Work in progress

[firehawk]

Wow man. If that happens it would be a great achievement.

[BigMichiel]

Take the two best things and put them together, what you get? Simple: The Ultimate Homebrew Ever Made For The PS2 (that's a big title, don't you think?:P) Now how about a shorter name? SMSLaunch?:P

[JuddMan]

i would be worried about the UI... SMS' UI is great but i can't imagine uLaunchELF filebrowser with that UI. now the start page with the button shortcuts, yes, that would be something.

how about rather than merging them, we keep them separate but make a change to uLaunchELF so that when the user presses a AVI or MP3 file from uLaunchELF, it will launch SMS with the media file as an argument... and SMS automatically plays it. (uLaunchELF would have to be told where SMS is located in some config)

we've already got a way to get back to ULE after its finished playing too. (though it doesn't work for me for the latest version)

i personally see ULElf as the OS and SMS as the application here. just like IE and Windows, it may not be so wise to make SMS an inseparable part of ULE... there is the size of the elf to consider. i keep ULE on my MC and SMS on my HDD.

[EEUG]

SMS Version 1.6 (Rev.1)

- an attempt to fix "can't browse folders" bug;
(thanks to everybody involved in this discovery);
- an attempt to fix "files on USB device are not selectable" bug;
- added possibility to decrease screen height in "display settings" ->
"advanced settings" menu (thanks to "Voldemar_u2" for suggestion);

@dlanor: somehow "strcat" function didn't work in some cases (I suspect because of EE multimedia instructions it uses (high 64 bits of some registers were modified by new GS code, so, maybe, this causes the problem)). ps2sdk update didn't help. I've scratched "SMS_Strcat", so now it appears to be working. I've also changed loader code slightly (added "SifExitRpc" just before ExecPS2, so you can check if it makes any difference). I'll commit source code later, after test results ...

[IluvmyPS2]

Playing movies from the mass root directory is working again. Thanks! All the work is highly appreciated

[dlanor]

@EEUG:
Thanks for the s_Loader source, I've stored it as a C file for reference now

@'merger' enthusiasts:
I don't think a full merging would be a good idea, for many reasons. (See some below)

@JuddMan:
I agree with you on the roles of LaunchELF and SMS, and with a fully functional ability of SMS to reboot LaunchELF, this combo would effectively work almost as if they were merged. (Except for a slight delay at reboot.)

The UI difference is just one of several reasons to avoid a real merger, another important issue is the 'MC footprint'. Current LaunchELF versions require less than 230KB on MC, compared to 374KB for SMS. Even if some common code could be eliminated in merging, we're still looking at a new footprint in the range of 500KB.

Such a size is acceptable for a normal application like SMS, that many will put on HDD or mass:, to launch from another program (like LaunchELF). But 500KB is completely unacceptable for a system tool that most people will need/want on each of their MCs, in order to use other ELFs too.

SMS Version 1.6 (Rev.1)

Got it, thanks, and I'll make some new test series with this version soon.

@dlanor: somehow "strcat" function didn't work in some cases (I suspect because of EE multimedia instructions it uses (high 64 bits of some registers were modified by new GS code, so, maybe, this causes the problem)).

Yes, I see. Such an error could easily explain the inconsistent results we got for that subfolder access bug, through a bad strcat failing to add the subfolder string to the current browsing path string. The results would also be affected by the GS activities in each test then.

It could also explain cases where files that should have loaded didn't work, as they too could have their pathname strings garbled.

However, I'm a little confused here, as I can't find the 'SMS_strcat' you mention anywhere in the recent SMS source versions I have. Did you really mean that SMS_strcat is some patch you made to your libs, so that it would replace the normal strcat (still referred to as 'strcat' in SMS sources) ??? (Just a guess...)

ps2sdk update didn't help. I've scratched "SMS_Strcat", so now it appears to be working.

Ok, but the major problem seems to be explained, and the reason why I never had it in my versions is clearly because I never had any SMS_strcat to begin with... (Apparently unique to the official releases.)

Still, a lot of tests will be needed to ensure that the problem really is gone. (Inconsistent bugs are always a pain to test.)

I've also changed loader code slightly (added "SifExitRpc" just before ExecPS2, so you can check if it makes any difference). I'll commit source code later, after test results ...

Ok. Unfortunately I have to deal with a LaunchELF incompatibility issue (with myPS2) first, but right after that I'll get busy with SMS tests.

One big difference between your loader and the one in LaunchELF is that we never make an IOP reset before launching other ELFs. So the IOP modules used by LaunchELF linger on in IOP space. We only use IOP reset for the initialization of LaunchELF.

We wanted to make an option for using IOP reset for launched ELFs too, but our experiments with that didn't work out so well, so we put that idea on hold, and that's how it has remained since then. Perhaps it is time to make a real investigation into how IOP reset can be used repeatedly by a program without problems, and that will probably give some answers useful both to SMS and to LaunchELF.

If the tests with your new revision don't turn out well for the reboot ability, you might want to consider simplifying the loader code even more, getting rid of the IOP reset. LaunchELF shouldn't need it anyway, having its own, and the same really should apply to any system tool serving the same purpose.

Best regards: dlanor

[Mr. Worm~~]

No problems for me with SMSrev1 and return to ULEv3.46/HDL 0.7c..I havent noticed any problem with browsing/selecting before and now, maybe due to I always have filtering/sort ON

[dlanor]

About the subfolder bug:
------------------------
I have now made some tests with the new SMS revision (Rev.1 above), and I can no longer get the subfolder error I did get on mass: with the previous official release. So your fix for that problem seems to have worked well.

But since the problem was hard to reproduce consistently, and affected different devices for different users, a single tester is not enough to verify a full cure. All who earlier reported that error should now report whether or not the error remains with the new version. And if that comes out as I expect, then we can really rely on this cure.

About the 'Exit SMS' feature:
----------------------------
The new revision successfully reboots uLaunchELF v3.46, but not v3.45, so we still don't have full control over this. I can only repeat what I said before: The experiments we made with LaunchELF, for using IOP more than once in the same program, never gave useful results.

Until we know more about exactly what happens for such cases, so it can be done with full control, I suggest you skip that operation for your reboot. If that cures the erratic response we now see, then we have something good enough to use for letting SMS work as a 'subprogram' of uLaunchELF.

Of course, I could try that already, though I might have to make extra versions with 'dummy' patches, just to 'trick' the unknown factors into allowing the 'Exit SMS' feature to work...

About further tests:
-------------------
I will now update my SMS sources from SVN, and see if results with a version compiled by me will agree with the earlier tests.

Edit:
Seems like I'll have to postpone those tests, as the current SVN sources are 2 days old (same as I used last time). No big deal. I'll just do it later then.

Best regards: dlanor

[EEUG]

@dlanor: ...latest source code is in SVN now...

[FaberfoX]

Ok, my first post here, after lurking since v1.0.

EEUG, amazing piece of work you've got here. I'm running it with both a usb enclosed 2.5" hd and my network thru a wireless bridge, works like a charm.
The only thing I'd love to see fixed, is for SMS to detect the network without having to restart RadHostClient. I see this same behavior on uLaunch, so I don't know if this is something you can fix or if I have to bug RHC's coder

Oh, and one more thing, regarding multiple subs: My main language is spanish, but I like to keep both english and spanish subs together with my AVIs, as in xxx.avi , xxx.es.srt and xxx.en.srt
My problem now is when (almost always) the xxx is too long, the last part of the file is not visible on the minibrowser, would it be too hard to have the name split with ... in the middle? ie: xxxxxxxxx...xx.es.srt, I know I'm not the only one storing subs this way...
And the last one, full dir playback for mp3s, maybe by using circle or square on the first file, like what you do now to select subs?

Thanks for this amazing app!