Hacking WiiFlow Lite

[kaisersozeh]

Wiiflow lite - no more updates?
It's a shame you don't have the keys
wiiflow official. Really sad to see the stuff you had planned is not happening. I can use the source with the latest libraries, no special instructions???
I was just going to ask about editing some old wiiflow themes I had to work with wiiflow plus, do you have any pointers?

As that is it for updates is it worth, or even possible, installing the dol as a wad so it runs from on board memory, would it be possible to store configuration data and perhaps the default art in a save
game

 

[fledge68]

Wiiflow lite - no more updates?
It's a shame you don't have the keys
wiiflow official. Really sad to see the stuff you had planned is not happening. I can use the source with the latest libraries, no special instructions???
I was just going to ask about editing some old wiiflow themes I had to work with wiiflow plus, do you have any pointers?

As that is it for updates is it worth, or even possible, installing the dol as a wad so it runs from on board memory, would it be possible to store configuration data and perhaps the default art in a save
game

wiiflow official keys? you mean the ability to modify official wiiflow? if so no i don't. wfl source is compiled with PPC r27. you will probably need to modify much of the code to get it to compile with the latest PPC.

replacing the forwarder with the full channel isnt worth it. and there is a wiiflow savegame that holds bootup info. adding config (wiiflow.ini) to it would be alot of work recoding wiiflow to read/write all the info to/from the save. the default art is compiled as part of the main dol.

 

[kaisersozeh]

I think it seems odd that wiiflow hasn't had an official release for many years, you're actively developing, your release is the de facto wiiflow release. People are missing out on developments and improvements you're making because it's not the official release. It's also bizarre the wiiflow lite thread hasn't been stickied. Is it politics? Do you think you'd be a bit more amenable to supporting wiiflow if you got the recognition you need to do it effectively?
Regardless, thanks for sticking with wiiflow and developing wiiflow lite, it's a great piece of of software with lots of effort invested over the years and your efforts have kept it relevant. Thanks!
You're the most relevant person to request your advice on this because something you've done before - persuading or modifying an existing open source emulator to accept arguments so it functions as a wiiflow plugin. If you're not that interested could you advise me about who to ask?
I want to 'rebrand' Quake GX as QuakeWiiFPS. Gameplay works like a Wii first person shooter - lookspring and aim with the wiimote, strafe and lateral movement with the nunchuck. I have a working dol that can load the mission packs and works from usb. I found open source modified from quakegx on github, for a version that loads from usb, a build that I'm using. If you look for it, its a mod by oibaf66, but i can find a link. Newo very kindly built the source - with some light editing I can drop here under a spoiler if required..
Using abz's tyrquake ini and a made up magic number using today's date, I've a working plugin infrastructure for wiiflow, so the source menu loads the right folder of paks and the right artwork, and the right software loads. But.
The software ignores your selection, picking the default and needs you to load the selection without booting itself.
Totally understand if you're not able to help, but could you point me to someone that could?
I'm a massive fan of this emulator, and I'm happy to build up meta data, generatr artwork and find the best content, to help build a solid and popular plugin, because playing Quake through this interface absolutely rocks, and I reckon I lot of people will be into it.

 

[fledge68]

I think it seems odd that wiiflow hasn't had an official release for many years, you're actively developing, your release is the de facto wiiflow release. People are missing out on developments and improvements you're making because it's not the official release. It's also bizarre the wiiflow lite thread hasn't been stickied. Is it politics? Do you think you'd be a bit more amenable to supporting wiiflow if you got the recognition you need to do it effectively?
Regardless, thanks for sticking with wiiflow and developing wiiflow lite, it's a great piece of of software with lots of effort invested over the years and your efforts have kept it relevant. Thanks!
You're the most relevant person to request your advice on this because something you've done before - persuading or modifying an existing open source emulator to accept arguments so it functions as a wiiflow plugin. If you're not that interested could you advise me about who to ask?
I want to 'rebrand' Quake GX as QuakeWiiFPS. Gameplay works like a Wii first person shooter - lookspring and aim with the wiimote, strafe and lateral movement with the nunchuck. I have a working dol that can load the mission packs and works from usb. I found open source modified from quakegx on github, for a version that loads from usb, a build that I'm using. If you look for it, its a mod by oibaf66, but i can find a link. Newo very kindly built the source - with some light editing I can drop here under a spoiler if required..
Using abz's tyrquake ini and a made up magic number using today's date, I've a working plugin infrastructure for wiiflow, so the source menu loads the right folder of paks and the right artwork, and the right software loads. But.
The software ignores your selection, picking the default and needs you to load the selection without booting itself.
Totally understand if you're not able to help, but could you point me to someone that could?
I'm a massive fan of this emulator, and I'm happy to build up meta data, generatr artwork and find the best content, to help build a solid and popular plugin, because playing Quake through this interface absolutely rocks, and I reckon I lot of people will be into it.

i don't know much about quakegx (never used it). it sounds like theres an option screen on start for you to select the pack or mod you want. what you need is for the game to save your choices so it doesn't go back to the defaults every time.

i would bet if you pay fix94 a small fee he might modify quakegx to do what you want. you should try to PM him.

 

[Tetsuo Shima]

Yeah Wiiflow lite should be stickied, it doesn't really have the attention it deserves.

By the way, I'm trying to replace my old wiiflow with this, installing the WFL as Wiflow version, but I'm facing 2 problems.

1- my source menu has 15 buttons: 12 icons on page 1, the other 3 on page 2. Using WFL, on page 2 after those 3 buttons it shows the other icons I have on page 1, filling the rest of the page. Clicking on all of them brings me to Wii games. How can avoid it?
2- I understand there are no more emuflows with this mod, but sideflow, shortflow etc. that can have multiple layouts. How do I set them up? My goal would be to recreate the correct box proportions I have on standard Wiiflow (e.g. Dos game boxes have larger spines than Wii games, or for Pc-engine CD-rom games I use the jewel case cover set (one of my most beloved creations). Is there a simple way to copy/paste the old coverflow settings from my old installation and tell WFL to use them?

Thanks in advance

 

[kaisersozeh]

There's a reference earlier in the thread to flows and skins modded for wfl, but I can't seem to find them . Also this ^^^^

 

[vbarros22]

i wouldn't expect it.

Thanks anyway, you made a great job with this

 

[fledge68]

There's a reference earlier in the thread to flows and skins modded for wfl, but I can't seem to find them . Also this ^^^^

only one theme and flow pack modded for wfl. never had time to mod the others.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wiiflow-lite/files/themes/

wiiflow themes:
https://sites.google.com/site/wiiflowiki4/themes

@Tetsuo Shima theres no simple way to convert old coverflow to work with wfl. get wfl default coverflow.rar and take a look at it. the easiest way would be open your old wiiflow theme.ini and new wfl default coverflow.ini then copy a coverflow from the old and paste in the new replacing one of the new ones you don't like. you may have to renumber it.

 

[sdoc96]

Yeah Wiiflow lite should be stickied, it doesn't really have the attention it deserves.

+1 I'd love to see it continue and gain some visibility.

 

[kaisersozeh]

I have a crazy idea...
Release wiiflow lite final as wiiflow 5 and sticky that instead of the wiiflow thread.
The wiki, abz stuff, wiiflow lite all superceded and based on one wiiflow to rule them all.
Is it worth putting a poll together to show support for giving wiiflow over to fledge and doing this, because it would totally rock

 

[Tetsuo Shima]

@Tetsuo Shima theres no simple way to convert old coverflow to work with wfl. get wfl default coverflow.rar and take a look at it. the easiest way would be open your old wiiflow theme.ini and new wfl default coverflow.ini then copy a coverflow from the old and paste in the new replacing one of the new ones you don't like. you may have to renumber it.

I tried copying all my emuflows and renaming them to coverflows, and now the situation is slightly better. But now I have coverflow #1 for everything. I can cycle through them if I click on Adjust Coverflow, but if I want to set a different one it won't save my settings. I'd like to have #5 for pcengine cd rom games and #7 for Dos games, for example. <----- Edit: Nevermind, solved. I didn't realize that I had to press 1 to choose a different view

As for my other problem with source menu buttons, is there anything I can do?

Also, I created a new banner for a dosbox game, tested and working with Wii Banner Player, put it in both custom_banners folder and boxcovers/dos folder. but it doesn't show. I don't know what I'm doing wrong
Here it is

 

[dishe]

Two quick questions:
1) Can sources be combined into one flow? For example, if I wanted NAND games and backup ISOs on the same thing? This is something I always wanted to do with the original WiiFlow, and have been considering making channel forwarder ISOs to get all my NAND and Homebrew apps to appear alongside my backup games. Its a real pain in the neck to get forwarders working properly however. These things all work fine in their own source menu, so the best possible thing would be if I could combine them in the app instead. Even if that means creating faux covers so that everything is the same size- I'm ok with that.

2) Is there a way to make B cycle to the next source instead of the source menu?

I'm trying to iron out the kinks in a custom UI for using my Wii as a car installation. Most important bit is that everything be easily used without any pointing at all (completely D-pad and A button navigation), as the whole sensor bar situation is complicated outside of a living-room-couch sort of setup. That's why I currently have to use source-flow and have B set to bring it up. But I'd love to just have one big flow instead of needing to switch at all. Here's what I've come up with so far, basing it just on the Wiiflow Mastermod that I had access to and editing the source menu and some graphics.


Curious as to your thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Tetsuo Shima]

1) Can sources be combined into one flow?

Not sure about nand and homebrew, but surely you can combine multiple plugins in one coverflow. You can add magic numbers in source_menu.ini, they have to be comma separated, I did this for Arcade games, to display in one single coverflow Fba, Fba Neo, Cps1, Cps2 and mame games.
My source menu entry looks like this

[BUTTON_3]
image=arcade.png
image_s=arcade.png
source=plugin
magic=43505331,43505332,464E454F,464E254F,4d414d57

You can try with 'source=wii, homebrew, realnand' (or emunand) and see if it works

 

[dishe]

Not sure about nand and homebrew, but surely you can combine multiple plugins in one coverflow. You can add magic numbers in source_menu.ini, they have to be comma separated, I did this for Arcade games, to display in one single coverflow Fba, Fba Neo, Cps1, Cps2 and mame games.
My source menu entry looks like this

[BUTTON_3]
image=arcade.png
image_s=arcade.png
source=plugin
magic=43505331,43505332,464E454F,464E254F,4d414d57

You can try with 'source=wii, homebrew, realnand' (or emunand) and see if it works

I already tried doing "all sources", and it seems to only combine plugins, which I think is the same as what you did selectively. Anything that isn't a plugin / doesn't have a magic number (NAND, Homebrew, Wii) isn't included in this it seems. My other option is to make ISO forwarders to Homebrew and NAND apps so that they can be loaded next to my other Wii backup ISOs and appear in the same menu. Its quite a bit more work to get it working versus just launching it from the appropriate flow however. Wish I had the chops to edit the source code and make that happen, but I do not.

 

[Tetsuo Shima]

Or you can try enabling multisource. Never tried it, but I've read that you can add sources clicking + on icons

 

[Wiimpathy]

There was a method to combine all sources in WiiFlow. Use the Crap autoboot plugin for Wii games and Mighty channels plugin for Wiiwares : https://gbatemp.net/threads/maxternals-wiiflow-plugins-and-java-apps.344802/
Then you combine them with other plugins using magic=... like Tetsuo Shima explained.

 

[dishe]

There was a method to combine all sources in WiiFlow. Use the Crap autoboot plugin for Wii games and Mighty channels plugin for Wiiwares : https://gbatemp.net/threads/maxternals-wiiflow-plugins-and-java-apps.344802/
Then you combine them with other plugins using magic=... like Tetsuo Shima explained.

Whoa, that's cool... basically you are saying you can use plugins to replicate what the built-in Wii and Nand functions usually do? I'm curious, is there a purpose to those plugins aside from this? Or were they created just to have them in plugin-format for things like this?
In particular I'm confused about the CRAP one. I thought CRAP was a way to make a channel menu forwarder to a particular game, and thought about using that to put everything in the Wii menu and using only the NAND menu in WiiFlo. I eventually nixed that idea because launching a USB loader from a channel forwarder from within an existing USB loader seemed a bad idea (I pictured it having to reinitialize and have double the loading screen wait, etc). CRAP as an actual plugin for wiiflow though... does that forward the game to launch back into the wiiflo we are already in, or does it exit and relaunch?
Also, will the Mighty Channels plugin work for things like my Homebrew app forwarders? I don't use emuNAND, I only have a handful of apps and games on actual real NAND and use those along with forwarders for stuff like WiiMC.

 

[Wiimpathy]

I've just discovered that combining all sources is one of the cool feature added to Wiiflow Lite. You have to copy the 'extra plugins' from https://sourceforge.net/projects/wiiflow-lite/files/plugins/ in the WiiFlow/plugins folder.

 

[dishe]

I've just discovered that combining all sources is one of the cool feature added to Wiiflow Lite. You have to copy the 'extra plugins' from https://sourceforge.net/projects/wiiflow-lite/files/plugins/ in the WiiFlow/plugins folder.

Oh, that's interesting!
I'm not sure I understand how to use this though. Seems to be a bunch of ini files, and the Readme implies it does something else (plugin select menu can be used like source menu?).

 

[kaisersozeh]

I've put a request in for a stickie on this thread.