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

[K.C.]

Not sure if this belongs in this thread or in the "v1.4 feature requests" thread.
Anyway, maybe this is important enough to implement in the V1.3 release:

When opening a V1.2 database, the new version of Gamebase automatically starts the conversion of the .MDB file to V1.3. This is irreversable.
For safety reasons, and in case a user wants to roll back to V1.2, it's better to make a copy of the .MDB and .INI files before the conversion starts.
For example, a Gamebase database OLDCOMPUTER.MDB could be copied to OLDCOMPUTER_V12.MDB before the new fields are added.

[Mayhem]

Potential issue here... I'll explain first... and just to make sure I still had the same problem, I've upgraded from v1.2 that I've been using for years to this v1.3 beta of GameBase. The issue remains.

(Gonna take a little getting used to the new interface mind you! I like the way you can hide certain things, but I'll still need to fill some of them out, even with default blanks anyhow. But I digress)

As some of you know I do Gamebase20 for the Vic20. Recently I've been testing the upcoming beta builds of Vice v2.3 to make sure it still works fine with the frontend (after the "debacle" of v2.2 made most of the $A0 booting cartridges fail amongst other things).

Apparently the developers have now just fixed the ASCII to PETSCII conversion, which relates to how filenames are passed to the emulator. Anyone familiar with DOS will know that when filenames grew longer than 8 characters, that they appear like this in short FAT format:

ABCDEF~1.XYZ

With this fix in the conversion, the ~ is no longer being passed correctly and all the games with PRG filenames longer than 8 characters fail to boot, complaining about not finding the right filename. All TAPs, D64s etc are fine, it only affects autobooting PRGs.

Is this an issue with the GEMUS script itself (so something can be fixed) or with the GameBase frontend itself? Basically the fix will be to have the FULL filename of the game shunted to the emulator rather than the short FAT (8 character) filename. But I don't know exactly where the issue may lie in the chain to determine the culprit.

Regardless though, with this change, the name of the PC based PRG file can now only be a maximum of 16 characters total, because that's the maximum length a filename can be on the Commodore.

I get the impression the best compromise might be now to convert all my PRGs into single file D64s instead...

[K.C.]

In the GEMUS edit window there's an option Use Short (8.3) Filenames.
Deselect it to send the full filename (quoted if it contains spaces) to the emulator.

[Mayhem]

Huh... after all this time, I never noticed that. *facepalm* And it fixes the issue... *sigh* how simple these things can be

Still, useful to know that people most likely will now have to deselect it in the future for Vice...

[Jimbo]

Just a note to say I've been extra busy the last month or so and had/have no time for any more changes at the moment, so I'll be officially releasing the last built version as the final v1.3 very shortly. I'll announce it on here and on bu22.com (and those with the version-check switched on in the frontend will get auto-notified that way too). The sourcecode will be available on the sourceforge project page too.

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone, I hope the new version has been worth the wait.

James

[K.C.]

Hi Jimbo,

Great to here we are close to an official release!

Any chance of including this little update to avoid accidental conversions to the new V1.3 structure?
Maybe also a question "Do you want to convert the database to V1.3?" before the conversion starts would be a good idea.
IMO this shouldn't be very difficult to implement and is quite useful, because the conversion is irreversable.

[J2003C]

Nevermind, this was a v1.2 bug, fixed in v1.3

[K.C.]

You probably tested this with GameBase 1.2 or with an older 1.3 beta version.
This bug is discussed here and was fixed in this early beta version.

[J2003C]

You probably tested this with GameBase 1.2 or with an older 1.3 beta version.
This bug is discussed here and was fixed in this early beta version.

Ya, I figured this out almost immediately after posting. I'm updating the WinVICE GEMUS script to work with Lightpen/Paddles/Light Gun.

[Jimbo]

Final v1.3 release is uploaded to sourceforge now, with the sourcecode:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/gamebase/files/

If someone could check that the setups work that'd be great.

There's one change to the previous release: It warns that a database update will be performed rather than actually just performing it.

James

[.mad.]

Thanks Jimbo!

[K.C.]

Thanks for all work you've put into this project James, appreciated!

[chrismcd]

Thanks for Everything, Full setup worked like a charm on Win 7 64bit

[hrmes]

Installs and runs fine here too (Win7 64).