About Dialog

Well...Nothing special here. You can find the current version here (versionnumber can differ from the picture below). And my name....and you can see that this program is freeware. If you want to know more you should take a look at the Copyright/Contact section of this documentation. Click the various buttons to email me, read the documentation or to go to my homepage. If nothing happens when you click on these buttons, check if your browser and mailprogram are set to be the default programs for such operations

You can also change the buttonbar in the mainwindow here. Simply right-click to change it. You can select a button order (1x6, 6x1, 3x2, 2x3) in the popupmenu, too.

Drop a file in the window and clrmamepro tells you its size, CRC32, SHA1 and MD5. Don't forget that this can take a while.

Update - An auto-update feature:

Here you can select when clrmamepro should look for updates at mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro. NO DATA FROM YOUR COMPUTER WILL BE SENT !

Dir2Dat - A quick'n dirty but useful DatFile creator (this was moved to the profiler recently):

With Dir2Dat you can create a DatFile based on files which are stored on your harddisk. After using Dir2Dat you should edit the DatFile with a common texteditor e.g. to add header information, etc.

It's rather easy to use. Point to a Source-Folder where the files are stored which should be used for the DatFile and give a DatFilename. Click on Create, clrmamepro scans the files and builds a datfile for you.

Dir2Dat scans like this:

• Create a DatFile-Set-Entry for each found zipped file. So if you have a pacman.zip in the source-folder, you will get a game ( name pacman .....rom ( name file1 ...) rom ( name file2 ....) ...)) entry.

• If the file is not zipped it'll be put in a set named after the currently scanned (sub-)folder. So if you scan a subfolder pacman which has 3 files in it, these 3 files will be put in a set called pacman. You can also put each single-non-zipped-file optionally in an own set. So you will get an own set for each of these 3 files.

The set-name will be copied from the foldername or from the zipfilename. Descriptionstrings will be copied from that as well and Manufacturerstrings are kept empty. But you can use the Match tagdata option to fill these automatically.

Don't forget: Created DatFiles need to be edited ! (check, clean up, add headerinformation)

The Options:

• Header Entries

Author, Name, Category, Comment, Description and Versionstrings which will later be displayed in the profiler

• Force Merging and Force Zipping

With these options you can disable the usage of "zip files" (forcezipping unzip) and you can also force a mergemode (e.g. if the emulator doesn't support merging, you should set the "forcemerging none" option).

• Lowercase Entries

All Setnames, filenames are made lowercase.

• Scan Subfolders

Recursively scan the sourcefolder.

• Single File Sets

If the scan finds a non-zipped-file it normally puts it in the set which has the name of the current folder. By enabling this option you can put each of such files in an own set (named after the found filename). If the files only differ by their extensions, they will all be put in the same set. A bit weird mode indeed....but sometimes useful ;)

• Add MD5

A MD5 checksum is calculated for all entries and will be stored in the DatFile as well, if this option is enabled.

• Add SHA1

A SHA1 checksum is calculated for all entries and will be stored in the DatFile as well, if this option is enabled.

• Add Year

Adds a year entry to the setentries. You can fill them automatically with the "match tagdata" option.

• Add Date

Adds a rom's date/timestamp to the dat.

• Add Manufacturer

(Empty) manufacturer strings are added to the setentries. You can fill them automatically with the next option.

• Set-Subfolder mode

  When a source zipfile has folderinformation stored and this option is enabled, the folder information is used in the datfile. When scanning unzipped sets, this option will put subfolders (from source-rootlevel + 1) in the same set.

• Match tagdata

If this option is disabled, Dir2Dat will copy the setname to the description string and will use an empty manufacturer string. By enabling, Dir2Dat checks the found setname with the currently loaded data and if it finds a match, it will use the stored Description and Manufacturer and Year string from that loaded data. For example: You want to create an artwork datfile for a profile you already got data for. You've loaded that existing profile, started Dir2Dat and now clrmamepro finds a set in the artworks folder, matches that name with the loaded profile and automatically adds the correct description and manufacturer strings.

• Add BIOS Reference

Normally Dir2Dat doesn't add BIOS Set information to the DatFiles. By enabling this option you will add the currently used BIOS information as resource tags. If nothing is loaded, nothing is added.

• Save / Load

With these 2 buttons (currently not shown in the screenshot above) you can save/load dir2dat settings.

• Create

Push the button to start the Scan/DatFile creation.

• Source-Folder

That's the folder you want to scan. All found files should be put to the DatFile.

• Dat-File

That's the name of the datfile which should be created. You can use %v %n %d as placeholders for strings you've already entered in the headerinformation (version, name and description).

• Use Dir2Dat Paths

Use Settings->Path Selector->Dir2Dat Paths as multiple dir2dat sourcefolders.

• Keep Archives As Files

If this option is ticked, zipfiles are handled as normal files instead of parsing each included file.