PS3 sMAN v1.10n (by deank): New features & improved performance & stability

A couple of new updates aiding in the evolution of the sMAN plugin has been seen in recent days as developer @deank continues to add functionality and as you see in the screenshot additional eye-candy as well. Following up on v0.08n, deank officially labled v1.09 as a Beta Release as several new things were implemented and went through some testing phases. Deank has stated he has almost re-written sMAN so much that it now almost differs from webMAN v1.47n by nearly 50% according to the guy who know (the developer of both plugin) deank. Also thanks to freddy38510 NTFS drives will show the actual time & date stamps in both FTP & the file explore in web-browsers. v0.10n was recently released as well and officially moved from Beta to the next Stable update , that did just that improve the stability & performance of things like the www client . This plugin keeps improving and new features continue to impress as deank's continues to put his magically touches on this ps3 plugin.​

sMAN v0.10n sMAN v0.09n (beta notes)

• 
  
  sMAN v0.10n​
  In the latest sman.sprx update the internal web server will use threads to serve files/images content. It will no longer hold the whole www client thread and will release the resources immediatelly greatly improving performance and stability. Until now if you download something big via the web interface and then try to browse games or refresh sman would lock, but not anymore..
  
  There were some issues with displaying images/files from network locations (ps3netsrv) using the webbrowser but it is now ok. There are also some other minor fixes.
  
  Update to sMAN 1.10n: http://deanbg.com/sman.sprx | http://deanbg.com/sMAN_1.10.zip
  
  Network/ps3netsrv locations should now support about 3200 files (1600 ISO games + 1600 images for example).
  
  p.s. sprx is updated again. If someone with a lot of network games can test it - let me know. I tested it with a folder with 9000 files and it handles 3200 to 3300, so it works.
  
  http://www.psx-place.com/threads/sm...on-sfo-scanning-more.12984/page-10#post-75905
  
  
• 
  I updated sman.sprx - it now has a separate option for dev_blind. sman_res.exe is changed to support .htm resource files. The source is also updated. Web content is now in external .htm files in wmtmp/res folder. It is still work in progress, but at least you can see how it is progressing.
  
  The web-pages are still ugly, but now someone can help with improving them. The external files are:
  
  • www_head.htm - this is present in each generated page and can be edited by a web-designer
  • www_setup.htm - the setup page (only the form)
  • www_foot.htm - the footer
  • www_file.htm - some javascript needed for table sorting (doesn't work on the ps3 browser)
  
  The dynamic content is generated after www_head and before www_foot.
  
  I made some changes to the layout... should be something like this at the moment:
  
  
  ​
  Post Source: http://www.psx-place.com​
  
  
  Spoiler: Post 2

  It should look much better now. You have a very early build. It now doesn't use tables, but I rewrote everything with css. Not really gorgeous, but still simple and lite. Shows 99% the same on the PC and on the PS3 now. Also it fits perfectly even in SD resolution (720x576).
  

  
  ​

  
  Without Javascript the Setup page cannot be used (because js is used to set current options/values), but all other functions are ok.
  
  This option was never clickable. The checkbox was always disabled and its "ticked" state just indicates whether the lowest speed will be applied (which happens only in "auto" mode). I added back the "tick" when in auto-mode - it is purely cosmetic checkbox just to make the options look more ordered on screen.
  
  I updated sman.sprx. Also game listing in the web-browser on the PS3 now looks properly (game names are centered as they should be - same as on the PC).
  
  http://deanbg.com/sman.sprx (now up to 1.09n - resource files will be updated and you'll also get a new background for sMAN GUI).
  Spoiler: Post 3

  sMAN updated (http://deanbg.com/sman.sprx)
  
  I hope this 1.09n version is the last "beta"/"unstable" before the official 1.10. It seems very stable at the moment. I optimized a lot of functions and rewrote a lot of the code - probably over 50% is now completely different compared to webMAN 1.47n.
  
  In this update the optimizations lead to another memory usage decrease - you should now have 2324KB free memory.
  
  FTP browsing is faster - both for hdd/usb and ntfs drives, which means copying a lot of folders will be much faster compared to any wM/sM version.
  
  Along with all the other changes since 1.08 (external web content/additional xmb info tags/code optimizations) 1.09n should be the version to update to without worries.
  
  Dean
  

  
  Post Source: psx-place.com/
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------​
  Spoiler: Post 4

  Thanks to @freddy38510 the ntfs library now supports proper date/time stamps for files/folders. sMAN is updated to show actual date/times in FTP and web-browser for NTFS drives.
  http://www.psx-place.com/threads/li...ilation-with-cellsdk.11906/page-11#post-75770
  
  Thanks @freddy38510
  
  p.s. libntfs_prx.a is also updated in sman_1.09.zip
  
  

  Post Source: psx-place.com
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------​

Download:

• http://deanbg.com/sman.sprx
  
• http://deanbg.com/sMAN_1.10.zip

Source: psx-place.com​

 

Does cobra debugging need to be hooked up via ethernet?
I can't get anything to show over Wi-Fi in mint linux, with the ps3 in DMZ or manually opening ports etc.

Also, If you have psnpatch enabled and cobra debugging the system freezes hard out.

The CECHLxx curse... what a random prick of a machine. I swear it has memory issues when it comes to homebrew, but always works fine in game... so i don't know.

I noticed that via wifi I didn't get constant debug output (could be router filtering udp broadcasts or something).

About the memory issues: you can't compare a game app that gets 230MB of RAM (+256MB video) with a plugin (be it webbrowser_plugin or sman) that gets only 2MB of RAM

Cobra debug stage2 should not cause any problems - it only differs in printf-s sent to network. Still for the last 2 months I had to do "rebuild database" over 10 times to delete boot_plugins.txt, because of a faulty sman.sprx It used to happen back then during webman development, too.

 

Yeah I was actually thinking more along the lines of a potential hardware fault on my console. Cause I bet if I tried to reproduce half the seemingly random issues that I get, on a different console under the same circumstances... they wouldn't exist.

Maybe the ps3 is smart enough (or lucky enough) to avoid the potentially troublesome section of ram, whereas homebrew is basically fed on scraps and gets no choice in the matter.

Would I buy another CECHLxx to accurately test said theory though? Hell no. lol

No idea why psnpatch conflicted with the debug cobra bin. But it would hard freeze the system every time the plugin attempted to load. I think I am still using a beta version (2017.02/B05) from the homebrew blocker thread, so maybe it had it's own debug thing built in that was conflicting.

Job for another day anyway, I'm over it for the weekend.

 

sman.sprx is updated. Along with some other optimizations it now uses cellFsGetDirectoryEntries when scanning for games and for browsing FTP folders. It is much faster than the standard cellFsReaddir. It speeds both ftp and game scan. There are some changes to the poll_thread to decrease its burden on the system.

 

@deank
I was wondering...
Is giving focus to newly mounted games really necessary?
I know some users may want that but I certainly do not... There is always some latency so when mounting with XMB integration, first the focus goes to the SMan entry then it eventually jumps to the disc icon just beneath it ....

Of course it's a tiny detail & if that is the way you want it, it's cool with me as I can just comment the code & recompile the binary....

 

That delay's always annoyed me, but I can't decide if I like it one way or the other, lol.
Certainly makes it easier for the young ones to easily fire up a game the way it is currently.

If I were to request a feature, It would to be able to disable reading ps3 game names from param.sfo files just to keep my need for organisation in check. PS1/PS2 games are all named nice and neat and consistent. PS3 games some are needlessly in ALL CAPS, annoying TM / (C) / (R) symbols, The word "The" inconsistently used in titles throwing out sorting etc.

Again, all just personal preferences though. Really need to get myself a computer again so I can just tweak things to suit myself like I did for the Wii. (Freaking love that thing now! Everything works as I want it to without annoying anyone else's preferences)

 

@bguerville @self_slaughter Having more options makes solving bugs more difficult, but I guess we're ok for now (with the bugs) Since setup entries are in external .htm it is not increasing sman's code that much, so here you are:

http://deanbg.com/sman.sprx

Dean

 

Brilliant...
I had to smile at your reply... You are unbelievable... [emoji6]

However like I said before, those are details & most of us trust you to make the smart choices when it comes to your own projects.

 

sounds pretty damn stable. I'm going to have try out sman soon. I couldn't tell u the last time I played a ps3 game, but when I do, it will be through sman.

 

Love your work. That's perfect!
Here's the screenshot I think you meant to post.

sounds pretty damn stable. I'm going to have try out sman soon. I couldn't tell u the last time I played a ps3 game, but when I do, it will be through sman.

It's amazing how far this project has come in such a short time. I'm starting to think dean is actually some sort of skynet based A.I. and not a person at all.... It's ridiculously fast and stable. Damn pretty too!

 

It is the proper image - may be it is your browser cache.

 

Love your work. That's perfect!
Here's the screenshot I think you meant to post.

View attachment 8746



It's amazing how far this project has come in such a short time. I'm starting to think dean is actually some sort of skynet based A.I. and not a person at all.... It's ridiculously fast and stable. Damn pretty too!

it's funny u should say that. @bitsbubba and I were discussing terminator and judgment day in another thread. ur right though, @deank isn't human.

 

Love your work. That's perfect!
It's amazing how far this project has come in such a short time. I'm starting to think dean is actually some sort of skynet based A.I. and not a person at all.... It's ridiculously fast and stable. Damn pretty too!

I definitely agree.
It's a very impressive result in a very short time... It builds upon the experience with webman, vsh_menu, xai_plugin along with a lot of optimisation in all parts of the project.
I think that the very few people complaining are probably only looking at the GUI from a purely aesthetic perspective without appreciating the huge long term improvements made behind the scenes....

 

It is the proper image - may be it is your browser cache.

My bad. Couple of refreshes and now I feel like a right tool. hahaha
Looks great btw. Still minimal options, but useful ones.

Great not having to deal with memory options and prepntfs etc. like in the old webman days.

 

There are couple more things to fix and then sMAN will become a stable foundation for any future "mod" version (if any).

 

Yep. My thoughts exactly... [emoji6]

 

@deank
With the latest build, in XMB integration, it doesn't show JB for JB folder games anymore, is this normal?

 

It is ok now, thanks. I'm breaking things occasionally to see if someone will notice.

 

Lol
I see... You are testing us...

 

sometimes when i enter sman gui from xmb folder and when i exit gui, it kick me back in that folder but sometimes it kick me in xmb game section out of sman folder..nothing special, but look sometimes clunky...

 

I can confirm the glitch raised by @bokiroki.
An issue with the focus change, when exiting the GUI the focus goes to the sMan General XMB entry but sometimes the focus change seems to fail & focus remains on the sMan GUI XMB entry.