HyperGame Database Initial Release

[xagesz]

Well HyperSpin community I am now making my largest contribution to the community since joining over a year ago. I had put down programming for years and then decided to get my feet wet a month ago and ask for some inspiration. Here is the result of that inspiration. A program designed to cover a lot of bases with more functionality to follow.

Me and Rain co-Authored this project. So you know its got to be good. What we have here is HOTT Manager the purpose of this program is to hopefully simply tasks for HyperSpin. I fully intend to keep pushing forward with this project to give it as robust functionality as possible. So without further to do I present the INITIAL release of:

Hyper Over The Top Game Manager

https://rapidshare.com/files/3059135374/HyperGame_Database.zip

Functionality:

-Game Viewing to check details on any game in HyperSpin XML files including pictures, rom check, theme check, wheel art and cover art.

-XML Generator has the ability to generate custom xmls on your settings based on Name, Rom Existence, Wheel Art, Cover Art themes, Genre, and Rating.

-Have/Miss lists will scan your XML's against your directories and tell you what Files you have, are missing and Files that server no purpose at all(Miss named).

-Modules Tab has the ability to Create, View, Open, Edit, Rename your modules to easily switch out modules for simpler testing. Along with a quick launch Hyperlauch button.

-Included through out the Program are quick navigation buttons to easily fire up HyperSpin itself, HyperHQ and even HyperLaunch itself.

-Main Menu Tab will unzip the files in your Main Menu themes tab temporarily so that you can see files in the theme but are promptly deleted afterwards. The tab also allows you to rearrange your System order with the click of a few simple buttons.


In The Works:

-Rain is working on an in house rom renamer that compares against CRC's

-Rain is also creating a databasing piece that will work with theVDGB.com and pull EVEN more data directly related to the game.

-PC Launcher XML creator - I intended for this to be in the initial Release but this particular feature has a lot more to it than I originally accounted for so it won't be in this release. Essentially you will be able to drag and drop the Exes of your choice into the form and It will generate your own customize XML while also creating all the necessary adjustments in all the other sections of HyperSpin IE (Settings.ini, txt Files, Shortcut Files) This will work directly with DJVJ's PC launcher.

-And a couple other nit picky things to just overall improve this that aren't included. Surprises Await.


Only Prerequisite to run this program is .Net 4.0 Framework and the DLL files included in the zip.


As of Now that covers all the important parts. If you have any recommendations drop a comment. Also Bugs, Errors, anything to improve
this project drop a comment.

Xagesz
Out

[Dazz]

Looks very promising!


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.888870,-96.768520

[azzbarb]

Looks very promising!


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.888870,-96.768520

+1

[betic]

Great job xagesz! Works great from what I've seen so far. Definitely a useful tool you've created! Glad you tried your hand at programming again and stuck with the idea till' completion. Well done! :congrats:

[zerojay]

I tried it out quick before running out the door this morning, so I didn't get a full look at it. I did notice that the app was complaining about some of my XML files. I'm not sure if it is because they were written for HS 2.0 or what (I didn't have a chance to check).

[xagesz]

One of the people that was error checking with me said it complained on xml's. I am not sure yet why. But I do know that I currently have EVERY HS2.0 xml in my database list and that the program reads them all. It is on the todo list though for sure. Just have to figure out the actual problem.

Thanks for the compliments. Keep em coming.

[zerojay]

Once I get home and can do full testing on it, I'll let you know what I find.

[Hypnoziz]

Did you guys correct the ampersand error in the XML parsing?

[xagesz]

I can't duplicate your error. I created a XML with your exact data. The program reads in fine for me. Must be a different issue. I need to toy with it more.

[Lailoken]

Yay! Thanks for all the hard work Xagesz and Rain.

[xagesz]

No Prob.

[8BitMonk]

Thanks for the app, I really like the idea of this.

I am getting the same XML error message, the default HS mame XML loads fine yet one created with say RomLister will not. The 2 differences I see comparing the XML's is that there is no <crc> node or attribute with the RomLister xml's and also no doctype statement at the top, ie. <?xml version="1.0"?>. Adding the doc type to my XML didn't do anything so it must be a problem with the fact that the crc's are missing. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to include the crc values when saving out of RomLister.

Maybe this will help for troubleshooting.

[Lailoken]

It's the ampersand problem. I made a fake XML with 1 game in it and stuck a & in the game name. That gave me the error. I changed the & to &amp; and no error.

Rom2XML uses & instead of &amp; for some reason. I always do a Replace All in notepad any time I make an XML with it.

Edit: I also tested if it gave an error with the characters ' " < >
< and > both give errors, but ' and " do not.

[xagesz]

alright I have a small script coming from rain that I will incorporate into an error catch.

[xagesz]

Also I already have a CRC catch in there so thats not affecting it.

[8BitMonk]

Replacing the ampersand fixed it for me but I also had to rip out some comments that were in my XML, perhaps they had some of the characters Lailoken mentions.

Now that my XML loads I'm noticing that the wheel images don't automatically updated as I scroll through the list as they do with the default HS Mame XML.

Also getting an unhandled exception error when selecting XML Generator.

[xagesz]

Thanks for feedback.

The Wheel Art thing is wierd. I'm going to make an xml tonight with RomLister since that seems to be a minor issue. When I do that I will see if I can get the same error for Mame Wheels. I will incorporate the & fix as well. Still haven't decided how to fix this yet.

[djvj]

Don't forget apostrophes.
&apos;

[xagesz]

I will see what I can do. Thing is though its hard to figure out a solution when I don't have the problem. If one of you with FTP access would put an erroring xml into my upload folder I can crack at it easier.

[BiZzAr721]

Xagesz & Rain, you guys are coming out w/ some great programs. Your beginning to make setting up HS & compiling mame seem like a walk in the park compared to setting pre 1.0 HS Thanks for all the hard work. :top:

[Rain]

I have written a small routine that will automatically fix the characters that are malformed in your XML files and make them proper by XML standards. Hopefully I will be able to give that the the dev by the time the next update of this program rolls out. Also, I need to add a few hundred error/file checks to the application that will prevent the program from slipping up. I'm just so damned busy with Quick MAME that I have overlooked this. Also, the next version you will have the featurette to watch official HD game trailers for over 865,00 known games.

[evil eye]

^ Wow! Great work on this app guys, I'll have to give it a whirl soon.

[8BitMonk]

I will see what I can do. Thing is though its hard to figure out a solution when I don't have the problem. If one of you with FTP access would put an erroring xml into my upload folder I can crack at it easier.

You should be able to just put an ampersand or an apostrophe in one of your XML's game descriptions to recreate the error.

<description>Track & Field</description>
instead of
<description>Track &amp; Field</description>

[8BitMonk]

I have written a small routine that will automatically fix the characters that are malformed in your XML files and make them proper by XML standards.

If you're programatically doing a find and replace you might not want to replace all ampersands, I noticed some of the manufacturer names created by RomLister already use &amp; so a find and replace will give you something like this &amp;amp. That's what happened to me anyway when I did it manually the first time.

[xagesz]

Mine have just & and they read fine. I tried replacing with &amp and they read fine.

[zerojay]

I used the Main Menu editor to rearrange my main menu wheels. I had two items which did not have subwheels, but now after rearranging them, Hyperwheel now asks for a database .xml file, which it never needed before, so I can no longer launch these apps from my main menu wheel anymore. Any ideas?

[xagesz]

Thanks Zerojay Completely forgot that HS could do that. Just go into HyperHQ and you should be able to set the wheel back to normal. I will address this tonight. Should be an easy fix.

[zerojay]

Thanks Zerojay Completely forgot that HS could do that. Just go into HyperHQ and you should be able to set the wheel back to normal. I will address this tonight. Should be an easy fix.

I dont see a way to actually do this.

[xagesz]

Try removing the system from HyperHQ but make sure you do the method that saves your files. THen Readd the wheel.

[BiZzAr721]

This program is perfect for keeping my arcade systems that use mame roms up to date (Nintendo Arcade System, Capcom, neo geo). I just updated to mame .144, but my neogeo xml is using .141 database games. I went down the list checking if the mame .144 rom matches the neogeo database. (Latest Neogeo database on HL matches mame .144 naming)

[ken_cinder]

This looks great, it's too bad I just can't get it to work for me. It won't even read it's own XML files it generates, throwing an error about something on Line 1, Position 164 (Which doesn't even exist).

Edit: I must be that &amp; issue...

[8BitMonk]

I like the concept as well, just can't get it to run reliably.

[horseyhorsey]

This is awesome!

[horseyhorsey]

I've used this alot today. I'm not sure if anyones requested it becuase I havn't read the whole thread. Is it possible to add in an <exe> tag for multi system xmls? I think it would make a nice addition.

[xagesz]

Currently been swamped with work since I released this. Hence my disappearance. If someone wants to continue the work let me know. I won't be free to even touch it for a couple months. Its all done in C# 2011. If you are interested let me know.

[evil eye]

Just a heads up, download link doesn't work anymore either.

[horseyhorsey]

Best app for creating genre xml, by far!

Finished Spectrum , Amstrad , c64 , amiga & ST genres in 20 minutes

cheers

[Nevon]

This seems like the best of the utitilies that are out there, but I can't get it to read any of my databases (generated by rom2XML).