Rust GLK CLI Launcher

A memory-safe Rust launcher for glkterm based interactive fiction interpreters.

Features

• Automatic detection of game file formats by header and extension

Supported Game Formats

• Z-code (.z1-.z8, .dat) → bocfel
• Glulx (.ulx) → git
• TADS (.gam, .t3) → tadsr
• Hugo (.hex) → hugo
• AGT (.agx, .d$$) → agility
• JACL (.jacl, .j2) → jacl
• Level 9 (.l9, .sna) → level9
• Magnetic Scrolls (.mag) → magnetic
• Alan 2 (.acd) → alan2
• Alan 3 (.a3c) → alan3
• Adrift (.taf) → scare
• Scott Adams (.saga) → scott
• Plus (.plus) → plus
• TaylorMade (.tay) → taylor
• AdvSys → advsys

Usage

# Run a game (auto-detects format)
./glkcli mygame.z5

# Show detected format without running
./glkcli --format mygame.z5

# Verbose output
./glkcli --verbose adventure.ulx

# Show help
./glkcli --help

Building

cargo build --release

The binary will be created at target/release/glkcli.

Build Features

The following compile-time features can be enabled or disabled:

• network-check (enabled by default): Enables D-Bus based network connectivity checking via IWD or NetworkManager. Disable this for embedded systems without D-Bus support:

# Build without network checking
cargo build --release --no-default-features

# Or explicitly disable it
cargo build --release --features ""

When network-check is disabled, the app assumes network is always available.

Runtime Options

• --assume-online: Skip network connectivity checks and assume online (useful if D-Bus checks are unreliable on your system)
• --debug: Enable debug logging to ~/.glkcli/glkcli.log

TUI Browser

Launch without a game file to enter the interactive TUI browser:

./glkcli

Features:

• Browse and search the IFDB (Interactive Fiction Database)
• Download games directly to ~/.glkcli/games/
• Launch downloaded games
• Automatic ZIP extraction and IF file detection
• Network connectivity detection (hides online features when offline)
• Tab navigation between Browse, My Games, and Save Files

Network Connectivity

The TUI automatically detects network connectivity using:

1. IWD via D-Bus (for systems using iwd)
2. NetworkManager via D-Bus (for systems using NetworkManager)

When offline:

• Browse tab is automatically hidden
• Search and download features are disabled
• Press 'r' to recheck connectivity