Direct shortcut to skip titles menu, icons inside!

[TMarc]

Dìd you know that you can skip the main menu and directly start a title!?

With the command line options, a title (also of a custom title pack!) can be specified in the shortcut (see links at the end):

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ManiaPlanet.exe /title=TMCanyon

How to:
- Create a copy of the desktop shortcut ManiaPlanet.
- Rename it to the title you want to use, e.g. Canyon.
- Edit the new shortcut properties and add the title to the target (command line):

• Example for TrackMania² Canyon:

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  "C:\Program Files(x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=TMCanyon

  For ShootMania Elite it has to be:

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  "C:\Program Files(x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=SMStormElite@nadeolabs

  And for a third-party custom title pack, e.g. Raid, nadeolabs has to be replaced by the name of the pack creator, in case of Raid it is meuh21 (his ManiaPlanet login name):

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  "C:\Program Files(x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=Raid@meuh21

  If you add your profile name, you can even skip the login screen:

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  "C:\Program Files(x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /profile=mywindowsusername /title=TMCanyon

  Caution! the profile name is not necessarily your ManiaPlanet login name! Just check what you have in your ManiaPlanet\Config folder for files that end with .Profile.Gbx).

- Apply the changes
- Launch it and play!

Bonus content:
To help to differentiate the shortcuts, I just have created a set of icons for the desktop using the official images from the ManiaPlanet website.
The icons are available for TrackMania² Canyon, Stadium, Valley, as well as for ShootMania Storm and Elite:
UPDATE: new icons MPIcons.zip (2MB).
The old icons are still available here: MPIcons (old) (555kB).

Just download the ZIP file (no registration to Dropbox necessary, simply cancel/close the popup then), extract it to your ManiaPlanet installation folder, and use them as optional shortcut icons (shortcut properties -> other icon...).

That's how the icons look like on my desktop now... see here or here

Known issues:
- When using such a "direct" shortcut, if you press the "Back" button, the game exits instead of going back to the main titles page, which now figures as "Quit" button.

Helpful links
- Client command line options
- Title IDs
(taken from the ManiaPlanet Documentation)
- Icon editor: IcoFx

[HaagseSmurf]

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"C:\Program Files(x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=TMCanyon

Thx for this really nice guidance!

It makes it now even possible to create a shortcut to your own favorite server!
If you have a favorite server in canyon and you want to join that server immediately, use the serverlogin in the code then change the goal into

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"C:\Program Files (x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /profile=mywindowsusername /title=TMCanyon /join=serverlogin@TMCanyon /silent

For example: your favorite server has as a serverlogin smurfer and you want to join that server immediately from your desktop then change the goal into:

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"C:\Program Files (x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /profile=mywindowsusername /title=TMCanyon /join=smurfer@TMCanyon /silent

Greetz,

[TMarc]

Additional info, exchanged in PM:

Dank je wel!

You wrote "serverlogin", but where is the actual server name?
How would regular players (or say different: guests of SmurfsCup servers for example) know the serverlogin?

Second question:
Is there always only one serverlogin possible, which is bound to exactly one server?

1) The serverlogins can for example been found here: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat&MapEnvir=Canyon if the server has dedimania running.
Or go to https://player.maniaplanet.com/servers/canyon and press the info button: if you then move with the mouse over the join button you see in the bottom of your screen the loginname

Of course Canyon can be replaced by each title.

2) I think it is, but maybe guys like W1lla will find other options for more servers

Great, thanks for your answer HaagseSmurf!

[oiram456]

Thanks guys! Only thing i cant manage is to create a shortcut to a server on a custom title pack :/ is that possible?

[TMarc]

Which server especially, as example?

[oiram456]

sorry, the title pack (and also the server) is not public yet, should be working with every custom title server i guess

i tried this:

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"C:\Program Files (x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=titlepackname@author /join=serverlogin@titlepackname /silent

[TMarc]

perhaps you could use the option /serverpassword=xxx

Password to use to join the server if the server is private.

[oiram456]

perhaps you could use the option /serverpassword=xxx

Password to use to join the server if the server is private.

no password on the server

I get this message:

"Titel 'xxx' von konnte nicht gefunden werden."

English: "Title 'xxx' of couldn#t be found."

after clicking on ok it loads the title pack.

EDIT: found out how it works

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"C:\Program Files (x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe" /title=titlepackname@author /join=serverlogin@titlepackname@author

[Gugli]

I'll add this here for the record : there's an alternate method to join a server quickly. (I don't know if one is better than the other. This one allows to get back to the menu when leaving a title).

Right-click on the desktop or any folder => "New" => "Shortcut"
Then type in something like "maniaplanet://#qjoin=nadeo.lobby.elite.13.0@SMStormElite@nadeolabs"
qjoin instead of join will skip the server status screen (with the list connected players + choice between spectating and playing) and join instantly.

In the launcher, you can also set to "Single Profile" to even avoid some more clicks ^_^

On a side note, "maniaplanet://" URLs are not always recognized by instant-messenging apps, or email clients... You can now work around this by using http://maniapla.net/#qjoin=nadeo.lobby. ... @nadeolabs instead !! (it's brand new ^_^ No more tinyURL for me \o/)

[YonCan]

Thanks for all your tipps . And great desktop icons by TMarc!