Long Filename Browser for ZX-UNO / esxDOS

[XoRRoX]

It's getting better and better!
Another Yay! for TurboSound

Soon there's nothing left that we can come up with to request...

Thanks for your continued enthusiasm to keep going at it

[akeley]

Soon there's nothing left that we can come up with to request...

Well, I've mentioned .tzx support would be great about 20 pages ago. C'mon [mention]bob_fossil[/mention] , what's the hold up?

Thanks for your continued enthusiasm to keep going at it

Ditto!

[Pegaz]

Great job, Bob.
So far I have tested Spectrum ay, mym and Turbo sound and everything works fine.
I also tried several Amstrad ay files, but they don't seem to work.

Well, I've mentioned .tzx support would be great about 20 pages ago. C'mon @bob_fossil , what's the hold up?

Somehow, I always thought that this was impossible, but if .pzx works, then maybe there is a chance...

[akeley]

[mention]Pegaz[/mention] I was joking I'm pretty sure it really is impossible. It would be a game changer though, because so many .taps from my collection don't work (I have converted them by brute force).

[cmal]

It's getting better and better!
Another Yay! for TurboSound

Soon there's nothing left that we can come up with to request...

Thanks for your continued enthusiasm to keep going at it

Would this be too much of a tall order: Add a way to make the file selector jump to the first game that starts with a chosen letter. For example, if the user holds Caps+S, the selector jumps to the first "S" file in the current folder.

[bob_fossil]

Great job, Bob.
So far I have tested Spectrum ay, mym and Turbo sound and everything works fine.
I also tried several Amstrad ay files, but they don't seem to work.

Well, I've mentioned .tzx support would be great about 20 pages ago. C'mon @bob_fossil , what's the hold up?

Somehow, I always thought that this was impossible, but if .pzx works, then maybe there is a chance...

Amstrad AY files won't work for a number of reasons. The CPC has a different memory layout so addresses that are valid over there might not be on the Spectrum (e.g. Deflektor AY on the CPC loads around address 17000 which unfortunately is the screen memory where the AY player is located in the browser on the Spectrum). The other issue is that the CPC accesses the AY via different ports. So you'd need to modify the code to get it to produce sounds on the Spectrum's AY. You can convert Amstrad .ym files easily enough to .mym - that's what I did for Krakout and Jet Set Willy in my latest video.

PZX is as close as you're going to get to TZX at the moment. You could maybe (maybe) write a plugin that took a .tzx file and extracted the normal speed / ROM tape data and put that into a .tap file but as soon as you hit custom / turbo tape data it would fail.

[bob_fossil]

oo much of a tall order: Add a way to make the file selector jump to the first game that starts with a chosen letter. For example, if the user holds Caps+S, the selector jumps to the first "S" file in the current folder.

Caps Shift is used for hotkeys. One thing I could do is that when you do Caps Shift + F to enter find mode, if you enter a single character , e.g. G, the find can move you to the first filename with G at the start, e.g. Geoff Capes rather than taking you to the first file with a g in it. You could then BREAK out of find and the cursor would still be on Geoff Capes. If you didn't BREAK out and pressed r so you search string was gr, the normal find mode matching would kick in and you'd go to file with gr inside it, e.g. 'The Great Escape'.

[cmal]

Caps Shift is used for hotkeys. One thing I could do is that when you do Caps Shift + F to enter find mode, if you enter a single character , e.g. G, the find can move you to the first filename with G at the start, e.g. Geoff Capes rather than taking you to the first file with a g in it. You could then BREAK out of find and the cursor would still be on Geoff Capes. If you didn't BREAK out and pressed r so you search string was gr, the normal find mode matching would kick in and you'd go to file with gr inside it, e.g. 'The Great Escape'.

Bob, this would be very slick functionality.
Would it also work on folders in the same way? I'm imagining some people would group their games into folders by something like Publisher. To quickly jump to the "Ultimate" folder, you could just press Caps+F and type U.

Thanks again for your work on this.

[bob_fossil]

Caps Shift is used for hotkeys. One thing I could do is that when you do Caps Shift + F to enter find mode, if you enter a single character , e.g. G, the find can move you to the first filename with G at the start, e.g. Geoff Capes rather than taking you to the first file with a g in it. You could then BREAK out of find and the cursor would still be on Geoff Capes. If you didn't BREAK out and pressed r so you search string was gr, the normal find mode matching would kick in and you'd go to file with gr inside it, e.g. 'The Great Escape'.

Bob, this would be very slick functionality.
Would it also work on folders in the same way? I'm imagining some people would group their games into folders by something like Publisher. To quickly jump to the "Ultimate" folder, you could just press Caps+F and type U.

Thanks again for your work on this.

It will match the first file / directory with that character and move the selection there. Folders get listed above files, so they will match first. It's just a simple way to give you the ability to jump to the first file beginning with a character instead of the first file with that character in it. Subsequent presses of Caps Shift + F will cycle you through all the file entries beginning with that character.

Seems to make more sense to match this way when you only have onr character typed in and then switch back to the old behaviour if you type more characters in.

[cmal]

Bob, this would be very slick functionality.
Would it also work on folders in the same way? I'm imagining some people would group their games into folders by something like Publisher. To quickly jump to the "Ultimate" folder, you could just press Caps+F and type U.

Thanks again for your work on this.

It will match the first file / directory with that character and move the selection there. Folders get listed above files, so they will match first. It's just a simple way to give you the ability to jump to the first file beginning with a character instead of the first file with that character in it. Subsequent presses of Caps Shift + F will cycle you through all the file entries beginning with that character.

Seems to make more sense to match this way when you only have onr character typed in and then switch back to the old behaviour if you type more characters in.

Agreed, the way that you propose does make sense.

[XoRRoX]

Just some things I ran into while going through the files in the Uno repository.

(In a ZX Uno VM in RVM)

I started the Bad Apple demo (from the Uno repository). It ran great, but when pressing NMI the sound isn't stoped and results in noise.

When something is run in Radistan video mode and pressing NMI, the screen mode isn't reset and results in a garbled display.

[Pegaz]

Some programs require a master reset (normal reset or NMI isnt enough), but I'm not sure how it works on the emulator.
In such cases use the power off/on button in RVM.
Either way, it has nothing to do with the browser...

[XoRRoX]

Well, before Bob build in ULAplus awareness, the set palette would affect how the browser is displayed. Now it doesn't anymore as the palette is read (possible on the Uno, not ZX-HD as that doesn't allow for all ULAplus registers to be read back) and stored when entering the browser, and restored when exiting again.

Regarding the sound in Bad Apple, I suspect for some channels to not be muted or something?

As for Radastan, of which I don't know too much, could be that the graphics mode is not changed when entering the browser. I don't know if it's detectable so it can be restored again on exit?

[bob_fossil]

When something is run in Radistan video mode and pressing NMI, the screen mode isn't reset and results in a garbled display.

If you have a ZX-UNO and Radastan mode is enabled, it now gets turned off when you enter the browser and re-enabled when you exit. This will be in the next test version.

[bob_fossil]

New test version available here.

Some crashes were fixed in the AY plugin and the browser now disables Radastan mode (if active) on entering the browser and restore on exit (ZX-UNO only). Turbo Sound support was added to the PT3 plugin - the maximum size of a playable PT3 module has been bumped to 28972 bytes to allow for increased size of TS modules (it's basically 2 PT3 modules stuck together).

I've also modified Find Mode (Caps Shift + F) so that searching for a single character matches the first character of the filename - giving you a quick way to jump to the first file for a given character. You can then BREAK out of Find Mode and navigate from that point. If you enter two or more characters, Find Mode works as before. Would appreciate some feedback on whether this is useful or not.

If you haven't already, please download the latest stable release before using the test version as this contains documentation about program usage and installation not included in the test versions.

[SamC]

Hi,
it seems that FB does not have any method of switching between two SD slots.
Please help or put this into the TO-DO list.
Thank you.

[cmal]

New test version available here.

Some crashes were fixed in the AY plugin and the browser now disables Radastan mode (if active) on entering the browser and restore on exit (ZX-UNO only). Turbo Sound support was added to the PT3 plugin - the maximum size of a playable PT3 module has been bumped to 28972 bytes to allow for increased size of TS modules (it's basically 2 PT3 modules stuck together).

I've also modified Find Mode (Caps Shift + F) so that searching for a single character matches the first character of the filename - giving you a quick way to jump to the first file for a given character. You can then BREAK out of Find Mode and navigate from that point. If you enter two or more characters, Find Mode works as before. Would appreciate some feedback on whether this is useful or not.

If you haven't already, please download the latest stable release before using the test version as this contains documentation about program usage and installation not included in the test versions.

Hi Bob,

Firstly, thanks for making these changes and for your continued support with this browser. You make us lot very happy

I just spent some time testing this and here are my findings:

Tested on RVM (Retro Virtual Machine) on a 48k machine with virtual DivMMC
Steps:
I first updated the version by copying all the BIN and SYS files from the latest version, then from the test version, into their respective folders. I then renamed the BROWSE file to a B so that I could quickly pull up the browser by typing ".b". This handy tip came from [mention]Luzie[/mention] quite a few pages back. Thanks Luzie!
Upon resetting the machine and starting the browser with ".b", it started up perfectly first time. I navigated to a folder and searched for games starting with S by typing Caps+S, but it didn't respond. Actually it did respond, with the border going red, but I didn't notice it at the time
Then I realized there were no games beginning with "S" in the folder I was in, so that worked correctly.
I searched for another letter and that worked perfectly. If I continue to press Caps+F, it cycled through the files that started with that letter. If I continued to type in the search, it jumped back to normal search mode, cycling through entries that contained the text that I typed. It worked just as you said.

After spending some more time testing this, everything worked flawlessly for me. The only minor thing I would suggest (only if it is easy) is to add a beep sound effect to the red border if a search string is not found in the current folder. This would give an audible clue that the string or letter could not be found.

Thanks again for making the changes.

[tom-cat]

Tested on RVM (Retro Virtual Machine) on a 48k machine with virtual DivMMC

Hi.

I tried it with my .hdf file created from a real SD card used on my DivMMC but I cannot get it to work on Retro virtual machine emulator. It gets to loading the BETADISK.SYS file then freezes...
http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/retro.jpg

How did you create the .HDF image ?
Also can one change the ESXDOS rom from 0.8.6 to the newest 0.8.8 somehow ?
If I create the image with the retro virtual machine it creates it as .ISO - how to put files into these .ISO images (they don't seem to be in normal cd rom image format)

Best regards,
Tomaz

[Pegaz]

Tested on RVM (Retro Virtual Machine) on a 48k machine with virtual DivMMC

Hi.

I tried it with my .hdf file created from a real SD card used on my DivMMC but I cannot get it to work on Retro virtual machine emulator. It gets to loading the BETADISK.SYS file then freezes...
http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/retro.jpg

How did you create the .HDF image ?
Also can one change the ESXDOS rom from 0.8.6 to the newest 0.8.8 somehow ?
If I create the image with the retro virtual machine it creates it as .ISO - how to put files into these .ISO images (they don't seem to be in normal cd rom image format)

Best regards,
Tomaz

Hi Tomaz,

The easiest way is to create an image of your SD card in .img format, because I'm not sure that RVM supports .hdf format.
Of course if your card has esxdos v0.8.8, then you need to do an update through the emulator, same as on the real Uno.
My advice is to copy FLASH.ZX1 file from this great [mention]desUBIKado[/mention] package to the root of your SD card and then create image in .img format.
https://mega.nz/file/utxwQZiC#kaeCmV0LJ ... qlry5s6HmI

Create ZX-Uno v4.2 in RVM, mount your sd card image, turn power on and quickly press Shift + 1 to enter the BIOS and then do "Upgrade flash from SD" in the Upgrade section, which will upgrade the complete BIOS, ROMS, Cores and ESXDOS to the latest versions.
Then, hopefully you will be able to boot your SD card image into RVM.
If that doesn't work, then the only reliable way is to create a new SD card image from the emulator itself and transfer all the content from your card to it.
Here is a tutorial, which helped me a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT7zkqRvc_g

Pozdrav,
Pegaz

[tom-cat]

Thank you. Flashing the ZXUno with the FLASH1.ZX was succesfull. The .HDF file from my own SD Card image is working perfectly in it.

And what an emulator this is really, something completely different. The CRT emulation filters are great and everything feels really well thought out.

Thanx for sharing this!

[Pegaz]

Thank you. Flashing the ZXUno with the FLASH1.ZX was succesfull. The .HDF file from my own SD Card image is working perfectly in it.

And what an emulator this is really, something completely different. The CRT emulation filters are great and everything feels really well thought out.

Thanx for sharing this!

You're welcome.
It's always nice to see you here, my friend.

[bob_fossil]

Hi,
it seems that FB does not have any method of switching between two SD slots.
Please help or put this into the TO-DO list.
Thank you.

I had trouble locating locating the second SD card slot on my ZX-UNO, Maybe it's underneath the sticker?

Joking aside, I'm not sure how to test this. I have made a code change which might make it work - rather than specifying a device number in .brwscfg, I've added an option to 'Auto Detect Device' in the Advanced settings page. if you set this to ON, the browser will ignore the device number and try to work out the device from the current root folder '/'.

You can get it from here.

Would be interested to hear if this works for people who've had to fiddle around with the device number in the settings.

[tom-cat]

You're welcome.
It's always nice to see you here, my friend.

It is really nice seeing you are still active on the zx scene. I am doing stuff on-off these days, did a lot of C64 things in the past years, but now bob has brought the spectrum back with the LFN browser which is really THE thing we were waiting for I wish I had more time for the retro things.

[Pegaz]

You're welcome.
It's always nice to see you here, my friend.

It is really nice seeing you are still active on the zx scene. I am doing stuff on-off these days, did a lot of C64 things in the past years, but now bob has brought the spectrum back with the LFN browser which is really THE thing we were waiting for I wish I had more time for the retro things.

Well, you certainly didn't waste time, your Atic Atac port is really great, we talked about it here and it was very well received.
btw, from the beginning "Long filename browser" seemed too long to me and now I see that this abbreviation of yours "LFN Browser", can be a great candidate for the official name of the program.
... if Bob doesn't mind, of course.

[desUBIKado]

I've also modified Find Mode (Caps Shift + F) so that searching for a single character matches the first character of the filename - giving you a quick way to jump to the first file for a given character. You can then BREAK out of Find Mode and navigate from that point. If you enter two or more characters, Find Mode works as before. Would appreciate some feedback on whether this is useful or not.

In my opinion, this new way of searching is better than the old one.