XSelect 0.9 Big thanks to the earlier developers of this program for releasing source!!!!! The old version almost fit my needs perfectly. (The main issue I had was reliance on configuration files that weren't copiable to unmodded systems from within the official MS Dashboard. This is now remedied.) What is this? A program that can run other Xbox executables. It seems this was originally created to be the fastest interface to launch several different (dashboard) programs, and remember a default. What is so good about this program? It is less than 35% of the size of the Evolution-X RemoteX dashboard, and less than 20% of the filesize of Evo-X RemoteX if XBEPack is used. Other dashboards are even larger: This is 12%-ish of UnleashX's size. This can be non-interactive and ignored except for when it is useful. An Xbox controller can be used to find any file to execute, even one buried deeply in nested sub-directories, without any pre-made config files. (Advantages over Evo-X RemoteX, not the single-file UnleashX.) These, and its speed of use, are the strong points. XSelect also has a password feature (which may be unique, if not very useful). Example uses of this are included below. What is the biggest downside of this program, compared to similar programs? No included FTP server (one reason this is < 35% of Evo-X's size). No other super-fancy features: It's nice to have other dashboards too. How to handle problems: Error 21: This has to do with signature checking. Try loading another BIOS using a mod chip's feature or using a correctly-signed Phoenix BIOX Loader w/ XBEDump. Research the issue elsewhere. Another error: Research the issue elsewhere. Learn how to make your own Xbox executables, and modify the source code to this program. New features: Lots! More than a dozen substantial new changes. Easy to use on any Xbox without earlier needing to put text file on it * Configuration files are not needed to execute any file on your hard drive. Earlier versions could be configured within XSelect only to run *.XBE's in root directories * Config files (now unnecessary, but nice for convenience) are now copiable from within Microsoft's dashboard. Any known configuration files in the old E:\UDATA\01010001 location get copied to the 0123456789ABC subdirectory. Icons and titles are made as needed so saves are valid Important Improvements * G: (LBA48) support (I think. Since the only hard drive in my Xbox is the one Microsoft put there, F: and G: support hasn't been tested by me. Basically, I expanded on logic used by F:, so the code recognizes G: as a valid possible drive letter, and assumed the custom KERNEL and/or BIOS takes care of any very fancy LBA48 code.) Other Improvements/Fixes: * The Applications Menu can be configured within the program. * Configuration files may be loaded from where XSelect is. Now multiple copies of XSelect can use multiple configs. * Smaller, 256K executable.(bcl.sf.net's Data compression used.) * For speed, removed unnecessary call to Sleep(2000) command. This speed up is more than 250 times as good as what the 7ms internal data decompression is bad for speed. (The developer of 0.9 had no troubles pressing buttons during allotted time with this intentional pause gone) * Improved reliability (I hope :) ), works on formtted drive as E:\UDATA is not assumed to pre-exist. (UNTESTED, maybe old code somehow worked fine in these conditions.) * QuickPick Applications now runs program from the list of Apps, not the Dashboards list. This may solve problems from when LoadAppSlots was called instead of LoadDashSlots. * Displays directions when assigning programs (yay!) and on init * Setup of programs now recognizes more programs. Recognition support for Phoenix BIOS Loader and UnleashX added. Also, any programs without support built into XSelect, but with an embedded XBE title, will now show that. * GUI now chops super-long filenames (uses ellipsis ("...")) if it would otherwise cause menu unreadability. (This is mainly evident when using multi-level subdirectories, but E:\WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.XBE made trouble.) * QuickPick Dash and QuickPick App are now on main configuration menu, so program can be easily run after it is set up. * Screen dimmer became saver: It can dim repeatedly and totally blanks if dims enough times. Menus now also dim. * Many new config files supported for use with new abilities. * Can use file maintanance scripts (text list of files stored in supported filenames). 'twas easier to code than to use Cosmetic/Informational (Developer preference, not so much a feature): * When showing message and needing input, program suggests input * Program saving will pause on message letting you know it saved * Reboot option now renamed to Error 21, since that's what it really does on a retail BIOS. (This does reboot with some alternate BIOSes, just like any other Error 21.) Evolution-X RemoteX's In Game Reset (IGR) acts on E21. * The program now calls itself XSelect *everywhere*. References to X-Select(or) refer to old versions. Inconsistencies were in 0.6. 0.9's name follows file system's limits. Documentation Improvements: * Documented interaction w/ other controllers (Gamepad 2, KeyB) * Some documentation was only included in the source archive of X-Select 0.6, but the important information is now included in the main archive. * Documentation formatted to 78 columns * Documented information on modifying the *.XBE file. This ver passes all of XBEDump's tests (no false negatives). It seems that's just since VS6/an older XDK was used. * Documentation is provided to help other developers make a working XBE file from the source. (Relies on MS XDK.) The Visual Studio .NET (7.0) project files are not included like they were in 0.6. These files didn't work in VS6, nor VS .NET 2003 (7.1) which converted badly (into a Windows, not an Xbox, project). Instead, documentation is provided to help with any XDK/VS ver. Other Changes: * Internationalization may be in a less ideal state than earlier versions. The developer of this version is less well versed with some modern Int'l-aware methods of coding. For instance, references to _T() may have been removed, LPCTSTRs were made or converted to on an as-needed basis w/o knowing reasons behind the choice of that filetype. (Ah, the good ol' days of char *) * Many code changes. Now uses STL (part of recent Visual Studio releases) and BCL (external library). Due to support for G: (LBA48 drives) and data compression, several files have been updated. MessageBox() has been renamed (so it can be searched for separate from RenderM'Box). New functions added, some old functions have merged. Functions may not be listed at top of files. (Seemed better to release program early than worry about that) History/Future: 0.9: This version was created by a new developer, different from X-Select 0.6 (who were new developers who gave the application a new name, different from older developer(s) who made X-Selector 0.5). The developer who made 0.9 will probably not make any further changes to this program, and does not suggest that this person is now in charge of this program's development. The reason for the 0.9 (rather than 0.61 or 0.7) version change is because there has been substantial updating, and the program is now very near the quality one would expect for a 1.0 product. There are no known problems, and almost every good thing that was thought of but planned to NOT make it into this version, did make it into this release. The main reasons I'm ...
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