MorphZone

eGame released

ChrisH

# 1
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

(This is a forum post, rather than a news item, since I have not been able to test eGame on MorphOS, due to an Efika problem. Please let me know whether it works for you or not.)

eGame allows you to keep an easily searchable list of games for playing - rather than having to hunt through lots of folders using Workbench/Wanderer/Ambient. Please note that eGame is only able to start games that you can already run by double-clicking them.

"eGame" is short for "(Portabl)E Game Launcher". I originally wrote eGame as a test & an example of what can be achieved with PortablE's easy GUI system, but (after some prodding from Joel) I think it has become a nice useful program in it's own right.

As I've put a lot of effort into making tagging & filtering easy but still pretty powerful, I decided to make it 'DonationShareware'. Without a key file it will only display 10 games (although you can still search all stored games & the first 10 matches will be shown). If you want to get a key file to unlock it, then you need to send me at least 2 Pounds or Euros by PayPal (although I encourage you to donate more if you feel it is worth more!).

eGame has been tested on AmigaOS4 & AROS, but I have not been able to test it on MorphOS (although I expect it to work). If you have any problems then please let me know!

You can download eGame from Aminet.

Here are some OS4 & AROS screenshots:
eGame_OS4_1.png eGame_OS4_2.png eGame_OS4_3.png
eGame_AROS_1.png eGame_AROS_2.png
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»28.12.12 - 13:20

ChrisH

# 2
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

g_kraszewski has kindly tested it on MorphOS, and reports that it works
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»28.12.12 - 17:24

redrumloa

# 3
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1424 from 2003/4/13

Can this be configured to launch native games along with various emulator games? I mean can I configure it to launch an Amiga game via UAE and a DOS game via DOSBOX?
»28.12.12 - 18:45

ChrisH

# 4
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

@redrumloa
At the moment double-clicking on a game in eGame is just like double-clicking on a game in Ambient/Workbench/etc. I know that OS4 can run UAE & DOS games via a double-click, since I wrote the software to do that, but I don't know about MorphOS (I believe you can configure MIME types to do some magic?).

Running DOS games via DOSBox should be quite easy to add, assuming MorphOS's DOSBox port is similar to OS4's port. UAE integration would be too hard.
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»28.12.12 - 21:37

redrumloa

# 5
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1424 from 2003/4/13

@ChrisH
Gotcha! If it acts like a double-click, it would work. Cool, thanks.
»28.12.12 - 22:16

ChrisH

# 6
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

@redrumloa
It would be useful for me to know which emulated games MorphOS able to launch by double-clicking. e.g. MSDOS in DOSBox? WHDLoad in UAE? Other 68k executables in UAE?

Although I may still add RunInDOSBox support to eGame, since it would save the user from having to fiddle with DefIcons/MIME-types/etc.

[ Edited by ChrisH 29.12.2012 - 11:37 ]
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»29.12.12 - 10:35

itix

# 7
MorphOS Developer

Posts: 1520 from 2003/2/24

From: Finland

Quote:

; You can override or extend all the types from this file with own custom
; types you place into SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes. If you want to override
; application/lha for example then you would put an AMTD block to a file named:
; SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes/application/lha. If your AMTD block contains
; matching rules it will override the matching rules from recognition.db,
; the same goes for actions. Usually you only need an AMTD block with actions
; defined, so Ambient will automatically make use of the proper recognition.db
; matching rules.
;
; If you create filetypes you must check if there is already a publicly
; registered MIME subtype available (http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/).
; If not then some Google research usually points out some commonly used type
; descriptors. If all fails you just use "x-" prefix like "application/x-openttd-grf"
; or "x-morphos-" prefix for MorphOS only filetypes like "image/x-morphos-icon".
;
; Ambient knows about following MIME classes ("Directories of Content-Types"):
;
; application/ - all kind of binary data files
; audio/ - audio streams, samples, modules, etc.
; image/ - pictures, icons, etc.
; message/ - (mostly irrelevant for Ambient)
; model/ - 3d objects
; multipart/ - (mostly irrelevant for Ambient)
; text/ - ASCII text based formats (source code, guides, etc.)
; video/ - media files with video stream or video and audio streams
;
; Do not invent other classes like "archives/" or "modules/" and so on. This is invalid
; and probably will not work in further versions of Ambient anyway.

And an example entry...

Quote:

AMTD
1
Name LhA Archive
Type application/lha
Match
PatternHint #?.(lha|lzh|lhx)
Match 2,s-lh?-
OR
Match 2,s-lz?-
End

Action
Name Open
Event DoubleClick
Command INTERNAL loaduri "vfs:///%sp?type=xad" VIEWID %Si
Flag unquoted
End

Action
Name Extract
Event Menu
Command AMIGADOS MOSSYS:C/LhA -I x %sp
Flag cd source
End

Action
Name Extract To...
Event Menu
Command AMIGADOS MOSSYS:C/LhA -I x %sp `MOSSYS:C/RequestFile DRAWERSONLY TITLE "Select Destination..."`
Flag cd destination
End

End

(sorry indentation was lost.)

[ Edited by itix 29.12.2012 - 16:48 ]
1 + 1 = 3 with very large values of 1
»29.12.12 - 13:47

ChrisH

# 8
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

Can someone please test whether the MorphOS executable still works in this version:
http://cshandley.co.uk/egame/eGame_r2b.lha
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»01.01.13 - 10:07

itix

# 9
MorphOS Developer

Posts: 1520 from 2003/2/24

From: Finland

I tried it here and it works.
1 + 1 = 3 with very large values of 1
»01.01.13 - 15:23

ChrisH

# 10
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

Some good news: I was finally able to get my Efika working again (using a plastic rubber (*) to wedge the graphics card!), so I should be able to test eGame on MorphOS again, and so hopefully fix the reported problem of it not displaying icons.

EDIT: * = which I believe are called "erasers" in America...
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»09.01.13 - 10:22

ChrisH

# 11
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 167 from 2009/11/26

itix,
Quote:

AMTD
1
Name LhA Archive
Type application/lha
Match
PatternHint #?.(lha|lzh|lhx)
Match 2,s-lh?-
OR
Match 2,s-lz?-
End

Action
Name Open
Event DoubleClick
Command INTERNAL loaduri "vfs:///%sp?type=xad" VIEWID %Si
Flag unquoted
End

Action
Name Extract
Event Menu
Command AMIGADOS MOSSYS:C/LhA -I x %sp
Flag cd source
End

Action
Name Extract To...
Event Menu
Command AMIGADOS MOSSYS:C/LhA -I x %sp `MOSSYS:C/RequestFile DRAWERSONLY TITLE "Select Destination..."`
Flag cd destination
End

End

I was not able to find any further documentation or examples (I don't even have a "SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes" folder!), so I have some questions:

What is the "1" number for on a line of it's own? e.g. Priority? e.g. Number of "Name" entries? or something else?

Does that "OR" effect "PatternHint" or only the preceeding line (i.e. "Match") ?

Does "Type XX/YY" have to be stored in the file "SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes/XX/YY" or is it merely preferred?

If no flags are needed, can I get rid of the "Flag" line?

How is this filetype definition associated with an icon in EnvArc:SYS ? Does it use the filename, or the Type inside the file, or something else?
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...
»18.01.13 - 13:11

raistlin77it

# 12
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 186 from 2003/10/23

ehehehehe the rubber rocks :)
I'm nerdy in the extreme
And whiter than sour cream

White&Nerdy 2006 Al Yankovic
»18.01.13 - 13:47

itix

# 13
MorphOS Developer

Posts: 1520 from 2003/2/24

From: Finland

@ChrisH

Quote:

I was not able to find any further documentation or examples (I don't even have a "SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes" folder!), so I have some questions:

This directory is created by user or an application installer adding new filetypes. They override default definitions provided by the OS as found in MOSSYS:Ambient/recognition.db.

Quote:

What is the "1" number for on a line of it's own? e.g. Priority? e.g. Number of "Name" entries? or something else?

This is just the the descriptor version number. It must be 1.

To set priority just use Priority keyword:

Quote:

AMTD
1
Name Temporary File
Type application/x-undefined-temporary
Priority -128
Match
...PatternHint #?.tmp
...Name #?.tmp
...AND
...File
...End
End

Priority is at range -128...127 and defaults to 0 (although I dont see there demand for more than maybe five priority levels).

Quote:

Does that "OR" effect "PatternHint" or only the preceeding line (i.e. "Match") ?

Only the preceeding line (the "Match" keyword in this case).

PatternHint is not strictly part of recognition pattern. It is used to speed up the file type recognition and there is Name keyword (like in example above, Name=#?.tmp) to force exact filename match.

Quote:

Does "Type XX/YY" have to be stored in the file "SYS:Prefs/Ambient/filetypes/XX/YY" or is it merely preferred?

Yes it have to be stored there and only there.

Quote:

If no flags are needed, can I get rid of the "Flag" line?

The "flag" line is optional. You can get rid of it.

Quote:

How is this filetype definition associated with an icon in EnvArc:SYS ? Does it use the filename, or the Type inside the file, or something else?

The mimetype associates the default icon. They are not stored in ENVARC but in SYS:Prefs/Presets/Deficons, here is what I have got.

Quote:

System:Prefs/Presets/Deficons> dir
application (dir)
audio (dir)
image (dir)
model (dir)
text (dir)
video (dir)
def_CDDAxdisk.info def_CDxdisk.info
def_disk.info def_drawer.info
def_RAMdisk.info def_SMBFSxdisk.info
def_SMBxdisk.info def_UMSDdisk.info
def_UMSDxdisk.info

And contents of application dir:

Quote:

System:Prefs/Presets/Deficons/application> dir
bzip.info javascript.info
lha.info lzh.info
msword.info pdf.info
rar.info tar.info
x-amigafont.info x-c64-d64.info
x-c64-d71.info x-c64-d80.info
x-c64-d81.info x-c64-g64.info
x-c64-pc64.info x-c64-t64.info
x-c64-tap.info x-c64-x64.info
x-iso-9660.info x-java.info
x-lzx.info x-morphos-prefs.info
zip.info

[ Edited by itix 19.01.2013 - 17:51 ]
1 + 1 = 3 with very large values of 1
»19.01.13 - 14:48