Dynamic snaps

[Stormrider]

Some years ago I was after a specific feature in MaLa, which I called dynamic snapshots. This means that you can have the in-game and the title snapshot (for instance) in the same definable and you can specify an switch time. Therefore, in your layout, you will see the in-game image and 5 seconds afterwards, it will change to the title image, and so on, like an animated gif. This idea was never implemented in MaLa. These days, I've updated my layout  and I'm back, patching, compiling MAME and everything, and I wonder if something like this is possible now or will be in the future.

[TopJimmyCooks]

I know gifs for snaps was discussed somewhere long ago- did you search?  I could be wrong.  Other than that, you could make a video with the two screens alternating.  I don't know if enough people would use the two alternating image feature to make it worth the work to add?  I would use it since I don't use videos in mala. 

[Stormrider]

The idea of using videos is discarded. It would take too long and too much space and I don't like using videos in my layout either. However, I could easily use Imagemagick together with a script to generate animated gifs using the title and the in-game snap. Since they have the same name, I could automate the process by calling the files one by one from each folder.

[Stormrider]

Any idea where you read that about using .gifs instead of .pngs for snapshots? I've tried changing a snapshot in .png format for another converted to .gif but it's not working. I have to try with animated .pngs, a file format that I didn't know. It will be amazing if MaLa accepts them.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Pretty sure it was an Idea/feature request someone made, not an actual feature.

[Stormrider]

The animated png is displayed as an static pic, as I expected.

[Stormrider]

I'm considering the possibility of using videos, since it seems like the only way to achieve this. Any command line tool for joining two pngs into a video?

[BadMouth]

Unless you're running windows 7, you can display an animated .gif in the Video window in Mala.
IIRC, Video 2 might be static and not change with each game.  It's been a while since I messed with it though.

Microsoft decided they didn't want to pay licensing fees to have windows picture viewer animate a .gif anymore.
You'll notice in Windows 7, you have to open the .gif with Internet Explorer to get it to animate.

[Stormrider]

Yes, but you cannot use a video in the place of the loading screen, can you?

[BadMouth]

Yes, but you cannot use a video in the place of the loading screen, can you?

Not for when games are launched.  You can play a video when Mala starts.

I thought you were talking about displaying it in the front-end while scrolling through games.

[Stormrider]

I already have a video for when MaLa starts. I meant a game for starting games. Anyway, it's not important.

What I cannot stand as regard videos for the gamelist is the delay in loading them. I don't understand why it's so slow. It makes browsing the gamelist something tedious.
I've tried something like using animated gifs renaming them to avis. Suprisingly, they work, as if they were videos, but the delay is still there, which is odd, since these are really small files.

[BadMouth]

 There is a delay in there on purpose that can be changed in mala.ini?  (possibly in mala setup too, but it's been a while since I fiddled with it.

Most people have the video window directly over the snap window, but on a delay.
That way you can scroll through the games fast and see the pics, but when you stop on one, the video will play overtop the snap.

sent from my phone while driving

[Stormrider]

hmmm that's a good idea.