Serial Display (LCD & BetaBrite) Plug-in for MaLa V1.0 *Finished*

[loadman]

This Plug-in supports serial character LCD and BetaBrite displays. 

 You can use Silvers .LCD files or have it automatically do it.

[EDIT] V1.0 finished 27/1/07

Download from the MaLa Website :
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/plugins.html#SerialDisplay

More of my dribble is in the ' Read me' file.... 

Feel free to offer suggestions for the next version

Thanks.


http://www.seetron.com/bpp440_1.htm

[loadman]

[EDIT] Not a bad price here I found:
http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=138440

[headkaze]

Nice work loadman

Sorry I don't use Mala or a Beta Brite to help test the plugin, but I'll give a bit of feedback anyway (I hope you don't mind)

Just a few things about the GUI. That gaudy yellow is terrible on the eyes, how about something a little milder Also the drop down lists for some reason I can only see an item when the mouse is over one otherwise they are invisible (like white text on a white background).

You might also want to check out .manifest files (even better manifest files embedded as a resource) so that you have the "XP look", you know those shiny buttons in the standard XP themes.

[loadman]

That gaudy yellow is terrible on the eyes, how about something a little milder  Also the drop down lists for some reason I can only see an item when the mouse is over one otherwise they are invisible (like white text on a white background).

Oh Yeah YUCK you are right.....

I just loaded here at work

It did not look like that @ home

Will fix that tonight

[headkaze]

What did you end up doing for a Delphi serial library? Did you end up finding a good free one?

[Q*bert]

Nice first shot with the beta!  Communications with the BetaBrite are perfect. 

I'm not sure what code is implemented, but all data seems be coming from MaLa and not the .lcd's.

Buttons display as "ButtonFire" and "Buttonnot used" rather than "1:Fire" or "Button1:Fire".

Oh yeah,  and what headkaze said about the interface! 

[loadman]

What did you end up doing for a Delphi serial library? Did you end up finding a good free one?

YEP   

I'm not sure what code is implemented, but all data seems be coming from MaLa and not the .lcd's.

Maybe it 's not reading your ini file and just reverting back to default settings.
Hmmm  PleaseTry launching MaLa Directly (not from a short-cut) so the working directory wil be right and let me know if you still have this problem please
EDIT- I may have fixed this. Download latest version

Buttons display as "ButtonFire" and "Buttonnot used" rather than "1:Fire" or "Button1:Fire".
Oh yeah,  and what headkaze said about the interface! 

Thanks! Will Fix ASAP
EDIT- I may have fixed these things too. Download latest version

In any case
Q1) What is your Preference for Control display for the BetaBrite?
Q2) How does it look on the betabrite as your scroll through the list?

[headkaze]

Hey loadman, you've got the XP theme buttons working, and the colour is better, but I'm still getting invisible text (white text on white background).

It's best you use the standard Window's colour scheme when using controls. Ie. For most controls the "Control" colour is the best to use. It should be the default colour when you draw a control on a form.

Attached is a screenshot of what I get here on two machines.

[loadman]

Hey loadman, you've got the XP theme buttons working, and the colour is better, but I'm still getting invisible text (white text on white background).

Ohh Crap. I'm not getting that effect on the PC here (it's black on white), But It did happen on the PC at work

Thanks for testing 

I don't have a "Control" colour I don't think so I don't know waht I did?

Anyway I changed the fields to grey on the 'basic setup tab', Is that better now?  If so I will change them all.  Cheers

[headkaze]

Hey loadman, I'm not sure how you would do it in the Delphi IDE form designer, but in Visual Studio when you select a colour from a control, you can use either Custom, Web or System colours.

The standard colour for a control is called "Control". If the colours are changed by a Theme then the colours are changed in all programs that use the System colours.

Attached is a pic of what I mean.

[loadman]

Hey loadman, I'm not sure how you would do it in the Delphi IDE form designer, but in Visual Studio when you select a colour from a control, you can use either Custom, Web or System colours.

The standard colour for a control is called "Control". If the colours are changed by a Theme then the colours are changed in all programs that use the System colours.

Attached is a pic of what I mean.

Count not find it but the grey one seems to work so I won't waste any more time on it right now. Will figure it out one day :-) ta

[Q*bert]

EDIT- I may have fixed this. Download latest version

I don't think the posted link is to the updated version as I downloaded and the file dates are unchanged (it doesn't behave differently either.)

Q1) What is your Preference for Control display for the BetaBrite?

It would be nice to control:
1) the information displayed.  Right now the game title, company, and year are displayed and really slow things down
2) the color and font of each section (e.g. the game title, controller type, buttons)
3) the way the information appears on the display (clear display first, scroll left to right, scroll up, etc.)
4) the ability to shorten the display of "Button 1:" to "1:" or "Btn 1:" since the BetaBrite can only display from 8 to 16 characters at once, depending on font size.

Bet your sorry you asked... 

Q2) How does it look on the betabrite as your scroll through the list?

The display changes quickly and displays the game title exactly as it is shown on the MaLa list.  It alternates between the name of the game, emulator, and game list.  I'll make a video and post a link to it when I get more time.

BTW, read your messages for more info.

[loadman]

I don't think the posted link is to the updated version as I downloaded and the file dates are unchanged (it doesn't behave differently either.)

It definitely is..  I can download it here at work.  It could be a local proxy at your end of the world caching things?
I added a 1c to the end of the file name to see if that helps? Try Now

Bet your sorry you asked...

 
Not at all.. Thanks 
 

[Q*bert]

Downloaded Serial1c.zip today.

I don't notice any difference, and it still isn't reading .lcd files upon game load.

[loadman]

Downloaded Serial1c.zip today.

I don't notice any difference, and it still isn't reading .lcd files upon game load.

That is so Freaky.

I'm getting it to do it here (It Loads LCD files (if found)  and this version also address the Control labeling issue you mentioned...... Only when launching a game of course 

What I will do when I get home from work is load it on a spare PC from the internet to see if something is wrong,

How it works is if it finds a *.lcd file (in the specified directory) with the name of the rom it will use that in preference to mala data.

Maybe I should post a video to show?  I dunno where to go from here 

[headkaze]

Downloaded Serial1c.zip today.

I don't notice any difference, and it still isn't reading .lcd files upon game load.

That is so Freaky.

I'm getting it to do it here (It Loads LCD files (if found)  and this version also address the Control labeling issue you mentioned...... Only when launching a game of course 

What I will do when I get home from work is load it on a spare PC from the internet to see if something is wrong,

How it works is if it finds a *.lcd file (in the specified directory) with the name of the rom it will use that in preference to mala data.

Maybe I should post a video to show?  I dunno where to go from here 

Perhaps a debug version that will output a MessageBox "Found [ROM].lcd file at location ...", or "Not Found [ROM].lcd file". Or maybe a version that outputs debug info to a log file or something?

[loadman]

Perhaps a debug version that will output a MessageBox "Found [ROM].lcd file at location ...", or "Not Found [ROM].lcd file".

Hey I was thinking the same thing on the way home...    That would be easy  I will do that later.  It's gotta be something simple

[youki]

Hey loadman, I'm not sure how you would do it in the Delphi IDE form designer, but in Visual Studio when you select a colour from a control, you can use either Custom, Web or System colours.

The standard colour for a control is called "Control". If the colours are changed by a Theme then the colours are changed in all programs that use the System colours.

Attached is a pic of what I mean.

Count not find it but the grey one seems to work so I won't waste any more time on it right now. Will figure it out one day :-) ta

Hi Loadman,  i just read this post quickly , so i'm not sure i well understood your little pb a that level.

But if you want control color in Delphi follows the defined windows colors schema , you have to select your "control" on the Form .  Go on the "property" pannel ,  change the :  "Color" property.

In the dropdown list , don't select a given color like  clYellow, clGrey...   but instead select a color like :

clBtnFace  ,clBackground ,  clActiveBorder..etc....

If you select that, you control will have the color defined by the user in Windows.  It means if for instance you selected for your control the color "clBtnFace"  ,   if the user in windows control panel change the color affected to buttons in windows , you application will follow the change too.

I hope it helps.

[loadman]

Thanks Headkaze, Q*bert and youki.

Latest beta ready for testing 1d (see link @ the beginning of this thread)

I hope I fixed the .lcd reading bugs 

It now has prompts when you launch a game to show you what the plug-in is doing

I will remove these prompts when you are all happy

Thanks again for testing.   

[Q*bert]

  Works great!

No more problems finding .lcd files.

[loadman]

Works great!

No more problems finding .lcd files.

Kewl.. Thanks....

I would like it tested by persons with serial LCD's too.. Hopefully Circo and/or Silver can help me out there. 

Then I can release this baby as Version 1 and have it available on the MaLa website. Is there anything else essential it should have?

In Version 2 I plan to have more custom formatting options

[edit] Q*BERT: I will e-mail you the betabrite unit file so you can play with it, in case you wanted some changes before version 1 release

[Circo]

Finally have a day off, I am transferring my Mala set up to my cab tomorrow (sunday) and will give you feedback on the plug-in.  Looking forward to it!!! 

[Circo]

Can you out output to a beta brie and lcd at the same time???  I like the looks of those beta brites.

[loadman]

Can you out output to a beta brie and lcd at the same time???  I like the looks of those beta brites.

Not at the moment but that is possible. I would have to test that as obviously the displays would have to be on connected on separate com ports (as they use different formatting codes) so I'm not sure how fast the port switching would be? In any case it would only 'possibly' be a speed issue for updating the displays on the fly when scrolling through the list.. worst case scenario you might only be able to have one display do that part (no big deal).

If you get a betabrite and want that feature then you have just volunteered to beta test it for me   

[Circo]

I'm batting the idea around, I will let you know.

Edit:

I am looking at the new Beta Brite Prism dispay that hooks up via USB or serial.  Would usb make any difference?

http://www.betabrite.com/pdfs/1196650401BBPrism.pdf

[loadman]

I'm batting the idea around, I will let you know.

Edit:

I am looking at the new Beta Brite Prism dispay that hooks up via USB or serial.  Would usb make any difference?

http://www.betabrite.com/pdfs/1196650401BBPrism.pdf

HEY!  Less 'Batting' more 'testing' 

I dunno?

I assume the USB version makes a virtual COM port so you would communicate with it in much the same way 'otherwise' I would have another challenge.

Hey I am sure it's do-able just a matter of finding the most efficient way

[Circo]

Ok finally got Mala up and running on the cab and your plugin is great.

One big thing though:

Because I run multiple emulators I have my LCD files in different directories

Is there any way for the plugin to look for .lcd files in a directory with the same name as the emulator? 

IE:

LCD Directory = i:\lcd
Sub Directories:
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Daphne
Mame
Super Nintendo
Sega Genesis

etc:

If I have to throw them all into one directory sooner or later there are going to be the same file names for different systems.

And that "no lcd file found nag screen is just for testing purposes right? 

Seriously though, fantastic app!

[Circo]

One other idea!!

For a screensaver I have it cycle through all of my video previews.  Would it be possible for the plugin to display the system (from the directory) and the file name of the video minus the extension?

IE:

i:\previews\Super Nintendo\Super Mario Bros 3 (U).avi

Output to the display could be

Super Nintendo
Super Mario Bros 3 (U)

I am not sure how that would work with mame files because the have those stupid dos names.

What do you think?

[loadman]

Is there any way for the plugin to look for .lcd files in a directory with the same name as the emulator? 

Sure... as an option.. I will get on it now (Day Off- Monday in Australia)

And that "no lcd file found nag screen is just for testing purposes right? 

Ha Ha  Yes of course

Would it be possible for the plugin to display the system (from the directory) and the file name of the video minus the extension?

Great Idea...  Unfortunately that is not something I can implement right now as the video files or snaps mala chooses is not passed to the Plug-in.
I will ask Swindus for that ability. No harm to ask. So every time a new video or snap is chosen in the screensaver the data is passed to the Plug-ins

I can however have it display a custom screen when the screen saver starts. Would you like that for now?

[Circo]

Yeah that would be great.

Just realized that mala does not look into sub folders for video files so I just ate up 20gb for a screensaver folder.  Wonder how much I would have to donate to swindus to change that  (seriously, I'll pay!!)

Ok now that I am getting this part all worked out I am off to try the LED-Wiz plugin, from the looks of it I will be pulling up that thread in a few minutes.

[headkaze]

Not at the moment but that is possible. I would have to test that as obviously the displays would have to be on connected on separate com ports (as they use different formatting codes) so I'm not sure how fast the port switching would be? In any case it would only 'possibly' be a speed issue for updating the displays on the fly when scrolling through the list.. worst case scenario you might only be able to have one display do that part (no big deal).

There shouldn't be a speed issue using two COM ports open at once. I guess it depends on the COM library your using, if it supports sending to multiple ports at a time then it shouldn't be a problem.

I assume the USB version makes a virtual COM port so you would communicate with it in much the same way 'otherwise' I would have another challenge.

Yes, your right, the USB driver should create a virtual COM port that you can communicate with like a standard COM port. Depends on the driver supplied with the hardware though I guess, unless there is some generic driver that allows you to do it. With my Nokia phone, it was connected through USB but used standard serial communication using a virtual COM port, but again that was through the driver.

[loadman]

Just realized that mala does not look into sub folders for video files so I just ate up 20gb for a screensaver folder.  Wonder how much I would have to donate to swindus to change that  (seriously, I'll pay!!)

I'm sure it's more a matter of his time rether than money..he he

But at the risk of speaking on his behlaf I imagine that would be a straight forward addition to MaLa    

Send him a PM asking for it and make donation if ya want?  I have hit the Paypal button on the MaLa site more than once but I am a MaLa 'freak'

[loadman]

There shouldn't be a speed issue using two COM ports open at once. I guess it depends on the COM library your using, if it supports sending to multiple ports at a time then it shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks headkaze
Will have to test....... later  . Not a high priority right now. I wasted enough just getting a decent free Delphi free serial interface.

Yes, your right, the USB driver should create a virtual COM port that you can communicate with like a standard COM port. Depends on the driver supplied with the hardware though I guess, unless there is some generic driver that allows you to do it. With my Nokia phone, it was connected through USB but used standard serial communication using a virtual COM port, but again that was through the driver.

Kewl yeah well it should be OK.  I would hate Circo to buy a USB BetaBrite then to find out later that I can't easily support it.

I would recommend he asks how the driver works before handing over CASH.

Unless someone reading this thread knows how the USB betabrite communicates (Virtual Com port?)

[Circo]

It works with usb and serial so it is really not an issue loadman.  Don't sweat it

[loadman]

Because I run multiple emulators I have my LCD files in different directories
Is there any way for the plug-in to look for .lcd files in a directory with the same name as the emulator? 
IE:
LCD Directory = i:\lcd
Sub Directories:
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Daphne
Mame
Super Nintendo
Sega Genesis
etc:
If I have to throw them all into one directory sooner or later there are going to be the same file names for different systems.

Done, sub dirs are now an option (see download link at the top of thread)

And that "no lcd file found nag screen is just for testing purposes right? 

Done You now have that as an 'option'

* Also added basic custom text options for
- MaLa Start
- Screen Saver

Let me know if there any problems please... Thanks

[Circo]

Damn your quick, I'll try it out tomorrow.  Thanks loadman!

[loadman]

Damn your quick, I'll try it out tomorrow.  Thanks loadman!

Kewl.. It would be great if you could post a pic and/or movie of your cab with LedWiz/ LCD combo in action 

[Circo]

Damn your quick, I'll try it out tomorrow.  Thanks loadman!

Kewl.. It would be great if you could post a pic and/or movie of your cab with LedWiz/ LCD combo in action 

I am working on the led-wiz tonight so once it is all working I will get something up.  I was going to just order the standard beta brite but the prism was only $50 bucks at sam's club. I should have it in about a week or so.  It says USB on the specs from sams club but the betabrite web site says that it is busb or serial, I will let you know once it arrives.  That and a couple of top gun's are my xmas present from the wife.  I am going to be so suprised!!!

[Circo]

Note: the custom message displays the text is white on white.

Otherwise, it's perfect.  Great work loadman, thanks

Now get started on that dual lcd display!!!

[loadman]

Note: the custom message displays the text is white on white.
Otherwise, it's perfect.  Great work loadman, thanks

Fixed Text !!

Now get started on that dual lcd display!!!

Sounds like a weekend job   

[later edit]  Quick testing on the coms I succeeded in sending data to com ports from 1 - 9 (inclusive) simultaneously  :-) .. So driving a LCD and a Betabrite looks like a future option