The Daily Click

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Author:	ShadowCaster	Submitted:	8th January, 2004	Favourites:	0
Genre:	Application	Downloads:	175
Rated:

C-Base is a program that allows you to create a database of all your portable media, including CDs and floppy disks, to make searching for a file you need quick and easy -- without having to manually insert every single backup media you own.

The program has menu's which aid in setting up and copying media information to your computer, as well as updating existing media, browsing and searching. The database is also saved as a plain text document so that you can make changes yourself to existing data, or even develop child applications.

C-Base was created using Jamagic. The source code will be made available at a later date.

Please leave your comments.

~Mike

Review This Download

http://www.create-games.com/shadowcaster/software/cbase120010.zip (1.12mb )

Posted by Simon Colmer

8th January, 2004

kool, i will try it when i get home, looks quality!

Posted by Danny Boy

8th January, 2004

your first app!!! {celebrate}

Posted by Klikmaster

8th January, 2004

Yay! An app by ShadowCaster ^_^

Posted by

8th January, 2004

First he comes back and now this! Wahoo!

Posted by Shen

8th January, 2004

lol, in the About screen, you can use Control-L E and R to move the text about :P

Posted by Shen

8th January, 2004

For 2310 files, they don't look very well sorted :(

Posted by ShadowCaster

8th January, 2004

They're sorted by CD then Name. If you're after a particular file you just search for whatever the name is :)

Posted by Jason Darby

8th January, 2004

Looks like a nicely designed product.

Posted by ShadowCaster

8th January, 2004

OK, changed the pictures ^__^

Posted by Zip2kx

9th January, 2004

just what i needed :)

Posted by

9th January, 2004

I haven't got a clue what this app is for :P

Posted by Domarius

12th January, 2004

I'm glad to see someone else wants to be organised! That's why I made mine. But this one is much more fully featured, with a built in search, and a way of sorting the files. Very much needed. I will probably post another comment after I've used it for a while.

Posted by cake

17th January, 2004

Oh god yes! I saw this on the front page and couldnt wait for the download to finish. I've wanted to make something like this for a while, but never got around to it. Plus I just did a backup, time to start getting organised! :D

Posted by Domarius

19th January, 2004

I'm going to use the word CD synonomously with the word Media. The reason why this is so long, is because this is something I really care about (the design of software, and a cataloguing program like this). I think this program is really usefull, but there are a few things that are stopping it from being usefull to me, which means other people possibly will as well. Critisisms: When you search for a file, once you've found it, and you've worked out what CD it's on, how do you know where you've put that CD? I think the program could greatly benifit from a way of dividing the CD's up into categories; just one level will do. I have a system where I do not number the CD's, but instead, categorise them into folders that represent where they are stored, eg "Games" folder, and "Music" folder, and "Programs", and "Backups", etc. As opposed to numbering CD's, I feel this is a more human way of sorting things, and means you only have to look through all the CD's in the "Games" box/folder/case to find that CD, rather than search all your CD collections randomly. What would really be helpfull in this interface is to sort by either of the 3 columns; Name, size, and comment, and also 2 new columns called File type (which simply contains the extention of each file) and Date. (these 2 extra fields would really help when browsing for particular files) Just like the explorer interface. I'm sure an example for this type of "Explorer" view comes with Jamagic. That window could really benifit from using a standard explorer interface (if there is no way to automatically create this in Jamagic, there really SHOULD be - tell me if it isn't and I'll add it to the wishlist myself), since you could type a word quickly to jump to that file in the list, rename files, edit comments, etc. The search results window would use this view too. Like windows explorer does - its so helpfull to be able to browse a selection of files in their order of size, so you can find the biggest one, etc. As a standardisation, the buttons at the top; Add, Update, Browse, etc. should really be Tabs. Because as buttons, they don't cause the program to actually perform a task, they just switch between views, which are what Tabs are for. There's no way to cancel any of the processes that I noticed (Getting the file list, adding the files to the database, searching). Your computer might do a whole CD quickly, but what if someone is cataloguing a newly burned DVD? Those can store much more files, and is only one case where the process could take a while. I can think of a few others off the top of my head. What if someone has a slower CD-ROM? Here is an article on why people need to think about what is going to happen to their software when it gets out into the 'real world'. http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/Craftsmanship.html It's really appropriate because he's actually using the 'need to cancel a process' as an example. The important thing is "stress testing". Obviously he's talking about things on a larger scale, but the principal is the same. The program broke, for me. After adding a 2nd CD to the database, the dialogue box "Media added sucessfully" was displayed, and I was a while getting back to clicking the "OK" button because I had to leave the computer. When I got back, I clicked the OK button, the window went away, and nothing else would happen. All the buttons animated the clicking, but they did nothing. Not even the windows X button would close the program, which is really strange for a program running under XP. I used Task Manager to end C-Base, and started it again. Compliments and questions; This thing gets the file list FAST! How did you do it? Mine uses a recursive function that uses the Jamagic "get file list" from the current folder, stores the files, then uses the Jamagic "get folder list" from the current folder, and iterates through the list, calling itself for each of the sub folders. The way of retreiving the file date is by a snippit of code that Hech (from the Clickteam forum) wrote, that uses the windows kernel.dll. If you use it, you'll see the speed difference. What are you doing differently?? I really want to know. The search function is great. Has the standard "any or all words" interface. And everything else about the program is great.

Posted by Simon Colmer

21st June, 2004

why not put that in a review?