Updated Selfboot Inducer for Fenix?

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Hey, I was compiling all of the Fenix releases into one menu for myself and it occurred to me how easy it would be for burnerO's Selfboot Inducer program to do the work of making a compilation. This would make Fenix releases simpler and allow more people to use them since so many people use Selfboot Inducer (and probably wouldn't be willing or able to edit the FENIX.XML by hand the way I did).

An updated version of Selfboot Inducer that combined the lines of text for each game into one FENIX.XML file just the way that current versions make the GAMES.DXL or EMUS.DXL files (which are also XML) would be so simple. The individual Fenix games could then just be distributed as SBIs with the game's data folder and a screenshot and a line to be added to FENIX.XML file as well as the stuff needed for Dream Inducer (FENIX.BIN, a generic Fenix screenshot and the text for the GAMES.DXL folder...the would have to be over-written for each Fenix game added to the compilation, but that doesn't seem like it would be a problem). I think that would be a much more streamlined way of releasing Fenix games and ports than the current method of compilations and CDI images and whatnot. And, as I said, it would probably open up the games to a slightly larger audience of people who only use Selfboot Inducer when making homebrew discs.

What do you guys think? I guess burnerO is gone from the scene now, but Selfboot Inducer has always been open source and this seems like a significant enough update to justify altering the source.


...word is bondage...

[wraggster]

sounds like a great idea

i wonder if my dcevolution friends know if this can be done

[Darksaviour69]

i thought that the source for inducer was lost?

[curt_grymala]

i thought that the source for inducer was lost?

The source for DreamInducer is lost, not the source for Selfboot Inducer.

EDIT - BTW - It probably wouldn't be too difficult. If I have any extra time, I'll see what I can come up with. The changes to SBInducer should be fairly incidental. However, it would require new SBI files to be made for these releases.

[DCDayDreamer]

It should be pretty simple (to someone with a little practice in recompiling the source), I'd suggest making a 'master' SBI out of the runtime binary and XML file, then it'd be up to someone to compile each game as an SBI file (containing the XML string, screenshot and gamefiles).
If there's no screenshot available, the Fenix binary will display a small pic of the Sega Swirl which is in the compile, the game file extraction wouldn't be a problem if the directory structure was right before making the SBI. The only thing you'd really need to do is have Selfboot Inducer add something like this:

<game name="New Game" author="A Coder" image="New Game.png" exec="newg/newg.dcb" description="A New Game"/>

I know Curt is a little busy right now but when he gets a chance I'll gladly help him out if he wants to give this a go.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

The source for DreamInducer is lost, not the source for Selfboot Inducer.

EDIT - BTW - It probably wouldn't be too difficult. If I have any extra time, I'll see what I can come up with. The changes to SBInducer should be fairly incidental. However, it would require new SBI files to be made for these releases.

It should be possible to update Selfboot Inducer in such a way that the old SBIs for non-Fenix games still work, though, right? So, only Fenix games would need new SBIs.


...word is bondage...

[curt_grymala]

Yeah - it would still work with all of the other SBI's. It's just that the Fenix games would need new SBI's, because they would need to go into a Fenix folder, rather than the generic Games folder.

[pauljake]

It would be great if you people found a way to create SBI's of Fenix releases. I think that making one that goes to the Fenix selection screen (like DCDayDreamer said) is a good idea. Good luck guys!