Hacking Cover Downloader

[redia]

edit 09/04/15 . Updated to Beta 0.3 see the end of this post for history and download link

hello everyone,

this is a quick tool to download all your covers from wii.ds-scene
I picked ds-scene because they do not have any watermark on their cover.
the process is pretty simple.
I simply open a web page including their release list
parse it to grab the needed information
and download/resize/rename the cover

don't expect anything fancy.
I started that for for my personal use.

but as I see that nothing is "really" out except nIxx download option (which by the way downloads EVERYTHING from gbatemp including non-wii covers) I decided to share it with you.

for this matter I quickly added a parameter allowing you to choose which covers you want to download
and more important all the covers are downloaded, resized (160x226) and renamed :
GAME (REGION) [RELEASE NUMBER IN DS-SCENE].PNG

making it easy to deal with

I am planning on adding different options, including either a gui or at least an ini file to give you more control, and maybe even a progress status

- region you want to download
- destination folder
- resize option
- naming convention
- starting cover (to allow you chunk downloading)

I am also trying to see if I can find enough sources with GAMEID thus giving you the obvious choice of naming it directly to the gameid.
but unless we find a way to have an online participative DB (on wiibrew?, but they will probably consider that as hackers material, I dunno), I doubt that I will reach any success on that.

once again, don't flame me for this pre-pre-pre alpha release.
I will work on that tomorrow if I find time, and if anyone has some good idea to share feel free to let me know, I am at such an early stage of the process that I could include it.

"http://rapidshare.com/files/218920081/WII-cover_beta0.1.rar (no download limit)

you will find 2 .exe in this archive
convert.exe (used to do the image conversion)
WII-cover 0.1.exe (which is my application)

put both in a folder and run :
WII-cover_beta0.1.exe ALL
WII-cover_beta0.1.exe PAL
WII-cover_beta0.1.exe NTSC-U
WII-cover_beta0.1.exe NTSC-J
WII-cover_beta0.1.exe NTSC-KOR

knowing I did not include a progress I have left the IE page open so you have a clue on were you are standing....

I hope it helps until I improve it and/or someone makes a real application for this purpose

I am sorry I could not do more today, but I really have to run right now...

Cheers,
R


HISTORY
Beta 0.2
but with some more checks (still a lot missing please let me know if you find anything weird)
removed the IE page
added a scrolling log so you see the status

Beta 0.3
fixed error in the log processing now the page blanks when reaching the bottom instead of scrolling
added a file log this way you can see what happened by scrolling it without sitting in front of your screen during the process
fixed error for downloading (added a retry counter)
fixed error for downloading (some game names had non windows characters..)
fixed error in resizing.
added the settings.ini (finally) these settings are available (more to come)
---> REGION : ALL/PAL/NTSC-J/NTSC-KOR/NSTC-U
---> SIZE : decide your own sizing... pretty handy.. not all loaders are using the same size
---> RETRIES : number of time you want to retry to download a file in case of a problem
---> ALTCREATE : define whether you want or not to create alternate file (in conjunction with the next settings)
---> ALTSIZE : define the size of the the alternate size
added an alternate size option (see settings.ini) as per fchadon request. handy for loaders which can handle big/small size images
removed region from the name as the files are now saved in the appropriate folder (a tag appears for PAL region as it can have multiple release (MULTI 3/4/5/6.... etc)

To Do
Selectable downloads (a listview of checkboxes allowing you to select which covers you want to download)
Resume ability.. restart a download from the latest cover you have
Save as GAMEID. I am leaving that to the end. first I need to make sure the rest works correctly
when GAMEID is resolved. parse a WBFS drive and get all the (missing) covers
--- hit me with anything else. I will see what can be done.


Download
WII-cover_beta0.2.rar
WII-cover_beta0.3.rar

 

[WiiShizzza]

hehe

Nice Idea...

 

[27ylliw]

Hi.

i've tried your nice program to download PAL covers using command "WII-cover_beta0.1.exe PAL".

after message "i've done, enjoy", i search for the covers but i don't know where is the folder with covers downloaded...

Thanks in advance.

P.S. sorry for my english...

 

[maarten66]

Hi.

i've tried your nice program to download covers using command WII-cover_beta0.1.exe PAL and it run iexplorer.

after message "i've done, enjoy", i search for the covers but i don't know where is the folder with covers downloaded...

Thanks in advance.

P.S. sorry for my english...

The images are saved in the folder where the imgdownloader program is located.

Great app, i don't have to search and resize anymore

 

[kedest]

great, thanks.
running it now, it's downloading the images just fine!

 

[TroyTheZombie]

I am also trying to see if I can find enough sources with GAMEID thus giving you the obvious choice of naming it directly to the gameid.
but unless we find a way to have an online participative DB (on wiibrew?, but they will probably consider that as hackers material, I dunno), I doubt that I will reach any success on that.

http://wiird.l0nk.org/wp/15

Game IDs, all regions.

 

[redia]

I am also trying to see if I can find enough sources with GAMEID thus giving you the obvious choice of naming it directly to the gameid.
but unless we find a way to have an online participative DB (on wiibrew?, but they will probably consider that as hackers material, I dunno), I doubt that I will reach any success on that.

http://wiird.l0nk.org/wp/15

Game IDs, all regions.

Thanks TroyTheZombie,
I already got this one in my links.
but there are only 660 entries

I am also looking into
http://www.usbgecko.com/codes/

if anyone has some other sources please let me know.

I am happy to see that this small apps is helping some of you guys.
I will therefor put some efforts in the settings.ini asap.. hopefully you should get an improved version tomorrow..

Cheers,
R

 

[gunslinger]

okay, but from which servers the tool will download the whole covers, if I may ask? I have here only a Linux Internet PC, so I would be interested in URLs and so on

A portable version (UNIX) wouldn't come out, would it?

 

[redia]

okay, but from which servers the tool will download the whole covers, if I may ask? I have here only a Linux Internet PC, so I would be interested in URLs and so on

A portable version (UNIX) wouldn't come out, would it?

it is downloading from http://img.files-ds-scene.net/wii/boxart/xxxx-yyyyy/zzzz.jpg

unfortunately I do not plan on doing a linux port.
but I can dump a list of url for your region if you want.
let me know. I will pm it to you.
a simple download manager should be able to do the trick.
but you would have to rename then AND resize them. so it defies the principle.

Cheers,
R.

 

[Chemodile]

I really like this. The IE window feels pretty clumsy, but it does the job and I won't nitpick an alpha.

However, renaming didn't work for me when I ran it through NTSC-J.

Hope to see this developed further, perhaps into something similar to OfflineList (not necessarily for rom verification, but as a cover art database)

 

[dabotsonline]

Not the most efficient method, but could the GAMEIDs be hardcoded into the program and updated for each program revision?

 

[redia]

I really like this. The IE window feels pretty clumsy, but it does the job and I won't nitpick an alpha.

However, renaming didn't work for me when I ran it through NTSC-J.

Hope to see this developed further, perhaps into something similar to OfflineList (not necessarily for rom verification, but as a cover art database)
Mmm not renaming ntsc-j

I have to look into that. Thanks for the feedback. How are the file named then ?

About the ie. I promise next version will not have that anymore.
I plan to do a two step process.
Phase one : parsing all the webpages (in the background) with a counter and progress
Phase two: downloading the covers. I might even make a list selectable, and why not keep it on the comp so you only update the missing cover links.. But this is really for the futur... 2015 maybe. Lol


Similar to offlinelist. Wow that's a little bit too much (way too much) far above my abilities.
Unfortunately I do not have much time to dedicate for that.
And I meant it manly as a temporary solution until someone develops and online db so all the wbfs gui can grab their files from there

But who knows... life is an ever changing journey

QUOTE(dabotsonline @ Apr 8 2009, 09:31 PM) Not the most efficient method, but could the GAMEIDs be hardcoded into the program and updated for each program revision?

I will definitely not hardcode it.
but if no other solution is found I will offer a file which contains a translation
wii.ds-scene number ----> gameid

but for that I will need your help !
and if I end up doing that I will add an option to compile multiple "translation" file.. so anyone can provide an update.
Cheers
R

 

[redia]

ok.
many improvement in the new version.
you will be able to follow all the progress.

as mentioned in my previous post it is a two step process now.
1.... parsing all the pages building a filelist to download
you will see the progress of which page is being parsed (and how many left)
the internet explorer page is gone

2... downloading all the files
you will see a progress "downloading file x/y"

I started adding a settings file
the main added value is to be able to stop a download and restart from the latest
it will be taken care of by the software and be updated each time a file is processed
and having the latest file has also an impact on the 1rst part as I will stop the parsing when reaching the specific release instead of parsing the whole website !

I am not uping the version now, but you can expect one tomorrow, it is time for me to hit my bedroom

as soon as I am done with the settings I will seriously look for a solution about this GAMEID issue.
from what I saw the Gecko db seems to be the closest to a full list.
I have to figure out whether I will parse it or add a "translation file" editable by everyone... this is still pending.
if anyone has an idea, feel free to share.

the source is in autoit.
if anyone wants them let me know. I will probably release them anyway with version 1.0

Cheers,
R

 

[Chemodile]

Mmm not renaming ntsc-j

I have to look into that. Thanks for the feedback. How are the file named then ?

My mistake, they're named exactly how you outlined in the first post. I must have misread, as I thought you'd already covered the GameID translation. Either way, looking forward to the new version.

I like the idea of a translation file but that would require somebody to update and maintain it. The nice thing about your app so far is that it pulls from resources that already exist and doesn't require any real effort to maintain something like that. Pulling from Gecko or a similar db if one exists seems like the superior method to me, but maybe you could allow for manual importing of a translation file as a backup method? It would be easy to implement, but depending on how you plan to format the translation file itself it might be more trouble than it's worth. On the other hand, it could allow for a more OfflineListy-sort-of interface if you wanted.

What I'd meant when I said similar to OLL is maybe have a browseable list of games and their cover art so that you could download covers individually or batch download an entire region like it is now. If there's going to be a translation file you'll have already compiled a list of game IDs, titles and art, so why not go one step further and make a gui to parse it and make it easy to look at?

Anyway, just a suggestion. You've probably thought about this a lot more than I have, so I'll shut up now. Keep up the good work.

 

[redia]

I like the idea of a translation file but that would require somebody to update and maintain it. The nice thing about your app so far is that it pulls from resources that already exist and doesn't require any real effort to maintain something like that. Pulling from Gecko or a similar db if one exists seems like the superior method to me, but maybe you could allow for manual importing of a translation file as a backup method? It would be easy to implement, but depending on how you plan to format the translation file itself it might be more trouble than it's worth. On the other hand, it could allow for a more OfflineListy-sort-of interface if you wanted.

What I'd meant when I said similar to OLL is maybe have a browseable list of games and their cover art so that you could download covers individually or batch download an entire region like it is now. If there's going to be a translation file you'll have already compiled a list of game IDs, titles and art, so why not go one step further and make a gui to parse it and make it easy to look at?

Anyway, just a suggestion. You've probably thought about this a lot more than I have, so I'll shut up now. Keep up the good work.

please do not shut up.
any feedback/idea is more than welcome

the translation file is the last option

I am going to try getting in touch with djtaz and kosaic to see if we can build something together.
djtaz is proposing a website with all the images.
kosaic has "ALL the Game ID's , ALL the images"...
so if I can benefit from djtaz's website and Kosaic's knowledge it would be just awesome.
I would like us (I mean the whole wii scene) to build a db containing
GAMEID release number in wii.ds-scene

this way my soft will simply download the latest file from djtaz's website.
and I can focus on the downloading/renaming/resizing of the image.. it will be more flexible...
the update could be done by "regular" user on djtaz's website

a big advantage of linking a release number to a gameid is that the naming convention is in charge of wii.ds-scene !!

anyway I am way over my shoulder now because I did not contact both folks and they might be totally against the idea !

I will release the new version in a couple of hours.
I am modifying the path structure
xxxxx\apps
xxxxx\apps\ntsc-j
xxxxx\apps\ntsc-kor
xxxxx\apps\ntsc-u
xxxxx\apps\pal
xxxxx\apps\gameid ???? maybe ....

this will give me more flexibility for future improvement.

Cheers,
R

 

[erolz]

that would be great!

 

[redia]

new version beta 0.2 released.
http://rapidshare.com/files/219327989/WII-cover_beta0.2.rar

it works the same way.
but with some more checks (still a lot missing please let me know if you find anything weird)
removed the IE page
added a scrolling log so you see the status

still to do
- settings.ini
- selectable list of games to download (so you can pick the ones you own instead of downloading everything)
- gameid (I am meeting djtaz on a chat to discuss the possibilities.

wishes
offlinelisting of your games
- first step would be simply the cover
- next step would be more information


you noticed I did not go GUI yet... for a very simple reason : I AM TERRIBLE at gui, really I mean it. but I will take a look into that anyway (as it would be mandatory if we switch to a more offlinelist type of program)

feel free to comment.

R

 

[redia]

while working on the new version I noticed that 19 covers (out of 1297) were not downloading in the actual version.
I will solve that in next one.

Cheers,
R

 

[Rainy]

been over this topic a few times, wheres the DL link?

 

[Shadow#1]

here is beta 0.1 and the author said he wont do it anymore because no ones interested in it

http://www.sendspace.com/file/f7crnc