TOSEC Dat Explorer

[Cassiel]

Think I might have spotted a potential bug.

When trying to batch extract all [more info] flags from a folder of DATs, nothing is output despite there definitely being some [more info] flags in the DATs.

[PandMonium]

You are right indeed, missed something there
Anyway it is fixed now, you can get it in the same place.

[Cassiel]

Much appreciated....

[Cassiel]

Just tested, works great...

(and there's no [more info] issues in my DATs... woohoo!)

[Diaboł]

I have a little request. The Explorer works good but it doesn't display my nickname correctly Can that be fixed?

[PandMonium]

Hi there,
it is possible/works indeed, but it is just extracting the name from the datfile, if you open your datfiles in a text editor you will see (at least for me) "Diabo³".
I just edited the file and saved it with "Diaboł" in UTF-8 format instead of ANSI/ASCII. This one obviously displays correctly in the tool, it is something (format) related with dats and their creation and not me this time

[Diaboł]

Looks like UTF-8 support in clrmamepro is enabled only for DAT files created in the XML format. When I open any of my DATs in a text editor (just checked notepad and notepad++ in Windows7 EN) I can see the nickname displayed properly though... Not a big problem anyway... Actually not at all

[Cassiel]

The original ClrMamePro 'DAT' format is old and depreciated, that's why XML has been the default for some time now.

IMO we should really be using modern XML based DATs anyway, but I know others find them more awkward to manually edit (though I have made the point before that there's a number of very good XML editors out there  ).

[Diaboł]

What would be the advantage over the old format? Lets skip the UTF for now since it can be easily implemented to the old format if Roman want to do that.

[Cassiel]

He won't - the old DAT format is unsupported/depreciated.

All my point is (and has been) is that the old DAT format is exactly that, old (and unsupported).

It’s not a massive thing, but if we have the two options (old/depreciated format or modern/current format) and it’s exactly the same amount of ‘effort’ needed to create/host either, then why not go with the modern?

- More flexible/extendable since XML based
- Who knows when Roman will decide to dump old format DAT creation in CMP
- Fully Unicode compatible
- Gives more flexibility for future, especially changes in project direction/expansion
- and, at the end of the day: why use an outdated format when a modern standards based one is already available and in use?

Like I say, it not a massive ‘issue’, it’s just about being a little forward thinking... and being forward thinking always good (even for a project obsessed with the past).

[Diaboł]

I guess I agree with Cassiel about the reasons for using new format for our DAT files. Anyway I think I found a bug in the explorer. After I load and check a DAT I want to highlight all sets with an unknown publishers but for some reasons all sets gets yellow background and the statistics says that all sets are wrong. Obviously right after check all of them were OK. It's not very strange now that if I click Settings-->Show Sets-->Wrong Only all of my sets are highlighted.

One more thing, the app doesn't remember last used path.

[PandMonium]

Well the unknown publishers and scenegroups and so on shouldn't work very well (or at all). They idea is/was to use the xml lists in the lists\ path, you may try to put them there, if none there won't be any values present when you go to view -> something list.
Unfortunately i'm yet to finish that and i don't even remember how i left it so i can't tell you what will happen using the lists

The path part is true and is annoying.