Hello, this is discussing the state of launching Wiiware titles from within Wiiflow (not Wiiflow Lite).
After redesigning some 100+ low quality cover arts for Wiiware titles on Photoshop so their box art looks as clean as a legitimate title, I was met with the question: Does Wiiflow actually support opening and closing Wiiware games from within Wiiflow?
As I don't own a Gamecube controller, I'm using the custom edited Wiiflow boot.dol from Abz Masterpiece Pack as the only way to play Gamecube games while using a Classic Controller launching through Wiiflw.
Firstly, if you want to setup a category for Wiiware in Wiiflow, call it whatever you want, like "Channels" or "Wiiware" set whatever picture you want for it, and even hide System Apps like "Photos", you can do that. You can have a great menu for launching whatever Wiiware and Channels are on your System Menu straight from Wiiflow with perfect compatibility, entering and exiting all in Wiiflow and perfect compatibility across all Channels and Apps.
Trouble is, this menu in Wiiflow only supports Wiiware and Channels stored on the NAND, which is only 512mb and seems to run out for me after just a measly 5-10 titles, since I must have other things or saves using that space.
The solution then, it seems, is to use the Wii's official System Menu to move the Channels and Apps to an SD Card. This is no worries for me, as I run all my homebrew through USB, and my entire Wiiware collection of just over 100 titles does not exceed 3.5 GB. For this reason, using the System Menu to move the Channels and Apps to an SD Card is ideal as you can easily hol can entire collection.
The Wii's official System Menu also supports launching and playing those Apps straight from the SD card, thereby increasing your storage for System Menu Channels without losing that perfect compatibility.
The problem is that, Wiiflow doesn't support its fantastic Channels menu for SD card Channels, ONLY Channels installed on the NAND can be displayed in Wiiflow, not any Channels on the System Menu that have been moved to SD.
So you either move it back to your NAND and settle for 5-10 apps, or settle to press Home -> Exit To -> System Menu every time and launch your apps from the official System Menu potentially giving up on displaying those Apps straight in Wiiflow alongside potentially every other system in a beautiful and perfect 3D boxart menu to launch games from, with every system compatible EXCEPT Wiiware games.
There is seemingly a solution within Wiiflow, while it doesn't support displaying SD Channels, it supports either NAND Channels or Emunand Channels (Emunand is a 'replica' of the 512mb internal storage of the Wii that runs off USB).
So, with an Emunand you can increase the storage for what Wiiflow will allow you to display, as your Emunand is now stored somewhere larger than 512mb.
However, when I used Wiiflow's official function "Extract NAND" in the Settings to copy my NAND to USB, I found that compatibility for Wiiware titles was suddenly about 50/50.
The solution to that it seems is to use a custom edited Emunand called a neek2o Emunand. This can be set up very simply and easily using the "Noob Friendly neek2o Wiiflow Guide" and that gets the compatibility up from 50/50, however you must have your storage set to 32kb cluster size to achieve that.
Now, finally, I am displaying a large number of Wiiware titles within Wiiflow and the compatibility is not 50/50. There is even support in Wiiflow to use real NAND Miis, not your Emunand Miis, so you dont have to copy your "shared2" folder every time you edit or create a Mii (achievable via wiiflow.ini)
However, while compatibility is no longer 50/50, it's still only up to 90%, there's still select titles (Majora's Mask, Let's Create Pottery) that simply black screen at launch, however, they didn't do this when installed to SD on System Menu.
The solution for these select titles is to activate a Settings in Wiiflow (Use Neek2o Mode) found under the individual game's Settings in Wiiflow.
This fixes these select titles compatibility and they no longer black screen at startup, however, on activating this modeon 10% of titles, when you are in the game and select Home Button -> Return to System Menu, instead of returning you to Wiiflow (like potentially all games from all systems can just use and return to this one app) it now instead of taking you back to Wiiflow, appears to take you back to Wiiflow, but is actually taking you to a Wiiflow app installed on Emunand. The result is that, for the next title you launch AFTER returning to Wiiflow.
The solution it seemed was to delete the Wiiflow app from the neek2o Emunand using ShowMiiWads, so at least its when you exit that you get a black screen, making the "issue" clearer. Then, you just need to go to your Wii and hold Power Off.
However, another solution was to put the problematic titles on the 512mb real NAND, and have two seperate menus in Wiiflow for Channels (which was messy splitting them up) however this didn't work as even the problematic titles exceeded the 512mb NAND storage.
The other solution was to set the "Return To" option in Wiiflow to an App on the neek2o Emunand called "Back 2 Nand" and this fixed returning to Wiiflow after launching a problematic title, however, it broke Return To for regular WBFS Wii disc games, as Wiiflow doesn't support a different setting for Return To in Emunand and Return To for regular Wii games (despite displaying different choices for each option).
TL;DR Wiiflow, as far as I can tell, doesn't support launching and exiting Wiiware Channels.
After redesigning some 100+ low quality cover arts for Wiiware titles on Photoshop so their box art looks as clean as a legitimate title, I was met with the question: Does Wiiflow actually support opening and closing Wiiware games from within Wiiflow?
As I don't own a Gamecube controller, I'm using the custom edited Wiiflow boot.dol from Abz Masterpiece Pack as the only way to play Gamecube games while using a Classic Controller launching through Wiiflw.
Firstly, if you want to setup a category for Wiiware in Wiiflow, call it whatever you want, like "Channels" or "Wiiware" set whatever picture you want for it, and even hide System Apps like "Photos", you can do that. You can have a great menu for launching whatever Wiiware and Channels are on your System Menu straight from Wiiflow with perfect compatibility, entering and exiting all in Wiiflow and perfect compatibility across all Channels and Apps.
Trouble is, this menu in Wiiflow only supports Wiiware and Channels stored on the NAND, which is only 512mb and seems to run out for me after just a measly 5-10 titles, since I must have other things or saves using that space.
The solution then, it seems, is to use the Wii's official System Menu to move the Channels and Apps to an SD Card. This is no worries for me, as I run all my homebrew through USB, and my entire Wiiware collection of just over 100 titles does not exceed 3.5 GB. For this reason, using the System Menu to move the Channels and Apps to an SD Card is ideal as you can easily hol can entire collection.
The Wii's official System Menu also supports launching and playing those Apps straight from the SD card, thereby increasing your storage for System Menu Channels without losing that perfect compatibility.
The problem is that, Wiiflow doesn't support its fantastic Channels menu for SD card Channels, ONLY Channels installed on the NAND can be displayed in Wiiflow, not any Channels on the System Menu that have been moved to SD.
So you either move it back to your NAND and settle for 5-10 apps, or settle to press Home -> Exit To -> System Menu every time and launch your apps from the official System Menu potentially giving up on displaying those Apps straight in Wiiflow alongside potentially every other system in a beautiful and perfect 3D boxart menu to launch games from, with every system compatible EXCEPT Wiiware games.
There is seemingly a solution within Wiiflow, while it doesn't support displaying SD Channels, it supports either NAND Channels or Emunand Channels (Emunand is a 'replica' of the 512mb internal storage of the Wii that runs off USB).
So, with an Emunand you can increase the storage for what Wiiflow will allow you to display, as your Emunand is now stored somewhere larger than 512mb.
However, when I used Wiiflow's official function "Extract NAND" in the Settings to copy my NAND to USB, I found that compatibility for Wiiware titles was suddenly about 50/50.
The solution to that it seems is to use a custom edited Emunand called a neek2o Emunand. This can be set up very simply and easily using the "Noob Friendly neek2o Wiiflow Guide" and that gets the compatibility up from 50/50, however you must have your storage set to 32kb cluster size to achieve that.
Now, finally, I am displaying a large number of Wiiware titles within Wiiflow and the compatibility is not 50/50. There is even support in Wiiflow to use real NAND Miis, not your Emunand Miis, so you dont have to copy your "shared2" folder every time you edit or create a Mii (achievable via wiiflow.ini)
However, while compatibility is no longer 50/50, it's still only up to 90%, there's still select titles (Majora's Mask, Let's Create Pottery) that simply black screen at launch, however, they didn't do this when installed to SD on System Menu.
The solution for these select titles is to activate a Settings in Wiiflow (Use Neek2o Mode) found under the individual game's Settings in Wiiflow.
This fixes these select titles compatibility and they no longer black screen at startup, however, on activating this modeon 10% of titles, when you are in the game and select Home Button -> Return to System Menu, instead of returning you to Wiiflow (like potentially all games from all systems can just use and return to this one app) it now instead of taking you back to Wiiflow, appears to take you back to Wiiflow, but is actually taking you to a Wiiflow app installed on Emunand. The result is that, for the next title you launch AFTER returning to Wiiflow.
The solution it seemed was to delete the Wiiflow app from the neek2o Emunand using ShowMiiWads, so at least its when you exit that you get a black screen, making the "issue" clearer. Then, you just need to go to your Wii and hold Power Off.
However, another solution was to put the problematic titles on the 512mb real NAND, and have two seperate menus in Wiiflow for Channels (which was messy splitting them up) however this didn't work as even the problematic titles exceeded the 512mb NAND storage.
The other solution was to set the "Return To" option in Wiiflow to an App on the neek2o Emunand called "Back 2 Nand" and this fixed returning to Wiiflow after launching a problematic title, however, it broke Return To for regular WBFS Wii disc games, as Wiiflow doesn't support a different setting for Return To in Emunand and Return To for regular Wii games (despite displaying different choices for each option).
TL;DR Wiiflow, as far as I can tell, doesn't support launching and exiting Wiiware Channels.
