HxC file ordering

HxC Floppy Emulator E-mu SP1200 support
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rmri
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Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:11 pm

HxC file ordering

Post by rmri »

What attribute of the files/folders does HxC use when sorting them on the front display?
To me it seems random, definitely not alphabetical, how can I achieve some consistency?

Thanks

Jeff
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Re: HxC file ordering

Post by Jeff »

rmri wrote:
Sun Jul 28, 2019 6:47 pm
What attribute of the files/folders does HxC use when sorting them on the front display?
To me it seems random, definitely not alphabetical, how can I achieve some consistency?

Thanks
The FAT order.

You can use a file sorting software to sort the sd card file system.

Like this one :
http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort/

rmri
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:11 pm

Re: HxC file ordering

Post by rmri »

Jeff wrote:
Mon Jul 29, 2019 12:10 am
rmri wrote:
Sun Jul 28, 2019 6:47 pm
What attribute of the files/folders does HxC use when sorting them on the front display?
To me it seems random, definitely not alphabetical, how can I achieve some consistency?

Thanks
The FAT order.

You can use a file sorting software to sort the sd card file system.

Like this one :
http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort/

Thanks for the answer Jeff.
I was able to make the ordering the way I want it with some command line tools, but I'm a programmer.

But consider this:
I gave one of my samplers to my friend with the HxC and as I was explaining how it works it just dawned on me how bad the user experience is for any newcomer. I got used to it over time, but there are a list of annoyances that make people just scratch their head:

- Renaming: if you rename an image, the new name won't show until you step one image forward and then back, very confusing

- Navigation: the HxC drive loads the last image used, that's great, but once you navigate forward or backward, it will jump out to the root folder somewhere, not the next image or staying in the folder, you just completely loose where you were. It's a usability issue.

- file ordering, I know it's FAT, I know you can modify it with tools, but God it is just annoying. You just want to dump disk images on the drive and have the same order on the drive, not do gymnastics with command line tools, it should be automatic, maybe a flag in the HxC config, set it for alphabetical, done! I really wish it was possible.

- Renaming: images renamed on the HxC won't be reflected on the file system. I know, allocation, name collision etc, I just wish it would be solved.


So, in the end even though I have workarounds for couple of these problems and I can use HexEditors to read the names out of image files, tools to do the FAT order, it's just too geeky to use.

It would be great if at least the first two could be fixed, I get it that the last two are more involved.

Jeff_HxC2001
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2011 2:31 am

Re: HxC file ordering

Post by Jeff_HxC2001 »

I know all of this and btw all the points you have listed here are fixed in the 3.x.x.x HxC firmwares.

But the 1.x.x.x/2.x.x.x devices are quite limited and the flash is almost full... Really not sure if this is doable... Maybe with a major firmware refactoring (rewrite most stuff in ASM...)

For the first issue i have to rescan the sdcard disk to check if the last selected image has changed. Maybe doable, but i am not sure about the consequence on the power up time. This may cause issues with machines accessing very quickly the drive at power up.
EDIT : Renaming on the Emulator or on a PC ?

The second issue is probably fixable.

The third issue : hard to do : the device have 4kB of RAM + 64kB of SPI sram. I can use these 64kB to sort the file names but i see it quite slow. + the flash space issue.

Last issue : Need a full FAT library (done in the 3.X.X.X HxC FW). And again the problem here is the flash space.

I will investigate this flash space issue and see if i can make some codes dynamically loadable to use the sdcard space.

rmri
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:11 pm

Re: HxC file ordering

Post by rmri »

Jeff_HxC2001 wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:03 pm
I know all of this and btw all the points you have listed here are fixed in the 3.x.x.x HxC firmwares.
Thanks for the reply Jeff.
I have multiple drives from Lotharek as those seemed the most durable and reliable ones, as well as the most expensive :)

I greatly appreciate if you look into some of these problems, but completely understand if some of them are out of scope.
Even if the simple renaming thing is fixed, that would be an improvement.

I will take a look at the 3.x firmwares and compatible devices to see what's new, thanks.

EDIT: Renaming on the emulator.

Jeff
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Re: HxC file ordering

Post by Jeff »

For the first issue (renaming issue) : Ok so if this on the emulator, this is another story and then this is probably fixable too.

BTW About the on-emulator renaming feature : Are you really using this feature ? I mean : this appears to me very user unfriendly to rename the files with these 3 buttons. (this is just to have some feedback about this old feature)

Jeff
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Re: HxC file ordering

Post by Jeff »

First issue Fixed :

https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_dri ... rmware.zip

(In the Beta folder).

rmri
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Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:11 pm

Re: HxC file ordering

Post by rmri »

Awesome Jeff.
I installed the firmware and can confirm the name display is updated after a rename, I'm very thankful this got addressed.

To elaborate on the naming on the device:
I create 20-30 empty images to work with, and name them 01...30EMP.HFE in the root folder.
I do my music on the SP-1200 and when I have something to save I rename one of the empty images to something I can remember and save.
I use fairly short names, so using the 3 buttons is not really an issue, I got quite fast with it.
This way when I browse later I can see which images have music and I don't need to take notes about what image contains what song, or have to touch the computer.

When I want to backup, I will copy the image files to the computer, but then I have the "EMP" filenames.
I open each HFE file in a Hex Editor, so I can see in the byte header exactly what name I used on the emulator and rename the image on the computer as well.
If I want to work on something old I can find it easily and copy it back to the SD card.

This was the best workflow I could come up with, I don't have to take notes or use the computer, just have to rename and save and keep the creative juices flowing. Hope it makes sense, if somebody has a better workflow I would be happy to hear about it :)

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