pinmame/vpinball button question

[Zakk]

Okay, I see the settings in pinmame, but are A and L actually secondary buttons for pinball?  I DO remember a few pinballs that had second buttons for other functions, but I can't make the A and L key do anything in the ones I tried so far.  If I add pinball buttons to my cab, I want to make sure I add them correctly (not too few not too many).  Any insight would be coolio (sorry, I'm a pinmame newbie)

[Doc-]

I recommend two buttons on each side - one is the flipper for that side and one is the tilt or "nudge" button for that side.  I also added a button on the front bezel for the plunger.  If you hold it down it pulls back the plunger.  That makes for a total of 5 extra buttons.

Other than that you need coin and start keys - but you should be able to use the same ones you have on your cab for regular games.

You can remap the keys in the vpinball app - so I just have my pinball buttons wired into buttons 1-5 and then remap them as needed to play.

[ErikRuud]

Black Knight had extra buttons for the 'Magna Save' which is only active at certian times during the game.

There were others with special functions, but I don't know any off the top of my head.

[Howard_Casto]

Pinmame supports more than 2 flipper buttons, but visual pinbal does not.....  

So if that's what your asking, no vp cannot support upper and lower flipper buttons.  

[Aceldamor]

"The Shadow" has multiple button functions also...the two daggers that control the ramps are controlled by 2 buttons as well.

[Edgedamage]

Alright here's one for you. To change the the extra keys you have to edit the tables script. My problem was with Judge dredd the extra buttons were mapped to keys "z-enter" enter was ok but z was bugging me. So I opened the table folder right clicked on the VPT file and went to edit. When the editor was opened I clicked script it's over the play button. I changed the key to "a" but that still didn't do anything you have to also change the key code. And finding the key code you have to count the keys on the keyboard starting with the tildie key dont count the insert/home keys or the numkeys just the keys on the main keyboard. Here's a sample of my edited script I changed to make judge dredd use the "a" key for the left fire button.

'===================
' Keyboard Handling
'===================
Sub JudgeDredd_KeyUp(ByVal keycode)
   If vpmKeyUp(keycode) Then Exit Sub
   If keycode = PlungerKey Then Controller.Switch(12) = False ' Right Fire Button
   If keycode = 3 Then Controller.Switch(31)  = False ' Buy-In Button     (2)
   If keycode = 12 Then Controller.Switch(44) = False ' Super Game        (-)
   If keycode = 30 Then Controller.Switch(11) = False ' Left Fire Button  (a)
End Sub

Sub JudgeDredd_KeyDown(ByVal keycode)
   If vpmKeyDown(keycode) Then Exit Sub
   If keycode = PlungerKey Then Controller.Switch(12) = True ' Right Fire Button
   If keycode = 3 Then Controller.Switch(31)  = True ' Buy-In Button     (2)
   If keycode = 12 Then Controller.Switch(44) = True ' Super Game        (-)
   If keycode = 30 Then Controller.Switch(11) = True ' Left Fire Button  (a)
End Sub

[Zakk]

So you guys are saying that vpin doesn't do double buttons, but pinmame does, and there is a way to tell vpin to activate the extra buttons? (I suppose that makes sense since it is really a table editor).  Slowly it all starts to make sense... or does it?

[Edgedamage]

did my emails help?

[Zakk]

Of course! Nice pictures!  How can you be concentrating of pinball, shouldn't you out doing something else!?!?  

[Edgedamage]

little buddy sleeps a good 4hrs!

[ErikRuud]

So you guys are saying that vpin doesn't do double buttons, but pinmame does, and there is a way to tell vpin to activate the extra buttons? (I suppose that makes sense since it is really a table editor).  Slowly it all starts to make sense... or does it?

It sounds like Zakk may have gotten his answer, but I'm going put an answer out here for others.

You can have more than one set of flipper buttons in Visual Pinball.  You could have as many flipper buttons as there are keys available on the keyboard. Visual Pinball allows the table creators to use any key to do what ever they want.

There is direct support for severlal predefined keys. (Left and Right Flippers, Plunger, Coin, Tilt Left, Tilt Right, etc). If the tabl creator uses these predefined keys, then they can be changed easily through the Preferences/Keys menu.  

The table creator can also use other keycodes for additional functions as shown in EdgeDamage's example above.  When they do this, you need to edit the script to change the keys because they will not show up in the Preferences menu.