MDB Category Editor Tool

[Stu1983]

I'd talked about creating a tool to do this before I went on holiday (can't remember the post) and I finally got around to making it.

Basically it's a tool to help edit the categories in the MDB game database files.

Simply drag n' drop the MDB into the box, make your changes and hit the update button, I recommend making a backup of your MDB just in case

If I get a bit more time I'll add an option to load all the categories in all the MDBs in 1 go so they can all be edited in 1 swoop but you'se can test this for me first before I get carried away

Stu

MDB_Category_Editor.zip

[Nologic]

Very sweet thanks for the handy work.

[SpyDIRmaN]

I'd talked about creating a tool to do this before I went on holiday (can't remember the post) and I finally got around to making it.

Basically it's a tool to help edit the categories in the MDB game database files.

Simply drag n' drop the MDB into the box, make your changes and hit the update button, I recommend making a backup of your MDB just in case

If I get a bit more time I'll add an option to load all the categories in all the MDBs in 1 go so they can all be edited in 1 swoop but you'se can test this for me first before I get carried away

Stu

Sweet!!! This'll be a big help. I've been wanting to edit my MDB categories with something a bit easier to use (as I pretty much ignore them atm as useless)... Everyone's going to have their own taste I suppose about what constitutes an "RPG" or "Action" game, but ATM, with all the multi-lables (ie. Action- Adventure, Action-RPG) they just end up seperating games that pretty much go together, such as Zelda , and Zelda 2.

Anyway, Good work!

Hey just to throw it your way, I had this vision last night of the ultimate tool for my MDB editing. It was a bit like your FuzzyMatch and MDBedit combo, but put together with snap shots.

It was 3 columns, algined left to right. The first being my rom list, the second being my snapshot folder (set to thumbnails), and the third being a category box that was blank. Then I could just go down the list and pop in a category for each game based on the snapshot (which can usually tell you what sort they are). Even better would be programable macro keys to speed things up. Assigning say "RPG" to key 1, and "SPORTS" to key 2, etc... Then just head down the list, take a look at the snap, and hit a corrosponding number key to tag it under whatever category I see fit.

Then Export this info to the MDB.

but alas I have no programing skillz what-so-ever.

Anyway, keep up the good work Stu, and if I ever get good enough at this stuff to pitch in, I would love to help the cause.

-SpyDIRmaN

[Stu1983]

Updated to version 1.1 which has folder mode support so you can load and modify all your MDBs in 1 go, I've tested it with all the new MDBs we were working on and it works on them all apart from "[Console] Atari 5200" for some reason.

@SpyDIRmaN

Thats not a bad idea I'd quite like to do something like that but I don't know when I'll find the time, I've another non gaming related project to work on, I'll definately have a think about it though.

Stu

[Stu1983]

Tom, I'm just looking at all the categories in the new database set that we've been working on and although there are 133 seperate categories they actually only consist of 8 basic categorys:

Action

Adventure

Educational

Racing / Driving

Role-Playing (RPG)

Simulation

Sports

Strategy

but each game may be in a few of categorys like "Action, Adventure, Educational"

is there anyway you could parse the category when your loading it into GameEx and split them at each comma

I think it would be more intuitive that instead of a game with having a seperate category called "Action, Adventure, Role-Playing (RPG), Strategy" that that game would instead be selectable in all 4 categories?

Stu

[LB11]

Tom, I'm just looking at all the categories in the new database set that we've been working on and although there are 133 seperate categories they actually only consist of 8 basic categorys:

Action

Adventure

Educational

Racing / Driving

Role-Playing (RPG)

Simulation

Sports

Strategy

but each game may be in a few of categorys like "Action, Adventure, Educational"

is there anyway you could parse the category when your loading it into GameEx and split them at each comma

I think it would be more intuitive that instead of a game with having a seperate category called "Action, Adventure, Role-Playing (RPG), Strategy" that that game would instead be selectable in all 4 categories?

Stu

That would be ideal for me! I think I would like that more than the search personally.

Thanks for all the great programs stu!

[Nologic]

Actually I talked briefly with Tom about multi-select category's...and he stated for the time being he had no desire to alter the way cat's work.

However that discussion was based off the current multi category's in the DB...which are a lot more extensive than what you purpose...so maybe he'll rethink this.

For the time being I'm still thinking for a single category's we should probably work off of AllGame's cat's. Which I should be able to write a script to parse the site to collect the data in simple text files...that we could then ideally use your app to pipe the info into the db's.

[bkenobi]

I still think multi categories per game would be better, but it may be difficult based on how Tom implemented them in the first place. I know it has been requested MANY times, but each time Tom says the same thing. Since that is not currently an option, I believe it should be possible to use a smaller number of categories that are more general that would still be intuitive. I came up with a list for my custom CatVer that seems to work pretty well, so I don't think it should be too much of a problem. Who knows, Tom may eventually come up with an easy way to implement multi categories, but just not today.

[Nologic]

Well it probably is based more around UI issues than anything...I'm certain Tom can manipulate the data easy enough.

We can do a few things...as prep work.

1. Take the cat's that we got from Moby and let those be used as Meta data for search's, all contained in one field.

2. Use AllGame or the like for single cat per game in one field.

3. Setup a field using ether yours or Stu's cat's, as semi-colon\comma delimited...which would probably be fine performance wise...with DOS and Windows being the exceptions...but that can be eased later on by hooking them to new tables.

[Stu1983]

Well it probably is based more around UI issues than anything...I'm certain Tom can manipulate the data easy enough.

We can do a few things...as prep work.

1. Take the cat's that we got from Moby and let those be used as Meta data for search's, all contained in one field.

2. Use AllGame or the like for single cat per game in one field.

3. Setup a field using ether yours or Stu's cat's, as semi-colon\comma delimited...which would probably be fine performance wise...with DOS and Windows being the exceptions...but that can be eased later on by hooking them to new tables.

I haven't made up the categories I mentioned above, I just noticed that those 8 are the only different categories that are being used in the new sets that we've been working on, they're already in comma delimited format just calling out to be used in my multi category setup which is why I asked

I think if Tom can't/won't support a multi category format then the single category format over at AllGame is looking like the next best option, it would just be a shame to loose the multi format categories we have if there's any chance of Tom adding this feature in the future

Stu

[Nologic]

Well we won't loose them...we'll just end up renaming the field is all and adding in newer ones...all of which is no big deal...that way everything is still preserved...just not currently used is all....the db's will be a little larger because of this...but it won't have any negatives to performance.

So we can make the db's usable now...and still retain the option of maybe some time in the future having a more advanced way of selecting games.