485 replies to this topic

[greatflash]

headkaze, on Jun 28 2008, 10:28 PM, said:

Version 1.21 Released

- Double clicking a game in the GameList and pressing OK will now take you to the next game in the list to edit.

Well done on another fine update.
Just an idea.. can you do updates to contain only the updated code. Bit concerned that someone will extract the archive and overight. The update contains XML dir that would kill someones work (wouldnt it?)

It is bound to happen

[headkaze]

Version 1.22 Released

- Added an "OK + Next" button which I think works better than my previous update which always jumped to the next record when you pressed OK. This time you can edit a single record by clicking OK and "OK + Next" will jump to the next record.
- Added an option for greatflash called "Jump to Missing Data". When you press the "OK + Next" button by default it will go to the next record. I think this will work fine for filling in missing data when used with the column sorting. If you enable "Jump to Missing Data" it will jump to the next record that has missing data rather than just the next record. It's up to you which one you use.
- Pressing the "Get" button will no longer wipe out any custom entered data.

I sent everyone a PM for how to download the exe only so you don't need to download the whole archive each time there is an update.

Big thanks to greatflash for all the feedback and ideas on how to improve this program

[shaunopp]

headkaze, on Jun 29 2008, 12:02 AM, said:

Big thanks to greatflash for all the feedback and ideas on how to improve this program

Teachers pet! When I get back from 4th of July vacation I'm totally coming up with some good ideas.

[bkenobi]

I've heard Tempest say that in the past and see what he's produced.............

[Tempest]

bkenobi, on Jun 29 2008, 03:49 AM, said:

I've heard Tempest say that in the past and see what he's produced.............

I'm not sure what that means...


HK,

I did the Fairchild again...The save button always gets me, I'm the one who requested the reminder in CPWizard if you remember.

I think I get the get/fix, make up a name part OK. When I click on get numplayers, and get category, I don't see anything happening.

When I did all those map files for Guy, I didn't even know what a map file was for , but I did them. I learn best by watching, but unfortunatly, there's nobody here to show me. If it's more trouble than it's worth to walk me through this, I'll understand, I just don't want to waste alot of your time, or mine....

I did manage to generate this error along the way, but please don't ask me how...

6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: GameEx Database Manager v1.22
6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: Reading Config
6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: Reading Config
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM: ERROR @ PopulateGameList (frmMain)
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM: Failed to compare two elements in the array.
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM:	at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.SwapIfGreaterWithItems[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 a, Int32 b)
   at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.QuickSort[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 left, Int32 right)
   at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.Sort[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Collections.Generic.ArraySortHelper`1.Sort(T[] items, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Array.Sort[T](T[] array, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Collections.Generic.List`1.Sort(Int32 index, Int32 count, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at GameExDBM.frmMain.PopulateGameList(SortModeType SortMode)

Attached Files

•  _Console__Fairchild_Channel_F_v1.007__Tempest_.zip   4.65K   5 downloads

[bkenobi]

Just an attempt at some light ribbing. Apparently I'm not as good with it as you are, so ignore the comment.

[greatflash]

bkenobi, on Jun 29 2008, 05:52 PM, said:

Just an attempt at some light ribbing. Apparently I'm not as good with it as you are, so ignore the comment.

Tempest didnt get it - ha ha..

Oy - stop ribbing Tempest. that is very naughty Bad Bad Bkenobi!

<snigger>

[greatflash]

Tempest, on Jun 29 2008, 03:16 PM, said:

I'm not sure what that means...
HK,

I did the Fairchild again...The save button always gets me, I'm the one who requested the reminder in CPWizard if you remember.

I think I get the get/fix, make up a name part OK. When I click on get numplayers, and get category, I don't see anything happening.

When I did all those map files for Guy, I didn't even know what a map file was for , but I did them. I learn best by watching, but unfortunatly, there's nobody here to show me. If it's more trouble than it's worth to walk me through this, I'll understand, I just don't want to waste alot of your time, or mine....

I did manage to generate this error along the way, but please don't ask me how...

6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: GameEx Database Manager v1.22
6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: Reading Config
6/29/2008 9:32:45 AM: Reading Config
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM: ERROR @ PopulateGameList (frmMain)
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM: Failed to compare two elements in the array.
6/29/2008 9:50:22 AM:	at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.SwapIfGreaterWithItems[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 a, Int32 b)
   at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.QuickSort[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 left, Int32 right)
   at System.Collections.Generic.GenericArraySortHelper`1.Sort[TValue](T[] keys, TValue[] values, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Collections.Generic.ArraySortHelper`1.Sort(T[] items, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Array.Sort[T](T[] array, Int32 index, Int32 length, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at System.Collections.Generic.List`1.Sort(Int32 index, Int32 count, IComparer`1 comparer)
   at GameExDBM.frmMain.PopulateGameList(SortModeType SortMode)

Oh tempest... what are we gonna do with you heh?

Sadly, Mobygames only contains data on 8 Channel-F games. For some reason I can only get it to fill the cat but not number of players?

You will have to do a bit more work to fill the rest of the data!

http://uk.gamespot.c...mes&platform=34 - will help with the years of release

http://www.gamestats.com/index/platform/fc....sort.order=asc

http://www.vglist.com/fairchild.shtml

This may help a bit. Game description may have to involve you also playing them!

Sorry!

[greatflash]

I think i missed an opportunity there:-

Tempest, on Jun 29 2008, 03:16 PM, said:

I did manage to generate this error along the way, but please don't ask me how...

HOW?


<snigger+1>

[headkaze]

Version 1.23 Released
- Fixed bug with "OK + Next" button not working

Sorry about that, download the ExeOnly package again to fix the annoying bug that slipped through last release.

Tempest: That database you uploaded is incomplete. Also if a dat file doesn't have the game listed I think it's best we either leave it blank or use a fake name instead. We definately don't want the wrong game name listed.

Some examples:

The game Hockey, you have under TOSEC as "Hockey & Tennis" but there is another game called that which is already in the TOSEC game column. Same thing with "Tetris by Peter Trauner" for TOSEC, which you have as "Tetris" but there is already a game called Tetris. I would either generate a fake name (using the "?" button) or just leave it blank.

Finally there are sections of data that are not in the database. You have to fill this data in manually if you want to complete the databases. Scraping Moby only gives us a starting point. It does not have all the games for each system so we either add it in ourselves or leave the databases with only the games from Moby. Obviously it would be great if people put in the extra effort to fill in the missing data by going to the web and pasting it in. But it's a big job. The old databases only have the Moby games in them so they are very much incomplete. I'm hoping this new project will fill in the games that are not currently present in the databases.

"Get NumPlayers" will try to scrape the data from Moby (this has already been done by me for all the databases). So if the data is missing it's because it's not on the Moby website. "Get Category" calculates a Category based on the data I already scraped from Moby which is why it's one of the first things to do in the instructions. It will not work with the games added using "Add Missing" because these are "fake names" generated from the dat files. These are the games missing from Moby so the category for these, like much of the other data, has to be entered in manually.

It's very confusing I know, you should try and explain some of this stuff! lol. I think you will get it after playing around for a while. Just keep trying to get the Channel F database done right and I'm sure you will figure it out soon enough.

So to re-iterate, when you first start GameEx DBM all the data that's already there is what is from Moby. Our goals are to 1. Fill in the GoodTool/NoIntro/TOSEC names by using "Get" (if they have a dat file for it), then fixing the missed or incorrect matches 2. Use "Get Category" to generate a category 3. If we decide to use the "Add Missing" then we should be prepared to scour the web to fill in the rest of the missing data 4. Fill in missing data manually

[greatflash]

Just a note for others entering data..

Firstly:
GameEx has a strange but that occurs when displaying the information from the Description field. Any text that contains a '&' is terminated before the symbol. I am currently working on the BBC list and have come across the wonderful and GameEx unfriendly A&F Software, as will peoples working on Spectrum, C64, MSX, Amstrad, Atari 8bit, Atari ST, Amiga, and IBM PC. I don't know what to suggest? I loave the idea of using 'A and F software' as a substitute. I personally will leave it as is, in the hope that Tom will modify the way DB's are read and cached.
Example of Problem:-
A&F Software's Chuckie Egg is a home computer video game released in 1983................
Becomes
A

Also, line spaces are not formatted into the GameEx display. I will continue to put paragraph breaks into the decriptions. Perhaps this could also be fixed?

PS. Hoping to have BBC finished by Friday

[TSpeirs]

greatflash, on Jun 29 2008, 07:44 PM, said:

Just a note for others entering data..

Firstly:
GameEx has a strange but that occurs when displaying the information from the Description field. Any text that contains a '&' is terminated before the symbol. I am currently working on the BBC list and have come across the wonderful and GameEx unfriendly A&F Software, as will peoples working on Spectrum, C64, MSX, Amstrad, Atari 8bit, Atari ST, Amiga, and IBM PC. I don't know what to suggest? I loave the idea of using 'A and F software' as a substitute. I personally will leave it as is, in the hope that Tom will modify the way DB's are read and cached.
Example of Problem:-
A&F Software's Chuckie Egg is a home computer video game released in 1983................
Becomes
A

Also, line spaces are not formatted into the GameEx display. I will continue to put paragraph breaks into the decriptions. Perhaps this could also be fixed?

PS. Hoping to have BBC finished by Friday

Ill look into it.

Cheers.

[headkaze]

greatflash: Please leave in the & symbols and paragraph breaks in the descriptions. Either Tom will fix this in GameEx, or I will fix them when you create the mdb using GameEx DBM. But it's definately best to keep them in the databases so we have the original data.

EDIT: Oops Tom posted, so there we go

[greatflash]

headkaze, on Jun 29 2008, 08:52 PM, said:

greatflash: Please leave in the & symbols and paragraph breaks in the descriptions. Either Tom will fix this in GameEx, or I will fix them when you create the mdb using GameEx DBM. But it's definately best to keep them in the databases so we have the original data.

EDIT: Oops Tom posted, so there we go

Ok, will do (was going to anyway - na na na-na na)

PS.
On your next update can you please upgrade the cushion? The upgraded one has a slight horizontal lean.

[headkaze]

greatflash, on Jun 30 2008, 04:01 AM, said:

Ok, will do (was going to anyway - na na na-na na)

PS.
On your next update can you please upgrade the cushion? The upgraded one has a slight horizontal lean.

It's on my "To Not Do" list

EDIT: Updated the first post to "make more sense". I'll add the databases people are working on to it as well.

[headkaze]

Version 1.24 Released

- Added "Search Moby" button

Sorry about all the recent releases but flash and I are adding alot of new functions that should make things easier in the long run. Especially this new idea he came up with which I think is a huge time saver.

The "Search Moby" button will search Moby for the game and add in the details if it finds it. This should cover tonnes of games that are for different systems but not in the current system's database. So in other words use this button for games you've added using the "Add Missing" button and which doesn't have all the extra data.

Unfortunately one thing the "Search Moby" button can't do is get the NumPlayers. You will still have to search out this data manually as it is just too much work for me to add in the code to get it automatically.

Also I've updated some of the files in the larger download including adding all the categories for the default databases so please do a download of the full release for this but be careful not to overwrite any xml files your currently working on. This will save people the step of "Get Category". The reason I didn't do this in the first place was because I wasn't sure if I was 100% happy with my category guessing algorithm. But for now it will have to do. If you see a category that is blantently wrong just double click the game and change it manually.

[greatflash]

headkaze, on Jun 29 2008, 11:21 PM, said:

Version 1.24 Released

- Added "Search Moby" button

Sorry about all the recent releases but flash and I are adding alot of new functions that should make things easier in the long run. Especially this new idea he came up with which I think is a huge time saver.

The "Search Moby" button will search Moby for the game and add in the details if it finds it. This should cover tonnes of games that are for different systems but not in the current system's database. So in other words use this button for games you've added using the "Add Missing" button and which doesn't have all the extra data.

Unfortunately one thing the "Search Moby" button can't do is get the NumPlayers. You will still have to search out this data manually as it is just too much work for me to add in the code to get it automatically.

Also I've updated some of the files in the larger download including adding all the categories for the default databases so please do a download of the full release for this but be careful not to overwrite any xml files your currently working on. This will save people the step of "Get Category". The reason I didn't do this in the first place was because I wasn't sure if I was 100% happy with my category guessing algorithm. But for now it will have to do. If you see a category that is blantently wrong just double click the game and change it manually.

You must be on PCP

EDIT: I meant, because you are so quick

PS. What happened to Cushion plugin v3?

[PimpDaddyStu]

greatflash, on Jun 29 2008, 08:44 PM, said:

Just a note for others entering data..

Firstly:
GameEx has a strange but that occurs when displaying the information from the Description field. Any text that contains a '&' is terminated before the symbol. I am currently working on the BBC list and have come across the wonderful and GameEx unfriendly A&F Software, as will peoples working on Spectrum, C64, MSX, Amstrad, Atari 8bit, Atari ST, Amiga, and IBM PC. I don't know what to suggest? I loave the idea of using 'A and F software' as a substitute. I personally will leave it as is, in the hope that Tom will modify the way DB's are read and cached.
Example of Problem:-
A&F Software's Chuckie Egg is a home computer video game released in 1983................
Becomes
A

Also, line spaces are not formatted into the GameEx display. I will continue to put paragraph breaks into the decriptions. Perhaps this could also be fixed?

PS. Hoping to have BBC finished by Friday

I had this problemrecently when writing a piece of software at work

It happens because & is a reserved word and needs to be enclosed in [ brackets e.g. A[&]F instead of A&F

If Tom can't sort this then maybe headkaze could replace &'s with [&] on the fly when reading the data or writing it out to the mdb?

There's a full list of reserved words here
and a list of symbols here

I'm recovering from a hard drive failure so once I get my arcade up and going again I'll get tucked into some of these

Stu

[TSpeirs]

PimpDaddyStu, on Jun 29 2008, 11:19 PM, said:

I had this problemrecently when writing a piece of software at work

It happens because & is a reserved word and needs to be enclosed in [ brackets e.g. A[&]F instead of A&F

If Tom can't sort this then maybe headkaze could replace &'s with [&] on the fly when reading the data or writing it out to the mdb?

There's a full list of reserved words here
and a list of symbols here

I'm recovering from a hard drive failure so once I get my arcade up and going again I'll get tucked into some of these

Stu

Actually it seems the issue is because it tries to strip html tags from the description fields, and it classes & as html. Ill have a private release out for you guys shortly that fixes this and allows you to select the naming convention to use.

[greatflash]

Got a little problem with the database (Saturn)

I have a Tosec name 'NiGHTS into Dreams… (U)' and all data is entered in the mbd correctly (replicating in goodname at the mo also).

NiGHTS into Dreams… can be selected in the list of games within gameex but non of the info entered is displayed.

If i then create 'NiGHTS into Dreams… (U).7z' and switch the config to zipped, still nothing is displayed and selecting the game opens the usual window (box, manual, etc) but the rom is not displayed. Checking the 'Unzipped7-Zip' directory, that has no entries at all?

Something is going wrong if the filename (after the ()'s are stripped) ends in a fullstop (or 3). Checking the map and db cache files I notice that the three fulstops have been replaced with 'â€' in the map file, and '…' in the db file (apears to have grabbed a ¦ from the map file).

I know what you are gonna say!

But yes, It is always me

Ps. This also appears to confuse other entries. Some have wrong data and some display no data? Removing the Nights game resolves this?