I think this is nothing new, but it might be useful to bring it back into mind.
If you want to run your game as standalone you usually export it to runtime and execute the runtime from your file browser. This is a lot of effort especially if you just want to try several files and you create large files all the time.
[INDENT]How about just double-click the .blend file?[/INDENT]
Exporting a game as runtime is nothing else then running the .blend file by the blenderplayer. This means you can simply start the blenderplayer and provide your .blend as parameter.
Direct link
On Windows (XP - I guess the other Windows versions are similar) right click on the .blend file.
Then select “open with” / “choose program” (sorry if this is labelled differently, my windows speaks German ;)).
From the next panel search for the blenderplayer.exe at your blender installation folder.
If you want you can select “always open with this program”.
From now on if you <double-click> a .blendfile it will run as standalone game :).
You can even add older versions (e.g. 2.49). You can decide which one to use by <right-click> on the blend and choose “open with” your previous choices should be listed there.
Be aware the above tip requires a version of Blender that has been installed- many Graphicall builds are distributed as zipped folders that act as standalones, and are thus invisible to the OS ‘installed programs’ list.
You can browse for the Blender executable in the ‘open with…’ dialogue but this does not always work. A case in point is my wifes XP netbook that plain refuses to associate a Graphicall Blender file to a selected .exe (it thinks .blends are Word files…:no:)
This becomes annoying if you have multiple Blender versions as regardless of your file, only the associated Blender version (i.e. the installed one) will run. In this case, the only way to load the file with the version you want is inside that version via recent items, or open etc.
What works pretty well is to direct link to the latest stable build (currently 2.63a). Make it the default so you see the Blender icon at the blend files.
To get other versions running (especially the problematic builds) use the script method. they should work regardless what version you are use. But if you assign this as default the .blend icon turns to text.
Choosing the version via “open with…” is quite cool as you can quickly compare how it runs.
Pin Blender to your Taskbar, and then drag any Blend over it to pin that too. Then, if you right click the Blender icon, a sub menu appears With both Blender (at the bottom) and any pinned Blends above it. To remove it, just unpin it (via the little pin icon).
