Recommended Controls for Admin Stuff

[TLiner]

Hello,

I'm building a control panel for the first time and I wanted to get some feedback on what controls people would suggest possibly adding buttons for to control various admin things.
I've looked at a lot of control panels and what I've seen so far is:
Pause
Tab (for entering Mame setup)
Enter (for launching ROMS or making a selection in Mame setup or front end)
Esc (for stopping an emulator or exiting back to front end)
Del / Backspace (for clearing an input field in Mame setup) (not sure if I've actually seen this on a panel or something I just thought of)
Volume Up, Down, and Mute
Left, Center, & Right mouse buttons (typically located by track ball)

Aside from coin/credit and player buttons is there anything else one could think of.
I'd prefer to have labeled dedicated buttons for things rather than trying to remember shift states and button combinations to do various things.

Thanks guys

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, TLiner.   

Pause
Tab (for entering Mame setup)
Enter (for launching ROMS or making a selection in Mame setup or front end)
Esc (for stopping an emulator or exiting back to front end)
Del / Backspace (for clearing an input field in Mame setup) (not sure if I've actually seen this on a panel or something I just thought of)
Volume Up, Down, and Mute
Left, Center, & Right mouse buttons (typically located by track ball)

The FAQ has some thoughts on the subject.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160809113045/http://newwiki.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?title=FAQ#Number_of_admin_buttons

Quick rundown of the buttons you proposed from best to worst IMHO:
(This advice assumes that you are building a control panel on a dedicated cabinet, not a portable panel.)

ESC and Pause -- Good choices.

Enter -- Optional.  You can configure your front end to use Player 1 Button 1 instead.
(joystick navigates the FE menus, P1B1 launches the game)

Volume Up, Down, and Mute -- Do you want buttons or a volume dial?

Left, Center, & Right mouse buttons -- Not needed.  Consider using a cordless keyboard stashed inside your coin door instead.

Del / Backspace -- Umm . . . No.  You'll understand when you configure MAME.

Tab -- For most setups, this is strongly not recommended. (see the wiki link above)  Once you're done configuring MAME, you will not need it.  Consider using a cordless keyboard stashed inside your coin door instead.


Scott

[romshark]

If your build has a coin door, put the admin buttons in there, where you can lock them away from the guests. I do have a pause button on the side of my control panel, but that's it.

[yotsuya]

I have no admin buttons on my panel. I teach people how to use Player 1 & Player 2 exit to menu. And if they asked me to pause or anything like that, I'd tell them to get the ---fudgesicle--- out of my game room. ;-)

[Malenko]

Welcome aboard, TLiner.   

This isnt a ---smurfing--- boat, stop welcoming people "aboard"

Quick rundown of the buttons you proposed from best to worst IMHO:
        

Use shifted keys. Admin buttons are just shortcut keys for kids to ruin your cab.

[wp34]

An exit button is nice to have. I have one on mine and it is great when we are having a party and I'm unable to be down in the game room to help people. The exit button only takes them out of the game and not the front end.

[05SRT4]

From what I learned with admin buttons, the less the better.  Ive seen kids and adults press the perfect combination of admin buttons to completely shut the machine down or screw up the games configuration. Not fun when you have a bunch of people over. For anything outside of actual game play I have a keyboard hidden that I hopefully never have to use when people are over.

On my main Main cabinet I have a Select and Exit button and that seems to work fine. If I need to configure anything I just bust out the keyboard and mouse.

[Mike A]

I bought a wireless keyboard with a touch pad. No admin buttons.

[brad808]

Yep no admin buttons. All you want is a way to escape back to your front-end. Every combination of keys that can be pushed will be pushed and you will quickly learn to just remove all that stuff. People don't need to do anything but chose a game, add a credit, play the game and then exit back to the front-end. Leave everything else off.

[TLiner]

This is perfect, thanks so much guys I greatly appreciate the feedback and the links to other information.
It never really occurred to me that kids and people could easily screw up a config, so I like your guys' ideas that less is more and go with a hidden wireless keyboard.
I think that makes the most sense, and honestly, the less buttons I have to install and wire up the easier it will be and the cleaner the layout.

[Mike A]

I applaud your conclusion.

[yotsuya]

I could see a dedicated exit button if you wanted to make it really easy for your guests. But everything else? This isn't a console!