Hacking Rominator v2008

[Mr.Seiko]

Perhaps you could send the C Code that needs to be converted to RealBasic, and I could take a look at converting it for you.
.... I really don't want to convert all of my Roms from 7-Zip to Zip, 1 because it just takes too bloody long, and I don't have enough Hard Drive space on my computer....

Do you have any programming experience with either language? I've got a lot of experience with both and even I don't want to take the time to do it because of it's complex nature

I do have Experience with the 2 Languages. It's been a few months since I've done anything useful with it... But I'd like to take a Stab at it.





EDIT: Wondering if Save Defender I supposed to Support .0 Save files.... The Software that I use on M3 is using .0 for the Save File name, and Save Defender doesn't seem to be picking them up.
Also wondering if it is any where near possible for Rominator to generate a default save file for games that don't have a save already.

 

[Bri]

I'm getting the following error when I run Rominator:

It appeared immediately after displaying a message about donations, and currently appears every time I run the application after checking for updates. Rominator exits after I click "OK."

-Bri

 

[Damademan3]

Quick question that might have already been answered. I have a DSTT and when i flash games to my sd card with Rominator it creats two files. One being original size and other being 4kbs. regardless if it is a clean dump or a trimmed it puts 2 files in there. im not aware if it is a dstt read issue or is there a way to remove the file. thanks

 

[hankchill]

I do have Experience with the 2 Languages. It's been a few months since I've done anything useful with it... But I'd like to take a Stab at it.

EDIT: Wondering if Save Defender I supposed to Support .0 Save files.... The Software that I use on M3 is using .0 for the Save File name, and Save Defender doesn't seem to be picking them up.
Also wondering if it is any where near possible for Rominator to generate a default save file for games that don't have a save already.

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

There's where you can download the source. Now get crackin

In regard to the M3, as far as I know, they have an update (or are releasing one) that changes that from .0 to .sav. No modifications will be made in Save Defender because of that. Also generating a save file for games that don't have one doesn't seem like a necessary function at all, especially with Save Defender, as it should only backup what you have played, and not a bunch of blank saves.

I'm getting the following error when I run Rominator:

It appeared immediately after displaying a message about donations, and currently appears every time I run the application after checking for updates. Rominator exits after I click "OK."

Send me an email with the Settings.rod file from the Rominator Data folder, I'd like to take a look at it. henry [-at-] hankchill [-dot-] com

QUOTE

Quick question that might have already been answered. I have a DSTT and when i flash games to my sd card with Rominator it creats two files. One being original size and other being 4kbs. regardless if it is a clean dump or a trimmed it puts 2 files in there. im not aware if it is a dstt read issue or is there a way to remove the file. thanks

Are you on Mac OS X? OS X makes resource fork files and Rominator can't clean them up. I suggest to people to use something like BlueHarvest to remedy that, since it gets rid of all of the Mac OS X invisible files on non OS X drives, however some people have reported that BlueHarvest and Rominator haven't been getting along (I've had no problems myself) when BlueHarvest is enabled.

 

[Xeijin]

Just wanted to say, great program, well worth the donation. This is exactly what a ROM Manager should be, Seamless. Things are updated with such ease, I never need to bother about backing up my saves etc. Great work Hank!

Also Save Defender is awesome

 

[FrankSinatra]

Quick question that might have already been answered. I have a DSTT and when i flash games to my sd card with Rominator it creats two files. One being original size and other being 4kbs. regardless if it is a clean dump or a trimmed it puts 2 files in there. im not aware if it is a dstt read issue or is there a way to remove the file. thanks
Do you happen to be running OS X? If so, are the 4kb files named ._FILENAME? If that's the case, that's part of the OS's doing.
To fix it, you'll need to remove them using Terminal. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. In the window that appears, type "cd " (no quotes), but do not hit return. Next, open the drive or folder the files are in in Finder. In the Finder window's titlebar, there will be a little icon to the left of the name; click and drag this over the Terminal window, and release. The terminal window should now look like

Macintosh Hard Drive:~ username$ cd /Volumes/DRIVENAME/FOLDER(IF ANY)/

The cd command changes the directory; hit return, and it will move to where you specified. To make sure this is the correct directory, type in "ls" and press return; it will display a list of the files in that directory.
The next step is one you need to use with caution. We'll be using "rm" command, which removes, or deletes, files. Type in
CODErm ._*

exactly as shown. * is the wildcard character; this command will delete all files in the current directory that starts with "._". If it would be any use, tomorrow I could throw together an applescript to do it for you, so all you'd have to do is drag and drop the drive/folder onto the script.

If you're not on a Mac, and the files aren't ._FILENAME, then you can safely ignore everything above.


*EDIT* Again, I take so long writing a reply it gets answered already XD. Anyway, yeah, I suggest looking into an application (I guess Blue Harvest is one) to do this for you, or at least a better tutorial.

 

[Bri]

Send me an email with the Settings.rod file from the Rominator Data folder, I'd like to take a look at it. henry [-at-] hankchill [-dot-] com

Sent. Please let me know if there's a workaround.

-Bri

 

[Damademan3]

thanks for the replies and yes i am on Mac OSx. Ill go ahead and try BlueHarvest once i get home. Thanks again.

 

[questXtreme]

Is there a way to line the roms together according to their release numbers?I can't seem to do it.

If you mean sort them, then just click on the heading in the list of games there that says 'Number'. Done

Thanks!Got it now.

By the way,I noticed there are quite a few games that has wrong names.For example, The Simpsons Game game title was "Simpsons Game, The".Another example is "Legend of Zelda,The - Phantom Hourglass".

Is there anyway to change it to the proper name, while still using the auto-naming feature?Or maybe you could fix it in the next update or something,that will be most helpful.Thanks for the help,anyway.

That's sad...I still haven't been replied yet...

 

[Bri]

Those don't have the wrong names. When you alphabetize, you usually place words like "The" at the end of the title so that you won't get a bunch of games starting with "The" all clumped together. For example, you want "The Legend of Zelda" to go under "L" for "Legend" rather than "T" for "The." There are several games that don't put "The" at the end, and it's quite annoying (I usually rename these by hand so that "The" is at the end).

One way to name them yourself is to turn off the "autoname" feature, delete the rom in Rominator, change the name of the file by hand, then "refresh" in Rominator (since the autoname is off, it will use the filename). Then you can turn the "autoname" back on (as long as the rom is already in Rominator, it won't be renamed the next time you refresh).

Maybe there's an easier way. I know the old version allowed you to rename it within Rominator, overriding the autoname, but I don't see that option with the new version.

You should be able to remove the ", The" automatically by going into Settings->Renaming and adding a "Text Replacement" filter (", The" in the "replace" field). I haven't actually tested that to see if it will work.

-Bri

 

[Mr.Seiko]

It's Official
Rominator is Easy to use.


I just taught my (almost) 4 year old son how to use it last night.

So now he can update his M3 and get all of the games on it that he wants to play.


Now all I have to do is register that Mac so it has Save Defender enabled.

 

[questXtreme]

Those don't have the wrong names. When you alphabetize, you usually place words like "The" at the end of the title so that you won't get a bunch of games starting with "The" all clumped together. For example, you want "The Legend of Zelda" to go under "L" for "Legend" rather than "T" for "The." There are several games that don't put "The" at the end, and it's quite annoying (I usually rename these by hand so that "The" is at the end).

One way to name them yourself is to turn off the "autoname" feature, delete the rom in Rominator, change the name of the file by hand, then "refresh" in Rominator (since the autoname is off, it will use the filename). Then you can turn the "autoname" back on (as long as the rom is already in Rominator, it won't be renamed the next time you refresh).

Maybe there's an easier way. I know the old version allowed you to rename it within Rominator, overriding the autoname, but I don't see that option with the new version.

You should be able to remove the ", The" automatically by going into Settings->Renaming and adding a "Text Replacement" filter (", The" in the "replace" field). I haven't actually tested that to see if it will work.

-Bri

Unfortunately, the "Text Replacement" thing doesn't seem to work, at least for me.Maybe cause I didn't type anything to replace it? Okay, now I'm going to try that other way you mentioned, renaming them myself and all that.

 

[questXtreme]

I'm getting the following error when I run Rominator:

It appeared immediately after displaying a message about donations, and currently appears every time I run the application after checking for updates. Rominator exits after I click "OK."

-Bri

I'm having the same problem as Bri, except that , mine occurs when I'm trying to delete one of my saves from a game's save list.

So, do I the do the same thing like Bri did and send the Settings.rod file to you?

 

[Bri]

My problem was resolved by rebooting. Apparently, there was a process left behind from a previous run that was still accessing one of the files.

-Bri

 

[questXtreme]

Oh, I see. Problem solved then. And so far I think Rominator is one of the best donationware or freeware out. It really is useful and have made noticeable improvements over the update. When Rominator 2008 was first released, I tried it but uninstalled it as it was too slow and laggy for my computer. But after a few updates, I decided to try it out again, and I'm happy to say there's no more of those problems

. I'd be happy to donate some cash for the extra features, but as I am still only 14, I currently don't possess a credit card, so I can't donate with paypal, as I still have to use a credit card to top-up my paypal account with money.

So, good job done, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who owns a DS Flash Card.

 

[Curley5959]

I might loook into it.. Thanks for the advice

 

[pellOttO]

Great program, but I was wondering, some of my games have a '?' mark instead of their icon. Is there a way to fix this? I have tried deleting them and re-adding them, refreshing the game list, but nothing works.

 

[Bri]

Are the ones with the question marks newer games? Usually those are games that haven't been added to the database yet. Near the top it says "Database Update 2409" which tells you the highest ROM number that the database currently has in it. If your ROMs have higher numbers, you have to wait for a database update to see the icons and other information. The database is usually updated about once a week.

If the games in question are older (have lower ROM numbers) then you've got a different problem.

-Bri

 

[GiRPwN]

I think you should upgrade the Rominator so you can like overwrite games because yesterday I just got back my DS, and I found the Rominator and I downloaded it, and I renamed all my games using Auto-Rename and then when I like tried to transfer the games over, it was a real hassle to delete certain games, etc.

Another thing is that the save files and crap. When you auto-rename the games, they don't change the names of the save-files, rendering them useless... I think. You should change it so it auto renames the save files too. But only for Donaters.

 

[hankchill]

Are the ones with the question marks newer games? Usually those are games that haven't been added to the database yet. Near the top it says "Database Update 2409" which tells you the highest ROM number that the database currently has in it. If your ROMs have higher numbers, you have to wait for a database update to see the icons and other information. The database is usually updated about once a week.

There seems to be a small bug that shows Question Marks and registers that as the icon, if the game was ever moved and such, with no way to refresh it. I'll add in a function to force-refresh the icons to properly display them again.

I think you should upgrade the Rominator so you can like overwrite games because yesterday I just got back my DS, and I found the Rominator and I downloaded it, and I renamed all my games using Auto-Rename and then when I like tried to transfer the games over, it was a real hassle to delete certain games, etc.

Say wha?

QUOTE

Another thing is that the save files and crap. When you auto-rename the games, they don't change the names of the save-files, rendering them useless... I think. You should change it so it auto renames the save files too. But only for Donaters.

It does rename the save files, just not for old firmwares of the M3, which used .0 for the save extension. If it's got .sav, it'll rename it.

*****

Want to mention as well, Rominator v2008.8 has been released, with a bunch of huge updates!

Spoiler

Changes in v2008.8
[+] Rominator now remembers sort column for game lists
[FIX] Fixed Rominator not giving correct name to games compressed with a gamelist that didn't have the name as the 3rd column
[+] Save Defender renames the name of the flash card if you rename it in the Game List
[+] If you delete a flash card, it loses it's tie to Save Defender. The ability to re-assign a Save Defender profile to another flash card has been added
[FIX] Can no longer copy a duplicate game over to another game list
[+] Upon creating a Flash Card, you can specify what type you have. This will serve for future purposes for card-specific functions. Only supported flash cards have been listen so far
[+] Flash Cards are editable (Except the path), can rename and specify type by double clicking the card in your List
[+] Brand new feature: Cheat Downloading. Based on your Flash Card, you can download the appropriate Cheat Database straight from GBAtemp.net. Special Thanks for Narin of GBAtemp for maintaining the cheats!
[+] Along with cheat downloading is Auto-Updating. If a new cheat file is available, Rominator can auto-download it and update your flash card's cheat file silently (Available to registered users only)
[FIX] Size now sorts properly when the column heading is clicked on -- NOTE: Due to a bug in the development environment, Rominator can currently only sort one way with size -- Smallest game to largest game. I am currently trying to find a workaround for this.
[+/-] Changed the way database update is handled; Only has to create temporary data for the DS Database (for decompression)
[+] Added Box Art Manager, which lets you download the box art for the games you have in your lists in bulk (Registered Users Only)
[+] Added 'Known Bugs' in the Help Menu. Any discovered or reported bugs will be added there, so if you see it already in there, don't report it.
[+/-] For Windows, there is now a folder called 'Rominator Libs' which contains all the DLL's Rominator uses. This folder must be in the same Location as Rominator to run. I am not happy about this change but the folks at RealSoftware forced it upon me when I upgraded, so hopefully the next revision of RealBasic will let me pack all of the DLL's back into the application.

The big one in there is the Cheat Support -- Rominator now talks with GBAtemp and connects directly to Narin's cheat files. If there is an update, it can be downloaded and updated straight to the flash card from Rominator. As a plus, for Registered Users, they can have the database auto-updated whenever the flash card is inserted. If a new one is available, it is downloaded automatically and writes it to the appropriate folder for your flash card. Remember to set your existing flash card type by double clicking on it!

The second biggest one, as promised, is the return of the Box Art Manager. Go ahead and waste my bandwidth

And finally, a 'known bugs' section in the Help menu, so you know what I am already aware of to be fixed and don't have to report it.

Enjoy!