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SBHQ is a launcher/front end for the Squad Battles series. Its primary purpose is to provide a single point of access to a collection of SB titles and includes a few handy features for designers as well.



Installation is as simple as it gets - just unzip the file attached and drop SBHQ.exe in the root folder where your SB games are installed (it can coexist with the official WDS launcher). Double click to run. Once started, SBHQ.exe will look for available SB games under the root folder (including mods, as long as they're installed as separate folders containing a recognized executable) and will ask the user to select one of the titles found. Once a game is selected, the screen shown above will appear, from which you can launch a scenario, play a saved game, manage mods (through JSGME) and open/edit auxiliary files like .oobs, .pdts, manuals, etc.

The behavior of the different sections of the program should be for the most part self-explanatory. A few notes:

- Columns in the main scenario list can be sorted by clicking on the column header. They are also resizable.
- Clicking on the main game title at the top will bring back the game selection dialog.
- The radio buttons allow filtering by game status (new / old) or mode (except for Direct-Play, currently not supported).
- The "Play" button will launch the game and start the selected scenario automatically, bypassing the classic File Selection Dialog.
- The "Autoplay" button is is only available for campaign-enabled titles. Essentially, it lets the user watch the computer fight against itself (AI scripts must be defined for both sides). When clicked, the Autoplay button will create a "dummy" scenario named "#### Autoplay ####.scn" and launch the SB game as usual. The dummy Autoplay scenario should be then selected in the File Selection Dialog in-game like any regular scenario. The difference is that you will see the battle play out automatically, with the AI against itself. This is mostly for fun, but can also help adjust balance issues or tune the AI performance in a given scenario.
- The "Mods" button interacts with JGSME. It will open it directly and allow easy management of mods for the different games. This function requires that SBHQ.exe be launched with administrator rights, otherwise it will throw an error.
- On the lower right corner you can select to see a group of useful files or a preview of the scenario map.

The launcher can be invoked via a shortcut that can be pinned to the taskbar/desktop. This provides easy access to a user's full SB collection with just a few clicks.

This is a fun project I started for myself just to use the Autoplay feature, and kept growing into a frontend. I intend to keep working on it as time allows. Hopefully it may provide some enjoyment to others. As usual, looking forward to comments, feedback, requests, etc.

Current version: 1.5.5

Changelog:

v.1.5.5
- Important note: This version should work with both 4.0 and the new 4.01 versions, however the Autoplay feature will not work in the latter. If you want to play AI vs AI, you'll have to keep a separate 4.0 version of your game.
- Stock editors (sqedit.exe, sqoob.exe, etc) can now be run simultaneously
- Various small fixes

v.1.5.1
- Hotfix: Added support for Squad Battles: Falklands. (D'oh!!) All SB titles should be picked up by the program now.

v.1.5.0
New Features:

- Added support for encrypted PBEM saves (before they were just ignored. Doh!)
- Requested: Added support for JSGME.exe when installed in locations other than the main game folder. JSGME.ini must still present in each game folder for proper redirection.
- Added flags for the combatants/factions participating in each scenario.
- Map Thumbnails! Added a new panel that shows a "stylized" preview of the map for the selected scenario. Clicking on the thumbnail will open a larger view, with the possibility of saving the .bmp of the map to the game folder with the format '[Scenario_filename].bmp'.

Bug fixes:

- Fixed issue when loading scenarios with wrong map data.
- Fixed issue when the user pressed Cancel while trying to change the game.
- A plethora of changes and fixes for improved exception handling.

Nice Job Carlos, This is a lovely bit of kit that works very smoothly and is a much more sophisticated launcher than the official app. Managed to find a couple of scenarios without OOB's that would otherwise have gone undetected until I tried to open them.

• A PBEM file manager next please so i can keep track of my PBEM games
  

(02-17-2022, 05:58 PM)Embis Wrote: [ -> ]Nice Job Carlos, This is a lovely bit of kit that works very smoothly and is a much more sophisticated launcher than the official app. Managed to find a couple of scenarios without OOB's that would otherwise have gone undetected until I tried to open them.

• A PBEM file manager next please so i can keep track of my PBEM games
  

Glad you like it, Mark...  
Yes, the program loads all scenario data upfront, so it can work as an ad-hoc validation tool for the different associated files. It will also complain if it finds something amiss in the .oob file...

What would you like to see in a PBEM file manager?

Carlos, very nice work my friend!!

Post deleted

(02-17-2022, 08:05 PM)Xerxes77 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-17-2022, 05:58 PM)Embis Wrote: [ -> ]..snip..snip

..snip snip..

What would you like to see in a PBEM file manager?

I usually have 6-8 games running at a time and sometimes I struggle to keep track of whose turn it is. So i would like something which helps me to do that, so something that:

• scans all my SB games and gives me the details of the .bte files, particularly the date they were saved, the name of the scenario, the original scenario file name. (some scenario designers give their games different file names and scenario names and this can make it difficult to find the right scenario when reporting it at the Blitz, (your SBHQ program reports both the scenario and file name, and that's a useful feature for that very reason)
  
• links a Blitz user name with an email address and the relevant .bte file
  
• enables me to delete and old BTE game
  
• Highlights the age of a file.. so if a player that usually send me a file once a week doesn't send me a file for three weeks i am reminded that its late. Would be good to be able define the age that triggers that alert on an individual basis to take account of people's different return rates.
  

I use a web based email client and would prefer to keep control of that side of the operation but I imagine some people might like integration with an email client to send turns, if that was included I would prefer that to be optional and not integral.

It's great. Many thanks, Carlos. It picks up 12 of my 13 SB titles. Doesn't see Falklands. I wonder why?

(02-18-2022, 06:24 PM)Embis Wrote: [ -> ]I usually have 6-8 games running at a time and sometimes I struggle to keep track of whose turn it is. So i would like something which helps me to do that, so something that:

• scans all my SB games and gives me the details of the .bte files, particularly the date they were saved, the name of the scenario, the original scenario file name. (some scenario designers give their games different file names and scenario names and this can make it difficult to find the right scenario when reporting it at the Blitz, (your SBHQ program reports both the scenario and file name, and that's a useful feature for that very reason)
  

• (Snip)

Mark,
Those are very good. I actually intended to provide all that functionality but I hit a brick wall - encryption. The program takes everything it needs from the .bte files and doesn't keep any metadata (which explains why there's no validation and you can accidentally open your opponent's file). Encryption makes it impossible to determine info like scenario, current turn, etc. 

You'll notice the standard in-game PBEM dialog provides no info for encrypted saves either... realistically, we could have the program provide you with a list of all your PBEM games and then custom information fields that you could fill manually with opponent name, turn, and other notes. I have to mull it over a bit more to see if it'd be actually usable and worth the effort.

(02-18-2022, 06:24 PM)Phoenix Wrote: [ -> ]It's great. Many thanks, Carlos. It picks up 12 of my 13 SB titles. Doesn't see Falklands. I wonder why?

Well, that's embarrassing... Looks like I simply forgot to check for it! It's a quick fix so I can upload a new version right now, but I don't have the game -- could you please let me know the executable? Is it fw.exe?

Thanks. Fl.exe

(02-19-2022, 12:01 AM)phoenix Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks. Fl.exe

Thanks again for the heads up, phoenix. I've added Falklands and uploaded a new version, please let me know if it works now on your end?