New GB version coming... feature requests, anyone?

[Jimbo]

When do you think it will be finished for release?

Phew tough question. I'm currently working on adding these new fields, and I want to get the multiple columns finished before releasing too. I'll release staging betas as I get new stuff done, but as for a final v1.3 release, I can't say for sure. Hopefully by the end of the year though, I'll aim for that (no promises!!)

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

This would be acceptable for things like speccy, nes etc where there is no writeback.
As long GB tries a temp write to determine if it is being accessed from a DVD/CD or from hard disc. It would need to 'know' and report as such (perhaps have 'read only mode' in the titlebar), and grey out functions that are 'inappropriate', such as editing and adding to the database?
Nice to see this application getting some needed (said in the politest manner possible) upgrades to keep it fresh.
Arthur.


I use 'DAO' in VB6 which doesn't open the database in the exact format in the weblink you posted, but I'll check to see if its possible tonight. Of course I'll have to skip writing to the db (e.g. times/last played stats) in this case also, so its a bit more work but should be doable. A lot of frontend features would be disabled too, such as any editing of fields, or creation/changes/removal of views. Then there's the GEMUS scripts - all the Set_INI_Value() etc functions won't work...[/quote]

[Brataccas]

Regarding the issue of blank volume names:

I'm pretty sure the bug is in "clsD64.cls" - look in function GetName() for the comment "Trim trailing 0xA0 values".

The trim operation doesn't work correctly if it is passed a completely empty string (blank disc volume) - it should not trim for this special case.

See here for discussion on this topic (and disc images to try): http://www.gb64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2554

If you fix this bug, could you also fix the unhelpful error message:

The message "File already open" should probably be stricken from the error string, because the true error is "Invalid Emulator File" (shown at left, above the D64 file viewer).

Thanks

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at clsD64.cls.

I've just finished adding the following fields to the new version:

Artist
Developer
License
Rarity
Is Playable
Is Original
Has Title Screen
Info Weblink (e.g. wikipedia url)
Version Weblink (e.g. download url)

Basically 4 new tables (artists, developers, licenses and rarities) and 3 new yes/no/unknown fields.

I've also increased field sizes to 255 chars for many fields, and changed the existing yes/no fields to yes/no/unknown.

Just started work on getting multiple columns working. Hopefully not long now for a new beta for you guys to test.

Cheers

James

[hardmanm]

Cant wait to get the Beta, great work Jimbo.

[Belgarath]

Really looking foward to trying it out

[Jimbo]

Can someone please PM me a D64 with an empty title? The one linked in that other thread seems to be a T64. (.mad. - the link you PM'd me doesn't seem to work).

Thanks

[hardmanm]

Any chance of having an Original price field in the gamebase?

[Jimbo]

LOL, if only you mentioned that last week when I was adding all those other fields! Seriously tho, it's a long winded process adding fields, as it affects a lot of the code in a lot of places (call it bad programming if you want). I'm working on the multiple column stuff now. Might add this field after if I've got time, but don't hold your breath!

Jame

[K.C.]

Can someone please PM me a D64 with an empty title? The one linked in that other thread seems to be a T64.

You can find a D64 image with an empty title here.

Another possible improvement comes to mind: it would be handy if it is possible to group collections in the Gamebase selector window and in the Gamebase menu in the frontend.

[hardmanm]

Any chance of a refresh button on the adding screeshots window, like the one on adding games.

[Jimbo]

refresh button on screenshots window should be possible.

I just got multiple columns working btw

Just a bit of tidying up to do, then hopfully a new beta will be available in a few days.

James

[JohnCKirk]

While you're updating the database schema, could you make a few extra changes there?

Games table

Remove CRC field. As far as I can tell, it's always blank, and the "check games/CRC" option is disabled on the "Verify files..." screen.

Change data type of DateLastPlayed field to be Date/Time rather than Text.

Remove CCode field. It seems to be a combination of the FA and SA fields (i.e. they're both yes/no and it has 4 possible values), so GameBase could just inspect them directly.

Music table

As far as I can tell, there's no link between Games.GA_Id and Music.GA_Id: "GA_Id" is an Autonumber and Primary Key in both tables, so they're independent. If that's the case, I think it would be useful to rename Music.GA_Id to something else; unfortunately "MU_Id" is already in use (the Foreign Key to the Musician table), but maybe MS_Id?

Games table, Music table

Could the various filename fields be Text rather than Memo? In practical terms, the maximum path length (including filename) in Windows is 260 characters:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.85).aspx
These are relative paths, i.e. they get combined with the path to the user's games/music folders, so I doubt that they'd ever exceed 255 characters.

ViewFilters table

Rename "ID" to "ViewID"
Add a new "WFID" field (AutoNumber), and make it the Primary Key.

Relationships

Add a 1-many relationship from Games to Extras on GA_Id.
Add a 1-many relationship from ViewData to ViewFilters on ViewData.ID = ViewFilters.ViewID (assuming that you rename the field as above).
Enforce referential integrity on all relationships.

[Jimbo]

Hi John, thanks for your suggestions.

For this version I think I'm pretty much done with DB changes. They are time consuming and I have a list as long as my arm of requested other fixes/features.

I think I'll leave the CRC field in there as it may be useful in the future, but I'll remove it from the Verify Files screen for now.

CCode is the numerical index for which icon to display when building the lists (game, game+music, music, none) which as you guessed is based on the FA/SA fields. Historically it meant "Colour Code" as I originally used different text colours instead of icons. Its basically a lookup I stored for speed of filling the listboxes (back in '97 computers weren't as fast as they are now so I was looking for as many speed optimisations as possible). As this isn't a vital change I might end up leaving it for this version.

Regarding field name changes... this is more work than it sounds due to the way GB is written (I'd write it completely different if I started again from scratch - but 10 years ago I was a very unexperienced programmer). I think I want to focus more on new features and fixes in this version of GB, rather than behind-the-scenes stuff, as my time is quite limited. I do appreciate your suggestions though.

James

[JohnCKirk]

Ok, no worries. I'm planning to make these changes in GameBase.NET anyway, so I'm just trying to keep as much backwards compatibility as possible, i.e. make it easy for people to switch back to the VB6 version if they hate mine