The free-for-all on labels in software lists is not working. There's no
consistency, labels are getting excessively long, people are starting to
use non-ASCII characters in labels making it harder for others to type
them when manipulating files on the command line, and there's too much
markup being put in labels.
The length limit is 127 characters, same as for labels in MAME itself.
This should be long enough to be descriptive. Remember that the Win32
path limit is 260 characters, and many applications and frameworks have
issues with longer paths, including Windows Explorer and the .NET
framework. Labels are used as filenames, so concessions need to be
made for this.
I have not abbreviated excessively long labels myself - they're
currently causing 135 validity errors. Someone else can fix them.
Printable ASCII characters are allowed, with a few exceptions. The
exceptions are limited to characters most likely to cause issues for
interactive shells and scripts:
* ! - csh event substitution (very difficult to escape properly)
* $ - sh varibale expansion
* % - csh job control, cmd variable expansion
* / - UNIX directory separator
* : - sh path separator, Windows drive qualifier
* \ - sh escape, Windows directory separator
Most of the labels that had to be edited were using ! for markup, or
using ! and % for titles in labels. Strangely, titles in labels are
often forced to lower case, despite this never being enforced for
software lists. There are also various other edits to titles used for
labels, such as moving articles to the end (with or without a comma),
or replacing spaces with underscores. As I already said, there's no
consistency at all.
There is far too much markup in labels. They're even being used for
notes in some cases (e.g. at least one case where a dumper's name is in
the label). The XML schema supports metadata - use it. For example,
you can use part_id for an unrestricted display name for a software
part. You can also use XML comments for notes.
And while on the topic of metadata, vgmplay.xml is putting the same
thing in the part_id as well as the label. The part_id should have
the actual title, not the title mangled to make it more suitable for
use as a filename. Addressing this would be a lot of work, given how
large the file is.
For now, empty data areas in software lists cause a verbose message
rather than a validation warning. There are thousands of software
lists using empty data areas to indicate the size/width of cartridge
RAM/EEPROM/etc.
romload.cpp: reduce copy-pasta (nw)
(nw) I fixed the errors found by adding validation to software list data areas.
Most of them seem to be simple copy-paste errors hidden by the fact that the
default device_image_interface loader ignores the data area size (as opposed to
the "ROM" loader). There was one C64 cartridge with a missing zero on the data
area size that was pretty clearly wrong.
Get rid of a couple of copies of the CC0 text. Add header comment to
CC0 files to remind people editing them what the terms are. Also add
some missing XML headers. The header comments in layouts won't bloat
the binary - they get stripped out before compressing, same as any other
comments.
* specpls3_flop.xml: New additions
Added more disk images, some of which were previously missing from the internet due to them being considered "Distribution Denied". Thanks go to Antonio M, Fede Jerez, Gorski, Jaime González Soriano, José Manuel, Marino Arribas, Metalbrain, robcfg, Simon Owen, Syx, Zup and TZX Vault.
Also fixed a few things here and there (extra line breaks, full company names).
* spectrum_cass: Added verified dump of Load'N'Run (Spain) (Especial) [Manu128k]
Verified dump from trusted source. Previous version had a block name altered and had been converted to TZX from a TAP file.
Also added warning about now untrusted source.
* spectrum_cass.xml: Added verified dump of Load'N'Run (Spain) (Especial) [Manu128k]
Verified dump from trusted source. Previous version had a block name altered and had been converted to TZX from a TAP file.
Also added warning about now untrusted source.
Added all cover tapes from the Spanish edition of the Load'N'Run magazine, including a redump of issue 1x5, which had been modified.
Any other images out there are bad dumps or unofficial stuff disguised as such.
* New working software list additions
-----------------------------------
Los Gnomos - David el Gnomo [RetroLEL]
* Also updated "La Mode - 1984 (Programa Computado)" trimming the leading and tailing silences (nw)
* Typo (nw)
* Fix identation (nw)
* spectrum list cleanups (nw)
* list cleanups (nw)
* move set (nw)
* more cleanups (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list cleanusp (nw)
* remove some pointless 'hacked for website' alts (nw)
* list work (nw)
* spectrum list cleanups (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list cleanups (nw)
This game is less than a year old, and the developers have released it
behind a, "How much would you like to donate?" barrier. The tape
versions are playable in a browser as a demonstration, but to download
any tape or disk version, you must confirm the donation prompt. The
TurboSound versions and disk versions are not even available as a demo
without passing the donation confirmation.
I'd rather people be encouraged to obtain this game from the official
sources. Even if the conversion rate of demo plays to non-zero
donations is small, it's the principle of it. The three-year rule
should be applied even-handedly.
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list cleanups (nw)
* spectrum list cleanups (nw)
* spectrum list cleanups (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* Spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* murder list work (nw)
* list clenaups (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* some cleanups in unsorted section to make life easier in the future (nw)
* more cleanups in unsorted (nw)
* more unsorted cleanups (nw)
* more unsorted cleanup (nw)
* more unsorted cleaning (nw)
* spectrum sorting (nw)
* unsorted cleanups (nw)
* validation (nw)
* sorting (nw)
* (nw)
* (nw)
* tidy unsorted section a bit (nw)
* tidy (nw)
* (nw)
* cleanups in unsorted section (nw)
* more unsorted tidy (nw)
* unsorted cleanup (nw)
* more unsorted cleanup (nw)
* more unsorted cleanup (nw)
* more cleanup (nw)
* more tidy (nw)
* spectrum list changes (nw)
* more spectrum sorting (nw)
* more speccy sorting (nw)
* more speccy stuff (nw)
* more speccy movement (nw)
* more sorting (nw)
* more speccy sorting (nw)
* speccy list progress - including some covertapes with exclusives (nw)
* validation fixes (nw)
* validation (nw)
* validation stuff (nw)
* validate (nw)
* notes, sorting etc. (nw)
* some details (nw)
* info (nw)
* movement (nw)
* move more (nw)
* more (nw)
* more (nw)
* more movement (nw)
* move more (nw)
* move more (nw)
* (nw)
* more (nw)
* typo (nw)
* more (nw)
* move more (nw)
* more (nw)
* spectrum_cass.xml - various changes [see credit list]
added some more images to the 'unsorted' section, moved some images to 'sorted' section, identyfing and replacing several bad dumps along the way
Credit for this stuff should be
Steve Brown, Andrew Barker, Paul Hurd, Tony Barnett, Claus Jahn, Donald Graham,
Guy Bearman, Jose Luis Soler, Krasimir Hristov, Andrew Blood, Dave Stevens,
John Wilson, Edwina Brown, Walter Pooley, Tomaz Kac, Martijn van der Heide,
Ramsoft, Dunny, Woody, Mikie and many many others.
* restore clone relationship (nw)
* fix validation (nw)
* details (nw)
* typo (nw)
* filling in some details (nw)
* filling in some details (nw)
* another compilation (nw)
* move more (nw)
* compilation details (nw)
* typo (nw)
* mention set name (nw)
* more (nw)
* move movement (nw)
* a few more (nw)
* more (nw)
* move more (nw)
* more (nw)
* move more (nw)
* more (nw)
* more (nw)
* a few more (nw)
* (nw)
ArcadeShadow