» Gamma Launcher
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Gamma Launcher

tool
Credits: dottore for the Elementa lib

about

hello all,

This is GammaLauncher, a simple application that allows to launch vvvv gamma instances with specific arguments from a simple GUI.

Usage

When the application first starts, it generates a settings.xml file in %APPDATA\Local\GammaLauncher. This file contains path to your gamma insatallations (should be C:\Program Files\vvvv), as well as your repositories folder, if you're using that feature. You can customize those paths if needed by editing the config file. To quickly locate this settings file, press <CTRL> + <,>.

Then, simply pick the specific gamma version you wanna start from the dropdown menu, and tick the options you wanna use :

  • Allow multiple : allows to start more than one vvvv.exe at once
  • Use repositories : this will overwrite packages from vvvv's package folder with the ones in your repositories folder, if you specify one. This is only useful if you're building libraries for gamma.

Download

As the build exceeds max file size for upload, I could not upload it directly. So please read along..

Get the latest version here, or clone the repo and build the app yourself. If want to build yourself, don't forget to copy the ico.ico file to your output dir, otherwise the app won't start.

Changelog

26/02/2022 : 4.1.1

  • Custom styles are now assigned to Create, resulting in less CPU usage when the app is focused. Thanks bjoern for the PR!
  • vvvv kill button now closes when interacted with

19/02/2022 : 4.1.0

  • When a version is uninstalled, a vvvversion rescan is triggered so that the dropdown is always up to date
  • Now has a cool icon by default

13/02/2022 : 4.0.1

  • The launcher now allows to uninstall gamma versions
  • New ALT + E shortcut that allows you to open the selected vvvversion's installation folder in the explorer

16/12/2021 : 4.0.0-beta01

  • You can now add multiple package repositories folders in your settings file!
  • The settings moved to the AppData folder, so that you don't have to replace it when upgrading the launcher. To quickly access it, focus the launcher and press CTRL + , : this will pop an explorer Window to the location of the settings file so you can quickly tweak'em

25/11/2021 : 3.6.0-beta02

  • Fixes the issue that made it impossible for the launcher to retrieve newer vvvv gamma builds. Cool thing is that the launcher should now also show stable builds! Thanks to tonfilm for reporting!

28/04/2021 : 3.6.0-beta01

  • Massive CPU usage improvement : the app is now dormant when the window is not focused (thanks gregsn!)
  • You can now download and install gamma preview builds directly from the launcher! A burger menu on the top left shows the five latest available previews. Simply click one of them to download it (thanks tonfilm and robotanton for helping with the TeamCity API!)
  • Pressing CTRL+R will check for new builds online
  • If you have the "Allow Multiple" option enabled, you can drag and drop a VL document on the launcher window, which will open it in a new gamma instance.
  • Download it here.

25/10/2020 : 3.4.0

  • Pressing CTRL+, when the app is focused now opens the app's folder, allowing you to quickly access your settings file

23/10/2020 : 3.3.0

  • Dropdown mennu now discards installed vvvv beta versions, if they happen to be on the same folder as gamma
  • You can now interact with the dropdown menu by hovering it and using the mousewheel, kinda like vvvv beta enum IOBoxes

19/10/2020 : 3.2.0

  • Application now remembers its previous state on startup : anything you pick (vvvversion, startup arguments) will show up again "as is" when you start the application next time
  • As a consequence, got rid of the PreferStable flag in the configuration. Did anybody care for this one?
  • And also as a consequence, fixed the annoying bug in which the started vvvversion would not match what the UI says
  • Updated to Elementa 4.0.4

29/08/2020 : 3.0

  • Completely re-written using Model Runtime Editor pattern
  • Uses Elementa 4.0 preview
  • New command line arguments : nocache and debug
  • CTRL+R allows to rescan installed Gamma versions so you don't have to close and re-open the app if you wanna use a newly installed vvvvgamma
  • When minimized, the app goes to the system tray. From there, you can quickly perform the usual actions : show nugets, show package folders, start a new instance and kill vvvv. Achtung, closing vvvv from the system tray won't show a confirmation prompt, vvvv will instantly shut down

21/04/2020 : 2.0

  • Uses Elementa 2.0
  • Renderer now uses DIPs instead of pixels
  • Repos quick-access button : opens your package-repositories folder
  • Nugets quick-access button : open gamma's nuget folder (equivalent to Quad Menu/Nugets/Show Installed). Prefers gamma over gamma-preview (but opens the latter if the first does not exist)
  • Kill vvvv quick button : kills all instances of vvvv (but displays a confirmation prompt before!

17/04/2020 : 1.2

  • Dropdown menu now shows both preview and stable gamma releases

12/01/2020 : 1.1

  • App now checks if repositories package path exists and shows popup if not (used to throw exception)
  • Toggles are now grey when unchecked, feels a bit less ambiguous

11/01/2020 : 1.0

  • Initial release

Contributing

Please don't hesitate to report bugs, fork, or shout for suggestions if you vvvvish.

cheerz!

seb

tonfilm 11/01/2020 - 17:47

congrats for uploading the first app created in vvvv gamma! but why not distribute the binaries/exe? building/exporting from source is not everyone's piece of cake:

https://eatliver.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/linux.jpg

sebescudie 11/01/2020 - 18:01

thanks for the feedback!

unfortunately, the output dir weighs ~150Mb, which I cannot upload here. I still provided a link to download a build in the description, should be more visible I guess :)

tonfilm 11/01/2020 - 18:48

oh indeed, thanks for uploading it. you can also do that as a GitHub release.

sebescudie 11/01/2020 - 18:56

indeed, done!

tonfilm 11/01/2020 - 19:06

great, works nicely!

motzi 12/01/2020 - 13:06

nice, thanks!
just a usability remark: whether or not a checkbox is active or not is quite ambiguous when using only colors. to me, using this for the first time, having the checkbox "colored" would mean it is "selected" and white to be "not selected" (i guess this assumption comes from the colored application start button below).
in this app it is the other way round and resulted in an exception being thrown because the c:\repos dir did not exist. (this probably should also be handled more gracefully as less development affine users might be scared by the exception :)

a more clear "selected" visualization would be great! (probably this belongs to the elementa issues, not here...)

sebescudie 12/01/2020 - 18:22

hey motzi,

thanks for the feedback! i just pushed a new release that solves the path issue by displaying a popup if the folder does not exist, and makes the toggles a bit less ambiguous by setting unchecked color to a soft grey.. this is not ideal of course, I guess it would be better to have some sort of icon, but Elementa does not allow this for now :)

mburk 18/11/2020 - 11:17

Hey. Thanks for this great contribution.
Two remarks:
The list of gamma version should be scrollable. I have more versions installed, than can be displayed.
And I would sort the list the other way around, so that the newest versions are on top.

sebescudie 19/11/2020 - 12:18

hey there!

sebl also reported this issue that the dropdown does now work well if you have too many gamma versions, but we don't have a proper scrollbar thingy in elementa for now (working on it...).

solution I came up with for now is to have the dropdown menu scrollable when it's closed : simply hover it and use the scrollwheel to cycle through installed versions (kinda like beta enums). that was added in 3.3.0.

regarding ordering, i'll definitely reverse that so that newer versions are on top, makes much sense indeed. also, note that when you re-open the launcher, it will be in the same state as when you left it, including the version displayed in the dropdown.

Hadasi 15/04/2021 - 11:42

Launching from here seems to effect permissions of vvvv. I launched and it seems some of my firewall settings were based upon the launcher rather than the version of vvvv I was launching. Otherwise all good.

sebescudie 16/04/2021 - 22:15

Ah, interesting! Did not know it worked like that! Thanks for the notice.

yar 08/05/2021 - 17:27

Started this for the first time ever aaand:

I definitely need to clean it up

sebescudie 11/05/2021 - 14:52

@yar : you can also hover and scroll the dropdown menu to cycle through installed versions without having to unfold it :)

ravazquez 13/05/2021 - 12:27

vvvv should just ship this with the installer if you ask me... or at least show it as an option like you get an "Install Addonpack" option on the beta installer.

SuperflysiNZ 28/08/2021 - 04:06

Just installed the latest Nvidia drivers 471.68 and GammaLauncher isn't launching anymore. Gamma itself is launching fine.

seltzdesign 23/09/2021 - 16:16

Could you add that VL.SettingsManager to GammaLauncher?

schlonzo 28/09/2021 - 11:26

it would be nice to be able to open and edit the launcher xml for implementing libs directly from the gamma launcher. if there exixts such a nice tool there should be no reason to open up windows explorer =)

sebescudie 28/09/2021 - 16:13

@seltz : 2021.4 should bring us a GUI to tweak Gamma settings, so I'd rather wait for that :)

@schlonzo : I get your point, but I want to keep gammalauncher's GUI as minimal as possible, and rolling a GUI for that seems like a lot of work for something you'd actually not change often (I think I never edited mine). But wait! You can quickly open GammaLauncher's parent folder pressing

CTRL + ,

to quickly access the settings file, in case you put it in some deeply nested folder :) That's all i have to offer for now!

tobyk 16/03/2022 - 09:34

Propose under the 'Usage' instructions above add the new shortcut for finding the settings file location (still says config is created next to gamma launcher).

Also, as always, thankyou for the essential and well used contribution.

sebescudie 16/03/2022 - 13:02

@tobyk: hey, nice catch thanks, I totally forgot to update the contrib page's description! and also thanks for the kind words :)

anonymous user login

Shoutbox

~18min ago

~2d ago

joreg: Follow TobyK on his Advent of Code: https://www.twitch.tv/tobyklight

~5d ago

joreg: vvvvTv S02E02 is out: Saving & Loading UI State: https://www.youtube.com/live/GJQGVxA1pIQ

~5d ago

joreg: We now have a presence on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vvvv-group

~12d ago

joreg: vvvvTv S02E01 is out: Buttons & Sliders with Dear ImGui: https://www.youtube.com/live/PuuTilbqd9w

~19d ago

joreg: vvvvTv S02E00 is out: Sensors & Servos with Arduino: https://visualprogramming.net/blog/2024/vvvvtv-is-back-with-season-2/

~19d ago

~19d ago

fleg: hey there! What's the best tool for remote work? Teamviewer feels terrible. Thanks!

~1mth ago

joreg: Last call: 6-session vvvv beginner course starting November 4: https://thenodeinstitute.org/courses/ws24-5-vvvv-beginners-part-i/

~2mth ago

joreg: Missed the last meetup? You can rewatch it here: https://www.youtube.com/live/MdvTa58uxB0?si=Fwi-9hHoCmo794Ag