Here is the post you’ve been waiting for. It’s the post where you can give suggestions about what can be improved with the homebrew browser or what should be added into the homebrew browser. Remember I don’t actually make the applications on the homebrew browser, I’m just asking the applications with links that you would like added.
Send updates directly to the Wii Message Board. (Navarr has a similar newsletter system, maybe you can collaborate.)
hi,
I extremaly recommend you to add geexbox homebrew, it’s based on linux and is very good. it already supports usb reading( very fast), blutooth control via mobile phones, and reads subtitles! Its the best media player on the wii. thx
One thing I’d love to have is support for 16:9, but it’s not that urgent 🙂
Another thing I’d love much more, instead:
Add an internal flag “unwanted” to every item, that it’s initially set to false.
Add a “Get Everything” button, that once clicked downloads the entire category content, be it an update or a new item, but that doesn’t d’load items marked with unwanted=true
When I delete an item, “unwanted” becomes true
When I manually download an item, the flag goes back to false.
This way I can download everything in a single click, try each software, delete what I’m not interested in and be sure that the next “Get Everything” will not d’load what I don’t like 🙂
One feature I feel is a must add, is adding other sources for files, alike “Installer.app” on Jailbroken iPhones/iPod Touches or apt-get in several Linux distros (ala Ubuntu).
It would be a great feature, and would make your app a standard in the homebrew scene.
1) Add a delete confirmation dialog. If nothing else, an accidental delete can cost a bit in time to re-download the app.
2) Watch your font size. I know my 27″ tube may not be the typical set anymore, but most of the HBB is illegible from standard viewing distance. I’d use the Shop channel to establish a minimum font size.
1. Threaded downloading so I can continue to browse, and do things while things download. Maybe even the option to pause/stop/resume downloads.
2. Font size. It’s really hard to read on a 32″ TV. Also, watch your placement/ keep things inside the Title or even Action Safe region (see programs like Final Cut Pro for the definition of Action safe or Title safe). There are two buttons in the lower left that I can barely see, and I’ve got no idea what they do.
3. Some stability notes: When first launching HBB, while downloading the images, the network hiccuped and HBB crashed. Also, I’ve had it freeze a couple times while trying to download.
Just thought of a few more:
4. Visual (on screen, like cursor glowing and the button highlighting) and physical (rumble on the wii remote) feedback when the cursor enters a button, or hovers over a button. More or less like how the Home Brew Channel or the main Wii menu behave. Maybe even an audio tick too.
5. More in depth info about apps. Get the info from the meta.xml files, and display a much bigger modal dialog box with this info. Something that just about fills the screen would be good.
i would like to start off by saying great app and genius idea IMO.
the first major thing that i would change is the text size must be much larger as previously stated. Also for ease of navigation i would like the ability to change selection with the wii’s arrow keys. the ability to browse while downloading/deleting would also be valuable.
Ive also heard of Guitar Fun but I’m not sure if that can be added or not
all in all though an amazing app
thanks
marc
you could potentially rearrange the menu similar to this image increasing the text size in the red zones
[img]http://i35.tinypic.com/30sga60.jpg[/img]
The bottom of the screen is always off the bottom of the TV. So I can’t fully see the icons and things at the bottom. I’m not sure if this is because of my Widescreen TV or just the way you’ve got the app set up.
Hello,
first of all thanks for this application, it’s my second favorite homebrew (just after the homebrew channel :D)
You seem to download the content of a game file by file in uncompressed format from the server (at least that’s what I undestood from the list file, if i’m wrong just supress my comment) I thougth it would be faster to download directly zip files with the correct file tree inside. There is already one application handling zip files if you need source “inspiration”. The homebrew is: Emu kidid’s VBA port and the files you need are (i think) unzip.cpp and unzip.h.
wizardofyendor is already using them in is work on wiicomiic so i think you could ask him some help with understanding if you need it (just look for is name in wiidev forum).
Again thanks and excuse my english (Hope it’s not too bad)
PS: I was asking myself too: why did you choose closed source?? Not that I disrespect your choice, but I’m still curious.
i think it would be cool if we were able to add an email address to our wiis so you could send us update messages about what new games have been added and so on.
BGQ: Closed source was mostly chosen to have control of the project, so that there is a one and only HBB. If I had open source, people could claim that they have x y z on there server and you just never know what it could be… could be a brick, etc. I wanted to make sure that people would feel secure when using the HBB.
Another reason I chose closed source was because the HBC did it :P. I did however release a net send example which sends a HTTP request to a server and prints the response. Combine this with the other game sources I have released and if someone wanted to, they could make their own HBB or other useful network applications.
PiesAreBlueGuy and Felix: That is actually a good idea. I’ve made an email address that you can add and you’ll be emailed when there are any updates to the HBB. The email address is hbb@codemii.com.
I’d like to see which controllers are supported with the apps. This is the one and only reason I got rid of the HBB as I’d just end up looking on the net for controller compatibility anyways.
Hey! Hbb doesn’t work on my WII! When i start it and it try to get the homebrew list,it says “exception (dsi)” or sth like that and i have to dÃsconect my wii cuz it doesn’t work. what’s happenning?
maudigenius: Try it again. I was changing the list file and was a problem and this happened to my Wii as well, but it should work now.
OK, thanx. I´m in Spain and i thought that it doesn´t work with this conection, but i didn´t know why if i could use it before… I´ll Try it today and if it doesn´t work i´ll post it here…
Nop!, It still doesn´t work… It says “Exception (DSI) ocurred”, then it shows a lot of numbers and i have to disconnect my WII because it doesn´t reponds.
Should i try with an older version?
Hello… i would suggest your server to support region redirecting.
With this redirecting function added it would be possible to establish a faster download mirror network (similar to the repositories of Linux). Depending on the region the IP comes from the request will be redirected to a HBB-Server near the downloader’s location.
I could provide a mirror for Germany if it is wanted.
Some other suggestions just came into my mind!
As There are several multi-version homebrews (like Snes9x) on the channel it can get very irretating.
It would be much better to have a submenu for thos homebrews where you can then choose the version to download.
As I’m speaking of submenus… The homebrews might be clearlier arranged in a list, similar to the ones of the shopping channel, than those pages. Having only the image, title and a short description of the homebrew. If one is interested in it, a detailed description and the download function can be opened by clicking the title, as I said similar to nintendo’s shopping channel.
Like K-Duke said. I could also provide a mirror in Germany. Just in case your are looking for one at all.
id love to see geexbox on ur list
Longer and better descriptions, perhaps? I know you get ’em off Wiibrew, but I would like to know more information on this application before I download it. e.g. What controllers are needed, What the program does, and authors?
And if you click for more information, it basically opens a seperate page that just shows a long description and pictures, then maybe a Go Back button to return to the app view.
i can imagine that the server load isent too bad yet but why not start early and remove all the strain.
implementation of bit-torrent technology would be very beneficial. you could have it set up so that codemii merely has .torrent files which we would download with HBB as the client. you could potentially just leave wiiconnect24 on HBB would seed all of the games. you could also then prioritize seeding, you would seed primarily people closest to you.
im pretty sure that there’s not enough knowledge about connect24 to accomplish this or anything else for that matter however it would be great to see implemented.
also what jake said above ^^^ i would have to agree with however maybe not a separate page but just remove the picture date version and add text when you hit about.
thanks for the best homebrew to date
Marc
i would like to have the delete button not only delete the folder under the apps directory but any other folder created in the root.
like how HBB has a temp directory or how SDexplorer has a config folder on the root of the SD card.
also since im talking about memory it would be nice to have somewhere that says stuff like mem usage/available/total would be nice to see.
thanks
marc
try not to add games like guitarfun , when i use the HBB i like to download then play strait away, otherwise downloading off my PC would’ve been faster and easier.
sorry for the double post, but it’s because of the songs function. there’s no instructions in or out of game. i had to delete it and re-download it from wiibrew.org just for the read-me file
Yeah, I never really wanted to add it for that reason, but people kept requesting it so I just did.
I think you should add a new section called installers, And add DVDX, any region changer etc
oh and have instructions to install txt reader, So your could include read mes for important apps, like any region changer if you were going to add it
The list of homebrew apps is getting pretty long, maybe in the HBB you could sort them alphabetically instead of date so they are easier to find and create a main menu like the one for the wii shop channel that would have the categories; Popular Titles, New/Updated Titles, Your Updates, Browse All Apps (keep the sub categories you’ve already got).
Also none of the apps are showing up for me in the Demos category.
Thanks drmario. I checked the demos and have fixed the issue.
I would very much like to see a channel version of the homebrew browser.
ya that would be nice 🙂
Reposting here as I added this to your v0.2.2 update post:
The homebrew browser is an excellent piece of software – thanks a million.
Couple of comments:
a) How about a new category named ‘Installed’ which shows all the applications you have installed? That way it’s easy to see in one go all the software which needs updating.
b) How about a new channel named ‘New’ which shows all new software across all categories?
c) How about an ‘update all’ button to allow with one click to update all installed software?
Once again, thank you for a great piece of software.
PS. I experienced the same ‘crash on first run’ problem but everything’s been smooth since then.
PPS. I have not experienced particularly slow downloads either – I think the Wi-fi connection on the Wii is generally slow (ftp only gives med 120kb/s) but HBB network speed isn’t slower than other apps.
You already have the HBB keeping track of the number of downloads for each app. Why not allow users to rate the apps theyve downloaded too? I know that aside from keeping a master list on the server of who voted for what this could be an abusable feature but I think it would be helpful regardless. Youd have to keep a small file in the settings saying which apps that person has already rated to keep them from rating again and allow them to rate apps which they currently have downloaded. And even then you may want to give ones and fives a lower weighting when calculating an apps’ rating.
It also definitely needs a longer description option. Take it from the xml file because the half sentence used now just isnt enough.
When the HBB first loads give a little popup screen that lists apps that you have downloaded that can be updated and give an ‘update all’ option so you don’t have to hunt around and do each update individually.
I would like a flash (swf) aplication so i can play flash games
First off, congratulations on developing such a fine piece of home brewed software.
I mostly second what many people are saying above. To add some unique suggestions:
1 – Try compressing every PNG image with pngout. What is it? A program that recompresses a PNG image losslessly. PNGs were meant to replace GIFs in every way but it didn’t happen because of no animation layers (now solved with the continuing feud between APNG and MNG) and because people around the world still believe GIFs achieve smaller filesizes than PNGs. False. This is mostly the imaging program’s fault for not having a good PNG compression technique (God knows I’m talking about Photoshop). Google this program (or the IrFanView Plugin) and run your images through it, I recommend it. You won’t save a lot of filespace since the images are already small, but I suppose every byte of bandwidth counts (unless you implemented the BitTorrent method of serving suggested above, but hell, honestly, that could take time).
2 – Take advantage of the catalog method of browsing through items. Just as in iTunes, make some lists like “Installed Brews”, “Recommended Items”, “Brickable Brews”, “Requiring BetaTesters”, “Updateable Brews”, etc.
3 – If you made the interface bigger and included some scrolling, you could also add some more info to every item or flags such as “Self Updating”, “Potentially unsafe”, “Brickable”, “Top 10 Downloaded”, “Requires PC Setting Up”, “Has GUI”, “Has sound”, “Modular”, “Manually Expandable”, etc.
Unlike other users, I’m content with the HBB loading as a homebrew on the Homebrew Channel and not as a channel itself. Why? Everything it downloads is run from the HBC, that means easy exiting and straight to the new downloads. Making it run as a channel would imply rebooting the Wii to exit, booting up the HBC and then exiting the HBC if you realized you wanted something else. Keeping it in the HBC makes it easier, faster and simpler.
I remember having more ideas but these are the only ones I can recall atm. Again, good piece of software, nice work!
there’s no need for a potentially unsafe/brickable category because if an app is that dangerous, it should not be available to download and use so easily (like a barrier to give you a chance to re-think your decision), if you are experienced enough to use such a app, there is no reson why you would need to rely on the HBB to install it for you.
@DrMario: The HBB is more like an automated homebrew grabber. It doesn’t necessarily deliver itself as a program for noobs. If so, how would everybody have it installed in the first place? Twilight hack, modded console and installed with HBC ISO, etc. Any method would imply technical knowledge.
If there’s knowledge, then there’s probably nobody stupid enough to intentionally misuse a potentially dangerous application. An example of such program would be the WadManager. I think it’s not listed to avoid legal issues rather than caring for the safety of the console. The HBBrowser is itself a browser of most of the known homebrew for the Wii (as long as it’s legal), not a noob tool. My suggestions were feeding the notion of this library-like function.
At least, this is my idea of what teknecal intends it to be. FYI, it’s just my opinion and I don’t intend to enforce it on anybody. Let’s all just bask in the awesomeness of this program, yes? 😀
Hi, and thank for the homebrew browser.
All the suggestion I had have already been made 🙂 ‘d just toss a vote for those I like:
– “New” and “installed” categories
– it would be nice to have all the info from the meta.xml file
– background downloading, or at least the ability to queue all the downloads and then fire them in one go
– bigger fonts (bigger everything actually, a lot of space is wasted on borders in the current appearance)
Thanks again,
Emme
please update GeeXboX (0.1alpha3)
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/GeeXboX
It’s a great program, Thanks,
But can you add 2 extra menu items:
“NEW” and “UPDATE”
In the “NEW” section add all new added software sinds last use of program
In the “UPDATE” section: A list of new updates for all programes installed on the wii, Now you must check all the sections for new update’s or new program’s. This will save a lot of search time and for the server a lot of useless send data.
Keep up the good work,
Thanks,
WIIfan
I have an Idea, custom homebrew lists! Lets say, somebodys card reader broke down but they have HBB. They could set it to read from a list to download custom homebrew, like maybe Beta Stages. Just an Idea.
Browser need to allow for WEP or WPA protocals if this is possible it would be nice to not have to throw the Wii in my Router DMZ and or turn off my WLAN Security just to download new apps and update old ones.
1) Not DL everytime you change a page
2) Download while browsing
I can code these for you if you give me enough details. email me.
3) Allow a bigger description, possible use the description in the XML file
4) have an option to search for apps installed and update them. It shouldnt automatically do it. Maybe have another tab who shows installed apps and updated version. 2 versions of the same app would be great.
mavakadachi: It only downloads the images when you change pages only if you don’t have those images. If you could code downloading while browsing that would be great.
WIIERO PLOX!! THX! XD
I know it’s been said plenty of times, but font size is a real issue on my screen, especially because it’s a CRT display.
I also agree with most of the ideas above, though not all are practicle I imagine.
The main suggestion I have is to help on your end and keep this thing manageable long term. I am not sure how your batabase currently works, but what about a web app that ties into your DB and allows homebrew authors to set up accounts and manage their own content, providing a way for them to “publish” their software to wiis in a manner of speaking and taking the load off your hands? This could spread out the work a bit and allow you to focus on core features. You could even set it to where you have to approve everything before publishing unless it’s a known/trusted author. I am sure there are plenty of people around here who could offer to build such a web app (I would love to offer but time is an issue for me ATM :-/ ) I just imagine this thing getting to be enormous and a real bear to try to keep up with all the new software and versions out there.
Otherwise, I am very impressed with the application and think your decision to keep it closed source for now in order to provide quality content is a good one.