CPV2 support in Mala???

[BamBam]

I have seleted the option to use Control Panel Viewer 2 (CPV2) as my panel viewer in Mala.  I have navigated Mala to the CPV2.exe file, but whenI load a game, I get a "Syntax error" and I don't have a Control Panel displayed.
Any ideas?

John

[loadman]

Dunno...I have not use that before

 I know J5 works great
 (Johnny 5)

[jcrouse]

I am not familiar with Mala and the exact syntax it sends to external applications. I am the author of CPV2 and will help any way I can. If the author of Mala chimes in with the correct syntax I will verify the CPV2 works and if modifications are needed I will take the required actions.

I do remember briefely investigating AtomicFE and MaLa and seem to remember it looked like it should work quite easily.

John

[fatfingers]

From the MaLa FAQ:

Does MaLa work with CPViewer?

Yes, MaLa works with CPViewer, CPMaker and Johnny5. Also with the additional MaLa Hardware MaLa can light up the used buttons for each game and shows the functions of the controls on a LCD.

[jcrouse]

Well, I have MaLa setup and am able to launch Mame games. However, I can't get the control panel viewer settings OR the external applications setting to do anything. THe syntax required by CPV2 is like so:

cpv2.exe -r=dkong

the variable used by MaLa is %rom%. However when I try to set up an external application and use the setting:

cpv2.exe -r=%rom%

I get nothing. If I leave the parameter off the end and just run the exe then it launches CPV2 and you get my default error, so it will run the executable properly, it just doesn't send the rom name, at least by the method I am trying.

I also tried the Control Panel viewer settings with a commandline of -r=%rom% at if I check the box to display the viewer before game launch it does work.

John

[swindus]

There is an extra tab for control panel viewer apps.

options->mame config->control panel viewer

executable: c:\path\cpv2.exe
commandline: -r=%rom%

Then choose 'start viewer on game start' and/or 'replace info window with viewer'.

[jcrouse]

Swindus,
      Thank you for the prompt reply. As stated I was able to get it working the way you describe (before the game launches). I will try the other setting you speak of (replace window). Is there a way to configure it as an external application. Currently, as I stated, it seems to read the exe but not append the commandline string to the end. What am I missing here?

Thanks,
John

[swindus]

Is there a way to configure it as an external application. Currently, as I stated, it seems to read the exe but not append the commandline string to the end. What am I missing here?

At the moment there are no commandline parameter for the external applications. But I think I will add some in the next version.

[jcrouse]

Good idea. I am sure your user base will make use of and appreciate the additions.

John

[BamBam]

Thanks guys.

[loadman]

There was a post recently about this topic

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62014.0

To summarize:

You can launch CP Viewer properly before a game starts if you are happy that it will substitute the Info Window (If you use that anyway?)

Currently you can't launch it properly via a customisable key for external apps as there is no way currently to pass rom info.

Swindus will properly add this in a future version

[headkaze]

Hey jcrouse why don't you have a resident option so that CPV2 runs in the background (perhaps as an icon in the icon tray) and polls for a custom defined key press, then when the keypress is detected CPV2 can enumerate window captions searching for MAME: then reading in the ROM name from the window caption, minimize Mame, then display the CP. You could also have controls.ini already stored in memory so displaying the CP would be quicker. Just a thought.

[loadman]

Looks like work has been done for the next release   

http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/wip.html