Hacking Is homebrew smart enough to find hidden folders?

[Briankealing]

Alright, here's the situation.

My acekard is getting very cluttered. All the junk folders and other bull are getting in the way because every single homebrew requires putting the files in the ****ing root of the card. My root is so cluttered I can't even find my games folder. Now, I think there's an option on the Acekard that lets you not "see" hidden folders/files. That would be nice, but I'm not sure if programs like DSorganize can see them.

Help, please?

 

[iritegood]

Um... why don't you just check? It all depends on the homebrew, they don't all treat folders the same way.
Or y'know, you could organize your microSD (or internal memory, if you happen to have the other acekard)

 

[Briankealing]

Apparently, AKAIO has a hide file feature, how does this work? I'm using the AK2 firmware, because not only am I too lazy to switch, pokemon don't work too well on AKAIO.

 

[VatoLoco]

I've got massive amounts of homebrew on my root, too.
I haven't had problems with any of them finding hidden files or folders.

You need to use your PC (right click> properties> Hidden),
or on your DS with DSOrganize(X= toggle hidden (with show hidden files enabled in configuration)) to hide your unsightly files/folders.

You can then use the acekards 'show hidden files' option to switch between seeing the hidden files or not.

 

[Another World]

a hidden file/folder is just an attribute setting for your viewing pleasure. the app can still see it in the directory tree for a read/write.

-another world

 

[Bri]

Apparently, AKAIO has a hide file feature, how does this work? I'm using the AK2 firmware, because not only am I too lazy to switch, pokemon don't work too well on AKAIO.

I believe both AKAIO and the official firmware have the option to hide specific files/folders by modifying the setting in your globalsettings.ini file.

I think it's easier to just hide the file on your PC or using DSOrganize, but if I remember correctly there is a bug with the official firmware having to do with hiding or showing hidden files (but AKAIO works properly).

By the way, due to a limitation of the NDS, homebrew applications cannot know what folder they're running in. That means that no homebrew requires its data to be in the same folder as the .nds file. That means that you can always move the .nds files for homebrew anywhere you want (for example, into a "homebrew" folder). The data for most homebrew (but not all) can go into a folder named "data" which is on the root of your microSD card (the "data" folder can be hidden if you want). Some homebrew looks explicitly for a folder named "data" on the root while others search for the datafiles anywhere on the card, so if you put your homebrew data into a "data" folder you've covered both bases.

Moonshell is a good example (at least the non-beta version, I'm not sure about the new beta) -- you can put the "moonshl" folder into a "data" folder and it will work.

But there are a few homebrew programs that only look for the data on the root, in which case there's not much you can do but put it on the root and hide it (when I run across one of those I'll often e-mail the author and ask if they wouldn't mind adding support for the "data" folder and most of them are willing to do so).

-Bri

 

[Another World]

By the way, due to a limitation of the NDS, homebrew applications cannot know what folder they're running in.

that is something i did not know and had always wondered about. it never made sense to me why people didn't add a small routine to detect where the .nds was and thus look in that same directory right away for its files. i had no idea this was a limitation of the hardware.

with akaio....

all folders not set to "hidden" by their operating system attribute will display.
start > system options > advanced > show hidden files : disabled/enabled
when disabled those "hidden" files will not show up.

as for file types
start > system options > set file list type : nds/nds+sav/nds, sav, bak/all
depending on how you set it you can make it so that only nds file types are displayed.
if you set it to show just .nds -- .gba will still show up but everyone else is hidden.
*however with akaio if you set the file attribute of your .gba to hidden and adjust the display correctly they will remain unseen.

so the to hide everything you would set show hidden files to disabled and then hide them in your o/s. finally set the file list type to .nds.

official firmware:
to hide folders/files you need to add their name to the string in the globalsettings.ini
hiddenFileNames = __rpg,__ak2,akmenu4.nds,moonshl,svsip

as for file types:
start > system options > set file list type : nds/nds+save/all
if you set it to show just .nds -- .gba will still show up but everyone else is hidden.
*infact there is no way (from my testing) to hide .gba. even if add them to the .ini.

so to hide everything add folder names you want hidden to the .ini and set your file list to .nds

i think you can hide more than just .nds file types in the .ini. i only tested with .gba and nothing worked. i tried *.gba, .gba, name.gba.

i hope this info helps.
-another world

 

[Bri]

that is something i did not know and had always wondered about. it never made sense to me why people didn't add a small routine to detect where the .nds was and thus look in that same directory right away for its files. i had no idea this was a limitation of the hardware.

I assume you could search for the .nds and then require the data to be in the same folder. The problem is that it would take just as much time/resources to just search for the data instead and allow the data to be anywhere you want. It's more efficient to require the data to be in one of a limited number of folders, such as the root and/or the data folder so that you don't have to search the whole microSD card.

-Bri

 

[OSW]

It is perfectly fine to hide any files/folders you like.

Usually it will not affect the software at all, with the exception of some loaders (such as acekard, moonshell) which make the effort to hide hidden folders from the gui (if set to do so in the config files).

For example I set pretty much everything to hidden except a few NDS and Media folders, if i am using acekard on my DS (as i am at the moment).

By the way, due to a limitation of the NDS, homebrew applications cannot know what folder they're running in.

Not exactly... Because NDS homebrew is copied to ram before execution, it only knows that it was executed from ram.
However there are two ways to create the same effect.

1. Have the homebrew search the card for itself.
2. Have the loader record the filepath before launching the file (as with Acekard RPG, Acekard2). However, the loader developers must implement this as opposed to just the homebrew dev.

I'm not sure exactly how COLORS (the homebrew) knows its path, but it works.

I don't consider this feature particularly useful or amazing, but I guess some people see value in it.

 

[Bri]

I'm not sure exactly how COLORS (the homebrew) knows its path, but it works.

If I'm not mistaken, it searches for its data (or itself) on the microSD card.

-Bri

 

[Briankealing]

Apparently, AKAIO has a hide file feature, how does this work? I'm using the AK2 firmware, because not only am I too lazy to switch, pokemon don't work too well on AKAIO.

I believe both AKAIO and the official firmware have the option to hide specific files/folders by modifying the setting in your globalsettings.ini file.

I think it's easier to just hide the file on your PC or using DSOrganize, but if I remember correctly there is a bug with the official firmware having to do with hiding or showing hidden files (but AKAIO works properly).

By the way, due to a limitation of the NDS, homebrew applications cannot know what folder they're running in. That means that no homebrew requires its data to be in the same folder as the .nds file. That means that you can always move the .nds files for homebrew anywhere you want (for example, into a "homebrew" folder). The data for most homebrew (but not all) can go into a folder named "data" which is on the root of your microSD card (the "data" folder can be hidden if you want). Some homebrew looks explicitly for a folder named "data" on the root while others search for the datafiles anywhere on the card, so if you put your homebrew data into a "data" folder you've covered both bases.

Moonshell is a good example (at least the non-beta version, I'm not sure about the new beta) -- you can put the "moonshl" folder into a "data" folder and it will work.

But there are a few homebrew programs that only look for the data on the root, in which case there's not much you can do but put it on the root and hide it (when I run across one of those I'll often e-mail the author and ask if they wouldn't mind adding support for the "data" folder and most of them are willing to do so).

-Bri

Yes, I have all my homebrew in a folder called "-----HOMEBREW-----" so it nicely shows up at the top.
I'm going to see if I can hide all the files that aren't [useful things]. Thanks for the help!