Program Launcher utility

[DragWx]

CMDR-DOS stops parsing the filename after encountering a '*' wildcard. I'm not sure whether CBM DOS did as well, and its behavior might depend on which drive you're using and what revision its firmware is.

The classic disk drives assign a file type (program, sequential, user, or relative) to the files themselves, and then you can filter the directory listing by a file type, in addition to a wildcard.

On CMDR-DOS, the file type is just always "program", so we lose the ability to filter files by type, but we gain the ability to filter by timestamp, for what it's worth.

[voidstar]

Great stuff.

Hmm, DesertFish has the Paint program, can a version of that support this .abm thumbnail format?

Are all files prefixed with "." hidden from this launch utility? (sry been on a long walk this week, still catching up)

Multiple PRGs is an issue. plus AUTOBOOT.X16, not sure if you can "BOOT" the AUTOBOOT (which could be either a BASIC or ASM)? The .meta may need to specify the "preferred" PRG. Or if the PRGs are listed, the .meta could remember the last launched one?

Sometimes you need to "MOUSE 1" before launching a program (I try to use the autoboot.x16 for those cases). So may want option to execute the AUTOBOOT.X16 instead.

EDIT: one main feature request is being able to press A, B, C,..Z to "fast jump" to files starting with that latter. I know this is initial preview, just a reminder about this someday.

[AndyMt]

Hmm, DesertFish has the Paint program, can a version of that support this .abm thumbnail format?

Maybe, why not? ABM are plain flat bitmap binaries. Although my intention was to use resized screenshots and not draw something from scatch.

Are all files prefixed with "." hidden from this launch utility? (sry been on a long walk this week, still catching up)

No thats just so those files can be easily found on top of the directory listing and are easy to distinguish from the actual game.

one main feature request is being able to press A, B, C,..Z to "fast jump" to files starting with that letter

Sure, makes sense. Page up/down, home/end also work

[voidstar]

Video of current Launcher - the performance is very good now between selecting folders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfSc2YAb5O4


Few minor things:
- very long filenames can "break the selection box"
- maybe exit ISO mode before launching
- maybe reset/reinit screen/VERA palette stuff on startup

This are all optional nits - we could control filenames (at least on launch SD card), and "good programs" should enter modes that they need and clean up on exit. But, you know how it is, builds aren't always perfect