Dragonmania is STILL runnin' wild!

[Howard_Casto]

So brotha, I'll ask you....
What cha gonna do?
What cha gonna do when I reach down deep inside one more time?
What cha gonna do when I go back to the well once more?
What cha gonna do when I make it better?
What cha gonna do when I make it more flexiable?
What cha gonna do when It rises up?
Huh?

WHAT CHA GONNA DO WHEN THE RAGING DRAGON RUNS WILD ON YOU!!!

Dragonmania makes a comeback starting August. Get ready brotha cause this one's gonna be too sweet!

[Brad]

Howard,

After reading your plans for the Dragon, I am most excited to see what you've got planned.

Currently, there's still no PERFECT frontend out there for me now -- Game Launcher and EmuWizard are the closest, and the fact you're using their portability between emulators as a model is exciting.

I love the idea of being able to send keys upon entry or exit, as this will be a great solution for those emus with complicated entry and exit procedures -- The idea that I can have a universal exit procedure (Start 1+2 for example) for ANY emulator would make the usability of my cabinet TONS better.

Also, I hope you might consider a key remapping wrapper.  I've got a hotrod SE, thus no ability to remap keys on the fly, and some emulators still don't offer that functionality, so to be able to have the Dragon map keys (and unmap them) when entering and exiting a particular emu would also be a GREAT feature.

Oh, as for Game Launcher and Emuwizard, they're close, just not perfect -- Game Launcher is DOS-based, so I'm having tons of trouble getting it to regain focus after it launches a Windows emulator (even after trying some window restore software -- Anyone had any luck with that?).

Emuwizard is even closer to perfect, however it's sendkeys functionality doesn't work, and it's got some other problems under the hood - For example, the windows Genesis emulator "Gens" doesn't seem to work properly with it, which Dan realizes, but the problem has to do with the way Gens does something that EmuWizard doesn't like.

So, naturally, being a person who wants to have one frontend that can run EVERY emulator on the planet, as well as a custom list of PC games, I'm most interested in the new Dragon.

As always, if you need a beta tester, PLEASE let me know -- I helped Dan test Emuwizard and I'm sure he can attest that I found some good bugs!

Thanks again,

Brad

[Howard_Casto]

yeah the launching and exiting of games is of my top priority right now....

im making two wrappers that you can configure right now.....  one uses keypresses and is getting very robust particularly on the exit routines..... first if you've given it a caption for the emu, it will kill the process and free the memory, if that doesn't work, it looks for whatever app is in front and closes that.  if that fails then you can send it keys to exit, so hopefully this will be the last time a keypress wrapper will have to be written.

the other is a translator wrapper.... fro those pesky emus that don't stick to mame-style syntax (zinc)  you can setup and translator script file.....

so mamecommanda=zinccommanda and so on until you have a list of all of the emus commands and their equivelent mame counterparts..... this way rd always sends mame information, thus eliminating alot of internal havoc.

the lost focus issue won't be a prob with the new rd....  i've included a bit of code in all of the wrappers that keeps the app they launch in focus.... so those pesky focus-loosing emus like finalburn (i love that it's back btw)  wont' cause too many headaches

i've been working off and on on a key-remapper, but it's slow going..... the problem is properly hooking the keys  i can send keys no problem, but the original key you pressed still gets sent, which can cause problems.  this one's a maybe

i actually don't need beta testers simply because i always release my betas to the public.... rd is still a beta program, that's why it kind of makes me laugh when people compalin about it's stability... there's not even an official version yet and people are already using it on thier cabs.  

however, im sure there will be plenty of bugs to find

this is so much of a rebuild that only the menu screens, which i recently added, will remain from the first versions.... hopefully though, you won't see a difference on your end graphically

and remember kiddies, stay in school, train hard, take  your vitamins, say your prayers and you too can be a true dragonmaniac

[Brad]

Actually, the biggest issue I had with losing focus was the frontend itself not regaining focus after the emulator was exited, so be sure you are covering

And yes, the keyboard wrapper is most exciting -- Since, as you know, a lot of emulators (U64, Visual Pinball to name a couple) don't have great key support to enter in, it would be nice to be able to have the frontend launch ANY program you want and run a script to load the rom.  I wish these authors would all include command line support, but we all know that for some Windows emus, the authors feel the built-in frontend should be used, therefore give us NO command line support.

DOS emus mostly have this but as I've seen, Windows counterparts of a lot of emus (console emus in particular) have gone a TON further as far as graphics and compatbility than DOS.

Exiting will also be nice -- If you can set up a wrapper that allows any key or key combo to send a different signal to an emu, that would rock.  Gens, for example, only has I think ALT-F4 as a direct exit option.  So, if RD could interpret a 1+2 keypress as ALT-F4 when in Gens, that would rock.  Nothing worse than having to pull out a keyboard or mouse to exit back to a frontend. Again, a fault of the emu authors, not the frontend.

Key remapping would be nice but I understand tough.  MOST emu authors are now allowing full remapping so it's not a prob, though my favorite Atari 2600 emu, Z26, still doesn't have remap ability -- I remember ArcadeOS did that great (key remapping) for Z26, but both were DOS programs, probably why it was easier.

Anyway Howard I can't wait for the first beta!

Brad

[Howard_Casto]

yeah all of this you've mentioned will be included

in theory with the new wrapper systems you can launch any app. the only hitch is i want you you make an entry for them in a listinfo style dat file.  It's actually very similar to the way I had you enter it before, so it should be a big deal.... I might even make a tiny app that allows you to enter the data in a more convenient manner.  

My only problem right now is visual pinball.... it's so unstandarized, that it's difficult to make an external wrapper as tables aren't static.  I might have to end up having visual pinball integrated into the system, i dunno.  

[)p(]

yeah the launching and exiting of games is of my top priority right now....

im making two wrappers that you can configure right now.....

[Brad]

Howard,

Let me just say for the record - PLEASE set it up so I can set up each emulator by HAND with an INI file or otherwise.  I find this is the easiest, quickest way to set up a frontend anyway.  I enjoyed setting up Game Launcher and EmuWizard with an INI file, and it's very very easy to change.  Don't waste your time doing that frontend for INI changes until the app is done!  I can honestly say that most folks here who take the time to set a cabinet up will NOT mind going into a text file to set up their emulators.  Plus, that way I know it's done right, exactly the way that I want.

Visual Pinball - I hear ya.  I think it would be fine if you set up special cases for certain programs like that, and just built it in.  I plan to use Visual Pinball in the frontend for sure, but if you kept a way to disable the Visual Pinball addon for those who don't want to use it, and made it look like it was never there, that would be perfect.

It sounds like you've got everything figured out already anyway, I'm excited to see this thing!!!!  August can't come soon enough.

Brad

[Jakobud]

There is one thing about Game Launcher that is very very cool that I like a lot.  It has the option for your list of games to be defined via a custom text file.  For example, you can use Game Launcher to scan your mame games and then show the full list.  Or you can tell it to look at a custom text file and get the list from there.  So I can have a directory full of my roms, but in the text file I can add and remove the roms as I see fit, so that only the ones show up in Game Launcher that I want to show up.  I hate it how frontends use all the filters and stuff to modify your game list(s).  I totally prefer being able to edit the INI's or CFG's to get the EXACT results you want. Hopefully you will implement this into RD.  Anyone else agree with me on this?

Jakobud

[Howard_Casto]

Howard,

Let me just say for the record - PLEASE set it up so I can set up each emulator by HAND with an INI file or otherwise.