LaunchXIV - A Little Launcher for Final Fantasy XIV

This is a custom launcher for the the Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV. It's barebones and probably full of a lot of bugs but it should more or less do what it says on the tin.

Features:

• Zero-interaction logins: just open LaunchXIV and your game will launch!
  • Note: If you use one-time passwords, this must still be manually entered
• Secure storage of your credentials in the macOS keychain.
• Completely Mac native settings + login window.

Security Warning: You shouldn't just randomly trust random applications from the internet with your passwords! The only truly safe way to use software involving your passwords like this is to audit the code yourself and compile your own binaries. This is a nuisance, but Apple provides Xcode and developer accounts for free.

If you can't be bothered and feel like you can trust me, a complete stranger on the internet implicitly, then go ahead and download the binary. The latest stable version is available by clicking the Releases link above.

Building / Compiling

NOTE: You will probably need to change the app's bundle ID and sign in with your own Apple Developer account if you want the keychain stuff to work properly.

• Clone this repo (obviously).
• Install Xcode 12.4+.
• Open LaunchXIV.xcodeproj in Xcode.
• Build & Run.

FAQ

What does it look like?

Something like this:

When will this be working?

Should work right now.

How do I change the password?

If you run the launcher and the Square Enix servers reject your credentials, the LaunchXIV will trash your saved password and show the settings page again. Here you will be offered a chance to update your password.

You can also hold down your ⌥ key (option / alt) while the app starts up and it will reset all settings.

What does this do, exactly?

It generates a login session with the Square Enix servers the same way the default launcher does, except LaunchXIV can save your username and password securely in the macOS Keychain so you don't have to type it every time. It then passes this session to the main Final Fantasy app, which makes it look like the game just launches without needing a login.

Why?

No offense to the wonderful people at Codeweavers, but the Mac port of Final Fantasy XIV is lazy. Since it's using a compatibility layer (CrossOver, the paid, commercial fork of the open source Wine project), it literally just runs the exact same code as the Windows version, with a significant performance and integration penalty. There's no reason for a Mac app to repeatedly ask for your login credentials when macOS provides a standard, secure, widely utilised mechanism for storing them: the keychain, but because it runs the same code as Windows, it can't.

If Square Enix don't want to do their job properly, I guess it's up to us, the fans, to do it for them. You're welcome.

Can I use this to play on Mac with my PC license?

No. I'm pretty sure such a thing is technically possible since CrossOver/wine is open source, though.

Does this completely replace the standard launcher?

No, it only works if your game client is completely up to date, with no patches available for download. If you need to register your account, or patch the game, or otherwise do anything other than just log in and launch, you will need to use the default launcher.

I'm a developer. What cool shit is there to see?

Glad you asked!

General Anatomy of a macOS App

If you've mostly only done iOS development or server-side Swift, and you're curious what Mac apps are like, the codebase is a fairly simple, general example of what to expect.

macOS Drag and Drop

The drag and drop mechanism in macOS is old, arcane, poorly documented and unintuitive. If you're curious about how it works, and want a simple, working example, check out PathSettingViewController.swift for an NSView subclass that provides the drag and drop support.

JavaScript-to-Swift bridging

The response from the login web view is a JavaScript script which executes window.external.user(str) where str is the login response data. This could probably be parsed out manually by hand, or with a regular expression, but macOS has a perfectly good JavaScript interpreter built in, so why not just execute it?

In order to get the data out, we need to define window.external on the global JS object, and because we need the string back in Swift, the external object and the user function should really be a Swift object and Swift method respectively.

The SidParseOperation.swift contains an example of this bridging.

NSOperation usage

If you've ever been curious about NSOperation but were too shy to ask, check out AsyncOperation.swift for a really lightweight, useful NSOperation base subclass, which makes a state machine that automatically integrates with the isFinished and isExecuting infrastructure that NSOperations need.