Nice frontend! I might eventually switch away from D-fend as this one seems a lot better (and less bugs 😜).

Well I always say to people with large databases (10+ profiles) that make the switch,

Do not throw away your dfend profiles as they are. Write them to a CD-Rom or so, so that if something goes wrong you still have a backup.

D.O.G. has Dfend profile importing capability for all Dfend versions so switching to D.O.G. from DFend is an easy job.

Thanks for support, and well... if you find a bug then report it on my Forum or through my e-mail. Even if you think some feature is missing.

---

For the upcoming experimental builds I'm experimenting with
* A VBScript and JScript engine for my DOGGY wizard (Still looking for a nice animation for it though), this is also a must for my plans to make D.O.G. a multi-emulator frontend.
* RIP capability to BIN files and a more stable ripper for ISO files (currently only available in the experimental build).
* A WMV or PNG compressor for the AVI's captured by DOSBox.
* Fully customizeable columns with the possibility to add an unlimited number of new columns.
* Adjustable DOSBox features
*...

And as D.O.G. is written in Delphi, if you know a nice component I can use (freeware and opensource of course) then let me know. To know witch components D.O.G. uses look in the about box for used freeware.

Erik.

I found a bug. If you start a game with a BAT file and choose that DosBox should be terminated when exiting, it won't work.

Ok thanks, will have a look.

Erik.

Yup you're right, will fix it right away.

Was a bug in the routine to add the exit to the conf file.

I'll re-upload the official build right now.

Edit : Updated the OShare Link, the link from Gadler will follow tomorow.

Erik.

Mighty impressive work Erik, keep it up! It seems almost like we stepped in D-Fend's footsteps at the exact right moment, since I haven't heard from Mabus Raeen in months. He seems to have lost interest in maintaining the 'Mother of all DB front-ends' 😉...

Thanks rcBlanke, DBGL too has come along great, it even has already some features I'm only planning to add, like the configureable columns.

You are right, Mabus has been silent for a while now. Pitty though, I would have loved to have worked with him as I too developed my frontend in Delphi. And maybe bundle our forces.

Oh I forgot to mention my next main feature : VBScripts for a MultiEditor and my Doggy Wizard (A wizard able to configure a game based on the Exe size/version/filename). As the wizard will be a script per game, this would make my life easier, as then I wouldn't need to update D.O.G. every time I add a game to the wizard. The user can download a Wizard package from my site and off he goes. Point the Exe, Click Configure and watch the script do its job. Can it BE any easier 😉 . Now only the implementation 😅 .

Anyways, before I can't stop rambling with idea's, thanks and may our frontend's prosper and maybe we can set a new standard for DOSBox frontends like DFend did years ago.

Erik.

I tried D.O.G a few weeks ago, but I found it strangely confusing. Something about the navigation when configuring a game that didn't click with me. To me, it seemed a little confusing, and required a lot of clicking and navigation for me to feel confident that I had everything configured correctly.

I think it has been mentioned before: Profile exporting.

DBGL and DOG should work out a common, flexible, export format. What do non-DOSBox game emulators do? Have they been around long enough to have come up with a flexible format that works across different emulators?

I would like to see an export built on XML. With the right parser-package, and a matching DTD, in the front-end, XML is easy and safe to parse, easy to extend with new fields/tags, and with an XSL-stylesheet + parser you can both re-format into a new format (like something that D-Fend can import) or into a nice, human-readable config-summary (HTML too).

If Doggy is not too integrated into DOG, then perhaps the resulting config could be in this common export-format, and Doggy could be used together with DBGL and other future frontends.

I found two additional minor bugs. First, you seem to have written the word "Sure" as "Shure" in your front end. Also, all the languages in the languages.dat file are written in German, meaning that the list of languages display the languages in German.

MiniMax wrote:

I think it has been mentioned before: Profile exporting. […]
Show full quote

I think it has been mentioned before: Profile exporting.

DBGL and DOG should work out a common, flexible, export format. What do non-DOSBox game emulators do? Have they been around long enough to have come up with a flexible format that works across different emulators?

I would like to see an export built on XML. With the right parser-package, and a matching DTD, in the front-end, XML is easy and safe to parse, easy to extend with new fields/tags, and with an XSL-stylesheet + parser you can both re-format into a new format (like something that D-Fend can import) or into a nice, human-readable config-summary (HTML too).

If Doggy is not too integrated into DOG, then perhaps the resulting config could be in this common export-format, and Doggy could be used together with DBGL and other future frontends.

I strongly second this. I posted a similar request in the DBGL message. If DBGL has an entry that D.O.G. does not use the import could simply ignore that field and vice versa. If the import function allowed for correcting paths (say with a browse) the profiles could be exchanged with other users.

I found two additional minor bugs. First, you seem to have written the word "Sure" as "Shure" in your front end. Also, all the languages in the languages.dat file are written in German, meaning that the list of languages display the languages in German.

Woops, I didn't, stupid me. Sorry. Will upload an English language package to correct the error for this time. The Shure/Sure translation bug, I'll fix the English Language.dat file I'll upload. To fix the bug just download the English language package and extract without paths in the D.O.G. directory.

Thanks, for the input I really appreciate the help. As I don't have a bèta testers group and only have about 2 hours a day to work on D.O.G. testing is a bit crude and as a Test Engineer, thats saying a lot. Thanks.

--

The XML file format could be a very usefull format to use. We should design the XML structure so that it supports multiple emulators and frontend data. We should open a thread on this.

Erik.

As you wrote on your web site this,

Things to come:

* Emulator support other then DOSBox, like WinUAE, QBasic, ..

you mean things like "Residual"? This is a subproject developed by the ScummVM team, which is available here:
http://www.scummvm.org/subprojects.php
This application is simular to DOSBOX and runs the LucasArts game "Grim Fandango".
Mac Users (like me) should go to this site to get this app:
http://worldsmainorganization.org/scummvm/ (MacOS Subversion builds)

Yup, all emulators, like ScummVM, Risidual, SNES emulators and so on. If it runs on Windows then it will be implemented.

I'm planning to make D.O.G. adaptable through scripts, so that it supports profiling and templates for all emulators available on Windows.

But this is for in the future, and as D.O.G. is currently a one man team this won't be this year. The poll also indicates that the Doggy wizard is a clear winner and therefore I'm in the progress of building a scriptengine that is able to create wizards with VBScript and/or JScript. The engine will allow people to choose what scriptlanguage they want to use.

The engine itself is already available as the DOGScripting side project, but this package currently only supports buttons and windows. The engine on my laptop already supports Buttons, EditBoxes, Windows, CheckBoxes, Radiobuttons and ComboBoxes. But this is only the beginning as a lot more needs to be done.

This scripting engine will also be a basis for the multiemulator support.

Erik.

Another question:
How did your app check whether a DOS game is based on DOS4GW?

Well, thats a business secret,

naa, just kidding, 😉

It is an easy, simple and dirty check, I just open the exefile as a binairy and search for the string DOS4GW. Easy to find with any hex editor.

It doesn't give garantees, but it works in most cases.

Erik.

Thank you for sharing business secrets with me! 😉

I checked it with Settlers 2 now, opened in MacOS X' Textedit, and found the words! 😎

Maybe I add this feature in my DOSBOX frontend in the future, because I know how to check it now...

Why are you people trying to find out if something uses dos4gw??

wd wrote:

Why are you people trying to find out if something uses dos4gw??

Just for fun...

or:

DOS Protected mode games (e.g. the ones using DOS4GW) function only with completely new versions of DOSBOX. You can very often replace the relatively slow DOS4GW by the many faster DOS32a. To find here: http://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html
"dynamic core" often brings additional speed thrust (particularly with later DOS games). To do so the file DOS4GW.EXE must be replaced by the file DOS32A.EXE in the game directory (those must be naturally renamed then on DOS4GW.EXE). Sometimes the DOS4GW is directly merged into the game EXE file (e.g. RIVA.EXE). In this case simply copy all DOS32a files into the game directory and enter the following: SELF-SERVICE /R /BN"new EXE" "old EXE" (thus e.g. SELF-SERVICE /R /BNdsa3.exe riva.exe makes a new EXE with the name you entered (in the example DSA3.EXE), which will merge DOS32a into the game. Then simply the run the game with the new EXE file. But note: DOS32a will not work with all games but will increase the game speed.

Source: http://www.larian.com

That's quite old information.