70 00 6f 00 69 00 6e 00 p.o.i.n.
00c0: 74 00 6e 00 6f 00 74 00 t.n.o.t.
00c8: 66 00 6f 00 75 00 6e 00 f.o.u.n.
00d0: 64 00 20 00 4e 00 49 00 d. .N.I.
00d8: 4c 00 0d 00 0a 00 L.....

Same thing happens on my other Windows 2000 server (actually my home domain controller). Crash. Both have NET framework 2.0 with Service Pack 1.

However, it seems to work just fine on my WindowsXP workstation.

As a matter of interest, should you have a Stop POL button to stop pol - unless you want me to go to the systray to stop it. How big is the display buffer on the pollaunch console? Be nice to see some scroll bars and not have to use mouse select to scroll up.

32k I think is it's buffer. Hence I need to check it's length in the loop and clean it every so often, hehehe.

Ok, so we narrowed it down to Win2k issue. Go figure, OS dependent crashes. LOL.

Has to be with the event handler from what I am seeing in the crash reports from you and all. Will dig and see what I can come up.

Will be putting up another release sometime today (my timezone) with a few updates.

By the way, I haven't worked with POLLaunch for some time. The console (POL, at least) was working when sending console cmds (letters), but the way it works makes POLLaunch exit if you pressed (or simulated the press of) Ctrl-C (the 'only' way POL stops). It was a bit unfinished because of this problem (and neither it was a beautiful code ). There's the option of terminating POL, but wouldn't be a soft stop. Must get deeper into Win32 API for this hook (could anyone help?).

Yeah well, there IS another option there...... a console command to do an immediate shutdown instead of "Shutdown in x minutes" hehe.

I remember talking this to Austin. He just said: "Nah, I'll take a nap." (or something like that)

Yep, a console command is nice. Just need to be sure that everyone will have it when using POL Launch.

You forget me.... mwuahahaha

<biteme_textbox>Letter To Your Console ShutDown Script</biteme_textbox>

Then just use Write(),

Hey, quick question (sory if it sounds stupid, im learning) but on the "Realms" tab of the Pollauncher, under "Client Data", and in the field called "Path to UO Client Data" what should go here?

My FIRST guess would be that I should put the path to the MUL directory where the map files are, would this be correct?

The other thought would be to point it where the UO client actually is, but that would not be where the MUL files used in the batch file compiling would be, but then it is not the location of the config files either...

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

George

Where you have UO installed - Mainly yeah the mul directory.