PS3 ManaGunZ - PS3 Backup Manager by Zar v1.41

[sandungas]

Mountpoint (Label) already exist you can configure the custom display with it.

Exists "Label (Mount point)"... but "Mount point (Label)" doesnt exist
Is the same stuff but in different order, what i would like is to display the USB devices as:
dev_usb001 (STICK 4GB)

 

[CFW-Us3r]

@Zar I found another minor bug. As you can see in the image, some of the text goes off the screen and becomes unreadable. Just thought I'd let you know

 

[sandungas]

I also wanted to add the lock icon somewhere in the window when we browse the locked path, probably at the extrem top/left.

I been thinking in this and i agree, the better place is at top-left, at the start of the path, and with the same size than the "close", "maximize", "restore", "dock left", "dock right", buttons
All that icons (and the lock icon too) are made at 16x16, so it will look fine in that position and with the same size than the other buttons

I like it a lot because is going to be very intuitive because is going to be visible in all subdirectories of the locked partition, so is obvious what is locked is the whole partition
Also, is going to be very impacting visually (because his position and his black color), and thats exactly what we need

Spoiler

Im not asking you to work in the window buttons now, i know this development road was "freezed" on purpose because there are several things to do related with that buttons (and i would like to discuss them with you before you start rebuilding that)
Im just commenting the idea of the lock icon because the position you suggested is perfect, and his size should be exactly the same than the buttons, this way they are going to share some code... or geometry

The system path doesn't have label, I wanted to add 'fake' labels saved inside ManaGunZ settings file.

This way ?, im not sure which names to use for app_home and host_root though

dev_flash (Firmware)
dev_flash2 (Registry)
dev_flash3 (Revocation)
dev_hdd0 (GameOS)
dev_hdd1 (Cache)
dev_usb001 (STICK 4GB)
app_home (???)
host_root (???)

 

[sandungas]

A few minor problems, doesnt matters much, but incase you want to catch them before the next release:

XMB UI, game CASE+COVER dissapears
Affects all categories (FAV, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP), the requirements to trigger the bug are:
1) Having only 1 game of that platform, and COVER+CASE enabled
2) Move the cursor over the game ICON0 and press d-pad up or d-pad down
3) The COVER+CASE dissapears

Create ICON0 visibility (for PS1 and PS2 games)
The custom ICON0 is not displayed after we create it (is needed to reload UI with L3+R3 to display it... or to restart managunz)
I guess this is going to be fixed easily by re-loading the game icon buffers

Text viewer scroll speedup with R2 broken
Pressing (and holding) dpad up/down makes the text lines to scroll, after a bit it starts scrolling faster, but if you press R2 it slows down the speed
My understanding about this problem is... some managunz versions ago the R2 button was increasing the speed... but in later versions the speeds increases automatically (just by keeping the d-pad up or down pressed)... so the solution is to disable the R2 function inside the text viewer because we dont need it

[Color Filters]>[Background] doesnt displays a polygonal BG preview
1) configure managunz with GRID UI and the "default" theme for grid (this theme doesnt have a BG.JPG)
2) [MGZ settings]>[Color Filters]>[Background]>[Enable]>[R1=Set color]
3) The preview is a black screen that doesnt reacts to the color selector values

The problem is that function expects to find a BG.JPG but doesnt exists in the theme
The fix is the same you are doing with the sidemenu of the theme: LIST/PlayStation (this theme doesnt have a SIDEBAR.JPG). In it you are displaying a polygon in the preview instead of the SIDEBAR.JPG, and the color of the polygon reacts well to the color selector

 

[sandungas]

@Zar there is some important reason why we decided to make this icons at 16x16 pixels ?

...the "close", "maximize", "restore", "dock left", "dock right", buttons
All that icons (and the lock icon too) are made at 16x16...

Im reviewing them and i just realized managunz is scaling them to 200% zoom (and thats a mistake from my side because i didnt realized about it)
I guess what happened is they are 16x16 (tiny3D units, in the source code)... but 1 tiny3D unit is around 2 pixels in a screen at 1920x1080... so managunz is displaying them at 32x32 pixels
Im facepalming myself a bit because i remember i had some problems to make the "close" icon to look fine at that tiny size (that diagonal lines are problematic) and now i realized they needs to be made at 32x32 pixels
So... i can increase his quality, and im going to try an idea i had (related with the color highlights you are adding at his back)

Do you agree in upgrading that icons to 32x32 size ? (all the icons intended to be displayed at the filemanager window "header")
Im going to make new versions of them now, it will not take me much time


--------------------------
The LOCK.PNG icon falls under the same problem incase you decide to display it at the position we was discussing, but instead of resizing it to 32x32 i have a new idea... i will show it to you in another post to see if you like it

 

[Zar]

you did the pictures, you chose the size

One day, I'm going to remove the 800x512, and I'll work only 1920x1080 virtual size it will be easier for you, to not have weird scaled picture, it's a promise

 

[CFW-Us3r]

@Zar I just noticed this in your changelog: "XMB UI won't display 'adjust your filters' on boot of mgz if you uncheck PS3 inside the filter box". Unfortunately, it seems the bug is present in all UI modes .

 

[sandungas]

@Zar I just noticed this in your changelog: "XMB UI won't display 'adjust your filters' on boot of mgz if you uncheck PS3 inside the filter box". Unfortunately, it seems the bug is present in all UI modes .

The other day i was trying to replicate the problem you mentioned, and honestly i was not able see where is the problem

Im not trying to sabotage your report or contradict you, im mostly trying to act as an intermediate in between you and zar because i think there is a misunderstanding here, there is a detail a bit confusing about how the favorites work, let me explain it...
The way how the option "favorites" inside the "filter box" works is different in between the UI's

In the LIST, GRID, FLOW2D/3D it means "display only favorites", Lets say, if you have the options configured this way is going to display the PS3 games that was marked as favourites only
FAV = YES
PS3 = YES
PS2 = NO
PS1 = NO
PSP = NO

But you need to mark some PS3 games as favourites before configuring it like that (by pressing triangle on top of the game icon) and selecting the option to add/remove the game from your list of favourites
Incase you dont have any game marked as favourite, when you configure the "filter box" in the way i said you are not going to see any game in the screen. This is when is displayed the warning message "No games found, check your favourite lists and your game paths" (or something like that)

Basically... this warning text indicates the user that there is something wrong in his setings (in your case it seems to be because your favorite list is empty)

That warning message is needed, it was implemented on purpose because the previous managunz versions without it was confusing (and as far i remember there was one managunz version where it was crashing under that conditions)

--------------------------
In the XMB UI's it works a bit different, because the "favourite" option inside the "filter box" means "display also favorites"
Lets say... you have only 1 PS3 game marked as favorite + some more PS3 games not marked as favorites, and you select this options:
FAV = YES
PS3 = YES
PS2 = NO
PS1 = NO
PSP = NO

The XMB UI is going to display all your PS3 games under PS3 "category" icon (the PS3 game marked as favourite + the other PS3 games not marked as favourite). And the favourites "category" is going to display only the PS3 game marked as favorite
In other words... the PS3 game marked as favourite is displayed 2 times, one under "Favorites", and other under "PS3"

--------------
This small difference about how the favourites works in between XMB UI and all the other UI's (LIST, GRID, FLOW2D/3D) is a bit confusing in my oppinion and maybe is making you think that there is something broken but i dont think is broken... is just that is a bit confusing
I been thinking in it since some time ago but the posible solutions to make this a bit more intuitive requires some discussions

Im talking about it now because im wondering if your report is related with this problem and to summarize it, usually writing/talking about a problem helps a lot to have a better understanding about where is the root of the problem and the posible solutions
This small wall of text i just wrote surelly is helping me to organize my thoughts about this... i dont want to suggest any change to zar yet related to this but yeah... this problem has been rolling around my brain since some time ago

 

[sandungas]

you did the pictures, you chose the size

One day, I'm going to remove the 800x512, and I'll work only 1920x1080 virtual size it will be easier for you, to not have weird scaled picture, it's a promise

DOWNLOAD ---> https://workupload.com/file/VGtUFUpsgTX



Everytime i ask you about some visual improvement im keeping in mind how much we are saturating the memory and the posible performance hits, but this filemanager buttons really needs to be 32x32 pixels, i consider the previous versions at 16x16 was a mistake and im still facepalming because i didnt realized about it before, lol

At that tiny sizes every pixel is gold, at 16x16 i was very limited, but in this new versions at 32x32 i have a few more pixels to play around. The diagonal lines of the "close" button looks better, i added some tiny arrows inside the other buttons, and also a subtle "frame" all around them (with the same radius than the window corners)
Now the 5 buttons are better defined by his frame, looks a bit more 3D, and everything is made with graytones so they will adjust well incase you want to change the window "header" color. This is how they looks at 400% zoom on top of the actual blue color

The icon most at left means literally "write protected"... but is not a button... so it doesnt have the frame because is not intended to be "clickable"
This is the new idea i wanted to show you... the concept is different (and in my oppinion the new icon is more explicit)... if you like it we have a problem with the text strings we was discussing before... i mean... it would fit better something like:
STR_MOUNT_DEVBLIND {Unprotect dev_flash}
STR_UNMOUNT_DEVBLIND {Protect dev_flash}

Spoiler

Gramatically... it would be more explicit to say "Disable dev_flash write protection" (or enable it), but that sentences are too long

------------------------------------------------------
There are a couple of details i would like to comment you related with how it looks the filemanager window header, in a previous post i said that i dont want to suggest you to "fix" this now but i changed a bit my mind. Now we are talking about it is the best timing for me to explain you what i think about it, this image is a sketchup made with photoshop, i relocated the icons to my liking, most of what im going to suggest is related with his geometry

Basically... i used the same "gap" size everywhere (12 pixels in this image, but i guess the gaps are 5 tiny3D units in the source code). The height of the window header should be

Spoiler

The actual gap under the button is a bit smaller than the other gaps, is needed to increase it a bit

gap
+
button height
+
gap <--- this gap is wrong

And horizontally his positions (aligned to right) should be:

<--- DOCK_L <--- gap <--- MAXIMIZE <--- gap <--- DOCK_R <--- gap <--- CLOSE <--- gap <--- window border

Same stuff at left incase you decide to display the WRITE_PROTECTED icon most at left:

window border ---> gap ---> WRITE_PROTECTED ---> gap ---> PATH STRING

The "highlight" effects (made by code with a colored polygon) displayed at the back of the button icons should have exactly the same size than the buttons btw. The actual polygons are rectangles, doesnt matches well, and is a bit weird. I think is a lot more convenient and simple to have that highlights of the same size than the button image, and it allows to achieve some nice visual tricks
Btw, it could be nice if you add rounded corners in that polygon highlights (with the same radius than the window corners)

And btw... the icons i made have a lot of semi-transparent areas, you can color them by keeping the highlights active with any color you want, this is made on purpose to allow you to change his background color... mostly because we was not sure which visual effects to do in them
Additionally... you can change the colors of the PNG in the same way is made with the "color filters"
Is nice to have all this methods availables to change his colors dinamically, but im not so sure how much of them are useful
Just to mention something that can be made in 2 different ways... we could make the CLOSE button red by default (like in most operative systems)... the easy way is to create a red PNG... and the other way is by keeping the red highlight at his back active permanently



---------------------------
In the image i made in photoshop im dislaying 4 buttons. Because the idea is to have 4 buttons always visibles. The CLOSE button is always visible, and the other 3 buttons DOCK_LEFT, MAXIMIZE, DOCK_RIGHT should be replaced by the MINIMIZE button when needed
Lets say... we have 4 posible states for the window, and 2 posible states for 3 buttons:

If window is MINIMIZED    = DOCK_LEFT . MAXIMIZE . DOCK_RIGHT . CLOSE
If window is DOCKED_LEFT  = MINIMIZE  . MAXIMIZE . DOCK_RIGHT . CLOSE
If window is DOCKED_RIGHT = DOCK_LEFT . MAXIMIZE . MINIMIZE   . CLOSE
If window is MAXIMIZED    = DOCK_LEFT . MINIMIZE . DOCK_RIGHT . CLOSE

Spoiler

Btw, the name MINIMIZE.PNG is not correct, i guess it was me who baptished it and we are dragging that mistake since, but is wrong because we are not "minimizing" anything. As far i remember there is some point of the code where is named "restore", that name is better but again we are not restoring anything, what we are doing is to "reset" the position and size of the window to his default values
So... you could rename the file MINIMIZE.PNG to RESTORE.PNG (or RESET.PNG)

 

[CFW-Us3r]

The other day i was trying to replicate the problem you mentioned, and honestly i was not able see where is the problem

Im not trying to sabotage your report or contradict you, im mostly trying to act as an intermediate in between you and zar because i think there is a misunderstanding here, there is a detail a bit confusing about how the favorites work, let me explain it...
The way how the option "favorites" inside the "filter box" works is different in between the UI's

In the LIST, GRID, FLOW2D/3D it means "display only favorites", Lets say, if you have the options configured this way is going to display the PS3 games that was marked as favourites only
FAV = YES
PS3 = YES
PS2 = NO
PS1 = NO
PSP = NO

But you need to mark some PS3 games as favourites before configuring it like that (by pressing triangle on top of the game icon) and selecting the option to add/remove the game from your list of favourites
Incase you dont have any game marked as favourite, when you configure the "filter box" in the way i said you are not going to see any game in the screen. This is when is displayed the warning message "No games found, check your favourite lists and your game paths" (or something like that)

Basically... this warning text indicates the user that there is something wrong in his setings (in your case it seems to be because your favorite list is empty)

That warning message is needed, it was implemented on purpose because the previous managunz versions without it was confusing (and as far i remember there was one managunz version where it was crashing under that conditions)

--------------------------
In the XMB UI's it works a bit different, because the "favourite" option inside the "filter box" means "display also favorites"
Lets say... you have only 1 PS3 game marked as favorite + some more PS3 games not marked as favorites, and you select this options:
FAV = YES
PS3 = YES
PS2 = NO
PS1 = NO
PSP = NO

The XMB UI is going to display all your PS3 games under PS3 "category" icon (the PS3 game marked as favourite + the other PS3 games not marked as favourite). And the favourites "category" is going to display only the PS3 game marked as favorite
In other words... the PS3 game marked as favourite is displayed 2 times, one under "Favorites", and other under "PS3"

--------------
This small difference about how the favourites works in between XMB UI and all the other UI's (LIST, GRID, FLOW2D/3D) is a bit confusing in my oppinion and maybe is making you think that there is something broken but i dont think is broken... is just that is a bit confusing
I been thinking in it since some time ago but the posible solutions to make this a bit more intuitive requires some discussions

Im talking about it now because im wondering if your report is related with this problem and to summarize it, usually writing/talking about a problem helps a lot to have a better understanding about where is the root of the problem and the posible solutions
This small wall of text i just wrote surelly is helping me to organize my thoughts about this... i dont want to suggest any change to zar yet related to this but yeah... this problem has been rolling around my brain since some time ago

Zar already found and fixed the problem with XMB UI. I was just following up to say that it seems to happen with the other 3 UIs as well.

P.S I do have games added to the favourites list.

 

[sandungas]

Zar already found and fixed the problem with XMB UI. I was just following up to say that it seems to happen with the other 3 UIs as well.

P.S I do have games added to the favourites list.

All i can say is the message "No games found. Adjust your filter." is displayed correctly always in my managunz... you reported it as a bug, and zar said "ok i fixed it" but i think his answer was so short to dont enter in longer explanations, but the fact is it was designed this way
So i guess he translated your report as "this is a bit confusing" and he imagined a way to make it a bit more intuitive... but i have doubts if his changes are going to solve the problems completly, this is more tricky than it looks initially

The root of the problem is the meaning of the options inside the filterbox is different in between the XMB UI and the other UI's... but the settings configured in the filter box are common for all UI's... so if you get used to how it works in one UI when you change to other UI is going to be a bit confusing

Also, the way how the options inside the filterbox works is different too
In the other UI's (not in XMB) if you want to display only your favorite PS3 games then you need to enable favorites + PS3
In XMB if you want to display only your favorite PS3 games then you need to enable favorites (is not needed to enable PS3)

 

[Zar]

Favorite on XMB show or hide the column favorite.

On others UI, if you check it will show ONLY the favorites BUT it's associated with the other check box. I agree it's not intuitive...

I'll change how it's displayed, I'll remove 'favorite' for others ui, from the filter box and I'll make 2 tabs : 'all' and 'favorites' . what do you think about it ?

about button highlighted, i think it's better to use 2 different picture, button_close.png button_close_mouseover.png.

Everything else, i'm ok with it

 

[Zar]

finally, I didn't build tabs system, it will give me too much troubles, I just added more infomation inside the filter box, I hope it's more clear now :

We can choose 2 types of display "All games" or "Only favorites".
For xmb ui, the box is still the same.

 

[sandungas]

While i was thinking about how the favorites works i had a couple of ideas:

The first solution is similar to what you are suggesting, by creating 2 filterboxes that differs visually (the way how the filterboxes works is different already so is just a visual change)
It requires to use specific strings "favorites only" (for the others UI's)... or... "favorites also" (for XMB UI)
Or what you are saying "All games" ...or... "Only favorites"

The second solution is a lot more radical and pretends to solve the problem at his root but i guess you are not going to like it
The goal is to keep exactly the same filterbox with his options working exactly the same in all UI's. The only way i imagined to achieve this is by:
1) Remove the "favorites" column from XMB UI (and the icon from the themes support, and all references to it in the source code)
2) When the option "favorites" is enabled in the filterbox of XMB UI managunz displays the favorite games only under his respective columns

This way the results are going to be the same in all UI modes because enabling the option "favorites" is going to "exclude" the games not marked as favorites. It have other advantages also:
-The games marked as favorites are going to be displayed a single time in XMB UI (not twice like in actual managunz)
-The filterbox doesnt needs to be modifyed
-We dont need specific text strings in the filterbox dependant of the UI's
-Is more intuitive because the user only needs to learn how the filterbox works in one of the UI's (instead of learning 2 different filterbox modes in the actual managunz)


---------------
Im just thinking loud, but i feel that i dont have a good analysis of the problem and the posible solutions, and i been changing my mind several times while thinking in this since time ago... so im a bit doubtful wich is the best solution

 

[Zar]

I think it was my first idea, but when implemented the xmb UI, I think I changed my mind to make it look like multiman. I think this is why it's mixed up and confusing. Now, I think with 2 differents filters boxes, the random user will understand it's different. Above all, I don't think people change the UI often, so they'll probably never notice the differences.

I'm goig to leave it like this to work on something else, I don't want to be stuck on a feature too much time because it will annoy me ;p

 

[sandungas]

about button highlighted, i think it's better to use 2 different picture, button_close.png button_close_mouseover.png.

Everything else, i'm ok with it

Like this ?
DOWNLOAD ---> https://workupload.com/file/5SbMXgnEjxH

I changed the geometry a bit (probably this is the final version of the geometry), the white shapes are a bit more "widescreen" (couple of pixels smaller in height) and are better aligned to each others (the first version had couple of pixels disaligned), some lines of the docks icons are thinner (1 pixel), and the directions of the arrows matches the directions that needs to be pressed in the D-pad for the button shortcuts (R1 + D-pad direction)

The icons are not transparent anymore (so they are not going to "inherit" the color of the window frame), i have doubts about this decission though, because that was a feature we are losing

For the colors i used... well, i like the CLOSE button in red. And the blue colors of the others are just an initial test

Note the RESET buttons are a bit more brighter than the other 3 blue buttons. This is an small experiment made on purpose because the RESET buttons are going to work as a replacement of the other 3 blue buttons (the RESET buttons could take the position of the other 3 blue buttons). The point is... i want to use an unique color with the RESET buttons because his position indicates the actual state of the window

 

[Zar]

@sandungas I added the buttons like you wanted, as expected it's stretched because of the virtual resolution, but once I remove them it will be easier to draw a perfect square

 

[sandungas]

@sandungas I added the buttons like you wanted, as expected it's stretched because of the virtual resolution, but once I remove them it will be easier to draw a perfect square

Nice, are an improvement is several ways
-Visually are a fix because the previous versions was looking a bit incomplete
-Are going to make the "docking system" a bit more intuitive for newcomers
-The "write protected" icon at left-top corner is a nice solution for a problem i was not sure how to solve

My initial idea about how to use the LOCK.PNG icon was to overlay it in a corner on top of the FILE.PNG or FOLDER.PNG icons
You know... like in microsoft windows when you create a "shortcut" and it displays a tiny arrow overlapped in the bottom-left corner of the original icon, like the ones expalined in this link:
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/the-overlay-icons-in-windows-7

This is why the LOCK.PNG was made at 16x16 pixels and monochrome, because the FILE.PNG and FOLDER.PNG are made at 32x32, so we can "divide" them in four quarters and overlay a maximun of 4 tiny 16x16 icons in his corners... we dedicated some time to talk about it but this features never was implemented, we freezed that ideas indefinitivelly
At some point we decided to "recycle" the LOCK.PNG to display it on top of the device icons in the filemanager "root" windows... it was looking fine and we moved on to other experiments

By now that collection of "overlay" icons at 16x16 pixels was composed only by LOCK.PNG and FAV.PNG... but the other day i made another one for SYMLINK.PNG (with a black arrow, and his geometry cloned from micrososft windows) and a black SHIELD.PNG (that is a bit pointless now)

Im not asking you to implement all this now, because the only useful feature we could achieve by now is to display the SYMLINK.PNG with the arrow, and is not so usual to have symlinks
Also, before implmenting this overlays at 16x16 is needed to imlpement it first at 32x32 too, to display a gamepad icon (colored by code) on top of the folder icons: PS3ISO, PS2ISO, GAMES, etc...
We need to make a plan before working in that

--------------------------------
Im still trying to assimilate that you are going to remove the virtual grid of tiny3D (or to adjust it to 1080p by default), im amazed and scared at the same time
Is something awesome, that distortions has been driving me crazy since lot of time ago and we dedicated lot of time to talk about them
If you remove the distortions i can improve the quality of some images, as example the filemanager "root" device icons at 64x64 pixels are using some visual effects intended to "conterfeit" the innacuracies at his edges caused by the dsitortions... lets say... i "smoothed" them on purpose because i know tiny3d was going to smooth them anyway... so i do it first to have a bit of control of it... and the result is a double smoothing (the result is aceptable but is a dirty trick, lol)

I guess there are not going to be much images "broken" (by his sizes)... since we decided to use standard sizes for the icons (16x16, 32x32, 64x64, etc..) everything is a bit under control easy to adjust or scale
The scale factors used by the original virtual grid, as far i remember was something like x=2.3 and Y=2.1 but you can round both of them to 2
Lets say... if you are displaying the actual dualshock icons at 16x16 tiny3D units (because are 32x32 pixels)... after removing the virtual grid you should use 32x32 tiny3D units (and the icon should be displayed 1:1), that would be great

Im only a bit scared because i guess i will need to rebuild a few other images, but it would be a satisfactory work

 

[sandungas]

Btw can you add the option "Convert to dummy" to the filemanager ?
File Manager ---> Select file (with square) ---> File options (with triangle) ---> Convert to dummy

It could be handy when doing this process:
1) Make a backup of a real PS3 disc in JB format
2) Convert to dummy the game files you dont need (usually audio or video files for languages you dont understand)
3) Copy all the game files to PC (included dummies)... and continue ripping more game files
4) Convert the game to ISO

The goal is to reduce the total size of files that are copyed in step 3
Of course, this only can be made when you are completly sure that you identifyed correctly the files you are converting to dummy (because his filenames are very explicit)... incase of doubt dont do it this way

 

[CFW-Us3r]

Hello @Zar. I was just wondering if there's any ETA for v1.39 (or whatever version it'll be)?