QuakeFinderQW is $15 shareware. If you continue to use it, you must pay for it.
Please support the shareware policy. Refer to the included How to Register document for instructions. Remember, one registration includes support for Unreal, Quake and QuakeWorld.
What is QuakeFinderQW?
QuakeFinderQW is the easiest and fastest program for finding, and joining, Internet multiplayer QuakeWorld servers.
Main Features
• Slick user interface
• Smooth and responsive Macintosh feel
• Powerful and intuitive live filtering and sorting to sift through the hundreds of servers
• Incredibly fast!
• Extract new servers from web pages, text files, drag & drop, and the clipboard
• Automatically connect QuakeWorld to a server of your choice
• Effortlessly use custom QuakeWorld add-ons
• Easily manage lists of Master web sites for finding new servers
• See who is playing on a server and what their scores are
Keep checking the QuakeFinderQW News web page for the latest information:
<http://quakefinder.telefragged.com/news/>
Registered users are notified of new versions of QuakeFinderQW.
Requirements
• Power Macintosh
• System 7.5 or later
• Internet connection
• QuakeWorld for the Macintosh (version 2.30 or later)
Introduction
Files
Files store the complete list of QuakeWorld servers, any custom lists, and any Master lists.
In the file window, one or more lists are shown. The Full List is always present.
Double-clicking an item will open the list showing the servers within. See Servers below for more information.
A file saved as “Default” in the same folder as QuakeFinderQW will be opened when QuakeFinderQW starts up. (An example one is included).
Lists
Lists represent views of the complete server list. The Full List is a special case that shows every server in the file. In addition you can create custom lists that are either non-filtered (a fixed favourites list) or filtered (dynamic and based on criteria). Every custom list is a subset of the Full List.
When you create a new list or choose Get Info on an existing list you are presented with a window for editing the attributes of the list. (You cannot Get Info on the Full List since it cannot be modified).
The info window for a non-filtered list looks like this:
The info window for a filtered list looks like this:
The List name: field is any name that you might want to give the list such as Favourites, Capture the Flag, or My Fast Servers, for example.
The Non-filtered / Filtered radio buttons let you switch between list types.
With filtered lists you can assign criteria that will only show the servers that you are interested in. These are enabled via the checkboxes on the left side. A server will only be shown in the list if it satisfies all the enabled criteria.
The Response is less than criterion will only show servers whose response time is less than the given number of milliseconds. Anything less than 400ms is usually tolerable and anything less than 250ms is usually very playable. This is the way to list only the servers that are the most responsive to you.
The Server name criterion lets you list servers based on their name by matching with some given text. Note that servers aren’t required to follow any naming convention, but they often do. There are a number of options for matching the text:
The Map name criterion filters servers based on the level or map they are currently playing. There are two types of matching, by kind and by name. By kind; a simple way of filtering whether or not the map is a style of id map (one that comes with Quake). By name, matches the map name with some given text and the same options as for the Server name are allowed.
The Player capacity is from criterion will list servers where the maximum number of players allowed is within a given range. Usually the number of players allowed in a QuakeWorld game varies between 2 and 32.
The Number of players is from criterion will list servers where the number of players currently in the game is a percentage of the capacity for each server within the given range.
The Game type criterion allows filtering based on the add-on servers are running. Add-ons often designed to enhance or change the style of game play in QuakeWorld. See the Web Resources document included with QuakeFinderQW for where to download some of the common add-ons. The Troubleshooting section near the end of this document gives some tips if you are having difficulty getting an add-on to work.
Servers
After opening a list a window appears showing the servers in that list.
There are five columns of information:
- server name
- number of players / maximum player capacity
- IP address
- map name
- game type
- response time / number of retries
The servers are sorted by the darkened column. You can change the sorting key by clicking in the header of another column. The sorting order can be reversed by clicking the icon at the right of the headers or by clicking on a header that is already being sorted by. A padlock icon next to the name of a server means that server requires a password to join.
If a server has question marks (?) in any of the columns then it needs to be refreshed. By telling QuakeFinderQW to refresh a server, the server is sent a message requesting information. The time taken for the information to be returned is the response time. The lower the better. If a server takes too long to respond (longer than 2 seconds), it is re-tried up to two more times and if it still hasn’t responded, it is skipped and Timeout is listed in its Response field. The number of retries or timeouts (if any) is listed after the time separated by a slash (/). Timeouts may indicate data loss along the way, or may just mean the server was busy changing levels. If a server is unreachable due to network errors or no QuakeWorld server running at that address, it is skipped and Down is listed in its Response field.
Even if there are no question marks, it is a good idea to periodically refresh the servers you are interested in so that the server information is up-to-date. Response times can vary a little, so if you have narrowed it down to deciding between a few servers, refresh them a few times to get an idea which one is the fastest overall.
The ‘chasing arrows’ in the top-left of the window will spin while servers are being refreshed so that you know something is happening. Refreshes can be aborted by pressing Cmd-Period or the Escape while a server list window is front-most.
Servers can be copied from one list to another by Copy and Paste or simply dragging the selected items into the other window. Servers can also be added by dragging any text onto a list to extract the server IP addresses from it.
More detailed information about a server can be obtained with the Get Info menu command (also double-click or press return). This will present a window with three tabbedpanes labelled Players, Game, and Rules. Note that this can sometimes take a few seconds to query all the information from the server. If you query server information at the same time as refreshing a server list, it may result in higher response times for the servers due to the extra data being transferred.
The player list is similar in operation to a server list (you can change the sort columns and sorting order).
The Name can be displayed in a number of styles; see the description for the Preferences command under the Edit menu for more information. The name can be copied to the clipboard by selecting a player and choosing Copy from the Edit menu.
The number of Frags generally refers to the number of kills, but this can have different meanings with some add-ons.
The Skin name refers to the name of the image drawn on that player’s model. You can choose the skin you want to use with the User Profile command in the Edit menu.
The top colour bar for a player is the Shirt colour, and the bottom colour bar is the Pants (trousers) colour. On a server running team games, all members of a team have the same Pants colour so by sorting on Colour, you can list all the teams’ members together.
The Time column is the amount of time a player has been connected to the server.
The Resp column lists the response times from each player to the server.
The Game pane provides a nice summary of some miscellaneous information about the server. This is where you can find the DNS address and the port number (most regular QuakeWorld servers use port 27500). Choosing Copy from the Edit menu in this pane will copy the DNS address (or the IP address if none could be found) to the clipboard.
The Rules pane provides some extra information about the currently playing game that may help you make a decision. Sometimes there will be an email address or web page listed. These links can be clicked to open in your email client or web browser. A rule Value may be copied to the clipboard by selecting the rule and choosing Copy from the Edit menu.
Masters
Masters are web pages that have lists of servers. When someone starts up a server that they plan to leave up for a while, they email the maintainers of these Master web pages. Their server then gets added to the lists on the web pages.
With each file in QuakeFinderQW you can keep a list of Masters. Each item is the address of a QuakeWorld Master server, plus a more meaningful name that you can assign to it. Masters can then be ticked to select which ones will be used by QuakeFinderQW to find new servers and they will be queried one after the other. Hold down the option key while clicking to tick/untick all Masters.
As with servers, ‘chasing arrows’ in the top-left of the window will spin while the Masters are being queried. If the word Error appears in the Status column for a Master, Get Info on it (or double-click or press return) to see a more descriptive error message.
Master queries can be aborted by pressing Cmd-Period or the Escape key while the Masters window is front-most.
Menus
Contextual menus are supported in MacOS 8 (and in System 7.x without requiring any extensions) in most windows for some common commands and can be activated by clicking with the Control key held down.
Apple Menu
About QuakeFinderQW... displays the about box for QuakeFinderQW with the version number and the name of the registered user. You can click on the links to email Scott Kevill (the author) or visit the web site.
Register... lets you enter your name and registration serial number to register QuakeFinderQW.
Order Online... opens your web browser to the to Kagi where you can quickly and easily pay for QuakeFinderQW with your credit card. (See the accompanying How to Register document for instructions on registering including other methods of payment).
File Menu
New creates a new untitled file.
Open... loads an existing file.
Close closes the front-most window.
Save writes to disk any changes in the current file.
Save As... saves as a new file.
Revert restores the previously saved version of a file.
Import... searches through a text file and adds all the QuakeWorld servers it can find (as IP addresses) to the current file.
Export... saves all the servers in the current file out to a text file as a list of IP addresses.
Quit shouldn’t need any explanation!
Edit Menu
With the exception of User Profile... and Preferences... all the commands in the Edit menu apply to items in the front-most window. Depending on which window is front-most these items would be Lists, Masters or Servers.
Undo is always disabled since there are no operations that can be undone.
Cut removes the selected items and places them in the clipboard.
Copy places a copy of the selected items in the clipboard.
Paste pastes new items from the clipboard. If a server window is front-most you can paste any text and it will be searched for valid QuakeWorld servers (as IP addresses) to be added.
Clear removes the selected items. A shortcut is to press the delete key. In a non-filtered or ‘favourites’ server list this will remove the servers from that list only. In the full list or a filtered list this will completely remove the server from the current file.
Select All selects every item in the list.
Select None deselects every item in the list.
Get Server/List/Master Info... opens a window or dialog where you can edit the attributes of the selected items. You cannot get info on the Full List since that cannot be edited.
User Profile... allows you to set information about yourself that will be used in the QuakeWorld servers:
Your player name and optional team name can be specified, along with shirt and pants colour. Only registered users can set the player name.
The Use Skins: pop-up menu is an option for downloading other players’ skins. When set to Never, only the default skins are used. When set to Always, custom player skins are always downloaded if you don’t already have them. When set to Existing, only the custom player skins that you already have are used; no new skins will be downloaded. For more information about skins, please refer to the Web Resources document accompanying QuakeFinderQW.
Preferences... shows a dialog that lets you change several options:
If Warn before completely removing servers is checked QuakeFinderQW will confirm servers to be deleted with an alert (which can be bypassed by holding down the Option key).
The number of simultaneous server connections refers to the number of Quake servers queried at once. The higher this number the faster the server list is refreshed, but the less accurate the measured response times will be. A suitable value chosen for this usually depends on the speed of the internet connection you have. For PPP connections, the default, 10, is usually a good choice. For faster connections you may get away with higher values (the maximum is 20).
The number of attempts before timing out is the number of timeouts QuakeFinderQW will accept before giving up on a particular server. The lower the value is, the faster a full refresh will be (less time is wasted on servers that aren’t responding), but the more likely active servers will be missed (that were temporarily busy).
In the Use Game list, you can change which QuakeWorld application that QuakeFinderQW will launch. If no items are in the list then you may need to rebuild your desktop file. QuakeFinderQW cannot launch QuakeWorld for you if it cannot find it.
The Player Name Font selection lets you choose the style of text that player names are drawn with. Normal does a best effort using the standard Geneva font. Quake and Quake Double-Size both use the character set from within the game so all special characters are displayed accurately, the latter being more readable.
The QuakeWorld Startup Parameters field lets you specify command-line options that are run when QuakeWorld is launched to join a server. It is recommended that you use this rather than QuakeWorld’s method of remembering command-line options since QuakeWorld’s method will override any control QuakeFinderQW has over it. This can be turned on and off using the checkbox.
List Menu
Create New List... adds a new custom list. An info window will appear allowing you to edit the attributes of the newly created list.
View... opens the selected lists. This is the same as double-clicking or pressing return.
Master Menu
Return New Servers queries the enabled Masters for new servers. This doesn’t necessarily have to be done very often; just as often as you would want to be updated with new servers.
View Master List... shows the Masters list for the current file. Clicking in the tick column selectively enables or disables Masters.
Add Master... prompts you for a name and address of a new Master to be added. QuakeWorld Master servers normally use port 27000, but you can add a server by specifying “address:port” eg. 192.246.40.37:27006
Open in Web Browser... takes you to the selected Master web page.
Server Menu
Refresh Selected refreshes the selected servers in the front-most window. Make sure you regularly refresh the servers you are interested in, so you always have the current information. (See Servers above for more information).
Refresh <Current List> refreshes all the servers in the front-most window.
Refresh Full List refreshes all the servers in the file, regardless of which server list window is front-most.
Join... launches QuakeWorld with the modification chosen for the current list, connecting to the currently selected server. (See Preferences... under Edit Menu above for how to change which version of QuakeWorld is launched). You must have exactly one sever selected to use this. If the command is still greyed out, QuakeFinderQW probably cannot find your QuakeWorld applications. Again, see Preferences... under Edit Menu above if this happens. If the server requires a password to join, you will be prompted to enter that password before QuakeWorld is launched.
Observe... is similar to Join, but connects you as a spectator. If the server requires a password to be a spectator, you will be prompted to enter that password before QuakeWorld is launched.
Add Server... prompts you to add a server manually by entering the IP or DNS address (and optionally the port number). You can also add servers by simply pasting (or drag and drop) a chunk of text that contains IP addresses. Unlike the other methods of adding servers, this command allows you to specify any port number for the server. Note that Quake servers usually have the port number 27500. Servers with port numbers of around 26000 and 27910 are usually Quake 1 and Quake 2 respectively, not QuakeWorld. Use regular QuakeFinder for Quake 1 servers.
Find Player... opens a window allowing you to search for players within any server by typing a few letters contained anywhere in their names. You can then select a row, and Get Info or double-click to show the player list for that server with that player selected. The selected player / server can also be joined from this window.
Troubleshooting
The Join command in QuakeFinderQW is greyed out...
This usually means that QuakeFinderQW is unable to find QuakeWorld on your hard disk. Try rebuilding the desktop file by holding down the command and option keys as the Finder starts up. See Preferences... under Edit Menu above for choosing which QuakeWorld application QuakeFinderQW uses.
QuakeWorld crashes when I try to join...
This is no fault of QuakeFinderQW, but here are some suggestions that have been known to help.
• Make sure you have the latest version of QuakeWorld
<http://www.westlakeinteractive.com/>
• Disable any MacIPX extensions
• Try giving more memory to QuakeWorld
• Try trashing QuakeWorld's Preferences file
I can’t get my add-ons to run...
There can be a lot of reasons for this.
• If the add-on folder was originally in .zip format, decompress it with Stuffit
Expander and make sure that the settings are to Never Convert Text Files to
Macintosh Format (in the Cross Platform preferences).
• Make sure the folder has no spaces or slashes (/) in its name.
• The folder should be placed inside your QuakeWorld folder along-side the QuakeWorld
applications.
• If you have set QuakeWorld to always use a startup command line (hold Option as
Quake launches), then disable it. This interferes with QuakeFinderQW’s control
over QuakeWorld. You can achieve the same thing by setting the startup parameters
QUAKE® is a registered trademark of id Software, Inc. QuakeFinderQW is not affiliated with or endorsed by id Software. Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
This archive may be freely distributed as long as it is kept intact and unmodified, and is not charged for (other than reasonable download costs). QuakeFinderQW may not be sold or bundled with any other product without my prior permission. QuakeFinderQW may not be included on any CD-ROM without my prior permission.
Users are prohibited from disclosing their registered serial numbers to anyone.
Scott Kevill hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Scott Kevill will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Scott Kevill has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall Scott Kevill be liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
Contact Information
Email:
<scott@kagi.com>
<scott@telefragged.com>
Web sites:
QuakeFinderQW, QuakeFinder, and UnrealFinder
<http://quakefinder.telefragged.com/>
Quiver (the intuitive Macintosh Quake level editor)
