On the back burner. Is part of my bigger project, now - a new frontend specifically designed to accommodate multi-monitor setups, amongst other things:
http://omnigamez.com/
Once up and running, I'll be moving on to produce some asset collections for it, and HD Mame marquees will be one of my priorities. I've added this as a dev aim here:
http://omnigamez.com/issues/view.php?id=47
Oh, and if you have any suggestions for features for a new front end - please feel free to join up and post them on the forum.
Awesome. I'm definitely going to check it out. So... if I had to describe what my "perfect front end" would be in terms of features, etc. here's what I'm looking for:
1. Simplicity. Can't over state this. All of the bells and whistles I see with things like HyperSpin or Big Box, etc. are cool I guess but very distracting to me. None of the videos or animations help with navigation and getting into playing a game. It's nice to see the year the game came out and other information but honestly I never pay attention to it. If you are familiar with the old GameLauncher front end I thought that was just about the perfect layout (I attaced a pic). Centered game list with a faded screen shot behind the list that changes when you navigate through the list.
2. ONE game list (but I understand that people may want more). Maybe allow for categories (shmups, fighting, etc.). What I don't like is being able to back out to a "system" menu if you are only running one "system" (MAME).
3. Option for bare bones Arcade only. Set the front end to boot on start-up and bring you right to the gamelist. No other menus to worry about (no options available without a keyboard). If there is some combination of buttons that will screw something up, a guest will figure it out.
4. Option for second monitor to be used to display marquee art. This is becoming popular and will only increase over time as weird shaped monitors become cheaper or people design efficient ways to hide parts of a regular monitor in the cabinet displaying only enough to show the marquee. I think it is a worthwhile feature to include.