DaRoms Android Application
Introduction
In an article I wrote back in October 2012 I briefly mentioned what I thought was the future of emulation. It seems the most active emulator development scene is for the mobile market- most notably, Android devices. I also talked about how the most recent version of daroms.com was built to better accomodate mobile users. I decided I would take it a step further and create a native Android application for DaRoms.
About
DaRoms allows users to download ROMs from the main daroms.com website. It utilizes the 7zip archive format to provide multiple languages (and versions) in a single file and allows users to choose the language they want before removing the archive. This not only saves bandwidth, but gives users the chance to try out multiple versions of the same game to decide which version they like best.
Downloading a ROM
To download a ROM, a user can either browse by category and letter or search by pressing the magnifying glass on the top-right of the Category Browse or Category View activity. If a search is conducted on the Category Browse activity, all categories are searched whereas a search conducted on the Category View activity will only search within the selected category. Downloads in progress can be seen by pressing the download icon on the top-right of the Category Browse activity. Downloads are stored in the root directory of your SDCard (or built in internal memory) in a folder called daroms.
Extracting a ROM
To extract a ROM from the archive, press on the ROM in the Download List. A dialog will appear with a list of contents, select the version(s) you would like to extract and press the Extract option. Once extraction is complete, you can delete the archive by selecting it and pressing the Delete option. Please note extraction of larger games, such as PlayStation games may take a few minutes on slower devices, please be patient. Also note, MAME ROMs cannot be extracted and will be downloaded directly to the daroms/MAME directory.
Need help?
If you need help with some aspect of this application, including how it was developed, let me know and I will get back to you.
Special thanks
Thanks to texnician for making a base for the port of the 7zip library. Thanks also to the users and those who have helped me test this application.