I have a petition for Alexander: Could the Screenshot tab include a "Rename" option?

Sometimes DOS games use more than one executable, and the screenshots don't display in order. Being able to rename them from inside DFR would be great.

Hi Neville,
you do not need a petition, a feature request would do it, too. 😉
I think this feature would be very good. I needed to rename some screenshots in my games list to bring the screenshots in the correct cronological ordern (game intro screenshots and so on) quite sometimes, too. I think this feature should make it in the 0.3.1 release.

By the way, today your language file has found its way to the server. It is also announced on the project web site (http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net).

I have to do a lot of work at the moment, so I think 0.3.1 won't be there before 2 or 3 weeks.

Just wondering will 0.3.1 be a pure bugfix version or are you also going to add new features? I ask because I think at this moment it would be wise to get a stable, bugfree version of DFR out as soon as possible, without any new features. Before too many people setup their games with CPU Auto, find that they don't work anymore and move away from DFR again.

And because I have recently aquired quite a few games that I'm eager to install but have decided not to until a fully working version of DFR is out. 😀

Cool, that new "rename" feature will be welcome.

BTW, I'm with J.B. in that it would be great to have a "bugfixed" DFR ASAP, even if that means we'll have to wait more for the new features.

Hi,
the 0.3.1 release will be a bugfix release and will bring only very few small new features (renaming screenshots...). But I haven't got much time at the moment and some friends are going to visit me this weekend so I won't have any time this weekend. Perhaps I will manage to finish the 0.3.1 release by the end of next week.

Friends? You're not taking this serious enough!

Just kidding. I like the work you're doing, it seems very well thought out. I'll be patient until whenever you think it's time to release a new version.

Hi everybody,

some things have been much easier than I have thought, so D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.1 is nearly ready. This means, if you have any bugs you wish to have fixed in version 0.3.1, this would be the right time to report them.

Good to hear that. I don't know if you fix that bug Alexander,

but if you create a new template (custom window and fullscreen resolution, cpu cycles...) and say d-fend should use it as your "new default profile" the wizard won't recognize the new profile rather he will use the standard dosbox.conf profile.

Hi, T.B.,
thank you for the bug report. This bug was new to me but should be fixed now.

D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.1 is complete by now and I'm just building the different installation packages. I will announce the version here when it's uploaded to SourceForce.

On little hint on what it will bring: Up to version 0.3.0 one could only create empty disk images not related to an existing floppy disk or CD...

Hi everybody,

I have just uploaded D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.1 to SourceForge. If you use version 0.3.0 you can update to the new version by choosing "Search for updates" from the "Help" menu. All different packages are as usual available from the downloads section of the project homepage.

This release is a bugfix release with only very few new features. The following list shows all changes from version 0.3.0:

• CDs can be ripped to ISO images and used as DOSBox drives.
• Floppy disks can be ripped to IMG images and used as DOSBox drives.
• Screenshots and captured sounds can be renamed.
• Captured screenshots can be set as windows wallpaper image.
• If DOSBox is started in window mode, the DOSBox window can be centered on screen.
• [Fix] CPU cycles settings "Auto" and "Max" in the modern profile editor dialog did not work.
• [Fix] In the "Edit multiple profiles" the "Fullscreen resolution" did not work.
• [Fix] When using the "Restore window size on program start" option the games list keeps empty until you click on a category on the left at program start.
• [Fix] When pressing enter in the setup dialog shown at first program start you got an "No game is selected in list." error.
• [Fix] Choose DOSBox directory as current directory when starting DOSBox to make DOSBox find files in its own directory.
• [Fix] The "Use as default profile" option in the template profile editor did not work.
• [Fix] When changing the language in the setup dialog the "Mode" dropdown box shows an empty value until you choose one of the two modes again.
• [Fix] Default values for "Resolution" corrected.

My plans for the next time:
0.3.1 should be a stable release for the next time, so I have time for some other things. At first, I will try to update the demo package with some freeware games to give new users a better impression of the abilities of DOSBox. Second, D-Fend Reloaded already supports some of the new things from the csv-builds but the GUI for those things if deactivated by default (not to confuse normal users with settings DOSBox 0.72 does not support). By now this hidden GUI options can be activated by changing the DFend.ini manually (see FAQ.txt in the D-Fend Reloaded program folder). I will make a little installer for selective activation of this features. And then I will start working on 0.4.0. I am thinking of a way to make the profile wizard smarter. At the moment new users have to find out the right settings for some games again and agian. So I think it would be a good idea to add a profile autosetup library to D-Fend Reloaded. If a game a user want to add is in the library, the only thing the user would have to do is telling the wizard the name of the folder. But I haven't thought much about how to implement this by now, so this will still take some time.

But for now have fun with the new release.
Alexander

Hi!

Just installed and all the 0.3.0 bugs I reported are fixed.

The only problem I've had up to now is that changing multi profile settings doesn't work for "Window Resolution", "Fullscreen Resolution" and "Scale". Making changes here doesn't have any effect on the profiles.

But no real show stoppers found yet!

Another rather serious one: I can't "edit default profile" as it tells me "you have to define a name for the new game" when I click OK.

I'm sad to say, yes, I can confirm both bugs. 🙁

But until now I do not think this two bugs are enough to make a 0.3.2 version. So the next planed version is still 0.4.0. Perhaps I will make a "Known bugs" section on the project homepage.

Additionally both bugs are not new in the current release. The edit default profile bug came with 0.3.0. And the multiple profile editor bug exists since 0.2.0. This means this bugs can't be that critical.

To edit the default profile as a work around one could activate the D-Fend style profile editor because the bug is only related to the modern profile editor.

Alexander wrote:

Hi everybody,

My plans for the next time:
0.3.1 should be a stable release for the next time, so I have time for some other things. At first, I will try to update the demo package with some freeware games to give new users a better impression of the abilities of DOSBox.

Why don't you add a couple of shareware versions from Apogee / 3D Realms games? They're great games, and as far as you only offer shareware versions it should be legal.

You can see a list of games and download shareware versions from the 3D Realms website.

Alexander wrote:

I am thinking of a way to make the profile wizard smarter. At the moment new users have to find out the right settings for some games again and agian. So I think it would be a good idea to add a profile autosetup library to D-Fend Reloaded. If a game a user want to add is in the library, the only thing the user would have to do is telling the wizard the name of the folder. But I haven't thought much about how to implement this by now, so this will still take some time.

That sounds interesting, but as you say it is hard to implement. The easiest way I can think of is to create a database file including at least the following fields:

- Complete title of the game.

- Posible names of the executable files (they would be used to identity the game once the user introduced the path).

- Setup program (if any).

- Core settings.

- Cycles settings.

- Memory type (EMS, XMS, UMB)

- Memory size.

For example:

Wings of Glory

Executable: WG.EXE

Setup: INSTALL.EXE

Core=normal

Cycles=auto

Memory=XMS, UMB

Memory size: 32

You could add a template to next releases or include an online version of the database on your website, to allow for user's contribution.

Sounds "doable", but it would be still a lot of work, as you would need to manually cleanup and add every contributed game to the database.

Not to mention that as soon as new DOSBox versions appear more games should work with auto core and cycles, or that mounting problems would still be an issue.

Of course it's your choice but I have to say that a version without those two IMO rather serious bugs would be a much better version than the one now. It's all about the overall quality of the product. When people use software and click on things that don't work or cause error messages then they lose confidence in the software. You need to be careful that you don't fall into the "lots of features and lots of bugs" category that many software projects, especially open source, suffer from.

And another thing is that you have some quite ambitious plans for future versions. Unless you can do the new features without adding a single new bug then DFR will still be in the situation where no properly working version is available at all.

I know, squashing the bugs isn't as fun as adding shiny new stuff but would it really be so much work to fix up those two issues for a 0.3.2 or 0.3.1b version?

There is a minor bug in 0.3.0/0.3.1
In translation/language editor string table does not contain last line from proper section.

In LoadSection

1 Tab.RowCount:=Max(2,St.Count);

should have

1ST.Count+1

Anyway, a lot of thanks for your work.

Hi to all of you,

to answer the last posts:

Games package

I haven't thought much about the games package jet. Yes, shareware game are a very good idea, too. With "freeware games" a meant "games I can distribute legaly". I will take a look at the 3D Realms website the next days.

Autosetup database

I'm not thinking of a single big database file. And also I don't want to bring only the mentioned settings. We already have a profile format, why not just using this ? At the moment I am thinking of just a third subfolder (besides "Confs" and "Templates") to store the autosetup templates as simple prof files. Making a autosetup template from an existing profile would mean copying the prof file to the new folder (and of course removing links to data folders etc.). The profile wizard could search in the new folder for matching autosetup profiles and simply make a real profile from one of this templates (like it can do from the "Template" templates at the moment). Only the game and setup exe paths would need to be changed.

Up to last week my best idea to find the correct autosetup profile for a game was to define some more characteristical files for the game while making the template. But the idea to use checksums from the Frond ends wish list thread sounds much better.

And yes, I am also thinking of things like an online database. But this is still very far away. The only thing I will have to attend for this at the moment is making the autosetup system secure. If there are one day perhaps not checked autosetup templates on the internet, one could also make a template which mounts "C:\" as drive D and than in the autoexec does some "del *.*". So the wizard should warn the user if he want's to use a template with 1.) mounting something outside the VirtualHD tree, 2.) have an autoexec section or 3.) have an custom settings section (because custom settings can be "[autoexec] del *.*", too).

Bugfix release yes or no

I do not like feature rich but buggy programs, too. But at the moment I don't know if this three bugs really make a 0.3.2 release necessary. If D-Fend Reloaded was a bigger project with more people involved, on could make beta and stable versions or one stable tree and one playground tree.

The three bugs are already fixed in my source code. So the main problem is not that I don't like fixing bugs. The release process is much more unpleasant: Building the 5 different installation packages, checking all version numbers are right, uploading them to SourceForge at <50KB/s (don't know why their ftp server is that slow, my connection is much faster anyway), making a new release there, sorting the files in the right locations, writing announcements here and at sourceforge, updating the download links, updating the homepage...
But I am still thinking of a 0.3.2 release. Perhaps, if someone finds some more bugs, I will make a bugfix release.

St.Count+1

Hi skatz, wow, someone looked at the source code, very nice. You are right, there should be a "+1".

By the way I have just created a list of known bugs website. I think it is better to show the user "Yes, there are bugs, but I know them all and they will be fixed soon" than to deny the existence of the bugs and then the user finds some and thinks there are unlimited many bugs and no one will ever find and fix them.

Alexander wrote:

The three bugs are already fixed in my source code. So the main problem is not that I don't like fixing bugs. The release process is much more unpleasant: Building the 5 different installation packages, checking all version numbers are right, uploading them to SourceForge at <50KB/s (don't know why their ftp server is that slow, my connection is much faster anyway), making a new release there, sorting the files in the right locations, writing announcements here and at sourceforge, updating the download links, updating the homepage...
But I am still thinking of a 0.3.2 release. Perhaps, if someone finds some more bugs, I will make a bugfix release.

Ah, I see, some work involved that I wasn't aware of. I still think a patch would be a good idea, based on the fact that 0.4 will probably need a lot of time and work, and the fact that the multi edit tool is one of DFR's main features.

But of course it's your time not mine.

Cheers

BTW, if new bugs would make you consider an update, I also have a list of minor bugs and that I didn't want to annoy you with yet. Things like: copy/pasting into the "Value" box under "DOS environment" causes strange invisible entries. Interested in more? 😁

For the next web page update please use DOSBox and not DosBox.

Found another bug myself, some untranslated German:

It should read "Cancelar". BTW, no Swahili translation planned, just wanted to take a look at the new language editor xD