New to Mala Front End. Please help Noobie.

[diamondz]

I know that a lot of these questions may seem simple or self explanitory, or i may be trying to do too much as a newbie, but here goes. I appreciate any help I get. I know that there are a lot of tutorials etc.

I have finally got mame and mala installed. Now I am trying to get it configuredl

I am trying to point to my layouts.. i got some of it but a few questions about different things.

I have my layouts  folder in C:emulators/Mala/Mala version/Layouts.
I have several layouts inside the folder-extracted.  some extracted inside folders with the same name as the layout, some just in the layout folder. Inside of this folder there are different types of files, jpg, pnd, psd etc.  Is it ok to have several layouts in this folder or just the ones i want to use?

In mala configuration. i point to these folders where needed.  When i go to the layouts configuration i see some layouts to choose from but not as many as there are in the folder. when i dont have mala tree selected i can pick whatever layout thats available. But when malatree is selected, everything is greyed out and i cant pick any layout. Can I only use one or the other or can they work together? how?

Sometimes Mala loads with a layout and sometimes there  is no layout just the tree menu. Why is this?

I have been reading about where i should change the name of the image i want to use to the same name as the option i want to use it for. If i want my mame layout to be a certain image..should i name that image name to mame? 

EX. I have a Spiderman image, if i want that to be my main layout for when mame first opens up should i change the name from spiderman.jpg to mame.jpg

Game list.  I have made a game list, which i can't get to pull up anywhere. How do i make it pull up in Mala tree?  there is no option to select any of my gamelists that i created.  I did create my tree menu before i actually did my gamelist..did i do this backwards? does it make a difference? should i have created the gamelist first then made a tree?  If I did it wrong how can i revert it? 

Mala tree. Now, I have made lists in mala tree. This is how I have my tree.

MaLa Menu
   -Mame
     -Sports
     -shooter
     - Fight
  -Jukebox
     -Jazz
     -classical
I want to point to images for each different selection. this is confusing. When pointing to the images, i have read that i should name the .mll file (related to the image i want to use) to the same nameas the category i want to use it for, but i have seen 2 ways of doing this..does it matter?
EX. i have seen

 Mame_Sports.mll     for the image i want to use for sports. 
 or
 Mame Sports.mll  with no underscore. Which is the correct way?

Now, where should this image i want to use be located? in the snaps folder or in my layout folder?

I think snaps are just the images (snapshot) of the diff games as i scroll through my menu (like if the cursor is sitting on pacman, the image at that time may be a snap of pacman) and the images in my layout folder should be used for my gamelist images ..correct me if I am wrong.

Also, when trying to get an image to represent a particular category should i name only the .mll file the same as the category (as above) or should i also name the image that represents that.mll file also.

Ex. should i change the actual image name to

Mame_Sports.jpg               or leave this part alone and only change the mll file.  What else should i change?


Marquees. Can I get these to display at the start of Mala instead of my version of Mame which is always displayed? Is this what the Marquees are for?

I also see pnd,psdand other files. where should i put them?

I only have one emulator(mame) is jukebox considered an emulator?

I have a snaps folder in c:/emulators/mame/snaps. should they be in the Mala folder? Like the layouts?

Thanks to anyone who can help me sort this out.