Terminal Doom Launcher

Terminal Doom Launcher, or TDL, is a launcher application for Doom. A launcher is intended to make it easier to manage the multitude of different Source Ports, MegaWADs, supplementary WADs, demos, and also keep track of certain things, like favourite maps.

As the name implies, rather than being driven by a GUI, TDL runs from the terminal. The intention is for it to be fast to use for people who are already very familiar with a terminal environment.

Using TDL

• Installation
  • Windows
  • Linux
• Getting Started
• Source Ports
• Profiles
• WADs

Installation

Windows

There will be a Chocolatey package and Powershell script available for installation on Windows.

Linux

There will be a Bash script available for installation on Linux.

Getting Started

After you've installed TDL, you only need to take a few steps to get started playing:

• Set the EDITOR environment variable to your favourite editor, e.g. export EDITOR=nvim.
• Download a source port like PrBoom UMAPINFO (NOTE: this will be replaced by using TDL to install one)
• Run tdl source-port add PrBoomUmapInfo ~/doom/source-ports/prboom-2.6um/prboom-plus 2.6um to add the source port to TDL (NOTE: this will be removed with the install command)
• Run tdl profile add. This will use your editor to specify the values for the profile. Alternativey, if you want you can add the profile by specifying all the arguments on the command line. Run profile add --help for more info.
• Run tdl iwad import --path ~/doom/iwads/DOOM2.WAD (NOTE: this will be replaced with tdl iwad import . to import all the IWADs in a directory)
• Run tdl play and use the fuzzy finder to select the MAP to play

Source Ports

At least one source port must be added, as pretty much every other command will make a reference to a source port.

A previously downloaded source port can be added using the source-port add command:

tdl source-port add "prboomumapinfo" "~/doom/source-ports/prboom-2.6um/prboom-plus" "2.6um"

The first argument must be one of the supported source port types. Run tdl source-port add --help to see a list of valid values.

Profiles

Profiles provide a way to play the game using different options and configurations. You need at least one profile to function as the default. The recommended use for the default profile is the way you must commonly like to play the game. So it would use your favourite source port and the common options you typically play with. For example, I mostly like to play while listening to my own music or a podcast, so my default profile will run the game with no music, using the DSDA source port. I may have a different profile for recording a demo or generating a video from a demo. I might have different profiles for experimenting with different source ports, and so on.

When you run the tdl play command, it will launch with the default profile. If you want to use a different profile, you can use the optional --profile argument.

Create a profile using the profile add command. To see all the possible options, use tdl profile add --help. Most of the options correspond to the arguments the game accepts.

WADs

Using the tdl iwad and tdl wad commands, you can import IWADs and WADs into your collection. The tdl wad import command can be supplied an ID from the Doomworld idgames archive. It will download the WAD and text file specified by that ID. As the WADs are imported, the available maps will be parsed and will be available for selection when using the play command.