Kamichu22 wrote:

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 […]
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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?

Hi Kamichu22, glad you like it. Well, as I wrote earlier in this - I admit rather long - thread:

Drive mounting and/or commands to change drive or directory in dosbox.conf are not supported in DBGL, mainly because the [autoexec] section is cumulative, meaning the commands cannot be undone or overridden.
You can, however, put that mounting stuff in a template and use that template as a default. If you would decide to do that, creating a new profile will automatically contain your 'default' mounting location.

Strictly speaking, mounting CAN be undone using 'mount -u ...' but anyway. I have dosbox.conf drive mounting already on my to-do list and the functionality that you describe will be implemented in the near future.

For the moment; If your primary goal is to achieve portability, I would strongly suggest to migrate your games to DBGLs dosroot directory to make all mounting information relative to that folder. Then, if you would want to relocate your games at any time for whatever reason, you would only have to edit settings.conf in the DBGL directory to define the new data location, in which dosroot should exist with your games.

Please let me know if you need any help, or if anything is unclear about what I just said.

Ah, so something was said about it! I didn't make it through the whole thread, so that's why I missed it.

Well that's a bit disappointing for me, but I can deal with it. Putting the games in the dosroot folder and referencing things from there works, however I noticed this problem.

My data directory is set for "." and the loader is installed at C:\DBGL. The game is in C:\DBGL\dosroot\game, and for mounting it just does "\game" (so this works for me). If I change the configuration files to be in the game directory, it tries to put them in C:\DBGL\game instead of C:\DBGL\dosroot\game. Has this been mentioned before? (I'm using v0.61 of the launcher)

Nope, that issue is new to me, will be fixed in the next release. Thanks for reporting it, Kamichu22.

Hi all,

DBGL v0.62 is ready:
* Fixed using '~' in data/dosbox/database location for Linux (Qbix).
* Fixed regression since 0.60 where the write 'browse' button in the mounting dialog browsed to a file instead of a directory (transitionality).
* Fixed relative .conf files storage location in a game's directory (kamichu22).
* Made 'Send To' also use relative paths if possible.
* Thumbs can now be resized, and the latest selected profile is reselected at the start of a new session (rfc).
* Improvements to database management, no longer requires db/empty files, database is automatically created if necessary (Qbix).
* Some internal changes towards game import/export.

Thanks for all the bugreports, patches and suggestions people!

Ronald

I’ve got my DosBox setup like real dos with a folder with GAMES subfolder some dos utility’s, univbe and such and windows 3.11 within is where anyway to setup DBGL to just cd into my games dir and launch the executable without the need for mounting the game folder as a mount (or windows folder to launch win 3.11) and preferable without having to make a batch file for every game (which is partly why i chose to start using a frontend that and some games need normal rather than dynamic cpu)

Also if I attempt to make my own template (my mounts from the dosbox.conf show up in the mount section if and if I reload the template to edit or try to use it, it seems to set the mounts from the dosbox.conf and then again form the template ending up in the mounts duplicated in the mount section, I’m assuming this is a bug which I thought I’d mention.

Also here’s a feature idea/request I think most people would like the ability to scan a folder and it would scan each sub folder make not of the exe/coms in there if it finds one called setup setsound or install for example it will set it as the setup for a game and set one that’s left as the game executable give it the title of the folder as the game name by default and it prioritises executable names like one that matches the folder name or go.bat and filters out stuff like readme.com and dos4gw.com then they can be manually tweaked name wise and such.

Just thought I’d mention the last one while I was posting since I think it would be a feature most people want.

Hi everybody!

I have packaged DBGL 0.62 for Mac OS X. Download is here: http://www.familie-kirchhofer.de/downloads/DB … DOSBox-0.72.dmg

I have tested a little bit on Tiger and Leopard, works fine.

Thank you Pingutux, 've put your new build on the site.

@Kamichu22 + cyberaxe + Devcon: I've been working for dosbox.conf drive mounting support. Please test the attached jar to see if you find it working like at should. This updated version can correctly handle drive mountings defined in dosbox.conf so that both templates and game profiles work correctly and can even unmount the mounts (mount -u driveletter) using the 'remove' button in the mounting tab. PLEASE make a backup of your DBGL folder prior to testing, and please let me know whether you find it working correctly and intuitively.

Regards,
Ronald

results, anybody?

AFter having problems with D.O.G., I found this and read the first page and the last couple pages, so I am going to try it. I will download the latest one that has those 11 games included and will download the above jar062a.zip. Will come back with my first thoughts soon. Obviously not a coder - java or otherwise, just someone with a huge collection of games going back to 1996 plus a load of abandonware titles for those where I have mislaid the original, All this means I won't be able to give a lot of technical speak and may ask a noobie type question, but can help with regards good games from the past, etc! 😀

Installed it and added some games to the root directory, and did the add.exe shortcut thing. All the games, once set up, like Terra Nova: Task Force Centauri (Looking Glass Technologies), Daggerfall (Bethesda) and Darklands (Microprose) worked perfectly after setting up the profile. Cannot get the shortcut option to work on any game.exe though.

ive had some pretty good results

the only things that are annoying now is the default exe and parameter added from the autoexec segments (should be easy to fix just not add any to the boxes if autoexec mount is detected) this is especialy a neussance when ive setup a game profile and i goto edit the profile and it sometimes overwrites the stuff in the main and parameters boxes

and the other is once ive selected my game exe and such it seems to the the last mounted drive to cd into and such (i have 2 subfolders of my virtual c drive mounted again as cd rom drives to fix some copy protection issues with various games) perhaps you can make it so if it detects the relative game path in c and e and f for example it prioritises the lower letters liek c before e e before f and so on

heres an example of how i have my mounts setup
MOUNT C "D:\Emulation\Computer Software\PC\DOSBox" -freesize 1024
MOUNT D %CD1% -t cdrom -usecd 0
MOUNT E "D:\Emulation\Computer Software\PC\DOSBox" -t cdrom
MOUNT F "D:\Emulation\Computer Software\PC\DOSBox\GAMES" -t cdrom

and the resulting launch of the fame goes to F: then cd's to the folder i'd prefere it to use my C and then cd games\gamename instead since using the f causes problems

though that only seems to happen with stuff i launch from within the games folder if i launch windows 3.11 from the Windows subfolder of the dosbox folder it uses C

other than that its working pretty excelently, keep up the good work!

Thanks guys!

UK_John wrote:

...Cannot get the shortcut option to work on any game.exe though.

Make sure you start DBGL using dbgl.cmd, NOT by running the jar directly, shortcut creation will hang otherwise.

cyberaxe wrote:

...exe and parameter added from the autoexec segments

I'll take a look at that!

Drive mapping is priorized by 'mount-path-length', and cannot be changed easily. Maybe I'll make this behaviour more flexible in the future..

ah, well since its based on lengh i managed to make a work around by using an environment variable to mount the E and F drives and leaving C as the full path resulting in my desired effect, thanks

rcblanke wrote:

Thanks guys! […]
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Thanks guys!

UK_John wrote:

...Cannot get the shortcut option to work on any game.exe though.

Make sure you start DBGL using dbgl.cmd, NOT by running the jar directly, shortcut creation will hang otherwise.

cyberaxe wrote:

...exe and parameter added from the autoexec segments

I'll take a look at that!

Drive mapping is priorized by 'mount-path-length', and cannot be changed easily. Maybe I'll make this behaviour more flexible in the future..

If I start with the dbgl.cmd it says java is not installed, when it is! If I start the jar file, dbgl opens and works!

just found a problem, the setups dont seem to work at all, run works fine but i try to run the setup it doesnt work

also the parameter overwriting already setup exe and params seems to happen when changing machine settings and just pressing ok but if i goto the mount tab before pressing ok it usualy doenst mess it up

@UK_John: Could you please test this launcher to see if it finds your installed Java VM correctly, and desktop shortcut creation works? Just put it in your DBGL folder and run it!

Thanks rcblanke, this exe worked like a charm! Mind you, by now, I have entered all my current DOS games the old fashioned way, sing the main program! Thanks a lot though, as now I know a quicker war to do it with any new games I install, and that's all down to DBGL!! Having used it for a few days now, I can say it works excellently! Only Elder Scrolls Battlespire is giving me problems, but based on what they say on the web, this game is a bugger to get going - so I don't blame DBGL! 😀

Cheers!

That error I reported before is definitely fixed.

I tested out the other jar file you provided and it works rather well. The dosbox config was mounting some main directory as C, and then a bunch of profiles were just CDing into that directory to launch the game. When I moved the main directory, and remapped the C mount in the dosbox config, everything still worked. That's what I was looking for before, so this is great!

About the only problem I have is trying to relatively mount image files. If I do MOUNT D "c:\games\whatever\cd.iso" to mount the image, I have to edit the profile in order to change it. I can however mount the image relatively (like "whatever\cd.iso") if the main game directory is dosroot. So if the dosbox config contains MOUNT C "c:\dgbl\dosroot" then images can be mounted relative to dosroot. So I guess its not a huge deal, especially if this isn't something easy to change.

Kamichu - relative mounting works fine regardless of quotes or not. Try this:

Z:\>mount C "C:\games"
Drive C is mounted as local directory C:\Games\
Z:>imgmount D "C:\WHATEVER\CD.ISO" -t iso
Drive D is mounted as C:\games\whatever\cd.iso
Z:>C:
C:>imgmount E "WHATEVER\CD.ISO" -t iso
Drive D is mounted as C:\games\whatever\cd.iso

The only thing you need to be aware of is that you must use the DOS 8.3 naming when referring to files & folders inside a DOSBox-mounted drive. Since your "whatever" folder is 8 characters long, it should work, but for longer names you must use something like "LONGER~1":

imgmount E "LONGER~1\CD.ISO" -t iso

Wow, nevermind. I was already doing what you said MiniMax and DosBox kept saying "image not found". Turns out I was mounting the wrong directory as C, so it doesn't surprise me the image wasn't found. After correctly mounting the drives, everything is working.

Those changes are very nice rcblanke! I'll keep playing with it and see if I run into any issues.