What is Appscanner?

Appscanner was originally part of TeamSpeak 3 Betas as a feature to detect anything running in your OS. It's very similar how Xfire worked back in the day and I believe it was heavily influenced by it. When TeamSpeak 3 RC1 was released they removed Appscaner from the main TeamSpeak 3 code and turned into an optional plugin for people to download and install manually.

Appscanner is compatible with TeamSpeak 3 for Windows, Linux and MAC OS.

Why this git exists?

One of the primary reasons was because github is not really reliable anymore thanks to all the censorship going on and I didn't want to submit my phone number or whatever verification they want these days as an excuse for secure my account. For me having a git collecting personal information is not good so I uplouded over here instead.

The Git also can work as an updater for the app/games list and then make sure it's fully updated. People can submit their new entries a bit more easier, making the list receiving updates by many people besides myself.

How does it work?

Appscanner plugin reads the app.ini file and verify if the executable exists as system process, if it does then it shows the specific application running on TeamSpeak 3 client and everyone who also has the plugin installed can see the applications running as well.

The plugin can work on both versions compatible with Retro TS3 PC Gaming Beta Server as well with the original TeamSpeak 3 Betas, but I wanted to update the list from time to time to always include the latest applications and games to show up automatically. The list also include old programs that doesn't work anymore like RogerWilco which makes part of the VOIP history overall, but I wanted to preserve them as much as possible.

Looking below there's a brief instruction in how Appscanner actually work while scanning the apps.ini file.

[TeamSpeak 3 Client]

This is the name of application you want to show up on TeamSpeak 3 for everybody to see.

binary_windows=ts3client_win64.exe
binary_linux=ts3client_amd64.exe
binary_mac=ts3client_macos.exe

This is the executables where appscanner will scan the system to find for each respective system. Appscanner is so versatile, the application only going to show up to the list if binary is specified for a particular system. For example if the application only has "binary_windows", then this application only going to show for Windows users and it won't show to Linux and Mac users.

files_windows=error_report.exe
files_linux=error_report.sh
files_mac=error_report.sh

These are files Appscaner will try to find on the root folder where the application specified on "binary_OS" is. In the examble above, specifying as binary "ts3client_win64.exe", files_windows will look in the folder where it's running "ts3client_win64.exe" if it exists the file "error_report.exe". If it does, then it will show the application in the Client when user is running, otherwise if the condition is not met, then it won't show.

These are used more specifically for Appscanner to not show other applications with the same name twice. A good example is TeamSpeak 6 where the executable is called "TeamSpeak.exe" and TeamSpeak Classic which also is called "TeamSpeak.exe". How Appscanner can differenciate these two programs?

category=2

It's for categorizing the application. In the beginning of the file, there's a list of categories, each one specified by a number. The category number is specified by these first lines and categorizing each app is mandatory on Appscanner. If there's no suitable category for the application, then better add as category 0.

For organization sake, I'll be adding a new category if there're at least 3 applications and they do something in common, for example Game Emulators.

Rules for adding applications and categories

• For category to be added, it needs to have at least 3 applications in the category and needs to have something in common; Ex.: Game Emulators, Video editorsm,...
• No Game Launchers are going to be included. Only Games themselves, unless if there're differences between each game's version.
• Once a certain application or game is added, it won't be deleted, but it can have additional executables to it.
• Any Game or Application can be added, just keep in mind to focus, but not mandatory in Multiplayer games, since it's more common between TeamSpeak users after all.
• Make sure to test in your end before submitting a "Pull Requests", some apps might be tested before been part of the list officially and it can be denied if it doesn't detect properly.

How to Update

Clone the apps.ini file and move over manually to one of the directories respectively for the Operating System you are using. Windows:

%APPDATA%/TS3Client/plugins/appscanner_plugin

or when using a portable installation:

<TS3_CLIENT_DIR>/config/plugins/appscanner_plugin

Linux:

~/.ts3client/plugins/appscanner_plugin

macOS:

~/Library/Application Support/TeamSpeak 3/plugins/appscanner_plugin

As for now there's no automatically Updater to make this proccess easy for the end user. But feel free to suggest a solution a solution in how the auto updater should work or contribute with the project. I'm going to properly credit you for the efforts!

Credits

• Credits go to TeamSpeak Systems GmbH. I tried to look for the particular person who made this plugin in the first place, but I found nothing about the original creator, so if you are the creator, just let me know to properly credit you. =)

• Shaknunic (Me) for having on Git and for the effort to preserve this piece of software.

Contributors:

• Xfire for providing the updated executables for games.