School me on admin buttons :afro:

[KIguy]

Alrighty, so my build thread has sunk into oblivion... no biggie, no big updates as of late. Little background... building a 2P pedestal and the theme is KISS. And that is the KISS acronym, not the band 

We're going 32x14", maybe a 1" rounding on each corner. The 3" (or 3.75" if you include the trim ring) trackball is centered dead nuts. 1P and 2P for both roughly centered between their respective edge of the CP and the border of the TB. Above each controller will be Player Start & 25c buttons (not yet pictured) and I'd like to center a couple of admin buttons. Problem is I'm not sure of a few things... so let me throw this out there and open myself up for your input/guidance.

Buttons will be centered above trackball, I have their centerlines starting at 2.5" down from the top of the CP.

Here's what I want to do with the buttons:
- Exit (Start will be button 1 on each controller, rgb lit to green)
- Pause / Unpause
- Save State 0 / Load State 0 (I would prefer to use shift for Load - probably buttons 4 + 8 for P1)
- Record video / Stop record (Mame only)

Still not sure if it's possible to record in Mame via button press, and doubly not sure if I could use the same button to stop said recording (suppose I could pause and then shift to stop, but that's worst case). I am booting the Mame box now and will get started on testing that, but regarding the layout - what say ye, my friends? This will primarily be used by adults (aka: adult-sized children ), and the Save function will primarily be for console use - however it would be nice to save my single-quarter gaming sessions if I need to take an extended break for whatever reason.

Okay, I'm  'ing here. Thoughts? Recommendations? Attached is a small .jpg of my CP - the "art" is just a placeholder to show where the button holes are at, I'll be paying somebody to do it right.

[michelevit]

KISS

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Built-In-Multi-Touch/dp/B005DKZTMG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393636723&sr=8-1&keywords=wireless+keyboard

[PL1]

- Exit (Start will be button 1 on each controller, rgb lit to green)
- Pause / Unpause

This sounds good.

- Save State 0 / Load State 0 (I would prefer to use shift for Load - probably buttons 4 + 8 for P1)

If you are going to have load and save functions, it might be better to have separate buttons.

- Record video / Stop record (Mame only)

Seriously?  How often do you really expect to do this?   

If you're doing a gaming tips blog or something similar, you'll need a keyboard to tansfer the captured video files anyway, so it might be better to skip the dedicated admin button.


Scott

[paigeoliver]

Your game exit button and pause button need to be nowhere near each other, in fact, best if the exit button isn't even visible. I generally put my game exit button on the underside of the panel on the player 1 side.

If you really need to have save state and load state on the panel then you are going to want them to be separate buttons. You don't want to shift them. Might consider making the load state a hidden button on the underside of the panel toward the middle. (Accidental state loading can ruin any game you have going).

I would never put a record video button on the panel. Somebody could hit that button without you noticing it and the next thing you know you filled your hard drive with a 17 hour video of the Puzzle Bobble attract mode.

[severdhed]

i personally don't like admin buttons...if you have admin buttons, they will get pressed by accident.   i have two cabinets, the first one has two admin buttons on opposite sides of the panel that are both pause buttons, you press them at the same time it exits.  this works fairly well, but can be problematic sometimes.

on my newest cabinet, i only have a single admin button. it is setup using an ahk script so that a quick press pauses, and a long press of at least 3 seconds exits.  this works very well, it keeps the panel very clean and simple, and also prevents anyone from accidentally exiting a game. 

everything else is easily handled with with shifted commands or a wireless keyboard.

[DaveMMR]

everything else is easily handled with with shifted commands or a wireless keyboard.

Agree with this. Resist the urge to put admin buttons on panels, especially if you have guests/kids playing it. They WILL push the buttons and they WILL screw up your settings. Best case scenario: they'll get really confused and ask you many, many questions.

I personally used to be anti-admin buttons but relented and slapped a cheap Radio Shack button on the panel for exiting as I was tired of telling people how to change games (not that it helped all that much.) Yes, I still kept pause off - that just encourages people to hog the machine by pausing, walking away to go to the bathroom and forgetting to return.

Keep the buttons to a minimum and use shifted key combos instead.

[PL1]

Shifted combos still leave the possibility of accidentally activating an admin function as mentioned here.

Not a huge chance, but it does exist and IIRC has happened to someone (don't recall who at this time) who posted about a party guest who accidently got into the menu system and changed some settings.

The poster mentioned that despite hours of work fixing what he thought were all the messed up settings, he didn't find some until the next party.

No way into the menu system without a keyboard sounds like a good plan for a properly-configured, dedicated MAME system.   


Scott

[DaveMMR]

Shifted combos still leave the possibility of accidentally activating an admin function as mentioned here.

Not a huge chance, but it does exist and IIRC has happened to someone (don't recall who at this time) who posted about a party guest who accidently got into the menu system and changed some settings.

The poster mentioned that despite hours of work fixing what he thought were all the messed up settings, he didn't find some until the next party.

No way into the menu system without a keyboard sounds like a good plan for a properly-configured, dedicated MAME system.   

Yeah, that's a good point. It has happened to me as well.

[KIguy]

Wow, thank you all for responding! I was able to read the responses from my phone last night but wasn't quite ready to respond as it was a lot to think about. It's hard not to feel lambasted at first (hey, we all want to think our ideas are gold), but you guys all have much more experience with this than I do and I know you all are trying to keep me from making mistakes. Much appreciated.

michelevit, there will be no keyboard in the cab at all once it's done. Thank you for the link though, I might actually pick that up for my tablet.

PL1, video recordings were something I was interested in and felt it prudent to research. It appears that this is not feasible, so it's off the table. As are the save/load buttons, no time to replay through RPGs I already beat 20+ years ago. 2 buttons down, simple enough

Messed up configuration files are of no concern to me. I mess them up regularly on my own already (gotta learn!)... which is why I backup every time I make changes. 10 seconds, boom, fixed. I do see the point about a shifted exit though, one person mashing away and the other goes to pause - game over. Suck.

Bottom line is I'm now torn between just having separate exit & pause buttons and going the severdhed route of using a script to go with a single button (thanks for that!). They are both simple in their own right, I just need to decide whether I want to wait 3 seconds to back out of a menu 

Sorry for the long post, thank you all again for your input! 

P.S. DaveMMR - is that Modular Mustangs MMR?

[DaveMMR]

P.S. DaveMMR - is that Modular Mustangs MMR?

Nothing that interesting - just the rest of my initials. 

[KIguy]

P.S. DaveMMR - is that Modular Mustangs MMR?

Nothing that interesting - just the rest of my initials. 

copy that, had to ask

[eds1275]

Exit = P1 down + P1 Start
Pause P2 up + P2 Start

Joysticks for navigating menus, P1 start to select.

[jelwell]

on my newest cabinet, i only have a single admin button. it is setup using an ahk script so that a quick press pauses, and a long press of at least 3 seconds exits.  this works very well, it keeps the panel very clean and simple, and also prevents anyone from accidentally exiting a game.

Found a link for this:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,106418.0.html

Awesome, will work this into my cabinet. Too many times I've hit the ESC key on accident. Sometimes the kids think I did it on purpose. I already have a dedicated Pause, so I will simply make the ESC a delayed button with no immediate button press functionality.
Thanks,
Joseph Elwell.

[severdhed]

that thread is pretty old, and i think the script has been tweaked a bit since then.  I'll try to remember to grab a copy of my current script and post it.

EDIT: here is the script that i am currently using.  pressing PgDn sends the P key, pressing and holding it sends the Esc key. I did not create it, it was written by WXFORECASTER


Script Below:


/*
AUTHOR: WXFORECASTER 10/12/10

DESCRIPTION: DESIGN OVERRIDE SUCH THAT A SINGLE KEY PRESS AND KEY HOLD
             GENERATE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONALITY
*/


/*
BEGIN HOLDESCAPE CODE
SET USER DEFINED VARIABLES BELOW
*/
timeToExit := 1.6    ;time in seconds key must be pressed before sending exit (this can be a decimal e.g. 1.5)
emulateKey := "PgUp"    ;the key we are pressing/emulating
pauseKey :="p"      ;your MAME pause key
exitKey := "esc"         ;your MAME exit key
exitScript := 0      ;0= leave script running, 1= close script when the MAME exit key is fired,

;Make it so the following code only works if MAME is the active window
;#IfWinActive ahk_class MAME

;Establish Hotkey Mapping based on the emulate key above and trigger a chunk of code below (lblPauseExit)
Hotkey, $%emulateKey%, lblPauseExit
return

lblPauseExit:

KeyWait %emulateKey%, T%timeToExit%

      if ErrorLevel = 1 ;timeout was reached...exit MAME
      {
              send {Blind} {%exitKey% downtemp} ;Send MAME Exit
              send {Blind} {%exitKey% up}
                   if (exitScript = 1)
                      ExitApp
      }
      else
      {
         send {Blind} {%pauseKey% downtemp} ;Send MAME pause/unpause
         send {Blind} {%pauseKey% up}
      }     
return

[InfantSorrow]

Exit = P1 down + P1 Start
Pause P2 up + P2 Start

Joysticks for navigating menus, P1 start to select.

Totally unrelated, but does Ed not look like a young Gary Oldman? lol

[yotsuya]

Totally unrelated, but does Ed not look like a young Gary Oldman? lol

I'm not seeing that. 

[InfantSorrow]

Totally unrelated, but does Ed not look like a young Gary Oldman? lol

I'm not seeing that. 

I beg to differ sir, take a look at this