Today I have a small request, nothing too serious. I'm constantly changing between DBGL installations (I have one for the DOS games I play regularly, another for testing games and a third one in my laptop) and importing and exporting games. Sometimes this results in me changing the paths to game documentation and forgetting to update the profiles.

When this happens, I click on a link to a manual or whatever... and nothing happens. Sometimes I can't tell if the file is not found or if my system is just responding too slowly. rcblanke, could you add a "File not found" error message for these situations?

I'm having issues with DBGL and DOSBox-Staging.

Note that this is when using DBGL v0.99 and I can't reproduce it with the latest betas, so it may be already solved.

However I don't like using DBGL betas with my collection, so if anybody has found a workaround...

The problem I'm having is that whenever I start DOSBox-Staging from DBGL, either from the DOSBox versions tab or from a profile, it crashes right at the start.

Because its console shows at least a grave error, I think it's related to its dosbox.conf, but it seems to work fine outside of DBGL. This is the console output:

However, when I run the same build of DOSBox-Staging outside of DBGL everything is fine, and the console doesn't show any fatal errors:

Weird, huh?

RedTony wrote on 2025-07-10, 15:18:

I just see the letters "NORMAL" in dark grey and capitalized on the top-right corner.
I do not recall seeing it before. Apparently it's the keymapper overlay. Is it due to my dosBox settings?

Uh, no idea, never seen that myself. Must be a feature of one of the special DOSBox flavors. Or possibly a monitor feature.

Neville wrote on 2025-07-22, 17:36:

... I click on a link to a manual or whatever... and nothing happens. Sometimes I can't tell if the file is not found or if my system is just responding too slowly. rcblanke, could you add a "File not found" error message for these situations?

Sure, done.

Neville wrote on 2025-07-30, 10:03:

I'm having issues with DBGL and DOSBox-Staging. […]
Show full quote

I'm having issues with DBGL and DOSBox-Staging.

Note that this is when using DBGL v0.99 and I can't reproduce it with the latest betas, so it may be already solved.

However I don't like using DBGL betas with my collection, so if anybody has found a workaround...

The problem I'm having is that whenever I start DOSBox-Staging from DBGL, either from the DOSBox versions tab or from a profile, it crashes right at the start.

Because its console shows at least a grave error, I think it's related to its dosbox.conf, but it seems to work fine outside of DBGL. This is the console output:

However, when I run the same build of DOSBox-Staging outside of DBGL everything is fine, and the console doesn't show any fatal errors:

Weird, huh?

Hmm, it might be related to your DBGL DOSBox-Staging configuration, because apparently it looks for dosbox.conf in D:\La Colección\DOSBox-Staging\dosbox.conf and it can't find it; Did you move files around?

This new beta also fixes an issue with MobyGames cover images (some are now age-restricted on the website), I've added support for DOSBox Staging 0.82.2 and all libraries (.jar files in /lib) have been updated.

Hmm, it might be related to your DBGL DOSBox-Staging configuration, because apparently it looks for dosbox.conf in D:\La Colección\DOSBox-Staging\dosbox.conf and it can't find it; Did you move files around?

I may have moved the files around... from <DBGL path>\DOSBox-Staging to <DBGL path>\DOSBox Staging and viceversa, because I'm not sure how it is spelled. However, I'm pretty sure it's correctly set-up in DBGL v0.99.

However I do agree the issue seems dosbox.conf related, because the program acts as if couldn't find the file or is reading a different one. I've erased my User\<me>\Appdata\Local\DOSBox\DOSBox.conf, but it may have re-appeared there during my tests. But then, I don't have the same issue in my other setup using DBGL betas. Weird.

Hi, i tried upgrading DBGL from 0.98 to 0.99 on Win7, but it doesn't work. I downloaded the required JVM version (which still worked with 0.98). But it just doesn't launch with version 0.99. Are there any compatibility issues here?

Due to some issue with the libraries, v0.99 only works in Windows 10. However the most recent betas should work again in Windows 7.

There was also some trick to get v0.99 working under Windows 7, but I can't remember it.

Neville wrote on 2025-08-03, 14:25:

Due to some issue with the libraries, v0.99 only works in Windows 10. However the most recent betas should work again in Windows 7.

There was also some trick to get v0.99 working under Windows 7, but I can't remember it.

Where do I download these betas from?

Here: https://dbgl.org/beta/

Tried the latest one, still does work on win7. 0.98 is fine.

OK, I mentioned a long while ago that DBGL stopped showing the icon on the taskbar in Windows 11. I spent WEEKS trying to figure out why, and I finally figured it out... and it's VERY WEIRD. It will show a generic icon on the taskbar... only when the display mode of DBGL is NOT set to Tables. Whenever I enable any size of boxes or tiles, it will stop showing the DBGL icon on the taskbar on relaunch. If I revert back to Table, the icon will show again on relaunch.

Deleting the settings.conf will resolve it, because it defaults to table display. But as soon as I change the settings, the problem starts again. It used to work before. I don't know if this is somehow related to the amount of titles I have on my library. In fact, let me test that right now.

Yeah, I tried on a fresh install, and it seems to keep the icon correctly when I change to boxes or tiles. Right now I have 445 profiles (including the templates). My general impression is that if you have a certain number of profiles loaded and change away from Table view, the app will not display its icon correctly.

EDIT: I managed to reproduce this on both .99 and all betas of .100, for the record. I am not sure if the trigger was an update from a previous version or reaching this limit of profiles installed. Windows does seem to have SOME awareness of the icon, because it shows on the preview when tiling windows, just not on the taskbar.

Hi all,

I've just uploaded beta17 (probably the last one, unless serious issues pop up). No new features, just some library updates. The folks at SWT have decided to no longer support old Windows versions, which means that DBGL for Windows will only work with 10 and 11 from now on, see this for details. Thus, if you want to use DBGL with, for example, Window7, please use version 0.98 as mentioned by kolderman.

Regards,
Ronald

I have a question... a while ago, DBGL added support for PC-98 games, which are supported by DOSBox-X. I remember floppy disk images are recognised but, are HDI harddisk images supported as well?

rcblanke wrote on 2025-09-30, 16:34:

Hi all, […]
Show full quote

Hi all,

I've just uploaded beta17 (probably the last one, unless serious issues pop up). No new features, just some library updates. The folks at SWT have decided to no longer support old Windows versions, which means that DBGL for Windows will only work with 10 and 11 from now on, see this for details. Thus, if you want to use DBGL with, for example, Window7, please use version 0.98 as mentioned by kolderman.

Regards,
Ronald

Why not stick with an older version then? Lots of folk have dedicated emulator machines often with 5:4 screens running older versions of Windows like win7.

Neville wrote on Yesterday, 20:10:

I have a question... a while ago, DBGL added support for PC-98 games, which are supported by DOSBox-X. I remember floppy disk images are recognised but, are HDI harddisk images supported as well?

Uh, does this question refer to a specific input field in the profile editor, Neville?

kolderman wrote on Yesterday, 21:00:

Why not stick with an older version then? Lots of folk have dedicated emulator machines often with 5:4 screens running older versions of Windows like win7.

Life goes on, kolderman, I can't keep using an old library for.. eternity. These users can simply use DBGL 0.98, or use the latest DBGL release in combination with swt.jar from 0.98. Not really a problem, right?

rcblanke wrote on Today, 14:56:

Uh, does this question refer to a specific input field in the profile editor, Neville?

Uh, I think so. A long time ago, when DOSBox-X added PC98 emulation I asked for several PC-98 floppy disk extensions to be added to DBGL. For testing purposes, that seemed to be enough. You can launch most PC-98 games by changing machine to pc98 and adding the disk images in the mounting tab. Or at least I could, because I seem to have forgotten how to do it. I think I browsed for floppy disk images from the PC Booter section, but that doesn't seem to work anymore.

Anyway, the translation scene for the PC-98 has improved a lot during the last year or two, but most games are now in HDI format, bootable harddisk images. And I was wondering if DBGL supported them.

I'm doing some testing as a type this, and while DOSBox-X seems to accept HDI images using imgmount, I'm not yet sure about DBGL. And I probably should be using the boot command anyway. Mounting the images, then running their AUTOEXEC.BAT seems a bit slapdash.

Alright, solved the PC98 floppy image issue. Turns out that many moons ago I added the dynamic option machine=pc98 to DBGL, and now DOSBox-X only accepts either machine=pc9801 or machine=pc9821. Using those options I can run PC98 floppy games again:

But not HDI harddisk images, I'm afraid.

rcblanke wrote on Today, 14:56:

Life goes on, kolderman, I can't keep using an old library for.. eternity. These users can simply use DBGL 0.98, or use the latest DBGL release in combination with swt.jar from 0.98. Not really a problem, right?

Well if that works I suppose it might be an option.