Open Sauce 2024 and other updates!

LANCommander will be at Open Sauce 2024 in San Francisco on June 15th and 16th! Open Sauce is a large gathering of makers and creators showing off projects, networking, and just causing general chaos. To get an idea what will be at the event, you should absolutely check out the featured creators and exhibits.

At the LANCommander booth we'll have a small LAN party set up where attendees can come and play some classic PC games with their friends or complete strangers. The games selected will be hand picked representatives of why LC is important for easing the pains of LAN parties and taking back control of your PC game library. If you're planning on attending the event, please stop by and say hello!

Planned Updates

v0.8.0

This is going to be another minor version bump with a few bug fixes. Unfortunately due to some eagerness to implement features requested, v0.7.x has had some hiccups. The next version aims to handle the following:

• Fixes for failed imports into Playnite

• Imports into Playnite should be marginally faster and requests sizes have been optimized

• A check to make sure Playnite clients are compatible with the server will be put into place

• Minor issues with the server, most notably with the update view displaying there's an update when the latest version may not have a server update available (e.g. v0.7.4)

I currently don't have a timeline on this, but I am planning for a release shortly after Open Sauce.

v0.9.0

In this version there will be a debut of a new launcher for LANCommander. This is currently being built and will be previewed at Open Sauce. I know everyone will have questions, but here's a FAQ to try to address any you may have off the bat:

• What will happen to the Playnite extension?
  This will be the last update that will officially support the Playnite extension. I have reached a crossroads with Playnite 10 where a change needs to be made. It is a wonderful launcher, but being stuck on .NET Framework has really impeded progress of features that I have wanted since the start of this project. For v1.0.0 the extension will be broken out into a separate git repository for forking or external contributions.

• What features will the new launcher have?
  I am planning on hitting the ground running with bringing over all the features of the Playnite extension into the new launcher. Any other features such as filtering, media management, etc will be very bare bones for the first release. Please keep in mind that this launcher will be targeting the goals of LANCommander and is not meant to replicate or replace all features of Playnite itself.

• How will the launcher know which games I already have installed?
  When a game is installed through LANCommander, a ".lancommander" directory is created in the game's install directory. This contains all the metadata for a game and will be used on first launch of the new launcher to detect all installed games within the default install directory.

• What framework is the new launcher utilizing?
  The launcher is being built as a Blazor Hybrid app. This is essentially a Blazor application wrapped in a MAUI web view. Performance has been very good so far. The server application is already built in Blazor, so it allows me to reuse some code across the client and server.

• What platforms will the new launcher support?
  The primary focus will be on supporting Windows 10 and 11. There is potential to add support for macOS, but I would have to ask for additional contributors to hit that goal as I do not own or plan to own any Apple hardware. There is also a possibility for Linux support in the future, but this is reliant on Microsoft adding Linux support for MAUI.

• Why build a new launcher? Playnite 11 is in the works
  I think LANCommander has just outgrown Playnite. There are some features I would love to implement such as chat and a game overlay that just don't really fit into the same goals as Playnite. I have also found WPF (and by extension frameworks like Avalonia or Uno) to be impeding my development flow and much prefer working with Blazor.

• How can I follow along in development?
  Currently, most work is being done in the "client" branch in the git repository. As we get further down the line I'll drop more screenshots in Discord, but I'm in sort of a mad dash so don't expect scheduled updates.

v1.0.0

I'm going to keep this fairly short, but the full 1.0.0 release will be the full switch over from Playnite to the new launcher. Most likely there will not be too many large changes on the surface. By shedding support for .NET Framework in the SDK assembly, I'll be able to pave the way for an embedded PowerShell scripting runtime. This should result in being able to use the server and SDK assembly on other platforms than Windows. What that exactly looks like is a bit up in the air at the moment.

What I'm Playing

Due to some stress-related health issues, I've forced myself to take more time. A good chunk of this newly free time has been spent playing Fallout 3. I've completed the main storyline and most of the DLC which means I'll probably move onto New Vegas soon. I've been playing the Tale of Two Wastelands mod which merges 3 and NV together. (Oh, and putting the final mod in LANCommander means I can have a pre-modded game to install anywhere and my saves are synced!)

Valheim has taken a bit of a backseat because of Open Sauce, but I'm hoping to get back to it soon. We were able to conquer the Mistlands in our world, but the server and mods need to be updated to support the Ashlands. Hopefully I don't die too many times!

I've also been playing a bit of Helldivers 2. It's some pretty mindless fun, but it's not capturing me quite as much as others.

That's it for now! Game on!