Can I do this with Mala?

[millercentral]

I'm in the process of setting up MaLa for use on my 3-sided cocktail, and I'm using the very cool "change orientation/gamelist based on which side of the cocktail is activated" feature -- the only challenge I have is that for games launched from the "number 2" side (ie, 270 degree vertical orientation), I would like to be able load an alternate MAME controller config that remaps those controls as the Player 1 controls. (ie, when MaLa is in the 270degree orientation, it should call mame with a "-ctlrl 270.cfg" parameter)

Does this (a) make sense and (b) sound possible to do? I know I can manually remap all the games that launch from that orientation, but that is a big hassle (and in some cases I'll allow a game to launch from either side).

Thanks for any ideas,
-james

[loadman]

...I'm @ work

But thinking aloud for a solutions

You could possibly:
1) In using Mame you could allocate keys for both controllers (as you can allocate multiple keys in mame) .Easy to do as but not ideal
2) Have a plug-in change the line in mame.ini to another 'ctrlr_directory' when a game is launched depending on the way the screen or orientated. Not sure if the orientation is passed from MaLa to the plug-ins? I will check when I get home
..[EDIT] scratch that idea.  :-(

[millercentral]

Well, thanks for looking... I guess this falls into the category of would be a great feature-add to the orientation-switching feature...

[arzoo]

I've asked swindus if he would consider adding some of the auxiliary files (controls.dat, history.dat, etc.) to the info passed during the Emulator Selected event. This would allow the plugin to know the game orientation. But since these files are specific to mame, he didn't feel they belonged in that data structure.

My plugin requires the controls.ini data and I have to use a setup file which must be configured with a pointer to the controls file. Not the best solution, but it works. The same could be done for millercentral's suggested plugin.

[loadman]

..yeah the Plug-in is passed the games orientation from MaLa already (be it Vertical or Horizontal)

But the way I understand it.    millercentral wants mame to be launched with a different mame controls depending on which way MaLa is orientated on his 3 sided cocktail table

I put a request to SWINDUS to have that passed in a future version of mala..  So it could happen 

[millercentral]

loadman does understand what I'm after.. If I launch a game from the 270 orientation (as opposed to the 90degree orientation), I want the ability to remap the controls on the fly so that the launching side act as player 1 and the opposite side act as player 2 (when by default they are mapped in the opposite direction). I can do this manually by calling MAME with an alternate ctrlr file on games I'd like to do this with in this case.

Simply remapping the game controls is not always an ideal solution, because there or some games I want to be able to be launched from either vertical orientation (ie, walk up to whichever side you want, and the launching side becomes player 1).

Rather than a plugin solution, I'm requesting as a future feature request for mala, that this could be an option added to the MAME Config>Options>Auto Rotate section where only available when "Rotate MAME with MaLa" is selected and allows you to pick a ctrlr file to use for each orientation (0, 90, 180, 270). Just a thought...

Anyway, just a suggestion, still LOVING MaLa as a frontend.  -james

[loadman]

Rather than a plugin solution, I'm requesting as a future feature request for mala, that this could be an option added to the MAME Config>Options>Auto Rotate section where only available when "Rotate MAME with MaLa" is selected and allows you to pick a ctrlr file to use for each orientation (0, 90, 180, 270). Just a thought...

FYI: I don't think a Plug-in or built into MaLa would not make any operational difference except that SWINDUS would have less code to change.  :-)

[loadman]

Lord Swindus said he will make a change so such a plug-in is possible with the next MaLa version

 

[loadman]

It's now on the WIP page   

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

[loadman]

New features were implemented in current version RC9 that should help you with this....

1) Did you change in options-controller-controller mapping you can add an extra mame parameter like:
-ctlrl 270.cfg

or....

2) Did you still need a plug-in created that edited mame.ini depending or orientation?

Just wondering