Hi,

Language editor:
Sorry Neville, I've checked the complete source code of the language editor: I could not find any problem there. 🙁

Auto-Create for PhysfFS and zip drives:
Sounds useful, I will implement this.

Other new features:
Additionally I've just added a "Build zip packages for multiple games" option to create zip packages for more than one game at once (just like the "Build installer for multiple games" function, but this one will create a separate zip file for each selected game).

Hi, I was just wondering how you get games that run from CDs or ISOs to run in D-Fend Reloaded.

Thank you!

Probably the same way I do it with DBGL: Fake the frontend into believing it has something on the mounted HD that it must run.

Create a small BAT-file (with Notepad) on the mounted HD that switches to the CD and starts the program:

D:
game.exe

and then tell DFR that this BAT-file is the game.

Hi bobinator1992,
of course you can use MiniMaxs will-always-work solution but you can also run the game directly:

If you want to run a game from a real CD you can add the CD as a drive via the "Drives" section of the profile editor and then enter the program file on the "Profile" section of the profile editor (with full path name). D-Fend Reloaded will automatically try to find a (DOSBox) path to the program file using all mounted drives.

If you want to run a game from a ISO image this is a bit more complex because DFR can not look into images. If you have mounted the ISO image as drive D: in the "Drives" section you can specify as program file "D:\Game.exe" (or whatever the name of the game is) and check the "File path is relative to DOSBox directory structure" checkbox. In this case DFR will not try to interpret the "D:\" as a Windows path and therefore will not try to translate it into a DOSBox path.

oops posted this in the general... without topic.. dohhh but here ya go.

great program, nice features.... But I have an issue. I am running windows XP and not real sure I have this set up correctly.

My issue is comparing "DOG" GUI to D-Fend (Reloaded).

In Dog you just select new profile and find the .bat, .exe, whatever one that will run and the game runs.

In D-Fend (Reloaded) the screen just blanks out or with options to leave it on tells you that you need to mount C: not Z: (File Path is relative to the dosbox directory structure) OR with out that checked something about 8 char or spaces. You can go to the autoexe options and type something like.

mount C "c:\program files\d-fend reloaded\virtualhd\"
c:
cd/
cd lemmin~1
call LEMMINGS.BAT

OR just do it manually once the DOS windows opens with the error but it kind of takes away from that GUI feeling.

For some reason games like Magic carpet, Populous, and a few others run without issues but most of them don't run at all even though Dog runs everyone very easily.

3 out of 22 ran right away with D-Fend (REloaded)
19 out of 22 ran right away with Dog (granted most are not worth playing as I got about 200 some games in one download off bit torrent) but the deal is that they did run quickly in Dog.

There has to be some NOOB thing I am missing to turn this around for me. I would rather use this GUI but will have to stop messing with it and stick with the Dog if I can't get things to run quickly.

thank you for any help.

omnix32.

Hi omnix32,

just before trying to analyse your problem related to the wrong version: Which D-Fend Reloaded release are you using ? 0.4.1 oder 0.5.0 Beta 1 ?

Background: The 0.5.0 Beta 1 has a Windows short filename to DOSBox short filename translator. Unfortunately this translator also trys to modify already short pathnames what will result in not startable profiles. (There are no changes made to the harddisk, only the pathnames in the DOSBox conf file will be changed in a wrong way.) So if you're using this release: Please use the 0.4.1 release. 0.5.0 Beta 1 is only for testing and has known bugs.

If you are using 0.4.1 some more information about your problem would be very helpful. To run your DOS games inside DOSBox, you need to mount the folder where the game is located (or a parent folder of this) as a drive in DOSBox. You can setup the drives to mount per profile one the "Drives" page of the profile editor in D-Fend Reloaded. If you try to start a profile with no way to reach the game files via a mounted drive, D-Fend Reloaded will warn you. So just getting a blank screen shout not happen without any warning.

Oops I knew it. A nOOb thing going on... dohhh. 😊

Thank you so much Alexander !!!! 😀

I did try Beta with no difference in performance or issues. I hunted everywhere for this type of option to mount the game folder directly and just missed the drive options. I did not think they were related or something. Some games did work just mounting the .exe, .bat. ect in the profile option as the file names were short enough or the game just allowed it, most would not.

Now that I know about this drive options per PROFILE everything works as it should. I think I got confused comparing DOG with D-Fend. with dog you just mount the thing that starts the game and your good to go.

However.......... Now that this is working thanks to your help Alexander, it's time to put the Dog to sleep.

I was just using the profile mount option and not checking the drive option and mounting the folder there.

Thank you again.

omnix32

I have split of the recent spat of postings about abandonware into a separate thread:
bluegrazz versus the forum

Hi everybody,

I have just finished the second beta version of D-Fend Reloaded 0.5.0. This beta version is feature complete and ready for translation. There will be no bigger changes from 0.5.0b2 to the final release - only bug fixes if needed.

If you want to test or to translate the new version you can find the download links here:
http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/BetaDownload.html
(There is also a special zip file containing some more information about the new strings to translate etc. on this page.)

This is way cool, Alexander!

I'm attaching an updated Spanish LANG file. Normally I'm not that gung-ho to translate beta versions, but I *might* not be able to deliver the next full version translation on time, so just in case...

Hi Neville,

thank you very much for the language file.

Perhaps I forgot to mention one thing on the download page: If there do no arise new bugs in the nexts days, the main difference between beta 2 and the final release will be the removal of the beta info string from the main window caption. In other words: Beta 2 is string complete to the final version, that's why I have said this version is ready for translation.

Greetings
Alexander

Greetings!

I am a brand new D-Fend Reloaded user...or trying to be. I have just installed it, and have found some DOSBox tutorials on this forum, but can't find a D-Fend Reloaded tutorial or guide.

Is there a beginner's guide available for D-Fend Reloaded? I'm sort of lost...

Thanks!

Hi khelvan,

not in the current version (0.4.1). But the next release (0.5.0) will bring an online help including some introduction.

Feed your site visitors by adding a tutorial to your website. 😀
This will convince them to download D-Fend R.

Hi, Alexander!
I've finished Russian translation for 5.0beta2

Thank you! Is such a tutorial or guide available here or elsewhere?

Hi, Alexander!

Here is bug report for DFR 5b2

1 Icon manager:
- Dialog caption is not translated
- when we use icons with long (about 10 letters) name – text overlap icons in the next column
- when you choose to change icon for standard DOSBox profile its icon is not chosen in the list because you distribute ‘dosbox.ico’ file but specify it in profile as ‘DOSBox.ico’

2 Windows profile
- when you run windows profile you get message about ‘DOS executable’ on windows program and none on DOS.
- when you edit windows profile with DOS executable you get right warning and (after accepting) error message

3 Mounting
- auto create option in profile editor adds only VirtualHD but in wizard it adds game directory also
- for zip drive FolderDeleteWarning does not appear (or I do not know how to create proper situation)

4 DOSBox installations (Setup)
- DOSBOX language in ‘Language’ tab does not change default installation setting (as specified in hint). It can be changed only by editing default installation. It should be either read only or synchronized
- DOSBox installation dialogs for adding and changing name have misplaced (reversed) captions
- button ‘Portable mode information’ displays wrong message
- SDLdriver combo selects ‘Win DIB’ as default under XP SP2, but combo item texts say that default is DirectX
- May you make default installation name 'Default' translatable?

4 Shortcuts creation
- shortcut for windows program adds profile name to command line instead of program parameters
- shortcut for programs with zip drives (to be repacked). DFend tries to start to start DOSBox and close itself – so we get message about zip files in process. If DFend minimizes on run, we get Delphi exception also. Also there are possible messages about locked archive. We need some ‘suspend close’ mode or disable shortcut creation for such programs.

5 Links Editor
- links info message is not visible
- !proposition only! – may you use google.com instead of google.de? It may use browser settings and relay you to proper site itself
- when you press any button to edit list – list itself loses focus and you cannot see what row you edit.

6 External programs
- profile popup menu has ‘additional programs’ item in German. Corresponding tem in main menu is OK

7 Zip archive
- on importing wrong zip archive you get message about ‘windows executable’ instead of profile absence

8 FullScreen Warning Dialog
- Checkbox ‘Do not show again’ should be set to ‘off’ as default, because user should decide this, not program

9 View configuration
- Menu items 'Open DOSBox configuration file', 'Open ScummVM configuration file', 'View DOSBox conf file', 'View ScummVM ini file' and corresponding buttons in profile editor do nothing

10 Preview
- in sound and video tabs popup menu item ‘rename’ is always enabled
- on refreshing sound/video list some file are loosed. It’s difficult to reproduce: Create two profiles and put one avi on capture folder for second one. Select first (without avi) profile and open sound tab in preview area (to be sure select it twice so sound tab gets focus). Select second profile (with avi). Select sound tab again (tab get focus). Select video tab – there are no video files. NB: Maybe ‘tab gets focus’ part isn’t necessary. Effect may be not constant, but in most occasions it presents.

11 Profiles list
- when you check off menu item 'Show Search box' in 'View' menu - profiles list becames empty

And one more:
when you check off 'Reopen last activeprofile editor page' (Setup dialog) - adding new profile brings access violation

Not exactly a bug, but I found something annoying on v0.50b2, the way the program reallocates all icons after a restart.

This is how I left my icons last time:

...And this is how they look after restarting the program:

I'm assuming that DFR is rearranging all icons on startup. Results are less extreme when using other viewing options, but also noticeable.

EDIT: I also found out that the option "View CONF file" from the contextual menu is not working.

i have the orginagl d-fend v2, how can i export those profiles or games list into the D-Fend reloaded, b/c they are different extensions..i even tried renaming them and that didnt work..thanks!