rcblanke wrote:

Thank you flamepanther! Just take the tar.gz of version 0.60 and put the J7zip.jar file in your own lib directory. Should work fine then.
You may want to consider updating swt.jar in your lib folder as well, grab it from here, and while your at it, update the dbgl.jar to 0.61 and have fun 😀

Thanks! I'll try that out as soon as I get home from work tonight.

EDIT: Flawless. Many thanks!

Hi all,

It's been pretty quiet on the DBGL front for a couple of months but there is news; I've started working on exporting and importing of game profiles. Not only dosbox configuration and DBGL profile meta-data, but even game captures and the games themselves (the game files) can soon be exported.

On my development machine, the exporting dialog looks something like this:

Simply give the export a title and add some notes, choose a filename and select the categories that you would like to include in the exported package.

The import dialog looks somewhat similar:

The user can choose the game(s) and select the parts that he or she would like to import. He is also enabled to couple the DOSBox versions that were used in the original export to an installed version that forms the best match.

The export file (gpa=GamePackArchive) is in fact just a simple zip file, possibly containing captures files, game files and an XML file in the root, profiles.xml. This XML contains all DBGL meta-information and the DOSBox configuration data associated with the games, very much like the structure that was proposed earlier in this thread. I've attached an example XML. It doesn't use a DTD or XML Schema as of yet, maybe when I'm in the mood sometime... 😜

Exporting of game files is not without constraints, obviously. It is assumed that the game data is in one directory tree. This 'root' game folder is stored entirely in the export file, and I assume it's the location that the main game executable (or booter file) is in. What this means is that external game files are not stored, such as CD-ROMS and the like. On the other hand, in theory one could put disc images (iso, bin/cue) in a location below the game's 'root' dir.

What do you think guys? Comments, remarks and suggestion are very welcome!

Only had a cursory look - 2 comments:

1: If possible, add indentations to the XML.

I know it adds a few extra bytes to the GPA, but I think it is worth it.

2: I think it is an error to include the dosbox.conf info as verbatim copy of the real config.

It will be much easier to adapt to future versions of DOSBox, with a possible different config-syntax.

I know that many, myself included, have been waiting for this. Thanks. I like that it is in XML. It would be nice if there could be a standard format for DOSBox profiles (I'm thinking of D.O.G., too.)

At first the ability to zip game data with it seem more like an invitation to encourage abandonware, but realized that this is necessary for the inclusion of game configuration files, i.e. the RESOURCE.CFG files in Sierra games.

Couldn't the import dialog have a browse button like you have in your path to executable dialog for creating profiles? This would allow users to use imported profiles for games already on their harddrive. Just a browse button to find the existing game's folder to modify the paths specified in the export.

Haven't been working on the xml profile for a while now.
Been too much busy with Open Sourcing D.O.G. (Is now under the Mozilla GPL btw.) and compatibility with Vista (Finished)

I think me, rcBlanke and others need to combine forces when it comes to the XML profile. (Didn't collector start a post on this...?)

Anyways, great work.

Erik.

I've finished the XML profile for D.O.G. blending it with the DBGL format.

One thing the format should be able to support, is it being compatible with more then one emulator. Therefore I export an emulator part inside each profile.

Also the root shouldn't have the same name as its children, therefore I named the root "Document".

There is currently an incompatibility between D.O.G.'s custom columns and DBGL's custom columns. For D.O.G. all columns are of type string and are of an non infinite number, in DBGL certain custom columns are of type integer and the number is limited to 10.

As you'll see in the xml by D.O.G., I categorized the data by type of information to improve readability.

Suggestions?

Erik.

Again, just a quick look. I am not an XML-developer/designer, but I am being exposed to a lot of them in my work. I may be wrong, but the idea of embedding emulator-capabilities(?) inside the XML seems wrong. I believe the correct solution is to include a DOCTYPE attribute in the XML and let that point to a specific emulator DTD/schema or whatever it is called. The schema contains information on what is allowed (supported) by the emulator.

Thanks MiniMax

mm, a DocType...

Well, I too ain't a XML developer/designer so I'm building the XML as it comes.

It was built in, as there are a lot of DOSBox flavors out, with all their own features.

Will see if it is possible to make a DOCType tell a frontend what features the profile's DOSBox had on exporting.

I could get it out of the conf file though, maybe a CRC32 check in the Emulator section to identify if the user has the same exe...

Also now added a Data section to export files inside the XML and outside. "Inside" meaning, the file will be first converted with Base64 encoding then it will be added as text to the XML under a CDATA section.
"Outside" meaning, the file needs to be transported side by side the XML as rcblanke now is doing.

Erik.

Just as an example, here is the top section of this very HTML-page:

1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 Extended//EN"
2  "http://www.zetafleet.com/includes/xhtml11ext.dtd">
3<html>
4<head>

As I read it, the DOCTYPE here tells me that yes, this is a form of HTML, more specifically, an extended version of XHTML version 1.1, extended with something that is described in an DTD available at http://www.zetafleet.com/includes/xhtml11ext.dtd.

I had a look at that xhtml11ext.dtd (just enter the link in your browser), and it bascically references other DTD's, most importantantly(?) the DTD that describes the official XHTML 1.1 standard: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd.

I tried to dig deeper, to see if I could find some definition of a common HTML-tag like <H1>, but what a tangled mess those DTD's are...

So if I get it right, every DOSBox flavor (feature wise) needs a DTD?

Erik.

Yes. The DTD describes what tags are allowed, what kind of values are allowed in each tag (e.g. a list of predefined values for 'output'). The advantage is that you can build generic XML-validators that can take an XML document, the matching DTD, and check that it is syntactically correct and valid. Or you can build generic XML-editors that can work with all kinds of XML-documents.

There is a simple example at dear Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Type_Definition

But is seems DTD is depreciated 🙁 The new thing is XSD's - XML schemas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Schema

I'm trying to merge the games included in v0.55 into v0.60 but the import profile function is not importing the text under the Info tab, and the game doesn't run either. If I add the games manually, they run.

I assume the function is not backward compatible?

Hi anony,
Your issue has nothing to do with backwards compatibility. Importing a dosbox conf file simply does not contain any profile meta data such as the 'notes' section that you mentioned.
I'm busy working on game import/export functionality as we speak, and when it's finished game pack importing will be ridiculously easy.

thanks rcblanke. Being able to export and import all game profiles would promote the use this utility, I'm sure. Please keep up the good work.

I like to translate some useful apps into chinese, and I love DBGL very much!
I have translated DBGL in src, and recomplie them to create a new GUI DBGL, see... (^_^)

But I want to known: Do you plan to make a language file support for DBGL? If yes, I hope I can make some help, and for other chinese user of DBGL.

PS. Sorry for my poor English...But I'm good at Chinese...hahaha

I have a problem with older DOSBox versions in DBGL 0.60: when I ask the game to launch with DOSBox versions older than 0.70 (ie 0.65 and below), clicking on the profile brings up the DOSBox shell, at the Z: prompt, but no script is run and the game does not start. (Some games only work with older DOSBox versions)

@CLARKH: Cool, looks very nice! My Chinese girlfriend (ChongQing) is going to love this 😁 I'll try to add internationalization in the future, yes, but other stuff comes first...

anony wrote:

I have a problem with older DOSBox versions in DBGL 0.60: when I ask the game to launch with DOSBox versions older than 0.70 (ie 0.65 and below), clicking on the profile brings up the DOSBox shell, at the Z: prompt, but no script is run and the game does not start. (Some games only work with older DOSBox versions)

Dosbox versions prior to 0.70 do not support multiple configuration files. Just change that specific versions in DBGL to not use 'Multiconf support'.

If I remember correctly, you also need print the text-items up-down instead of left-to-right. And right-to-left for Hebrew and Arabic. Something to think about 😀

Oh my god!
You mean that you have a girlfriend(not female friend), and she is chinese???
hahahaha...I think..some people want to see her photos... 😁 😁

I've been using this frontend for a month or so now, and I really enjoy it, but I've encountered a problem that I can't seem to solve.

My dos games are in the path C:\games\dos on my harddrive, and that path is already mounted as c in the main dosbox config file. So all the front end needs to do is CD into the game folder and run the game.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to get that to work. DBGL always copies the mounting information from the main config file into each individual config file (even if I manually edit the config file after DBGL creates it). I don't want that, because then it's no longer portable. If I move the games to another directory (say C:\DOS), I just want to update the main config file not every game's config file.

Does anyone know of a way to get around this?