Long Filename Browser for ZX-UNO / esxDOS

[akeley]

We could ask .tapein v0.3 author ub880d ( http://sindik.at/~ub880d/2016/03/3-drob ... a-tapeout/ ) about it and if he can extend delay or "wait for keypress" after loading a SCREEN$

That'd be ideal, since it's already built in. I can read a little bit Czech but can't see any links to contact him there though.

[bob_fossil]

Very nice idea the proportional font. I don't mind about the "n" but maybe the "h" is a bit too wide.
A very small issue, when the filename consists of capital letters the file extension appears also in caps even if it's written in lowercase. For example the file "HATE.tap" appears as "HATE.TAP".
And could you add the file size in the bottom bar?

I don't do any uppercase processing on the filenames I get from the disk so what you're seeing is the filename from the FAT entry on the disk.I suspect that 'HATE.tap' is ending up as a standard 8.3 filename 'HATE.TAP' when copied to the FAT disk. I think you only get lower case extensions on FAT when the file has to be stored as a long filename. Does the extension display as lower case if you add spaces or full stops between the characters - e.g. do something to force it into a LFN?

I don't have enough free space on the bottom bar (plus file size is not that important information for me ), which is why I put the file size on the Caps Shift + F info display.

[bob_fossil]

We could ask .tapein v0.3 author ub880d ( http://sindik.at/~ub880d/2016/03/3-drob ... a-tapeout/ ) about it and if he can extend delay or "wait for keypress" after loading a SCREEN$

I think it would need a change to the esxdos ROM code. .tapein is just calling an esxdos RST function to toggle the pause.

[bob_fossil]

Been having a play around and came up with this:



Symbol Shift + F now toggles full screen view. This puts you into a special mode where a preview of the loading screen from a .tap or screen in memory from a snapshot is shown. Loading screens from .tap files are shown if the .tap has a block of 6912 bytes long or a block starting at address 16384. .sna files support previewing for 48 / 128 versions. .z80 files are currently not supported. If the file cannot be previewed, the filename is shown across the bottom of the screen.

To leave full screen view, just press Symbol Shift + F again. Navigation keys work as before. Move to the file or screen you want to load and press ENTER.

Test version can be downloaded here.

[keithshaw3]

Amazing work

Going to try this later.

K

[XoRRoX]

Looks like a really neat feature
Thanks for your continued development.

[akeley]

Holy Wow. The man's gone an' done it. Unbelievable...especially how fast it is!

If there was an award for The Most Accomodating Dev, Ever you 'd have it in a bag [mention]bob_fossil[/mention]. Thank you again!

Probably best if I take a break from this thread, before I start asking for .tzx support or something equally loony Will go and finally enjoy my revitalized DIV, and recommend your browser to all still stuck in the dark ages.

[zxassembler]

Wow!. Excellent browser with very nice features. It's working really well. Just a little problem (¿?) when I have tried it with all the TAP games in the last available TOSEC. I have made folders for every letter, and inside them some subfolders as necessary to split the games in folders of 250 games max. I am using a 1GB sdcard formatted in FAT16. When I browse inside a particular folder some games appear with its correct long name and others with a short (8+3) name. I don't know why. Are still too many games for each subfolder (250)?. Maybe some incompatible characters in some of the TOSEC games?

Has someone tried this with thousands of games in a lot of subfolders?

Thank you very much in advance. Keep up the good work. This is really a very, very nice browser.

[Beaps]

Im a Speecy noob, how do I add kempston support for the menu.

Thanks
B

[bob_fossil]

Wow!. Excellent browser with very nice features. It's working really well. Just a little problem (¿?) when I have tried it with all the TAP games in the last available TOSEC. I have made folders for every letter, and inside them some subfolders as necessary to split the games in folders of 250 games max. I am using a 1GB sdcard formatted in FAT16. When I browse inside a particular folder some games appear with its correct long name and others with a short (8+3) name. I don't know why. Are still too many games for each subfolder (250)?. Maybe some incompatible characters in some of the TOSEC games?

Has someone tried this with thousands of games in a lot of subfolders?

Thank you very much in advance. Keep up the good work. This is really a very, very nice browser.

Thanks for the kind words.

The browser has two 8k buffers. The first is used for disk access and storing the 8.3 filename data. The 8.3 filename data is a fixed size so the maximum amount of entries that the 8k buffer can hold is 426. So if you have more than 426 files in a folder, they won't be shown as the buffer will be full up. The second 8k buffer is where the long filenames are stored. These are not fixed size and could be up to 255 characters in length. In a worst case scenario of a folder with 426 files, the average length of the long filename would be roughly 19 characters per filename. Normally this balances out as you get a mixture of short, medium and long filenames which all fit inside the buffer.

From your description, it sounds like you're not hitting the limit of files in the folder but the limit of the buffer for the long filenames. When the long filename buffer is full, the code falls back to using the 8.3 filenames for the remaining files. The choice here was that showing 8.3 filenames would be better than not showing them at all. From memory, the TOSEC naming convention tends to result in verbose filenames which aren't an issue for modern computers which have magnitudes more memory than 8k to store a directory listing in. You could try trimming the filenames down to see if you get more files listed with long filenames.

[bob_fossil]

Im a Speecy noob, how do I add kempston support for the menu.

Thanks
B

As mentioned in the 'Questions' section in the manual, you need to run the .dot command BRWSCFG from the BASIC prompt (e.g. type in .BRWSCFG and hit ENTER) to launch the config editor. Press CURSOR RIGHT to move to the 'Input' category. Then press CURSOR DOWN until the arrow '>' is next to the 'Kempston Joystick' option. Hit ENTER to turn the text from 'Off' to 'On'. Press S to save your new settings and exit back to BASIC. The browser should now recognise your Kempston joystick.

[zxassembler]

Wow!. Excellent browser with very nice features. It's working really well. Just a little problem (¿?) when I have tried it with all the TAP games in the last available TOSEC. I have made folders for every letter, and inside them some subfolders as necessary to split the games in folders of 250 games max. I am using a 1GB sdcard formatted in FAT16. When I browse inside a particular folder some games appear with its correct long name and others with a short (8+3) name. I don't know why. Are still too many games for each subfolder (250)?. Maybe some incompatible characters in some of the TOSEC games?

Has someone tried this with thousands of games in a lot of subfolders?

Thank you very much in advance. Keep up the good work. This is really a very, very nice browser.

Thanks for the kind words.

The browser has two 8k buffers. The first is used for disk access and storing the 8.3 filename data. The 8.3 filename data is a fixed size so the maximum amount of entries that the 8k buffer can hold is 426. So if you have more than 426 files in a folder, they won't be shown as the buffer will be full up. The second 8k buffer is where the long filenames are stored. These are not fixed size and could be up to 255 characters in length. In a worst case scenario of a folder with 426 files, the average length of the long filename would be roughly 19 characters per filename. Normally this balances out as you get a mixture of short, medium and long filenames which all fit inside the buffer.

From your description, it sounds like you're not hitting the limit of files in the folder but the limit of the buffer for the long filenames. When the long filename buffer is full, the code falls back to using the 8.3 filenames for the remaining files. The choice here was that showing 8.3 filenames would be better than not showing them at all. From memory, the TOSEC naming convention tends to result in verbose filenames which aren't an issue for modern computers which have magnitudes more memory than 8k to store a directory listing in. You could try trimming the filenames down to see if you get more files listed with long filenames.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Yes, it looks a problem with so many very long names under the same subdirectory. That explains why the [8+3] number of filenames were changing from one subfolder to another. TOSEC names are very complete by default...but also very long! . Thanks again for explaining this perfectly.

[Beaps]

Brilliant Bob, works a treat now with the Joystick. What a relief it is to have something like this. AWESOME!!

[zxassembler]

Instead of shorting the filenames of all the files, I have just tried the other way round...reducing the number of files in each subfolder to 100. And now all is working perfectly. Now the 8K buffer is not oversized and all the names appear correctly.

Thank you very much!

[Pobulous]

For the TOSEC set, I initially set them into A, B, C, etc folders, then I ran a script to create a subfolder truncated to the gamename and date of release, then moved the various tap versions into those folders. That helped to reduce the number of files in the folder, but also the folder names are now shorter than the tap filenames were, and it's much easier on the eye trying to find a game. I then split the A folder into A-Am and An-Az to keep the total filenumber below 256. S folder had to be split into 5.

So for instance the path to Amaurote is \Games\TOSEC-v2018-09-13_CM\a\A - Am\Amaurote (1987)
with 11 different releases stored in that folder

[Seven.FFF]

ZX-Pokemaster will do the renaming/subfoldering/limiting the number of files per directory, directly from the master TOSEC download.

[Beaps]

Shame there is not a set of games out there that just has the game name and say (128k) if it's a 128k version of the game.

Amaurote.tap
Amaurote[128k].tap

[Pobulous]

Trouble is that there may be various original releases, with different compatibilities across the range of Spectrum models. Then on top of that a lot of TAP files are hacked or cracked versions, because the original game used a custom loader, and that might add issues as well.

[Beaps]

For the TOSEC set, I initially set them into A, B, C, etc folders, then I ran a script to create a subfolder truncated to the gamename and date of release, then moved the various tap versions into those folders. That helped to reduce the number of files in the folder, but also the folder names are now shorter than the tap filenames were, and it's much easier on the eye trying to find a game. I then split the A folder into A-Am and An-Az to keep the total filenumber below 256. S folder had to be split into 5.

So for instance the path to Amaurote is \Games\TOSEC-v2018-09-13_CM\a\A - Am\Amaurote (1987)
with 11 different releases stored in that folder

Did you use a .bat program to organise you games Aa - Am?

[Pobulous]

For the TOSEC set, I initially set them into A, B, C, etc folders, then I ran a script to create a subfolder truncated to the gamename and date of release, then moved the various tap versions into those folders. That helped to reduce the number of files in the folder, but also the folder names are now shorter than the tap filenames were, and it's much easier on the eye trying to find a game. I then split the A folder into A-Am and An-Az to keep the total filenumber below 256. S folder had to be split into 5.

So for instance the path to Amaurote is \Games\TOSEC-v2018-09-13_CM\a\A - Am\Amaurote (1987)
with 11 different releases stored in that folder

Did you use a .bat program to organise you games Aa - Am?

I used batch files to do all the other organisation, but I did the final splits into A-Am etc by hand in Windows Explorer, so I could control where the splits occurred. ZX-Pokemaster looks like it would be helpful for the previous stages.

[bob_fossil]

v0.11

• Added fullscreen browser mode (toggle mode with Symbol Shift + F) which tries to show the loading screen from the currently selected .sna or .tap file.
• Text is now displayed with proportional widths to show more characters in longer filenames.

Download here.

If you need to rollback to the previous version.

[pjrodriguez]

Thank you for the new version. Everything works great.

[bob_fossil]

Thank you for the new version. Everything works great.

You're welcome! Thanks for the feedback.

[XoRRoX]

Thanks, Bob

Been busy lately but will let you know when I tried it.

[zxassembler]

Absolutely fantastic!. All working perfectly. I can't live without this browser now in my ZXUno