Small update on the series searching, turned out not to be working correctly. I had some shows not showing up so i made a change so they do. If i find more issues ill fix them.

HellyExplorer development is currently on hold until i find out more about playing Dolby Vision content on PC's. Progress is being made on it as far as i know so i'm hopeful this will happen at some point. But until then i don't really see the point of putting in a lot of work for something i am no longer using all the time.

Tiny release to fix some annoying bugs.

Has a bugfix for the movie info screen being out side of the screen and being unable to see it. Now shows it on the left of the movie poster when the movie is visible on the right of the screen. As it is supposed to.

Series searching turned out to not be working entirely. Some shows actually did show up on later results which were not being shown. Added an option to load the rest of the results. It will take a second to retrieve them from the API but it will load all of them. If the shows you're searching for still isn't there, it does not exist on the API.

Fixed a bug when deleting a TV-show that has no season folders. It gave an access violation error, has been fixed.

Yay the new version!

Massive changes this time, all of which are good changes i think.

As promised, the program now starts up WAY faster. The updating of TV shows and movies is also WAY faster. Actually, everything should be faster now. You can even use the searchmodes on startup and it won't even slow it down.
I have also changed the look of the Movies and TV-shows, i hope you like it, because if you don't you're out of luck, i'm not changing it back.

Editing the ID's of the movies and tv-shows has also been changed. The ID's are now in their own screen under their respective sections.
For TV-shows i have removed the Absolute option. I only used it for Firefly and TheMovieDB.org does not have this option so it can't be used anymore.
When you now want to change an ID, the program will do a search query on the API and show you the results. All you have to do is choose the right result and press Enter (or the equivalent gamepad button). The ID will be changed for you and you don't have to go to the website anymore to look it up! Well hopefully you don't have to, the results can be confusing at times :P.

Another promise i made in the last update was fixing all navigation issues with Movies and TV-shows. This has also been done. But in the extremely unlikely occasion that something does go wrong the navigation should fix itself and still be usable, without having to restart the program entirely.

There is also a big change in the search screen for movies and tv-shows. The buttons are now spread over 3 rows and you can enter special characters and lowercase characters. This was needed to make it possible to enter the MySQL login information, which uses the same screen ;). But it's all fixed up and working again, as i noticed the search was broken in the previous version.

Hope you enjoy the new version and not find any bugs :P.

ps. No plans anymore for a new version, will hopefully be a long time until the next update.

New release, added features and some bugfixes.

Mostly this version is to remove the use of TheTVDB.com. They are switching to a new version of their API and shutting down the one used in the latest versions of Helly Explore. The new one requires both me and everyone who uses this program to pay a subscription. As i don't think it's worth it and don't want to push this on anyone, i chose to switch the whole program to TheMovieDB.org. Which is still free and has the same info i use from TheTVDB.com. For some shows it even has more info, like images that couldn't be found before.
The program will convert all ID's for shows to TMDB ID's. This shouldn't take long and after it's done you can use the program as you've always done.

Other fixes/changes in this release:

Rebuild the options menu. Works far better now, looks the same but feels more responsive.
Added option to choose a database type (SQLite or MySQL), SQLite is the default. MySQL CAN be used but at the moment there is no way to input data without having to restart the program. Will add this in the next version.
Added a way to filter movies and tv shows in the options menu. You can now only show those that don't have an ID. Searching will be added in a next version.
Fixed a bug in the movie navigation. Still has problems. Will redo the whole thing next version, in a better way this time, to fix all issues.
Fixed getting info for movies. In previous versions it would sometimes not find the data at all or it would be wrong. Not happening again.
Changed the updating of both movies and TV shows. It's slower unfortunately. Expect speed updates next version.

I also have some other improvements and changes planned for the next version. So the next update will probably be a big one.

Another update, fixing more issues with the 4.0 release.

This time the issues were harder to fix and require another database change. This will be done on the first run of this version. It will also rename every episode image you currently have. A bit of caution here though, during testing the renaming went a bit wrong and caused some pictures to show up for the wrong episodes. Later tests showed everything going right but i thought i'd mention it. You can fix the issues by deleting the images (NO for the datbase question) and updating the show. If you don't want to do this you can backup the episodes folder and fix the images manually.

This database change will also make the program delete the played dates for episodes, as the dates are now directly linked to the episode and not the filename. So keep this in mind if you delete the series episodes from the database.

I also fixed some issues with updating the series info, and loading seasons/series with duplicate episodes . They should all show up correctly now. I also think in the last version deleting images for series didn't work correctly, but it has of course been fixed now.

Finally i added a small fix for when you're watching an episode and the date gets added to the name and the entire label is to long. It should now make the label smaller until it fits on the screen.

And another one.

Found a bug in the update process of the tv-show banners. The program would stop responding if there's no banner for it on the API. Giving you a nasty error you couldn't easily get rid of.

At the same time i also discovered bugs with changing the ID's of both movies and tv-shows. It wasn't changed to the new database setup so it stopped working. All fixed now :D

Well.... that was fast. A few bugs were found in the options menu that gave errors when changing the Absolute and Ended boxes. So i fixed those.
There were also some problems with the update box for series banners. Should be fixed as well. Also made another small bug fix in the options menu. Maybe you'll notice, probably not so it will remain a mystery :P.

It's finally here!

Lot's of new features and bug fixes. Also speed improvements.

Massive database changes required for this version to work. It will be done automatically when you run the program with a database of an earlier version. The database will be backed up before anything is done. You can find the backup in the program folder.

Added an update checker to the program. It will now let you know when there is a new version available.

All issues with thetvdb.com have been fixed. Any mistakes/errors that occur with episode names or with banners are there in the thetvdb.com API. I can't fix these, has to be done on their side within the API.

Added ability to update the banner of a tv show. Just select the show and hit update (CTRL+U). Then answer "Yes" when asked if you want to update the banner. "No" will update the tv show and get images for everything. Updating the banner will make the program save the banner in the database and get the next banner when you update again. This way you can get the banner you want for the show in case you don't like it. The same can be done with the season banners.

Updating movies and tv-shows has been completely rewritten. It is now faster and more precise. Any mistakes in the database will have consequences and might make things weird. Anything not found will be readded. So if you edit the database yourself, beware of this. In the future i might lock the database with a password if i get to many complaints about issues.

Added searching in tv-shows, works the same as searching in movies. Modes available here are "All" and "Unplayed". "Unplayed" will show all tv-shows which have any unplayed episodes.

Added more searchmodes in movies. Can now search for 4k (2160p), DTS-X and Atmos.

You can now set a default searchmode in the options menu for both movies and tv-shows. When starting the app it will apply these modes and filter them. NOTE: This will load all the data of which ever one you choose to use. Loading the data will make starting the app take longer. Depending on how many TV-shows/Movies you have. It needs all the data, otherwise it can't filter.

Changed TV-shows default banner. When no image is found the name of the show is now shown in the banner.

More features and bug fixes are logged in the changelog if you are interested.

I have more features and improvements planned for a next version, so expect and update. Just not soon, might take some time :P

A critical bug was found in alpha1 that made it impossible to view a tv-show in certain situations. It has been fixed in this version.
Other fixes in this include improved connections to thetvdb.com and navigational bugs in both movies and tv-shows.
I have added logo's for DTS-X, Dolby Digital Plus, AAC and PCM to show in the movie info screen. They will only show up for new movies that are added. Old ones will contain the already found data which is not updated. Should you want to do this, simply delete the data by selecting the movie and hitting CTRL+D (or the equivalent controller combination). Then do an update.

A known bug in this at the moment is that AAC might not be added correctly. Since the program expects AAC atm and the codec might show up as AAC HC or AAC LC or something else entirely. I will be fixing this in the final 4.0 version of the program.

Unless more critical bugs that prevent you from watching something show up this will be the last alpha.

I didn't want to do this, but the API from thetvdb.com didn't give me a choice. They changed and then f*cked up the API and made the TV show part of the program stop working. As i'm already working on 4.0 and have it somewhat stable atm i decided to update the tv-show API part and set it in a somewhat working state.

Some of the season banners will come out as russian atm. This will be fixed eventually by the API itself. You'll just have to delete all images of a show and update it. I have no idea when this will be, neither do the developers of the API so you'll just have to try this every once in while.
Next to this, the images for episodes are all over the place in the API and sometimes give errors when trying to access them. You won't see the errors of course, the program catches them all, it should then attempt to create the image itself. This might sometimes fail (a bug i'm well aware of and intend to fix at some point), but another update will make it create the image.

The movie part of the program is completely unaffected by this.

Do keep in mind, it's called an alpha for a reason. There are bugs in here i already know about, and there are more to be found i'm sure.

There were a few nasty problems with 3.7 if you used multiple folders for movies/series. I have fixed them and it should now all be working properly.

On top of that i added a fix for the serie and movie folders in the home menu. All folders in their respective lists are now bundled into 1 and only a folder with the name Series or Movies is shown. All series and movies will be shown when you open them. Was always intended to be like this, i just forgot to implement it in the previous versions :P.

I also made a quick fix for the movie navigation, further improving the whole thing once again. Hopefully for the last time. If not, be sure to let me know.

NOTE: These fixes have not gone through extensive testing, i don't use multiple folders for movies/series myself so i can't test this. I usually test the fixes myself for a week before putting the program up for download. Hopefully they work, if not, expect another update soon :P.

Here's version 3.7.

More fixes, more improvements, more everything. Both movies and tv-shows are once again working the same way. Might be a fraction slower sometimes but it's working better overall.

The next version will be 4.0. I will be adding features such as the following:

- Dark mode, instead of the white background there is now it will be almost black. Better for tv's and monitors and better for your eye's ;).

- Support for higher resolutions (1440p, 2160p). The program doesn't scale at the moment, that will change in the next version.

- Search modes for TV-shows. Same as with the movies.

- I will be adding a clock in the main menu. I'm wondering about the time sometimes and wished there was a clock in the program, so i'm adding one.

- A counter for how many TV-shows and movies there currently are in the database. I wonder about it sometimes, so i want to know.

Have idea's for things to add? Let me know!

I have updated HellyExplore to version 3.65.

It fixed various bugs from the previous version. But it also adds some new things.

Things are improving, thats what's important. Make sure to read the changelog for the changes :P. I have also updated the readme file. It should be up-to-date with all the new stuff.

I will just mention here that in an upcoming version the emulator stuff will be removed. I'm not using it anymore and i don't think it was working very well anyway.

On to the next, better version! yay!

A new explore has finally arrived!

I've added quite a few important features this time. First of which is integrating the database creation into the program itself. This means that the program will now create the database itself if it does not exist. This also means it will no longer be in the download. So i don't have to create an update package anymore.

Second i added the option to add multiple media folders for both movies and tv shows. So you can now have both of those coming from multiple sources. Adding a folder works exactly the same as adding a normal media folder.

Finally i added a search mode for movies. For now it will be able to show only unplayed movies (so movies you haven't watched yet) or just all of them. I plan on adding more modes but for now i have no idea which ones :P.

Other then this there are also various bug fixes and code optimizations as usual. The one bug i do know of is that sometimes when the program is running and you alter a media folder by adding a movie or tv show episode, the program won't find it and ignore it in any updates that follow. Should this happen you can fix it for now by just deleting all the images of the show (select it in the program and press CTRL+D) and then select NO when asked delete from database. After this, close the program entirely and restart it. Then update as normal and it should update the episode.

HellyExplore has another update. Quite a few changes were made. Bugs were fixed. More bugs were undoubtedly added. All of it logged in the changelog.

The movies part is almost as it should be. I'm planning to add a "mode" change to the search bar. It will be able to sort the movies in different ways. Like show the latest movie first. Or only show the unwatched movies.

I'm also planning to add a way to set a movie as watched. This might be handy when you add older movies that you've already seen and don't want to show up in the unwatched list. So you can truly only see the movies in the list that you haven't seen. It will just mark the movie as watched and not add a date. As there's no easy way to add an actual date, and for older movies i think its unlikely that you actually know the precise date that you watched the movie :P.

After that is done it will be time to recode the TV Shows part of the program to work exactly the same as the movies. This will be a lot of work, but worth it to make future updates easier.

Good things to come in 2019! :D

Yay, the website is all updated. Yes it looks exactly the same but its now much easier to manage. It's also fully responsive so it works on any device. It did not take me 10 years to update it btw, it was just so annoying to manage before i didn't bother using it. I'm going to try to use it more now.

On that note, i've added my new project which i have been working on for years. Helly Explorer. It's what i call my media center program. It manages media files and lets you play them with your favorite media player. It can be used with a gamepad but it is untested, so if you're going to try to use it, let me know how it goes so i can improve the gamepad functionality. Make sure to read the readme file that comes with the archive. :D

And another update for RellyIRC. This time a lot has been added and fixed. All of which can be read in the changelog. I've run out of idea's for future updates for now so this will be the last update for a while. Unless someone gives me some bugs to fix or idea's for features to add.

Here's the next update, this time not a lot of new features but more improvements and bugfixes. Many annoying bugs have been fixed and a few functions have been added. You can read about them in the changelog. This will be the last update for now, unless more bugs are found or idea's for new features come up.

Another new version of RellyIRC. A lot of improvements and functions added again. It's starting to become a real IRC chat client now :P. You can now show a lot of your system information in a channel, a RSS feed has been added which checks for new items every minute and shows them to the user or optionally to a whole channel. You can also show winamp information now, which song is playing and how long it is, and you can show FlashFXP statistics. There are a few more things i'm planning to add so expect another update soon :P.

And here's the second version of RellyIRC. This version has a lot of improvements. A lot of settings can now be saved (like nickname, server, etc..), i've also added a few scripts which shows information in an IRC channel. It's probably full of bugs which will hopefully be found so i can solve them.

And another release. This time its RellyIRC, my very own IRC client :). The version you can now download is just a test version. It's most certainly full of bugs and i hope they will be found so i can solve them and fix them for a new version.

HCS has been updated to versoin 0.97. A few bugs have been fixed and the option to view some stats has been added. You can now see a list of the 10 users who have up and downloaded the most. For now this will be the last version until there has been a big test with a lot of users. I don't know when that will be, guessing it will be a while ;).

And already there's a new version of HCS (0.96-beta). This time i added the option to upload a list of covers. This still needs a bit of testing so i hope someone can find the bugs and give me some comments for improvements. I also added a preview function in the downloads, so you don't have to download the entire cover only to find out you don't like it. I would also like some comments about this. This is the reason for the program to be a beta version ;). For now, all i'm planning to do is fix bugs so if there's any idea's for the program let me know!

I also updated the screenshots, the old ones were removed and replaced by the new ones.

update: massive bug in beta1. Upload list turned out to not be working. Solved it in 0.96-beta2.

The new version for HCS (v0.95) is finally done. Big improvements you'll notice as soon as you start the program. There's a few things still planned, like creating an option to upload a list of covers and thumbnails in downloads for a preview of the cover. The server side also has a few improvements like the mirrors clients use. I can now change them at any time after which the clients can immediately use them without me having to recompile the client. I'm planning further improvements like the ability to block IP's (effectively banning people) and disable user accounts. (i can do this in the database but not in the server program yet ;)).

Oh yeah, the time has come, HCS is finally finished and running. The new client can already be downloaded. It's now at version 0.9 so i can fix the final bugs before making it 1.0 :P (usually 1.0 is a complete and perfectly working version ;)). If you're using the program and find any bugs, please let me know! Also if you have any comments or idea's, let me know so i might be able to add them to the program.

Yay, the HCS client is finally done again. There will be a few bugs in it still but we'll find those soon enough. You can't download the client yet as the server program isn't quite done yet. If i put it up for download anyway it's not going to work half the time because the server program isn't running which plain sucks.....

The only thing left in the server program to build is the ability to add users, edit user data and the ability to edit the database when there's a mistake in the upload. We're getting close now :)

Yay, we're making progress hehe. Today i've made a lot of progress on HCS. Almost everything in the program is working, there's just a few small things left to change. The server program does still need a lot of work however.

I've also updated the HLL screenshots, the ones that were there were old ones :)

Yay. the site is online,

Thanks Aboeh :)