DocBrown/Wizard Sorter

SD card sorter for the FM Towns/Marty ODEs DocBrown and Wizard.

This utility will perform all file/folder operations to automatically alphanumerically sort the game list on a target SD card for use with the Almanac and Spellbook menu systems.

IMPORTANT: Please do not run this program against your daily-use SD card. Instead, use a copy or backup until you're sure it works with your disc image collection.

Current Version

DocBrown/Wizard Sorter is currently at version 1.1.

Changelog

• Version 1.1 (2023-05-03)
  • To force Almanac/Spellbook to properly index a game list exceeding 100 even when using FindFirstFile(), a "FAT sort" is now performed on target SD card (e.g., 20 200 21 now becomes 20 21 ... 200).
• Version 1.0 (2023-03-24)
  • Initial release.

Supported Features

DocBrown/Wizard Sorter aims to solve not only the problem of clean alphanumeric sorting of one's game list, but also the otherwise manual process of adding new games. Generally, this utility can be used in one of two ways.

1. New disc images can be added to the target SD card by placing them inside a numbered folder, along with a Title.txt file containing the desired display name. The number used to name said folder doesn't matter, as this utility will automatically rename and sort it accordingly.
2. A simpler option afforded by this utility is to create a new folder in the root of the target SD card with the desired display name. The disc image itself can be placed inside said folder, and DocBrown/Wizard Sorter will automatically generate a Title.txt file to reflect its folder name, and afterwards rename and sort it accordingly.

Below is a specific list of the current features.

• Optionally executes menu system's RunMe.bat script, which must be present in the expected location (folder 01).
• Automatically sorts game folders based on Title.txt inside of them, or the folder name itself if no text file is present.
• Automatically generates Title.txt file for new folders added since last run.
• Ignores folders without a valid disc image.
  • Note that adding a Title.txt file to a folder will force this utility to treat it as a valid game folder. This is useful for adding a menu entry to force booting from FDD, as both DocBrown and Wizard will do so if user launches a menu entry containing no disc image.
  • Invalid folders will be renamed to INVALID_X, where X is iterated over sequentially for each found.

Usage

Two options exist for launching this utility.

1. In Windows File Explorer, drag target SD card onto towns_sorter.exe.
2. From a terminal (e.g., PowerShell, CMD), execute towns_sorter.exe with the path to the target SD card as the first input parameter (e.g., towns_sorter.exe H:\). Linux users can execute the Perl script directly (e.g., perl towns_sorter.pl /mnt/sd or ./towns_sorter.pl /mnt/sd if script is made executable). However, execution of RunMe.bat is limited to Windows hosts.

Example output:

DocBrown/Wizard Sorter v1.1
Written by Derek Pascarella (ateam)

Reading SD card...

8 game(s) found on SD card.

[Advantage Tennis]
   -> Moved "Advantage Tennis" -> "02"

[Ballade for Maria]
   -> Moved "Ballade for Maria" -> "03"

[Megamorph]
   -> Moved "09" -> "04"

[Microcosm]
   -> Moved "05" -> "05"

[Ningyou Tsukai]
   -> Moved "06" -> "06"

[Pu-Li-Ru-La]
   -> Moved "07" -> "07"

[Rainbow Islands Extra]
   -> Moved "08" -> "08"

[Scavenger 4]
   -> Moved "04" -> "09"

8 game(s) processed!

Run Almanac/Spellbook batch script? (Y/N) y

==========RunMe.bat==========
Scanning folders...
Titles found: 8
Compiling list
Done
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 474
Path table size(bytes): 10
533 extents written (1 MB)
IO.SYS LBA: 24
=============================

Press Enter to exit.