This two bugs were easy to fix:
1. The game list hotkeys were not disabled when entering the notes field.
2. The show process of the quick starter was not completed when the next F9 press already tried to close the window again.

Both bugs are fixed; until now I do not think we need a rc4 for testing this. If no bigger bugs are found the next days, I will try to release 0.9final beginning to middle of next week.

Hi, ... Alexander

I use your = D-Fend Reloaded, "v0.9 release candidate 3", D-Fend Reloaded PortableApps package".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It keep the latest "Note" displayed, ...

=

Normal (no bug) =

In the main game selection list, select a game,
after select "Note" Tab,
after go to the main game selection list, and click on an empty game line,
after go to the Note Section

= You will see in the "Note" section, that this section disabled [in gray]. = it's normal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see a not normal thing (bug) =

In the main game selection list, select a game,
after select "Note" Tab,
after select an other Tab, = Not the "Note" Tab.
after go to the main game selection list, and click on an empty game line,
after go to the Note Section

= You will see in the "Note" section, the latest note. even if it's no selected game.

But "Screenshot" "sounds/audio", "videos", inside bottom section is disabled.

Please test, with a D-Fend Reloaded, with have just, a number of games that not fill all the game list section.

Confirmed and fixed.
Additionally the toolbar in the notes tab was not disabled when no game was selected in the games list (even if the notes tab was visible all the time).

Hi, Alexander!
Some small issues after rc3:
1.Default value for virtual free space: change defaul trackbar postion in frames (for normal folder mount, zip and PhysFs mounts) from 105 to 250 (new constant).
2.Main menu item 'Export\Transefr profiles' has no action.
3.May you add support for non-anonymous ftp (links of type 'user:password@server:port'). See attachment - for proposed code.
4.When you drag links from browser and some modal window is shown - you still may drop link. Change first condition in DragEnter to

1If ((Screen.ActiveForm=DFendReloadedMainForm) or (Screen.ActiveForm=QuickStartForm)) and DragDropExHasFormat(dataObj,CF_TEXT) then begin

or

1If not (Assigned(Screen.ActiveForm) and (fsModal in Screen.ActiveForm.FormState)) and DragDropExHasFormat(dataObj,CF_TEXT) then begin

5.HTML export is in someway broken. You encode high characters I with their codes, but use codepage codes instead of unicode. You do not need to do that at all, because you already specify codepage (HTMLCharset) and symbols may be inserted as is. But if you want it, use

1function Char2Unicode(const Symbol:Char):Integer;
2var S:WideString;
3begin
4    S:=Symbol;
5    Result:=Ord(S[1]);
6end;
7function Unicode2Char(const code: Integer): Char;
8var S:WideString;
9begin
10    S:=WideChar(code);
11    Result:=String(S)[1];
12end;

Corresponding parts of EncodeHTMLSymbols and DecodeHTMLSymbols should be changed to

1EncodeHTMLSymbols:
2  I:=1;
3  While I<=length(result) do begin
4    If (ord(result[I])>=32) and (ord(result[I])<=127) then begin inc(I); continue; end;
5    A:='&#'+IntToStr(Char2Unicode(result[I]))+';';
6    result:=copy(result,1,I-1)+A+copy(result,I+1,MaxInt);
7    inc(I,length(A));
8  end;
9
10DecodeHTMLSymbols:
11  I:=1;
12  While I<length(result)-1 do begin
13    If (result[I]='&') and (result[I+1]='#') then begin
14      If (I<length(result)-2) and (result[I+2]='x') then begin
15        {Hex number}
16        J:=0; while (I+3+J<length(result)) and (result[I+3+J]<>';') do inc(J);
17        If (J>=1) and (J<=4) and TryStrToHex(Copy(result,I+3,J),K) then result:=copy(result,1,I-1)+Unicode2Char(K)+copy(result,I+3+J+1,MaxInt);
18      end else begin
19        {Decimal number}
20        J:=0; while (I+2+J<length(result)) and (result[I+2+J]<>';') do inc(J);
21        If (J>=1) and (J<=5) and TryStrToInt(Copy(result,I+2,J),K) then result:=copy(result,1,I-1)+Unicode2Char(K)+copy(result,I+2+J+1,MaxInt);
22      end;
23    end;
24    inc(I);
25  end;

Hi skatz,

all bugs are fixed, thank you for the source code; bug reports / feature requests with already included source code are very nice and easy things. 😀

I have also improved some last little things:
1. The first program start will be faster now: The background thread copying the FreeDOS folder to the VirtualHD folder (in user directory mode of course) now is better adjusted to the hard disk access needs of the main thread. So the main window will appear faster and the copy thread will also terminate earlier because when it starts it's not so often interrupted by file access actions of the main thread anymore.
2. Importing archive files (plain or DFR archive files with profiles) is much faster now. When extracting files from an archive the files are stored in a temporary directory and (for example after identifying and choosing the name for the destination folder) copied to the target folder. Now the files are moved to the target folder (because the temporary folder is just deleted right after copying the files anyway). This will increase the speed of importing big archives (for example containing iso images etc.) enormously.

BTW: I have written 12/02/2009 to the Changelog.txt and the help files as release date of 0.9 now - and I do not want to change this anymore. So if there will be no really bigger problems anymore I will release 0.9final Wednesday next week.

Hi everybody,
I have just released D-Fend Reloaded 0.9 (see download page). If you have followed this thread you will probably already know about all the new features so I will not post them here. Of course you can find a list of all changes on the changelog page.

Because I haven't stopped working on new features since the string freeze in 0.9b2 there are two not yet completely done and tested 1.0 features hidden in 0.9 which can be enabled via the usual (not to mention here again) configuration key. You will find a new menu entry in the profile and in the extras|images menus, some new elements on the search for updates setup dialog page and a new setup page below the profile editor page.

Sadly I still got no answer from classicdosgames.com so the package list containing more than 100 games from this side still is not online. But because of the new drag&drop importing feature and because of the many new auto setup templates, installing games from this side should be quite easy anyway.

Your work on this Frontend is awesome !
Thank you, Alexander !!!

Same here! THANKS Alexander! Love it!

Hi, Alexander!
A little copy-paste bug in datareader:
in function ShowDataReaderInternetWaitDialog remove FreeAndNil(result),
because result is boolean.
Problem does not appear if internet connection is ok, so leave it for next version.

And a little problem with dosbox keyboard layout:
a)when you get layout for keyb command you get default value from language file. Pls, do this as in 'keyboardlayout' param - from dosbox installation first, then from language file.
b)In keyb command DOSBox does not accept layout NONE written in capital letters. Please lowercase it.
c)Map 'None' to 'us' in GetKeyaboardLayout function (CreateImageToolsUnit), because FreeDos doesn't know this value.

UPDATE: Suggestion for DataReader - maybe you may search for games for all platforms, not only DOS (in search string replace parameter 'p,2' with 'p,-1').

Hi skatz,
thank you for the bug reports. I haven't started working on any further DFR release yet (and probably won't start this year), but I'm already collection bug reports and ideas. At the moment I'm planning a 0.9.1 bugfix and small improvements release in January and a first beta of 1.0 in March.

Hi Alexander and "D-FendReloadeders" 😉

After a big while, I finished the translation to Brazilian Portuguese. Could've finished before, but, suddenly, my final exams and projects on college was driving me crazy, occupying most part of my time...I apologize for that, but...it's finally attached!

Hi Cpt.Guapo,

thank you very much, I have just uploaded your language file to Sourceforge and made it available via the D-Fend Reloaded package manager, too. Of course I will also include it to the next D-Fend Reloaded release.

BTW: At the moment I'm planning a 0.9.1 service release beginning of next year. The DOSBox developers are testing some 0.74 release candidate builds at the moment. Shortly after 0.74 is out, I will release a 0.9.1 version of D-Fend Reloaded containing this new DOSBox version. The documentation is not yet updated in the release candidate build of DOSBox but it looks like a bugfix release with no bigger new features (to be supported by D-Fend Reloaded). So there should be no need for new settings and therefore no need for language file changes, so 0.9.1 and not 1.0. Additionally I will add some more new auto setup templates and fix all currently known 0.9.0 bugs. (But I have no real idea when DOSBox 0.74 will be out, but will try to release DFR 0.9.1 by <DOSBox 0.74 release date> + <2-4 weeks>.)

I have already started working on the next big new feature for DFR 1.0. I have rediscovered a DOS Pascal program I have written about 12 years ago which also was game related. The code of this program of course is not useable anymore for anything but the data file containing some king of information about many games is still interesting. I have already converted this file in a bit more modern format and am just writing some new program code around it. If I will have enough free time around Christmas, perhaps 0.9.1 will have an interesting new incomplete, hidden new feature.

I have a very quick question that can hopefully be answered easily.

How do I set a profile to run a file inside of an ISO that the profile should mount? Or do I have to mount the ISO with Deamon Tools before I run the profile?

Thanks guys,
Steve

Hi Ranthalion75,
D-Fend Reloaded can translate Windows path names to DOSBox path names for files it can see only. (Simply because there is no Windows path to the files inside the ISO image.) But you can select "File path is relative to the DOSBox directory structure" on the "Profile" page in the profile editor. If this option is on, D-Fend Reloaded won't try to translate the given path and will just pass it to DOSBox. All you have to do is entering the path relative to the virtual DOSBox directory structure then. This means, if you have mounted the ISO file as drive D and want to run a file from the root directory of the ISO image, you have to enter "D:\<FileToRun.exe>". That's it.

Ahh! Great! That's exactly what I needed. Fixed my problem.

Thanks Alexander! 😁

Hello Alexander. Happy holidays to you and all D-Fend fans.

I want to suggest a feature to your excellent program. I was wondering if it was possible for D-Fend Reloaded to let the user select the midi device to use for a game at the MIDI properties inside D-Fend's game options.

What's the need? Well, I have both a Roland Sound Canvas and a MT-32 midi synthesizer unit. They are connected through separate MIDI inputs. These MIDI inputs are read by Control Panel's (Windows XP) "Sound Properties" as separate (for example "MIDI USB Device 1" and "Standard Gameport").

Some games use MT-32, others Sound Canvas. Every time I play a game I have to bring up Control Panel and manually change the default MIDI device settings.

Could it be possible for D-Fend Reloaded to automate this process? It might not be a big deal for users without this setup. However for users who have multiple MIDI devices installed it would be a great convenience to have. It may also prove useful to Vista/Windows 7 users where the MIDI device selection is non existent.

Thank you for your attention.

tried the midiconfig option ?

Not exactly. The current he MIDI configuration options panel has an "additional settings" text field, which in my opinion does not offer the user enough information about what it is or how to use it.

With the current setup the user has to be aware what this field actually does, figure out the device's ID, then guess what to type in the text field.

Would be nice if D-Fend could intead show a dropdown of available MIDI devices, like Control Panel does (at least on Windows XP). @Alexander: Here is a sample mockup of what I mean:

Get this setting on Control Panel...

To show as part of D-Fend Reloaded's MIDI options:

(click on thumbs for bigger picture)

Hi colonny55,
adding a MIDI device selector is not this easy. I don't have any idea how to access the MIDI devices list from the Windows device manager via API functions. So I would need to run a "mixer /LISTMIDI > list.txt" command in DOSBox and then interpret the list.txt result file. Because this will need some new language strings etc. this won't become a 0.9.1 feature (at the moment I'm planning a 0.9.1 release in January or February) but may be a feature for version 1.0 (planned for summer next year).

Thanks Alexander. Maybe in a future version. Cheers!