Hacking WiiFlow Lite

MrSW

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a minor bug that I found is related to source tiers and how WiiFlow assigns coverflow numbers
wiiflow.ini remembers a coverflow number either assigning it to its magic number, or to that particular source button if it has more than 1 plugin.
the problem is when you have 2 source buttons in separate tiers that share the same position within that tier, so for example, if you have 2 buttons with more than 1 plugin in position 3 in their respective tier, they will be forced to share the same coverflow number
 

fledge68

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a minor bug that I found is related to source tiers and how WiiFlow assigns coverflow numbers
wiiflow.ini remembers a coverflow number either assigning it to its magic number, or to that particular source button if it has more than 1 plugin.
the problem is when you have 2 source buttons in separate tiers that share the same position within that tier, so for example, if you have 2 buttons with more than 1 plugin in position 3 in their respective tier, they will be forced to share the same coverflow number
Thanks for your input. Ive already rewritten the code to not use the source button number. Tetsuo's problem was the src btn number was not saved on exit. So on relaunch wiiflow did not know the btn number and the coverflow defaulted to 1. I just need to commit the fix.
 

Darbsy_8765

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Hi, quick question
Is there a way of having PSX and SEGA CD games on the USB and everything else on SD (excluding Wii and Gamecube games) without having any problems?
If there's a way, how do I make it work?
I'm using wiiflow lite 5.3.0beta5
 

fledge68

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Hi, quick question
Is there a way of having PSX and SEGA CD games on the USB and everything else on SD (excluding Wii and Gamecube games) without having any problems?
If there's a way, how do I make it work?
I'm using wiiflow lite 5.3.0beta5
if i remember correctly. you open the plugin ini file in a text editor and add the line rompartition=1 for usb.

@Tetsuo Shima try this boot dol and see if it fixes your issue - https://www.mediafire.com/file/mu6ny2h4a2dblcs/wf5_beta_6.dol/file
 

dishe

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Hey, I haven't chimed in here in something like a year or so, but I just wanted to sign in and let you guys know the car entertainment project has been a real hit. Thank you guys again, especially @fledge68 for all your support/suggestions/help/patience when I first set out to make a UI optimized for use in my minivan. Someone asked me if I could set up something similar for their Uber passengers (keep them entertainment in the car! automatic 5 star reviews LOL), and I realized that its been so long since I initially set this up, I don't know if I even remember how I did it! And I then I thought back to this thread and figured I should at least sign in and tell you guys how awesome it has been.

There are a few little things bugging me that I want to edit/fix still, but overall I'm so pleased with how well WiiFlo Lite worked out that I wanted to thank you again.
 

dishe

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Hey, while I'm singing your praises, here's a idea: can the loading screen be modified at first boot vs next loading screens? ie. Not have the same loading animation for everything? I'm noticing guests in my car setup recognize the Wii remote and try to point at the screen (which obviously doesn't work without a sensor bar). I want the first loading screen to say Remember: hold remote in landscape! And show an animation of the remote turning sideways. But then i think it would be cool if later animations showed "loading.. " like I have now (especially if they pick a game that doesn't hold the remote sideways, it is confusing for the guest).
I'm picturing the whole Uber setup that my friend was talking about now and having people get into the car with no prior knowledge of what this is and be able to figure it out. :)
 

fledge68

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Hey, while I'm singing your praises, here's a idea: can the loading screen be modified at first boot vs next loading screens? ie. Not have the same loading animation for everything? I'm noticing guests in my car setup recognize the Wii remote and try to point at the screen (which obviously doesn't work without a sensor bar). I want the first loading screen to say Remember: hold remote in landscape! And show an animation of the remote turning sideways. But then i think it would be cool if later animations showed "loading.. " like I have now (especially if they pick a game that doesn't hold the remote sideways, it is confusing for the guest).
I'm picturing the whole Uber setup that my friend was talking about now and having people get into the car with no prior knowledge of what this is and be able to figure it out. :)
technically i suppose it could be coded to do that but honestly it's not very high on my wiiflow to do list. but i was thinking about the wiiflow splash image that appears first before the wait/loading animation. you could make a new splash image with wiimote sideways and message to the user to use it like that. but the new image would have to be added to wiiflow code to be compiled in. i could compile it for you if you make the image.
 
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dishe

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technically i suppose it could be coded to do that but honestly it's not very high on my wiiflow to do list. but i was thinking about the wiiflow splash image that appears first before the wait/loading animation. you could make a new splash image with wiimote sideways and message to the user to use it like that. but the new image would have to be added to wiiflow code to be compiled in. i could compile it for you if you make the image.
Cool! I can make an image. I am not aware of a loading screen before the first wait/loading animation though. Mine boots up and displays the animation I made for it (LOADING... with a little circle of lines that rotate). Maybe my version is very old and it was added recently? I haven't been around in a while, this thread is literally double the size it was last time I was here so I think I may have missed a lot. :)
Truth is, I think we only see the loading screen when wiiflow first boots. I tried it again today when I was driving somewhere. We don't actually see it when loading anything from wiiflo (the games just show the white bar on the bottom, and apps start pretty instantly and don't show a loading screen either). So I guess it doesn't hurt to just make a custom animation of the wiimote message and leave it at that.

BTW, I recall the loading animation frames being very size restricted (just a little rectangle of pixels in the center). That's still the case, right?
 

fledge68

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Here's the latest commit of wiiflow 5 - https://www.mediafire.com/file/8mzd3tytjowkdst/wf5_9-12-19_boot.dol/file
I'd like to know what you think. do you like it or not. if not i can always revert it.

here's what was changed:
- Plugin game list generator now gets rom title and ID from wiimpathy's plugins database files. a 'reload cache' will need to be done for each plugin source so the title and ID can be added to the current cached list. custom titles still work and will override plugin database files. titles are based on custom titles file then plugins database file and finally the rom filename. if the ID is not found in the plugins database files it will have an ID of 'PLUGIN' and no game info will be displayed on the game info screen.

arcade rom clones are not included in the plugins database files to keep the files short. Any arcade rom clones you have will either not be found or will aquire the same ID and title as the parent rom when the CRC of the clone rom is included in the parent roms list of CRC's. you will need to manually edit both the CRC list file and xml database file to include the rom info on any clone you have in order for them to display the correct title and game info. i would think only a small handfull of your roms would be clones.

reload cache may take longer now to create the cached list. I found zipped roms for snes, nes, and others are no problem because even if the filename can't be found the crc does not need to be calculated. it is merely taken from the zip file which already holds the crc. on the other hand, half of my gba roms are unzipped with a gba extension. so my gba list takes 10 seconds or so to make because the crc of the unzipped roms does need to be calculated. mame roms use the filename but if it's a clone then it will calculate the crc of the rom zip file. thus any clones will slow things down unless you add them to the database files mentioned above. I imagine megaCD and PS1 cd games will be slow to reload cache. but at least you only need to do it once or whenever you add or delete a game.

wiimpathy's database files use the no intro naming convention. i'm not crazy about it because it moves any leading 'the' to the end preceded by a comma. in this case i use custom titles ini to put the title the way i want.
EDIT: thanks to wiimpathy i fixed this so it is no longer a problem.

Also the magic # for multi platform plugins no longer work. ie. vbagx, wiimednafen, genplus gx. you have to use the individual ones. but you can still set a source btn to use multiple magic numbers. this means in platform ini any magic number listed as multi does not work and the [EXT] section is no longer needed.

I hope you like it. but if not it's ok.
 
Last edited by fledge68,

RunningSnakes

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Awesome. Thanks for the update @fledge68, it works great. Was in process of custom naming MAME ( just finished core A last night actually). Now the work has already been done. This loader just keeps getting better, what else is left Or next. Thanks to everyone who helped make WFL great
 
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RunningSnakes

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After digging into this new release. Alot of extra work will be involved to custom title all games not Arcade. This is a great update release if one does not have many games or new to WFL. To those who have hundreds or possibly thousands of games already titled to their liking, this release is not friendly. I will complete my custom title renaming of Arcade within the next week & post the .ini for download as an alternative to those interested. Thank you for everything you do @fledge68.
 

fledge68

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After digging into this new release. Alot of extra work will be involved to custom title all games not Arcade. This is a great update release if one does not have many games or new to WFL. To those who have hundreds or possibly thousands of games already titled to their liking, this release is not friendly. I will complete my custom title renaming of Arcade within the next week & post the .ini for download as an alternative to those interested. Thank you for everything you do @fledge68.
Im confused. So now you dont like it? Whats it doing wrong? Please explain.
 
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Wiimpathy

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It's great @fledge68 once again! If you don't mind, allow me a few suggestions.

i'm not crazy about it because it moves any leading 'the' to the end preceded by a comma. in this case i use custom titles ini to put the title the way i want.

Why not use gametdb.GetTitle? This way, we could also have a localized title when available.
For example, Smurfs, The :
<title>Les Schtroumpfs</title>
<title>Die Schlümpfe</title>

Some issues with this though. 1st, I just realized there's never a spanish title(surely a fail on my part!). And 2, that damn special xml characters : The Adventures of Batman &amp; Robin


I imagine megaCD and PS1 cd games will be slow to reload cache.
I haven't read all the code but you say you use crc for these games. If that's the case I'm afraid it will take a very, very long time to build with a lot of games. Calculating crc on iso is very long. That's why serials found in headers is used instead. Perhaps, disable it for these platforms?

In the attached archive, you'll find a custom_titles.ini with all Mame titles.

sorry to bother but is there any progress when it comes to loading the bigger arcade roms through wiiflow?
What the heck? You mean retroarch neogeo and mame cores? That's already possible right?
 

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MrSW

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the bigger arcade roms fail to boot via wiiflow using your lastest mame2003+ cores, they work with the alt cores, but those have worse compatibility
for example xmen and tmnt fail to boot if launched from wiiflow
 

fledge68

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It's great @fledge68 once again! If you don't mind, allow me a few suggestions.



Why not use gametdb.GetTitle? This way, we could also have a localized title when available.
For example, Smurfs, The :
<title>Les Schtroumpfs</title>
<title>Die Schlümpfe</title>

Some issues with this though. 1st, I just realized there's never a spanish title(surely a fail on my part!). And 2, that damn special xml characters : The Adventures of Batman &amp; Robin



I haven't read all the code but you say you use crc for these games. If that's the case I'm afraid it will take a very, very long time to build with a lot of games. Calculating crc on iso is very long. That's why serials found in headers is used instead. Perhaps, disable it for these platforms?

In the attached archive, you'll find a custom_titles.ini with all Mame titles.


What the heck? You mean retroarch neogeo and mame cores? That's already possible right?
gametdb.GetTitle? i'm using - gameTDB.GetName that you coded for plugins. is GetTitle different? does it even work with plugins?
EDIT: i just checked SNES.xml and see that while NAME has ', the' at the end. TITLE (most of the time) has 'the' at the beginning. and yes gametdb.GetTitle should work just fine.

megaCD and ps1 use your code. so first the filename shortened is used and then if not found it uses the serial from the disc image. i havent tried it, maybe its not slow.

I might have to add an option to enable/disable the title from your xml database files. seems runningsnakes prefers the filename titles instead.

EDIT #2: i updated it to correctly get the title from the xml database file. thanks to wiimpathy for pointing that out.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/8mzd3tytjowkdst/wf5_9-12-19_boot.dol/file
this solves the no intro naming convention problem i didn't like.
 
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