Hacking Rominator for NDS

[hankchill]

It's not hidden at all. it's just placed in your "Preferences" folder.

@Xelia:
It'll be a new feature in 3.2 -- An option to autosort by name or number.

Regards.

 

[bladetears]

Can you also add an option to "set name of the rom to internal name," kind of like setting the name to the one in the database.

 

[hankchill]

Can you also add an option to "set name of the rom to internal name," kind of like setting the name to the one in the database.

You already asked this. You don't need to double post. If you nag me, I won't fulfil your request.

It already sets the names to the one in the database? Do you mean the internal header name? That's not happening, because they're not all unique.

Regards.

 

[Regiiko]

@Regiiko:
Any game before 900 was not my doing and I've had to make several fixes already. There is another one of em

Regards.

I'll go through what I've got when I have time and check some of them then.

 

[_mrshl_]

@_mrshl_:
Also, if a box art doesn't load, click on the box art area when you've pressed on a game to refresh the box.

yes, i know but actually the boxart of 866 is not displayed and there is no "Box Art Not Available"! if i click on the area where the box art is supposed to be or even delete the boxart.rsd it won't change anything - 866's is not displayed!
you may check this because as far as i can see it seems to be either a wrong db-entry or the box art just doesn't exist.
(again, as stated in the previous post, only 866 is affected. all other roms are ok)

mrshl

 

[hankchill]

Oh yeah, I forgot that 0866 is the same as 0766 (0866 is v01 of the game), and with the old database they both read from the same box art location. I'll make a duplicate of the box and name it 0866

Sound happy?

--Henry

 

[_mrshl_]

Oh yeah, I forgot that 0866 is the same as 0766 (0866 is v01 of the game), and with the old database they both read from the same box art location. I'll make a duplicate of the box and name it 0866

Sound happy?

--Henry

indeed

thnx

mrshl

 

[dsfriend2]

i ran rominator on my windows xp and the program shows in the explorer, but i can't see it.

 

[hankchill]

i ran rominator on my windows xp and the program shows in the explorer, but i can't see it.

You closed it while minimized, didn't you? That's the only way this bug will appear. I tested this myself.

In any case, I'm release v3.2 tonight, with the following list of impressive additions:
- A new friendly introduction screen has been added, so new users can now do an initial setup process before diving into the program.
- Added a 'Make a Donation' menu item in the Help Menu
- Help > Rominator Help now points to the upcoming Rominator help Web Site
- Extensive Save System - Now you can organize your saves, import them, export them, replace them, comment them, and have as many as you want for each game.
- Changed the Save Manager. Through the save manager you can see the existing saves in the database and only delete from them, without having the actual game at hand.
- Fixed ever so slight misalignment of the Colours in the settings
- When changing the Naming Scheme, the example live-updates to show you exactly how it'll look before you press the Set button to confirm.
- Replaced Character Omissions with an entire String Replacement System, so this way you can define exactly which strings of text or characters you want changed yourself.
- Restricted special characters now cannot be used in the naming scheme or game names.
- Fixed small bug with Multilanguage Tags leaving behind a space if it's being followed by a space.
- Fixed a small bug that would crash Rominator if you dragged a game onto the game list area but dropped it on an empty space if you had more than 1 list available.
- It is now possible to rename game lists and smart lists (Except the Games and Flash lists)
- If Rominator now ever stops functioning correctly due to the window position (ie closing the program while minimized), press and hold the Shift key when launching Rominator to restore the window position to the default.
- An option to delete the default folder is available in the Tools menu.

So now for you bums who close it while minimized, you just have to hold Shift while launching to restore it

Look for it tonight

Regards.

 

[Regiiko]

EDIT:

12:21am right now in Canada, so.. like 5~9 more hours? D:

 

[Xelia]

Based on his profile, I guess -6.

 

[Regiiko]

*goes to edit post*

>_>;

 

[F2a]

I'm getting crashes with 3.2 hopefully this is of some help:

ERROR while deleting roms: "An exception of class NilObjectException was not handled. The application must shut down"


BUG1: occurs when I try to delete multiple roms (~3-5), deleting them one at a time doesn't crash the program

BUG2: occurs when trying to mass rename files where there are two files with the same name output such as Spider-Man 2 #145 and #146.

Also the program is very sluggish, is that just because of the large number of roms in the database? I tried increasing the program priority and got no improvement.

Great program except for the slow speed.

 

[F2a]

In regards to the Statistics rom list; is there a way to configure the export list to just list the (U) games that I'm missing. I don't care about the (J) , (E) and other regions games. If not I can just do it the hard way.

EDIT: ms word 07 find and highlight helped me do it the hard way.

 

[Xcursion]

Also the program is very sluggish, is that just because of the large number of roms in the database? I tried increasing the program priority and got no improvement.

Great program except for the slow speed.

I've noticed this too. It would be nice if it wrote your current game list to a text file in the game directory instead of scanning the entire folder every time it is started.

 

[ryohki]

I don't want to sound stupid, but it's too later for that.
how does the save manager work?
where does it back up my saves to when I go *backup*

 

[ryohki]

hmmm seems to throw a can't find database error, whenever I put on game and watch collection. only in the flash cart window though, not in game library.

 

[hankchill]

I'm still working on the Help Docs, I hope to have it completed tonight.

As for the Save Utility, here's how it works:

To access the Save Utility, click on the little 'ram chip'icon. From there, you can import, export, delete, or replace a save in the list for the SELECTED game.If you're in the Flash Card, you can backup the save game to the database, or delete the save game from your flash card. In the Save Utility, if you check a box of a save, that save will be written to flash when you write the game. You can also manually write a save by pressing the 'Export' button. Saves are organized by the date they are entered in the database, and it's easy to keep organized by adding comments to the saves. That's the save utility in a nutshell. Like I said, I'm working on expanded docs through Rominator Help.

All saves are stored in a database. If you need to extract them, then it needs to be done through Rominator.

@ryohki: How many times have I mentioned this, I haven't designed Rominator to work with XXXX or homebrew games. Some games may cause Rominator to fail.

@Xcursion: v3.3 will change the way games are stored. They will be stored in a database for quick access, however each games still needs to be read for it's icon. I'm surprised it's working as fast as it is with how it has to read the DS Icons, and how many it has to read and show

@F2a: This feature wasn't important enough right now so I didn't get to put it in. It's not really something too vital, but if I have time, I'll consider it. Also, I just tried the deleting problem you have. I just deleted a list of 20 games without a hitch. Your bug#2 there isn't a bug. It's obviously going to stop because it can't give two games the same names. If they are identical, you need to make them unique, like giving them a Country Code.

Regards.

 

[_mrshl_]

hi hank.

i just updated your program to see how you implemented the string replace routine and here i've got two things you may fix:
1. you have "?";"(blank)" allready preset, which is a good choice i would say! but the user is still able to delete this entry, so you may set it to be not removable
2. you left out a invalid file name character (at least in windows) which the user still can enter (at least with copy'n'paste): the tabulator [char(0x09)]

and here another question: do you replace invalid characters automatically with a "(blank)"? it would be the easiest way to solve some problems. you could also solve the first problem with this method

. oh, and please do not forget to document which characters you replace (so at least in your readme/help file/menu but you may also want to add a [?] button in the renaming menu if you think it's a good thing

).

so, again a few things i complained about, but i also have to say: thnx for the replace string stuff and thnx for all of your updates! nice to see your program being constantly improved

.

cheers

mrshl

edit: just saw another thing: you did not give the option to alter a replace-with entry. you may also add a button so one could alter his/her settings instead of removing first and then adding it again with the altered replacement string.

edit2:another one: if you enter a ' [char(0x39)] is in the replacement string and then restart rominator and open the settings it will crash. this will also happen if you enter |$| as one of the strings. this is caused by the way you store your settings (sql lite format) i would say, so here is my quick and easy suggestion: don't store these settings as plain text! just encode them with what ever you want (i.e. hex-values in plain text or base64 or whatever; you know know what i mean

).

 

[hankchill]

hi hank.

i just updated your program to see how you implemented the string replace routine and here i've got two things you may fix:
1. you have "?";"(blank)" allready preset, which is a good choice i would say! but the user is still able to delete this entry, so you may set it to be not removable
2. you left out a invalid file name character (at least in windows) which the user still can enter (at least with copy'n'paste): the tabulator [char(0x09)]

and here another question: do you replace invalid characters automatically with a "(blank)"? it would be the easiest way to solve some problems. you could also solve the first problem with this method

. oh, and please do not forget to document which characters you replace (so at least in your readme/help file/menu but you may also want to add a [?] button in the renaming menu if you think it's a good thing

).

so, again a few things i complained about, but i also have to say: thnx for the replace string stuff and thnx for all of your updates! nice to see your program being constantly improved

.

cheers

mrshl

edit: just saw another thing: you did not give the option to alter a replace-with entry. you may also add a button so one could alter his/her settings instead of removing first and then adding it again with the altered replacement string.

edit2:another one: if you enter a ' [char(0x39)] is in the replacement string and then restart rominator and open the settings it will crash. this will also happen if you enter |$| as one of the strings. this is caused by the way you store your settings (sql lite format) i would say, so here is my quick and easy suggestion: don't store these settings as plain text! just encode them with what ever you want (i.e. hex-values in plain text or base64 or whatever; you know know what i mean

).

For Windows users, yes, it automatically adds in the first entry (replacing the question mark with a blank entry). I prefer to leave it as deletable as some people might have "modified" windows that will allow the question mark. No other characters are replaced unless specified by the string replacer. Only characters are restricted, that is all. The restricted characters are the ones that are not allowed in file names (try typing one of them in a file name through windows, you'll see them

) -- I'll have those documented though.

Ah yes, the dreaded copy and paste. You're not supposed to bypass the key checks!

Why would you want to enter |$| as the replacement string anyways?? It's my delimiter, and not used in any filename, which is the exact reason why I chose it.

I'd prefer to not encrypt it as I've got nothing to hide

If you muck around with it, that's your own fault

Naturally, you shouldn't be able to enter the | character in Windows, but it is allowed in Mac and Linux... I might disable it across the board, as well as disable copy and paste into that field. In the event that you bypass that, I'll add in *extra* protection to protect those fields

Believe me, I was thinking about Base64 Encryption, but that just makes strings double their size, and like I said, I've got nothing to hide, and really someone who doesn't know what they're doing shouldn't muck around with the settings files

For the next release, you can modify the string replacements by doubleclicking on them... Which reminds me, forgot to mention that you can modify list names by double clicking on the list

Whoops, forgot to check if you're entering in an apostraphe! If you use an apostraphe, to write it to SQL you have to double it up, because SQL Strings are as such: SQLExecute("UPDATE settings SET replaceWith='(blank)' WHERE rowid=1") -- Since the string definer is enclosed in '' (two apostraphes), adding in a 3rd apostraphe in the middle would cause an SQLError and not write it, so I just need to replace all apostraphes (') with two apostraphes together ('') -- I'll update this for 3.2.1 as well as the other things mentioned for tonight.

What I *might* do though, is start encrypting the databases, so it'll need a username and password as the decryption seed in order to read the database. This way I can just encrypt the whole database, rather than the individual strings. Sound kosher?

Regards.