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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Release id #84811 : HVSC Manager 1.1
Hi guys.
Just wanted to open a thread for anyone who might have problems,bug reports or feature requests concerning this tool. |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Something worth mentioning, if you had a previous version installed and would like to keep your settings,
try copying the .config file from the older version's folder into the newly installed version's folder.
That might work.
EDIT : no it wont. The config file is stored in your user profile / local settings / application settings / stainless_steel / and then somewhere, each version has its own folder so you will have to figure out what is what.
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Some background infos.
I couldnt (yet) manage to implement libsidplay in C# so i have to resort to utilizing sidplay.exe instead.
This has some disadvantages, but also benefits.
In order to hide the sidplay gui from the user (which turned out to be quite tricky. Simply launching it as a hidden window did not suffice, since that method steals the focus from whatever window is activated at that moment) I am spawning the sidplay.exe process in a virtual desktop. So you still can see the sidplay.exe process in the taskmanager under your own processes, but its gui is showing on a virtual desktop which itself never shown.
One disadvantage of this method is, I have no direct control over the sid output itself.
I can only fire up the sidplay process and terminate it (and, using some dirty trickery, pause/unpause the entire sidplay process).
Also the timers inside the tool can only estimate the elapsed time of a playing tune, the timer starts once the sidplay.exe process has launched. If sidplay, for some reason, takes some time itself before it can actually play the tune, i have no way of registering that event.
Another drawback is, I can not control the volume of the sidplay soundstream directly (yet, i'm still trying to hack my way into the wavout soundbuffer of windows with C#). This left me only one option to make volume changing/fadout available, by directly changing the windows sound levels.
I'm aware that this is a rather "dirty" way of doing it. Any changes you make to the volume levels inside the tool will directly effect your windows mixer settings and vice versa.
On the other hand, if any updates to Sidplay and/or new filterpresets or what ever are published,
I dont have to worry about updating my tool regarding those. You just configure the tool to use the new sidplay.exe and you're set to go.
About the "Spectrum analyzer" (vista/seven only).
This is not really a spectrum analyzer. What I'm doing here is i grab the masterpeak level from whatever windows is currently playing and map that to the bargraph (bar number 7). Obviously this would only show a single bar that raises/drops to the overall peaklevel. In order to make it look more interesting (and really, its just a visual gimmick) i randomly calculate the remaining bar levels from the range 0 to the maximum current peak level for each bar per frame. voila.
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3197 |
I was just curious to see what's this for but had to try at work where I can access to a XP machine with .net 3.5
Here's my bugreport.
1)
HVSC directory do not require a subdir called "c64music" and does not require to be called like that. It's a wild assumption.
HVSC directory can be ANY dir which it's composed by these subdirs:
DEMOS
DOCUMENTS
GAMES
MUSICIANS
nothing else. I have it in D:\hvsc\ for example.
I've created a temporary copy of the whole dir called D:\C64music\ and seems to accept it... but seems only, see below.
2)
there is no "cancel" from the settings window, if I exit with either "\" as HVSC path + "OK" button, or Alt-F4, an exception
is raised because there are no sanity checks, probably assumes all vars from the setting being filled and correct, dunno.
************** Testo dell'eccezione **************
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index e length devono fare riferimento a una posizione nella stringa.
Nome parametro: length
in System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy)
in System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length)
in HVSCScanner.Form1.Settings_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
in System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
in System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.MenuStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
in System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
(say THANK YOU M$ for putting localized error messages in his framework)
3) Why can't I directly type the path to sidplay? It works only if I use the button Change but I'm not keyboard impaired and I can type c:\sid\sidplay2w.exe ! =)
Same goes for all the other paths of course.
4) Settings Window is also always on top, I find it more annoying than useful but it's just me as I needed to do alt-tab to check the path in Far manager window, so I had to move it almost offscreen.
5) import playlist, don't select anything and press Esc: starts anyway asking for scanning this and that... scan what? I've not selected anything =)
Of course errors occour if you say YES to questions.
6) Now I'm a bit lost. I've done "scan HVSC" and nothing happens. 0 entries
I've verified with FileMon, all the subdirs are being found
16.58.51 HVSCManager.exe:888 OPEN D:\C64music\MUSICIANS\0-9\20CC\van_Santen_Edwi n\ SUCCESS Options: Open Directory Access: All
16.58.51 HVSCManager.exe:888 DIRECTORY D:\C64music\MUSICIANS\0-9\20CC\van_Santen _Edwin\ SUCCESS FileBothDirectoryInformation: *
16.58.51 HVSCManager.exe:888 DIRECTORY D:\C64music\MUSICIANS\0-9\20CC\van_Santen _Edwin\ SUCCESS FileBothDirectoryInformation
etc, so it's not a problem of wrong paths.
Does this only works on existing playlists? Should I create a playlist of whole HVSC to freely jump from one dir to another??
I can't do anything else than deleting it.
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Duly noted. |
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Mr. SID
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 424 |
I remember Inge also having problems with getting libsidplay2 interfacing with C# code. It's been ages since I had to call unsafe C++ code from a C# frontend, but I remember that it wasn't really hard.
What problems did you encounter that you couldn't solve?
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
I cant explicitly recall where in the process i got hung up, and i cant seem to find the forum pages on sourceforge where i had described the problem at the time.
If you happen to have any example C# source for interfacing with the libsidplay stuff I'd highly appreciate it.
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Quoting ianHVSC directory do not require a subdir called "c64music" and does not require to be called like that. It's a wild assumption. I took the folder structure that came out of the hvsc.zip file. Ofcourse, i could have made the path references totally relative and independant of any destinct folder (like, looking for the mentioned hvsc folder structure and use the parent of that as a reference point). Maybe in some upcoming version.
Concerning the missing sanity checks, yes there are some places where i havent built in any. You seem to have found them quite well :-D
As mentioned, it's still beta and i'll try to fix any reported bugs.
Cheers.
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
A Small update is about done. I've fixed the window resizing, according to Steppe's request.
Now it is freely resizable and works with the Windows 7 Snap to feature.
I've also added SID (6581/8580) and timer (VBI/CIA) detection. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
So, when's an update coming out?
I noticed that clicking into the text fields always sends you into edit-mode, I find this mildly annoying. I wonder who's editing his playlists by hand all the time? |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
As soon as i get my ass up :-D |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Houston, we found a bug:
1. I can't seem to leave the filter by composer mode unless I close and open the app again. You know, that little dropdown up there where I can select by composer or handle. I want to go back to "show all, don't filter, idiot!"
2. Enabling the filter by composer and saving the playlist right afterwards only saves what is shown in the filtered list, thus overwriting my carefully produced playlist. Aargh!
You know I was working on my best of list, then all of a sudden I wanted to hear some JT stuff. So I use that dropdown list at the top to quickly jump to some JT tunes and after I saved (overwrite, yes, of course) and reopened it only contained JT tunes. This is really an annoying bug... |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Indeed, i will look into that and hopefuly have a update finished this year.
In the meantime, you should be able to reset the datagrid to its original state by right clicking on the datagrid and choosing DATAGRID OPTIONS > RESET DATAVIEW.
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Ok update is almost finished. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
While you're at it, Joe: The desktop icon it creates is named "HSVC Manager". Ha ha.
And also consider inventing a less cryptic version numbering, my V1.1 reads in the top line "HVSC Monger 2.0.50727.4927" whatever that means. |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
I should have named it "HSV Manager" :-D
The versionstring is autogenerated. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
This one already exists: http://www.hsv.de/fans/downloads-spiele/manager-spiel/
You can't manage sid files with this, unfortunately. ;-) |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Thanks for the v1.2 trying it out already!
One typo in the settings screen spotted:
This must point to the folder containing the HVCSC.
^
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3197 |
I bet the extra C stands for Crap =) |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Yeah, Joe surely did that to pull our leg. YOU!!! ;-) |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
You caught me red handed. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
And it still says HSVC Manager both in the desktop icon and in the list of installed programs (Windows install/deinstall tool). I think we should maybe rename HVSC to compensate for that. |
