NEW user-friendly SDK Launcher

iciz

L2: Junior Member
Mar 17, 2009
84
60
Team Fortress 2 SDK launcher

The Team Fortress 2 SDK Launcher is a handy little tool designed to make using the newly updated SDK dead easy. Simply open the launcher and select the tool you want to run. All required settings to get the SDK working are automatically configured for you. No need to run any bat files, etc. On top of that it also contains some helpful extras. I'll be continuing to expand and improve upon it in the future so please feel free to offer feedback and suggestions on what you'd like to see done with it.


Features:
  • Automatically locates and configures required SDK settings. No need to manually run any bat files.
  • Helpful quick links to commonly needed SDK resources.
  • More to come....

[currently unavailable]
 
Last edited:

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
But is that the install path of the game? Steam actually allows you to put the games on a location different than the steam.exe executable. And you get to choose for each game.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
oh... hmm. I forgot they added that feature. This presents potential issues in my pack installer.

edit: Since I don't have a secondary steam library I'm not sure if the registry says anything about their existence or contents, but I found that HKCU\Software\Valve\Hammer\General\Directory stores the location that Hammer was last ran from which would work, as long as you have a check that it contains "Team Fortress 2\bin" before using it.
 
Last edited:

iciz

L2: Junior Member
Mar 17, 2009
84
60
Is there anyway to tack on that functionality to my in-game hud?

I suppose you could with a custom HUD, but I'm not sure what the advantages of that would be?

@A Boojum Snark

I was really just being lazy and didn't feel like looking through the registry, but thanks to your info I've made it so it will now search the Steam folder automatically and only ask for the location of TF2 if it can't find it. Thanks for the help!

The program also now checks the VPROJECT variable directly instead of just executing Valve's bat files.
 
Last edited:

Mr.Late

L7: Fancy Member
Nov 27, 2009
408
157
oh... hmm. I forgot they added that feature. This presents potential issues in my pack installer.

edit: Since I don't have a secondary steam library I'm not sure if the registry says anything about their existence or contents, but I found that HKCU\Software\Valve\Hammer\General\Directory stores the location that Hammer was last ran from which would work, as long as you have a check that it contains "Team Fortress 2\bin" before using it.

Yes there is an issue with your pack installer. I have TF2 on different drive so I had to change installion folder manually.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
Should have posted about it or PMed me or something. I always ask people to give me a heads up if there are problems when I make changes, but often I learn of a problem myself and people respond with "oh yeah that is a thing" but never brought it up. :(

...but I don't wish to derail this thread, so I'll just mention that yesterday after posting that I went and updated the installer to use the other registry key, so it should work for you in the future. :)
 

duppy

L1: Registered
Feb 16, 2012
35
8
So does this do anything more than run hammer.exe, hlmv.exe, hlfaceposer.exe, and modify the VPROJECT environment variable? I'm fine with using the desktop shortcuts if that's all it does.
 

iciz

L2: Junior Member
Mar 17, 2009
84
60
So does this do anything more than run hammer.exe, hlmv.exe, hlfaceposer.exe, and modify the VPROJECT environment variable? I'm fine with using the desktop shortcuts if that's all it does.

At the moment, yes, and like Aly said that's pretty much all the old SDK launcher did. It's just a simple GUI front-end to automate tasks and make things a little easier. I do, however, plan on adding other features in the future. So if you have any ideas let me know.

This tool also has the advantage of only needing to automatically check the project settings once per run, and update them only when needed. This is much faster then running each separate bat file every time you use a tool to insure the settings are correct.
 

Beetle

L9: Fashionable Member
Aug 17, 2008
627
178
I want to request a feature. It's not that necessary, but I'd like it if there'd be an option to bring up the last compile log text with the click of a button if Hammer isn't open. I know I can make a shortcut and whatnot, but the less clicks the better right?

I don't know, maybe it's a stupid idea
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
Compile log is per-map, though. The app would have no way of knowing which map was compiled last unless you use the expert compile mode to generate something that tells it, or you check the last modified time of every log (probably a poor idea).
 

Trader

L1: Registered
Oct 18, 2011
13
0
Thank for for releasing this program, I've had trouble with Hammer previously.
Is valve going to update Source SDK or release a new SDK for TF2 by any chance?
 

PoignardAzur

L2: Junior Member
Mar 21, 2013
92
9
I'm not sure IcyEyes is still here, but just in case : you should add something to close the window when using Alt-F4 / the little red 'x' button in top-right. Right now the only way of closing it is to press quit.