Create Mala gamelist from text file

[ABArcade]

Is there a way to create a gamelist for Mala from a text file?  I used RomList to filter and create a few text files. I now want to use those list to create some gamelists.

For those that will ask I did search the forum and was not able to find an answer 

[NOP]

You may be just the person I'm looking for!

I don't think there is a way to do it just yet, but the next feature I wanted to add to ROMLister was to output mala formatted lists.  I just need a guinea pig to help me test out the code, since I'm not currently running mala.

I'll send you a PM in a second so we can work on this offline, if you're willing.

-jeff!

[Green Giant]

I too am using mala and would be interested in helping you out with romlister.  Thought it would be too hard to output mala formated lists, but if you are up to it.

I already used it to find every neogeo game and manually input them using the default mala list creator.  Having mala lists would make everything so much easier.

[NOP]

I too am using mala and would be interested in helping you out with romlister.  Thought it would be too hard to output mala formated lists, but if you are up to it.

heh.  I waffle back and forth between it being too hard and then I think it shouldn't be too bad.  Currently I'm thinking it won't be so bad, but that might change as soon as I start!   

Hopefully I can put some time in this weekend on the task, so maybe by monday I'll PM you two and you can give it a shot.

-jeff!

[loadman]

The following link (from the website) has the Delphi source code which may provide some clues for you on how MaLa Game lists are structured.   

http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/easytrack.php?id=5

Good Luck

[NOP]

yes indeedy. 
I've got that file handy, and it's about 80% of what I need.  It appears that delphi injects some other data between all the string fields, and I'll have to do figure out how that works, but it is going well!

In this update I've decided to also merge in that MMM tool and do stuff like saving the last xml file used into the registry so you don't have to hunt for it every time.

So, it most certainly won't be done by the end of the weekend (only a couple hours away) but I am actively working on it and expect that in a few days I'll have a prototype to test out.

stay tuned.

-jeff!

[Green Giant]

NOP, just wondering if you are still planning on implimenting this feature into your romlister.  Would be happy to test it out for you.

[Havok]

I too am using mala and would be interested in helping you out with romlister.  Thought it would be too hard to output mala formated lists, but if you are up to it.

heh.  I waffle back and forth between it being too hard and then I think it shouldn't be too bad.  Currently I'm thinking it won't be so bad, but that might change as soon as I start!   

Hopefully I can put some time in this weekend on the task, so maybe by monday I'll PM you two and you can give it a shot.

-jeff!

If you get this to work with Mala, please don't change the output format that it currently uses! (or at least add it as an option to output the way it does now) - I ask this because your utility already outputs correctly to automatically create AtomicFE game lists.

Thanks!

[NOP]

> If you get this to work with Mala, please don't change the output format that it currently uses!

I wouldn't think of doing that.  Mala support is just another output option now.

A beta version is now available for testing-I was able to create a list and bring it into mala's gamelist utility last night, so I'm throwing this out to anyone who would like to kick the tires.  I'm not a mala user (yet, but I probably will be soon) so I don't know if the list generated works anywhere other than the gamelist utility.

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/Romlisterbeta004.zip

This new version has the mondo mame merge utility embedded into it now, and a few other bells and whistles.

-jeff!

[Green Giant]

I will try and get this tested out later tonight.  Will let you know how it works.

[loadman]

I will try and get this tested out later tonight.  Will let you know how it works.

ditto 

[NOP]

reports have not been good so far.   

I should have another version up by Sunday, so hold off if you haven't tried it yet.

I want to think that small lists should work-I tested a couple lists of a dozen or less games and they seemed to work ok, but I obviously need to fix something somewhere on large lists.

stay tuned, and thanks for the interest.

-jeff!

[NOP]

ok, after fixing a couple rather silly and embarrassing bugs, I think this version is pretty close.

If you don't have the romlister build 004 dated from june-16, download this one:

http://pc.nugnugnug.com/Romlisterbeta004.zip

New stuff includes:
1) mala game list output support
2) better batch file building -you can create your own batch file lines to copy, delete, whatever.
3) included the merge utility into ROMLister -now you can build the master xml file comprised of -listxml, controls.xml and catver.ini directly inside of romlister instead of launching a separate app.
4) paths to files are now saved in the registry and pop up everytime you launch the program. 

after I get some feedback on this to verify the mala stuff works, I'll properly release it on the romlister website.

thanks all!

-jeff!

[Green Giant]

Jeff,

Just wanted to let you know I tested out the mala features and everything works great.  Made up like 20 lists yesterday and they all display perfectly.

Thanks for all the hard work.

David,

[shock_]

 

Well done NOP.  Been meaning to try this for a while, but MaLa support is the kicker.

[NOP]

Thanks for the beta testing.  I've gotten no error reports on the mala stuff, so I've officially released build 005:

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

Today I fixed a fairly minor bug in the merge utility that was causing a few incorrect game type fields to get pulled out of catver.ini

Also in the merge utility I am now forcing the merger routine to look for the parent rom whenever it finds a clone.  The deal was that controls.dat (xml in my case) doesn't have any clones listed, so the merge function wasn't adding *any*control information into the final output file.  Now if I see a clone, I find the controls.dat info for the parent and add that in.  This will make the searches come up with a lot more hits (all the clones), which can be eliminated by checking the "no clones" checkbox if you don't want them.  At least now the choice is yours.

So, apologies to everyone who has built all their lists with previous versions, if you care about any clones, you really should snag this new version, rebuild your merged file, and search again.

-jeff!

[ABArcade]

This is a great utility! It made it very easy to generate my initial game lists for Mala.  I posted a link to ROMLister in the Mala Wiki under Gamelist - Creation in hopes to make it easier for others to find.

Jeff thanks for a great tool!   

[8way]

Im having some problems with this. It seems when I choose “vertical only” I get 0 results. I tried using different versions of mame and different versions of this app. This is exactly the app I was looking for, and all I need is to make a batch file for verticals only but that’s the only thing not working. Aghh why why…….

[NOP]

ok, let's take a look at what's going on.
The key to the whole utility is that -find: window at the bottom of the interface.
By default, the checkboxes at the top are set up to find any game that uses 2 buttons or less.  If you check the vertical checkbox, it should look like this:

(numButtons=2 | numButtons=1 | numButtons=0) & (rotate=90 | rotate=270)

(this is using a merged.xml file, built off the latest MAME, controls and catver)

MAME's xml output specifies vertical games as being rotated either 90 or 270 degrees from standard horizontal, so that's what the utility is trying to key off of.

This was changed in MAME sometime in the 0.8x builds IIRC-it used to be keywords of just horizontal or vertical I believe. 

Sooo, I suspect you're using an old version of MAME.exe.  If you disagree, then if you could copy and paste your -find line and also the text from the main (big) window that shows you a sample game description, I can probably figure out what's going on.

If you look around in that main window of the sample game description text, you'll probably see the horizontal or vertical keywords in there.  On newer MAME xml outputs, it looks like this:

<display type="raster" rotate="90" width="288" height="224" refresh="60.606061" />

If yours looks different, you can probably pull out the magic keyword and then just replace the "(rotate=90 | rotate=270)" with "vertical" or whatever keyword is being used and see if that helps your situation.

-jeff!

[javeryh]

ok, let's take a look at what's going on.
The key to the whole utility is that -find: window at the bottom of the interface.
By default, the checkboxes at the top are set up to find any game that uses 2 buttons or less.  If you check the vertical checkbox, it should look like this:

(numButtons=2 | numButtons=1 | numButtons=0) & (rotate=90 | rotate=270)

(this is using a merged.xml file, built off the latest MAME, controls and catver)

MAME's xml output specifies vertical games as being rotated either 90 or 270 degrees from standard horizontal, so that's what the utility is trying to key off of.

This was changed in MAME sometime in the 0.8x builds IIRC-it used to be keywords of just horizontal or vertical I believe. 

Sooo, I suspect you're using an old version of MAME.exe.  If you disagree, then if you could copy and paste your -find line and also the text from the main (big) window that shows you a sample game description, I can probably figure out what's going on.

If you look around in that main window of the sample game description text, you'll probably see the horizontal or vertical keywords in there.  On newer MAME xml outputs, it looks like this:

<display type="raster" rotate="90" width="288" height="224" refresh="60.606061" />

If yours looks different, you can probably pull out the magic keyword and then just replace the "(rotate=90 | rotate=270)" with "vertical" or whatever keyword is being used and see if that helps your situation.

-jeff!

I just wanted to let people know that this works.  I was getting 0 results using MAME v 0.87 so I changed "(rotate=90 | rotate=270)" to "(vertical)" and got 708 games as a result.  I also used the "3 buttons or less" parameter.  Does this sound close to the right number?  I know I'm using an old romset but is this an approximate result?

[NOP]

Using mame 111, I ended up with 847 matches, (3 buttons or less+vertical) so your results sound about right to me.

It would be pretty sweet to have romlister automagically figure out what version of MAME your listxml file was built off of and switch it appropriately...  If real life slows up some, I just might add such a thing.

-jeff!

[RXII]

Hi Jeff,
          Thank you so much for putting in the time for a utility like this! 
I am in the stages of putting my Mame PC together and have Mame v.106 (command line) and Mala. I have manually put some of my favorites in and have a reasonable understanding of Mala now. I thought I would try your utility to narrow down an "all game" list for my cabinet. I orignally had a control.ini file but went back to the site and D/L'd the control.dat file.....then I input all of the files needed to merge but found when searching for horizontal, 6 buttons or less and 8-way it came up with nothing??? Is it ok to just point the mame file to the mame.exe?? Or is there something else I am doing wrong?
Thanks,
Simon.

[NOP]

Here's some background information on RL's input files.  This should probably be on the website or wiki somewhere instead of tucked away in an obscure thread on this forum...

ROMLister can take 3 different xml inputs, listed here from worst to best:

1) MAME's listxml.  From the settings and tools menu, when you browse for the MAME listxml file, you can either select mame.exe, or if you've already had mame generate the xml file, you can select it instead.  If you select mame.exe, romlister will go ask mame to generate the xml file.  What I'm getting at here, is that once the listxml file is generated, you can use this file exclusively for your searching, by using the topmost browse button to select this file as ROMLister's input file.

This file is the core of most of the info you'll be searching on.  It has all the details for monitor orientation, resolution, etc.  The downside of this file is that the controls are inaccurate.

2) controls.xml.  This file has way more accurate controller information in it, but doesn't have any info about monitor orientation or anything like samples or clone information.  This file can be downloaded from http://fe.flydonkey.com/controls/controls.php  (remember to get controls.XML, not controls.dat)

If you just want to use this file, select it with the topmost browse button on the tools and settings window. 

3) merged-  This is a ROMLister custom file that takes mame's listxml file, along with controls.xml and catver.ini and squishes 'em all together.  Once the file is created, you should have all of the monitor, audio, clone and manufacturer information from MAME, the accurate controls data from controls.xml, and the category (maze, fighter, adult, etc) information from catver.ini, all in 1 master xml file.  This is the best of all 3 worlds.


Now, depending on which of the 3 files you use as your main input file, ROMLister will slightly tweak the way the -find: command line at the bottom of the screen is generated.  For example, if you're using only MAME's xml file only, the button information for 6 buttons or less should look like this:

(buttons=6 | buttons=5 | buttons=4 | buttons=3 | buttons=2 | buttons=1 | !buttons=)

whereas the controls.xml and merged files have slightly different wording:

(numButtons=6 | numButtons=5 | numButtons=4 | numButtons=3 | numButtons=2 | numButtons=1 | numButtons=0)

ROMLister *should* be able to detect the input xml file you are using and know to use "buttons=" or "numButtons=" when you're searching.

In the main (big) text window, take a look the sample xml data shown and you should be able to see which one is being used in your input file.
(well, you may have to hit the next button a few times to get off the pacman games that don't use any buttons!)

When I did a search for 6 buttons or less, horizontal only, 8way joystick, using my merged file (from mame 114) I ended up with 1072 matches.

If you still have problems, please post your -find command line, and the sample xml from one of the games you'd expect to find.

The first one my results came back with was "Ponpoko"  When viewing the input xml file, you can jump to an individual game by using the search button, but the game title must exactly match (which is kinda lame, I apologize)

good luck!

-jeff!

[RXII]

Great thanks alot, sorry I did mean to write I got the controls.xml file not .dat. When I get a chance I will have another go. Thanks for the explanation.

Simon.

[loadman]

NOP needs a cool 'Avatar' 

[shock_]

NOP needs a cool 'Avatar' 

So do you, wombat-boy 

[loadman]

The Hairy Arsed Wombat is very cool  :-)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatso_the_Fat-Arsed_Wombat

[Green Giant]

That bit of information gives me a whole new outlook on Australia.

[loadman]

That bit of information gives me a whole new outlook on Australia.

The truth is everyone has a Kangaroo as a Pet in thier back -yard     Need very tall fences 

[Green Giant]

No need for fences.  Electric shock collars.

Works on pets, kids, friends, and enemies.