GameBase OS X development has begun

[ElB]

Due to the overwhelming demand* I've started work on a new OS X frontend to the GB64 database.  For anyone who wants to follow along, beta test, etc. I'll upload releases here on a fairly regular basis and keep everyone appraised of the progress.  So far it's just a UI and not very interesting but hopefully in a couple of days I'll have got to "opening and displaying the database", at which point it'll start needing people to try and break it.

* Sarcasm.  It's awful quiet in here...

[ElB]

Ok, fact fans*, here's the news, hot off the press!  The latest build (0.0.3) contains a micro-database (three entries!) -- this seems to work, although if anyone out there has a version of OS X prior to 10.5 to test it on I'd feel safer.  The search is also partially implemented (if a little pointless with only three database entries): searching all fields works, but selecting a specific field to search on will do precisely nothing.  If you don't want to bother installing the whole thing there's a screenshot here.

Next up on the roadmap is to ship the whole database and implement screenshots; I may also take a first pass at launching the emulator, although it'll be minus any sort of auditing to filter out the games that aren't present on your machine.  (I should probably download some C64 games before I get to that bit, too!  I never owned a C64, have only played two or three C64 games in my life, and have no real intention of playing any... )

Also, a quick addendum to the release notes: it's not supposed to stick the SQL query string in the title bar when you click in the search box, and that will teach me not to check whether I'm uploading the development or shipping build.  Still, it's gone 6am on Sunday morning, I'm wired to the gills after 20hrs of caffeine, code, and crap TV, so what do you expect?

Update  Another result of my haste is that I forgot to actually include the database; I'll upload a fixed version later today, but right now I'm going to bed before I do anything else stupid.

* In the absence of fact fans (or indeed anyone at all) the voices in my head will do.

[ElB]

I just read the license agreement for the GB64 data, and the whole project may turn out to be disallowed on a technicality (although by the same technicality their own preferred front-end would also seem to be disallowed); I've emailed/PMed/posted on the forum/sent telepathic messages to the people behind it, but so far they've just ignored me so I'm currently working on the assumption that if they don't tell me to stop when I confront them directly then either they're oblivious to the outside world or don't care -- either way I'm safe for now, but if anyone knows how to get in touch with them in a way that they'll actually respond to, please let me know!

[grasstust]

Well, first of all, I'm overwhelmingly demanding this program and have been for some time. So if you haven't got a 1000 users screaming for this program, at least you got a thousand screams from me!

Secondly, I cannot believe that anybody would say anything but hurray for the long overdue release of a Mac version of this program. I expect the GB64 guys to congratulate you if anything.

Thirdly, great work! I can't wait to see a macro-database release!

Keep it up! 

[Biscuit]

Hey. I've never really looked at GameBase before, but a brief glance seems interesting. I'm still on 10.4.11 so could test out releases if you like. Bit snowed under as usual these days but will get round to it in the not too distant future.

[ElB]

Ok, temporary internet problems seem to have subsided now, apologies for the delay!

I've been a busy bee over the weekend, and now have a version that has all the basics working -- database, screenshots, running games -- which I'll double check for showstoppers, triple check I've included everything, and then hopefully upload later today.  (My internet problem seems to have returned -- I should have kept quiet!)

As far as the database goes, I'm giving one last try at getting permission before I assume no news is good news, so for this release I'll also upload the top-10 games from Lemon64 (along with screenshots and disk images) as a separate package.  If I've not heard anything by the end of the week I'll upload the whole thing and deal with the consequences later.  (Anyone know a good lawyer? )

I'll let y'alls know when it's available!

[ElB]

I've pushed ahead with a release now as I have to head to the Apple store and it's a heck of a journey; due to the reduced schedule there's no pretty DMG this time, just a ZIPped folder with the app and release notes, and another ZIP with the micro-database, screenshots, and supported games.  Download the app, unzip it somewhere, then download the data file and unzip it into the folder containing GameBase OS X.app.  There's also a Linux build (requires GTK2), but I have no idea if it'll work at all or where you'd need to put it and the database, but Linux users are generally savvy enough that they should be able to figure it out.

Edit Once again, more haste less speed; the OS X version seems to include the database with the application download, but you'll still need the data file anyway.  I'm sure you can figure it out -- just make sure there's a gb64.rdb.rsd file in the same folder as the application, and that the screenshots and games folders are somewhere on your machine.  I'll try and pay more attention next time!

The release notes contain basic configuration instructions; hopefully it should be fairly straightforward, but I suggest reading them first anyway as at the moment the application tends to be a bit over-sensitive if something's not quite right.

I also found a showstopper bug which is going to take a while to iron out, so in the meantime I've cobbled together a fix which has the unfortunate side effects of a) not supporting ZIPped disks, and b) slightly mangling the emulator command line in "advanced" mode.  However, as at the moment it'll only work with the games in the micro-database, and as Cocoa VICE works just fine without the advanced command line options, it's a compromise I can live with.

As usual, the files can be found here.  Download the correct version for your platform, and don't forget to download the data file too or you'll get nowhere fast.  Play, poke, try and break it, and give me your feedback.  I know it's still rough around the edges, but I'm getting there!

[ElB]

Mini update: no news on the database so I'll risk it, but I move house tomorrow so it'll have to wait until at least the end of the week as it's all on an external drive packed in a box at the moment...

[grasstust]

Great!

BTW: I don't quite know what the problem you had was, I mean, there already was an OSX version of GameBase, except it doesn't work on Leopard. Why should there be a problem making something that works on new Macs?

[ElB]

The old version also used a converted database, so I had the same problem that the developer of that one did -- without paying cash money there's no way of opening Access MDB files on a Mac.  Without a converted database you'd have to pay $30 for the driver to install on your machine in order for GameBase OS X to work; it would have made my life a lot easier to go that route, but it would also have reduced the size of the target audience considerably!

[Biscuit]

Had a look at this tonight. Simple to set-up. Launched IK+, played, fun...

No problems. All looks very good. Will be very pleased to see this go further. Thanks for the work so far.

[ikaruga]

No checked here for a while 

This looks quality, will get on the testing at the weekend. Looking forward.

[mrsid]

Great!

BTW: I don't quite know what the problem you had was, I mean, there already was an OSX version of GameBase, except it doesn't work on Leopard. Why should there be a problem making something that works on new Macs?

I'm running the old Gamebase 64 frontend for OS X here, on Leopard.
What is it doing on your machine?

[grasstust]

I managed to get an old version working, but the newest (if you can call it new) doesn't, so yeah, some versions do work.

[zCRP]

Hi, I just found out about this site and your Gamebase OSX efforts. Will try out the latest beta as soon as I get home tonight.

In the past I have written a small gamebase frontend for linux. I have now moved on to the mac and was thinking about writing a Gamebase frontend but I guess I can stop now

My idea was to base everything on sqlite3, and I have written a short script that converts GBC_v05.mdb to an sqlite database using mdb-tools. This works quite well, except for some problems with non ascii characters (basically, umlauts do not show in the frontend) and the need to add some indexes for speed.

So if the problems you mentioned with gamebase are associated to the possibility of distributing a converted version of the mdb, you might do as suggested above. At that point, the only problem remaining for users is that on the gb64 site the mdb file is distributed only via an exe setup installer, so people without access to a windows pc (or wine) need a way to extract the mdb from the exe....

Cheers
Christian