It would be useful for frontends, if DOSBox tells the CD ROMs found - like the command "mount -cd" inside DOSBox, a similar command that reply the result to the console, where frontends can read it from. What I mean, is similar to the external command "DOSBox -version", a command like "DOSBox -countcd" (or "-mountcd", or whatever you want), which replies the same result as the internal command "mount -cd" to the console. (Sorry, I can't contribute code lines, because I can't read or edit the DOSBox source code.)

A such feature would be useful to offer the appropriate -usecd number values inside the frontend without having the user to check it themselves.

Good idea.

MiniMax wrote:

Competition is good for the consumer, so I thought "Why not give the front-end programmers some inspiration for new features?".

Competition can be good, but standardization is important, too. Can we have one standard for import/export? If one frontend didn't have a feature that was in an exported file, it could just ignore that part of the profile.

I do like the idea of the checksums. With all of the different versions of games out there, this might also help with troubleshooting. It might give abandonware users warnings from cracked/patched executables that they might have trouble with their game when using an existing profile.

I like the idea of the checksums. At the moment I am thinking of a little bit bigger import/export feature: Not simply exporting profiles but having a extensible template profile database. If you get a new game all you will have to do is giving D-Fend Reloaded the folder name and it will be able detect which profile will match the game (by using checksums). But I am not quite ready with planing all of this, so this feature will quite take a while.

I would like to have a standardized profile format, too. I have seen the DBGL and D.O.G. xml drafts in the DBGL thread. For me this xml files are not real xml files; at the moment they are more wrappers to the con files. Perhaps we could develop a real xml format together someday (... when I have finished the other remaining open features and have enough time for this). I could think of something like the ODF: A big zip package containing the xml profile, the screenshots, the games folder, etc. "Installing" a game then would be copying the package to the games/profiles folder. But reading xml files from within an archive and unpacking/packing the games to run them would me a lot of work. But this would make installing and managing DOS games definitively easier than installing and managing windows games...

Alexander - be aware that you might break several copyright laws if you distribute screenshoots. Yep - that is how Roy Bean sees the law. The art generated by the program is copyrighted... How much you can then claim to do with it under fuzzy fair-use exception, who knows?

Heh - even the checksums might be copyrighted. Wasn't there something about RIAA sending take-down notices to sites that displayed one of the HD-DVD encryption keys (a string of 10-12 hex digits), claiming the key was copyrighted?

Hi MiniMax, thank you, but I haven't said I want to distribute screenshots. I'm aware of the copyright problems (that's why I use a Second Reality screenshot on my D-Fend Reloaded screenshots by the way). But anyway it would be a good idea to have a single file for a complete game including all game data. So one could archive games very easily.

But for now I am still very far from this. Zip support is still missing in D-Fend Reloaded (and probabily will be for the next verions), there is no xml format and so on. For example D.O.G seams to be nearer to this target because it has ziped drives (not PhysFS).

Alexander wrote:

it would be a good idea to have a single file for a complete game including all game data.

This is MiniMax's point. It should not be setup to include game data files. It could encourage the distribution of copyrighted game data files. Whatever your own feelings are about abandonware, nothing about DOSBox or its frontends should directly encourage the distribution of copyrighted games, abandoned or otherwise. Ronald includes a few games with his DOSBox Game Launcher, but they are all freeware.

DOSBox is being embraced by software companies as a way to redistribute their older titles, such as the Sierra re-releases, but let's not bring about unwanted scrutiny about copyright issues ala LucasArts initially had with ScummVM.

A programs could probably be designed that would ask the user to specify their source files, it would perform the checksum and then create the package itself......This could be a standalone program or a web based one.

Vigil has some nice features in his new Boxer frontend:

Re: A new MacOS DOSBox launcher

I like the idea of sniffing existing CD's, maybe check if the majority of filenames and directories conform to the old DOS-way of 8.3, and then automatically mount it (or as least offer it) as drive D for DOSBox.

Automatically selecting the correct language file sounds like a nice idea too.

To clarify some things:

I will not distribute any copyrighted material; neither with D-Fend Reloaded nor in any other way. I have only thought it would be a nice (long term) idea for users to be able to manage their games more compact than today. Most front ends can show additional profile info, screenshots, etc. but on harddisk this data files are in different locations. So it would be a nice idea to be able (optional !) to collect all this things in a single file. Of course abandon ware sites could use things like this to distribute games. But this does not make a front end illegal. D.O.G. supports ziped drives, abandon ware sites offer zip files for download and nobody would say this makes D.O.G illegal. So I don't undersand the warnings posted here. (In any other way I would say all of you are absolutely right and one should indeed be very aware of copyright issues.)

The other thing is I'm thinking of making the profile wizard in D-Fend Reloaded easier to use by building a template library. This could be a list of the form: game name -> settings for the conf file. Nothing more; no screenshots or other game related material.

But enough of this. I like the CD automount idea. I can imagine a D-Fend Reloaded profile option
[x] Additionally mount all available CDs
below the mount list.

MiniMax, what exactly do you mean with automatically selecting the correct language file ? D-Fend Reloaded already has an automatic keyboard layout chooser: In each language file you can define a default keyboard layout. If a profile does not explicitely defines a keyboard layout, the language file default layout will be chossen. This means the same profile will use the English keyboard layout on an English D-Fend Reloaded and the German keyboard layout on a German D-Fend Reloaded.

I am thinking of the language files listed at the bottom of this page:
http://dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

Right now, each DOSBox user has to download and install them manually. Would be nice if the frontend included all these, and automatically selected the right one (unless overriden by the user).

It doesn't make the frontend or DosBox illegal but it does make an association between the DosBox & the FrontEnd as linking to "Abandonware" in people's minds which is not a good thing.

I propose that any such standard be based on original media and NOT on abandonware games. (Meaning no concessions to Abandonware games be made to the program) If Abandonware sites want to adapt their programs to suit the standard of the FrontEnd then great but they shouldn't expect ANY support from the DosBox folks or the developer of the program (at least if the developer of the program wants official DosBox approval).....

I think both collector and DosFreak are a little bit paranoid here.

Hi DosFreak, yes, this sounds mostly reasonably to me. But some "connections" between abandonded ware sites and DOSBox will always be there: The first ones offer games and the second one allows to run them. But anyway, I make new features to make the users happy - I cannot prevent some here not liked sites to like this features, too. (But to repeat it: I won't think of things like ziped complete profiles seriously before perhaps late summer.)

Hi MiniMax !
D-Fend Reloaded includes all DOSBox language files in its installer. Unless one does not uncheck the "DOSBox language files" install option they are installed together with DFR. The language choosing is not completely automatic but at first start DFR opens the setup dialog on the language tab where you can choose the program langauge and the DOSBox language from a drop down list. (And if you add language files to the DOSBox folder some time later, they will be shown in the language setup list. This means the list is not hard coded. I also include the readme files in all available languages and they can be opend via the - the same way not hard coded - help menu.)