Open PS2 Loader Project Feature Requests

First item on the docket;
Honestly, great work by the devs of this project! I love this program and I can't wait until my dev environent is updated later tonight so I can finally start to contribute.

jimmikaelkael,
when you mentioned that hdd support was working- is this reflected in the repository?

I saw the notes about full ISO support and I am all for it. I started looking into the bitbucket repository and I am glad I saw the previous posts before I started trying to hack out an ISO compatible update.

Am I correct in assuming that USB ISO support would require a filesystem other than fat32?

Even if this isn't the case, I would be glad to take a deeper look into ext2 support. As a Slackware zealot, I feel it is long overdue anyways. A quick search in the forums showed little discussion on this. I have limited knowledge of the PS2 hardware, but at this point I see no reason why ext2 cannot be implemented. If anyone has any suggestions while I am hashing out some code it would be greatly appreciated.

Lastly,
I am a long time visitor of these forums but I hate forums in general and just recently decided to stop being a princess so I could help contribute. Please do not make me regret this decision by privately messaging me. Only requested PMs in english or french will be read (Canada speak). With that said, any ext2fs dev suggestions are welcomed. I have very little code at this time and I will need beta monkeys when I ask for them.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dlanor

No, that is not at all strange, since implementing this as it is always described (appx "exiting back to the GUI") is in fact completely impossible, since there is no way to keep a GUI program resident while playing generic PS2 games. Many games use virtually all available RAM of both the EE and the IOP memory spaces, so keeping a GUI program intact in RAM during such games is simply not possible.

---

There are ways around this, by storing a variable on media when launching an ISO, and when resetting the system reload this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by volca

It's because the category icons don't move. If you have a better idea for a name, I'll be happy to discuss a change.

---

my suggestion would be dynamic -> default and static -> small . that would be more intuitive, as the "static" has smaller icons.

i spent an hour trying to figure out why one was called static and the other one dynamic ;-).

Quote:

---

Edit: About the look. There is currently one alternative look selectable - the static mode. If you'd like to test a different approach, you're free to do so. Look for DrawScreenStatic in src/gfx.c for inspiration (it is quite simple besides the linked list manipulation) - it should not be too hard to come up with an alternative. If you'd like to go deeper than screen layout, we can make an interfacing structure for theme rendering that would accompany navigation commands as well - meaning you could get a full page scrolling ability independent of the selected item, for example.

---

i will try to come up with something in my free time. my general idea is something like this :

tabs on top of the screen :
config | usb | hdd | smb | exit

selecting any tab opens up a list below it.

examples ( ** denote the active tab ).

*config* | usb | hdd | smb | exit
---------------------------------
option 1
option 2
(...)

config | *usb* | hdd | smb | exit
---------------------------------
game1
game2
(...)



config | usb | hdd | smb | *exit*
---------------------------------
poweroff
reboot
browser
launch app from mc0:/boot/boot.elf
(....)

also, a small bar on the bottom of the screen, a kind of context menu, different for each tab:

in case of usb
rescan device T | rename entry [] | remove entry O | launch X

in case of hdd
install game [] | rename O | modes T | launch X

network :
init network [] | rescan O | modes T | launch X

etc; (button shortcuts are just examples).

something resembling simple ulaunchelf or hdloader text list would be more functional, imho. i'll try hacking it up, once i get familiar with UI code.

that would generally be totally incompatible with current theming engine.

i suck at graphic apps, so i can't come with any good mockup. i think it's a bit inspired by fmcb installer 1.8b layout, if that helps you understand the concept.

I tried to separate the rendering from the data representation, so generally you should be able to do the thing you describe (it seems it is in essence the static mode with some layout and controls changes).

The thing stopping you is that navigation expects the page displayed to be in fixed relation to the selection (the selection is still - in center of the screen) whereas I presume you want the selection to move and choose the page accordingly. That could be tricky with the linked list implementation, but not impossible (if the selection is in visible range, the page stays where it is, if not, the page pointer is moved to accompany the selection). There is - in my view - no need to choose the tab and then display the contents of it - the contents can be displayed all the time (as the static mode does it).

The bar at the bottom can be displayed in the same way the DrawHint function works.

Quote:

---

it seems it is in essence the static mode with some layout and controls changes

---

yeah, pretty much. but i'm aiming for being able to fit more games on the screen. that would involve stripping or shrinking most icons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by michael.santos

Hi everybody!

What I really love to see is Open PS2 Loader 100% compatible with all Buzz! games. My fat PS2 laser is gone and I would love to use my buzzers and hdd copy from my original Buzz games. :)

Keep the great work!

Regards.

---

Regarding this, I have one question:
Would it be possible to make OPS2L compatible with the USB devices like buzzers, microphones and eyetoy?

Or it is just not possible since both the device and the hard disk are connected to the USB ports? (I read somewhere this was the reason why USBeXtreme wasn't compatible with these devices)

The reason is probably that the USB driver should either be used to make sure the HDD is in the 2nd port if there is something in both ports, as patching all the different games to use port 2 is alot more work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by yoshi314

yeah, pretty much. but i'm aiming for being able to fit more games on the screen. that would involve stripping or shrinking most icons.

---

Why do you need more games on screen? I think you only need one game that is the one currently pointed to,
and then it would be nice for affirmation to see 2 games above and 2 games below when scrolling to give a better feel of where you are at.

Well though I don't really mind, I can see his point. Having a lot of games allows a faster scrolling without risking to miss the game you're looking for. I sometimes scrolled the list twice because it was going too fast.

That’s why there is scroll speed in settings.

i would like to see a way to reset to open ps2 loader from within the games