Matt, Jo, or Oshyan: How do I disable the splash screen on startup?

[gregsandor]

How do I disable the splash screen on startup?

[Cyber-Angel]

I think that this has been covered before and the answer is the same as before, there is no option to disable the splash screen at this time and even if its planed it would be along way down the list of priorities.

Please accept that this is the way things are for the time being, the splash screen goes away when you click on OK in fact TG2 will not start unless you 

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel     

[Matt]

I take it that you need to run this on a remote machine via command line? If so, the -exit and -hide flags should make sure that the splash screen and GUI are not displayed. This is documented in docs/win_command_line.txt or docs/mac_command_line.txt

I think there are some bugs in the current public version which cause some other messages to be displayed even when -exit and -hide are set, but we've fixed these for the next update. If you're using -exit -hide and still having problems, can you please tell me the following?

Platform (win or mac)
Build number for TG2
An example of your command line

Thanks,

Matt

[gregsandor]

Matt,
Thank you.  I'm not using command-line, just starting from the .exe.  Is there an .ini file I can manually edit?  Also, is there a way to configure it so when I click on a project file it opens the file, not just the default TG program (from which I then have to load the project)?

[Harvey Birdman]

Hey, Greg -

I haven't tried it (should work, though) and I don't know if it'll ease your pain, but you might try creating a batch file that passes the command line arguments when starting the program. It wouldn't solve the issue with double-clicking on a file to open that file, but it might give you a way of starting the program without displaying the splash - hook a shortcut or button to the batch file instead of directly executing the .exe.

[gregsandor]

Thanks, Harvey.  Can you point me to the language needed for the .bat? 

[Harvey Birdman]

You just use DOS commands. I'll throw one together in a sec and try it, and if I can get it work I'll post it for you.

I'll report back soon...



<edit>
No luck. The command line version bails if the exit flag is passed without a project command line argument, and the gui version doesn't seem to recognize command-line arguments. (D'oh!)

I have another idea, but it'll take a bit of work. You could create a proxy application that will accept a file name as a command line argument, and then associate this application with the .tgd file type; that will ensure that the proxy app is called when you double-click on the file. This proxy app could then extract the file name from the command line parameters, and execute tgdcli.exe, passing both the file name and the -exit flag. The proxy could be written in any language - if you have the .Net framework on your machine, you could write it in C#; shouldn't take long at all.

If you like I can take a look at it this afternoon - I don't have a whole lot to do today.
</edit>

[rcallicotte]

Wow.  This should really save time.   

[Harvey Birdman]

       

So I'm a little bored. Can you tell?

[rcallicotte]

LOL 

  I'm not lookin'.  My shift for keeping up with Harvey was over an hour ago.   

[Harvey Birdman]

So the good news is it takes like 2 lines of code. I put the console exe created from the following into the same directory as the tg2 exe, opened a command window and passed it the path to a .tgd file. (I didn't bother associating the file type with the proxy, just manually entered the path.)


namespace TG2_Proxy
{
   class Program
   {
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {

         if (args != null)
         {
            String path = args[0];
            System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("tgdcli.exe", path );
         }

      }
   }
}


The bad news is you can't really hide just the splash screen, unless I'm misinterpreting the documentation. Simple enough to append ' -hide' to the second parameter, but it doesn't do what you want.

[Oshyan]

The question is why do you want to disable the splash screen?

- Oshyan

[gregsandor]

The question is why do you want to disable the splash screen?

- Oshyan

I want fewer layers between my ideas and their execution, not more.  It is redundant to load a program (particularly one that I've used for ten or fifteen years on a more or less weekly basis) to be confronted with a screen that says what program it is.  I already know or it wouldn't be loading. 

The real question is why anyone needs to be reminded what program they just executed.  If you want to force a splash ont he unregistered version, maybe even include a link from it to a purchase page, fine. 

[sjefen]

I actually think it would be cool if I could customize the splash screen with a chosen image

[Cyber-Angel]

I actually think it would be cool if I could customize the splash screen with a chosen image

I think some kind of officially sanctioned contest would be in order and the winning image would be used for the official splash screen image for TG2, just as the splash screen for version 0.9.43 had some thing: all of the above is meaningless if some thing has already been designed in house: but the idea is there any how.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel