Hacking AK2: Possible to have a different file listing?

[bluesceada]

I just wanted to ask if there is already a possibility to have a different file listing in the AK2...
I have A LOT of folders which need to be in the root directory for certain homebrew programs/games to work. It is just really annoying that i always have to scroll down some pages until i find the roms i can start.

A rather stupid workaround is to put the homebrew roms in the folders they belong to.. but that's still inconvenient..

In rare occassions i also want to access the folders (to delete something or similiar), so they should come AFTER the files in the listing, so when I scroll down very much, there should be the folders....

Is it possible to do something like this?

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Why don't you just put the roms in there own folder. Then, if you ever need to go up, you can. Thats what I do.... all of the homebrew that requires sep folders (emus, doom, lemmings, etc...) seem to launch fine from my "games" folder

 

[Bri]

There are several possibilities. First, I don't believe there is an option to have folders listed after files.

However, the data files for most homebrew can go into a "data" folder on the root. You'll need to check the documentation for individual homebrew to see if it supports the "data" folder (or just try it). For example, you can put Moonshell's "moonshl" folder into the "data" folder and it will work the same as if it was on the root.

Now, you can always put the .nds file for homebrew anywhere you want. I put mine in a "homebrew" folder.

There is a setting in the menu that you can choose which types of files you want to be displayed (for example, you can specify that you want to see only .nds and .gba files and hide others, or you can specify that you also want to see .sav files, or that you want to see all files).

Finally, you can also edit globalsettings.ini (set the "hiddenFileNames" variable) and hide certain files/folders that you never want to see (such as data files for homebrew that are on the root).

Hope that helps.

-Bri

 

[bluesceada]

@mysticwaterfall

But the savefiles will still be saved to the root, right? (I should just try it...)
Anyway that's probably the simplest "solution", of course it would be better otherwise (with folders at the end of the listing)

@bri
Thanks for the hint, I will first try to minimize the number of folders (So far I just did that for roms which have a config file in the root directory) and then look if I still need a seperate folder for the roms, or if it is more convenient to just scroll a bit..

hmm, maybe I should just hide all folders, and manage stuff with dslinux and/or moonshell

 

[mysticwaterfall]

doom saves to the root, the rest seem to save to whatever folder the data files are in.

 

[bluesceada]

Ah good,
but anyway, I just hided all my folders, I use dslinux or moonshell anyway, if I need to do file manipulations or similiar.

For the hiding, if somebody does not know already, there is a quirk you have to know:

for example StillAliveDS has a folder "StillAliveDS", if you put that in the list of files/folders to be hidden, it won't work! You have to add "stillaliveds" to the list and it will just work...

I am not sure if the game would read a "stillaliveds" folder, so you could maybe also try that, but I prefer to just do the entry in globalsettings.ini in lowercase
--

Now, what would be cool, is a way of "most often used roms are higher in the list"
too bad AK2 isn't opensource and the AKRPG is too expensive...

 

[Bri]

You can also put the folder "StillAliveDS" in your "data" folder and it will work.

As I said, most homebrew allow the data files to go into the "data" folder rather than on the root.

Then you can just hide the "data" folder (if you want).

-Bri

 

[Joey90]

If you change the view hidden folders option to off, then you can set the folders to be hidden on your computer which is a lot easier than adding all the folder names to globalsettings.ini

You can also add a games folder if you have any other stuff (I have a Games, Homebrew, Music and Videos folder) to help seperate them.

 

[t4ils]

You can also put the folder "StillAliveDS" in your "data" folder and it will work.

As I said, most homebrew allow the data files to go into the "data" folder rather than on the root.

[passing by ...]

you can also² put the folder "StillAliveDS" anywhere on your flashcard and it will work

the limit is just 256 characters directory lenght, like :
"/homebrew/data/puzzle/platform/StillAliveDS"

(leave some free characters to browse folders in stillaliveds ^^ )

[/passing by ...]

 

[Bri]

Good point. Some homebrew actually searches for its data files so that they can be anywhere on the microSD card (apparently that's what StillAliveDS does). Other homebrew requires data to be on the root or in the "data" folder. So my point still stands -- most homebrew will work if you put its data in the "data" folder.

-Bri