Homebrew UBER DEX

[jurassicplayer]

please tel me if im wasting my time. and i will let this post go DEAD.

Don't double-post and I'm making my reply right now, its just a little long.

-edit-
Finished my post. I hope you take my ideas into account:

Leaving aside the minor spelling errors and lacking graphics, your idea of the button map and the layout could have a couple of changes.

Warning: Iron Wall of Text

Generally, I'm expecting people that want to actually use a pokedex app are expecting to get the bigger things fast while leaving the finer details as things to look at after finding out the basics of the pokemon (base stats, type, etc.) and thus I made my layout with its button map.

In comparison, your button map seems frivolous. Of course the title screen makes sense button/touchscreen-wise, but if anything, there are various unneeded items. In my mind, I would expect things that pokemon players would expect to use frequently first:
-PokeDex
-AttackDex
-ItemDex
-BerryDex
-Type Chart
-Options
-Credits

To be frank, I don't really think any other choices would be needed. Egg groups are useful for breeders...but they really need to know what they are attempting to breed in the first place, which would make it a pokemon-specific option, not really something that deserves space on the main menu. Similarly, Maps and "Versions Of Game" don't deserve a slot in my opinion because they just aren't useful for anything unless you are just looking at it for leisure, not something I would expect any pokemon gamer to really care about. Two additional things that I could add to my list would be minigames as well as instructions (or "Help" as you put it), but they aren't things that are bare ESSENTIALS.

Moving onward to your information page, I believe you are dedicating too many button functions to just changing the description and one image. Four buttons out of the DS's 12 is a dreadful price to pay for changing just a description and an image. This isn't to say that the idea of putting in all the descriptions is bad, but it could be implemented in a vastly sleeker way by adding a start menu rather than using the start button just to go back to the main menu (I'll give a list of what I think should be in the main menu later).
Also, the text might be a problem because I think there is a limit to how small of a spacing can be used between the letters and in worst case senario, your top screen would be trashed with letters. On the other hand, I do agree with having a couple of the items that you have on the top screen such as the capture rate, steps to hatch, final experience, and EV's given, but I don't really think Base Happiness should be up there, nor should the fact that it is a Non-Legendary because for the most part, there are a hell of a lot more Non-Legendary than there are legendary. If anything, Legendary should be depicted by something out of the way, but quickly noticeable such as a star or a pokeball in the corner of either the screen or the pokemon sprite.

On to the bottom screen, I like the idea of the tabs (much better idea compared to my selection bar thing), but there are a few things that I could say about that (I'm disregarding the artwork still).
First of all, your moves are really burning up your screen space taking 4 whole slots. It would probably be more cleaner splitting it into learnable moves (level up/egg moves) and teachable moves (TM/HM/Tutor) or just combining all three. A tab you could add would be the Type Advantages which would be a simplified version of the type chart specific for the pokemon.
The button map for this screen is also inconvenient. The D-pad is fairly useless and could be better used to swap between the evolutions of the pokemon or something because going one pokemon at a time just doesn't seem like a great way to go about things (yes I see how you could rely on the Database search if you really need to). At least with changing between evolutions, it provides a quick way for users to make the connection between pokemon that gained evolutions/pre-evolutions in the later series rather than searching for them. Since that only takes two of the D-pad's buttons, the up and down (or left/right) buttons could be used for something equally useful, ie. give users with scratched and bad touch screens the ability to actually use the homebrew by giving them the task of swapping between the tabs.
I think it might be possible to fit the all tabs on one of the sides, though it might not seem apparent because of the size of your icons. This said, the D-pad can't be used as an alternative to the scroll bar unless it were something closer to my original mockup, so as an alternative idea to using the D-pad and to use those two buttons that could have a better use (X and Y), those could be used for scrolling or better yet, use as multifunction buttons in which you could hold Y for example and then use the D-pad for scrolling, and then hold Y and press B for a shortcut into one of the other Dex's (just an example, I don't actually have any idea of what sort of things I would add to a multifunctional button yet).
I'm sure the A button and B button (these could be swapped with the X and Y from the previous idea of scrolling) are also free as well at the moment if I've kept track of what things I would revise correctly. Surprisingly enough, I can't think of another function for them since most things are already covered, provided the keymap I described above were used. Of course, the B button could be used to go back to the Database search or something similar (like a scroll with the pokemon names and numbers similar to the in-game pokedex) just as easily as having a button for the pokemon cry (or you could just have an entire tab dedicated to it...but truthfully I would just have it play the cry once when you select the pokemon if it were my choice since I rarely listen to them)

Anyways, on to a better funtionality of the start button. In most cases, I feel that a start menu is infinitely better than just using it as if it were a B button. The start menu will cover all of the things that may seem to be missing from all the stuff above (such as what happened to the functionality of the four buttons used on the top screen). Currently in my mind for menu options would be:
-Pokemon Database
-Search
-Version
-Region
-Sorting
-Change Dex
-Return to MainMenu
-Cancel

As an explanation for each of the options:
-Pokemon Database would be the main way of moving through the pokemon with a screen that has maybe a scrollbar, the number and name of the pokemon and maybe the type if there is enough space.
-Search would be the pokemon search obviously, complete with all of the possible ways of searching for a pokemon including name, bodytype, weight, height, type, etc. Preferably it would be nicer to split this into Basic Search and Advanced Search.
-Version would serve as what you put your L&R buttons as since users probably won't be swapping this quite as much as something else that could be used in its place.
-Region would be a nice addition to keeping from using too many buttons and is mainly for the Locations screen so users could choose a region (Hoenn, Kanto, Sinnoh, Johto) since I'm fairly certain it would be much less of a hassle if the user didn't have to keep swapping to the correct region when they only have Pokemon Diamond or something.
-Sorting is just an added feature that isn't really needed and is for the Pokemon Database option and how the pokemon are listed (A-Z, by size, by weight, etc.)
-Change Dex is fairly obvious in what it does, it changes from the current Dex to one of the other ones, like the AttackDex, ItemDex, or BerryDex. (Even though you can change to the AttackDex from the this start menu, there should also be the ability to take certain entries from the AttackDex so that the pokemon-specific view can look up the attack without needing to open up the entire AttackDex or lose what pokemon the user is currently looking at)
-Return to Main Menu doesn't need any explanation I'm assuming.
-Cancel is just to close the start menu without doing anything.

Of course, all of the options I listed can be worded different, but this is the wording that I thought matched up and so that is why I used them.

I suppose this goes without saying, but all of this is just my opinion...I really would like a complete PokeDex as well, but without a sensible layout, it might just end up being a hassle for users.
On the other hand, Saviorkross if you like the revisions I made to his idea and think you can do something similar to it, I'm sure a lot of people would be happy xD. Plus there are people more than willing to help with ideas, graphics, as well as information collecting and I'm happy to say I would be glad to help with any of those though my coding skills rival that of a toadstool.

As a sort of afterthought, you should probably work on your spelling and grammar PokeTrader because without those two, most people will probably write off your ideas as worthless or it makes it harder for a person to understand what you are trying to say.

 

[Ace]

This was the mock-up I made for PokéDexterDS. It's a png ATM, but if you do resave it into 256-color BMP (only 256 colors on the DS supported), it looks pretty shite, in my opinion. I might get around posting the 256-color version later.

It's mostly a revamp of the interface, to try and make it look more real. The buttons are completely remade and it has been mostly recolored to look more high-tech.

EDIT: Seeing as I posted a few milliseconds before jurassicplayer's un-tl;dr'd description (which is great, by the way), I feel there's something most people seem to forget about Pokémon A LOT... The equations involved in training, attacking and capturing Pokémon. One addition I've yet to see in any homebrew application (be it PC or DS) is a capture ratio equator. It'd work by setting which Pokémon you decide to capture, the approximate health you're trying to catch it at (maybe simulate the health bar from the games to do this properly), choose any affliction the Pokémon MAY have when trying to capture it, the Pokéball type used, and any other factor needed to be accounted for into catching it. The equations can be found over at Bulbapedia. They're so precise that it can even tell how many shakes a Pokéball will give, but it's some pretty complex stuff (for a high schooler

)

Another thing on my mind would be an IV calculator. I'm unsure of how this would work. My guess is that if the Pokédex could read the savefiles of Pokémon games available on the flashcart and find which Pokémon are saved with which stats, they could be calculated from there (beating down the wall between writing down the stats and entering them yourself.). Chase-san would probably be someone to ask about accessing the savefiles, and check what they contain.

I think an important addition would be to be able to go back into the original firmware of the flashcart. This'd give users the liberty of checking something on the Pokédex before being able to reload the firmware to go back to their game. I'm on a DSTT, so soft resetting won't work on homebrew's for me, only for commercial roms. Had this cart still been updated officially, they'd probably add a function to soft reset out of Homebrew

Another possibility of the last item above would be to have an .ini file to configure where the roms are and allow you to boot them directly from the Homebrew application itself (although that sounds ridiculous, even for me, who can't program my way out of a Magnavox Oddysey game)

 

[jurassicplayer]

EDIT: Seeing as I posted a few milliseconds before jurassicplayer's un-tl;dr'd description (which is great, by the way), I feel there's something most people seem to forget about Pokémon A LOT... The equations involved in training, attacking and capturing Pokémon. One addition I've yet to see in any homebrew application (be it PC or DS) is a capture ratio equator. It'd work by setting which Pokémon you decide to capture, the approximate health you're trying to catch it at (maybe simulate the health bar from the games to do this properly), choose any affliction the Pokémon MAY have when trying to capture it, the Pokéball type used, and any other factor needed to be accounted for into catching it. The equations can be found over at Bulbapedia. They're so precise that it can even tell how many shakes a Pokéball will give, but it's some pretty complex stuff (for a high schooler

)

Another thing on my mind would be an IV calculator. I'm unsure of how this would work. My guess is that if the Pokédex could read the savefiles of Pokémon games available on the flashcart and find which Pokémon are saved with which stats, they could be calculated from there (beating down the wall between writing down the stats and entering them yourself.). Chase-san would probably be someone to ask about accessing the savefiles, and check what they contain.

I think an important addition would be to be able to go back into the original firmware of the flashcart. This'd give users the liberty of checking something on the Pokédex before being able to reload the firmware to go back to their game. I'm on a DSTT, so soft resetting won't work on homebrew's for me, only for commercial roms. Had this cart still been updated officially, they'd probably add a function to soft reset out of Homebrew

Another possibility of the last item above would be to have an .ini file to configure where the roms are and allow you to boot them directly from the Homebrew application itself (although that sounds ridiculous, even for me, who can't program my way out of a Magnavox Oddysey game)

Snap there were equations like that o.0!?! I must check Bulbapedia again xD. Equations are always good for everything since all you do is stuff in what is needed and out comes the answer.
I don't really know what uses an IV calculator would have...I mean there are cheats for viewing those in-game which is simpler than memorizing numbers and then having it calculate for you. The only calculators I can think of at the moment that would be really helpful would be the IV/EV calculator for finding out the final stats, and a hidden power calculator (the IV's are needed for this so maybe an IV calculator could have some effect...though I would rather just write down the numbers after using the cheat).
As for getting back to the menu, Xenon++ has some source files of a general reset.mse and stuff available in his MS2 things that someone might be able to integrate.

That last possibility isn't really that much of a possibility (that sounds more like making something similar to ysmenu) although supposing you just happen to have inilink, an ndslink pointer file leading to the pokemon game, and a supported flashcart, it might be possible to add a modified homebrew menu loader to load up the pointer file and pull off a moonshell2.10 Xenon++ bypass (Not that I have the coding genius or determination to do this, but it would be cool to do and it is very possible xD).

-edit-
Maybe I should make a new mockup when I get the time xD.

 

[PokeTrader]

Ok i will explane the reasining behind the button map and the lay out.(and i do know that the interface could be made simpler to use and less clutted)
There are diffrent facts needed foe eatch pokemon I think they are.
Thes items dont change with game or sereis.(some of them do but it would be to complex to store them fore eatch ver of game)

• Name
• Picture shiny M/F
• Catch Rate
• Hatch Steps
• Happeness ( e.g milotic,eevee)
• EXP @ L100
• EV 4 ko ( this helps to ev train pokemon)
• Stats(hp atk def satk sdef speed)
• egg group (this wen touched would link to the list of other pokemon it its bredding group.. and i think it would be usfull)
• egg moves
• location( just a note The map would be inter active touch a rout to see all pokemon that are there and the L of them )
• Abilitys

AND These Items that change in diffrent games.

• species
• color
• weight
• height
• desription This changes with eatch Game eg look at decription of dialga i pearl and then diffrent in pearl)
• Number (this changes form National to regional numbers jottoh sinnoh ect) I dont know how to display all of that info without confusing people so i think i would keep to National Numbers.
• the Type early game have singal types not doubble type's
• Evolutionary Infomation. I see to options have the full list of evolutions and Have a note that displayes form witch game they are avalible.
• Learned moves (These change with eatch seires eg Red and Blue learned moves diffrent form HG SS
• TM and HMs tm i think stay mostly same but HM's are very diffrent so there is a diffrent list for eatch sieres
• and move toutor his location and avalible moves change every seires

If I have missed anything (only for individule pokemon I know that items are not on that list)
Please tell me.

now to respont to some idears.

-PokeDex
-AttackDex
-ItemDex
-BerryDex
-Type Chart
-Options
-Credits
pokedex fine items and berries (berries anr items but i agrey they need better Quicker access to that infomation.
Items would bring up a sub menue with berries medicines key intems ect.
AND it is my falt i forgot to put atack dex in but i was ment to(not and excuce but 20 houres worth of work - Life leaves 20 minits hear and there to make a mock up)

You would be abble to link to the egggroupes from eatch pokemon infomation page and see what is compatible with the pokemon you want to breed.

minigames as well as instructions
I like the mini game idear and help instructions (dousnt matter what it is called sme thing more or less)

Legendary should be depicted by something out of the way, but quickly noticeable such as a star or a pokeball
That would save some space on the top screen and look better.(ledgendary would also be a searchible item.)

QUOTEOn to the bottom screen

Tabs are good and i think if i collapsed all tem obes into one i could mave the menue on one side.

Type advantgies little bit iffy about that.(I could have it in main menue wen sellect user has option to select copmair pokemon showing all the dangerous moves the enemy could [definition of dangerous move damige is above 1X eg 2X 4X]this would be use full for strong aponents where the player has to reset any way and could see what would be SUPER affective)

I Dont quite under stand youre button map (its not you its ME)If you made a mock up it would help.
The use of multy function buttions sound complex but if it worked would make mutch better use of the DS 12 buttons (thanks for pointiong them out i haddent counted them)

QUOTE

I feel that a start menu is infinitely better than just using it as if it were a B button. The start menu

You are right it would be better.(all that neds to be said)


ON to Ace Faith


I think Equations would be good especialy EV/IV Traning and planing battle stratgy.

as for booting pokemon games form this home brew or returning to R4 menue It Would be good but i dont know how compatible it would be with diffent cards and diffrent Operationg Systems.( it would be good to pause pokemon game then access this app I dont think it is pausible. Maby a Quick Save Might Work)as for .ini i dont know how ini's work (i know they store settings be for this application they might not be helpfull.0

To sum up it is good to get feed back ( yes it dousnt Look good and function is difficluy ATM but i will work on it ) And try to incorperate some of youre idears. If You want to post Youre own mock up's OR apps hear please do.

Poke Trader

 

[saviorkross]

Well considering your project idea...you probably don't want to put every pokemon as a separate... .pif file... because that is very wasteful in both space and time. Generally a large number of files really slows down the transfer speed which is very unhelpful to the user (slows down everything) and I haven't checked, but if each .pif file takes up a larger amount of disk space than it actually is (I don't really think this will happen, but once again I didn't check) then having that ton of files will start to pile up a fair bit of space.

I've been looking into this the last couple days. Here's a nice explanation on why it might be a bad idea, in regards to size, to have many small files.(Such as my 530-ish .txt files) I'm not sure if it's automatically cut down when using a NDS filesystem like EFS or NitroFS, but it's something to think about.

As for graphics and such, I definitely recommend combining files. By this, I mean having a group of files's data combined one after another into one big file, then reading from them by offsets of their individual file size. So far, I was able to combine files with equal sizes and read back from them fine.(Such as palette and map for backgrounds.) I ended up saving about .2MB which should drop a bit more when I do the rest of the files. I'm working on getting files with varying file sizes to work now.(Such as txt files)

Cutting down from over 3000 files to about 10 or so will be just peachy and should improve read speeds.

Having a lot of files slows things down as I believe it loops through them all when looking for a specific one. When I first started my project, I had something like 10,500 files related to graphics.(Front and back sprites :X) The final .nds file size was around 25MB, but it was extremely slow loading from the filesystem. I packed my current .nds file until it was like 120MB, and I didn't notice much if any speed loss. I'm tempted to go back to my old project folder just to see how much of a speed increase I could get.

QUOTE(PokeTrader @ Jul 16 2010, 02:56 AM) as for .ini i dont know how ini's work (i know they store settings be for this application they might not be helpfull.0

They're basically .txt files with structure. They don't specifically need to be used for settings. I'm not sure how the DS would handle INI, but I suggested because the layout for your PIF file reminded me of it.

I'm not sure if this topic will lead anywhere, but it's certainly food for thought for me.

 

[PokeTrader]

I have Tryed generiDex and it workes fine wen i boot it form R4 directly but gives an error when booted throught Moon Shell 2.10 I Like it it is cleen and simple a few points.
the Decs Button (it is hard to reed )Maby if you have it just display the games it is in and not the every game ever made. and it could link to a map page with How to catch or where to catch.
and i see that moves and location are not it hear yet (i do under stand that it would be alot of work to collect it all) Maby you could use Pif's in a singal file like you explaned in youre answer. that way you could creat a exe that non programes like myself could use to collect the infomation.and then you could make it into singal file.
also mini games seem a good idear .
but this is all asuming that you can be bothed to reopen yure project and make a V2 or 3
It would be good to see a proper nds DEX relesed by creatures INC (makers of pokemon seires)
NOTE:
If you want to encorperate any part of my idear (as lame as it is ) I Give you full permishion to use it without credit.

it douse not need to be said but this is just what i think and is probbly not mutch use to you.

 

[jurassicplayer]

1. Number (this changes form National to regional numbers jottoh sinnoh ect) I dont know how to display all of that info without confusing people so i think i would keep to National Numbers.

2. Learned moves (These change with eatch seires eg Red and Blue learned moves diffrent form HG SS
TM and HMs tm i think stay mostly same but HM's are very diffrent so there is a diffrent list for eatch sieres and move toutor his location and avalible moves change every seires

3. You would be abble to link to the egggroupes from eatch pokemon infomation page and see what is compatible with the pokemon you want to breed.

4. I like the mini game idear and help instructions (dousnt matter what it is called sme thing more or less)

5. Type advantgies little bit iffy about that.(I could have it in main menue wen sellect user has option to select copmair pokemon showing all the dangerous moves the enemy could [definition of dangerous move damige is above 1X eg 2X 4X]this would be use full for strong aponents where the player has to reset any way and could see what would be SUPER affective)

6. I Dont quite under stand youre button map (its not you its ME)If you made a mock up it would help.
The use of multy function buttions sound complex but if it worked would make mutch better use of the DS 12 buttons (thanks for pointiong them out i haddent counted them)

7. I think Equations would be good especialy EV/IV Traning and planing battle stratgy.

8. as for booting pokemon games form this home brew or returning to R4 menue It Would be good but i dont know how compatible it would be with diffent cards and diffrent Operationg Systems.( it would be good to pause pokemon game then access this app I dont think it is pausible. Maby a Quick Save Might Work)

9. as for .ini i dont know how ini's work (i know they store settings be for this application they might not be helpfull.0
1. If pokemon gamers got confused by National versus regional numbers, then they really shouldn't be playing pokemon...Every pokemon gamer should understand the numbers and that is the target group anyways.

2. Supposing you use a menu that has the settings for what version of the game, it wouldn't be hard for the information to be changed as a per version basis, which was one of the reasons why I suggested a "version" option in the start menu. Separating TMs, HMs, Egg Moves, Learnable Moves, and Move Tutor ends up taking 5 whole tabs if they aren't combined which is why I suggested just combining them all into two tabs, Learnable (Egg Moves and Level up) and Teachable (Move Tutor, HM, TM). Nothing is resticting from separating the information in the tab into parts, which means it is fairly simple to combine them all. Plus, if I remember correctly a majority of the pokemon games have only one move tutor save Gold and Silver versions because of the joint Kanto-Johto availability so it wouldn't be a big problem to just put "Move Tutor - Route 36" supposing that you one again have a "version" option in the start menu and of course, the move tutor's moves would be placed underneath. This way would save tabs and leave more space to actually fit everything onto the screen.


3. Once again, I feel there is little need to have egg groups on the main menu. You have to take into account that pokemon breeders have reasons for breeding certain pokemon, whether it be for the egg moves or to pass on the IV's. In both cases, you would need to know what it is you want to breed before being able to compare. In the case of egg moves, a pokemon breeder would most likely need to visit the pokemon page to find a suitable pokemon with the egg move they want. That being the case, there would be easy access to the Egg Groups. Similarly, pokemon breeders aren't just breeding for straight up perfect IVs and end up with a Raticate (example pokemon), they are aiming for perfect IVs on a pokemon of their choice. Thus, it is safe to say that they gone to the pokemon page to see what egg group their ideal pokemon is in before they can choose what they need to breed. Of course with that being said, a seasoned pokemon breeder probably would not need to check what the egg group is and in that case, your initial setup would work better for them, but keeping to the more general populus, I feel that the normal pokemon gamer would not be able to know what the egg group of their pokemon of choice is.

4. After more thought, Instructions would definitely be helpful if the button configuration is like what I imagine, but while searching around, I realized another potential addition that would be very helpful to the casual gamer, "Game Mechanics" with the specifics on what happens when you breed pokemon, the feebas factor, explanations on IVs/EVs, and other background mechanics going on.

5. There is a strong reason for why a Type Advantages tab would be needed, mainly because supposing the regular gamer is looking at a certain pokemon (this is more evident in the newer generation pokemon), it is much more convenient and clean than having to exit out of the pokedex just to check what it is bad against. Particularly for myself, I usually check the type advantages when looking at a certain pokemon in order to give my pokemon moves to counter those types. Thus, I felt the need to suggest the type advantages to be placed pokemon specific as well as in the main menu.

6. If I get the time, I may make a mock-up. It probably won't be as polished looking as my original mock-up, but hopefully it will make more sense to you.

7. Supposing a Game Mechanics option is added, it would probably all go under there.

8. Xenon++'s method works with a variety of flashcarts including Acekard, M3 series, R4, Supercard DSOne, and anything that runs YSMenu. There are a few flashcarts that cannot use his method due to incompatibility with ysmenu or no ability to autoboot a rom including EZ-Flash and various flashcart clones (possibly CycloDS as well).

9. An .ini file may very well be helpful if you consider the setup that I have explained and could be used to store the region, version, default search (either basic or advanced), and maybe some other things user related.

...Also, you forgot to say why you chose the button mapping that you did and apparently I have a very hard time quoting anything that you have said which doesn't contain a spelling error...

As for graphics and such, I definitely recommend combining files. By this, I mean having a group of files's data combined one after another into one big file, then reading from them by offsets of their individual file size.

I'm not sure if this topic will lead anywhere, but it's certainly food for thought for me.

That is something I would have never thought of doing even if I did know how to code xD. That is a smexy idea. I'm hoping this topic will lead somewhere...if anything maybe Benjifs will come back soon and revamp his system.

QUOTE(PokeTrader @ Jul 16 2010, 09:31 PM)

I have Tryed generiDex and it workes fine wen i boot it form R4 directly but gives an error when booted throught Moon Shell 2.10 I Like it it is cleen and simple a few points.
It would be good to see a proper nds DEX relesed by creatures INC (makers of pokemon seires)
NOTE:
If you want to encorperate any part of my idear (as lame as it is ) I Give you full permishion to use it without credit.

You need to change your Moonshell2 extlink loaders, they can't boot .nds files that are that large.
There probably won't be a proper pokedex released for the DS, especially when they sell pokedex toys, plus it wouldn't be nearly as complete as if a fan made the pokedex.
I don't really think you should call it your idea...I mean, if he uses your keymap or something that you specifically wanted yeah, but for the rest of it...really any dedicated pokemon gamer would want the same things in a pokedex...


-_-" Apparently I'm probably looking too in-depth for an imaginary pokedex again...I really don't understand why I even attempt thinking so much on this when I barely play pokemon anyways, but w/e.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

*briefly off topic*

Man, these are some tasty words.
*Om nom nom *
They need a bit of ketchup though.
Seems I let them get stale before munching on them.

Carry on, and good luck with your project!

 

[PokeTrader]

just to let you know.
im negishiating with a programer
And i think i would like some help with graphics for the final product.(anything better than what i did is fine)
still would like a couple more programers.
I will Try to make a better mock up with some tweekes to its operation. and put it hear wen it is ready. (this may take a wile (dont you hate it how life intrfears with EVRYTHING))But back on topic hopfully we should see a prototyope soon( I hope)

Poke Trader.

 

[Wabsta]

For GeneriDex, I ended up switching to a .txt file for each pokemon. It works fairly well as I use another program to generate them all for me. Might look into INI files as that's what your PFI file reminds me of.

Example of what I'm using:

//1.txt Something similar to what I'm currently using.
1
Bulbasaur
Seed
Grass
Poison
2'04"
15.2lbs
Green
87.5%

etc...

As for xml:

I ended up using XML, but with a shitload of pokémon, it was to slow.

I'm around if you need anything aside from actually programming it. More pokemon homebrew the merrier.

Have you ever tried SQLite?
I used it in a project for the Android platform, and it works pretty fast/good.

 

[jurassicplayer]

I might be able to help graphic-wise (I have an idea of what to use for icons and things) and deciding on a button map (so whenever you have an idea on its operation, just post it up and I'll say what I think about it, and then maybe someone else might as well if they have any ideas).

 

[KazoWAR]

This was the mock-up I made for PokéDexterDS. It's a png ATM, but if you do resave it into 256-color BMP (only 256 colors on the DS supported), it looks pretty shite, in my opinion. I might get around posting the 256-color version later.

It's mostly a revamp of the interface, to try and make it look more real. The buttons are completely remade and it has been mostly recolored to look more high-tech.

EDIT: Seeing as I posted a few milliseconds before jurassicplayer's un-tl;dr'd description (which is great, by the way), I feel there's something most people seem to forget about Pokémon A LOT... The equations involved in training, attacking and capturing Pokémon. One addition I've yet to see in any homebrew application (be it PC or DS) is a capture ratio equator. It'd work by setting which Pokémon you decide to capture, the approximate health you're trying to catch it at (maybe simulate the health bar from the games to do this properly), choose any affliction the Pokémon MAY have when trying to capture it, the Pokéball type used, and any other factor needed to be accounted for into catching it. The equations can be found over at Bulbapedia. They're so precise that it can even tell how many shakes a Pokéball will give, but it's some pretty complex stuff (for a high schooler

)

Another thing on my mind would be an IV calculator. I'm unsure of how this would work. My guess is that if the Pokédex could read the savefiles of Pokémon games available on the flashcart and find which Pokémon are saved with which stats, they could be calculated from there (beating down the wall between writing down the stats and entering them yourself.). Chase-san would probably be someone to ask about accessing the savefiles, and check what they contain.

I think an important addition would be to be able to go back into the original firmware of the flashcart. This'd give users the liberty of checking something on the Pokédex before being able to reload the firmware to go back to their game. I'm on a DSTT, so soft resetting won't work on homebrew's for me, only for commercial roms. Had this cart still been updated officially, they'd probably add a function to soft reset out of Homebrew

Another possibility of the last item above would be to have an .ini file to configure where the roms are and allow you to boot them directly from the Homebrew application itself (although that sounds ridiculous, even for me, who can't program my way out of a Magnavox Oddysey game)

If you use a 16bit BG you are not limited to 256 colors, yes the file size is larger, but you can use more colors.

 

[Sterling]

I am not a hot shot programmer, but I have had experience in Java, and VB.Net so I may be able to help with something to create a dump file for adding/keeping pokemon in. I hope this goes far. Not only because we need a comprehensive Poke'dex for the NDS, but because we all want to leave our mark in the NDS HB community. I wish you good luck, and if you want you can send me a p.m. if you need someone to try and program a pokemon addition sheet.

 

[PokeTrader]

So far i have recives some offers for help form
sterl500 (programing)
jurasicplayer (graphics)
wabsta (programing)

You may want to contact eatchother and get aquanted. I will try to come up with a mock up that we can agree on.
and then start work coding ect.

My E-Mail (if you want anything)is
[email protected]

PokeTrader.

 

[Sterling]

After reading up on outputting input to a .txt file in VB, I figure this will be easier than I thought it was going to be to write a program to output a Database.

EDIT: I messed with the program for a hour or so, and here is what I have so far. Download

I am pretty happy with the results so far. It's way easier than I thought it was going to be. Though I will have to mess with arrays to get all the areas into the text file, it shouldn't be hard. Tell me if the file works for you.

 

[PokeTrader]

I havent been abble to get it to work but it seems good.

So far i have a teem.
as follows

Sterl500 will make the exe component.
jurassicplayer will do any nesery graphics (and a logo)
Wabsta will do the NDS and maby help with the EXE.
i will do what ever i can data collection Graphics (dont expect mutch but examples)

i have contacted the teem and when a file format for the pokemon infomation is finalised the work on the exe will begin. then i will be looking for people to help with data input (collecting infomation for pokemon files)
There will be another Hand dran mock up hear soon it will better explane the GUI (graphic user interface)functions alot better.

Till then sports fans stay tuned

poketrader.

 

[PokeTrader]

 

[jurassicplayer]

Sterl500 will make the exe component.
jurassicplayer will do any nesery graphics (and a logo)
Wabsta will do the NDS and maby help with the EXE.
i will do what ever i can data collection Graphics (dont expect mutch but examples)
There will be another Hand dran mock up hear soon it will better explane the GUI (graphic user interface)functions alot better.

His exe works fine...I think you just don't have the directory already there (it worked perfectly fine for me, though I wish it were an automated process).
As for the graphics, as of right now I'm just using the HGSS graphics from the pokedex (I might as well...) and I'm almost finished with a mockup of the bottom screen, which is surprisingly either slightly hard to fill up or there just isn't enough space to fit everything depending on what I want to fit. Anyways, here is my current mockup (credits to the HGSS game because I stole their graphics to make this, though the icons are all mine pixel by pixel).

I didn't really have a button map for it, though just through looking the button map it tells me is:
-the D-pad up/down is for scrolling in the information window like the scrollbar
-the D-pad left/right is for changing tabs on the bottom tab bar
-start button opens up start menu with the side bar items also included in the start menu (I just made the sidebar because it looked empty without it)
-Changing forms is mapped to some random button (A/B/X/Y/Select...any of them work)

As you can probably see, access to almost everything on this screen can be accessed through the D-pad, one of the main buttons, and the Start button without using the other 6 buttons. Of course, you could always have L/R jump to the left and right buttons respectively and the A button as a tab selector, but for the most part, I would probably find that having A as the selector for just the left and right buttons is good enough, leaving the A button free in the other tabs to be of better use to what is displayed onscreen.

I also combined the TM/HM/Move Tutor into one tab and the Levelup/Egg Moves into another, because I really can't see what use it would be to split it up...both egg moves and move tutor moves pale in comparison volume-wise versus the other two tabs if left uncombined because there just aren't that many egg moves or move tutor moves that a pokemon can learn. I also left in the Type Advantages tab (the star with a T inside) because that is something that I would use and I'm fairly certain others would use as well. Of course, this isn't a massive table, just shows the strengths and weaknesses of the specific pokemon. If anyone has a better idea for an icon (particularly the Ability and Evolution icons) feel free to tell me it. I feel that its fairly intuitive after a quick overview of what each icon is (since I have no problem knowing what each icon is for, but then again, I made them, so who knows)...

There is also that fairly large open space on the top of the bottom screen, which I indicated in red. Quite frankly I have no idea what to put there apart from a Pokemon Cry button because I just can't think of anything else that could be useful (if you go over the list I suppose I could add a natures button, but otherwise, there isn't really anything left).

There happens to be a strange icon that probably nobody will know what it is for (I came up with a use after making the icon) and its the Misc Information tab (the "i"). I felt that it would be better to conserve the upper screen's space for more useful stuff instead of the stuff that barely anyone really cares about a majority of the time including:
-Catch Rate
-Experience
-Steps to Hatch
-Base Happiness
-EV Points Given
-Anything else that you can think of, because at the point where you have to think for it, you know it isn't that important.

Taking a little consideration on if you really care about separating a couple of those tabs, then just use the left and right icons as a way to swap between tab bars or something, because there is very little space to dump more icons in with my current mockup (though I can probably add maybe one or two without destroying the looks).

I'm quite satisfied with this layout though...I feel it doesn't look TOO cramped and if anything, the main window could be made a little bit smaller. Anyways, if anyone wants to comment on it or anything, feel free to since I know I probably haven't thought of EVERYTHING (I do this sort of stuff while watching anime, so my attention is...not entirely there when doing this sort of stuff).

 

[Sterling]

You should put the file path you want into the orange box. EG: C:\Whatever. Then the program creates a file named whatever Pokemon you put into the gray box, with the pokemon's name in the text file.

 

[PokeTrader]

Thank you serl500 it workes file now.
jurasic players bottom screen lookes good ans it has good functionalty.once the button map is worked out we can start on it.