OSX Preferences Manager for Basilisk II and SheepShaver

[sentient06]

Hello,

It's been a long time I don't post anything here on 68kmla, so maybe I should re-introduce myself. I am a developer living in UK, I like classic Mac OS systems very much and I have a collection of Macintosh Systems and all that stuff.

So, I use a lot of Basilisk II and SheepShaver and I get annoyed by how messy it is to go about using several different setups with these emulators and having to take care of these preferences files and invisible files, etc.. I also dislike a lot these GUI made for SheepShaver and Basilisk and I thought I could do better by creating a Cocoa-based GUI myself.

I had to do it in my spare time, so it took long. After 2 years or so, I came to a result I like and I'd like to share it and ask, if that's not much trouble, for some feedback.

I decided to call it Medusa (lots of snakes... basilisk... =D Ah forget it).
 
Some of the features:

• User-friendly, easy-to-use interface;
• Allows to manage more than one virtual machine (VM);
• Allows to manage different disk images and combine them in any VM;
• Allows to manage different ROM files and change in the VMs;
• Works with any version of Basilisk II and SheepShaver, provided the applications' path;
• It is 100% cocoa;
• No invisible preferences file on the home folder;
• Possibility to import the same preferences file into a new VM;
• Possibility to clone a virtual machine;
• Ability to force-kill the emulator process;
• Ability to delete Basilisk II's XPRAM file automatically;
• Ability to locate (on Finder) the files being used;
• Blocks disk images of a running VM, so any VMs that share these files won't be able to boot, avoiding data corruption;
• Stops emulator from launching if the disk images are being used by another process (it would crash Basilisk II otherwise);
• Keyboard choice preferences with images;
• Ability to choose any macintosh model compatible with emulator and ROM file at the same time (clever interface)

Quick start guide:

1. Open the Assets Manager if it is not open (Window > Assets Manager);
2. Go to the Emulators tab and click 'Download automatically';
3. Go to the 'Rom Images' tab and  drop a ROM image file;
4. Go to the 'Disk images' tab and drop a disk image file (suggested DMG and IMG files, but HFV and DSK also possible);
5. Go to the main window (Window > Virtual Machine List);
6. Click the plus button below the table and give your Virtual Machine a name;
7. Click the 'gear' button, choose a ROM file, an emulator and a bootable disk;
8. Run it by clicking the power button in the main window (no need to save, it saves on the go)

I suggest not using fullscreen on Mavericks, since it forces the resolution and colours down (instead choose a resolution, then use Ctrl (not cmd!) + Return on the emulator).
 
Download is available here:
 
https://github.com/sentient06/Medusa/releases/tag/v1.2.0b3
 
You may report bugs in GitHub or on my email. Please remember this is a beta, so there may be a few bugs. I started development on Snow Leopard and continued on Mavericks. As of now, I couldn't test properly on Snow Leopard (my old mac is in the hospital), and I didn't check at all on Lion and Mountain Lion. Any feedbacks on these systems are appreciated.
 
FYI, there are files generated in the system. It is normal behaviour, but in case you want to flush Medusa completely, they are the following:
 
Preferences file:
~/Library/Preferences/Giancarlo-Mariot.Medusa.plist
Core-data files dir:
~/Library/Medusa
Application support dir:
~/Library/Application Support/Medusa
 
Thank you and have fun! I hope you like it.