DraStic

kaikun97 wrote:for starters is pretty cumbersome to dowmload homebrew from sites such as filetrip.net due to the ad filled download sections which force "downloaders" on you and shuffling through homebrew and nds scene forums is a chore too.

Wow no wonder most people don't use homebrew. It'll be tricky and annoying to download lots of homebrew (to build up the database), but it'll be worth it.
We still need the go-ahead from Exophase and Lordus though...

ericbazinga wrote:

kaikun97 wrote:for starters is pretty cumbersome to dowmload homebrew from sites such as filetrip.net due to the ad filled download sections which force "downloaders" on you and shuffling through homebrew and nds scene forums is a chore too.

Wow no wonder most people don't use homebrew. It'll be tricky and annoying to download lots of homebrew (to build up the database), but it'll be worth it.
We still need the go-ahead from Exophase and Lordus though...

i dont think the permission is necessary if it will not require anything from drastic team (like give up codes or something). just make sure you give proper disclaimers, credits and links to contributors and stuff like that

Jay Haru wrote:

ericbazinga wrote:

kaikun97 wrote:for starters is pretty cumbersome to dowmload homebrew from sites such as filetrip.net due to the ad filled download sections which force "downloaders" on you and shuffling through homebrew and nds scene forums is a chore too.

Wow no wonder most people don't use homebrew. It'll be tricky and annoying to download lots of homebrew (to build up the database), but it'll be worth it.
We still need the go-ahead from Exophase and Lordus though...

i dont think the permission is necessary if it will not require anything from drastic team (like give up codes or something). just make sure you give proper disclaimers, credits and links to contributors and stuff like that

If intergrated to drastic, file browser to modify dldi image file would be nice.

http://gamebrew.org/wiki/List_of_DS_hom ... plications

That looks organized and easy. Just sayin'.

Let me first say I like the idea, and I am very very glad that I am not the one doing it.

To get NDS homebrew to work on drastic you need 3 things that are going to cause so many people to msg you asking what they did wrong.

1. It must be R4 compatible, R4 being a type of flash cart, and a flash cart being a way to run non official software (homebrew) on a physical Nintendo DS. If you didn't understand any part of this, please stop now.

2. You have to make an image file (a file that a virtual storage medium (ie cd rom image, hard drive image, or in this case sd card image), mount that file (make it availabe to be used like a drive), load the homebrew into that file (like you would on a sd card going into a R4 flash cart (see 1.), and make sure the image is named drastic_dldi.img

3. The image file must be placed in the right place-- drastic's main folder.

If any of those 3 things are wrong their homebrew won't work and people will complain (because internet). 1. Is easy to solve if you list only R4 compliant homebrew. 2. Is going to cause no end of issues. There are possible solutions but none of them pleasent. 3. Well look at the forum and see that 3 will cause issues even if you think it is simple.

Custom controller skins should only have issue 3 as long as they ae tested first to make sure they work and are not named the same as any other custom controller skin.

Themes have one unique issue, drastic does not support themes yet, though as an owner of a amoled device I would love a dark theme if we ever get the ability to use them.

The reason most homebrew is released on forums and emulators do not generally have repo's of plugins/themes/misc is simple. it is a wonderful idea for everyone except the person or persons that try to make it happen, because unlike normal software emulators or using hardware for purposes not intended is buggy and more difficult to set up by deafault.

For #1, you can make all DLDI compliant homebrew R4 compatible natively by using a DLDI patcher with the R4 DLDI file. This is from the Pandora version's readme:

No automatic DLDI patching is performed (yet), so you must make sure that the
homebrew already works with R4. You can do this either by using homebrew that
works out of the box with R4 or by using an offline patcher. For example, you
can use dlditool which can currently be downloaded here:

http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/

Download dlditool and r4ts.dldi, and invoke it with the following to patch a
DLDI-compliant homebrew ROM to use R4:

dlditool r4ts.dldi <homebrew.nds>

Adding automatic DLDI patching isn't really a priority since not a lot of people want to use homebrew in the first place, and you still have to make the SD card image anyway.

TkSilver wrote:Let me first say I like the idea, and I am very very glad that I am not the one doing it.

To get NDS homebrew to work on drastic you need 3 things that are going to cause so many people to msg you asking what they did wrong.

1. It must be R4 compatible, R4 being a type of flash cart, and a flash cart being a way to run non official software (homebrew) on a physical Nintendo DS. If you didn't understand any part of this, please stop now.

2. You have to make an image file (a file that a virtual storage medium (ie cd rom image, hard drive image, or in this case sd card image), mount that file (make it availabe to be used like a drive), load the homebrew into that file (like you would on a sd card going into a R4 flash cart (see 1.), and make sure the image is named drastic_dldi.img

3. The image file must be placed in the right place-- drastic's main folder.

If any of those 3 things are wrong their homebrew won't work and people will complain (because internet). 1. Is easy to solve if you list only R4 compliant homebrew. 2. Is going to cause no end of issues. There are possible solutions but none of them pleasent. 3. Well look at the forum and see that 3 will cause issues even if you think it is simple.

Custom controller skins should only have issue 3 as long as they ae tested first to make sure they work and are not named the same as any other custom controller skin.

Themes have one unique issue, drastic does not support themes yet, though as an owner of a amoled device I would love a dark theme if we ever get the ability to use them.

The reason most homebrew is released on forums and emulators do not generally have repo's of plugins/themes/misc is simple. it is a wonderful idea for everyone except the person or persons that try to make it happen, because unlike normal software emulators or using hardware for purposes not intended is buggy and more difficult to set up by deafault.

1. I'm not stupid, I understood all of that.
3. Perhaps you could set where the homebrew games will download to, in case you keep your ROMs on your SD card (like me).
Skins (Themes would be a better name for them) are an interesting issue, as there aren't really many to choose from. We'd have to make more before we can really start offering them in the Store.
By dark theme you mean like the Black screen option on a Kindle, with the black background and white text. That (and other backgrounds like it) could be offered in the Store. We could call them "Menu Backgrounds" or something like that.

acid wrote:http://gamebrew.org/wiki/List_of_DS_hom ... plications

That looks organized and easy. Just sayin'.

Thanks, but homebrew DS GAMES was the focus.

Exophase wrote:For #1, you can make all DLDI compliant homebrew R4 compatible natively by using a DLDI patcher with the R4 DLDI file. This is from the Pandora version's readme:

I know you can from using my own flashcart and reading the same instructions in the android readme.

ericbazinga wrote:1. I'm not stupid, I understood all of that.
3. Perhaps you could set where the homebrew games will download to, in case you keep your ROMs on your SD card (like me).

I never said or thought you were eric.

I was just pointing out some of the few problems users of a Drastic Store/repo (more of a repo since nothing is really for sale) will undoubtedly bring up, over and over again. These are issues that any person involved with emulators or hombrew on an existing system face. Honestly thinking about all the stuff I have seen both woth the psp/vita homebrew scene and across various emulator forums changed my opinion about emulators should be free, to developers really do deserve whatecer ppl are willing to pay them. I also found the easier you try to make something for the ppl of the internet the more issues problems and complaints you will inevitably have. Also making and releasing it for free does not really earn any leeway in ppl being nice and/or respectful.

Just my humble opinion and I am glad I that the users on this forum seem to be the exception to the rule, it makes it a cery nice place to hang out.

TkSilver wrote:I know you can from using my own flashcart and reading the same instructions in the android readme.

Whoops, I didn't even realize or remember that Lordus copied that into the Android readme. I've always been afraid that'd confuse people, guess it hasn't really caused problems.

I figured you knew about DLDI patching, but I wanted to point that out in case anyone else got the wrong idea, since before DLDI became a thing you'd see some apps that were natively made for R4 or had R4 versions. So if you specify R4 compatibility people might think that only those have any chance of working, especially since manual DLDI patching isn't something anyone does anymore, with all flashcart loaders made in the past several years supporting auto-patching. It's more likely that homebrew will just say they use DLDI, if they say anything at all.