[Released] Rcomage v1.0.0 - new RCO manipulation tool

[Mr. Shizzy]

ZiNgA BuRgA has released Rcomage v1.0.0
Here is what he wrote:

Firstly I apologize for taking so long to get this out. I know some of you may have seen some themes created using this tool for quite a while; I originally had planned to release this months ago, however I got hit with more than expected workload this semester and had really little time to actually work on this.
I had some free time recently, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to try to push out a release. Unfortunately it lacks many things I wanted to have in a public release, but I guess that doesn't matter too much, maybe...

Anyway, since this is a bit of a rushed release, there's a number of "suboptimal" things done here, such as me not really checking stuff (so if you find issues, please report so I can fix :P). Sanity checking in the code really sucks, so it should be easy to stuff up the program too, but please still report these so that I know where to prioritise checks xD.


Until I get MinGW working, this app requires MS's lovely Visual C++ 2008 SP1 runtime, available here: Download details: Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)
(when the source code is released after I clean stuff up, the CLI should also compile on Linux)


About
Rcomage is a general RCO manipulation/creation tool, which I hope, will replace RCO Editor (and potentially rcotool in the future).
It's a CLI (command-line interface) however I've provided a simple Windows GUI to save you from remembering commands (though you may need to trawl through an XML file).

It currently only has two main functions - "dump" (dumps contents of an RCO) and "compile" (compiles an RCO from a dump).
For modifying an RCO, you would dump it, modify the dump, then compile it.
A dump will consist of an XML file, which contains all the metadata of the RCO (basically, it's structure) as well as various resources, such as images, sounds etc.


How to use
Well, as mentioned above, basically dump and compile is the only thing you can do.
As for information on the XML structure, I don't really have the time to write a good guide, so I guess you'll probably just dump various RCOs to get an idea of how it works. (I'd be willing to assist if someone would write a guide for me :P)
A quick idea of the structure is shown in the readme.

!! I strongly suggest that you don't use Notepad to edit the XML files. Suggested applications include Notepad++ and Notepad2 (or your favourite text editor; most should overcome the deficiencies of Notepad).


Notes
Because I was silly when writing RCO Editor, it doesn't put in adler32 checksums for compressed images, etc, and thus, anything modified with it will generate a warning in Rcomage. Otherwise, should work fine.
Also, Sony's GimConv, which is used to convert GIM images, is a little slow, so if you choose to perform the conversion (affects both dumping and compiling), expect to wait some time...


Unknown values
If you go through dumped XML structures, you may notice a number of "unknown" labels for various objects (and some anim entries). Finding out what these values do is, unfortunately, a little time consuming and I don't really have that much time to test what each thing does. It would be great if people would volunteer to play around with these values to see what effect they have, and I can add the definitions to Rcomage. (thanks in advance )


Credits
- highboy for his WAV <-> VAG conversion sample code
- Z33 for sample GIM handling code and his various RCO tools as well as guides/investigations on various file formats
- creators of 7-zip for their awesome implementation of deflate
- supporting libraries: libxml2, iconv and zlib
- alpha testers, for discovering some issues and supporting theme development
- everyone else supporting PSP customisation and homebrew scene (too numerous to name)
- anyone I forgot to mention

Visit endlessparadigm for support:
[PSP] Rcomage v1.0.0 - new RCO manipulation tool

[omarein]

This is good... really good!

Thanks!

[Dmise]

♥♥ sweetness it's theme making time =]

[yammata684]

This is amazing and is guaranteed to completely revolutionize how we edit RCOs.

[xxraven0190xx]

WOW. I think I'm going to start making themes now. I've had so many ideas and now I can do them.

[Red X]

yup it definately will start something, but the .xml scripts are a bit complicated, it will take a little time, I am trying something out on Joomla's theme though
EDIT: here's a screeny

[gigoo25]

AWSOME! This is amazing!

[InfinitiProject]

Finally!!!!!!!

[mutevict1m]

Definately something I will try out and use
glad its finally out!

[yammata684]

Someone need to make a guide for other users.