ok it's time for me to get off my tush and work on these. I know we had half hazardly discussed this but never really came to a formal conclusion. Plus I'm too lazy too dig thru the threads and find the old messages.

Basically we have Game Manuals, TV Commercials, Gamefaqs, and General Text Files.

Two things I do remember (or have managed to dig up).

A request by RessX made back on Oct 11. Not sure if you changed your mind on this.

We did agree to (possibly) hard code some directory names. I figured the user definable "Text file directory" would be a good starting point. I kinda pictured the user being dumped into that directory with a file select menu.

If they pick a .png or .jpg file they will be shown that with the ability to zoom, etc.
If they pick anything else (except a movie) it will assume its a text file.

I vaguely remember Ressx mentioning seperate menu options for each one. So I'm thinking if the user picked (for example) "Game Manuals" then they would be dumped into wherever the "Text file directory" points to plus the "Manuals" directory or something. For example "e:\emu-documentation\manuals". Game faqs would be "e:\emu-documentation\faqs\" etc.

Obviously it would make sense to put commercials somewhere else since they are not really related to documentation.

One thing I know that will not work is relying on the game crc. I think that would probably cause to much confusion for the user to have to make sure the filename is named properly. Probably easier to just point them to the right directory and let them fish out the file themselves.

I think that about covers the possibilities so debate away!

I like the idea I would use it Instead me having to look up guides online just right click browse to and tada

ok just throwing around ideas here.. I managed to find the two messages I was looking for. One of the original suggestions was..

off the root emu directory. In general it kinda makes sense to put them there but there are two disadvantages.

1) If the user is running off of DVD (does anyone really do this?)
2) If the drive the user is using for emulators (typically E:) low on space.

Then there was the other suggestion.

Not sure what happened to "Text Files". Would that still be in the emu directory? Disadvantage being #2 above.

Question.. Is there any point to a "Text File" directory? Originally it was intended for viewing text based documentation (of which there is plenty of). But I think RessX is viewing it as having a different purpose?

Possibilities.. Whatever directory the user sets to default (lets pretend it's E:\emu-documentation). Nice and generic.

Let Manuals, and GameFaqs be off of that directory.

E:\emu-documentation\Manuals
E:\emu-documentation\GameFaqs
E:\emu-documentation\Text Files? (I miss our old friend).

TV Commercials would be stuffed in the same directory as movies. (lets pretend it's E:\Videos).
a sample..

E:\Videos\TV Commercials
E:\Videos\Colecovision
E:\Videos\Atari5200

Yes I finally had a change of heart and decided removing the forced emu name from the default movies is a good idea. It finally hit me that screenshots and saves are like that because they are files "writable" by the emu. Whereas movies are "placed" there by the user.

If the user really wanted to get fancy they could do (with manuals/gamefaqs) the following.
Say the emulator is AdamX. They pick "E:\emu-documentation\Colecovision" as their default directory.

E:\emu-documentation\Colecovision\Manuals
E:\emu-documentation\Colecovision\GameFaqs
E:\emu-documentation\Colecovision\Text Files? (I miss our old friend).

Or if the emulator was Genesis. They pick "E:\emu-documentation\Genesis" as their default directory.

E:\emu-documentation\Genesis\Manuals
E:\emu-documentation\Genesis\GameFaqs
E:\emu-documentation\Genesis\Text Files? (I miss our old friend).

I hope this all makes sense.

I like the idea.
And I like the following:

1. I am playing a game
2. I go to the In-game menu
3. I go to Game Documentation
4. The emulator throws me on the root if "it's" documentation folder,
something like --- F:/Emulators/Emu-Name/Documentation

5. And from there it is up to me, I can enter in the directory FAQ and check it.
Or enter in the directory Manuals and look for my game.

The only thing I find out important is to - once the guy opens a document - make
the emulator remember this document as long as the game session is running.
If the user quits the game the emulator "forgets" the document and in the
next game played the user will need to search again.

For the users running from DVD:
The newer versions of emulators should have the documentation folder
already created inside its distribution file. If the guy burns it to a DVD
without "stuffing the dir" with documents, the emulator will just open
a empty folder when the function is used in the In-Game menu.

If the user removes the empty bundled documentation folder and burns
to a DVD, the emulator just should notice it and say --- "You fool, there's
no milk and honey for you."

Anyone agree?

AND ----- Snes9Xbox V1 has this View Text Feature already in the InGame menu.
I use it sometimes to check out some game faqs. Once I enter the game,
read some document, return to the game, the emu remembers the correct position in
text where I was in the next time I read it again ----- of course, during the very
same current game session.

This looks like the same feature you have been talking about, MadMab.
By the way... is this present in the other Xport stuff too?
I don't remember about it in the other emulators. I will check.

C.

I got the general framework of my code all worked up along with some minor changes to commonfuncs code. Seems I was duping a bit of code (happened before with unzipfile).

Now I just gotta decide to try it out soon, or wait till my usual (compile & debug) window. Probably the latter, less I end up staying up all day.



Thanks for the suggestion. I think the current text file viewer already remembers where you were. But I'll have to be sure my new "multi-purpose" mock-up does as well.

Yes that is pretty much what I'm talking about. It is all based off of snes9xbox (copy from the best!) as requested by RessX and Gilles999.

Sorry I've been missing while you were discussing this. I had to finally get a little nap. Couldn't sleep too long though because I work tonight and I have to be able to sleep a little while before work. So I got a few more hours for testing now and then it's off to my one day work week.


Sorry to bring different suggestions to you this late that I hope you consider. I hope you haven't invested too much time into this yet because I have a different way of doing this that I would like to debate and hope that you don't choose the other way because you've already done it


The ability for the emu to select the system name for movies has actually grown on me since I started using it the right way. I'm actually sad to see it go now. Are you able to make the emu assign nested directories as well?


Here's how I will like to have my rig set up when it's all done. I'll use ADAM and mendafenx_nes as the example. (I've made two to see what your preference is. I like both of them, but number 2 is probably the way to go)

Example 1:

F:\Xtras\Commercials\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Commercials\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\NES
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\NES
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\NES

Example 2:
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Commercials
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Video Previews
F:\Xtras\NES\Commercials
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\NES\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\NES\Video Previews

Points to mention:

1) I don't really see a benefit in "nesting" both the gamefaqs and the manuals in a "emu-documentation" directory level by default (Assuming you're using a different menu option for each one). I think it's a lot cleaner looking if separated the way I have them above.

2) We absolutely cannot use the E: drive for this stuff by default. I understand why it needs to be done with screenshots, but this stuff is so large for the most part that it would take a great deal of work for anybody to pear it all down to actually fit on the E: drive with their favorite games. The only exception to the size issue would be gamefaqs, but if we're putting the rest of them on F, I would just as soon put them together with the rest of the Xtras on F.

3) E is a horrible place to use emulators in my opinion, unless you only have the standard 8GB box and you're forced to (what's a 500 GB hard drive now? 40 bucks?) I used to have them there but found the F:\ drive much more suitable. As I mentioned before, I still have many more images to go and I have less than 1GB left on the E drive as it is. There is no way my emulators would even fit on E anymore.

That being said, I'm not too concerned with people using a DVD to play these either. If you wanted to use the full Xtras for SNES, you'd need 3 DVDs or more to do it (which I don't even think is possible anyhow).

Let's keep stuff (except for saves and screenshots) off of the D and E drive for my sanity.

4) I think relying on game CRC as the first place to look, and then allowing the user to manually select the specific Xtra is a great idea. Particularly if we're already going to be setting up CRC's for the synopsis. All of my names will be matching perfectly with the Xtras, so there's really no reason somebody should be doing double work and gathering their own roms now anyhow. The ability for the emu to discover there is no matching CRC and then defaulting to the directory for the user to choose would be a good backup plan if for some reason they haven't downloaded the Xtras yet.

5) I do like the idea of the emulator remembering the last gamefaq or manual you brought up too, but if we use the CRC check functionality, this won't matter for those of us with the correct roms.

6) I don't know if there is a memory drain for allowing the user to choose directories, but we may want to reconsider the ability to do so for all options. I know that we have to make concessions for E drive and DVD users, but because of the large file sizes spanning many different emulators, F drive as default is really the only place that makes sense.

Let me know what you think,
~Rx

TOTALLY agree with RessurectionX here
And for the games texts, see how zsnexbox works:

-You are playing a game
-You are clicking the right thumbstick (in game menu option)
-You choose "load game guide", and here, you choose yourself the desired game.txt file from the list
(you can even choose the color of the displayed text)

In fact, the users put themself the gamefaqs (in .txt) in the "guides" folder of zsnexbox
I love how zsnexbox handle this.

Awesome man. Always glad to have your vote

Which option did you like more:



I prefer number two myself. Whatever your base directory for Xtras was (Maybe you don't like "Xtras" ), when you chose directory "X" for Commercials for ADAM, it would automatically put your directory to "X"\ADAM\Commercials.

If we have a uniform system like this for rom directories on everyone's box, we can simply have a help file telling people where to put all there stuff (assuming they have an F drive) and there should be no questions about the default settings for the directories.






Yeah... that's an awesome feature, ain't it? Now imagine it with a CRC romcheck before defaulting to the default directory, and take it another step further in your imaginiation and see a textfile viewing screen for gamefaqs that looked like another of your skin screens with readable black text on a nice looking background.

Shortened up for sanity.
1) The "root" directory will be configurable by the user. It's just the "Commercials" "Game Faqs" "Game Manuals", etc that would be hard coded. Plus the emu-name since you seem to like it that way now.

2) See #1

3) See #2

4) Remember how confused you were when I tried to explain how my overlays were named. Now just imagine the user trying to name their files that way. Plus there are some games with 8 or so CRC's. That really eats into the 42 character limit. If we create a text file to store this info then the user would have to edit it everytime they wanted to add documentation. If there is an easy way around this I'm open to suggestions.

5) Currently the text viewer remembers where you were in the last document you looked at. But I don't think it actually remember what the last document was.

6) See # 3.

Don't worry about my code. I ended up coding it in such a way that I can still test it while we decide how to do things.

Okay. That does seem to clear up number 2 and 3 as well...... I think. I get. The Point. (I say in my best Joe Peshci voice)

So this goes back to my "nested directories" question. If, say, I were selecting the "Root" directory for Commercials while I was in the ADAM emulator. Could it then create the ADAM folder as well as the Commercials nested within it and then I could load my files in the F:\Xtras\ADAM\Commercials folder? I'm picturing the 25 plus emus that I'm going to have set up in this fashion in the future, and with 5 (or more?) possible sub-folders for the Xtras on each one I think it would work out really well that way.

Root\Emu\Xtra "X"

To think..... I was storing this stuff inside each individual emu folder since we started with the SNES emulator. What a cluttered mess when we're talking about 12 or so emus instead of one. That's the first one we did and even the screenshots are in the emu directory on that one. I got so used to my text files, manuals, screenshots and videos all in the emu directory that I modeled every other emulator out there after that system. I gotta say now, because of the fact that all the directories are hard coded, that's really the only flaw that ZSNES has.... except for the 25 or so games it doesn't play, but I have yet to find the emu with perfect compatibility. I know some people in here are bigger fans of XPorts version, but for me it's ZSNES all the way, even if I have to do everything differently for that one.




I don't remember what happened at work last night man, but if you say it's true, it's true. (You sure it wasn't Gilles

Actually, I'm having a hard time picturing it now. Regardless of how I name the rom, it will read off the CRC, right? (Maybe the problem there is each CRC adds to the 42 character limit?)

I'm thinking we could do this option to automatically pull up the manual/gamefaq/commercial/etc. by my romnames, and then as a backup if there is no matching romname you could go to the designated folder you were looking for and manually select your intended file. Win win for everyone. It doesn't lock out people who don't have my extras from getting to what they want, but guys like you me and Gilles who put the Xtras on the box will have perfect tested naming conventions for all roms and they will match up perfectly to our synopsis file.

You wouldn't even have to re-do it the way you've already done it with Colecovision for the synopsis because I've already tested and it looks as though the synopsis looks perfect for all of the games it's provied for. Am I right in thinking that since the synopsis for ADAM works perfect with the CRCs that it won't be any problem making the emu check for matching CRC before going to the manual, commercial or gamefaq?



Ah yes, but if we can manage a CRC/Romname pre-check functionality.



6) I don't know if there is a memory drain for allowing the user to choose directories, but we may want to reconsider the ability to do so for all options.

I must not be reading you right on that one. I'm not sure how 5 answers 6. I was just talking about memory drain because I believe you thought it may be a problem if we allow the user to configure every directory before. I was simply saying that we may want to reconsider and allow the users to configure the directories for every option on their own. (Even though that sucks to have to do all that and the possibility it would eat more precious memory)

I'm thinking if we went with my suggestion in answers to 1,2,3 above that it's a moot point if most of the directories that will be new to the emulator will be created off of the root directory.



I don't want to put you out man, but it's nice of you to clairify that. I just know how pissed off I was at myself when I finished all of my work on NES and SNES (and undoubtedly other emu dats I will release in the future) and realized I messed up and used old roms after hearing from everybody how they couldn't find half of the roms that would match with the newer sets available. How was I supposed to know though, right? I mean, it they were working, why would somebody update them to a newer dump?

At that moment, it seemed like so much of my work was wasted (I mean, it's fine on mine, but I really want to help other people do this so nobody ever has to waste years of their life like I have). It wasn't just the rom version, but I wouldn't bring myself to just change the datfiles to the new roms, which by itself takes a lot of work and a considerable amount of time to rename everything and then make sure it's got exactly the same roms in the same place, but I'd then have to tell people I tested the games when they were in all essence completely different roms sharing the same general information. There was no way I was going back and re-testing everything. I tested PSX long enough to know what a difference that could make and I might be vouching for work that I didn't really do.

BIG THANKS TO MM? FOR STEPPING UP AND FIXING THAT PROBLEM FOR NES AND SNES!

Take a bow bro. You deserve the recognition. Only I could probably really appreciate the work involved in doing all of that since it was a very large sum of roms you had to replace on both emus. Just about 1/50th of the work I've done so far maybe, but much much more than I could ever expect out of anybody. Really man.... thanks for not just being a lurker and leacher. I've been both myself plenty, so I'm not rippin' on anyone.....

Just sayin I know the feeling of having to re-do a whole bunch of stuff. Not even saying you are re-doing anything at this point, because I really don't know where you stand on the issue now. Just saying that I hate doing double work myself, and wouldn't want to be putting you out is all.

Later,
~Rx

Yeah we could have it create those directories, whether we go with example 1 or 2. Although I would expect that the user already has them set-up. Alot of x-port functions do this anyways. I assume to make it easier for the user and prevent any confusion.

Yeah I ran into that issue some time ago when I used to stuff my ROMS and screenshots into the emu directory. Especially on the emu's with larger games! It's gonna be even more crowded with all the Ressurection Xtra's.

It was back when you were working on the Adam games and asked if I minded sending you the overlay files and I tried to explain to you how I name them so that the emu knows they go with a particular game.

Yes but if there exist say 8-10 different ROM's with different's CRC's. Then naming a documentation file AABBCCDD_EEFFGGHH_IIJJKKLL_MMNNOOPP_QQRRSSTT.txt not only exceeds the 42 character limit but can be pretty confusing to the average user.

This is really the only way to go. At least the only one I can think of. Especially considering most people are gonna be using the Ressurection Xtras.

Yeah that is pretty much what I was shooting for. I don't think the user will complain to much about the directory names. Just as long as they can specify the drive and root directory so they can put it somewhere where they have the space.

As for ROM versions... who knows. Some people are just OCD and just want their ROMs to be technically correct.

Before I forget the new code will be able to view within ZIP files. I still need to test it, though. I'll probably take one of the sets you have available and zip 'em up for testing purposes.

With out tooting my own horn in the presence of you gentleman, It was my pleasure. I am glad I can offer some sort of help to this great project! I hope that these dats will make it easier for people, and give you guys a bit more to work with. I will be glad to improve upon the dats (if needed) when people really start testing this stuff.
So again, Thank you guys.

Good to know. I'm really leaning towards example 2 here, how about you?



Yeah. No problem with one emu..... quite messy with over 10 though. It won't be bad though if we do it like we're talking about though. Nice and organized and easy to find everything because it's all uniform.



Ah.... Now I vaguely remember this conversation. It must have been so confusing to my feeble little mind that I just purged it.



That's what I thought you were saying. Bad solution there then for a system with so many alternates.



I think so too, and the backup plan provides a fail-safe for it so there shouldn't be any problems for anyone.



Nice and clean and easy to explain. That's what a lot of this work is all about right?



I'm having a hard time following this thread now with our 10 conversations in a post. I'm not exactly sure which of my comments triggered this. I'm about as OCD as you can get and still function relatively normally in society. But I'm not that OCD (well... technically I am, but there are certain things that just don't bother me as much as others. I'm already obsessing over 1 set of a million things.... I'll leave the other million things to the next crazy OCD guy out there to clean up after me.... shame on you for giving me anymore ideas.)



Wow... that's pretty cool. Now I kinda wish I left the long romnames with the extra rom information on the actual rom image and just shortened the zip so it would transfer. We can put most of that stuff in the synopsis where it belongs though. Just like in ADAM.

Keep up the great work man,
~Rx

Hey madmab....

I'd like to organize everything on my computer tonight the way we're going to have things set up in the future. Which one did you want to do?

Example 1:
F:\Xtras\Commercials\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Commercials\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\NES
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\NES
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\NES

Example 2:
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Commercials
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Video Previews
F:\Xtras\NES\Commercials
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\NES\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\NES\Video Previews

Thanks,
~Rx

Sorry I didn't respond sooner.

I suppose #2 would be ok. I dont really have a preference one way or the other.

Cool. 2 it is then...

Oh.... just realized that I can't mirror my PC changes that I'm making on my box until that part of the code is updated on emus with vid preview, since the movies won't be in folders like "A2600" anymore. I'll hold off on mirroring my PC until the NES, PSX and ADAM betas are updated and then I'll let you know how it works.

EDIT: I'll also hold off on moving my screenshots at all until we figure out what we're doing for sure. There are benefits to changing SCREENSHOTS to my directories above and there are benefits to leaving them the way that they are already.

I think that it would look more uniform the way that I have it above, put in a system specific folder marked "ADAM\Screenshots", instead of the current "SCREENSHOTS\ADAM", but that would all depend on how you were able to make the code work for the default.

Whoops didn't realize you were lumping screenshots and previews in there.

That might create confusion for current users. Especially with screenshots since most people probably already hava an established set of screenshots.

I was looking at it from the viewpoint that if the user was "navigating" directories for documentation Example 2 would be easier. But as far as screenshots go changing the format may be a bit of hassle for people.

We have people that barely know how to get an Emu on their xbox or FTP ROMs over much less move screenshots to another place.

That's fine. I was kinda thinking the same thing. If by "previews" you mean video previews, I don't see any harm in them going there. Anyone who used my Xtras so far had to know how to move them there in the first place. I don't see any reason why not to have the video previews and the commercials in the same spot as the gamefaqs and manuals.

Could you do me a favor though? I'd like to put the screenshots there on my own. I want everything completely clean, even though I will be veering off the path that was previously established to do it. Can you write in a small bit of code that only makes the emu folder (ADAM, NES, etc.) if you pick E:\screenshots or F:\Screenshots? I would like to put my screenshots in the directories as I have them above, but I'm unable to now because the emu automatically adds the emu folder.

Thanks man,
~Rx

EDITED TO ADD: If you have any other ideas about how to do this madmab, that's cool too.

In the end, i want one single folder that contains all of this stuff. I am even going to put my roms in these folders in the end so that every single thing that one of the emulators uses is in a system specific folder.

Basically, I want it to look like this in the end:

F:\Xtras\ADAM\Commercials
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Roms
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Video Previews
F:\Xtras\NES\Commercials
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\NES\Roms
F:\Xtras\NES\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\NES\Video Previews

And any other folders we end up using that are emu specific. I know that that is not going to be what everyone wants, but I was just mentioning it so we can adjust the code so we can have it both ways.

Thanks again man,
~Rx

TADAAA! Madmab has reached 1000 posts

Time to celebrate!!

Thing is RessX not everyone stuffs their screenshots on E:\screenshots or F:\screenshots. I can think of at least two people who place them in different places.

So, how do we get it so I can put it in the folder I want without it creating the emu directory? Any ideas?

Congrats madmab, I was just waiting to consider you a freak

Here's to you!

Alright guys. I don't know if you've had time to mess with the latest beta where I added in preliminary documentation (.txt/.jpg/ or /png) and movie viewing into it. But a couple of things did cross my mind while experimenting with it.

I didn't really feel comfortable with the up/down settings on the left analog stick. Seemed unnatural. Should I reverse them?

I was thinking of having the left/right triggers used for scrolling up/down a little faster.

As it is now if the graphic file being viewed is larger than the current screen size it stretches out to it's full size. If it is smaller than it stretches to fit the screen. The thinking behind this is that on a hi-res document most likely the user is gonna want to "zoom" in anyways.

But I thought maybe it would be handy to assign two extra buttons. One would expand it to it's "normal" size, the other would stretch it to fit the whole thing in the screen.

Oh and eventually. Press right on analog stick for help screen (made by gilless999 of course!).

Anyways any feedback would be appreciated.

Other features like remembering which file was last viewed which we already discussed will eventually be added in so no need to worry about those just yet. Right now the code is more of a skeleton structure than anything.

I like all of those ideas, madmab

I totally agree with the scrolling. Like in the synopsis, now, using the left/right triggers to scroll feels very comfortable and smooth.

Using triggers in a fighting game...? Not so good.

Thanks man

Hey madmab,

I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but if I don't try it before going off to bed this morning I'll definately be checking it out tomorrow.

Love the idea of using the two buttons to stretch the image. That's a great idea. I only had a few questions about the entire image viewing process.

1) I was wondering how the buttons would work on images larger than the screen opposed to images the same size as the screen. Is this right....... If the image is naturally bigger than the screen when you press the fit-to-screen button, it will size the image down and if the image is naturally smaller than the screen than it will stretch it to the screen. And when the "natural image size" button is pressed than either document will revert to whatever size the emulator displays the images at their actual resolution.

2) There will be a way to zoom in and out of a picture manually, right?

3) How will the document viewer handle files that don't easily fit in the same ratio as your screen like boxart and cartart? Will there be a way to display graphics so that "full size" means that it stretches the image out as much as possible both ways, but stops and keeps the correct ratio when one of the "maximum boundary" limits are reached?

4) Default size for all images should be full-screen, don't ya think?

As for the triggers, I'm always about using them for documents. I don't see any reason to take out the up/down ability though if it doesn't keep you from using those buttons for a better purpose. I know the triggers are our preference, but maybe somebody else likes the up/down thing better, right?


Help screen = a most professional look. Man.... people are going to be so blown away by all of this...

~Rx

1) Umm yeah. Something like that. Although I was thinking one button for "fit to screen" and the other for "stretch to full size". Or we could use one button as a toggle.

2) There is. See my post in the other thread about viewing pictures/movies thru the "text file viewer". Since that is used as the current "portal" to gaining access to the media browser.

3) I kinda took the ratio stuff out cause I figured it was probably not important to someone who is most likely interested in being able to zoom in so they can "read the text". IOW I couldn't think of any valid reason to use it.

4) I found while experimenting with the few image files that I could before leaving that on hi-res scans I usually ended up stretching the image to it's full size in order to be able to read it anyways. So I choose the approach of if it is smaller than full screen stretch it to full screen and if it was larger than full screen than leave it full sized. (where you would have to scroll to see it all).

Triggers... kinda lost track of the thread here. But what I was asking is if anyone thought having the triggers act the same way as they do in the text viewer would be handy when viewing pictures.

Hmm now that I think about it option 2 would kinda conflict with the way screenshots and movie previews are currently handled. Would it be better to go with option 1?

What were the options again?

Example 1:

F:\Xtras\Commercials\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Commercials\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Faqs\NES
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Game Manuals\NES
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Screenshots\NES
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\ADAM
F:\Xtras\Video Previews\NES

Example 2:
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Commercials
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\ADAM\Video Previews
F:\Xtras\NES\Commercials
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Faqs
F:\Xtras\NES\Game Manuals
F:\Xtras\NES\Screenshots
F:\Xtras\NES\Video Previews

I see what you're getting at. And I think you're right....

Drat..... Now I'm going to have to move all that stuff again.

Foiled again!!!

btw. I recently added a sort function (simple bubble sort) to the zip file selection routine. This wont really matter much to console emulators but it is rather helpful in Computer emulators in which some zips may contain "multiple disks"!

It should also help further down the line when I have to start sorting the synopis, etc. Cause now I have a better understanding of qsort and why it sucks when it comes to WCHAR created array pointers.

Well......

I'm glad one of us knows what that all means.


I won't have that NES synopsis ready to roll overnight, but I think a lot of that information will be easier to fill in towards the end when we've got a working sort feature. When I made my own genre list for MAME that was a huge help. Looking forward to seeing what you can do.

Off to work. Lucky me.... I get to smoke outside tonight in -10 weather. I sure feel healthier.... damn smoke nazis.

Later,
~Rx

Time to resurrect this old thread.....

The old "Text file directory" will be retired and renamed "Media directory" the new structure will be like this for the Ressurection Xtra's.

F:/media/NES/box front/
F:/media/NES/box back/
F:/media/NES/cart/
F:/media/NES/titles/
F:/media/NES/action/ (or screenshot)
F:/media/NES/misc1/
F:/media/NES/misc2/
F:/media/NES/misc3/
F:/media/NES/misc4/
and so on

The old screenshots directory would still be there for people to use until they get off their arses and upgrade to the RessXtra's. In game screenshots taken from within the emu will still go into the screenshots directory. This is mostly for backwards compatibility but is also due to issues caused if the user is "streaming" their pictures across a network.


Game Manuals, TV Commercials, Gamefaqs, and General Text Files

F:/media/NES/Game Manuals/
F:/media/NES/Game Faqs/
F:/media/NES/Text Files/
F:/media/NES/Commercials

I suppose there will always be the question of moving movies (aka previews) here. But I'd rather leave that seperate. That way people like me who are low on space (especially in debug mode) can stream them off the network.

Hey look.....

Somebody here knows how to spell ressurection right


I love this solution madmab. Glad we can work both into it.

My only suggesion would be that we make the movies directory in the media folder as well (you knew I'd ask ) and if it's not there, it will look in the other options we've already created.

Actually.... I could just do that myself I suppose, since you can tell the emulators where to download. The only problem would lie in the fact that when I put these full torrents together, you'd have to change them all back since they wouldn't work with your share.

Thoughts?

~Rx

Resurrection part II. Since the media browser currently has the focus. Here is a list of notes I made while fooling with some Xtra's on the you know what emulator..

Ability to view synopsis from within game.

Assign buttons to go to next/previous files? (like when viewing documentation)

Create some file to keep track of last settings for each file viewed. Either a seperate one for each file or some type of .ini file in each directory. Seperate file would be easier, but .ini file may be more "readable".

Once the user opens a document - make the emulator remember this document as long as the game session is running.

Left/right triggers to scroll up-n-down?

A button to alternate between displaying the image the same size of the screen or at it's full size. I'm kinda iffy on this one because my math skills are kinda failing me at the moment.

I like it

A lot of that shouldn't be too hard to implement since it's just copying and pasting code from one place to another, right?

I like the sound of a "You know what" emulator