What Format Are MaLa Gamelists?? I need to auto-generate them.

[thund3rstruck]

Hi guys.

I've got MaLa running on my old arcade and I love it! However, the gamelist editor is extremely tedious and I want to automate the creation of gamelists. I tried to open a few gamelist files (*.mlg) but they are binary files. Can I override these with XML or INI files?

I have already written a C# parser which extracts the MAME database from MAME.EXE, extracts all the records, and tranforms the XMLElements: Rom Name, Title, Year, Manufacturer, and Genre into an Excel Spreadsheet and now I want to auto generate game lists based on the MAME genres. I cannot figure out how to create gamelists as they are binary files for some reason (I'm not quite sure why a list of games would be stored in binary files and not plain-text or XML?).

Thanks In Advance for any help anyone can offer

[Neverending Project]

Mala gamelists are in fact in their own format, and not easily reproduced, from what I have read. Mala won't read text files or XML files as gamelists, either.

But user NOP created a program called ROMLister to do just what you want. You can find a thread about it here, and the romlister site is:
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

It was designed to create gamelists for many front ends (Mala included) based on genres, controls used, working/clone status, anything else that is a tracked parameter. Check it out, and you won't have to reinvent the wheel.

[thund3rstruck]

Thank you very much for the reply. Searching google cache I found this: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:9XMLkf-n_3UJ:spiderstyle.arachno-media.com/+create+MaLa+gamelists

It isn't quite the automation I was looking for but it will get me where I want to go. I'll just alter the workflow of my code so it extracts the xml database from MAME, converts it to an XLS spreadsheet, and then creates a separate folder for each genre in the spreadsheet and copies the roms to their appropriate genre folder. Then I will manually use RomDir2XML and ROMLister to create the Gamelists based on genre.

[Neverending Project]

I think you are making too much work for yourself.

Download RomLister. Get the three files they tell you to get in the Setup Screen (one of them is the genre for all MAME roms). Then use the tickboxes in the ROMLister window to select a genre, and then create a gamelist for Mala.

No extracting xml, no converting spreadsheets, no moving roms to folders, no ROMDir2XML. Once you have all your Mala gamelists created (you can save them directly in your Mala folder), the next time you launch Mala they will be listed under the Gamelists tab.

Badda bing, badda bang.

[thund3rstruck]

I think you are making too much work for yourself.

No extracting xml, no converting spreadsheets, no moving roms to folders, no ROMDir2XML. Once you have all your Mala gamelists created (you can save them directly in your Mala folder), the next time you launch Mala they will be listed under the Gamelists tab.

The problem is that the math doesn't add up. I have 2 MAME installations, one on a PC proper (MAME v0.136) and one in a retail arcade cabinet (MAME v0.104).

* The current version of MAME (v0.136) has 8,516 records in its internal data store. Of those 8,516 roms 4,905 roms have a 'category' value. 3,611 roms show their 'category' field as null.
* The version of MAME in my arcade (v0.104) has 5,968 records in its internal data store. Of those 5,968 roms 4,879 roms have a 'category' value. 1,089 roms show their 'category' as null.

In order to compensate for all the games where the category field is null in the MAME database I have to search wikipedia to determine the genres of these titles and update the spreadsheet accordingly and continue with my code logic.

If I use RomLister in the way you mention that will get me part of the way where I need to be. In addition, some of the genres are too long to display on screen (CGA display) properly (e.g. Shooter - Flying / Horizontal) so I need to be able to define custom genres (e.g. Shooter - Horizontal).

 

[Neverending Project]

I'm still not getting it, and you're still not getting what I'm saying, entirely. There are files out there (link) that are lists associating romnames with categories (or genres). ROMLister reads these files in and combines them with MAMEs XML data to create a combined list. When you select a category from ROMLister and make a gamelist, you can call it whatever you want. So in Mala, you may call it "Shooters" instead of "Shooter - Flying / Horizontal" so you won't have to worry about how long it is.

Additionally, you can create a Tree in Mala, where you could select Categories from a menu, then select Shooters, then Flying Horizontal, if you want. But the number of characters displayed in Mala is what you name the game list in Mala.

And, if you want the category to display when you highlight the game, you could always do a text replace in the catver file mentioned above before merging in ROMLister. Then you would have your custom categories.

[thund3rstruck]

Ah.. ok, Sorry I was under the assumption that genres in these programs originated from the XML database contained within MAME.exe when actually the 'category' XMLElement isn't actually added until the MAME.xml file is merged with catver.ini with ROMLister.

--Edit--

Thanks again for the responses! ROMLister only allows me to select the main genre (e.g. Shooter, not the sub-genre which is what I want, Shooter - Flying / Vertical) so I will RomDir2XML to create XML documents based on the sub categories and ROMLister to create the MaLa list.

Cheers!

[NOP]

Thanks again for the responses! ROMLister only allows me to select the main genre (e.g. Shooter, not the sub-genre which is what I want, Shooter - Flying / Vertical) so I will RomDir2XML to create XML documents based on the sub categories and ROMLister to create the MaLa list.

Check the advanced searching tutorials (link from the romlister site for tutorials).

There are only checkboxes for the main genres, but if you're willing to get your hands just a little bit dirty, you can hand edit the stuff in the -find: window at the bottom of the romlister app, and you can type in whatever you want for subgenres and make your lists w/o going through the extra steps of dir2xml.


edit: and this reminds me that there's an ugly little bug in romlister where the mala list created will crap out when loading it in, whenever the game "john elway's quarterback" is loaded (possibly others/clones of JEQ).  Not like you're going to get that in your "vertical shooter" game list, but the more I embarrass myself admitting there's a bug, the more likely I am to go in and fix it.

[thund3rstruck]

Thanks again for the responses! ROMLister only allows me to select the main genre (e.g. Shooter, not the sub-genre which is what I want, Shooter - Flying / Vertical) so I will RomDir2XML to create XML documents based on the sub categories and ROMLister to create the MaLa list.

Check the advanced searching tutorials (link from the romlister site for tutorials).

There are only checkboxes for the main genres, but if you're willing to get your hands just a little bit dirty, you can hand edit the stuff in the -find: window at the bottom of the romlister app, and you can type in whatever you want for subgenres and make your lists w/o going through the extra steps of dir2xml.


edit: and this reminds me that there's an ugly little bug in romlister where the mala list created will crap out when loading it in, whenever the game "john elway's quarterback" is loaded (possibly others/clones of JEQ).  Not like you're going to get that in your "vertical shooter" game list, but the more I embarrass myself admitting there's a bug, the more likely I am to go in and fix it.

You guys are a wealth of knowledge! That's exactly what I'm looking for. I could not find RomDir2XML, the download site is dead and I couldn't find a mirror so I whipped up some quick and dirty WSH/JavaScript that fetched all the sub-genres from the core MAME.xml dump and it created a separate XML document for each sub-genre. I started going one by one through each of the XML documents with RomLister and using the 'List All Roms' button to create each MaLa list. Man this is tedious!

I'm going to give a try to the query syntax now!

Also, there is a bug in RomLister where after you load up the app and set your 'InputXML file', if you decide to change the InputXML file, the application doesn't recognize the change. So I was having to load an xml file (for example; Breakout.xml) click the List All Roms button, Select All, Add to my List, export to MaLa Gamelist, then close the application, re-open it, reset the InputXML file..... wash, rinse, and repeat.

It's incredibly irritating that the MaLa developers did not choose to use a universally excepted standard format like XML, INI, CSV or anything plain-text for these game lists! 

[Neverending Project]

Your Input XML file shouldn't change between every gamelist. It merely contains all of the data for all of the roms. So to create a Breakout gamelist, for example, you would simply tick the Breakout category and click Go. It will pop up a window with a list of games, and you can select the Mala Format and save it. Then Untick Breakout, select Fighter, and repeat.

Or conversely, as NOP said, you can use the -find text box instead of the tickboxes to perform your search. But you still only need to click Go, and save the list in your format.

No need to make it more complicated than that.

[NOP]

Also, there is a bug in RomLister where after you load up the app and set your 'InputXML file', if you decide to change the InputXML file, the application doesn't recognize the change.

ah, I just duplicated that now; will be fixed in the next release.  this can only happen using the "list all games" button.  It would be impossible for that to happen if you hit the "go!" button since I have to parse the input file every time you do that.  thanks for catching that.

But, as Neverending Project says, there really is no need to reload all these xml files you've created.  All the data is already in that merged file, you just have to change the search query to pull it out each time, with minor tweaks to the -find field.
As someone who can whip up javascript to do the work around, you are perfectly capable of modifying the search criteria.

[thund3rstruck]

No need to make it more complicated than that.

*Sigh*.... I do really appreciate the feedback, but I thought I was pretty clear that I don't want Genres, I want sub genres. Ticking 'Breakout' doesn't just give me Breakout, it gives me Breakout, Breakout *Mature*, and what ever other sub genres are under breakout. I don't want 500 games listed under 'fighter', I want separate game lists for each sub-genre (Fighter - 2.5D, Fighter - 2D, Fighter - Versus, etc, etc).

ROMLister is not behaving the way I expected it to so I have reverted back to going through my XML documents one by one. I think it boils down to me probably not doing the filter queries properly but for example a query like:

(buttons=8 | buttons=7 | buttons=6 | buttons=5 | buttons=4 | buttons=3 | buttons=2 | buttons=1 | buttons=0 | !buttons=) & (puzzle) & !('ball & paddle' | 'BIOS' | breakout | casino | climbing | driving | fighter | maze | minigames | mature | misc. | multiplay | pinball | platform | quiz | rhythm | shooter | sports | tabletop | wrestling)

I would expect to return games where the category field equals 'Puzzle', Not 'Puzzle / Maze', 'Puzzle / Cards', 'Puzzle / Drop', etc, etc.

And when I run a query like this:

(buttons=8 | buttons=7 | buttons=6 | buttons=5 | buttons=4 | buttons=3 | buttons=2 | buttons=1 | buttons=0 | !buttons=) & (puzzle) & ('Maze') & !('ball & paddle' | 'BIOS' | breakout | casino | climbing | driving | fighter | maze | minigames | mature | misc. | multiplay | pinball | platform | quiz | rhythm | shooter | sports | tabletop | wrestling)

I would expect it to return 'Puzzle / Maze' games but it doesn't return anything.

I was hoping ROMLister was written in .NET (C#/J#/VB) so I could reflect it to determine where the actual creation of the mlg file is being performed (so I could borrow that segment of code) but unfortunately it's Visual C++ and I don't have time to dig through the ASM dump in IDA Pro. Is there an API or a public static library that I can pass in an XML document and have it spit back the mlg file? This creation of the binary mlg file is my only sticking point and it has cost me hours of time now.

As soon as I get done with this evolution I need to review all 147 genres and consolidate them into custom mlg lists, and now I'm dreading that task. At the end of the day I want a set of 15 or 20 categories with no more than 100 or so games in them, however I want a clean set of mlg's that accurately reflect the MAME / catver.ini database that I can always revert back to or use for any new arcade projects. 

Thanks again everyone.

[Neverending Project]

Sounds like you have it figured out in your mind what you want to do. Good luck.

[thund3rstruck]

Sounds like you have it figured out in your mind what you want to do. Good luck.

You make it sound like what I want to do is difficult? All I want are the games separated into lists based on the categories in the already existing MAME database? I don't think that's very unreasonable.

Oh well, thanks anyway.

[Neverending Project]

What I mean is that it sounds like you have in your mind that you want to do it your way. That's great, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what you need.

But what NOP and I are trying to explain is that anything you can search for in the MAME XML file can be searched for using ROMLister, with the added benefit of being able to create the gamelists in different formats (including Mala). And once you add the additional files like catver.ini, you can also search on those fields as well to make your gamelist.

You can even merge your own fields with the MAME XML file (outside of ROMLister) if you really want and use it as your input, and ROMLister will still create a Mala gamelist from it for you.

So what I (we) have been trying to say is what you want to do can already be done. If there are subcategories in either the MAME database or one of the ancillary files that ROMLister combined with it, you can use the -find textbox to search those fields. You don't have to use the tickboxes or GUI.

[thund3rstruck]

What I mean is that it sounds like you have in your mind that you want to do it your way. That's great, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what you need.

But what NOP and I are trying to explain is that anything you can search for in the MAME XML file can be searched for using ROMLister, with the added benefit of being able to create the gamelists in different formats (including Mala). And once you add the additional files like catver.ini, you can also search on those fields as well to make your gamelist.

You can even merge your own fields with the MAME XML file (outside of ROMLister) if you really want and use it as your input, and ROMLister will still create a Mala gamelist from it for you.

So what I (we) have been trying to say is what you want to do can already be done. If there are subcategories in either the MAME database or one of the ancillary files that ROMLister combined with it, you can use the -find textbox to search those fields. You don't have to use the tickboxes or GUI.

Awesome! What -find query can I use to find only the games in the 'Puzzle / Maze' category? Or how about that 'Maze / Shooter Large' category, or how about just the 'Maze' category, not including all the 'Maze' sub categories? A few of the find filters worked but not any of the ones where the sub category matches the name of a main category like the ones above.

Thanks!

[NOP]

have you looked at the tutorials?
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/RL_tutorial_Advanced_Searching

There is an example there of searching for 'flying shooter' instead of just the top level genre.

For your specific examples of 'puzzle / maze' try this:
1) start up RL, check whatever search items you want.  check the 'maze' box.
2) change the section in the -find box from: ..."!emulation=preliminary & (maze) & !('BIOS')" to
..."!emulation=preliminary & ('Puzzle / Maze') & !('BIOS')"

or
... !emulation=preliminary & ('Maze / Shooter Large') & !('BIOS')

or, this one is a bit trickier:

... "!emulation=preliminary & 'Maze' & !'Maze /' & !('BIOS')"  will give you the maze category, but nothing with sub-categories.


Notice that the text that is changing it inside single quotes, not doubles.  Also note that when text is inside single quotes, it is case sensitive.

[thund3rstruck]

have you looked at the tutorials?
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/RL_tutorial_Advanced_Searching

Yes, I read the tutorial and yes the 'Shooter / Flying Vertical' query works, it's most of the other queries that don't.

..."!emulation=preliminary & ('Puzzle / Maze') & !('BIOS')"

or
... !emulation=preliminary & ('Maze / Shooter Large') & !('BIOS')

or, this one is a bit trickier:

... "!emulation=preliminary & 'Maze' & !'Maze /' & !('BIOS')"  will give you the maze category, but nothing with sub-categories.

Yes, I've tried those queries.

Again, no disrespect or anything but the -find filtering just doesn't work for most sub-genres. 

Take for example, this query:

Code: [Select]

(buttons=8 | buttons=7 | buttons=6 | buttons=5 | buttons=4 | buttons=3 | buttons=2 | buttons=1 | buttons=0 | !buttons=) & (!'control type=') & !(joy2way | joy4way | triggerstick | top-fire | rotary | dial | trackball | pedal | lightgun) & ('Puzzle / Maze') & !('ball & paddle' | 'BIOS' | breakout | casino | climbing | driving | fighter | minigames | mature | misc. | multiplay | pinball | platform | puzzle | quiz | rhythm | shooter | sports | tabletop | wrestling)

Which should return games in the 'Puzzle / Maze' category (per your response above) but it returns 0 results, even though my XML document [XElement fragment below] contains 8 records in that category.

Code: [Select]

<game name="dremshpr" sourcefile="pacman.c">
<description>Dream Shopper</description>
<year>1982</year>
<manufacturer>Sanritsu</manufacturer>
<category>Puzzle / Maze</category>
<nplayers>2P alt</nplayers>
<verAdded>.36rc1</verAdded>


Anyways, I do appreciate all the advice. I've got the C++ source code from ROMLister and the Delphi source from MaLa so I'm good to go now.

Thanks again everyone and I do sincerely appreciate all the help in this matter. 

[NOP]

Yes, I've tried those queries.

Again, no disrespect or anything but the -find filtering just doesn't work for most sub-genres.

let's take a look.

In your specific example of "dream shopper" not coming up after your query, take a look at the controls section of the -find text you posted:

"!(joy2way | joy4way | triggerstick | top-fire | rotary | dial | trac..."

joy4way, with a ! (a NOT) at the front of it.  that means no 4way sticks allowed in the output list.

What control does dream shopper have?
<control type="joy4way"/>

What controls do virtually EVERY puzzle/maze games have?  Yep, joy4way.

So you have effectively done a search for all puzzle/maze games that do NOT have joy4way. 

Not too many of them are going to show up in your list.

Feel free to post some other broken searches and I can figure those out for you too.



If all you want is lists of games in genres, then get rid of *everything* out of the -find box, except the specific genre you're looking for, and hit the go! button.
It's not really the way romlister was meant to be used, but whatever gets you the results you need will make me happy.

[thund3rstruck]

Yea, ROMLister was definately not the right tool for this job. There are just too many possibilities with all the filter options, and I'm 90% certain that the graphical elements were screwing with my queries. Not to mention there are 147 genres and having to write 147 separate queries, all of which have to be formulated to handle all the possible parameters is more time consuming than just splitting/merging XML files and loading them one by one into ROMLister.

In any event, for lack of any real tool capable of the automation I require I have written a command-line Game List converter for MaLa which will convert MLG to INI and INI to MLG. If anyone on this board is interested in the tool I will release it to the community.

I have started working on a C#.NET graphical MaLa Gamelists Editor to wrap the command line converter tool. 

Cheers!