FE with custom categories?

[twitami]

Ok, my cabinet is coming along nicely..but still having issues on the software side. I like ArcadeFX, and a few others I have tried...excpet for one thing: categories. ArcadeFX uses the standard mame categories, but with 25 different categories, I have no idea where to look for some games...this seems like WAY too many too me. Plus, I am going to have interchangeable Control Panels. Is there a FE that you can make custom categories, like maybe 10 or so? ArcadeFX works with AnalogMame also, which I need.

Thanks!
Brian

[Lilwolf]

If I get the time... JFront is designed for mutiple control panels (and if I didn't write the FE I would have more time to make them

It looks like ArcadeFX (skinnable and I personally use his skins because hes much better at it then I am).  

But I can have multiple control panels.  Each can have it's own in-FE controls, it will setup your encoder for you (by calling batch files), it will also configure mame per game config (like all 4way games, or 2player 8ways with 6 buttons...) and these can also be different per control panels.  It can also change the skin (or just the background image for the skin) so that you can have the picture of the cabinet in the skin show the control panel.

the trouble currently is that I had all the options working on my cabinet.  Then I started trying to make it user friendly and had to break a few things.  

I also have to add one more thing.  When switching control panels, I currently am calling the encoder as you rotate.  I need to make it rotate, then have a sperate button to say switch.  This way, you can rotate through them in your current control panel, then have it switch.  It doesn't happen to me yet, but you could have a control panel tha tyou rotate throught that doesn't have any of the same buttons (so you would have to put on that control panel to switch to the next... ie, dumb)

[Howard_Casto]

"The Dragon is Sleeping.... When it awakens the world will be forever changed."

[ArcadeFX]

twitami, the categories are taken from the ArcadeFX database so if you really wanted to edit them you could edit the database and change them all. This would give you your custom categories.  

Post to the AFX board if you are interested.

[SirPoonga]

Ok,  custom categories do have a drawback, you have to enter each rom into those categories by hand.  I suppose it isn;t a big deal, being only 1800 individual games (not cloned).  BUT that's a big task.

Is there a fe that supports that?
My personal one has editable unlimited favorites lists, so I "could" do that.

hehe I'm more of the person to go to my random category which fill the screen with 20 randomly selected games and I go through them, putting ones I like into a favorites list:)

[Lilwolf]

JFront does (will) (man I need to get a release out the door)....

but only by mistake.

with the way I deal with mame configuration (and btw, works great in zinc also) of copying files around.  The main reason was to deal with 4 player controls differently.  Well, many games in mame are really 4 player and 1 input.  So I had to be able to change all the parameters that can be set.  

And the categories are all configurable.  

So you can say.  "style" and "MK"  (for mortal kombat) and then have a category for Mortal Kombat.

Also, I'm have favorites that people at the control panel can change if they like a game or not, and set categories on that.  I'm also considering having a few true/false things that are configurable at the control panel for 'Classic' and maybe add the ability for more.  

But all in all... it's doable... not to practical!

btw, one GREAT feature (in my mind) of jfront.  When you modify a property, it last past future mame versions.  IE I save the changed info in the main datafile and a custom datafile.  When I reparse any files (listinfo or any of the others (ok, only one other now... but going to make a zinc one also), I merdge the custom changes over it.

[)p(]

hehe I'm more of the person to go to my random category which fill the screen with 20 randomly selected games and I go through them, putting ones I like into a favorites list:)

Yeah I like that too. I mostly play games from my favlist but I also like to let the fe put 50 or 100 random games in the arcade...occasionally I discover a great game that way...but I must say there are also a lot of very very bad games in Mame...  

Peter

[Lilwolf]

In jfront, i can categorized favorite not set (and once you set it, you cant unset it)

so I can go to my non-set-favorite and then hit random.  I do this all the time.... but I like it better if I could make it all random... but man that isn't going to be easy since I'm not using a real database (but basically wrote my own)

[Howard_Casto]

In jfront, i can categorized favorite not set (and once you set it, you cant unset it)

so I can go to my non-set-favorite and then hit random.

[ErikRuud]

For a dos fe, GameLauncher will let you set up virtual emulators.  I have used this feature to set up custom categories on my machine.

I does involve a lot of typing, and a lot of text(.bat) files to accomplish though.  The other advantage of this setup is that every single rom could conceivably have it's own custom setup, because each rom is launched using it's own .bat file.

[Rick Sigouin]

For a dos fe, GameLauncher will let you set up virtual emulators.

[Dan]

I used SortInfo to separate my ROMs into directories corresponding to my CP's.  Then I made a batch file with a menu for selecting the current CP.  The batch file copies over the emuwizard.ini file associated with the CP.  Then I just launch EmuWizard!

Dan

[Lilwolf]

The you should appreciate this.  I don't use a database, I wrote one for the frontend.  by the time I finished all the features, I had a decent little database going that use vectors for indexs and hashtables for data.  

But I would change in an instant to a true database because it gives you a TON of features, it's faster then anything you will write for a frontend, and it would help my memory requirements since I load all data into memory.

Ah databases are for sissies!

[)p(]

The you should appreciate this.

[ArcadeFX]

Database all the way!  Why load data that you are not gonig to ever uses.  I only pull the data into AFX that is need, when it is needed.  Database access even with Access is lightening fast.  You can beat the power and speed of a db IMO.

[Lilwolf]

As for speed, no way can any database beat everything loaded in memory and sorted in a list (when you access it linearly).  

trouble is sorting is slow.  finding the next alpha value (a -> first b) this is a linear search... but still 100% instant.

Where databases are really great.... when you can't load everything at once, sorting, changing the sort at runtime, having multiple keys, reliability, speed of writing code, expandability, accessablitiy for other applications... I'm sure the list goes on.  

but pure speed.  I have an array that I step through.  Cant get faster then that with a disk access.

[Howard_Casto]

agreed.... I've found you can store virtually everything contained in the listinfo file in memory without harming resources a bit.  My only problem right now is my gui is slower than my searches.  

I've found that a linear compare of an entire list is just as fast if not faster than using a database query.  A database is a lot less likely to screw up, but you pay for it in the hassles of interfacing/packaging and overall loss of speed for conntections/queries.  

It really is personal preference, but until I find something a database can do for me that I can't do easier by myself, I'll stick to my pre-sorted text files.  

[ErikRuud]

Rick,

I don't have Nesticle, so I don't know fi I can help.

It sounds like you are sending a bad option to Nesticle and causing it to lock up.