[APP] PleasureExtractor v1.1

[headkaze]

This program is made to extract Visual Pinball, Visual PinMAME and Future Pinball collections from PD.

Features

- Auto extracts the zipped ROMs and copies them to destination folder

- Picks the latest ROM by using alphabetical sorting (assuming version numbers are used)

- Will detect a screenshot and rename it to match the ROM (by using keyword such as "screenshot")

- Can also copy other files in a zip (Eg. mp3, ttf, wav etc.)

New to Version 1.1

- Updated to .NET 2.0

- Now extracts files into their own folders

- Allows you to copy all tables instead of only the detected newest version (as it used alphabetical sorting which is not 100% accurate)

- Added .vbs for Visual Pinball tables

- Saves paths to ini file

- Fixed extracting of newer files only

PleasureExtractor.zip

[hansolo77]

Sounds like a much needed app. Perhaps when you have it fully functioning, you could rename it to something more directly related. Like VPExtracter or something rather than Pleasure.

[night]

HeadKaze have you posted it on the "you know what site" im sure they would be very pleased as well with that neat little tool as well

[Adultery]

Kaze-

For this I have to say I love you... In a non gay way of course.

I can't tell you how useful this is! Awesomeness!

As a suggestion, could you make a selection for .nv and .cfg files too? They come out like: "fullname (details) (year) (version) algar_l1.cfg" and all the extra words need to be deleted from the fromt so the file name is jsut "algar_l1.cfg"

That would only add to the awesomeness.

[headkaze]

Kaze-

For this I have to say I love you... In a non gay way of course.

I can't tell you how useful this is! Awesomeness!

As a suggestion, could you make a selection for .nv and .cfg files too? They come out like: "fullname (details) (year) (version) algar_l1.cfg" and all the extra words need to be deleted from the fromt so the file name is jsut "algar_l1.cfg"

That would only add to the awesomeness.

Np, yeah it's saved me some time (probably a few hours of sorting). I'll look into the cfg file thing. Anything else I should consider for next release. I didn't know about the cfg files, maybe I'm missing some others too.

EDIT: What are these cfg files you speak of? For what pack are they for? I can't seem to find them.

[Adultery]

They're actually for VPinMAME games, with .nv and .cfg for extensions. Several tables have them actually... I'm going to change the ROM filter to sort these into seperate folders and manually rename them. They kinda work like the table ROM, in that the table ROM (say, Algar) writes to these files. I think one might be the battery and the other might be the dip switch settings. Not positive though.

Also, I noticed that if the folders you're copying to (output and snap) don't exist, the program won't create them.

[headkaze]

I've just about finished this feature request Adultery. I was just wondering about those script .txt files. Do they need to be copied across also?

[Adultery]

Yes they do. I forgot to mention these files. .wav samples too. That about does it.

[headkaze]

Thanks for the help with this Adultery.

Okay Version 0.6 is now available for download in the first post. It adds support for cfg/nv and script txt files.

Can you help test this one?

[Adultery]

So far so good. I got a bit over 10 gigs of tables to extract, but from what I can see so far it's working perfectly. Removing the bracketed text was a nice little feature.

This is a huge timesaver, Kaze. You truly are a genius.

EDIT: Another suggestion (if you're interested):

Can you make the process "Pause" by clicking the "Go!" button again? That'd be cool for people with a lot of tables to sort.

Also, sorting for table and backglass in the same fashion as the snaps are sorted / renamed would be ultra neat-o.

[headkaze]

So far so good. I got a bit over 10 gigs of tables to extract, but from what I can see so far it's working perfectly. Removing the bracketed text was a nice little feature.

This is a huge timesaver, Kaze. You truly are a genius.

EDIT: Another suggestion (if you're interested):

Can you make the process "Pause" by clicking the "Go!" button again? That'd be cool for people with a lot of tables to sort.

Also, sorting for table and backglass in the same fashion as the snaps are sorted / renamed would be ultra neat-o.

Actually pause button is unecessary, here is how I deal with sorting files..

I start command prompt can go to the output directory and make folders and move the files into them.

Eg.

cd C:\Temp\Output
md cfg
md nvram
md snap
md tables
md wave
move *.cfg cfg
move *.nv nvram
move *.jpg snap
move *.vpt tables
move *.wav wave

I'm not sure where mp3 files are supposed to go or what they are supposed to be named.

Of course the .vbs scripts are in their own archive called "- Vpvbs.zip" and the ttf fonts are in "- Fonts.zip" so you can extract and install the fonts, and the just copy all the .vbs scripts to the tables folder.

I suppose I should have PleasureExtractor move everything into their own folders automatically. But I'm so used to using command prompt for that. I might do that if I do another update.

As for table and backglass, I might add that, but is that even used in VPinMame? If so what should I rename them to?

[Adultery]

No, it's not used in PinMAME. I just thought it'd be cool to have GameEx display them - like it does for MAME cabinets and control panels and such.

.mp3s are music files mostly, but I'm not sure how they're named either - I have to guess they're supposed to be there for something or other, although I don't use them and all my tables work.

To be honest, I really don't even know what the script files are for.

Anyways, your program saved me a good day's worth of solid sorting. I can't begin to tell you how great this little program is! I bet they'll include it in the torrent over at the dome...

[headkaze]

Ahh okay, I may just add those other images in then.

As for those script files, I've removed extracting them from the program. I don't think they're used at all.

BTW This should work with standard Visual Pinball and Future Pinball packs too

[hansolo77]

There are other files too. You mentioned MP3, there are also MID files. They are all "extras" for background music. Some tables have them, and actually require a plugin to be installed to get them to work. If you decide you want to include them, I think they just go into the /music folder. I won't swear by that though because I don't have my gaming rig here right now to tell you for certain. You may also come across txt files that are also scripts. I just put those into the script folder with the rest of them. I've not installed the program yet because, again, I'm not at the rig right now... But if you haven't done so, you might consider moving out the documentations too. Some of them are simple graphics that GameEx could display if somebody properly configured their setup. Others are things like rules that are helpful for die-hard pinball fans (like myself) who are after playing the game fully rather than just batting a ball around.

[Adultery]

I haven't even thought of that.

I was able to (more or less) get PinMAME working 'out of the box' with this tool in about an hour or so. I got another 10 gigs of Visual Pinball tables to install this evening so I'll be testing that too over the next couple days. I just figured out VPdisco last night so I'm excited to get started.

Do you know which of these tables needs an installed plugin? Seems to me other than Mario's Tee Shot (which would be the best pinball table ever if it were real) that not many of the popular ones require the plugin installation.

Also, wouldn't it be nice if there were a GameEx plugin that set a hot key to pull up the rule card? Damn I wish I had a more advanced .net coding ability, but I probably won't even get my VB / net framework classes in school until next year.

[Creek]

Wow, how could i have missed this tool. It's absolutely essential for setting up Visual Pinball and Future Pinball in a front end. I just accidentally stumped upon it through a search for something else. How about a link on GameEx.net under "Wrappers and Utils"?

It not only saved me loads of time sorting/copying, it also motivated me to figure out the problems I had setting FP and VP up in GameEx. So as of now, FP and VP both run smooth and the tool is processing the last folder with tables for VP. Can't wait to get them running on my cab.

A couple of tiny requests, if you decide on adding more to it.

1. Save paths: Saving the paths and settings in an ini for next time you run the program.

2. Add ".vbs;" to "Also copy", as for example Black Knight 2000 has a couple of script files in its folder, and doesn't work without it.

[headkaze]

Wow, how could i have missed this tool. It's absolutely essential for setting up Visual Pinball and Future Pinball in a front end. I just accidentally stumped upon it through a search for something else. How about a link on GameEx.net under "Wrappers and Utils"?

It not only saved me loads of time sorting/copying, it also motivated me to figure out the problems I had setting FP and VP up in GameEx. So as of now, FP and VP both run smooth and the tool is processing the last folder with tables for VP. Can't wait to get them running on my cab.

A couple of tiny requests, if you decide on adding more to it.

1. Save paths: Saving the paths and settings in an ini for next time you run the program.

2. Add ".vbs;" to "Also copy", as for example Black Knight 2000 has a couple of script files in its folder, and doesn't work without it.

Glad you like the program. I have updated PleasureExtractor to version 1.0.

New 1.0 features include:

- Updated to .NET 2.0

- Now extracts files into their own folders

- Allows you to copy all tables instead of only the detected newest version (as it used alphabetical sorting which is not 100% accurate)

- Added .vbs for Visual Pinball tables

- Saves paths to ini file

[Creek]

Beautiful. Great job.

[hansolo77]

Ok, gotta report my take on this. I'm currently running this for Future Pinball. All-in-all it seems like a really great app. It properly extracts the files and put them in their own folder where I select. The table files go into a folder called fpt and their libraries into a folder called fpl. Pretty self explanitory. Also, the screenshots go into 'snaps' which have already been properly named to work with GameEx. Things looked like they were fine. Until....

The first folder I tackled was the Original Flipperless Tables. It only had 8 tables so I thought that would be a good place to start. After running the extractor I was able to play most of the games. One of them didn't work though. It was the table called "Table Hockey [Original]". When I tried to load this table, it reported that it couldn't find the proper library. The file was there, but it didn't like it. So I went back to the original zip and recopied the library over. Now it works fine.

I did some experimenting, and it looks like the extractor has problems with multiple versions. Since the program is designed to copy only the newest version (as enabled via a checkbox), it copies the right TABLE file, but doesn't copy the correct library it is associated with. I have noticed this on almost all tables with multiple versions. If the table has a library with it's version number in the name, it works fine. But if the library is a static name for all versions, the extractor only copies the first one it sees, which is usually the oldest version.

Headkaze, you need to rethink how the extracter handles multiple versions. I would suggest if you have the process running, and it finds a multiple version table, it should extract these tables into their own folder based on version. Then have the program read the new folder names and copy only the files over from the newest folder. Then it just moves those files to their usual place like the other tables, and deletes the unneeded folders.

[headkaze]

Ok, gotta report my take on this. I'm currently running this for Future Pinball. All-in-all it seems like a really great app. It properly extracts the files and put them in their own folder where I select. The table files go into a folder called fpt and their libraries into a folder called fpl. Pretty self explanitory. Also, the screenshots go into 'snaps' which have already been properly named to work with GameEx. Things looked like they were fine. Until....

The first folder I tackled was the Original Flipperless Tables. It only had 8 tables so I thought that would be a good place to start. After running the extractor I was able to play most of the games. One of them didn't work though. It was the table called "Table Hockey [Original]". When I tried to load this table, it reported that it couldn't find the proper library. The file was there, but it didn't like it. So I went back to the original zip and recopied the library over. Now it works fine.

I did some experimenting, and it looks like the extractor has problems with multiple versions. Since the program is designed to copy only the newest version (as enabled via a checkbox), it copies the right TABLE file, but doesn't copy the correct library it is associated with. I have noticed this on almost all tables with multiple versions. If the table has a library with it's version number in the name, it works fine. But if the library is a static name for all versions, the extractor only copies the first one it sees, which is usually the oldest version.

Headkaze, you need to rethink how the extracter handles multiple versions. I would suggest if you have the process running, and it finds a multiple version table, it should extract these tables into their own folder based on version. Then have the program read the new folder names and copy only the files over from the newest folder. Then it just moves those files to their usual place like the other tables, and deletes the unneeded folders.

Damn it, I thought I had this thing finished once and for all. Thanks for pointing this out though.

This is sort of an unfortunate thing because of the inconvenient way these archives are done. I don't understand why they keep old versions in there in the first place. Are people really expected to go through and extract all these manually?

Anyway maybe you could give me a short list of some of the ones that have this problem so I can get a new version going. Oh and if you select to extract all tables (instead of it trying to detect the newest version which is always going to be inaccurate anyway) does it work okay then?

[hansolo77]

A few that I know off hand that don't work right are "Original Flipperless\Table Hockey".. "Original\Sonic the Headhog 2".. "Original\The Crypt II".. These are all in Future Pinball.

When I extract all, none of them work except the first one. This is because the scripts in the library haven't been updated with the new variables and instructions. The table calls the library, and when the table loads, if it can't find the right scripts in the library, it poops out. In most cases (from what I've seen), the table is playable, only without a lot of the special things. For instance, in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the table is very solid, no lights, no artwork graphics, very nasty. In other's I've seen no music, or no sound effects.

If somebody were to want to extract ALL tables, I'm pretty confident in saying that a newer library would work with an older table.

Still, I'm not criticizing you at all HK. Your work is very impressive. And everybody else is dead on correct. It does save a LOT of time. Now if we can just get these kinks worked out. I'm still re-downloading the Visual Pinball set so I don't have word on it. I know I talked earlier in this thread, but that was after I had manually extracted these and didn't need your program. Now, I'm on a completely new system and had to redownload everything. Good luck!

[headkaze]

I found the problem, I was overwriting the newer versions with the older ones. Simple fix was to check if the file of the same name was already extracted first. Seems to work okay on the Sonic table.

Give Version 1.1 a try and let me know how you go.

Thanks for reporting this BTW, I'm going to have to extract all my tables again. I'm suprised noone noticed this earlier.

[hansolo77]

Well, like I said, this was with Future Pinball. I haven't tried it with Visual Pinball yet. It might have been working fine with VP. This sounds great though. I'm glad you were able to figure it out. So it only checks to see if it's already extracted? Won't that cause a problem if you're extracting ALL tables? If it goes in alphanumeric order, the first would be the 1.0 version, and the most recent would be 6.0 (for example). Then only the 1.0 table would work.

I'll try it out though and see what happens.

[mightypeniz]

ahh mate, this is indeed awesome. I had a halfassed go at doing this in .vbs a few months back, but never bothered following up on it..

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?sh...t=0&p=21160

mv ./carton/beers /dev/headkaze

[headkaze]

Well, like I said, this was with Future Pinball. I haven't tried it with Visual Pinball yet. It might have been working fine with VP. This sounds great though. I'm glad you were able to figure it out. So it only checks to see if it's already extracted? Won't that cause a problem if you're extracting ALL tables? If it goes in alphanumeric order, the first would be the 1.0 version, and the most recent would be 6.0 (for example). Then only the 1.0 table would work.

I'll try it out though and see what happens.

I'm going by this..

If somebody were to want to extract ALL tables, I'm pretty confident in saying that a newer library would work with an older table.

If your right then extracting all tables should be okay as long as the library is the latest version.