Forcing logs always enabled may degrade performance too.
Yeah I can imagine, but I was not seriously thinking about something always on, just a more immediate simple way to launch a game with log-making once when you need, and that does not imply command line.
A .bat isn't bad at all a compromise IMO, while a lot of people don't know how to use command line at all, much more are familiar with editing files with notepad already.
Future evolution of GM might go in the direction of splitting Switchres logging from MAME's infrastructure. That would make things easier to the user, although we'd miss vital information about how Switchres interacts with other parts of the emulator.
Ugh, that would be bad
For me, and despite your known hatred, it is a very good thing that users are forced to use command line, as this takes the frontend out of the equation. Users beloved frontends are an objective barrier to learning GM's operation, and the cause of most issues in their resolution to take over the system in order to be awesome.
(I also have a cabinet and I often feel too lazy to plug the keyboard in)
As I must have mentioned somewhere, you should look at things from various perspectives, users while having interest in the same things like smooth scrollings, lag reduction, proper refresh rates etc, definitely don't all come from the same background.
I see at least 5 user levels;
- those who will come for the benefits of d3d9ex reduced lag by default, and the 'lcd' monitor setting
- those who will use frame_delay, vsync_offset, and sync_refresh_tolerance on top of that
- those who only have an nVidia gpu, or an AMD but not emudrivers compatible (or not willing to change drivers or buy a new gpu for their own reasons) but still willing to experience closer-to-real refresh speeds on their setup with the static method, or simply as a first step to pre-test their setup for the next level
- those who will go for the full install and experience but for an LCD they know supports it, doing all the steps to exploit the full possibilities GM+emudrivers offer there
- those who will do the same but with a complete CRT setup, with the additional hardare-related work and specifics
I have little doubt that at least the fisrt two levels concern users with limited computer-literacy and the comfortable majority of retro arcades and consoles crowd.
The first of them are the people who have been going to RA, complained that GM didn't work, couldn't produce logs and gave up around there saying GM is too complicated, they have only ever known windows and gui's with mouse and buttons, practically all popular emulators being configurable and useable this way, like for 20 years.
The second got used at some point to dig a bit deeper and get further flexibility and results from editing ini files for instance, though they are not sensibly more computer-literate than the former (this is where I stood until recently)
The third would be an evolution of the second. People who want better and are ready to go the extra mile, though not the extra 10 miles, because they don't want to have to build a dedicated setup nor modify it too much since it's their everyday all-purpose computer anyway. Or they just want to try their setup including the display (flat panel in this case) to get a taste and see if they can go the next level with what they have.
They are ready to do more manipulation of files and even a degree of command line use if they have to, even if that will be a bit tough at times, but they are not much more computer-literate than the first two.
The fourth is the further step that requires to be yet a bit more prepared because there will be additional steps that include changing drivers in a 'more than clicking a button as usual' fashion, and additional software to use with also more text command-input style work.
(this is where I struggled and failed the last time, and will try again after I'm done exploring level 3)
Fifth is for an already confirmed demographics, who either came the long way accumulating experience over YEARS, or for whom this stuff is natural since they come from the world of tech wether by education/trade or having grown since they were kids/teens in that environment.
(definitely not people like me, nor the majority of the population, not even that which has grown gaming only with arcades and consoles, not computers)
The gap between the first 4 and the 5th is most often considerable, because in the latter you have developers, technicians, engineers, long-time learning hobbyists, basically significantly more knowledgeable power users who - especially for the most confirmed of the like of course devs, engineers and experienced power-geeks - don't think and act by the same logic as all the fist four.
It's two different dimensions, the one that uses and plays and the one that mostly makes, this is how things have always been and will always be.
It's a pipe dream, an illusion, to imagine that the bulk, the large majority the first 4 represent, can and will ever achieve and adopt the same level of skills, thinking, habits and logic as the last, 5th one, and even more irrealistic to think that they can be forced into playing with the same rules as that upper-floor minority.
This has apparently been on MAMEdev's mind for quite a while with changes in policy, and actions have been taken that complexify and complicate MAME's use, up to purposedly forbidding some things that were possible before and at times without proposing workable alternatives.
I think if they let it all out MAME wouldn't even have an UI anymore at all, barely any configurable options, and everything would have to be done via comand line.
That, would be slamming the door at the face the the immense majority of users, and sink MAME into ultra-select niche oblivion.
Even the little changes they've made in recent years have had a SCREAMING consequence: the whorish RA and the likes exploding popularity, at the expense of MAME's well-being.
One thing I'm certain of, is that 5th-level people don't fully realize what's life like below them, they don't fully know what's their computer and gaming reality, and assume it's wrong and the lower floors should adopt their logic, not realizing how large the gap is, nor what the consequences of tring to force them into jumping that ravine mean.
Of what concerns GM then, I don't think it's a problem to demand a certain level of skills and effort proportionally to the level of use and results people expect, tht's normal after all the more you want the more complicated it is, but the lower the user level the easier things must be, as far as it's reasonably possible to make them so.
For the sake of the low-skilled complete beginners you have worked and technically achived that, save for the remaining command line log production part which is still a sticking point for about the first two levels.
What I'm saying to you Calamity is;
IF your idea is to try - forcefully so - to change common practice for
ALL users to typical advanced/5th level ones, then you will KILL GroovyMAME's accessibility to droves of people, whether they're already introduced to GM or potential newcomers.
Where I am for instance at the moment I can manage making logs or a fresh mame.ini, but not much more, if I was given no choice but to switch to full command line operation in the future, I would drop GM completely.
See for instance at the end of the month with 0.203 MAME's UI will finally be useable with the specific .ini's, coupled with the recent improvements and fixes you've made to GM, this will finally be the MAME I've been expecting for I don't even remember how many years, and the one you can recommend everyone and write about no matter his level because everything that matters will work, and I plan to do a lot of testing on different setups from there.
Don't walk the same dreadful path MAMEdev seems to want to walk everyone, most people know only simple Windows, UIs/frontends, menus and convenient understandable options, mouse buttons, usb controllers, consoles and arcade games, and in our era: flat panels, you can't reverse that. If you forcefully introduce more command line steps for them; you kick them out and hurt GM.
(note: well, I don't know your plans, it's your creation after all, maybe you'd like better if it was harder to use and therefore more niche with less n00bs around. which would be your legitimate choice since it's your time and work. but that would be a sad development imho)
And to conclude, well, that little .BAT again is a fine compromise IMHO, could it be possible to add it to the GM build in the future?
(maybe along with a similar-named text file telling simply where to edit the name and that's it. OR simply no bat but instructions on how to make one in the manual)
Because we know how many times it would have helped to have something like that, I've met enough cases of newcomers who would have been happy to be 1st or 2nd level users but quit at that point.