Mala layout help needed

[ballboff]

I'm using a multi-system theme called M.A.M.V.E (Multi Arcade Machine & VideoConsole Emulator) by Gallind in MALA.  However, since I changed to this theme which has layouts for each system I'm not seeing the image files, not even for mame.  I'm not sure where these need to be placed.  I've set the individual folders for the emulators themselves.  I'm not sure if everything has to be all in one main marquee and snap folder or what the folder structure needs to be.  There is no documentation on the theme.  I've tried to load up the theme in layout editor to see if I could see where it loads the images from, but I couldn't tell from the layout (I looked at the megadrive one as an example). 

[empardopo]

I always create a directory for each emulator. To see the snaps, you must setup in MALA!

[ballboff]

I always create a directory for each emulator. To see the snaps, you must setup in MALA!

I've already set up the emulators in each of their own folders, the snaps and marquees are set up in other emulator tab in mala, but they're not showing up.  Do I need to use the program mala tree to set this all up?  I've seen the program before but never used it, but after posting this post I've read somewhere about setting up an emulator heirarchy.  It probably doesn't help that I've got both mala and mame in the same mame folder, and then in that folder I've got a folder called emulators.  Maybe I should move mala to a c:\emulators folder and then move mame, fusion and snes9x into that emulators folder.

[BadMouth]

Mala tree is just a different way to use Mala.  It has nothing to do with your snaps not showing up.

Mala Wiki :http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Config

Folder structure doesn't matter.  All that matters is that the path is set correctly for each emulator and the filenames of the snap files match the filenames of the roms.
(You may need to refresh the gamelist, I don't recall at the moment)


Also, make sure you have "show pictures" checked under the GUI tab

[ballboff]

Ok so I've moved the folders around a bit to make it more user friendly.  I've managed to get some snaps and marquees showing up for megadrive.  Mame isn't showing anything now, just the title.  I read somewhere that the snaps have to be in a folder in later versions of mame, so you can have more than 1 screenshot.  Could my theme be trying to pick out snaps from folders instead of individual screen grabs?  All the other themes seemed to work ok with my setup, but since I changed to a multi system layout it seems to not link my mame roms and marquees and snaps etc.  I've checked the pages you showed me just in case, and it all seems to be set up ok, I think it's a template issue.

[BadMouth]

Ok so I've moved the folders around a bit to make it more user friendly.  I've managed to get some snaps and marquees showing up for megadrive.  Mame isn't showing anything now, just the title.  I read somewhere that the snaps have to be in a folder in later versions of mame, so you can have more than 1 screenshot.  Could my theme be trying to pick out snaps from folders instead of individual screen grabs?  All the other themes seemed to work ok with my setup, but since I changed to a multi system layout it seems to not link my mame roms and marquees and snaps etc.  I've checked the pages you showed me just in case, and it all seems to be set up ok, I think it's a template issue.

Again, as long as the path is set correctly and the pic names correspond to the rom names, Mala doesn't care about anything else.
MAME has it's own setup screen to set the path.  Even if it looks correct, try clicking on it and setting it again.

[ballboff]

No no no, you see i've checked all that about a million times, re-assigned all the folders, ticked all the boxes.  I think the layout is screwed, I might have to try with another layout tonight, another one which includes multiple systems.  If I switch to a standard mame layout they all show up, it's just this one layout that doesn't work, my setup is exactly the same.  I've also got this same setup successfully working on a mame machine I have set up, i'm just experimenting on my main non-arcade pc before I transfer it all over and update my arcade.

[Skinnysloth]

...Mame isn't showing anything now, just the title...

Is this the layout you're using?


If it is, you'll notice by default, the mame layout does not have snap/title checked in the objects menu.  If you want to use snap, you'll have to use the malalayout editor to enable the snap/title object and then move/resize the object box to the desired place.  All the configuration in the world will not help if it's not enabled in the layout.

[ballboff]

...Mame isn't showing anything now, just the title...

Is this the layout you're using?


If it is, you'll notice by default, the mame layout does not have snap/title checked in the objects menu.  If you want to use snap, you'll have to use the malalayout editor to enable the snap/title object and then move/resize the object box to the desired place.  All the configuration in the world will not help if it's not enabled in the layout.

Yeah I know that's what I figured.  I was just wondering if I needed to put them in any particular folder/sub-folder configuration for it to work properly.  I think something seriously wrong has happened to my template as mine doesn't look like yours in the layout viewer.  I did click to enable snaps but then I couldn't figure out where to put them.  My marquee always shows as the default one anyway, so there seems to be a missing link between the rom and the marquee names.  I also don't have any of those dotted lines or text showing where my objects should be, I'm surprised my template shows anything at all.

[BadMouth]

If you don't see the dotted outlines, it could be an ordering issue (the layout would have to have been opened and messed with at some point for this to happen though).
Try right clicking on the background in the layout editor and selecting "send to back".
The dotted outlines should show then.

Most people put the snaps and video placeholder in the same position with the snaps behind the video.
Choose the option while in Mala to delay the video, then the way it ends up working is that you can scroll through the games quickly with the snaps showing, but if you stop on one the video will play in front of the snap.

If you're not using video, just uncheck the video box.

[ballboff]

If you don't see the dotted outlines, it could be an ordering issue (the layout would have to have been opened and messed with at some point for this to happen though).
Try right clicking on the background in the layout editor and selecting "send to back".
The dotted outlines should show then.

Most people put the snaps and video placeholder in the same position with the snaps behind the video.
Choose the option while in Mala to delay the video, then the way it ends up working is that you can scroll through the games quickly with the snaps showing, but if you stop on one the video will play in front of the snap.

If you're not using video, just uncheck the video box.

Well this is all good stuff, I've got a bit more to go on now.  Thanks to everyone who's read and posted here so far.   gf out tonight, so plenty of time to tinker.

[ballboff]

Problem fixed.  It turned out that the background was in the foreground, so all I was getting was the text of each of the games and no snaps or marquees.  When you press control-Z in mala layout you get a list of all the objects and then you can rearrange to make sure the marquees aren't being overlaid by other stuff etc. 

[BadMouth]