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 Post subject: Database testers wanted
PostPosted: May 11th, 2012, 5:09 pm 
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For some months now I have been working on a PC98 database viewing program, based upon Ben's screenshot database. I have found it useful, especially in identifying games in these big sets floating around, and, very apprehensively, thought others might be interested. Ben has most kindly given permission to use his extensive data, Danjuro provided ideas in a previous incarnation of the program, and kobushi provided the details in a spreadsheet. I have also, to be honest, incorporated all kinds of other data scraped off websites and collections.

The problem of writing programs for yourself is that you utilise the program in expected ways, and often things fall over when others use the programs. If I am ever going to release this one generally, I need to find the issues, and listen to others' comments on the advisability of doing so. In other words, I am apprehensive about letting it out, as I cannot always have time to fix things quickly.

Be warned - the program data set is about 800MB, as it includes Ben's screenshots, all the screenshots from the PC98 Catalog, and a pile of other stuff. It is NOT an emulator front-end, let me make that clear. More of a collection of program and hardware information, easily accessible ( or so one hopes LOL ).

If any forum regular is interested and prepared to put in a bit of time testing, and prepared to offer comments, I would really appreciate it. PM me and I'll give you the download links ( rapidshare ).

There is a screenshot of the main screen at:

http://www.retroprograms.com/lode98/Lode98_1.jpg

I hate documentation, but provisional cryptic and crappy documentation is at:

http://www.retroprograms.com/lode98/lode98.html

Oh well, here goes, taking the plunge on the Submit button!

Update June 2014 - this program is not currently available for public consumption. Maybe in the future I'll rework it.


Last edited by peter_j on June 19th, 2014, 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: May 12th, 2012, 9:04 pm 
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I would love to try it and send you my comments !


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PostPosted: June 14th, 2012, 11:13 pm 
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That's funny, I've been working on a similar project for about one month, actually it's a general project made for viewing and managing images, music, videos, and any form of datas.
Its data system is very flexible and easy to manage, you could by using a simple python script (for instance) convert anything, like a website, a folder structure or, in this case, I used and parsed the PC98 game catalog I grabed from Perfect Dark (a japanese P2P), and here's the result :

Of course it's far from complete, but I'll update my website when a public version will be ready ;)

Now for the technical stuff, it's coded in native C++, the graphical part is in Direct X 9 so it should be hardware accelerated on most PCs, the UI is homemade.


Last edited by orbbu on February 23rd, 2022, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: November 1st, 2012, 10:00 pm 
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Their was a program that was called "Sailormoon infodex" made once upon a time, that was called the 1990's. I don't know if anybody remembers this, but could add more information to it, as well as remove information. Their was also s-e-r-i-a-l-z 2000, that had a huge lexicon database system, with screenshots ( but the Russian secret police took that away too :x ).

If somebody could make something that was simple, that could run in win 3.1, Unix/Linux, Amiga and OS9/OSX format and use a multiple readable system, format. This way everybody could download the file and update.


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PostPosted: June 14th, 2014, 4:33 am 
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If anyone has a bit of time to help me debug a program I am working on, I'd appreciate your replying here or sending me a message.

The program attempts to display information about PC98 floppy images, and I have been trying to distil what I have found out about the various formats into a utility that can do basic analysis of such disk images.

If you can help, I'd like you to use the program on some of whatever different format disks you might have, and put up any images that give errors or give incorrect info, or cause the program to crack up, so I can improve it. It is very much alpha at this stage and a work in progress. Program runs fine on XP and Win7 - I refuse to use Win8 though, so I don't know if that would work.

It currently has a go at these formats:
dim;dip;dcu;dcp;fdi;hdm;d88;hdb;2HD;fim;xdf;nfd;tfd

It will only do .nfd r0, not r1 as yet - still trying to get my head around that as well as .fdd, .fix.

Image


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PostPosted: July 5th, 2014, 3:05 pm 
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I have made a simplified version of the program in the original post.


Image

If anyone would like to use it please send me a personal message. I will leave the files up for a few weeks.

I am happy to work on bugs, but do not have the time to do any major additions or alterations.

This is an extract of Ben's online site in about 2012 - it is NOT a front-end for emulators.

Thanks to Ben and kobushi for allowing me to do this, and providing usable data for extract.

PS. It runs fine on Win7 and XP - Win 8.* is untested as I refuse to run that crap.


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PostPosted: December 10th, 2014, 5:43 pm 
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peter_j wrote:
I have made a simplified version of the program in the original post.


Image

If anyone would like to use it please send me a personal message. I will leave the files up for a few weeks.

I am happy to work on bugs, but do not have the time to do any major additions or alterations.

This is an extract of Ben's online site in about 2012 - it is NOT a front-end for emulators.

Thanks to Ben and kobushi for allowing me to do this, and providing usable data for extract.

PS. It runs fine on Win7 and XP - Win 8.* is untested as I refuse to run that crap.


It is still WIP the software? Can I help you somehow to test it?

-Rockleevk


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PostPosted: March 6th, 2015, 10:54 am 
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A quick and dirty ( not really dirty! ).

I seem to have a lot of text files encoded in Shift-JIS. On my non-Japanese computer I normally have to open these in Word, which is a bit overkill. So, since kobushi got me to get a Shift-JIS to UTF-8 conversion working, I made a little text file viewer which seems to work, if anyone would like to give it a spin. You can drag-&-drop onto the program file, or the screen. Please let me know of any errors.

http://www.blackdiamond.co.za/SJISText.7z


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PostPosted: August 7th, 2015, 10:03 pm 
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(Used to search this thread via the View your posts section, I didn't see it was a sticky -_-)

First, thank you for your hard work about creating this portable version of the DB. I am always whining about how Tokugawa's is not sortable like I want but you fixed that issue. You don't seem to be confident about your skills and maybe it's true if you are a tRue prOgraMmer but what you did is really helpful so you shouldn't bother about that.
As promised, I will now index what stopped me to enjoy it to the fullest. If I missed some functionalities, don't laugh at me.
I will sometimes use your tutorial as a reference for designating area/buttons.

What is the Got Indicator btw? You don't define it and I don't understand what is its function. I thought you could set if you have (got) the game in your collection or maybe it has something to do with the fact you could link rom, what was suppressed from this simplified version?

Here we go:
-The dates. Using the year only is far too imprecise. If I want to see the list of all Elf games set by chronological order, this won't work because there is only years and the second criteria is alphabetical. In this situation, Doki Doki Shutter Chance which is the first Elf game is in second position before Angel Hearts. We really need not only the year but the month and the day. Three columns or one with yyyy-mm-dd (x = unknown).
You can see the month and the day in the info field but even with that, it's really a bother because the two lines are apart from each other. It tires the eyes to search for the year line then go to the bottom to restitch the date with the month and the day. I know that Tokugawa's use written months but numerical value is best and used everywhere else. We need to do the conversion, May, what was it again? 04 or 05? January, February, March, April, ok, 05.

-If I want to do massive and efficient research, we need shortcuts, especially for the input field 7. In Tokugawa's, I don't bother to scroll-down until the name I want, it would be very stupid to lose time like this when there is ctrl+F.
For the field 7, the shortcut needs to select what is already written to be able to overwrite it, like ctrl+f is working.
If you want to add shortcut for everything, make sure we are able to configure the keys or make sure to not put a shortcut like for 1 near a shortcut used very often. In the dark, I don't know how many times I did ctrl+w instead of ctrl+x.

-I don't think Game Notes deserves a tab for themselves. I don't know if there are notes that are so big that it could be a bother to add them to the info tab but we want the more data the fastest. If I need to click one time on Game Notes to see if that release was FM-Towns compatible then another time to go back to Info, I lost a lot of time. And personally, I always looked at those notes because they are truly useful and we don't know what can be written.
For example, something like Tokugawa Ref and Database Ref don't deserve to have displaying priority on those notes. It's not a problem if we have to scroll down a little to read those notes.

-The screenshots.
A) I dislike any form of spoilers so if you could set a user value you can set in the option to show/hide the screenshots by default, that would be great. And a checkbox near the screens to reverse the default value specifically.
B) You stocked the original Tokugawa's picture that are bigger but you only display thumbnails. A way to see them in big would be appreciated.
For example, one click and the image become bigger by using the field 14, one click and the overlay disappears, with previous/next option (because we can't see more than four screenshots when Tokugawa's has five of them). The standard for biggest screens is 640x400 so that should be fine. But I saw that 48 Night Story has two screens merged in one and that give us 640x800 so a way to move the picture is required. Scrolling is not efficient but the possibility of moving the screen with a drag and drop should be enough for those exceptions.
If you can't do anything like that, at least, allow us to open the pictures with the windows viewer by double-clicking on their paths with the Shots tab.

-Info tab. I am using Tokugawa's data to fill VNDB so, if it was possible to make the info copiable, that should be great. I know I can do it but, actually, ctrl+c copy me all the line, the columns Item + Value ("Name(E): 48 Night Story") when all I want is the Value.

That's all came to my mind for now. I hope it will help. I didn't bother you with new functionalities like the possibility to create your own lists.
I told you that I know someone that could be interested in helping you with those changes (maybe) if you are too busy but you didn't answer about that so I will give him the link to this thread.


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PostPosted: August 8th, 2015, 3:43 am 
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Thank you for your detailed input and ideas - appreciated.

I will look at most of your points and respond more fully in time.

Ileca wrote:
-If I want to do massive and efficient research, we need shortcuts, especially for the input field 7. In Tokugawa's, I don't bother to scroll-down until the name I want, it would be very stupid to lose time like this when there is ctrl+F.
For the field 7, the shortcut needs to select what is already written to be able to overwrite it, like ctrl+f is working.
If you want to add shortcut for everything, make sure we are able to configure the keys or make sure to not put a shortcut like for 1 near a shortcut used very often. In the dark, I don't know how many times I did ctrl+w instead of ctrl+x.


TBH I don't quite understand this. Do you mean, if you press ctrl-F the program should search on text in the clipboard? Or just accept input in the search field?

Ileca wrote:
-The screenshots.

B) You stocked the original Tokugawa's picture that are bigger but you only display thumbnails. A way to see them in big would be appreciated.
I told you that I know someone that could be interested in helping you with those changes (maybe) if you are too busy but you didn't answer about that so I will give him the link to this thread.


If you double-click the thumbnail it should bring up a screen with the full picture.

In terms of the source, I cannot really let that out, as I use licensed ( paid-for ) plugins here and there.

Also - while I acknowledge I never parsed the months, if you select only Elf games, say, you can sort by year by clicking the Year tab on the list once the selection displays.

Thanks again, and I'll look to make some of these changes.


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PostPosted: August 8th, 2015, 5:46 am 
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Quote:
TBH I don't quite understand this. Do you mean, if you press ctrl-F the program should search on text in the clipboard? Or just accept input in the search field?

Ctrl+F is a shortcut (used by Chrome but also by Windows Explorer or even the Start menu, etc. I guess it's standardized practice.) which put focus on the search field. It doesn't start the research or delete anything, it just put focus on the field and select all the content if there is already something written. Like that, you don't have to select the text with your mouse or by doing ctrl+A (=select all shortcut) because usually, 1) you don't delete the old keywords you put in the search field and 2) each time you use the shortcut, it's to start a new research 3) but that doesn't mean you don't want to use your old keywords so the best solution is focus + select all.

Quote:
If you double-click the thumbnail it should bring up a screen with the full picture.

Ok, good. I think a double-click is a little heavy and you should allow us to close the screen with a new click on the picture to make everything smoother.
A way to switch to previous/next screens should be useful too because of that last hidden screen + the fact that it spares you one click (close the screen + open a new screen = next/previous).
You should look after the gallery system of VNDB to see what I mean.

Quote:
Also - while I acknowledge I never parsed the months, if you select only Elf games, say, you can sort by year by clicking the Year tab on the list once the selection displays.

Yes, that's what I said but it's alphabetical next so you have 11 games for 1989 that are not well sorted so it loses its purpose as a way to browse your selection in a perfect chronological order. Which should be Doki Doki Shutter Chance, Private School, Angel Hearts, not Angel Hearts, Doki Doki Shutter Chance then Dragon Knight.


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PostPosted: August 8th, 2015, 10:23 am 
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If anyone wishes to try Lode98_Lite it is up at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1aql71hdw4ho1 ... te.7z?dl=0

I have not posted the link publicly before, as I have extremely limited time to work on it, and when others use a program they often ask for changes. I welcome bug reports, and will consider change requests as time allows. It runs on XP and Win7 - I will not not run Win8 and Win10 is a bit young and buggy, so I don't know about those.

I have made some of Ileca's changes, and the revised version and its libraries are at:

http://www.retroprograms.com/Lode98_Ileca.rar

Just unpack into the Lode98 folder and either the old or new version should run. No database changes have been made.

Changes made:

1. Ctrl-F should move the focus to the search field and select any text in it at the time.
2. There is a contextual menu ( right click ) on the main list box and the Info list box to Copy, and this will copy only one bit of data ( not the field name on the Info list ).
3. There is a checkbox on the main screen to show or not show the screenshots.
4. I have re-arranged the launcher buttons to make place for a text area that should show the game notes.
5. There is a new Option to fiddle the dates to attempt to work out the month and day. The fiddling is at runtime, not on the database. Note that many entries have incomplete date info, so it will not be perfect. Dates are shown yyyy/mm/dd - please check if it seems right. ( I am not doing American dates as they are hard to collate correctly ).

I am going to leave the double-click on the images as opposed to single-click else I'll have all kinds of stuff popping up on me. ;)

Please let me know if these changes cause any "unexpected behaviour", and tell me how to reproduce such, and I'll try to fix.

The "Got" indicator. The program searches the subfolder "Files" for subfolders of the exact name as on the database, and for any archives starting with that name. Sub folders with single-character names ( #,A,B,C,etc. ) are also searched for folders, and files with extensions .rar, .lzh, .7z, .zip.. If found, it is shown as "Got", else not. No, I will not change this for your favoured custom way of storing your files.

Anyway, thanks, and I hope some of that helps, Ileca.

EDIT. I have found one funny with the date sorting if you change selector - working on it.
EDIT 2. I think I have fixed it - uploading updated file.


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PostPosted: August 11th, 2015, 11:09 pm 
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Quote:
2. There is a contextual menu ( right click ) on the main list box and the Info list box to Copy, and this will copy only one bit of data ( not the field name on the Info list ).

Not really important: it works for the value like I requested but only copy the Title(E) in the main windows. You should be able to copy only the piece of data you want like, if I do copy on the publisher, I get the publisher only.

Quote:
3. There is a checkbox on the main screen to show or not show the screenshots.

You are forced to reload the page and that is really not convenient. You should be able to hide/show the screen the instant you click the checkbox, a system not dependent of the loading but which add some overlay on the screens. If you can't do that, at least, make it reload the page when you are checking the box.

I still think that the main problem of your software are the screens. Tokugawa's is a Game Screenshots DB and that's the first thing we saw on a game page when in your software, the screens are thumbnails, you need to double click to see them in their original size, then close them to see the next and there is still one missing. I don't have a solution for you, maybe a new tab that could display the screen like on Tokugawa, I don't know...
But if you want to work on something, that should be that, I think. Maybe another opinion could be good on that matter.

Quote:
5. There is a new Option to fiddle the dates to attempt to work out the month and day. The fiddling is at runtime, not on the database. Note that many entries have incomplete date info, so it will not be perfect. Dates are shown yyyy/mm/dd - please check if it seems right. ( I am not doing American dates as they are hard to collate correctly ).

When the fiddling is working, you should hide the Date line in the Info tab, it's redundant.

Quote:
The "Got" indicator. The program searches the subfolder "Files" for subfolders of the exact name as on the database, and for any archives starting with that name. Sub folders with single-character names ( #,A,B,C,etc. ) are also searched for folders, and files with extensions .rar, .lzh, .7z, .zip.. If found, it is shown as "Got", else not. No, I will not change this for your favoured custom way of storing your files.

Ok, I got it. Well, I didn't want your DB for that but with no way to access the stored files, that feature is really useless.

Another way to improve your DB could be to add new possibilities of filtering. You have room for that next to the search field.
1)An input field to search the publisher and which is working like the input for the title (E+J).
With it you should be able to allow multi-criteria research. I know you can already do it but it's partial criteria here, like 黒大将に見られてる (title) + Silk (publisher).
I am not really asking that for the multi-criteria research but to lighten the research on a publisher on your very big select input + the possibility to filter only with the Japanese name of the publisher.
2)You can also add two new input, one for "Games released after" and the second for "Games released before". If Games released after = Games released before, it's like if you selected that year in your select field.

I don't think you can change that but your software is really slow to start.


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PostPosted: August 12th, 2015, 12:01 am 
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Ileca wrote:
Not really important: it works for the value like I requested but only copy the Title(E) in the main windows. You should be able to copy only the piece of data you want like, if I do copy on the publisher, I get the publisher only.


Use the Info tab.

Ileca wrote:
When the fiddling is working, you should hide the Date line in the Info tab, it's redundant.


No it is not - it shows the original data.

Ileca wrote:
Ok, I got it. Well, I didn't want your DB for that but with no way to access the stored files, that feature is really useless.


To you, but not to me.

Ileca wrote:
I don't think you can change that but your software is really slow to start.


Turn off the "Show Got" and it will not search for files on start.

I've tried to help, but it seems all I get is rudeness. I'm out of here.


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PostPosted: August 12th, 2015, 2:00 am 
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Sorry if you took that as rudeness but I really tried my best to find ways to improve your software. I took time to check on it yesterday while I am really busy, to find every little new enhancements to help you creating something people will find very useful. It takes me too much time to write those posts (I am not talking about just here) because I am not fluent in english and I don't know how to respect the conventions without losing a lot of time checking my formulations. In fact, I even thought we didn't have the need for as we were talking about the subject in depth which allowed me to be frank. I already told you how I found your software useful.

Once again, sorry for being rude.


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