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OG Xbox Forums => Official MediaXMenu (MXM) Forum => Dashboard Forums => MXM ActionScripting Forum => Topic started by: SumDumGuy3 on August 30, 2004, 09:46:00 PM

Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: SumDumGuy3 on August 30, 2004, 09:46:00 PM

Hello Everyone,

First off I need to just say that BenJeremy is "Da Man!!!" and MXM is "Da Shiznit!!!" hehe. Seriously though... keep up the great work. MXM and XBMC are the two reasons I still like to play with Xboxs.

Ok, that said let me tell you what X-Loader is and why you might (or might not) even care that the scripts are nearly finished...

Many, many moons ago, I saw the need to have a installer/loader for the xbox. Actually, I didn't need one, my dad did... But anyway, so I told him I would make one. As I worked on it, I happened upon Slayers recently released Auto-Installer 2.0. I admit, I was very impressed with it. But as the initial coolness wore off and I looked at what he had done, I saw lots of room for improvement and many of the things I particulary wanted were not included. As mine came together I was impelled to return something to the community that had given me so much. But I realized I did not have the time nor the resources to support all the people with all of the questions and to make it widely available. I contacted SS113 and 1wolf1 aka Slayer about a joint effort or letting them have my work to integrate into his. During this time I continued working on mine. Looking over what Slayer had done helped me in the pursuit of the Super Installer I was making... Eventually it was finihsed and released as X-Loader. Much like Slayers it was based on EvoX, however mine was much more comprehensive. It took into account many things which slayer had not but was admittedly a rather complex and confusing loader. It had so many options that it could quickly loose you. In addition to the complexity Slayer felt it was simply too large to deploy. X-Loader was nearly 300 MB... hehehe... Anyway, I made some changes to make it more user friendly and yet still comprehensive by making two different evox.ini files. One was for the Noob and the other was for Advanced users. Anyway, I gave Slayer all of what I had and my ideas/suggestions and left it at that. I had always wanted to do more with it but because it was based on Evox it had some obvious and serious limitations. I never messed with it again. I looked at some of Slayers later releases and saw that he had infact incorporated many of my features. But it still didn't cut it for my dad. He wanted a new version of X-Loader with even more features and updated software... Having since been sold on MXM and ActionScripts as the greatest thing to ever happen to the xbox (Well, MXM and XBMC are equally great for different reasons to me, but that is another thread...) I decided it had to be done with MXM. Now as anyone else out there, I want all kinds of features that are only in the WIP. But I couldn't do it. I need something that can be used and distributed now. So This one was written to work with 0.9n.6 right now. No need to wait for the next release of MXM....

So anyway, look forward to seeing the scripts in the next few days... I would like to suggest that others start considering breaking down reusable functions into seperate scripts as I have. It is a nice easy way to help everyone by making scripts that can be dropped in and used in different scripts. They are functions that accept arguments and return information to the calling scripts!!! (yes it can return info to the calling script in 0.9n.6)... enough for now, you can look at those scripts when I post them...

Til then... keep on making the xbox the toy of choice for a more advanced kind of kid... the kind of kid who tears his toys apart and makes them do things they weren't intended to!!!

Regards,
SumDumGuy
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Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: flattspott on August 31, 2004, 10:55:00 PM

Sounds cool, be warned though in the next MXM release script will/can be entirley contained inside a single xml file.  Meaning you can have multiple scripts in one file.

I am still gonna give a whirl at an installer myself one day.

Just finishing up all my others first.   <

Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: SumDumGuy3 on August 31, 2004, 11:52:00 PM

hmmm, not entirely sure I follow you... what can be in the xml files? scripts? will I be able to write functions that return values? I am sure the next release will have tons of goodies I would love to have... but I don't know when the next release will be and I needed to do this now... so for now this works... as soon as a new release is available, trust me... I will be in a hurry to switch... hehe
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Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: SumDumGuy3 on September 02, 2004, 10:47:00 PM

Well, I am trying to poslish off the main script tonight... until then I have gone ahead and posted some of the sub scripts in the ActionScript Collection thread for now...

Love to hear some feedback... scripts look, good/bad/indifferent?

Regards,
SumDumGuy  <

Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: geniusalz on September 03, 2004, 06:26:00 PM

Looks good, except that you could do the returning in a 'global' variable.

Set _ReturnVal "blah"  <

Title: X-loader (mxm 0.9n.6 Edition) Nearly Complete !
Post by: SumDumGuy3 on September 03, 2004, 09:51:00 PM

geniusalz,

From my testing and what I have read, I thought global variables would persist their data down to files called, but not back up in 9n6. I think I read that this is possible with the WIP but I needed to make a releasable/useable script. So basically if I had a Main.xas with:

CODE

Set _ReturnVal 5 Set StartVal 81 BeginDraw UseCurrent MessageBox "Global _ReturnVal equals %_ReturnVal%...$eol$" EndDraw input CallFile SquareRoot.xas %StartVal% BeginDraw UseCurrent MessageBox "SquareRoot of %StartVal% is %_ReturnVal%...$eol$" EndDraw input Quit

Then in SquareRoot.xax was:

CODE

BeginDraw UseCurrent MessageBox "Global _ReturnVal equals %_ReturnVal%...$eol$" EndDraw input 'Code to determine square root of %1% put in variable %Contains9% Set _ReturnVal %Contains9% BeginDraw UseCurrent MessageBox "SquareRoot of %1% is %_ReturnVal%...$eol$" EndDraw input Quit

and then I ran the Main.xas it should display messages:

CODE

from Main.xas Global _ReturnVal equals 5... from SquareRoot.xas Global _ReturnVal equals 5... from SquareRoot.xas SquareRoot of 81 is 9... from Main.xas SquareRoot of 81 is 5...

I could be wrong but I believe that is the behaviour like I said, given that I am using 9n6 and not the WIP...

Can anyone confirm that? I guess I could put this on the xbox and test it... I might do that in a minute...

Thanks again,
SumDumGuy
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