HexLauncher Custom Vita

HexLauncher Custom
HexLauncher Custom
General
Author	BlackSheepBoy69
Type	Title Launchers
Version	1.2
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2023/04/02
Links
	Download
	Website
	Source

HexLauncher Custom, also known as VitaHex Launcher Custom or HexFlow Launcher Unofficial Custom, is a revamp mod for VitaHEX's 3D coverflow style launcher for PS Vita.

VitaHEX's HexFlow Launcher is an application that display and launch your games and homebrews in style. It features a 3D user interface to display your games with their box art and supports many customization options like custom covers, backgrounds, and - in v0.6 and above - one custom category.

When you launch a game/app from HexFlow Launcher, the launcher will close automatically without asking.

User guide

AutoBoot

If you want to auto-launch HexFlow Launcher every time your PS Vita boots up you can use the AutoBoot plugin by Rinnegatamante.

Download Covers and Backgrounds

In v0.3 and above, covers can be downloaded automatically from the settings menu (Start button).

You can also download covers and backgrounds manually here. Thanks to astuermer for creating the original cover archive used in v0.9.1 and below, and big thanks to jimbob4000 for maintaining the current cover archive.

Custom Covers

Place your custom covers in ux0:/data/HexFlow/COVERS/PSVITA/.

Cover images must be in png format and the file name must match the App ID or the App Name of each app (recomended resolution 256x256px).

In v0.9 and above, games in the PS1 category can have cover png's named to match the App ID, or the App Name, or the PSX Serial as found in the triangle menu.

Sample vita cover image.

Custom Background

Place your Background.png or Background.jpg image in ux0:/data/HexFlow/ (recomended resolution 1280x720px or less).

Some custom backgrounds are available here. In v0.9 and above, these sample custom backgrounds are included by default.

Custom Category

In v0.6 and above, take the applist.dat file in ux0:data/HexFlow/ and rename it to customsort.dat.

This will generate a 5th category "Custom" and you can put what games you want or reorder it within VitaShell, or on your PC in a unix-compatible text editor such as gVim Easy.

Windows notepad won't work.

Custom Music

Place your Music.ogg or Music.mp3 file in ux0:data/HexFlow/.

Music will play automaticaly when the "Sounds" option is enabled.

Important notes

For PSP bubbles generated by Adrenaline Bubbles Manager you must set the value of BubbleID to TitleID in the settings menu of ABM tool.

In v0.9 and above, PS1 Bubble ID doesn't matter because it's scanned in binary during the startup.

Subfolders and psp categories plugin are not supported.

Controls

D-Pad/Left Analog or Touchscreen - Navigate your library

R/L - Skip 5 items

Select+R/L - Skip by alphabet

Cross - Select/Launch game/app

Square - Change Category

Triangle - Game Details

Circle - Change View/Cancel

Start - Settings menu

D-Pad Up/Down - Access SwitchView UI menu

In v1.0 and above, D-Pad Up/Down can either be used to access SwitchView UI menu, or to change category if either of these options are enabled in the Settings menu.

Screenshots

Known issues

It very rarely freezes/crashes every now and then, seems to be an "Out of Memory"-type crash related to the uncompressed audio.

(^All the above bugs are also present in VitaHEX's HexFlow Launcher 0.5.)

Suspending sometimes causes a crash if you're using custom music.

New glitch in v1 and above: hitting "download all PSP covers" doesn't seem to work due to a typo in the code cleanup of v1.0, but all single downloads work fine.

Due to how the coding of the massive performance boost of v1.0.0+ is, some apps sometimes add garbage to the app title. A double scan on non-alphanumeric app titles might be able to fix this, or a better renaming function might work as a hotfix.

Changelog

v1.2

Half a hotfix release, half a proper release; several new features and bugfixes.
Boots up in ~3.7 seconds with 500 games after first boot. JIT switch generation ("rolling cache") keeps cache always up-to-date instantly. 10 Languages.
Added "Recently Played ON/OFF" setting. TURNING IT OFF WILL CLEAR YOUR RECENTLY PLAYED DATA UNLESS STARTUP CATEGORY "Return to last played game" IS ENABLED. The first time you launch a game with "recently played" enabled, it will lag for a second. Not sure why. Doesn't happen for 2nd+ launches.
Simplified the reading/writing cache code, fixed rolling cache error ["String"?"]:1041:Attempt to call global 'FileConcat'(a nile value)"
Covers can now be downloaded for PSP games (and PS1 games) regardless of their name or ID!!!
Fixed a visual glitch when using "return to last played game" in SwitchView mode.
Moved footer bar slightly, to look more like HexFlow Launcher Official. Made start menu slightly more stylish.
Commented out ~100 lines of code not necessary anymore due to rolling cache. "Cache has been updated" removed from cover download message.
Prioritized CPU buff (faster startup)
Medium-sized code cleanup and replaced several System.doesFileExist() with cur_quick_dir[] (faster startup, faster overrides)
IF YOU WERE USING AN EXPERIMENTAL VERSION: ux0:data/HexFlow/debugfile.dat is no longer necessary... you can delete it.
"applistReadTime" (in start menu>more information) now includes time it took to write to cache (if applicable).
Combined "Music ON/OFF" and "Music: Loop ON/OFF" into one setting because it looks better, especially if "shuffle" is added.
"Music: Loop ON/OFF" can only be set if music exists.
Added credit to fwannmacher in credits (start menu>more information)
index.lua is the source code

v1.1

Roughly the same startup time as the previous version, but no more refreshing cache, even for hundreds of apps!!!!!
This is an intermediary release. Still working out an annoying GPU crash for the RetroFlow integration and the lag caused by grid view before either of those 2 features get released. It's just that someone requested what's stable to be released.
- Removed the "Refresh Cache" and any settings related to startup scan.
- New function switch_generator()... I worked very hard on it and it improves the app a LOT.
- 1: It reads the ENTIRE app folder almost instantly. This is better than Vita Launcher (which just reads app.db) because this should be able to display anything that couldn't get added to app.db
- 2: It almost instantly checks for any new covers for every app on startup.
- 3: Slightly faster overrides and cover downloads
- 4: It improves startup time slightly
- 5: In the unreleased version, it has been harnessed to instantly load all the RetroFlow ROM's and their overrides/renames/covers.
- Reformatted the font files (credit RetroFlow) and optimized image metadata to reduce startup times
- Cleaned up a the code a little bit. Ex: in cache writer
- New Startup Category "Return to Last Played Game/Category" (Credit fwannmacher)
- You can now tap in SwitchView
- You can now also use analog sticks or tapping to access the bottom menu in SwitchView
- Upgraded the secret select+L/R jump-by-alphabet feature to be more like RetroFlow's (skip numbers, always go to first-of-a-kind)
- Fixed an extremely rare crash related to select+L
- Minor bugfix for shadows in SwitchView.
- Now using Rinnegatamante's app title bugfix. Should fix Invictaz's issue regarding an app with a corrupt apptitle.
Downgrades:
- Removed the Language 10 - Chinese - temporarily since some letters aren't displaying right. Will have to import the fix from RetroFlow. The translation file is up-to-date though.
- Removed 3 "less popular" backgrounds - Wood 2, Marble, and Playstation Pattern 2
- index.lua is the source code

v1.0.1

Still has all of the features of v1.0.0, ex: SwitchView UI integration, instant overrides, and cy33hc/copyicons integration.
Fixed where some overrides wouldn't save to overrides.dat.
Fixed where you sometimes have to click "download cover" twice for a PS1 game due to a value not being cleared.
Fixed where overriding to PS1 sometimes caused a minor visual bug.
New feature and/or bugfix: downloaded single covers now show up ASAP instead of showing blank temporarily.

v1.0

SwitchView UI v0.1.2 integration + vita cover crop ability.
Extreme performance boost, the best so far.
Much better cover downloads, especially PS1.
App Renaming. Reset via triangle/start menu.
Better music support. Toggle loop, use .OGG/.MP3.
cy33hc/copyicons full integration (start menu).
Massively cleaned up code from v0.9.
4 new backgrounds (12 total) or use your own.
Spin override animation + instant recache.
10 languages, easy to edit language files.
Many new options in settings.
Secret Feature: select+L/R to jump by alphabet.
Completed Frameworks for future features:
grid view support (search l==p in source code).
Retroflow (done, in bugtesting).
Individual app overclock profiler (done, in bugtesting).
Super-fast self-updating cache (done, in bugtesting).

v0.9.1

Edited some triangle menu messagebox translations to display properly.
Removed select button debug messagebox that was accidentally left in public release.
Added oneshot.png and cache_GIF_25x25.gif to data folder so the finished app would be 6.68 instead of 6.66mb.

v0.9

+2 Languages (Chinese, Polish). 10 total.
8 backgrounds, 6 From HEXFlow, 2 from Retroflow.
Starts up in ~2.9 seconds for 550 games (after the first launch). Refresh cache via the start menu (a later version may have "rolling refresh", so you won't have to).
Click.wav -> ogg stability bugfix (credit retroflow). It was supposed to help reduce crashing but I'm not sure.
Minor graphical bugfix (in custom category in v0.8).
Still using the buffed CPU code at the start from HexLauncher Custom v0.8, (now also in Retroflow v3.5!) for performance boost.
General PS1 bugfix, proper categorization and you can press triangle to generate a serial for cover download of PS1 games with bad ID's (most of them).
So much better touch scrolling.
Cool loading screen for when writing to cache.
Instant inline recache for single cover download, instant inline recache for "overrides" was removed (well, it's still there but commented out) because some people said it caused a crash... so you'll have to do proper refreshes for that.
There is an unreleased version with full rolling cache (when you install an app, it's instantly be added to cache on startup), but the code is pretty cringeworthy so it's not released yet.
“You must close HexLauncher First” bugfix.
Extreme code cleanup.
Some progress towards adding Retroflow Rom-launching features, specifically, “xCatLookup” function (only framework).
Proper footer button spacing (90% credit Retroflow).
It will generates "applist.dat" on launch or when you hit "Refresh Cache". Either edit it within Vitashell, or upload it to your computer and edit it with gVim. Notepad won't work, it must be a unix-based text editor. Rename it to "customsort.dat" and put it back in "ux0:/data/HexFlow/" to create the custom category.
I recommend you put Moonlight first, then your system apps like Retroarch and Autoplugin II, then leave the other games in normal alphabetical order. You can put them in any order you want though. For v0.8, you can have duplicates in customsort if you put them. (NOTE: this caused a minor graphical bug for some PSP games and was removed in next version).
Wanna know how fast your startup was? (it should be ~2900 milliseconds). Go to the start menu > about.

v0.8

New Portugese and Japanese language options. (8 total).
Starts up in ~4 seconds after the first launch. Refresh cache via the start menu (a later version may have "rolling refresh", so you won't have to). After overriding a game's category or downloading a cover, you must refresh cache.
Super performance boost from buffed CPU code at the start.
It will generates "applist.dat" on launch or when you hit "Refresh Cache". Either edit it within Vitashell, or upload it to your computer and edit it with gVim. Notepad won't work, it must be a unix-based text editor. Rename it to "customsort.dat" and put it back in "ux0:/data/HexFlow/" to create the custom category.
I recommend you put Moonlight first, then your system apps like Retroarch and Autoplugin II, then leave the other games in normal alphabetical order. You can put them in any order you want though. For v0.8, you can have duplicates in customsort if you put them. (NOTE: this caused a minor graphical bug for some PSP games and was removed in next version).
Wanna know how fast your startup was? (it should be ~4000 milliseconds). Go to the start menu > about.

v0.7

The only difference between 0.7 and 0.6 is that this one loads all icons flat and refuses to use covers (this speeds up the app at least 15%). It also has only 2 categories (all and custom).

v0.6

Mod of VitaHex's HexFlow Launcher 0.5 that lets you custom sort your games in any order you want and put cool cases on them.

Credits

Credits (Revamp Mod):

Programming - BlackSheepBoy69 and one or more coders who wish to remain anonymous.

Special Thanks:

Inspiration + various help from Team RetroFlow.
Users who enjoy HexFlow Launcher, HexLauncher Custom, and Retroflow, who submit feature requests to this/those projects (which I do watch), and occasionally code. Thank you.

Credits (General):

Programming/UI - Sakis RG.
Developed with Lua Player Plus by Rinnegatamante.

Special Thanks:

Creckeryop.
andiweli (HEXFlow Covers database) (v0.9.1 and below).
jimbob4000 (RetroFlow Covers database) (v1.0 and above).

Translations:

French - @chronoss.
German - @stuermerandreas.
Spanish - @kodyna91.
Italian - @TheheroGAC.
Russian - @_novff.
Swedish - @Spoxnus86.
Portuguese - @nighto (Retroflow).
Japanese - @iGlitch (Retroflow).
Chinese - @acd13141 (Retroflow).
Polish - @SK00RUPA (Retroflow).

Google Translate was used for HexFlow Launcher Unofficial Custom translations that weren't found on HexFlow Launcher and Retroflow. Retroflow's oddly formatted translation files have been standardized.

External links