ExoDOS Import

[ALIE]

What is the latest? is all the new packs on PD. 

[Retrofrogg]

I think that just adventure and RPG new packs (3.1) are on PD so far.

[Retrofrogg]

Sorry if this has been covered before - but how do I add the new exoDOS packs (versions 3.1) to an existing Launchbox install (i.e. without running the setup file which installs a new instance of LB)?

[2Play]

6 minutes ago, Dan said:

I think that just adventure and RPG new packs (3.1) are on PD so far.

Yes Exo has both now 3.1 Adv + Rpg on PD. He updated Rpg v3 to 3.1

[2Play]

34 minutes ago, Dan said:

Sorry if this has been covered before - but how do I add the new exoDOS packs (versions 3.1) to an existing Launchbox install (i.e. without running the setup file which installs a new instance of LB)?

Check these posts that cover major ques like yours:

Hope will help most of you out there...

[Retrofrogg]

exo - are there any plans for a win3xo update? I am currently working on adding the 2 new exodos v3.1 packs to Launchbox. I have a separate folder with the old versions plus the win3xo combined. I'm working whether to add my win3xo stuff to LB or to wait for an update. Thanks!

[eXo]

win3xo update will follow all 5 exodos volumes.

[Retrofrogg]

Thanks exo. Another query - when running the setup, it seems to put all the artwork etc into the appropriate launchbox folders. For example, if I go into the launchbox/manuals folder, then I see the manuals for the dos games.

However, I have found that there is further artwork/manuals withing the exodos/games/!dos folder. What is this folder, and should I move the stuff out of it into Launchbox as well?

[eXo]

The !dos folder is no longer required if you don't plan on using meagre. That folder can be removed. All the files in it reside in zip files in the pack, so you aren't loosing them forever by deleting that folder.

 

I got to thinking about this, and it is incorrect. Deleting that folder will make it impossible to launch games.

Edited March 15, 2018 by eXo

[Retrofrogg]

exo - I just tried opening the hintbook (in LB in "additional apps" for KQ3) - though it couldn't find it. It seems to be in the Meagre extra folder but not in LB?

In LB it points to eXoDOS\Games\!dos\KQ3\Meagre\Extras\Kings_Quest_3_Hint_Book.pdf for this item.

Also, after installation, all the games remained zipped - is this correct?

And - I have all the media in the LB folders, but the games themselves are on a different drive. How do I set the games location for all the games (rather than having to do it one game at a time)?

Sorry for all the questions!

Edit - just for clarification: my method of install was to run setup on my network drive, then copy across/merge the relevant folders into my Launchbox install on my local drive. I plan to leave the games on the network drive for space. 

Edited March 5, 2018 by Dan

[Retrofrogg]

Really keen to get this sorted so would appreciate any pointers!

[eXo]

If you want to fix the hint book issue, go to the games folder, right click the gamesadv.zip file, and choose extract here. If you don't see that option, then you may have a different extracter, but the concept is the same.

 

As far as keeping the games in different locations than the front end, you would have to use symbolic links. Other posts in this thread have given details on this. I don't directly support it myself.

[Retrofrogg]

Thanks eXo. But extracting the gamesadv.zip file just produces the !dos folder I already have extracted.

As you know, the folder structure after running setup is eXoDOS/eXoDOS/Games/!dos

It seems that the games are in the "Games" folder. The !dos folder seems to have expanded versions of the games in the "Games" folder, is this correct?

My issue is, that the game folders in the !dos folder have a bunch of subfolders containing the game metadata and images. It seems that most of these were migrated into LB through the setup process, though the "extras" subfolders (or the contents of those) do not seem to have been imported. Are you aware of this issue and is it expected? And is there a way to get this extra media into LB? Like I said, it tends to contain extra items like hint books etc which would be great to have. I don't feel like importing these into LB manually one by one!

Thanks mate, loving the collection still.

EDIT - I have sorted it. I didn't realise that the symbolic link was necessary. I thought that the exoDOS setup copied all of the images etc to the LB directories. I did not realise that it leaves some in the !dos folder. Now I am a bit confused as to why you told me to delete the !dos folder! But all good.

My current issue is with the "extras", e.g. hint books and such - they open fine in LB as a PDF. When I selected the in BB however, they don't open. They are in the menu "additional apps" so I wonder if BB is trying to open them with DOSbox. Anyone come across this issue?

Edited March 8, 2018 by Dan

[eXo]

Dan,

What I posted above is the solution to your issue with some of the hint books and such missing. If you don't want the entire !dos subfolder expanded, but you still want the files that it links to in those folders, you are going to have to put some effort in to discovering which files it calls from the !dos folder and deleting the rest.

Here is why.

I use a primitive tool to try and convert the ini files for each game that meagre uses into the ms-dos.xml file that launchbox uses. It grabs *most* of the data fields and brings them over. It then tries to grab all the manuals and copy them to launchbox's manuals folder, however it makes mistakes along the way - such as not paying attention to the file type and assuming every manual is a pdf. It is also supposed to grab the title shots and gameplay shots I have in meagre, and it handles png's ok, but it totally screws up and drops any jpg or gif files.  There are some other issues as well.

Essentially, the tool creates a framework for me. I then have to go into launchbox, and scroll through each game, fixing missing data, adding missing genre's, adding missing artwork or screenshots, renaming screwed up manuals, and manually linking any "extras", as the import process can't handle these at all. In meagre, extras are things like copy protection sheets, code wheels, hint books, etc... I treat them like external applications in LB. 

When I was working on the adventure pack and first realized that none of the extras had copied over and that many of the manuals were screwed up, I began linking them to their versions that existed in the meagre subfolder. It wasn't until I was nearly done with the adventure pack that I realized the reason manuals weren't working was due to the naming process. Not only where the extensions getting modified by the import process, but it couldn't handle spaces or apostrophes without crapping the bed. 

So for the RPG pack, I simply fixed the manual's file names, and didn't have to link to manuals in the !dos folder.

Extras on the other hand, don't get copied into LB's folder structure. They always reside in the !dos subfolder. So - if you want the extras/external applications, then you have to keep that folder. 

Your only other option would be to manually create an "extras" folder in launchbox, copy all extras over to it (while also renaming each one to reflect the game and type of extra it is), and then manually go through and modify the external application link for each one of these. By using a search feature in the ms-dos.xml file you could easily identify all of the manuals and extras it links to. But the renaming and relinking process is probably a good 15-20 hours worth of work.

It is something I will consider doing if I ever do an update to these packs, but that is a LOT of time to put into something that most people will get no benefit from. It just cleans things up a bit and saves a gigabyte or two of disk space. I don't know about you, but I'm not in the habit of spending 20 hours to save a a few gigabytes. 

So, you it appears your options are to either have no extras, keep the !dos folder and have all the extras, or manually move the extras/manuals and relink them and delete the !dos folder. 

I didn't initially plan on spending this much time responding to this, but I think some people take it for granted how much time it takes to do things like this, and so I'd rather spell out the challenge than just seem as though I am flippantly disregarding the question.

 

eXo

[Retrofrogg]

Thanks eXo, your detailed response is much appreciated. For what it's worth, I do not personally take your work for granted and cannot imagine how much effort must have gone into curating this huge collection. It's the best body of work on DOS games collections out there in my opinion. My question was in part prompted by the wish to leverage the full weight of this collection, which includes the "extras" as we have discussed. 

Part of the issue that I personally had with the setting up process came from having the games stored on a network drive, and not realising that the extras were also on the network drive, rather than imported into LB along with all the other media. Once I was aware of this, I was able to fix the issue by making a symbolic link as you had stated.

Having the extras imported locally along with the other media would be ideal - though whether it is worth 15-20 hours of work is of course debatable. I think that for the individual this would be questionable, though for you as the pack curator and producer it might be a good thing to do so that the hundreds of users benefitting from your collection get the extras too. However, I would prioritise getting the other eXoDOS and win3Xo 3.1 packs out first!  

Keep up the good work man.

[eXo]

If I revisit these packs, I will likely look into doing it and completely killing the meagre support. As for now, since I have opted to keep meagre support in this set of releases, it doesn't strike me as a necessity.

I have mentioned before that currently, I consider the 3.0/3.1 releases of exodos to be "final". The games I am missing are small shareware packages and freeware releases. I haven't seen an actual commercial title that was missing pop up in several years. 

While I like many of the shareware games, I also feel like they dilute the quality of the pack to a certain degree. If there was one thing I wish I had done before releasing these final packs, it would have been to mark commercially released games and homebrew/shareware/freeware games. I think it would have been nice to be able to "hide" certain types of games. A set with just commercially released games would like quite nice, with every box front filled in and such. 

Anyways, after win3x and the rest of exodos I will be stepping away from all of this for a bit. So maybe in a few years I'll decide to revisit exodos and add a few new features like this.

[plutonick]

Thanks for this EXO!

I have two questions, I am sure they have been answered before, but I tried reading all the pages and came up with nothing...

1. Why is Fallout not included in any EXOpacks? I know it's not a dos game, but I couldn't find it in Win3 pack either.
2. I already have a small MSDOS collection on LB. How should I import the exo-Launchbox version to my existing one without messing files? Can you point me to a guide? I found some posts, but those where (i think) specifically for importing the new pack to old EXOpacks.

Thanks a lot.

[eXo]

1. Fallout is in the RPG pack. It was a DOS game, look again.  Fallout 2 was not a DOS game, but it wasn't a Win3X game either. It was a Win9x game. SO that one is not in my packs.

2. You'd have to take the MS-DOS.xml from my set and the one from your current install and merge them together. But that would still lead to duplicates, as every game you have is in my sets as well (unless you have some obscure foreign language games that I opted to leave out). To eliminate duplicates, you would have to delete the game entry from my set and then add the entry from your set. I suppose I would tackle that by making/printing a list of games you have and then deleting all of those entries out of my MS-DOS.xml file, and then merging them. To merge them isn't difficult. Just watch out not to mess up the xml headr and footer.

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by eXo

[plutonick]

3 hours ago, eXo said:

1. Fallout is in the RPG pack. It was a DOS game, look again.  Fallout 2 was not a DOS game, but it wasn't a Win3X game either. It was a Win9x game. SO that one is not in my packs.

2. You'd have to take the MS-DOS.xml from my set and the one from your current install and merge them together. But that would still lead to duplicates, as every game you have is in my sets as well (unless you have some obscure foreign language games that I opted to leave out). To eliminate duplicates, you would have to delete the game entry from my set and then add the entry from your set. I suppose I would tackle that by making/printing a list of games you have and then deleting all of those entries out of my MS-DOS.xml file, and then merging them. To merge them isn't difficult. Just watch out not to mess up the xml headr and footer.

 

1. I was talking about Fallout 2 (but miss typed). I wasn't aware it was a win95 game though.
2. Thanks for the clarification. Don't really care about duplicates. I will sort them out later.

 

[JamesBond@ge]

Ahh man, that eXoDOS is a legend. I am glad he is here supporting LaunchBox with this project. I've read through the whole of this thread and I admire his patience when dealing user's queries, even when one particular user seems to be asking the same questions over and over again.

The best of health to you eXo.

Edited March 12, 2018 by JamesBond@ge