Getting MaLa in Windows Focus. (Testers Please)

[loadman]

There have been many reports about MaLa losing focus at Startup or after quitting a game.

eg:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=100253.0
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=98106.0
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=97496.0
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76882.0

There is a Plug-in that can help:
http://www.malafe.net/index.php?page=plugins#malafocuslogger

Even though this does not happen to me I wanted to helkp so I finally found so code that forces focus and controller back to MaLa.  

I tested this by deliberately choosing another application and MaLa would regain focus (at a set time)  

Anyway as the real issue does not happen to me I am guessing where to put this new code. I assume after it loads a gamelist and after you quit a game.

I am going to need some beta testers who experience focus issues  

[qlunch]

loadman, first off thanks for keeping mala going. I've found it to be my favorite FE and the most flexible one going!

That said I have experienced focus issues. NOTE: I do have the focuslogger plugin installed.

In my experience mala loses focus upon quitting a game (happens with mame and other emulators as well). It tends to happen more often when I've been playing for a few minutes or more. ie entering and quitting games immediately tends not to reproduce the issue.

I could be wrong but at one point I thought reordering the layout affected the chance of it occurring (don't recall whether it was for the good or worse) <--- ignore if this doesn't make sense based on the code 

oh and system specs
running 1.05 (also had same issues with 1.62b when used briefly)
amd 3800+
windows xp sp3
nvidia 8600gt

Let me know how I can help!
thanks

[loadman]

Let me know how I can help!
thanks

You can help by setting up another MaLa in a separate folder ready to test. I don't want to risk breaking your setup.

Don't spend too much time setting up MaLa layout and game lists (just all the files from the original mala folder).

The point is you need to be able to recreate the common scenarios where you will have foxus issue.

I will then post a few mala.exe for you to substitute and see if we can make it better not worse.

That is my plan at the moment

[dapsaille]

Hi Loadman.

 By focus problems do you mean that mala.exe is executed but stay in the taskbar after exiting game ?

 If yes, i encounter the problem on a pc game who is not launched directly .. i mean that this is a launcher who launch another exe ...

 So it seems that mala don't like this way .. i've tried your plugin but it doesn"t help anymore.

 All my others "regular" games works perfectly and mala recover focus after exiting them.

 If i try to click on mala in the taskbar nothing happen .. and right click => restore don"t work .. need to kill mala (arghhhh) and respawn it (yeahhh)

[jasonbar]

Loadman-

I'll give it a whirl.

I have trouble with losing focus when launching MaLa upon Windows XP Pro startup.  I'm using AutoHotKey now to remedy it, since FocusLogger didn't work for me.

I've never lost focus when quitting a game & returning to MaLa.


Let me know what you want me to do.

Thanks,
-Jason

[drventure]

That happens to me, but it's pretty infrequent, so I'm not sure I'd be any good for testing this.

I'll keep an eye out though to see if there's any consistency to it.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's usually the opposite for me, ie mala has popped to the foreground even though mame is running in the background. When that happens mala can't get focus so the machine appears to be hung.

Using taskman to kill mame, lets mala gain focus again normally.

So, ummm. nevermind 

[loadman]

OK,

Having the 'Force Focus to MaLa' code triggered every time the Video looped was       driving me nuts!

I have a dual monitor setup for development and I would be half way through typing code and 'BOOM' I would have to grab the mouse and click the Delphi window again.

So I have moved it to a semi-random spot in the code after a game is quite.

Testing later by you good folk will reveal if the placement is effective :-)

[zipwax]

I'm getting focus problems too. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate, and I think the focus problem happens both when switching to Mame and when exiting a game to go back to the Mala. Problem is, I'm never around to see the bug happen. The game is set up in the kitchen at my work, and whenever I come by, it's locked up. Since Win7 has a lot of hooks in it for various programs and background services to run, it's not a surprise (with how badly software is written today) (I work at Microsoft) that something else tries to grab the focus. Things are complicated now. There needs to be a background process running all the time that says "If mame is running, IT gets the focus" "If mame is not running and Mala is running, Mala needs the focus" "Everybody else, you can all go **** yourselves, you're not getting the focus, ever". :-)

I'd like to beta-test some new mala versions too.

In my mala installation, by the way, it is ABSOLUTELY barebones. Nothing but the bare installation. No videos, no attract sounds, no layouts, nothing extra.

PS: Everybody here at work does NOT like Mala's feature to show the extra game info, or the ability from the UI to allow filtering of the games or removing games from the list. All I, the adminstrator, of the box, want is the ability to select from one of a variety of games, then run said game. Is there source code for Mala so I can compile it and remove the extra stuff?

[loadman]

Is there source code for Mala so I can compile it and remove the extra stuff?

Ha ha   ...well apart from anything else you need a copy of Delphi 5 and a way to buy all these old 3rd part libs.

Can you specify what parts of the menu should not be accessed and I will consider making that an option

[qlunch]

loadman, I recently moved my computer into my cab now that its getting close to being finished and have been using it this way for over a week without any focus issues. I had been experiencing them often enough to expect several to have happened by now. The only difference between my setup before and how it is now is the monitor. I was using a widescreen 1440x900 (i think) lcd and now I am using a 4:3 crt monitor at 1600x1200. I have been using the zebra layout pack (4:3) and made no software changes in mala. Could resolution / aspect ratio changes possibly affect this focus issue...or did I just luck out?

qlunch

[loadman]

You may have just lucked out ?

I never happens to me either.

But I added code to force focus after quitting a game in the next beta. I will interested in the feedback