Hacking Programmer Needed! solution to sneeks 47 channel limit!

[HowardC]

I'm a windows programmer and I've been investigating the sneek problem of only being able to "see" the first few channels on sneek. I think I have an idea for a solution, but I don't know how to program wii homebrew (nor do I have any real motivation to learn).

The wii system menu (both real and emulated) stores it's channel positioning data in the iplsave.bin

ipsave file structure

The file is really simple and aside from a md5 hash at the bottom and a bit of non-changing header data it's basically a list of the 48 channels to display.


My solution to getting sneek to show more channels is real simple:

1. Make an app that prints a list of ALL channels on your nand (could be done via showmiiwads)
2. Make a homebrew app and channel that shifts the channels in ipsave.bin each time you enter it and exits back to the (emulated) system menu. The system menu refreshes the list and boom! You have new channels shown!

The interface could simply be two channels in the system menu... one who's icon shows a left arrow in the far left channel slot, and a channel with a right arrow in the far right slot. No visuals inside the app or anything... you launch it and it dumps you back to the freshly shifted system menu. When the shift occurs, it always leaves the left arrow and right arrow channels where they are.


So... good idea? Is it doable?

Thanks for listening!

UPDATE!
=============
Pc-end app Relesed!!
Sneek Channel Manager
=============

 

[G0dLiKe]

Hey HowardC, nice to see you around

Good Idea BTW.

If its doable we will see when the coders see this post.

 

[HowardC]

Likewise. Good to hear from you man.

I don't know if you have permissions to edit the file on the wii end of things, but I whipped up a quick proof-of-concept app on the pc end and editing the iplsave.bin on your nand does indeed re-arrange the channels!

Even if the wii channel thing doesn't pan out, this little app will be quite useful. How so? Well lets say you've had your nand setup for triiforce only and are ready to take the leap to sneek. Well unless you installed a triiforce channel prior to your nand dump you don't have access to any games beyond the initial 48 as your triiforce channel (the only real way to view the other games) is at the end of your channel list and thus won't show up! With this you can move triiforce to the beginning of the list.

I'll be using it to move all the games that don't run in triiforce natively to the first 48. I know some people sware by running sneek all the time, but I prefer to only run it for games I can't get running on the wii normally with triiforce.


I'll post the app once I've polished it up a bit later this week.

 

[VashTS]

I use forwarder isos to access the ones beyond what sneek cannot see, plus sneek takes a while to load with a large nand. then i can launch them from a usb loader. but this would be good for using sneek as it is more compatible. good luck on the project hoping to see it soon.

 

[FGOD]

I'm a windows programmer and I've been investigating the sneek problem of only being able to "see" the first few channels on sneek. I think I have an idea for a solution, but I don't know how to program wii homebrew (nor do I have any real motivation to learn).

The wii system menu (both real and emulated) stores it's channel positioning data in the iplsave.bin

ipsave file structure

The file is really simple and aside from a md5 hash at the bottom and a bit of non-changing header data it's basically a list of the 48 channels to display.


My solution to getting sneek to show more channels is real simple:

1. Make an app that prints a list of ALL channels on your nand (could be done via showmiiwads)
2. Make a homebrew app and channel that shifts the channels in ipsave.bin each time you enter it and exits back to the (emulated) system menu. The system menu refreshes the list and boom! You have new channels shown!

The interface could simply be two channels in the system menu... one who's icon shows a left arrow in the far left channel slot, and a channel with a right arrow in the far right slot. No visuals inside the app or anything... you launch it and it dumps you back to the freshly shifted system menu. When the shift occurs, it always leaves the left arrow and right arrow channels where they are.


So... good idea? Is it doable?

Thanks for listening!

first of all nice to see you back HowardC! i thought you would never come back

i think this is a great idea. too bad i can't code... but you could ask my bro on irc or on his forum...

 

[mvgc3]

That's a really clever solution!

If I can suggest one thing though, make it only affect pages 2-4 or better yet make it change the channels between the "Back" and "Forward" channels. That way users can keep their system channels and/or their favorite games readily available while still having access to the rest of them.

 

[SanGor]

why make a wii/PC app to do that, when a much better way would be to implement it into the sneek menu!

 

[buffdog]

why make a wii/PC app to do that, when a much better way would be to implement it into the sneek menu!

can some one do that?plz

 

[HowardC]

Well the sneek menu doesn't show up unless you have disc backups, so that probably wouldn't be the best all-around solution. It could be implemented though.

I don't use sneek all the time, rather I just use it for wiiware storage, so I don't know much about the DI menu.

My pc-end app that allows you to edit the first 47 is almost done. What I've figured out in making it though is that getting a list of all titles on your wii takes a little while. I would imagine that making something on the wii that does something similar would be a bit laggy. Again, I don't code on the wii though so I wouldn't know.

Probably the best solution would be to make a bunch of iplsave.bin's on the pc end of things (my app could be modified to do so) and have the wii end stuff simply copy over the appropraite one. The drawback of this, of course would be anything installed while in sneek via a homebrew app wouldn't show up in these menus until you updated your list on the pc-end. Either that, or have a configuration option on the wii apps with one of the options being a title dump. The app could optionally just read the title dump and not have to search the wii.

 

[HowardC]

That's a really clever solution!

If I can suggest one thing though, make it only affect pages 2-4 or better yet make it change the channels between the "Back" and "Forward" channels. That way users can keep their system channels and/or their favorite games readily available while still having access to the rest of them.

Things like this would be easy to implement. Just have the option to "lock" a channel and it wouldn't get shifted.

I think this would have to be an option though as I'm guessing most people would want the option to shift as many channels as possible due to sneeks slow reboot time.

 

[HowardC]

I've completed my pc-end app for the most part. Here it is:

Sneek Channel Manager

It's ugly but it gets the job done. Plug in your drive/sd card, select the drive letter, click "load" and you are ready to edit. Drag Channels from the list on the right to the slots on the left and save when done. That's all there is to it!