MAWS source code available UPDATE: Now resurrected in java

[BadMouth]

DOUBLE EDIT:  The app is much more developed and has been announced in this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,136193.0.html


old post:

EDIT:

ids has resurrected MAWS in java.   
(more like rebuilt from scratch, but it feels like MAWS)

Current WIP available for download here:
http://ids.ca/mame/maws2.zip

This is a BETA.  Post questions and comments here in this thread.
If you have issues read the readme and this thread first.



ORIGINAL POST:


In case anyone interested missed it.

The code for MAWS was released over on MAMEworld.
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=297485&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1&new=1356984084

Doesn't appear anyone is picking up the torch for it. 

I know nothing about coding, but if it's possible to quickly knock out a way to run it locally (in it's current state), that would be pretty cool.
IIRC it was last updated around MAME v.143 which a lot of people would be satisfied with.

[spoot]

Thanks for posting this.  Code grabbed.   

[ids]

Code taken - will see if I can ressurrect this thing

[ids]

been a long while, lost interest in resurrecting the code, too many bits missing, etc.

I've started a rewrite from scratch.   However, not sure exactly all the things offered by MAWS.  All I ever did with it was the occasional search.  So, any info or feature requests welcome.  Right now I have coded bits to read in mame.xml, history.dat, catver.ini, nplayers.ini, cheat.7z.

Any other sources?  Other than searches, what else did MAWS provide that should be included?  What other stuff would have been nice to add to MAWS?

thx

[BadMouth]

Has the info in MAME.xml surpassed what was in controls.dat?
I think it was last updated v.141, but may still be of some use.

Man, there aren't even many screen pics out there, but I found a couple:



(this is from the browser window of another app)

[ids]

I just took a quick look at controls.ini (0.141) and it does have a bit of info I don't see in my mame.xml, such as naming the function of buttons.  I think that's a keeper.   Thanks.

One more item for the to-do list: images - I'm not sure what to do with these.  There are so many types, sources, etc.  Can I link to them all?  Would I need local copies for some/all?

Another thing I saw in the MAWS code was some kind of support for user rankings or something, I forget now.  But, I like it; will add that.

I think it'd be cool if front ends added some kind of support (optional! I'm a big fan of privacy) to send info to some central place, such as a MAWS - this site could count how many times a game is played, hi-scores from all over the world, etc.  I imagine this is a long shot tho

Also, since I don't like doing HTML, I'll probably start with a stand-alone app, then webify it later.  Unless someone offers help.

[BadMouth]

Not sure about the images.  If it's a standalone app, you could leave it up to the user to place images in subfolders.
That's how the UI versions of MAME do it.

One feature I think would be nice:  If it could tell you what other roms are needed in addition to the primary one.
For example, a neo geo rom would list the neo geo bios.  Spy Hunter would list the sound board rom which was separated out.
Not sure if that's feasible, but it would help some noobs who collect roms one at a time.

[yotsuya]

Too bad you guys ran off Sandheaver. I bet this would have been right up her alley.

 

[ids]

Yeah, I think the stand alone version will just list some URL's where you can find the files needed.  It'll be up to the user to populate the data.  Search will be only as good as the data fed in.

The rom idea sounds really good as well.  That one will take some investigating, as certain details are not obvious within mame.xml.

For example, mame.xml has a list of "biosset" and "rom" entries, but no reference to where to find these things.  I'd assume the first place it looks would be the rom zip file itself.  But if not there, then...?  Does it check the "cloneof=" or "romof=" entries?  Thus, to determine which files I need in my rom dir, I think I'd need to correlate all the XML entries with actual rom/zip content?  I'll dig into it, but if anyone knows how this works, you could save me some time.

I know there are other stand alone tools.  I haven't spent much time with any of them so I hope I am not reinventing the wheel here.

yotsuya - I dont recall a Sandheaver but then I dont get the time to read too many posts here, and then forget most of what I've read anyway 

[BadMouth]

I know there are other stand alone tools.  I haven't spent much time with any of them so I hope I am not reinventing the wheel here.

The UI flavors of MAME include the ability to display pics, history, etc, but lack the ability to search by genre or number of buttons, number of players, etc.

They do include a file tree that allows you to display only a certain control type.
It's based on the xml though, so driving games show up under "dial" or "spinner".

The big thing with maws was being able to select multiple criteria quickly and easily.
Let's say you were building a cab with only a 4-way joystick and weren't sure how many buttons you needed on the CP.
You could use MAWS to search for games that used both a 4-way joystick and 3 or more buttons.
It would give you a list of the half dozen games that meet that criteria and you could decide whether it was worth including the extra button.

Romlister can do that, but doesn't show you pics and all the other info from the dat files like MAWS did.

[opt2not]

Oh man I miss MAWS...

[Hoopz]

Oh man I miss MAWS...

This x eleventy billions.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Generic Eric]

Oh man I miss MAWS...

I miss  MAWS & mame.dk too


We've all lost loved ones 

[404]

Also, since I don't like doing HTML,   Unless someone offers help.

I don't remember MAWS, it was before the time i really got more involved in mame.

I've been pretty busy with quite a few other web related works lately but if you can get this working, I will design an html template for it.

[ids]

Oh man I miss MAWS...

This x eleventy billions.

Agreed.  That's why someone needs to rebuild it.  So, I'm volunteering my efforts.  I've got a lot done with inhaling content from various sources, and now just need to push it all into a DB and slap a UI on it.  I'm hoping it wont take too long.

404 - thanks for the kind offer.   If you don't remember MAWS, then you wont remember the very long list of search criteria it ran down the left side in the advanced search mode.....actually I don't remember it all that well myself.  However, it should be easy to come close just by enumerating all the data gathered through various sources.  I'm not sure how best to communicate this.  Would you prefer waiting for a beta thick client app, or just have a list of the items, or...  I'm also really hoping others chime in with what they remember, or their wish lists, etc.  I also forgot how it handles the "or more" part of things like the "3 or more buttons" criteria BadMouth mentions, or how it combined the criteria (was it AND or OR logic?) etc  Not that it needs to be recreated verbatim - changes or improvements could always be made.

thx

[opt2not]

You the man ids! 

Wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20111007122643/http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/

[BadMouth]

Wow.  That way back machine link rocks!

Ids, check out the deluxe search tab.
Doesn't look like there was an "or more" option, or even an "or" option, so that should simplify.  I don't remember if you could hold CTRL and select multiple options.  I'm on a phone so can't try it on the way back link.

sent from my phone while driving

[404]

404 - thanks for the kind offer.   If you don't remember MAWS, then you wont remember the very long list of search criteria it ran down the left side in the advanced search mode.....actually I don't remember it all that well myself.  However, it should be easy to come close just by enumerating all the data gathered through various sources.  I'm not sure how best to communicate this.  Would you prefer waiting for a beta thick client app, or just have a list of the items, or...  I'm also really hoping others chime in with what they remember, or their wish lists, etc.  I also forgot how it handles the "or more" part of things like the "3 or more buttons" criteria BadMouth mentions, or how it combined the criteria (was it AND or OR logic?) etc  Not that it needs to be recreated verbatim - changes or improvements could always be made.

thx

It would be best to have something tangible first before i go about skinning it.

I did do some quick research online about maws. It seemed like a really cool site. I do however, see lots of this information as almost being better suited for a wiki?

Everything in maws seems to be just simple info that are categorized in a wiki.


When you think about it, the small portions that can't be easily done with just simple wiki markup can be done with an extension. At the end of the day you are left with a site that has all of the following

core that is always being updated
site that uses one form of article markup
easily updatable
easily skinnable (i won't be around forever)

just my 2 cents anyway

[8BitMonk]

Have you had a look at mamedb.com? It's similar though not quite as robust as maws was in filtering.

Some months ago I had considered taking this on myself as I'm a web developer. I contacted the owner of mamedb.com to ask him about his process for parsing and displaying the mame xml info. He was very helpful and happy to share the files and an overview of the process as he's been lacking time to keep it updated.

You might want to contact him and use mamedb.com as a basis to jumpstart this. I could help in skinning as well once the framework is in place.

[BadMouth]

Have you had a look at mamedb.com? It's similar though not quite as robust as maws was in filtering.

Some months ago I had considered taking this on myself as I'm a web developer. I contacted the owner of mamedb.com to ask him about his process for parsing and displaying the mame xml info. He was very helpful and happy to share the files and an overview of the process as he's been lacking time to keep it updated.

You might want to contact him and use mamedb.com as a basis to jumpstart this. I could help in skinning as well once the framework is in place.

well hell, I didn't know MAMEdb had that robust of a search.
Many times it would have come in useful.

[Hoopz]

Too bad you guys ran off Sandheaver. I bet this would have been right up her alley.

 

Dammit, I was going to say that.   

[Hoopz]

Wasn't mamedb built after MAWS was taken down as a tool we could use but without all of the abilities that MAWS had?  I'm fairly certain that's how it worked out.

I can't program but I can throw a few bucks to whoever is taking the project on.   I dont think anyone's mentioned that but if it comes down to it, I'm in.

[opt2not]

^ Yeah, you're right.
I've been using mamedb but it's definitely not the same.

If there is going to be a donation drive, then I'm in. IMO the community took a big hit when MAWS went down, and I'd love to see it come back with the same features, if not, better!
I've played many games I wouldn't have if it wasn't for MAWS. In addition to the great filter searches, the random game and hall of fame features of that site were great. Also finding out all the romset info and status', plus what's changed from each release  really helped narrow down some issues with setting up working games lists.
When MAWS was pulled down, I poured out a little liquor...

[ids]

I can only speak for myself - I'm not looking for any money in this.  I just want my deluxe search back.

Hall of fame you say....how did that work?  Was it just based on user ratings, or something else?

Random game would be easy enough.

romset info and status are all in mame.xml, so that's very easy

release changes...hmm.....  I'll look into that

currently I can load mame.xml, history.dat, mameinfo.dat, cheat.7z, catver.ini, nplayers.ini, controls.ini, hiscore.dat

I'm not sure what value hiscore.dat has in this context, other than perhaps the ability to flag games which are supported.

Anything else I should load in?

[opt2not]

Hall of fame you say....how did that work?  Was it just based on user ratings, or something else?

I believe it was based on rating votes. If I remember correctly, there were a bunch of different categories for genres, etc. This helped out pretty well for finding "the best" of each genre, rated by maws users.

[ids]

Most of the single game screen done - teaser pic attached - i chose the same game as per thewaybackmachine for testing purposes.

Not sure where to get the last changed version info from, or the "set" name in the rom listing.  Oddly enough, the "version added" comes from catlist.ini.

[BadMouth]

Most of the single game screen done - teaser pic attached - i chose the same game as per thewaybackmachine for testing purposes.

Not sure where to get the last changed version info from, or the "set" name in the rom listing.  Oddly enough, the "version added" comes from catlist.ini.

last changed from clrmamepro somehow?  (it's listed in the resources in the wayback link)

Looks sweet.  I don't see joystick type anywhere (2-way, 4-way, 8-way).
Will that show up here or just in the search criteria?

[opt2not]

You're doing a good thing here ids!  Thank you so much. 

Yeah, joystick type is super important for this. That was one of the major search parameters I've always used.

[2600]

Most of the single game screen done - teaser pic attached - i chose the same game as per thewaybackmachine for testing purposes.

Not sure where to get the last changed version info from, or the "set" name in the rom listing.  Oddly enough, the "version added" comes from catlist.ini.

Under Game,
"set name" is the rom name

Under Data,
"set" refers to which set each rom is from, so for your example otwalls looks to be the parent so the set for each of those would be "otwalls".  So let's do a different example this time we will use the set name "pacman".  "pacman" is a clone of "puckman".  So the roms unique to "pacman" will have pacman under set and the roms that are the same as the parent "puckman" will have puckman under set.

[ids]

I checked the clrmamepro site - he's not hosting any dats   There's a link to progettosnaps but I'm not finding anything with a "last updated version" in it.

I've added in the joystick type (img attached).  Does anyone want to see other stuff, such as for dial, paddle, etc: min, max, sensitivity, keydelta, reverse?

For set names, please pardon my dragging this out, just want to be perfectly clear....

"Game/Set name" is from here in mame.xml:
      <game name="puckman" ...

Data/set, following the pacman example, we have the following mame.xml entries:
      <game name="pacman" sourcefile="pacman.c" cloneof="puckman" romof="puckman">
and
      <game name="puckman" sourcefile="pacman.c">

pacman lists 4 unique roms, pacman.6[efhj], so the "set" is pacman.
puckman has instead 4 roms not crosslisted in pacman: namcopac.6[efhj]

Then rest are repeated under both game entries, but pacman includes a "merge" attribute, such as:
      <rom name="pacman.5e" merge="pacman.5e"...
So, the "set" is puckman, I assume.

But what is the precise logic?  The lazy side of me is thinking: if there is a "merge" named, then "set" will show the games "romof" value.  That's pretty easy.  Or, do I have to actually visit the parent (cloneof?  romof?) and merge entries?  Will all clones/children have the full list of roms, or do I have to visit cloneof/romof to complete the list?  Can parents have parents - and I need to walk the tree?  Or....?

Thanks - appreciate the help!

[2600]

There is only one parent and all clones will list all the roms needed for that particular clone.

The merge attrib that you mentioned does imply that that specific rom is merged from the parent.

So for puckman each rom has puckman listed under set.
For pacman, roms pacman.6[efhj] each have pacman listed under set and the rest of the roms list puckman under set.



As for last changed, I don't recall any dat's with that specific info.  What might of happened is that maws created a history of each rom set probably using clrmamepro.  It's a useful stat, but you might want to save that for a future release.  It might be better to contact cutebutwrong with a general post on MAMEWORLD to talk about that particular stat.

[BadMouth]

So I'm messing around with HLSL and...
man it would be nice to be able to generate a list of games based on resolution. 

I can't wait until this is done.

[ids]

2600 -thanks for the info.  I think I will defer anything I'm not able to resolve for now

BadMouth - I've run an extract based on resolution and "rotate" - from which I assume the horiz/vert idea derives, result attached, hope its useful.  Ran a naive sort on it, so its a bit awkward, sry

[ids]

search starting to come together
I'd like to have a richer search - multiple selections etc....

[opt2not]

 

[BadMouth]

Looking good.  On sites like Mouser and Digikey, you can select multiple things in a category by holding down the CTRL button.
That would be one way of handling it.


That resolutions file was a bit much with everything run together.
I'm gonna wait for the program. 


Thought of a name for this program yet?

[ids]

opt2not - many thx

BadMouth - if you dont mind fighting with a half baked beta, i can provide app as-is

Haven't thought of a name - open to suggestions.

Updated the detail screen, to make better use of available space.  Still working on the layout, need to add images, etc.

[ids]

Question to everyone: how to display and handle "resolution" for verticals.  The mame.xml has width and height (pixel resolution) values independent of the monitors rotation (afaik).  Should I swap these for verticals, to reflect the resolution as it would appear to the user, or leave resolution to reflect monitor capabilities independent of rotation?  Or, make this a configurable thing - let anyone using the software decide for themselves?

thx

[2600]

Question to everyone: how to display and handle "resolution" for verticals.  The mame.xml has width and height (pixel resolution) values independent of the monitors rotation (afaik).  Should I swap these for verticals, to reflect the resolution as it would appear to the user, or leave resolution to reflect monitor capabilities independent of rotation?  Or, make this a configurable thing - let anyone using the software decide for themselves?

thx

Resolution and monitor orientation are 2 different things.  The resolution is the resolution the game is driving the monitor and the monitor is the physical orientation of the monitor.  The monitor is still driven the same way no matter which way you physically orientate the monitor.

[ids]

OK, thanks.  I had implemented it to swap the width/height for verticals, to show the res as it would appear to player, but will revert - just display as-is in mame.xml.  Perhaps a tooltip or something so it's made clear....

Thank you.