Vita dev Rinnegatamante has pushed a significant update to the latest Nightly build of VitaDB Downloader, an “app store” for your homebrew-enabled PS Vita. This update adds auto-installation of libshacccg.suprx, a file necessary for many homebrew games and ports. Installing this file was a somewhat painful manual process until now.
Recent updates of VitaDB Downloader also added support for PSP Homebrew games. With the amount of features and quality of life enhancements, this is becoming the best appstore for the PS Vita.
What is VitaDB Downloader
VitaDB is the most used Vita app repository for owners of homebrew-enabled PS Vita consoles. The database hosts thousands of utility software and games, with a website where people can manually download the homebrew themselves for manual installation on their console. It also provides an API, allowing developers to access the database programmatically. This means in particular that there are several Vita app “homebrew stores” that let you install games directly from your Vita, leveraging this repository.
Multiple “homebrew installers” exist that leverage VitaDB, such as Vita Homebrew Browser (VHBB), Easy VPK, Better homebrew Browser, and more. Which one you’ll use depends on your personal preferences, but Rinnegatamante (who developed and maintains VitaDB) has shown frustration that they all seem to have issues.
It’s in this context that he decided to release VitaDB Downloader, which can be considered as the “official” VitaDB client.
VitaDB Downloader Features
- Searching by author/homebrew name.
- Filtering apps by category.
- Viewing of all available screenshots for apps.
- Sorting apps by different criteria (Most Recent, Oldest, Most Downloaded, Least Downloaded, Alphabetical)
- Showing of several metadata for apps.
- Download and installation of vpk+data files or vpk only at user discretion. (No more need to redownload data files everytime you want to update an homebrew for which data files are unchanged)
- Minimalistic GUI based on dear ImGui with focus on robustness over fancyness.
- Fast boot time (Only the very first boot will take a bit more due to app icons download. Successive boots will be basically instant)
- Low storage usage (Screenshots are served on demand, the only data that are kept on storage are app icons with a complessive storage usage lower than 10 MBs).
- Tracking of installed apps, even when not installed through VitaDB Downloader, and of their state (outdated/updated).
- Background music (You can customize it by changing ux0:data/VitaDB/bg.ogg with your own preferred track).
- Background image/video (You can customize it by changing ux0:data/VitaDB/bg.mp4 or ux0:data/VitaDB/bg.png).
- Support for themes (Customization of GUI elements via ux0:data/VitaDB/themes.ini) with built-in downloader and manager.
In our experience, VitaDB Downloader has proven to be extremely reliable, packed with useful features, and blazingly fast.
Controls
- Left Analog or Up/Down Arrows = Move selection
- Circle = Cancel selection
- Left Arrow (When selection canceled) = Return to Search textbox (Top of the list)
- Start = Show/Hide screenshots for selected homebrew
- L/R = Change homebrews sorting
- X = Install homebrew
VitaDB Downloader Nightly build – what’s new
There’s been 2 new releases since we last spoke about VitaDB Downloader (which was release 1.4) not counting the Nightly build we’re talking about today, so we’re putting the changelogs for all these updates below.
VitaDB Downloader 2022-10-19 Nightly build
- Auto installation of libshacccg.suprx
You can see it in action in the video below:
VitaDB Downloader 1.6
- Fixed a bug causing VitaDB Downloader to be reported always as Outdated.
- Added shadowing support for texts for themes (TextShadow).
- Enhanced icons loading time. Now scrolling through apps will be considerably faster.
- Fixed a bug causing potential filesystem issues due to how icons were stored internally on storage.
- Fixed a bug that caused app bootup to take more time the more apps got downloaded from the app itself.
- Added support for PSP homebrews download and installation (L will now cycle through Vita Homebrews, PSP Homebrews, Themes).
- Moved version value to top left of the screen.
- Added info about current mode (Vita Homebrews, PSP Homebrews, Themes) on the top right of the screen.
- Improved version checking for installed homebrews made in Unity, Game Maker Studio, Godot or Lua. Now they will be correctly detected as Outdated if they are so.
- Made so that Vita homebrews icons are rendered as rounded.
- Made so that, if connection is lost during a download, the download will get resumed at the point where it stopped instead of failing the download.
VitaDB Downloader 1.5
- Fixed a bug causing potential crashes if you had a few specific apps installed with a very big eboot.bin file.
- Fixed a bug causing more than a popup to not always show in certain circmustances.
- Fixed a bug causing the first icon of an app being shown after a sort mode change, a search or a filter change to be wrong.
- Fixed a bug causing cached hash files to be incorrectly generated when installing an app (Resulting in slower boot times).
- Fixed a bug that prevented changelog parser to properly escape ” char.
- Made cleanup check for leftover unfinished app installs more robust.
- Added app name and version on changelog viewer titlebar.
- Properly aligned Filter text to Search text.
- Added some padding between Filter and Sort mode.
- Added possibility to customize font.
- Added possibility to properly customize any leftover uncustomizable element of the GUI.
- Moved missing icons download from everytime you hit an app lacking the icon to boot time (for all of them).
- Made so that Sort mode can be cycled only with R.
- Added themes downloader and manager with single theme and shuffling themes support (Reachable with L).
- Moved from SoLoud to SDL2 Mixer as audio backend. (Way faster booting time for the background audio playback).
- Fixed a bug causing a crash when opening the changelog viewer in certain circumstances.
- Fixed a bug causing VitaDB Downloader to be reported always as Outdated.
Download VitaDB Downloader
Note
The Auto Installer for libshacccg.suprx can also be downloaded separately here (nickname ShaRKBR33D), if you need that file but don’t want to use VitaDB Downloader. Although to be honest, at this point given the benefits you’re getting with VitaDB Downloader, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to install it 
Install like any other VPK (reminder, you need a hacked PS Vita!). Once installed, you should be able to install any other homebrew (that is, those present on VitaDB) from the VitaDB Downloader interface!
source: Rinnegatamante
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