openMenu Alpha 1

[NeORomani]

Well, I finally tried it and it's awesome, it boots instantly compared to the gdemu manager.

I have two problems now, first, none of the games have synopsis, in all it says "Game Synopsis here", which I don't really care.
But also, many games don't have a cover, it says "image missing", is there a way to manually add the covers somehow?

The other problem will be finding the GDI files of my CDI games...

Thanks for the software, I don't think I'll come back to gdmenu

[fraggle200]

The other problem will be finding the GDI files of my CDI games...

I imagine a quick look through Dubcitys amazing project in the D/L section should fix that for probably mostly everything you have already, unless you're into visual novels etc then a search for manydumpedgames in everyones favourite search engine should turn up what you need in the Internet Archive.

https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=22

[Dr Sabroson]

I usually don´t ask for features, but right now I'm missing a "last played games" button or shortcut.
Anyway openMENU is amazing I can´t think of more options to request, just the images of the boxes, but it has the most wanted, it is not a dealbraker.

[mrneo240]

I usually don´t ask for features, but right now I'm missing a "last played games" button or shortcut.
Anyway openMENU is amazing I can´t think of more options to request, just the images of the boxes, but it has the most wanted, it is not a dealbraker.

I'm close to releasing my community thing to help people submit images that can be agreed upon

[mrneo240]

Hello.

I'm trying to get back into this and moving towards completing it and adding things the people need.

Today i have launched
https://github.com/mrneo240/openmenu_imagedb

Which is where the current image database will exist and live on.
I'll write a Readme tomorrow on how to submit pull requests to add new images (mainly for homebrew, Japanese, and "others")

This will also coincide with...
The release of the Metadata database in much the same fashion
https://github.com/mrneo240/openmenu_metadb

So that people can easily directly contribute to getting Metadata added, and amended.

Again instructions soon.

Thanks for sticking with me through nearly a year long break.

Oh and also this

A fallback bios font UI incase you completely fail to setup the openmenu assets correctly. No more black screen, just a terrible looking UI.

[kaze]

Thank you @mrneo240, these additions are so so welcome. The ability to control the art myself is a big deal. It will be especially meaningful for English patched, JP, and home-brew titles.

Ultimately I'd really like a way to change art and metadata locally w/o having to go through a pull request -> release process. Storing the GDI, image, and metadata file in the same directory would be make local modifications simple although I understand there's a build process to consider to keep browsing fast.

Thanks again for sharing your time with the community.

[mrneo240]

Thank you @mrneo240, these additions are so so welcome. The ability to control the art myself is a big deal. It will be especially meaningful for English patched, JP, and home-brew titles.

Ultimately I'd really like a way to change art and metadata locally w/o having to go through a pull request -> release process. Storing the GDI, image, and metadata file in the same directory would be make local modifications simple although I understand there's a build process to consider to keep browsing fast.

Thanks again for sharing your time with the community.

It can be done locally on Linux or windows if you use either of those. Probably Mac but idk.

All the tools are open source and the scripts mostly just help to keep nice recognizable file names and then automate the transforming and packing.

I probably have the bat files for windows still, they're slightly outdated but should be easy enough to see what's going on. You'd just need ImageMagick 6 or 7.
At one point I uploaded binaries that should run on any os but I can reupload if needed. During the holiday I plan to get the Metadata dB on github in the same fashion and write instructions on how to add things to both

[mrneo240]

Both the metadata db and the image db are now fully open for collaboration and have basic instructions written.

I look forward to merging in many requests from people and also to potentially add ones people have sent privately to me

https://github.com/mrneo240/openMenu_imagedb

https://github.com/mrneo240/openMenu_metadb

The current mediafire packs should exactly resemeble these and from going forward BOX.DAT, ICON.DAT, and META.DAT will be uploaded here primarily.

[ChronosWing]

I'm having some issues maybe someone can help me with. I followed the instructions, everything seems to be working correctly my main issue is some controls to navigate openmenu do not work. Y does not exit to BIOS instead it just changes the view to boxart only. No other button seems to exit to bios. The start button does not bring up the settings menu instead it seems to change the game order. No other button will bring up settings. I've tried reinstalling openmenu twice now starting from scratch but this bug seems to persist and I have no idea how to fix it. The biggest issue for me is not being able to exit to bios.

[mrneo240]

I'm having some issues maybe someone can help me with. I followed the instructions, everything seems to be working correctly my main issue is some controls to navigate openmenu do not work. Y does not exit to BIOS instead it just changes the view to boxart only. No other button seems to exit to bios. The start button does not bring up the settings menu instead it seems to change the game order. No other button will bring up settings. I've tried reinstalling openmenu twice now starting from scratch but this bug seems to persist and I have no idea how to fix it. The biggest issue for me is not being able to exit to bios.

You've somehow installed a very old version.

The latest should be available on github under releases