State of the FE devs?

[screaming]

Have any of you Windows FE devs opened up your FE source yet?

[youki]

I think ArcadeEpic is open.

The Author proposed sources here few time ago.

[SirPoonga]

If I ever make my own FE again I will make it open.  Now that XNA was released I am thinking of making a 2.5D mame FE.  But htat probably won't be for awhile.

[Havok]

Ultrastyle is open source - the author didn't have time to work on it, so he released it to the public...

Here's the source:

http://www.mameworld.net/ultrastyle/DL/source.zip

Here's his page:

http://www.mameworld.net/ultrastyle/

[screaming]

Does anyone use ultrastyle?  I've seen it advertised here before for its 3d capabilities, but that's all I know about it.

[loadman]

Have any of you Windows FE devs opened up your FE source yet?

EmuLoader is open. Not really a cab FE though

http://www.mameworld.net/emuloader/

[Buddabing]

Kymaera is open source.

I have been playing with the code for a while now. The more I work with the program, the more I realize what a terrific programmer PacManFan is.

[screaming]

Oh right!  I forgot about Kymea-- Kymar --  Kymaera..  At one point I tried getting everything together to compile it but I never managed to.  Then, wasn't he working on a big update?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm willing to share any code with any devs that want it, but my stuff is closed source. 


When it becomes inactive I'll go ahead and open it up, but for now I don't see the point on someone else modifying code to a fe I am still maintaining.

[Buddabing]

Why not open Lazarus? It could help out someone just starting a Visual Basic FE with things such as data structures, list buidling, font rendering, that kind of stuff. Just learning how to output stuff to a screen would be a big help for a programmer not used to Windows.

[Banacek]

Why not open Lazarus? It could help out someone just starting a Visual Basic FE with things such as data structures, list buidling, font rendering, that kind of stuff. Just learning how to output stuff to a screen would be a big help for a programmer not used to Windows.

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

[youki]

I can be wrong  (so please correct) but  i think :

Mamewah uses Visual Basic 6
Dragon King uses Visual basic 6
Mala uses Delphi
GameEX uses  C# or VB.NET
AtomicFE uses C++ (for the FE itself)   and Delphi for Configuration tools.

Some other FE , uses Dark Basic i think.

The choice of the language is determined by the range of machine and performance you are targetting.

A choice of .NET (C# , VB.NET etc..) involves that the .NET framework is installed on your machine. Involves you have a more powered machine , more memory , more disk space...    It means that your FE will target modern machine and don't care of old hardware.

And of course, if you master a language , you tend to choose the one your master , not necessary the more appropriate.

For instance, for my FE , i targetted the wider range i can.  It can run from a Pentium I 233Mhx with 64Mega of RAM  with a old video card  to the most modern PC.    But to accomplish that i have to choose C++  and  DirectDraw 7  (and not Direct3D 9 or . Of course on lowest machine, you have to carefully make your skin to fit the performance on the machine.

But that's clear if you don't care of old configuration and look to the future ,  C# seems to be a good choice.

[Minwah]

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

I use VB6 because:

a) I have it
b) I know it
c) It does the job satisfactorily
d) I like it
e) I have no reason to use anything else

[Howard_Casto]

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

I use VB6 because:

a) I have it
b) I know it
c) It does the job satisfactorily
d) I like it
e) I have no reason to use anything else

Agreed. 

C isn't "better" by any means.  The developers that use C just are most comfortable using C.  Aside from minor differences, all visual studio languages do the same thing.  Now if we are talking about a "real langauge" vs one of the more "out-there" ones (python, various game maker programs, flash, ect) then I would agree, not because those languages aren't good, but because it isn't easy to migrate to a new one when the time comes because they do things so differently. 

[youki]

In C or C++, if you have lot of more control on what you do and you won't be limited by the language.

Some will arg that for quick development C++ (i don't talk about C here) is not good , and you will go faster with language like VB.   That's true ,  but only on Short Project.  On long term project the C++ become really faster.
(speaking about guys who master both languages , For a novice,  VB is surely more accessible).

From my experience , i have worked with and mastered lot of different languages (Windev, Java, VB6, C , C++, Delphi (Object pascal) ,powerbuilder , Assembler and few experience with .NET) , the best compromise i found , is DELPHI.  (easy as VB  ,  Far more flexible , almost powerfull like C++ ).

Anyway, the best language is the one you like!   

And you can do really good thing in any language like you can do very bad thing  too.

[Banacek]

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

The point about older machines is a good one that I didn't think about. My school is still focused on Java, but I believe we're making the switch to C#. 3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

[loadman]

the best compromise i found , is DELPHI.

A bit off topic.

 But I am just starting to learn Delphi with the goal of building simple arcade utils down the track.

I can say that my initial thoughts is the learning curve appears steeper that VB6 but I'm gonna hang in there.   

PS The last thing I learned (3 years ago) was 'Lisp' Heard of that anyone?

[Howard_Casto]

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

The point about older machines is a good one that I didn't think about. My school is still focused on Java, but I believe we're making the switch to C#. 3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

You won't.  I aced all of my programming classes but didn't learn anything until I started writing stuff for this community. 

Maybe it's just me, but even in the advanced programming classes these days, the example projects they make you do are retardedly easy.  They seldom ever go into stuff you'll actually need to know, like interfacing the api, advanced registry calls, ect....  They just want to teach you database stuff, which is only useful if you are going to be an in house programmer for a small business that just needs a glorified access interface. 

[youki]

Code: [Select]

3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

In fact you have the feeling to not learn but you do.

Of course after your classes you won't be a programmer expert or something.  But you will have already a good overview and know more or less what you can do or not. You have the Bases , it is very important.

I was like you , i started in 1992-93  a one year university classe dedicated to Multimedia and Windows programming under C++.  I mastered allready DOS programming for years (Assembler, C and Basic) but i wanted to learn the "emerging" windows NT.  The course covered a large range of domain . Object Oriented method and programing,  GDI programing, Multimedia , real time programming and multithreading as well Device Driver Programming.  We worked on BETA version of Windows NT 3.1 . 
 At the end of the year, i add the feeling to know absolutly nothing. I didn't event understand why we have to use OBject.,Why it is better than a classic programming..etc..  at the end of the scholl we had 6month in a company to work. And suddenly by doing thing by myself  on a real project , all become clear little by little.   
And finally the company hired me and in the same time , the following year i was teaching at that school some modules , and i had my MCP (Microsoft Certified Professionnel) for Visual C++ .

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

VB is considered as a Toy by most of professionnal i know. (version <= VB6) .  I think it is a toy too. At the end of 90's  , i have lot of worked with VB  ,  Projects manager was thinking it will be more fast to develop with VB.   We had so much problem and limitation at all the level with it , that a big parts of project has been migrated to other technology.
But VB stay a good way to learn programmation, and we can do lot of good thing as soon as you avoid heavy professional use.

For a Front End  and tool it is good.  Look MameWah or DK .

I can say that my initial thoughts is the learning curve appears steeper that VB6 but I'm gonna hang in there.   

Yes, i agree, that's true if you are already familiar with Microsoft Language. Because some concept are different.  I had some difficulty at the begining too.  But after i understood the philosophy , the learning curve was exponential!.

PS The last thing I learned (3 years ago) was 'Lisp' Heard of that anyone?

I know it (never praticed it) .  That language is more  AI  oriented i think?

[unclet]

LISP ..... yes .... learned that a long time ago ..... it is an artificial intelligence language.    I have not worked with it in years though ....   I remember making a Connect-4 game (kind of like tic-tac-toe game but you need 4 in a row) with that language which allowed the computer to play against a human being.

[jjd]

Does anyone use ultrastyle?  I've seen it advertised here before for its 3d capabilities, but that's all I know about it.

I used to use it and loved it.  The problem, however, is that it does not support emulators other than MAME. 

If someone could add support for other emulators and nested menus (wheels) it could be a very good FE. 

[loadman]

LISP ..... yes .... learned that a long time ago ..... it is an artificial intelligence language.    I have not worked with it in years though ....   I remember making a Connect-4 game (kind of like tic-tac-toe game but you need 4 in a row) with that language which allowed the computer to play against a human being.

I had to learn this the hard way. No documentation, just trail and error and sifting through other examples. It is used where I work at an Australian TV station to convert on air schedules (comma seperated data) on a UNIX based automation system

Sorry if I have hijacked this thread 

[Minwah]

VB is considered as a Toy by most of professionnal i know. (version <= VB6) .  I think it is a toy too. At the end of 90's  , i have lot of worked with VB  ,  Projects manager was thinking it will be more fast to develop with VB.   We had so much problem and limitation at all the level with it , that a big parts of project has been migrated to other technology.

I don't deny people think this way, nor do I believe VB6 is the 'best' language.  However I will stick my neck out and say you can do practically *anything* in VB.  I mean one guy wrote a working C64 emulator for example.  And with access to DirectX and limitless controls etc., you can do whatever you like.

The real issue is speed....in programs where speed is vital.  In something like a FE though, particularly on modern PC's, VB6 still cuts the mustard.  As an example, the backend of Mamewah is essentially 5 years old, and certainly not the most optimised thing in the world...but (the last time I checked) things like list generation and filtering are still quicker than some of the newer FE's (not coded in VB6)

[Howard_Casto]

Agreed.  Since we are talking smack about oses the only real difference between vb and visual c is to do something in vb it takes one line and to do the same thing in c it takes 5 lines and at least three lines of declarations.  There is literally nothing you can't do in vb that you can do in C.  Mind you every once in a while you have to do something a little crazy to get access to a certain library, but other than that it basically is c++ minus the redundant syntax. 

I think you guys think I don't know other langauges, I've actually taken courses (and aced courses) in everything from quick basic to java.  There is a reason I use vb for almost everything.  It's like minwah said, it's really good for rapid development as long as speed isn't a major concern.  Speed really isn't a concern anyway, unless you are making some kind of high-end direct-x fps in vb or something crazy like that.


I say use what you want, but vb is a toy like a computer is a toy to your grandparents.  They only say that because they've never used it to it's fullest potential. 

[Buddabing]

Well, there's the cross-platform and cross-OS considerations.

I don't know if there are Visual Basic compilers for Linux or Macintosh, but there certainly are for C, C++, and Java.

I would not want to attempt a cross-platform project in VB, or any other kind of basic for that matter.

[screaming]

back in the day, something coded in VB was much slower than an equally-functioning program compiled in straight C.  It's the computers that have gotten faster and cheaper that have taken that out of thew equation.

someone who's codes professionally in C/C++ will be able to code the same thing just as fast as someone who codes in VB professionally.  This is for a couple reasons which are more auxiliary properties of the language than the language itself:

1) anyone who codes professionally in C/C++ will have libraries and blocks of code at thier disposal that are tailored to thier programming style.  Using these will reduce the humdrum rampup time considerably.  VB programmers do too, but to a lesser extent. See #2.

2) Someone who codes VB professionally typically hasn't been doing so for very long, especially compared with the professional C coders.  It's a lot harder to code fluent C than it is VB, and has a longer/steeper learning curve.  This takes long term dedication - something typical VB'ers don't have.

The stated advantage to VB is true - you have a smaller development window and its easier to learn - which are the same reasons why one might go with .NET.  In the near future (now?) the speed difference has become negligible on affordable hardware between a JIT compiled language and a lower level hard compiled program, like C.

VB is generally harder to maintain though because of all the hoops you have to jump through to do anything complicated. The more crap you have to code around, the more intricate and less elegant your code becomes.  How many times ahve you VB'ers coded something and then change something else a year later and spend a week staright trying to figure out why it doesn't work (or broke somethign else) only to find it's because you had to code around some inefficiency in your language?

The .NET languages fix this sort of thing since you kind of get the best of both worlds... with an added resource requirement though :/

[AllisterFiend]

I would like to start learning a programming language.  I was thinking about learning VB6 but I have noticed people around mentioning .NET.  Are VB6 and .NET the same? and if not, what is the difference between the two? and if there is a difference, which one would be best to tackle first?

Allister Fiend


P.S.  can anyone recommend a beginner book for VB6 or .NET that a newcomer to programming can understand?

(I have not programmed anything since the Commodore 64, and that was in basic  )


edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

[loadman]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

[screaming]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

  Exactly!  VB6 has been around a looooong time so you can find a ton of stuff out there on the innernits to help you out.

  .NET is actually just the name for Microsoft's Just In Time compiler. The Just In Time compiler knows about the languages VB.NET and C#.  Just to clarify some terminology - you don't "learn .NET". You learn VB.NET, C#, Java.NET, and/or ASP.NET.  They're all different languages.

  The one critical difference between any .NET language and VB6 is that .NET is "object oriented" and you have to learn about objects and classes with methods and properties.  There are a lot of foreign terms here for the newb so it's a little heavy on the brain when you're just figureing it all out, but the payoff is that object orientated languages are not going away. It's cleaner, easier to maintain and share than non OO languages, and makes switching to a more "serious" language, like C++ SO much easier.

  Another big difference is the ease of integrating other technologies to make a more dynamic program. Connecting your program to the internet is a breeze in .NET, for example, because the .NET JIT compiler (i.e. the ".NET" package that your end users will download) comes with all the libraries to do pretty much anything you want.  VB6 is older - you need 3rd party stuff (if you've ever used MAMEWAH, you know that extra setup batch file Minwah has? Yeah, that's third party stuff).

VB6 on the other hand has it's benefits - it's easy. No new language terminology to learn once you know what a function (err Sub) is. Despite the popularity of VB6 here, it is on its way out because it's so old.  It's being replaced with ".NET".  There is an advantage of VB6 though - if you're rusty and are looking to get back into it, MS has some rudimentary (i mean rudementary)converters to convert VB6 to VB.NET.  You can start off with VB6 and "upgrade" your program later if you feel like you want to switch.

[screaming]

The other thing is that the C# compiler is free.  I think you have to pay for the VB6 compiler, assuming you can find it.

[screaming]

This community just seems to have an overabundance of FE developers, more than enough software development hobbists, and even more people that seem willing to help but unable to afford the time it takes to do it alone (like me).

 I would love to have some influence in an FE by giving up some ideas, helping out with the development and/or project management.  I can't afford the time to do it all on my own though. It's a lot of work, even for just a config program like MAMEWAH Config!

  Speaking of which, writing a config program is all well and good, and I had fun with it mostly because I learned just about everything possible about MAMEWAH - my FE of choice then.  MAMEWAH ended up going a different direction than I had hoped, which caused my interest in maintaining the config program slim to none (okay, more like none). I gave up the source to the interested parties.

  My point is, I do not want to end up in this situation again - If I'm going to invest just as much time as the primary FE dev in just the config program, then I want a stake in where the FE goes and the features available to me in my cabinet.  I don't think you FE devs understand this, but I can't understand why anyone else would feel any different.

  If you made it this far... thanks for listening to my rant party on!   

[Howard_Casto]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

.net (at least vb.net) is utter crap.  They tried to "improve" it by making it more standardized with the rest of the visual stuido family but what they ended up doing is adding in all the redundaancy that I was talking about.  It's a very nice language mind you, but you no longer have the rapid development advantage of vb and you have the more cumbersome declarations of c.  Basically what they did is killed vb.  You are better off running c# or c if you are moving to .net. 

Again, there is a reason I use vb6 and not vb.net

[headkaze]

I have to agree alot with what youki has said here. I started coding a long time ago in C64 BASIC. I programmed C on the Amiga and then DOS. I learned COBOL at Tafe which was a waste of time for anyone not jumping on the Y2k porting scare. I learned OOP with Java at Uni, did alot of VB6 stuff, then did a bit of VB.NET and then realised C# was nicer to code in (especially having a C background). I also know perl/php & actionscript because I am a web designer. With the C foundation you can learn pretty much any language easily.

As a hobby I write code for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS using C++. C++ creates the leanest compiled code (aside from asm). But like assembly it's not very good for rapid development. The result is faster code if your good at it but I wouldn't recommend going this way if your new to programming now - there is no point in making your life difficult by doing everything the long way. I also believe it's easier to create hard to detect bugs that will crash a large program. You have to write alot of custom code to do simple things, for example, string handling (Eg. Extract a filename from a string) which is a pain. C++ is definately the way to go for wrappers (Eg. chankast_launch) and small memory resident applications so that is what I use for those sort of things. It's also good for low level stuff Eg. CoinDrop was written in C++ as it uses a DirectInput wrapper dll to inject keystrokes into Mame as well as a global keyboard hook dll to detect coin drops outside Mame.

I have coded alot of stuff in VB6 and now I won't go near it. After using C#/VB.NET you realise how much better it is. Simple stuff like threading is not stable in VB6. And you often have to do crazy things in VB6 to achieve something that is simple to do in C++. On the upside it's easier to code in VB6 than C++ because there is so much code and controls available on the Net and in the Visual Studio 6. VB6 was the way to go to learn coding a long time ago, but now it's VB.NET/C#. VB6 is no longer supported by Microsoft so it is infact a dead or dying language. A program crashing in C++ & VB6 can bring the whole system down, but in .NET your pretty much protected from that unless you use P/Invoke to access the old API or use unmanaged code.

If I was to code a FE today I would use C# and MDX 3D. It has garbage collection, automatic memory managment, great error handling and a ton of useful namespaces for anything you could imagine. And once you get to know the namespaces it's very easy to do rapid development. For example, you can download a file from a server with 2 lines of code!

Code: [Select]

WebClient Client = new WebClient ();
Client.DownloadFile("http://www.myspace.com/myfile.zip", " myfile.zip");
That is the sort of thing that makes development in C# so nice. It saves you time and you get more done in a shorter amount of time. Also having C# experience will mean your ready to code for Vista. It's no secret that Microsoft is giving managed code and .NET development a big thrust of support for this OS. Although for whatever reason if the Windows OS happens to get killed by something like Linux (unlikely), then all your experience in .NET will probably become useless.

[coasternuts]

Ugh.  I hate programming language arguments.  They never end. 

Having said that I wrote an FE in Java using OpenGL.  I didn't write it for public consumption.  I have a P4 2.66MHz 640MB and it runs nicely.

I got tired of the idiosyncrasies and caveats of other FE's and wrote my own off and on over a couple of weeks.  I wanted Vader in the background and his sabre to select the games and the sabre sound to kick in when you move the sabre(sound get's annoying after a while.  Meh).  Marquee and screen shot come up on pic of actual cabinet.  Pretty simple but compex to code in "generic" form.  Certain keys will switch between other EMU's.

It was a fun project and rewarding in the end.  I highly recommend adding that personal touch to a cab.

[youki]

If I was to code a FE today I would use C# and MDX 3D. It has garbage collection, automatic memory managment,

That point could be a problem.  I don't know enough .NEt to judge his memory management.  But we had a very big problem with this kind of thing in JAVA that has too a garbage colletion and automatic memory managment.   We discover a memory leak in our project.  This memory leak was critical and we had no way to fix it!!! (believe we tried all we could).   It appeared to be a bug in Java (it has been fixed lot later by Sun) .
In C++ we could always find a way to fix that kind of problem because we have control. 

But i agree with Headkaze , if i was to code a FE today where the target will be only modern powerfull computer on Windows only  i will use C# or Delphi .NET and MDX 3d. 

[Minwah]

  Speaking of which, writing a config program is all well and good, and I had fun with it mostly because I learned just about everything possible about MAMEWAH - my FE of choice then.  MAMEWAH ended up going a different direction than I had hoped, which caused my interest in maintaining the config program slim to none (okay, more like none). I gave up the source to the interested parties.

Just out of interest, what 'direction' did Mamewah take not to your liking?  Really, little has changed since you made the config program...in fact no official releases yet since v1.61.

[headkaze]

In C++ we could always find a way to fix that kind of problem because we have control. 

Although a lot less likely you can still stumble upon bugs in the Windows APIs eg. TransparentBlt comes to mind.

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

I have to take my hat off to you though youki, you certainly have my respect for writing your FE in pure C++. It's by far the most difficult of the languages mentioned here to master and requires the most programming skill and discipline. You can afford to be alot more lazy on the newer languages although I try not to let it make me become a lazy coder

[Minwah]

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

JCrouse mentioned to me that control arrays are not possible in .net - that's put me off it for life

[headkaze]

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

JCrouse mentioned to me that control arrays are not possible in .net - that's put me off it for life

What do you mean no control arrays? For a start ArrayList is an array of any object you want, so say you have a Label and TextBox, you can add them to the same array.

Code: [Select]

ArrayList myArray = new ArrayList();

myArray.Add(myLabel);
myArray.Add(myTextBox);

foreach(Control myControl in myArray)
{
    MessageBox.Show(myControl.Name);
}
Or you can have any control as an array Label[] myLabels; or Control[] myControls. So I don't know what JCrouse means when he says that, do you mean something else by control array? I havn't found any limitation in .NET in regards to arrays.

[Howard_Casto]

That isn't the same thing. 

With the old vs6 stuff you can do an array of controls, and put controls in an array.  Now you can just put controls in an array. 

The first is very useful for click events. 

I can have an array of labels (label(0) to label(13)) and they share common events.  So the same function can be called if any of them are clicked without any special code or for/case statements. 

I haven't figured out how you can do that in .net, I think it's impossible.

[screaming]

So why don't all of us who don't like the current FE choices get together and build one that works? Would any of you be interested in either starting fresh with a language like C# or picking up where PacManFan left off with Kymaera (C/C++)?

I'll go either way - they will probably both take the same amount of time to get up to speed.

There are a few threads around here or MAMEWAH's board where I describe what I think is important in an FE.  Hopefully we can use these to kickstart some sort of "mission statement".

An excerpt of a PM I sent some time ago:

1) Easy to configure. You should be able to hand-edit the configuration files and there should be an integrated interface to guide you along. In addition, just about everything should be as automatic as possible.
2) As flexible as possible but not at the expense of #1.  By "flexible" I mean:
    - Built-in supports for a range of emulators
   - Can add support for more emulators easily
   - "skinnable"
   - multiple emulators per "game list"
   - the possibility, via configration, of a "tree" view of the emulators/games.
3) It should be fast.
4) It should have integrated support for the most common hardware: ArcadeVGA, GP49s, KeyWiz, IPAC, etc.

In addition:

5) It should support older hardware wherever possible, but not at the expense of *useable* features.

I'd love to get some discussion going, if anything, to give the existing FE devs an idea of what we want.

[youki]

What your are diescribing is where all current active fe are going.   no?   Just let us time to implement features and enhance it  . We can not do perfect FE in one shot.  It is why most of FE on the Scene are still in beta.


Even if you start your dream FE now. You won't have it as you want before lot of time. I think.

[Havok]

1) Easy to configure. You should be able to hand-edit the configuration files and there should be an integrated interface to guide you along. In addition, just about everything should be as automatic as possible.
2) As flexible as possible but not at the expense of #1.  By "flexible" I mean:
    - Built-in supports for a range of emulators
   - Can add support for more emulators easily
   - "skinnable"
   - multiple emulators per "game list"
   - the possibility, via configration, of a "tree" view of the emulators/games.
3) It should be fast.
4) It should have integrated support for the most common hardware: ArcadeVGA, GP49s, KeyWiz, IPAC, etc.

I think that pretty much describes the state of the most popular FEs available today... Why re-invent the wheel?

[screaming]

I think that pretty much describes the state of the most popular FEs available today... Why re-invent the wheel?

  I have two intersecting opinions on this.

  On one hand, I feel like I'm forced to reinvent the wheel because no one else is willing to step up to the plate and manage thier front end like a real distributed project.  Like I said, I would be very happy to help code even the mundane stufff (like a config program), but I don't have time to waste.  If I do it again I want to know that the author and I share the same goals and/or I have some influence in the direction of the program (or at least the config files).

  On the other, I don't think we would be reinventing the wheel.  It can be argued that not a single front end out there has all those design goals, and given the longevity of the hobby I think it's a shame.  I'm constantly frustrated at the lack of interoperability between the front ends and the hassle to set them all up.

  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

  youki has the right idea and is getting there with his modules, but where's the automation to back that up?  Why can't his config program recognize that I have an SNES emulator in the same directory tree as every other emulator and automatically download, install and configure the module for me?

What your are diescribing is where all current active fe are going.   no?

  youki, you're a special case.  Out of everyone here you're the closest to being on the same wavelength as me with this. I mean no disrespect (to anyone, for that matter).

  That said, no, I don't think so.  Maybe in the back of thier head they sort of like the idea, but no, I don't think those are the standards to which they are coding.

Just let us time to implement features and enhance it  . We can not do perfect FE in one shot.  It is why most of FE on the Scene are still in beta.

  Most of the FEs in the scene are beta because they don't want to share the workload to speed up thier development.  They take many years to develop into something

The developers manage thier product (yes Howard, it's a product) like a hobby (i.e. they don't manage it much at all). This is all well and good, and I respect that, I'm just calling for something more polished.

And i know I'm not alone.

[Havok]

  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

I believe Atomic is heading for that, but I'll let Youki elaborate on that...

[youki]

youki has the right idea and is getting there with his modules, but where's the automation to back that up?  Why can't his config program recognize that I have an SNES emulator in the same directory tree as every other emulator and automatically download, install and configure the module for me?

Angelscry is working on a next generation of Plugnplay module , we are close of what your describe here. I call that "magic module"...  You put the module,  and browse your drive to find emulators , roms , etc... and it create dynamically the config for Atomic and then it appear in Atomic directly usable.    Some prototype are already working. But it is a very had work to do. Angelscry did a terrible work on that.   But i can not say when we will release that officially.

youki, you're a special case.  Out of everyone here you're the closest to being on the same wavelength as me with this. I mean no disrespect (to anyone, for that matter).

The "plug'n play" was in my head from the beginning.   But it is really hard to find solution like that . Because each user as a different need and expectation. 

The developers manage thier product (yes Howard, it's a product) like a hobby (i.e. they don't manage it much at all). This is all well and good, and I respect that, I'm just calling for something more polished.

Did you try Maximus arcade , i think as you have to pay for it should be more polished.
Concerning Atomic, i try to polish a little more at each version  and hope to have a saying "commercial level" version in 2007 . (i mean with real Documentation,  real integration of configarution tool , a better website..etc..etc.. )   . But when i say "commercial" it does NOT mean you will have to pay !!!

[screaming]

Just out of interest, what 'direction' did Mamewah take not to your liking?  Really, little has changed since you made the config program...in fact no official releases yet since v1.61.

  That's a large part of it, actually. I was put off by the lack of progress. MAMEWAH is a great great program, and the perfect choice for a front end for a very large part of this community, but the lack of progress is causing it lose momentum and the gap has started to close.

  Unless development speeds up, MAMEWAH is going to end up being simply be the best option for outdated hardware instead of the best option overall.  It's that decision that turned me off.

[screaming]

... But i can not say when we will release that officially.

  The mantra of every FE developer out there.  You guys must have that plaquered on the doorway to your secret clubhouse.

The "plug'n play" was in my head from the beginning.   But it is really hard to find solution like that . Because each user as a different need and expectation. 

  I know it's hard.  It's very hard, actually.  It's harder than most people realize.... but it's not impossible, and once you do it you will set your FE apart from every other FE out there because you'll be the only one who will give the users what they want.

Did you try Maximus arcade , i think as you have to pay for it should be more polished.

  No, I've never heard of that one before. I  just took a look at the website and looks decent, but still doesn't look like it has any easy way to set up the emulators.  Either way, there's no way I'm paying for it.

[MustardTent]

No, I've never heard of that one before. I  just took a look at the website and looks decent, but still doesn't look like it has any easy way to set up the emulators.  Either way, there's no way I'm paying for it.

Just to be clear:  There's no way you're paying for Maximus Arcade, or for any FE ever?

[screaming]

No, I've never heard of that one before. I  just took a look at the website and looks decent, but still doesn't look like it has any easy way to set up the emulators.  Either way, there's no way I'm paying for it.

Just to be clear:  There's no way you're paying for Maximus Arcade, or for any FE ever?

  I am a proficient enough programmer that I don't feel it is necessary to pay for a front end just for myself. Personally, I would not pay for any Windows front end currently in existance (ok, that I know about), but that does not reflect on Maximus Arcade's value to the community as a whole.

  Are you asking for my opinion on whether or not it's worth $25/license to the community?

[jelwell]

This is all in the wiki.
Joseph Elwell.

[headkaze]

That isn't the same thing. 

With the old vs6 stuff you can do an array of controls, and put controls in an array.  Now you can just put controls in an array. 

The first is very useful for click events. 

I can have an array of labels (label(0) to label(13)) and they share common events.  So the same function can be called if any of them are clicked without any special code or for/case statements. 

I haven't figured out how you can do that in .net, I think it's impossible.

Of course you can do that in .NET! Just have a label array like in VB6 and add the same function to the click event of each label:

Code: [Select]

Label[] myLabels = new Label[13];

System.EventHandler labelEventHandler = new System.EventHandler(Label_Click);

for(int i=0;i<13;i++) {
    myLabels[i].Name = "Label" + i.ToString();
    myLabels[i].Click += labelEventHandler;
}

private void Label_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show(((Label)sender).Name); // Display label name of clicked label
}
You can draw a control onto your form and in your form's code there is a box called "Windows Form Designer generated code" which is a region you can expand and see the code generated by the IDE.

If your referring to rewriting Jonny5 using C# I wouldn't use form controls, I would use GDI+ (aka the System.Drawing namespace). .NET is very flexible, and I can assure you that anything you can do in VB6 can be done in .NET. I uploaded one of my VB.NET assignments for you a while ago to check out how to use GDI+ in .NET. You can still download it from here. It was the basis for the GameEx Theme Editor I wrote, but I must admit I now write in C#, but you can convert the two quite easily and the resulted binaries are practically exactly the same.

Check out ConvertCSharp2VB and you can convert C# to VB.NET by pasting code into the website. I think there is a similar site somewhere that does the reverse.

[Howard_Casto]

Manually adding the same function for each label and having it automatically done for you are not the same things. 

There are a ton of things you can't do in .net that you could do in vs6 automatically, the most notable one being controls with transparent backgrounds.  Mind you, you can do it manually with gdi functions, but I don't understand how a platform that makes you do teh easiest of things the hard wasy is supposed to be better.  Especially considering you've got that 20 megs of bulk that has to be installed for each program. 

Mind you that doesn't always apply to fe development as hopefully we aren't using standard controls for everything, but it seems like for simple "windowsy" apps .net is 2 steps forward and about 10 steps back.  The main reason I'm not willing to upgrade yet is not because for my bg apps (dk j5) but my small ones.  It'll increase the bloat and make normally simple apps a lengthy build. 

[JoyMonkey]

Oh right!  I forgot about Kymea-- Kymar --  Kymaera..  At one point I tried getting everything together to compile it but I never managed to.  Then, wasn't he working on a big update?

Yeah, the update was going to add support for PNG-24's with their beautiful alpha transparencies. With that in there, you could make some really slick looking skins.

[headkaze]

Oh I think I get what you mean now, you mean when you use the IDE to draw a control like a label if you copy and paste it in VB6 it automatically places the control into an array for you. Yeah okay, I've never tried that in .NET but I'm writing an application as we speak that uses dynamic controls, and I just draw the control on the form, copy the generated code, then create a function like Label drawLabel(int x, int y, int width, int height) then I get it to return the Label object it creates and place that into a ListArray, so if I want to delete all the controls I can just loop through a foreach and object.Dispose().

But seriously, if your not taking on .NET because it doesn't create controls into arrays automatically, or that controls can't have transparent backgrounds then that's a pretty lame reason. For a start you shouldn't be using form controls for things like Johnny5. That should be done using GDI+. I think your coming up with anything to avoid the inevitable realisation that it's time to upgrade your coding skills. VB6 is dead, it's time to get over it and move on (IMHO)

And that 20 Meg of bulk isn't memory resident bulk, it's all the namespaces, dlls etc. and when you consider the amount of automation and code they've put into it, 20 Meg is a reasonable expectation. I also expect Vista to have .NET Framework installed by default. I remember the VB6 runtimes were never in Windows by default either. And really where in the day and age of dual core processors and high speed ADSL2, so really we can't say that 20 Megs is a big download, or that it's slower than a C++ program. I know youki keeps saying .NET is only for fast machines, but it's not true. If you look at GameEx as an example there are many people who run it on slow machines. I tried the demo of AtomicFE and to me the scripted themes were very slow, so it's funny how people can call .NET slow just by an assumption.

Well, I don't want to keep trying to convince you to move with the times, if your gonna keep coding in VB6 your gonna keep coding in VB6. Dosn't really bother me really. I know as a fellow coder your passionate about the language you use. But I used to love VB6 too, and it's not after you undertake a big project in .NET do you start falling for it like VB6. And once you go dot net you never go back... bah who cares! O_o

[youki]

I tried the demo of AtomicFE and to me the scripted themes were very slow, so it's funny how people can call .NET slow just by an assumption.

That Demo uses the old engine, if you try the demo using Atomic 0.17-2 engine it will be faster.
And you know the scripting use VBScript... it is why it can be slow for heavy animation.

You will see very soon  a demonstration the power of my engine in term of layout and speed. 

[headkaze]

I tried the demo of AtomicFE and to me the scripted themes were very slow, so it's funny how people can call .NET slow just by an assumption.

That Demo uses the old engine, if you try the demo using Atomic 0.17-2 engine it will be faster.
And you know the scripting use VBScript... it is why it can be slow for heavy animation.

You will see very soon  a demonstration the power of my engine in term of layout and speed. 

That's what happens when you don't keep up with the development of other FE's you don't know how better they are since you last looked at them! Thats why when people (won't mention any names) say things about GameEx it's quite often about the state of it 6 months ago!

[Howard_Casto]

But seriously, if your not taking on .NET because it doesn't create controls into arrays automatically, or that controls can't have transparent backgrounds then that's a pretty lame reason. For a start you shouldn't be using form controls for things like Johnny5. That should be done using GDI+. I think your coming up with anything to avoid the inevitable realisation that it's time to upgrade your coding skills. VB6 is dead, it's time to get over it and move on (IMHO)

No not really.  Considering anything I do graphically I do via directX now I'm more than competant when it comes to coding skill.  But I am NOT willing to re-write all of my existing apps just because m$ was too stupid to keep all existing controls/control properties from vs6.  J5, in particular uses transparent labels for the captions.  Now yes I can do that via gdi, but gdi doesn't nicely format the text, you have to do all the centering and alignment manually. I can port the whole thing to dx, but the newer dx text functions don't work on older video cards, so again, I'd have to do it manually. With a transparent label, it's all done for you.  I'm not willing to upgrade because it's dumb to spend hours re-writing functions to get the application to do exactly what it did before, only now it takes more resources (.net controls are huge and bloated as is the .net framework, it doesn't work like runtime files did). 

I'm more than willing to write NEW apps in .net (I think my mame output handler might be made in c#).  But upgrading for the sake of upgrading would only remvoe features, not add them. 

I'm not arguing over the new suites merits, but it has a ton of flaws.  My guess is you never really used some of the built-in stuff in vs6 so you don't miss it.  Trust me, I could make you a list of things they've left out a mile long.  I'm not opposed to change, but some of these functions don't have an alternative in .net. 

[headkaze]

No not really.  Considering anything I do graphically I do via directX now I'm more than competant when it comes to coding skill.

What I meant by that is update your coding skills in .NET. That's all I meant, I'm not assuming anything about your programming skills in general.

I think you make some valid points, there are some annoying things with .NET, but I also felt the same way when moving between VC6 and VB6. I find that doing a bit of research on the web usually reveals a solution to my problems.

And your right, I don't think you should re-write all your applications for the sake of it, you were just asking about control arrays and I remembered checking out J5 and assumed you were playing with the idea of rewriting it in .NET. It's not terribly difficult to do it all in GDI+ once you write a few classes to display things how you like.

I guess all I'm saying is be open minded and don't write off .NET because of a few annoying limitations. Quite often the limitations can be removed by inheriting the controls and overriding the built in methods. I know that sucks, but it's a work around. For example at the moment I'm writing something for GameEx, there were two annoying things that didn't work the way I wanted out of the box. 1. Resizing a label's height based on the multi-line text inside. I wrote a nasty unmanaged GDI class to do that, then I posted a message on a .NET forum and a nice guy posted managed code to do it. 2. I couldn't get tooltips with multi-line text. Again I found a great class in on the Net that would automatically place line breaks into the tooltip's text at a width you specify. So while the limitations can be frustrating the good points outweigh the bad by a long shot.

[AllisterFiend]

Lots of good information in this thread.

I want to thank everyone who helped me sort through everything.

I have learned a lot in the last few days.

I'm looking into VB 2005 or Visual C# 2005 and I'm leaning toward Visual C#.

Thanks once again.

Allister Fiend

[Minwah]

  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

Because everyone has completely different setups, making this very difficult to achieve, without having to assume some things or hard code things for certain emulators.  If everyone had just a Mame setup with the default paths, then I agree this is possible and would be easy.

The developers manage thier product (yes Howard, it's a product) like a hobby (i.e. they don't manage it much at all). This is all well and good, and I respect that, I'm just calling for something more polished.

And i know I'm not alone.

You're are not alone in that you want everything for nothing.  If I thought making a highly professional polished frontend was worth it then I would give up my job and all my hobbies to do it.  But frankly the return for doing it is practically non-existant.  I purely work on my FE because I want to use it myself, and obviously I add other people's ideas to enhance other peoples enjoyment of it - and it is nice for me to know that other people want to use my FE.

With that said, I do not mean that I do not *want* my FE to be very polished etc., and hopefully it will eventually be, but as for development speed, well that is limited by time I have and whatever else I am doing.  Most crucially, IMHO, time is of absolutely no relevance in the emulation scene - emulators and fe's will come, develop and go, and the user will use whatever they want.  There is always more than enough choice to keep everybody happy.

[Minwah]

VB6 is dead, it's time to get over it and move on (IMHO)

If I were a commercial programming company then I would agree.  But for our purposes VB6 is more than capable. 

Does the programming language used actually matters as long as the FE works??

[screaming]

  Right, and that's kind of my point:   It could be polished if you weren't the only one programming it. You know, say you devote 5 hours a week to it (an hour after work each day, for example). If you had two people doing that, you'd have 10 man hours. 3 people, 15 man hours. 4 people and you have 20 man hours - or a good solid weekend of programming.

  All you put in was your hour after each workday.

  It's not just you, man, it's every developer out there with an existing maintained front end. With very few exceptions, they all have the same goals and are going the same direction! Why not collaborate instead of doing reinventing the wheel every time you update your FE?

[screaming]

  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

Because everyone has completely different setups, making this very difficult to achieve, without having to assume some things or hard code things for certain emulators.  If everyone had just a Mame setup with the default paths, then I agree this is possible and would be easy.

  Nah, it's not hard. Look at youki's modules! He has maintainers who have volunteered to maintain certain modules that apply to him.  Heck, you have jcrouse who posted his brazilian config files for his brazillian emulators.  What's there for you to maintain?

  If you programmed your FE in such a way that it provided a framework for a generic emulator, and implemented some kind of plugin, or "module" infrastructure, you could let someone else do the work of keeping up with the emulators leaving you to keep going with the backend and still provide your users a customized working and easy solution.

  I've said all this already about a year ago. It's nothing new.....

[swindus]

But the MAME module of AtomicFE is nothing else like a default MAME installation with a default path on the same drive as the FE ...

I have to agree with Minwah here. It's not easy to create a framework that will work for all users out there. It works if the user will use exactly the given FE structure, but I know a lot of users which are not willing or can not use this structure for example when using more than one harddrive.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[MYX]

I am about done with the build of the cab. I always hate when I see so much talk about writing this stuff and it flys over my head. So I decided a while back that once the cab was done to start to learn to write some flavor of code. On a vacation about 9 years ago I bought a book about HTML. I read it and when I got home I wrote my first web page in note pad. Was it pretty, um... no. But I picked it up fairly quickly. And now occasionally I have to dink with some Java script when I am working in After Effects to write animation expressions. I understand that things like VB6 and C++ are far deeper than this, but I would assume that the process is similar... Write... Doesn't work...de bug until you find that you typed a , instead of a . then bang head on wall.

I asked Randy T about it and he recommended VB6. When I went to find info about that I learned that it is not only a language, but you have to buy a really frakin expensive program to do it in. I then found Visual Studio Express It is free and said to be geared towards the new programmer or hobby programmer. I really want to understand what the heck Howard is actually saying. I would like to be able to give at least a somewhat educated question instead of trying to ask questions that probably are not even close to how things work. I want to be able to add my own ideas to this FE business. I was wondering if you have any knowledge about the express version of VB2005?

The following, even though it may sound like total criticism, is actually said with the highest of respect to you guys. You have done what we can't. You have stepped up to the plate and given us FEs for MAME.
I think in a lot of ways, the reason why people are getting frustrated with FE a over FE b is because one writer may develop towards things that would personally benefit him because he uses a specific brand of hardware vs .another programmer who writes towards another type of hardware. Recently with the LEDWiz stuff coming to light (sorry, no pun intended) Some people are not at all interested because the original cabs may not have used this type of hardware, while others see it as a new gaming experience. I tend to fall into the later category. I lived through the 80's. I lived in arcades. My friends would ride our bikes for an hour to go to the Castle Golf and Games to go play Gauntlet and waste all our birthday money on the damn thing. But I am letting MAME be the creators of original game play. To me the FE and it's abilities never existed in the arcade. Nor did the flashy animated backgrounds. Heck if you want authenticity, you build a FE and when you flip a switch the screen comes to life and you wait for it to boot up, then, you got one game.
Naw, that was then and this is now. I say lets ("lets" is assuming I pick this stuff as well as I hope) freak the thing out and make it jump through all the hoops.

<rant>
Up until I started building my cab, I have always used MAME32. I had built a desktop control to play with my computer. Once I started with the cab, I knew I wanted to use a FE so I could skin it and make a part of the main design of the cabinet so everything has a cohesive look. As to the question about buying a FE that did everything that one would wish it to do... I saw many of you say you would never buy such a thing. But please remember, YOU ARE THE PROGRAMMERS WHO WRITE AND UNDERSTAND THIS STUFF. I had no knowledge of any of this stuff and it has taken a couple of months of weeping and gnashing of teeth to get to the point I am (which is still not very far) I'll tell you, when I have to dance through 4 different config files to finally find the place to change a 1 to a 0 and then I have to make a  batch file put it in here then tell some line in one of those 4 or 5 config files to look under the kitchen sink to find the batch file, then make this load that and so on and so forth is just silly. You are making the user become a dang programmer. Heck yes, I would pay $25 for a FE that said, ok where are the roms, thank you, where are the snaps, thank you, Have a page of supported hardware. Click here and the thing just works works. Instead of Here is my FE and if you want it to do XYZ then go and write a script to make it do ABC and then use this widget to convert to XYZ, then go to config a and switch the 1 back to a 0. I want to click on the stuff I want, and ignore the stuff I do not want. The FE then puts batch file XYZ in place for me. If it is something that has to depend on info from me, make a batch file wizard. Write, not in programese but in simple English what you want. In one FE I was something like "extract list from yaddayaddaXML" or DAT file. I have no idea what this means. I want another button that says "I have no clue, you choose."  There is a lot of language in these things that is written to someone who knows what you know. Write instructions that the everyday man can understand. Either that or make far better support docs (perhaps eve with a picture or 2). I see a lot of pride from each of you in your programs. And there is good reason to be. There is a lot of very cool stuff being done. So if you are this good then YOU be the programmer and let the user be the user. If you want your FE to be the best (which secretly you do want) and you want people to say Dang, "This IS" the best dang piece uh of dang software I ever saw man!!!, then write the best and make it easy to use. There are probably more complaints about difficulty of use than about anything else in this hobby. You are busy humming along building this cab, then bam! You hit a wall when it comes time to make it work with the FE.

Aight I am done </rant>

 

[screaming]

But the MAME module of AtomicFE is nothing else like a default MAME installation with a default path on the same drive as the FE ...

I have to agree with Minwah here. It's not easy to create a framework that will work for all users out there. It works if the user will use exactly the given FE structure, but I know a lot of users which are not willing or can not use this structure for example when using more than one harddrive.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

  Why does "not easy" mean "impossible"?  Are you all afraid of a little challenge? 

[swindus]

  Why does "not easy" mean "impossible"?  Are you all afraid of a little challenge? 

No, I don't think so.
The current FE's are exactly that what you want. A framework for a lot of emulators. You are right, they work all in a different way, some easy, some more complicated. But they are always a try of a developer to create the 'ultimate' way to work with almost every emulator in a easy way. Maybe for now there is no better way to do this.

Additional is not only up to the developer to create a nice software. It's also part of the user, especially when it is freeware. No bug reports, no wishes means, no development in the right direction for the user, thats it.

[screaming]

I have been giving Minwah suggestions for MAMEWAH for well over 2 years now because that's the FE I chose to use. Some he as implemented some he has not.  Some I've been able to directly contribute with (like a config program), but most I can't because it's not open sourced (or even "shared source"d).

  I am not alone by any means, and MAMEWAH isn't the only FE that I've given my input on.

[swindus]

No offence here, I just share my point of view. I know that you contribute a lot to the community so don't take any argument personally.

So why don't you try to create a FE dev group which will build the best FE ever?

[screaming]

So why don't you try to create a FE dev group which will build the best FE ever?

  Yeah, that would be the point of this thread

  Actually, I'm surprised at the lack of interest particularly from the non-FE coders out there.  *shrug*

[Havok]

Actually, I'm surprised at the lack of interest particularly from the non-FE coders out there.  *shrug*

Why not generate the framework, and then put out the call? I would be interested in seeing a fresh approach, with the ability to submit suggestions with some type of submission tracking system...

[screaming]

I started this a while ago and was working on it pretty dilligently until summer came around   Now that it's getting colder I'm looking to get back into it.

http://byofedev.bluecamel.org/

It doesn't do anything "plugin" or "module"-wise, but it wouldn't be too hard to add into the infrastructure.

[screaming]

Now that I'm starting it back up again it seemed like a good idea to find out who would else could come on board.   *shrug*

[youki]

But the MAME module of AtomicFE is nothing else like a default MAME installation with a default path on the same drive as the FE ...

Once again you affirm things without really knowing the subject.  But ok, if you look only the mame module i made  it looks like that but if you look closer you will see  it is not just a default installation.  And have a look to others modules....  you will see if it is default installation.
Angelscry did a phenomenal work on that.  He coded his own wrapper , own list generator , tried tens of emultors for a same machine to find the best one. Made all the configuration of emulators and modules. Some modules uses multiple emulators and run the game on the best one for that game.   And update regulary module on his web site.  And you say "It is nothing else like a default installation"....    
 

[swindus]

Sorry youki, don't want to derogate your or Angelscry's work. The plug and play stuff of AtomicFE is a great idea. But please put my statement back into the context of the discussion from above and you will see I'm right here.

[Howard_Casto]

If you want your FE to be the best (which secretly you do want) and you want people to say Dang, "This IS" the best dang piece uh of dang software I ever saw man!!!, then write the best and make it easy to use. There are probably more complaints about difficulty of use than about anything else in this hobby. You are busy humming along building this cab, then bam! You hit a wall when it comes time to make it work with the FE.

Aight I am done </rant>

I think this is a major misconception of users out there.  The cabinet part is supposed to be the easy part and the software should take you a lot more time to setup.  Let's put it this way.  When you buy a new pc which is harder, taking it out of the box and plugging in all the cables or spending the next 8 hours installing all the programs you need and getting the settings just the way you like it?  It's the same thing for mame cabs, just multiply the time by about a thousand.  Computers are complicated, computer software is compliacted, emulators are infinately more complicated than regular software and a program that is supposed to manage/launch an emulator... holy crap, that thing is complicated. 

None of use expect for everyone to bow at our feet at how great our stuff is, but what would be nice is if users would be appreciative of how easy we've made it for them instead of constantly complaining when they have trouble getting one thing or another configured the way they would like.  People get on my case a lot because I am negative, I'm realistic.  I would rather point out hurdles that devs are going to run into rather then tell them how great it is going to be.  I do this because the users that say "yeah that'd be cool you should do it" are the exact same ones to complain un-endingly when you are finished with it and it isn't exactly as they wanted it. 

You learn real quick that you should please yourself first and the user second or else you go crazy trying to make everyone happy.

I'm not talking about you in particular, you haven't really been guilty of this I'm just saying in general. 

I understand the bit about being willing to pay for a fe that just works.  The thing is that would take an incredible amount of time to do, so much so that I don't know if anyone of us could afford to spend the time building, even if we charged. 

People in this thread keep throwing words around like "just work" but if you truely want to give the user the freedom to set things up the way they want, this isn't easily possible.  Let me give you an example with the easiest one to deal with MAME:

Ok first off where is it?  You can ask the user, but it would require them to actually know where they put mame and probably the use of a mouse.  Well that probably  isn't going to work on the cab itself.  You could do it over the network, but what about the cabs without nics?  Parallel port connection?  Floppy?
Let's assume we figured that much out.  Now for mame itself.  Mame has around 60 options and they seem to change every week.  There is absolutely no way to set them up optimally for every pc in an automatic fashion.  You can write a fe that allows you to access these options internally but that in of itself could be a fulltime job.  Let's skip over that part and assume the user can figure out how to setup mame on their own.  Now for roms.  Some people have multiple rom directories, some just have one.  Some are one different drives, some are on network shares, some are on cd rom.  You can have the program search for roms across the whole computer but even with a super fast algorythm that could take hours on larger harddrives.  You can let users manually browse but if they have a lot of paths to add it could take forever.  Manually typing paths leaves it open to user error.  Now we have the artwork paths, the same issue applies.  Also the user has to actually find and download the artwork themselves.  Finally it's time to generate a gamelist.  You can do that automatically, but there are three distinct case scenarios you have to check for as depending upon the mame version, there are three different calls to choose from to generate the list.  Once you get that mess sorted out, you have to deal with catvers and how the fe is going to display the list.  Just a big list of all the games?  How about clones?  Lists by cats?  Different users are going to want it different ways, sometimes in very custom ways.  Those are a lof of questions to ask and a lot of places where things can go wrong.  Oh and before you get some grand idea like "what about a drop in module that has the emu, roms and artwork" I'm not even going to begin to explain how illegal that is and how that violates mame's useage agreement. 

I don't think anyone in their right mind would expect a developer to take care of all of this automatically, but the way some of you guys talk, we might think so. 

And remember, I listed the easy one, mame, which has built in tools to help us devs.  There are far more complicated ones like daphne and zinc, in which we can either write a slew of custom utilites, depend upon clrmamepro dats for data or other crazy means.  Then of course there's the custom launching. 

I'm not ranting back, or anything I just wanted to share the devs likely point of view. 

[Havok]

Sorry youki, don't want to derogate your or Angelscry's work. The plug and play stuff of AtomicFE is a great idea. But please put my statement back into the context of the discussion from above and you will see I'm right here.

I think you are missing the point of his plug and play modules - they are for someone who wants to quickly and easily setup their system with minimal configuration time, or for someone with little understanding on how to do so. So, in that context - it is what the user wants.

I use Atomic - and I don't use plug and play modules. I setup everything manually - I have a fairly complicated tree structure, with filtered lists and multiple emulators - I can (and do) use multiple drives.

So, to put this all in perspective: Youki's FE has the best of both worlds: quick and easy "it just works" configuration, AND power user "I want it this way" configuration...

[Havok]

You will see very soon  a demonstration the power of my engine in term of layout and speed. 

And it is very cool!!!

 

[screaming]

I'm not ranting back, or anything I just wanted to share the devs likely point of view. 

  I would like to state that while I agree with some of what you say, you do not speak for me.
 

None of use expect for everyone to bow at our feet at how great our stuff is, but what would be nice is if users would be appreciative of how easy we've made it for them instead of constantly complaining when they have trouble getting one thing or another configured the way they would like.

  The developer in me knows that it's very difficult to make customers happy. Not only that, but it's even harder to make customers of a software product happy because of all the variables we have to account for. When someone says something deceivingly simple like, "I want to draw a square on the screen right here.", any software program has to:

  - detect the mouse click
  - figure out where the mouse is
  - watch the mouse
  - detect when they let go of the mouse
  - figure out where the mouse is
  - what color is the square (need to allocate color(s))?
  - how thick is the border?
  - is it filled in or just outlined?
  - is it a perfect square or are they trying to build a rectangle?
  - What if they draw the square off the page?
  - what if they draw it backwards (i.e. bottom-right to top-left)? Everything is negative.
 
  That's a lot of stuff that I need to keep track of just for drawing a square, and that's not including all the initialization crap that you need to do.

  However, the user side of me doesn't care about this and just wants to draw a dang square. "Why can't it just be simple?", I ask.
 

I think this is a major misconception of users out there.  The cabinet part is supposed to be the easy part and the software should take you a lot more time to setup.

  If you're the only one who thinks this way then I don't think the misconception is "out there". I think it's with you.
 

I do this because the users that say "yeah that'd be cool you should do it" are the exact same ones to complain un-endingly when you are finished with it and it isn't exactly as they wanted it. 

  Personally I take that as motivation for expanding my programs, and transversly my knowledge, better. By "better", I mean more user friendly and automatic.
 
  So far no one has said that what i want to do is impossible, only difficult.
 

The thing is that would take an incredible amount of time to do, so much so that I don't know if anyone of us could afford to spend the time building, even if we charged. 

  You and Minwah keep proving my point about opening up your own FEs.

  As this hobby progresses, the user's demands are getting greater and greater (look at PowerMAME vs. regular MAME, or a keyboard hack vs a keyboard encoder! Yikes!).  As such, the demand for a more sophisticated FE grows and grows beyond what one can expect from a single hobbyist developer.  Open it up!  Look at the bigger picture and manage it like a project! YOUR dream of what you see DK being could be obtained so much faster....
 

People in this thread keep throwing words around like "just work" but if you truely want to give the user the freedom to set things up the way they want, this isn't easily possible.  Let me give you an example with the easiest one to deal with MAME:

  It CAN be done, and WILL be done, either by me or someone else (like youki has started to do) if the "old timer" FE devs don't step up to the plate.

[swindus]

I think you are missing the point of his plug and play modules - they are for someone who wants to quickly and easily setup their system with minimal configuration time, or for someone with little understanding on how to do so. So, in that context - it is what the user wants.

I use Atomic - and I don't use plug and play modules. I setup everything manually - I have a fairly complicated tree structure, with filtered lists and multiple emulators - I can (and do) use multiple drives.

So, to put this all in perspective: Youki's FE has the best of both worlds: quick and easy "it just works" configuration, AND power user "I want it this way" configuration...

Right! I got the point of the pnp modules. But you can not do your 'power' configuration with these modules automatically.... that is it what I wanted to say and I think that is what the user wants. And again: this is a complicated task.

If someone will manage it in the future I will donate some bucks! 

[SirPoonga]

Interesting thread, I finally read it all.
Here's the issue, each programming langauge has it's pros and cons.   You should use the right language for the application when possible.  The problem with that is new laungages come by that would be better so do you recode?
There's no such thing as .NET is better than 6.0 is better than python, etc...  They have their pros and cons which makes some langauges better than others for some things. 
If you were to write an internet application you'd probably use Java, php, asp, or possibly perl.  You could do it in VB or C# but that probably isn't the best tool.
Languages are tools.  Is there a tool that did everything when you built your cabinet?  No, you use the right tool for the job.

Like right now I think you could make an awesome front end using XNA.  I am kinda suprised we haven't seen a frontend using game programming tools.  From the little bits I've been playing with they are the perfect tools for making a frontend.  You can make it graphically anyway you want.  Lots of built event handling and such that would be needed.  I've been tempted to make a 2.5D frontend for myself.

I agree with screaming, anything can be done, the problem it how much time it takes to solve it
Look at XNA and the Torque Game Builder, before those existed people would have said game programming was tough and you couldn't make it easier.  If any of you get to try XNA it is insanely easy to make a game.

Also there can not be one FE that is "the best."  This is subjective.  I use game launcher because of how simple it is.  However, like I said, I'd love to make a simple 2.5D FE that used 3D animated menus they way I want them done.  Actually it probably could be done in 2D with prerendered sprites.  Now that completely different than any current FE.  You could combine that with game launcher to satisfy both types of users that want that type of FE but now it isn't simple.

I think a community driven FE is fine, it would probably be the most used as it would have the features that are the most popular.

BTW, you know I have a forum for FE Devs if needed

[Banacek]

Well, I've started working on my own FE, but this is for the sole purpose of teaching myself more of C# and DirectX. Since I'm going to be having classes on it I'd like to start early. This means that in 3 years I might have something that works

I love the FE's out there that I used, and I want to thank all the devs reading this thread for your hard work, since I bet you guys don't hear it enough. I'm still rocking MameWah on my computer, and I really am grateful that there's FE's like it out there to help me get to my games easier.

As for charging for an FE, it really seems to go against the spirit of MAME and other emulators out there. I'm not saying someone is wrong for doing it, it's their program. But I would feel very off for charging for a program to run another program (that I run myself and didn't create) is free. Just my thought about that...

[loadman]

As for charging for an FE, it really seems to go against the spirit of MAME and other emulators out there. I'm not saying someone is wrong for doing it, it's their program. But I would feel very off for charging for a program to run another program (that I run myself and didn't create) is free. Just my thought about that...

I agree, but I still feel compelled to donate (a small token one) if nothing else but to show that the work is appreciated.

[youki]

Right! I got the point of the pnp modules. But you can not do your 'power' configuration with these modules automatically.... that is it what I wanted to say and I think that is what the user wants. And again: this is a complicated task.

Pnp Module as been done for "lazy" or "newbie" , but they use Atomic Technologie , they are completly customisable with standard Atomic Tools. That's a way to have a very quick start and to not discourage front end new user. then when you are more confident you can modify the configuration as you want and use 100% of the feature of Atomic.

Another point, you said , that all need to be on the same drive. That's wrong. I have a feature in the Pnp "framework" where you can ask for folder at install. But i did not use that in current module for one good reasons . A secondary goal for my Pnp Modules is  : You set up the FE with all modules you want.  you copy all the roms you want. Then when it is done and works as you want.  You simply copy the entire Atomic Folder and subfolder on a DVD ... and your configuration is transportable, you can even run from the DVD from where you want.
If i asked for folder in my Pnp module , it won't be possible...

[swindus]

Sorry, but it becomes boring now. 

[headkaze]

Like right now I think you could make an awesome front end using XNA.  I am kinda suprised we haven't seen a frontend using game programming tools.  From the little bits I've been playing with they are the perfect tools for making a frontend.  You can make it graphically anyway you want.  Lots of built event handling and such that would be needed.  I've been tempted to make a 2.5D frontend for myself.

Quotes from Wikipedia about XNA

The XNA Framework is based on the .NET Framework 2.0

Currently games on the XNA framework can only be written using Microsoft's own C# programming language

And from Microsoft XNA site:

XNA Game Studio Express is based on Visual C# Express 2005

Yes, you must download and install Visual C# Express

Effective April 19, 2006, all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions are free

Well, I've started working on my own FE, but this is for the sole purpose of teaching myself more of C# and DirectX. Since I'm going to be having classes on it I'd like to start early. This means that in 3 years I might have something that works

I highly recommend Chad's Managed DirectX Tutorials. The examples are top quality.

[Havok]

Right! I got the point of the pnp modules. But you can not do your 'power' configuration with these modules automatically.... that is it what I wanted to say and I think that is what the user wants. And again: this is a complicated task.

If someone will manage it in the future I will donate some bucks! 

Youki beat me to the reply - you CAN use the auto plug and play config, and then change to what a user wants. So, go to Youki's homepage - there is a donate button there...

 

Sorry, but it becomes boring now. 

Sure seems boring to keep inserting foot into mouth...

 

[swindus]

 

Please do me a favor and read my posts exactly (I miss the word automatically in all your anserws) or put me on your ignore list! To stop this needless debate I think I have to admit the following:

AtomicFE is the best frontend which can do ALL things user wants easily!
Youki is the famest developer of the universe!

Are you satisfied now? I hope so. Go and get a real life.

[youki]

AtomicFE is the best frontend which can do ALL things user wants easily!
Youki is the famest developer of the universe!

Thanks!     

[loadman]

YOU CAN ALL GO TO YOUR ROOM!!!!!

This appears to me to be a classic case missunderstanding between two Great FE developers who English is not their native tongue hence a total misundersanding.

GERMAN -> ENGLISH -> FRENCH

[swindus]

AtomicFE is the best frontend which can do ALL things user wants easily!
Youki is the famest developer of the universe!

Thanks!     

You are welcome 

[Havok]

Please do me a favor and read my posts exactly (I miss the word automatically in all your anserws) or put me on your ignore list!

Automatically.

 

Seriously though - can you really put an "automatic" option in there? Everyone's configuration is different, and I as a user would want some kind of control and knowledge of where things are. If it all just works automatically, what do I do when I want to change my configuration? Do I even know how to? Do you really want to make it that simple? Then you've just created a bunch of users that have no idea of what they did and how to tweak the software they just installed!

There really is no perfect solution, as everyone's idea of the perfect solution will have different variations. So, I think Youki has the best compromise to date: plug and play configuration so a n00b can install and start playing (little to no configuration), and then the ability to tweak the configuration after the fact, or just create your setup from scratch.

There, I am now satisfied, and will now go BACK to my real life.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Please do me a favor and read my posts exactly (I miss the word automatically in all your anserws) or put me on your ignore list!

Automatically.

 

Seriously though - can you really put an "automatic" option in there? Everyone's configuration is different, and I as a user would want some kind of control and knowledge of where things are. If it all just works automatically, what do I do when I want to change my configuration? Do I even know how to? Do you really want to make it that simple? Then you've just created a bunch of users that have no idea of what they did and how to tweak the software they just installed!

There really is no perfect solution, as everyone's idea of the perfect solution will have different variations. So, I think Youki has the best compromise to date: plug and play configuration so a n00b can install and start playing (little to no configuration), and then the ability to tweak the configuration after the fact, or just create your setup from scratch.

There, I am now satisfied, and will now go BACK to my real life.

 

Read the post I made above.  It's practically impossible to make it automatic.  I hear a lot of people claiming that they can do it, but so far I don't see any results.  There are various plugins and wizards that definately make it easier, but they are not automatic.  Even assuming that someone were to tackle the problem it isn't a good use of the incredible amount of time that would have to be invested for such a minimal return.    Yes it would make for an easier install, but are any of the fes out there that difficult to configure?  I mean are users really losing sleep over how hard it is to get the psx emulator working in mamewah?  I'm sure some of the ones that have trouble editing text files and reading instructions are, but you could give those individuals a single button that says "click to install" and they wouldn't be able to find the button.  I agree with what you are saying too, it isn't a good thing to make things too easy, you just end up with users that have no clue how the fe works.

And to put it blunty, either you force the users to install the fe a certain way and the roms a certain way (which is bad) or you have to ask them a bunch of questions.  So it's down right impossible to make anything fully automatic.  Due to end user agreements, we can't make a windows installer that includes all the emulators and the fe that automatically installs and sets them up.  The user has to download the emu (and roms, aw ect) themselves and there in lies the problem.  If the user has to do something manually then there is a margin for user error, and therefore a fool-proof turn-key solution is impossible. 

[MYX]

If you want your FE to be the best (which secretly you do want) and you want people to say Dang, "This IS" the best dang piece uh of dang software I ever saw man!!!, then write the best and make it easy to use. There are probably more complaints about difficulty of use than about anything else in this hobby. You are busy humming along building this cab, then bam! You hit a wall when it comes time to make it work with the FE.

Aight I am done </rant>

I think this is a major misconception of users out there.  The cabinet part is supposed to be the easy part and the software should take you a lot more time to setup.  Let's put it this way.  When you buy a new pc which is harder, taking it out of the box and plugging in all the cables or spending the next 8 hours installing all the programs you need and getting the settings just the way you like it?  It's the same thing for mame cabs, just multiply the time by about a thousand.  Computers are complicated, computer software is compliacted, emulators are infinately more complicated than regular software and a program that is supposed to manage/launch an emulator... holy crap, that thing is complicated.

No Doubt, but getting the software configured does not require going into the actual program and modifying little snippets of code here and there with very little documentation as to if you are modifying the right snippet of code.

None of use expect for everyone to bow at our feet at how great our stuff is, but what would be nice is if users would be appreciative of how easy we've made it for them instead of constantly complaining when they have trouble getting one thing or another configured the way they would like.  People get on my case a lot because I am negative, I'm realistic.  I would rather point out hurdles that devs are going to run into rather then tell them how great it is going to be.  I do this because the users that say "yeah that'd be cool you should do it" are the exact same ones to complain un-endingly when you are finished with it and it isn't exactly as they wanted it.

No, I have actually enjoyed reading your stuff because you are not afraid to tell it like it is. (Although I will admit a lot of if does go over my head). And again, I said what I said with respect. I do appreciate the amount of effort you and many others have taken to write the stuff you have written. People assume that programmers are uncreative little nerds sitting in a dark room glasses at nose level just doing nothing but typing.

I know that to be not true. You guys are very creative.

 

I have seen very inventive things and options. And perhaps my post came too early. I know that there is constand development and perhaps we are at a new dawn of front ends. Things are getting better and better all the time. I read your history of DK a while back and it cleared up a lot of questions about why things take so long to get done.

You learn real quick that you should please yourself first and the user second or else you go crazy trying to make everyone happy.

I figured this much. It is why I wanted to start learning the stuff myself. 

Ok first off where is it?  You can ask the user, but it would require them to actually know where they put mame and probably the use of a mouse.  Well that probably  isn't going to work on the cab itself.  You could do it over the network, but what about the cabs without nics?  Parallel port connection?  Floppy?
Let's assume we figured that much out.  Now for mame itself.  Mame has around 60 options and they seem to change every week.  There is absolutely no way to set them up optimally for every pc in an automatic fashion.  You can write a fe that allows you to access these options internally but that in of itself could be a fulltime job.  Let's skip over that part and assume the user can figure out how to setup mame on their own.  Now for roms.  Some people have multiple rom directories, some just have one.  Some are one different drives, some are on network shares, some are on cd rom.  You can have the program search for roms across the whole computer but even with a super fast algorythm that could take hours on larger harddrives.  You can let users manually browse but if they have a lot of paths to add it could take forever.  Manually typing paths leaves it open to user error.  Now we have the artwork paths, the same issue applies.  Also the user has to actually find and download the artwork themselves.  Finally it's time to generate a gamelist.  You can do that automatically, but there are three distinct case scenarios you have to check for as depending upon the mame version, there are three different calls to choose from to generate the list.  Once you get that mess sorted out, you have to deal with catvers and how the fe is going to display the list.  Just a big list of all the games?  How about clones?  Lists by cats?  Different users are going to want it different ways, sometimes in very custom ways.  Those are a lof of questions to ask and a lot of places where things can go wrong.  Oh and before you get some grand idea like "what about a drop in module that has the emu, roms and artwork" I'm not even going to begin to explain how illegal that is and how that violates mame's useage agreement. 

Yeah, this is true. And no, I would never ask for a ROMs module. I understand the legal issues there.

In Atomic, there is a page for file paths. You can click and browse to the folder that the roms are in and it says that it should go. Even though I have done this, when I start atomic, it starts, but no games show up. I just am sitting in the FE with the background with empty boxes where the games should be.

With DK, I liked the step by step set up (although I did have to type the paths) but when I went to start the thing and go through the master list set up, I get a little pop up Run Time Error 52 (Bad file name or number) I click OK then the DK lightning and thinder thing happens (it's taunting me) and then another RT Error, this time it is 53 (file not found.) then it just exited back out to windows. (BTW a little side effect is that when this happens, the windows start bar no longer will show up). I have gone back and checked each path and tried making the exicutable path both with the .exe and without the .exe. I have tried many things and still get the same response. So again I sit with a FE I would like to try, but because  I do not understand the full ins and outs I wish for a dang FE that would "just work."

Ok, in my search of FE's I started with MAMEWah. After a lot of frustration and some help from MinWah I finally got the thing to generate a list and actually play. (Turns out that XML2LIST or whatever it was called was not included in this version. I downloaded the official CL version and snagged it and placed it in the PM Folder and all was well) I liked MAMEWah was using my editing computer upstairs to get everything configured so when the cab was done I could transfer it downstairs and put it in the cab. (BTW the set up is the same...i.e. C = system drive, D = Emulation Drive). What I did not expect is for PowerMAME to flop and go defunct. I bought a heck of a lot of stuff based around PowerMAME and it's features. Perhaps this was a bad idea. But when he was getting going on this, you even warned him about going too heavy down the MAME path and it would die like the rest of them have. He was very confident and kept going. I bought into it. Now that it seems to be a dead horse, I have a cabinet built that likes PM32, but neither PM32 nor PM (command line) play well with MAMEWah. I put up many posts stating my config and has anyone else made it go and no one responded. So I went on a search for a different FE. You started talking about the LEDWiz functionality with J5. So I started folowing your stuff. I also heard about Atomic, so I started following that stuff too. No offense, and as I have stated in other posts, I do not want to mess with MALA as you need a special chip for the Wiz and then you loose a lot of cool features which were part of the reason why I bought the thing. I also am using 2 GPWiz 49s with 49 way Joys. The auto DRS was integrated into PowerMAME. This made life very nice. Game comes up and the DRS mode is selected. If it is wrong, you go into the MAME set up and change the mode. Easy. Now, if I want to go to a different FE I have to use this method I read on TigerHeli's page, which is said to work, but everytime I start to read through it I start to glaze over and eventually give up. (Granted a lot of this is being tried to be done late at night when I am already fried from the day.) But it would be nice to see a FE do this. I almost wish Randy would write a FE for users of his stuff.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would expect a developer to take care of all of this automatically, but the way some of you guys talk, we might think so. 

And remember, I listed the easy one, mame, which has built in tools to help us devs.  There are far more complicated ones like daphne and zinc, in which we can either write a slew of custom utilites, depend upon clrmamepro dats for data or other crazy means.  Then of course there's the custom launching. 

I'm not ranting back, or anything I just wanted to share the devs likely point of view. 

Yeah, I guess it is a struggle for both sides then eh'. You are right there is a lot to area to cover. Perhaps this is where screamings idea about all the Devs coming together towards a common FE might not be a bad idea. I am a video editor so the following is based there... but when adobe was progressing Photoshop, it started on the basis of one guys idea, then many people started adding to it. There are many programmers that work on a common program. If just one guy did all the work, man we would still be at version 3. Seeing the arguments below about who's programming language is the best I see would be an issue that would need to be resolved. My guess, there would be a lot of yelling and many people would get mad and quit. But if for some magical reason, everyone decieded to come together... Man you guys could write a ROCKIN FE. There are people that are more proficient at some things than others. Delegate jobs and make it work. Find the most knowledgable person, and if everyone dropped their personal pride for a moment it is ok to admit someone is better than someone else. Choose the best guy to be like a foreman to  direct the thing, with the understanding that it is still driven from the ideas from all. But this way in a pinch and all heck breaks loose, you have one person that says "No... this is how this needs to progress". I know even as I write this, many of you are going to have the hairs on the back of you neck stand up at the thought of being somewhat directed.  But, if the end result is a FE that Rivals of not kicks the $h!T out of a comercial FE, then DO IT.

Anyway, my hat is off to all of you. But, I really do want to play SOMETHING that "Just works". 

[youki]

One thing is possible to do , but i agree that 's not totally automatic.   Angelscry did some prototype of plug'n play module that does that.

the module does not contain the emulator or anything. It is just looking on all your Drives  to find a emulator and matching roms  and configure it for you in Atomic.
the SNES prototype we have  is able to recognize 4  SNES emulators and to indentify roms (based on Goodtools or something like that , i didn't look in depth this one).  Angelscry is trying to make a Magic module able to set up automatically all emulators which are installed on your Drives!. I'm pretty sure he will succeed.  

But here too , we have to choose some default setting for Atomic .  Angelscry test emulator , try to find the best settings  and include them in the module.  But that "best" settings is may be not the best settings for you.   We have to do "compromise".  And of course, module required that emulator are already on your drive!   I know some could say Why the module don't download the emulator and roms for you....

This solution is not perfect , because module has to know the emulators . So if a new one comes , we need to update the module.  

Anyway... no perfect solution i think.

[screaming]

Why is there so much hostility between you guys?  Everyone that posted here has agreed that my requirements in a FE are the same goals that (just about) every FE out there has. Well, why are there 50 front end projects out there for me to choose from then?   

  It just doesn't make sense! What are you afraid of? 

  All I really want, and it's the point of this thread, is for us to come together and build 1 bitchin' front end that really DOES meet all the goals I stated above (and the features of BYOFE would be a bonus).

[Minwah]

  If you programmed your FE in such a way that it provided a framework for a generic emulator, and implemented some kind of plugin, or "module" infrastructure, you could let someone else do the work of keeping up with the emulators leaving you to keep going with the backend and still provide your users a customized working and easy solution.

Well JCrouse maintains ini files for pretty much every emulator going.  How hard is it to download the relevant ini and place it in your Mamewah folder??

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not sure I would call it hostility.  We are all right is the problem.  


It's a case of that old saying "There are many right ways to do something but only one wrong way."  Well we can all agree on the wrong way to do it, but we have all picked different right ways to do it.  

Nobody who has the ability to write  a decent fe wants to play the role of helper to someone else.  It's not an ego thing, it's just a fun thing.  Making something that looks all purdy and does some stuff is cool.  Working a random utility that just adds "feature x" or helps a user configure one thing that you as a programmer can configure quite easily isn't as fun.  

The reason you see hundreds of fes with very strong/intersting visuals and very weak configuration/list managment is because that part isn't fun to do.  

Also there are more practical reasons.  Just amoungst the major fes we have two vb programmers, a delphi / c++ programmer, a director programmer, a java programmer and devs that use anything from diectdraw to allegro to gdi to the maromedia 3d engine to do the graphics.  It's hard to get everyone on the same page when they are reading different books.  


Oh and minwah... it's pretty dang hard if you don't want to run mamewah. 

[swindus]

Automatically.

Seriously though - can you really put an "automatic" option in there? Everyone's configuration is different, and I as a user would want some kind of control and knowledge of where things are. If it all just works automatically, what do I do when I want to change my configuration? Do I even know how to? Do you really want to make it that simple? Then you've just created a bunch of users that have no idea of what they did and how to tweak the software they just installed!

One thing is possible to do , but i agree that 's not totally automatic.

Nothing more I tried to say in my previous posts. There is and I think there will be no perfect or working solution to do all the configuration stuff automatically.

With MaLa you need only to point to the exe and to the rom dir, select a command line preset and you are done.
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/emuconfig.html
Complicated?

[youki]

Well, why are there 50 front end projects out there for me to choose from then?

 

Because at a first look it seems easy to do!  Which is true , but if you want make THE FRONTEND , it is not true.

It would be interresting to know How many guys started to code a Front End with the same idea as you. (Just works) ... and how many still try.

I know at least 3 guys having the same idee of you .. and started.. When you see their post they were ready to do the magic front end... and then... after few weeks we never heard about them anymore.

Your BYOFE is a very good idea .    But most of FE developpers code for their pleasure and made their one Baby.   If it is to work in team and be directed , following spec ..Etc..Etc... it is like at work... so personnaly coding my FE  is to change and maintain my skill , instead of doing sometime some boring  code fro my Work.

And the competition is Funny.  Having only  one FE will kill the creativity or inovation in a certain way i think.  ARe you happy to have the choice in almost only One OS for your PC?  Are you happy to the choice to work only with "PC" ?  (ok i know, there is linux, macintosh ,etc..  but they are minority).

Personally not. Standarisation can be good in certain way , but not sure in all case (surely not in the context of leasure)

I'm nostalgic of the good old times where we had one  new computers each month!   Not all good, but at least different , showning different concept, philosophy... fun...

[Minwah]

Oh and minwah... it's pretty dang hard if you don't want to run mamewah. 

Sorry I didn't read properly 

Couple of random points that I would just like to say:

1) You get what you pay for in life (fact).

2) While I understand why people say 'your fe should be open source' etc...I don't see anything wrong with the fact that atm, personally, I want to work on my fe alone.  I like working on it alone, I know exactly how everything works, I do not need to keep track of other people's changes and at the end of the day, I can say 'I made that'   Not knocking open source at all, but my program I can develop and manage how I want...as I said in an earlier reply, time is not an issue for me - if it takes me the rest of my life to 'finish' then so be it

[swindus]

1) You get what you pay for in life (fact).

2) While I understand why people say 'your fe should be open source' etc...I don't see anything wrong with the fact that atm, personally, I want to work on my fe alone.  I like working on it alone, I know exactly how everything works, I do not need to keep track of other people's changes and at the end of the day, I can say 'I made that'   Not knocking open source at all, but my program I can develop and manage how I want...as I said in an earlier reply, time is not an issue for me - if it takes me the rest of my life to 'finish' then so be it

Word!

[Howard_Casto]

Funny you should bring up mala.  I tired it a while back and it didn't work for me.  Added the stuff just as you show in your pic and loaded it up and the lists didn't show up as expected.  I really didn't know where to look to fix it because it configures everything via that little gui.  Granted I didn't spend the time a user would trying to figure it out, because well I was just playing around with it, but my point is it apparenlty isn't as turn key as it was in your experience.

Also mala doesn't give you enough power over the configuration.  My mame install, for example has 15 folders of roms (I keep them sorted for archival purposes) the little wizard only allows for one path.  

I'm not picking on it in partucular, my point is what you consider easier I consider more difficult.  Myself give me a text file to edit like mame does and I'm good to go.

[screaming]

If there's a choice between coding some marginally useful software or coding a very useful piece of a very useful piece of software, I'll take the latter.  Jack of all trades, master of none?

[screaming]

1) You get what you pay for in life (fact).

  110% agree with you there.   I don't think you'll find anyone who will disagree with you. With that said, Firefox is a damn fine piece of software. So is Linux.  So is OpenOffice. So is Apache. So is....

2) While I understand why people say 'your fe should be open source' etc...I don't see anything wrong with the fact that atm, personally, I want to work on my fe alone.  I like working on it alone, I know exactly how everything works, I do not need to keep track of other people's changes and at the end of the day, I can say 'I made that'   Not knocking open source at all, but my program I can develop and manage how I want...as I said in an earlier reply, time is not an issue for me - if it takes me the rest of my life to 'finish' then so be it

  Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that you all should make your FEs open source, just that you should share your development. There's a big difference there and they shouldn't be lumped into the same category.

[SirPoonga]

...

I want to add XNA uses those a a backbone but is MUCH easier to work with than C# and DirectX on their own.  Put it this way, shortly after the release of XNA someone made a game in 24 hours.  He said if he had to do it with just C# and DirectX it would have taken weeks

[swindus]

Funny you should bring up mala.  I tired it a while back and it didn't work for me.  Added the stuff just as you show in your pic and loaded it up and the lists didn't show up as expected.  I really didn't know where to look to fix it because it configures everything via that little gui.  Granted I didn't spend the time a user would trying to figure it out, because well I was just playing around with it, but my point is it apparenlty isn't as turn key as it was in your experience.

Also mala doesn't give you enough power over the configuration.  My mame install, for example has 15 folders of roms (I keep them sorted for archival purposes) the little wizard only allows for one path. 

I'm not picking on it in partucular, my point is what you consider easier I consider more difficult.  Myself give me a text file to edit like mame does and I'm good to go.

You are right.
I've got the same problems with DK some time ago. 
This just shows how different people think what is called easy .....

PS. MaLa can also work with subfolders for the roms

[Howard_Casto]

  Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that you all should make your FEs open source, just that you should share your development. There's a big difference there and they shouldn't be lumped into the same category.

Huh?

We all code in different languages and all have different features.  How in the world could we share our development other than saying "Hey look what I did too bad it doesn't help you.... sucks to be you man."  

I think about the only thing that has been successful cross-fe is the wrappers.  People use em on everything and a lot of fe-devs are wising up that supporting the launch of every crazy assed emu out there internally will kill ya.  

If you mean multiple people working on a single fe that is essentially the same as opening up the source.  You have the exact same problems and "lack of freedom" minwah is talking about.

[Minwah]

This just shows how different people think what is called easy .....

I think, people want a FE that you install, and it automaically does the rest for you.  I suppose this is possible but to me would create more problems than it's worth.

And I know I'm probably old fashioned, but I also like just editing ini files for configuration.  Mame uses this system which lets be honest is why most people have a cabinet...so if you can configure Mame you can configure Mamewah (or other ini-based fe).  In addition to this, editing ini files on a low-res non-trackball equipped cabinet is MUCH easier than using a Windows GUI or whatever you might call it.

[screaming]

We all code in different languages and all have different features.  How in the world could we share our development other than saying "Hey look what I did too bad it doesn't help you.... sucks to be you man." 

  2 out of the 3 "big" front ends use Visual Basic *6*.  If the number of posts with, "I'm thinking of starting with a programming language. Which one should I choose?" is any indication, then I'd say there would be no shortage of people submitting bug reports and patches to them.

I think about the only thing that has been successful cross-fe is the wrappers.

  That's unfair to say because there hasn't been any other option.

  People use em on everything and a lot of fe-devs are wising up that supporting the launch of every crazy assed emu out there internally will kill ya. 

  Who's given that a serious go and given up? Maybe you?

If you mean multiple people working on a single fe that is essentially the same as opening up the source.  You have the exact same problems and "lack of freedom" minwah is talking about.

  Minwah didn't say anything about "freedom". He said he didn't want to share the responsibility of coding his front end because it's easier for him to keep track of it that way.

  It's unfair to say that open sourcing your product removes some, or any, of your freedom.

[swindus]

This just shows how different people think what is called easy .....

I think, people want a FE that you install, and it automaically does the rest for you.  I suppose this is possible but to me would create more problems than it's worth.

And I know I'm probably old fashioned, but I also like just editing ini files for configuration.  Mame uses this system which lets be honest is why most people have a cabinet...so if you can configure Mame you can configure Mamewah (or other ini-based fe).  In addition to this, editing ini files on a low-res non-trackball equipped cabinet is MUCH easier than using a Windows GUI or whatever you might call it.

Your FE, your decision.

For me it was: Why not use the windows gui when running on a windows system? And my first cab was a selfbuild one with 17 inch LCD monitor running on 1280x1024. 

The option dialog fits on a 640x480 screen and MaLa switches the resolution for you when opening this dialog. So you can run MaLa on 368x240 for example and when opening the config dialog the resolution is changed to 640x480 and vice versa.

Of course it is better to use a mouse for it.

[screaming]

Okay, let's think of the different variables involved in setting up an emulator, given a generic scenario:

1: Executable path
2: Emulator config (mame.ini, controls.cfg, etc)
3: Artwork path
4: ROM path
5: Sounds path
6: Commandline switches
7: Available games
8: Emulator support files (catver.ini, controls.dat, etc)

-----

3, 4, 5: Use the emulator config files to determine where these paths are. They're almost always defined in there and if not, they are hard coded in the emulator anyway.

6: Just about all the emulators will have a predefined set of commandline switches that you would use, and most of the ones that would be different would be detectable (old hardware? disable direct3d, for example).

7: Available Games = romlist (binary AND) gamelist output. Easy.

8: This might require some coordination on the part of the support file maintainer, but not necessarily. The latest catver is always http://www.catver.com/catveren.zip, for example. Display a disclamer/license, user clicks ok, download, unzip, enjoy.

  6 and 8 could be maintained similar to how MAMEWAH Config was built: When you open up the layout browser (or the predefined emulator configs for that matter), it goes to a website, downloads an XML config file and display a list of layouts based on URLs in the XML file.  No having to update and redistribute a new version of the config program - It's "live".

Out of all of these, the ones in bold are the ones that you can make automatic, or very close to it.  #2 up there could come close to being automatic (but not entirely), but that is the only one where I see a lot or work to implement.

  The way I see it, assuming they have set up thier emulators correctly, all the user (wants?) has to do is select thier emulator folder, click "Go" and thier emulator is set up. Save, exit, open up FE. Done.

  Depending on the way the FE is built, the FE developer could get a serious start on something like this over a weekend.  It's not tough stuff, it just requires forethought.

[SirPoonga]

3: Artwork path

3, 4, 5: Use the emulator config files to determine where these paths are. They're almost always defined in there and if not, they are hard coded in the emulator anyway.

Almost
3a. Artwork built into emulator (snaps from F12).
3b. Extra artwork like instruction cards, marquees, controls panels, etc...

Plus snaps is not generic. Not all emulators create snapshots so you can;t determine those paths automatically.

Also not you need to allow multiple paths.  Some of use use multiple paths.   Many emulators support multiple paths for stuff.

[screaming]

But as long as the emulators are set up correctly then thier config files should have that info, right?  If the emulators weren't set up beyond the defaults, "snap" is the default anyway.

  Sure, not all emulators have snaps, but if the layout is calling for one (which is the only time the FE would care about it) and there isn't one there there would be a some kind of placeholder image anyway.

[screaming]

What's this mean?

Almost
3a. Artwork built into emulator (snaps from F12).

[SirPoonga]

I mean like snaps in mame.  That's the only artwork that is "built in" to mame.  It's the only artwork path in in the config file.
Sorry, artwork folder is there too, but that is for in game use.

[headkaze]

Read the post I made above.  It's practically impossible to make it automatic.  I hear a lot of people claiming that they can do it, but so far I don't see any results.  There are various plugins and wizards that definately make it easier, but they are not automatic.  Even assuming that someone were to tackle the problem it isn't a good use of the incredible amount of time that would have to be invested for such a minimal return.    Yes it would make for an easier install, but are any of the fes out there that difficult to configure?  I mean are users really losing sleep over how hard it is to get the psx emulator working in mamewah?  I'm sure some of the ones that have trouble editing text files and reading instructions are, but you could give those individuals a single button that says "click to install" and they wouldn't be able to find the button.  I agree with what you are saying too, it isn't a good thing to make things too easy, you just end up with users that have no clue how the fe works.

And to put it blunty, either you force the users to install the fe a certain way and the roms a certain way (which is bad) or you have to ask them a bunch of questions.  So it's down right impossible to make anything fully automatic.  Due to end user agreements, we can't make a windows installer that includes all the emulators and the fe that automatically installs and sets them up.  The user has to download the emu (and roms, aw ect) themselves and there in lies the problem.  If the user has to do something manually then there is a margin for user error, and therefore a fool-proof turn-key solution is impossible. 

This thread is getting big fast. It's really strange that I started work on the GameEx Setup Wizard a week or so ago and there seems to be alot of talk about how to automate the setup of a FE. So I'm in the middle of working on code to automate the process as much as possible. When I first spoke to Tom about it I asked him "how deep does the rabbit hole go?" meaning how many options do we configure in the Wizard. So I decided to make it run from an XML file to make it as scalable as possbile. Of course some functionality is built in, but the built in methods are still called from the XML file.

Howard again you make valid points, and I think the only way to do things is to ask a lot of questions and automate as many things as you can. The user needs to be guided through the process and given suggestions and you need to check their selections (does the emulator folder/exe exist? etc.). It's not an easy problem to solve, and I don't think you can ever "solve" this problem, but you can certainly make it easier to setup a FE. Like you say there is no turn-key solution.

As for the "end-user agreements" of including emu's with the FE, I can understand that. But I wonder if automating the download of each emulator and installation/extraction to a folder is okay. What's your thoughts on doing something like that or do you think you can't have anything remotely like that?

Anyway, the GameEx Setup Wizard is nearly into testing stage, so release should be soon after that. So you guys will get to see a practical example of my ideas on automation. And I have alot of them but the GameEx approach is trying it's hardest to remove the "edit an ini file" way of configuration. While the ini file is obviously there for anyone with Notepad to edit, the config program itself has all the options available in a GUI. Adding another layer of configuration tweaking with the Wizard should help out the less computer savvy. At least I hope thats what it will do.

[MYX]

I know that MW, DK and AFE are built to work on a CGA monitor. How hard is it in the build to add this type of output to the FE? I wanted the true arcade look. It is a major reason why I bought the monitor. It is a heck of a lot easier to just launch MAME into a SVGA monitor and be done with it. But I wanted the real look.

MinWah made the Res tool and this seems to work great once you zero in on a resolution that works. I am again just stuck in a situation where if I want to use the LEDWiz and 49 ways, I have to call NASA. My only gripe with the res tool is you have to go up to 640 x 480 to be able to get around the thing. The interlacing gives me a dagum headache.

AFE has a res selection for the FE, and it has a selector for users of the AVGA card. But where do I make changes per game or games of a similar resolution?

DK...Well I still can not make DK work   so I have no idea how this works.

An asside here, but at what resolution would I render home made movies out of after effects to go into the FE? 640 x 288? or could I make little movies and put them behind the text and one behind the snap.

[youki]

How hard is it in the build to add this type of output to the FE?

You mean the FE output directly 15hz?  It is no at the FE level you have to do that.
If you do taht at the FE , only the FE will be at 15khz. and not the emulators..

the only way to do that,  is to make a Video device driver outputing 15Hz. I started few month ago to do that. (i wanted to do a kind a Soft ArcadeVGA) . But the problem , despite the fact is not so easy to do and find hardware documentation ..etc..Etc.. , You can't make it "Generic" , you can't make a universal driver.  Because you have to set timing , frequency etc.. for each resolution supported by your video card. All manufacturer have a different hardware.
The only thing we could do "generic" would be for standard VGA mode or MCGA.  320x200 256 colors,  640x480 16 color  or  640x350 16 colors...   So it means taht the FE must work in that resolution (which is very poor)  and game you run too... if you change the resolution you come back to 31khz.   No really usefull to implement that kind of driver. 

ADVMAME trick the video card in the same way , but you have to do settings depending on your hardware , it is not generic too.

Under DOS ARCMON.SYS  , only ouput 15khz for text mode , and 320c200  (and derived 320x400)graphic resolution.
It is why under dos you have to use the combination ARCMON.SYS + ADVMAME to have real Arcade rendering.  With DMAME you play in 320x200 , if you want 15khz.

AFE has a res selection for the FE, and it has a selector for users of the AVGA card. But where do I make changes per game or games of a similar resolution?

the problem you mix emulators and Front End.  There is on one side the Front End settings.
And on the other side the emulators settings.  2 different world.  I made the choice to not manage Emulators settings from my FE , to stay as generic as possible. So if you want change game resolution for mame use MAME tools , make .INI files or if you have an ArcadVGA use AVRes.exe it will generate all files for you.

An asside here, but at what resolution would I render home made movies out of after effects to go into the FE? 640 x 288? or could I make little movies and put them behind the text and one behind the snap.

I'm not sure to  really understand the question. But You can render you video as you want. Of it would be better to render it at the size it will be displayed (to avoid stretching and optimize size and quality).   And in AtomicFE you can put the video where you want  , behind text, behind snap , etc...

[loadman]

This just shows how different people think what is called easy .....

And I know I'm probably old fashioned, but I also like just editing ini files for configuration.  Mame uses this system which lets be honest is why most people have a cabinet...so if you can configure Mame you can configure Mamewah (or other ini-based fe). 

I hear you Dude.... it has it's pros and cons

But just to clarify..... MaLa Gui lets you config MAME and MaLa so you don't necessary need to edit .ini files which is great for newbies who are moving on from mame32.  Of course you can still do it the 'old fashioned' way too  , (as Mame and MaLa still refer to .ini files)  . And you can use MaLa config on a in Low Rez setup (arcade monitor). Have a go !!