Tool Others Game Manager 2.17.12.7

[tid]

Another version today :

• The delete button is back.
• I removed the left panel, now to see a game's details you have to right click on it.

PS: you don't have to delete a game to have it updated, just use the reload button it will re-download informations from the server.

 

[CuddleBear]

ahhh the context menu feels good in the last update. i approve!
It does seem a bit big though, even at 1440p. Makes me wonder how it would scale for even smaller screens.

I think wasting two lines for the updates is a waste and the tag list also takes up too much space.
Its expanding vertically, i think it makes more sense to do it horizontally.
Maybe its just me, i guess i need to see it in action to give my firm feedback on it. its much better than what it was though!

I think i personally would play with the layout on it, have the actions at the top where it spawns from the mouse. have the name at the bottom in large text as it is. idk... does this make sense?
Throwing ideas here, feel the buttons at the bottom is in the wrong place thats all.
Little reason to have the local version there or the title of the game as that is all in the icon of the game.

Spawn interaction works correct when it has no room bellow the mouse by spawning it above it.
It does open it on the left side of the mouse when i have the window on my right monitor though. Small bug but not important.


ERROR:
Had an error when moving between the screens, had it loaded page 2 on my second screen which is lower res (1080p vs 1440p) which ofc will load less thumbnails on each page.
I move the window back to my large screen and navigated to page 1 again to be greeted with an error.
Im guessing it failed to load some thumbnails as it was expecting a different amount or something.

View attachment gamelist dump.txt
View attachment game list.zip

 

[contramundi]

well. i kinda liked having the info on the rigt side compared to having to right click to see it, less actions required to get an overview of the game, just highlight the game and presto you got the info.

the button style of the tags though is way better compared to the text style it had before, it's a lot easier on the eyes but i would suggest putting some space between the link to the author's page and the tags.

alll in all i like where this is headed but please bring back the old way of having the info, having it listed on the right side was way better imho, or make it so that people can switch between the layouts. Or just take the layout from the old version where it's all listed on the top and the games are below that.

being able to doubleclick the game to edit it is nice, but not being able to mark it as favorite (which i used to mark games i've played it's current content off) is a pain.

cuddlebear likes it as a popup but i really don't tbh. In the end it's a game manager meant to make your life easy and with easy you should have all the available info with a minimal amount of effort, it shouldn't become a game for you to actually play a game

@CuddleBear:
having the title there isn't weird at all, that way you know what the game the info belongs too and local version vs last version, only last version is listed in the game thumbnail, not your local version, so it does make sense both are listed so people can see if their version is the latest. As mentioned above the manager is there to make life easier, not harder and being able to compare your version to the f95zone one without having to head into the updates part of the manager is just a lot easier and faster.


@tid long story short:

- Your doing great keep up the good work
- the right mouse menu is a pain, please bring back the info on the right side, was faster and easier compared to using right click, not to mention it broke the interaction with the favorite icon for me / make it possible for users to switch between layouts / go retro and bring back the layout from 1.0.37
- keep the current way the tags look
- if you don't want to change the right click way of doing things, then please don't remove the title/version info, playing around with the button placement is ok, but the title/version is actually nice info to have in there.
- in the top part i would suggest moving the "tags" button next to the "filter" one, the empty space there just doesn't make sense to me just for a single button and seeing as it's used to filter out games it would make sense to place it in the same line. (or move it so it's in the same line as the date/previous-next/buttons)

 

[CuddleBear]

The sidebar already too way too much space to be reasonable at all.
Frankly the client atm has a ton of wasted space it could use for other things or just move things around to not waste it.

Having an option for the sidebar might be good, but its far from effective and it just wastes on the budget of the whole client.
And no, you dont need the version number there or the title as you already have that info in the clear. Zero need to have it multiple times in the same damn view, thats just a waste.

This biggest gripe with this client is the UI outside of a few small usecase issues.

And dont get me started on the thumbnails, im all for spacing on the thumbnails... no need for no spacing. But still, it could be done differently to not waste as much as it does.

Like having all the icons overlay the image itself and expand the image, maybe.

Yes its a game manager and yes it should be easy to use. But frankly if you think a bloody right click is too much of a hassle then you need to take a deep look at how awkward most of this stuff is to begin with.

Page navigation on the top makes sense, but everything with the searching is centered when it could be pushed to the left by the navigation bar.
That will give you around 15% of the screen to use for other stuff.

Stuff are deff making progress for sure and its 10x better than what it was last month in terms of performance and useability.
But everyone is sadly going to have their own prefs so UI options might be needed in the end.

Just looking at a Hydrus that tries to cater to every usecase for every user ever. That UI is ugly as F but its effective with all its context menus in the end.

 

[LastLaffer]

I noticed some games are not showing in the Updates screen when the game is owned and has a new version. The ones I caught are Seraphim Academy and A Love Story. I think I narrowed it down to when the new version begins with a "Ch?", where the ? is a character other than a letter (so "Ch. 2" or "Ch2" will not show up, but Chapter 2 will).

Also, is anyone else having trouble with the new Delete button? For me, the box that pops up has the warning at the bottom but is missing the Yes/No buttons to continue. I'm guessing they're not centered in the box and are outside of the viewable area.

Otherwise, I love the new layout and the direction you're going with it. Thanks for all your work on this.

 

[tid]

A kick update :
The side tab is back but you can toggle it (it needs to be imporved but it's a kick release )

 

[tid]

I noticed some games are not showing in the Updates screen when the game is owned and has a new version. The ones I caught are Seraphim Academy and A Love Story. I think I narrowed it down to when the new version begins with a "Ch?", where the ? is a character other than a letter (so "Ch. 2" or "Ch2" will not show up, but Chapter 2 will).

Also, is anyone else having trouble with the new Delete button? For me, the box that pops up has the warning at the bottom but is missing the Yes/No buttons to continue. I'm guessing they're not centered in the box and are outside of the viewable area.

Otherwise, I love the new layout and the direction you're going with it. Thanks for all your work on this.

I'll check tomorow the confirmation window's but.

 

[CuddleBear]

Extra windows and context menu is not respected in the window manager, overlaying ALL other programs if not closed.

 

[contramundi]

The sidebar already too way too much space to be reasonable at all.
...../QUOTE]

what resolution do you have?

because i have a feeling that your resolution is a lot higher than most people use overall.

having such a high resolution as yours is going to give a lot of emtpy spaces no matter what and having a dev focus on higher resolution than most of the people tend to use will make it look good for you but mess it up for the others.


i'm using a 1920x1080 resolution (which is amongst one of the mostly used screen resolutions in 2018 according to statcounter) higher resolutions aren't mentioned but being put together with everything above 1920x1080 and below 1024x768



(only showing most commenly used desktop screen sizes. source:

You must be registered to see the links

)


With sidebar looks a lot better and cleaner on my screen.



when the sidebar is removed it's looking like this:


see the empty space on the right side and below i have to deal with then? Also where you mention version info being mentiond properly, the only version info mentioned in the thumbnail is the "latest version" that is available. No mention of your local version, that info only becomes available to you in the rightclick/right tab window.

Also when make the screen from the game manager smaller i get display issues with it as well:



true, the interactions with the popups are not the way they need to be, as you mentioned they tend to stay on top of everythign else, also i've noticed the rightclick sometimes doesn't close as it should, and i've noticed that doubleclicking a game has the tendency to open the window from another game. But seeing as the dev did add that feature in no time at all, there's bound to be some stuff to work out before it fully works as intended.

Having a lack of a checkbox to mark current content complete i've used the favorite icon to mark my games that way but that also no longer works since he added the right click feature, but that's the way it is since the change of interaction with the thumbnail was implemented.

I also agree with that there's a bit too much unused space in the game manager, but the one thing we both have to keep in mind is that there's a lot of people that are using a lower resolution than we do.

@tid please focus on making what's currently in the manager work as intended before changing/adding anything new interface related (unless that's needed to bugfix something ofcourse.) I think it's amazing that you work your ass off for us to make changes that we request, but (and i hope @CuddleBear can agree with me on this ) a bugfree version is prefered over a buggy version that looks good.

I think the posts we both make regarding the looks here are more of suggestions than something that has to be done right away, i think it's awesome you added the right click so fast, and just as fast implemented the right tab, but it wasn't something that you needed to do directly, we could've waited on it easily. The primary stuff is in the game manager (and apart from some things it mostly works as intended). Quickly adding something to please people is what makes you a great developer, but do it too quick and it might end up in more work then needed due to functions/features that only work half.

a small issue i've seen however is with the side-tab, when you open it some of the games should be moved to the next page, instead they are going off-screen and you get a scrollbar.

Some suggestions though:

1) make the looks of the buttons universal throughout the program, use the same style buttons in both the right click as the right tab window.
2) Seeing the change in interaction with the thumbnails, consider adding the "mark favorite" to the rightclick and right tab windows.
3) the way it looks in a lower resolution isn't really good with the stuff in the top area disappearing behind the left menu, either the bottom line is coded differently preventing it from doing that, or there's too much happening in the top line. Try moving the checkboxes to the second line and combine them with the "tags" button.

somewhat like:

Name - author - filter -big ass X
owned - favorite - added - tags
order - previous/next - text

4) As @CuddleBear also mentioned, the spacing on the thumbnails, i don't really mind the spacing itself, it makes the games stand out from one another, and the placement of the icons isn't bad either, that also makes them look like they are seperate from the image, i do believe however that the borders in the table are adding to the feeling that it's too much spacing, maybe remove the borders and make the spacing 1 or 2 pixes smaller on the left and right side.

I think also the border on the right side of the menu and the top portion having different colors might add to this feeling, there's too much distinction between the seperate parts of the interface.

5) Maybe add a scaling feature for the thumbnails to the options in the future so we can use it so the thumbnails fit our screens better regardless of resolution used.
6) Might be an idea to move the option to use the right tab to the preferences, users like cuddlebear who don't like it, don't have the button on screen that way, and users who do like it (like me) can toggle it on.
7) maybe make the menu look smaller, and not have it extend all the way down by default. making the games kind of bend around it?

i still think you where on to something with the layout of the old game manager though:

 

[tid]

On lower resolutions, it's true that the sidebar takes too much space.

Here are some samples :


the minimum resolution is 800x600 in this resolution you can only see 2 games with the sidebar. But you can select own many games will be displayed if they don't fit in the screen a scrollbar will be displayed.

On big screens there is a lot of wasted space, I should work on that :

Lost space
Reserved for tags filtering
These spaces can be occupied: if there is a lot of tags, thumbs are only displayed if they can fit entirely in the window that's why you can have a blank space on the side or the bottom of the display.

I'll try to work on this later.

Developments planned (in no particular order):

• tag a game as finished for a version.
• rework tags. Tags filtering is slow and some tags aren't working.
• adapt the layout to screen (or at least allow users to choose their layout)
• add a forum to the website to allow users to do more feedback
• a system to manage games extraction
• a system to ask for a game update if one has been missed

 

[contramundi]

Nice,

i encountered 2 version issues in the database btw:

- F.I.L.F. database latest version is 0.8a while f95zone is 0.8b.

- Camp Pinewood database latest version is 1.1 f95zone is 1.5:

1.1 is actually the last unity release for this game and won't be updated most likely, the dev is porting the game over to ren'py which is 1.5 currently. On his patreon he mentions releasing 1.6 after the release of american milf, no mention of 1.2 so i reckon he's going forward with the ren'py and not the unity one.

 

[tid]

updated, thank you

 

[Bushwacker101]

Is there a way to add all my games in one go instead of selecting path for each individual?

 

[contramundi]

Is there a way to add all my games in one go instead of selecting path for each individual?

haven't found it in the new version, seems the "scan" option from version 1.0.37 hasn't been implemented (yet) as far as i can find, so unfortunately you need to go through the tedious work of adding all games manually.

don't know how many games you have, but i had around 200 and made a mistake last week and had to add everything from scratch, went faster as i thought it would be to be honest.

In the end i have to edit every single game i add anyway to enter my local version, and a lot of games share similar names so for example looking for the word sister and i had 4 or 5 games i could add, harem similar story.

it's true that i miss the whole scan folder thing but once you actually have your database filled with all the games then adding 1 game through the scan option or through the browse f95zone + edit option seem to take up around the same amount of time.

 

[Bushwacker101]

haven't found it in the new version, seems the "scan" option from version 1.0.37 hasn't been implemented (yet) as far as i can find, so unfortunately you need to go through the tedious work of adding all games manually.

don't know how many games you have, but i had around 200 and made a mistake last week and had to add everything from scratch, went faster as i thought it would be to be honest.

In the end i have to edit every single game i add anyway to enter my local version, and a lot of games share similar names so for example looking for the word sister and i had 4 or 5 games i could add, harem similar story.

it's true that i miss the whole scan folder thing but once you actually have your database filled with all the games then adding 1 game through the scan option or through the browse f95zone + edit option seem to take up around the same amount of time.

Thanks for clearing that up, was going through everywhere and couldn't find anything. I'll have to manually put everything then.

 

[tid]

I'll put this feature back, but I'm not really satisfied with how it works.

 

[contramundi]

I'll put this feature back, but I'm not really satisfied with how it works.

well, tbh, it's only usefull if you need to fill your database after doing a complete fresh install, no more need to search for most games manually, but in the end you still need to edit the game info so it might save a few minutes.

i did like the scanner for that as it was able to identify most of the games, but in order to actually identify every single one the game folder had to be named exactly the same as the game in the database, so for example "Taffy Tales" wasn't recognised due to the game still being mentioned in the database as "Family Tales". Same for a lot of games that got a name change or will get a namechange in the future.

If you ask me it's not a big enough time saver to add that feature back in if your not satisfied with how it works (yet)

once your at a point where you download 1 game, add it to your game folder it's just as fast to open up te game info from f95zone through the browse function >put in local version+browse to exe compared to click the scan>add>open up game info to change local version info, maybe even faster if depending on how fast and if the scanner can identify the game connected to the executable.

 

[CuddleBear]

There is a few ways the client could do this. either by scanning the path pointed to as it did in the past.
that just needed to blacklist already linked paths (to the exe specifically)
The scanning feature did list the paths with other options of searchable hits even if it was already tied, making the whole list messy and unsorted and close to an unusable state.

Or you can allow for with drag & drop of the folder or the exe (or point to it) and it will take everything in the root folder of the exe.

All of these options should allow it to move the folder in question found, so the root folder that the exe is hosted and everything under it to its own game install folder where it might rename its folders with its needed rules.
For making it simple, these saved folders can use the id of the F95 thread number as the main game's folder, followed by a folder of the version number where the game will be placed.
This will allow for it all to be sorted correctly in each folder with individual versions on top of that.

While some like me might use the thread name or most of the thread name as the game folder.
This isn't the case for most, it needs to handle that but i guess it will be hard.
Doing an add game option or drag and drop into the client should ask the user about which game it is. it could try to search for the words (you can just regex the words in the folder itself to make sure) then ask the user to confirm.



NOTE: for anyone downloading from F95, use JDownloader and set the extract subfolder pattern to: `%ARCHIVENAME%`
This will extract the game into the name of the file of the zip/rar.
You can quickly change these as you do add them to JDownloader in the first place.
Then just set to extract on the package when completed and it should be ready for you in the correct name 100% of the time.


Other Notes, the Client could watch the download folder or a set games download folder for thread names too.
Heck, you could technically pull the download urls and even pick the names of the files yourself if you made download files for the downloaders like Jdownloader.
That would pretty much automate the whole naming process of it all in theory.

In any case, if you do matching of folder paths, it needs to be pretty correct and tested across many many titles.
User confirmations is always a good way to deal with it if you can't nail it down correct. taking 2-3 sec to confirm it is better than it being wrong.

 

[CuddleBear]

Looking at the new install feature. this looks really good! source and destination folder with user set folder names. need to test this thing out! this will make it a bit easier for sure. with no need to move folders to the install folder and then having to point to it.

EDIT: It seems like it doesn't accept .exe files at all at this point.
Not folders either I'm guessing it is made to be used with either Zip or RAR archives.
For the most options, I guess the program should handle different extensions differently.
Unzipping and installing .zip, .rar, .7z, .tar for example and placing it in the install folder. from the exe (or any other normal application extension) and down, this should remove wasteful folders that are above the exe.

If it's not a zip, either an exe, swf, html or folder then it should use the root of the exe folder and copy the contents of that folder to the install location.
(some of us like to auto extract from the downloader so it requires less waiting)

The system you started on seems really great atm, it allows for subfolders of the versions itself as well as creators too. (author might not be the best term, creator is more broad for individual creators of all kinds and studios alike.)

Once the system is refined to handle folders and applications it will be more useful.
In my testing, it failed on all counts seemingly.

The only thing left of concern would be renpy save handling, copying from an old version to new on an update install.
That and a quick open install path button, cause that's always useful and quick to add.

 

[tid]

EDIT: It seems like it doesn't accept .exe files at all at this point.
Not folders either I'm guessing it is made to be used with either Zip or RAR archives.
For the most options, I guess the program should handle different extensions differently.
Unzipping and installing .zip, .rar, .7z, .tar for example and placing it in the install folder. from the exe (or any other normal application extension) and down, this should remove wasteful folders that are above the exe.

That's how it works, the root directory is the first direct in witch a file is found.

If it's not a zip, either an exe, swf, html or folder then it should use the root of the exe folder and copy the contents of that folder to the install location.
(some of us like to auto extract from the downloader so it requires less waiting)

That's the next thing I will work on.

The system you started on seems really great atm, it allows for subfolders of the versions itself as well as creators too. (author might not be the best term, creator is more broad for individual creators of all kinds and studios alike.)

Once the system is refined to handle folders and applications it will be more useful.
In my testing, it failed on all counts seemingly.

The only thing left of concern would be renpy save handling, copying from an old version to new on an update install.
That and a quick open install path button, cause that's always useful and quick to add.

Saves and things like that will be the last things I work on. With the option to save old version it will create a zip file in the game's folder, so it is safe to extract them always At he same place. Like this you won't loose your saves and for html it is the only way of keeping your saves if they use cookies.