CPWizard v2.63 Released

[TheShanMan]

Come on, nologic. Obviously you're not going to win an argument with him here because you two have a history that shows you won't. As a result, your posts here are nothing more than pollution. How about you let it go, at least in terms of wasting the time of people who want to follow this thread.

Headkaze- uh, is it me or does 1.71 not activate at all in response to the mame output system now? It works just fine in preview mode, but not when I launch mame and pause it anymore.

Also a very minor nit - for the preview window's preview toolbar button, I suggest changing the tooltip text. It says "View CPWizard" but I'm already viewing CPWizard - how about changing it to "View Preview".

[Nologic]

I will not condone him infringing on my work.

[headkaze]

Come on, nologic. Obviously you're not going to win an argument with him here because you two have a history that shows you won't. As a result, your posts here are nothing more than pollution. How about you let it go, at least in terms of wasting the time of people who want to follow this thread.

Headkaze- uh, is it me or does 1.71 not activate at all in response to the mame output system now? It works just fine in preview mode, but not when I launch mame and pause it anymore.

Also a very minor nit - for the preview window's preview toolbar button, I suggest changing the tooltip text. It says "View CPWizard" but I'm already viewing CPWizard - how about changing it to "View Preview".

Hmmm can't seem to replicate that. It shows fine for me. Can you check your CPWizard.log file for any errors?

[Nologic]

hmm here is a little less forgiving version of the overlay.



If I used your work...why is there concaved area's...why are some keys bigger...and some smaller...off set...spacing.

There is little doubt that it was created as a replacement for your original artwork...but there very much is doubt that this was created from your artwork.

Go scam someone else.

[TheShanMan]

Come on, nologic. Obviously you're not going to win an argument with him here because you two have a history that shows you won't. As a result, your posts here are nothing more than pollution. How about you let it go, at least in terms of wasting the time of people who want to follow this thread.

Headkaze- uh, is it me or does 1.71 not activate at all in response to the mame output system now? It works just fine in preview mode, but not when I launch mame and pause it anymore.

Also a very minor nit - for the preview window's preview toolbar button, I suggest changing the tooltip text. It says "View CPWizard" but I'm already viewing CPWizard - how about changing it to "View Preview".

Hmmm can't seem to replicate that. It shows fine for me. Can you check your CPWizard.log file for any errors?

No errors there. I tried uninstalling (and making sure no files were left behind) and reinstalling. Same thing. I tried uninstalling and downgrading to 1.70, and it worked. I then over-installed 1.71 and it's not working again. The only configuring I did was to select the mame executable. Something is definitely goofy with 1.71.

[headkaze]

No errors there. I tried uninstalling (and making sure no files were left behind) and reinstalling. Same thing. I tried uninstalling and downgrading to 1.70, and it worked. I then over-installed 1.71 and it's not working again. The only configuring I did was to select the mame executable. Something is definitely goofy with 1.71.

Can you post your CPWizard.log and CPWizard.ini files here please. Can you also zip up your LayoutMaps and Profiles folder as well.

[TheShanMan]

Like I said, it's a totally clean install, but here you go.

[headkaze]

Everything looks fine there. Your gonna have to bear with me if you don't mind and help me locate the problem. First thing to do is use the attached replacement exe which will give extra debug info to CPWizard.log. So copy it over, run CPWizard then minimize it. run a Mame game, then pause it, exit out, close down CPWizard then post your CPWizard.log file here. Hopefully it will give me a bit more of an idea where the bug is.

[TheShanMan]

I figured out the problem. It only happens if you don't minimize cpwizard, starting in 1.71. In prior releases not minimizing caused no problem. As long as I minimize 1.71 or your special build, it works fine. I've attached the log produced by your special build *without minimizing* (since that's the requirement to reproduce) in case that is still useful to you.

[headkaze]

I figured out the problem. It only happens if you don't minimize cpwizard, starting in 1.71. In prior releases not minimizing caused no problem. As long as I minimize 1.71 or your special build, it works fine. I've attached the log produced by your special build *without minimizing* (since that's the requirement to reproduce) in case that is still useful to you.

Doh! Yes I forgot to mention that CPWizard needs to be minized now, sorry. Oh well! Glad it's working okay then

Hmm makes me wonder if I should change it back, that will probably confuse alot of people..

[TheShanMan]

Well, considering the fact that the preview screen now has a "launch game" button, I'd say you should change it back - otherwise that feature is broken because cpwizard is never minimized when you click the button!

Well, at least we got to the bottom of it!

[TheShanMan]

Don't forget to change the subject to announce 1.72!

I like the mini info option, and it's nice to see you fixed the non-minimized issue.

A few things...

• Being able to unpause mame in recent versions of mame would be huge (at least to me) - I know you're working on this but if you have a test version I could try and use until you're ready to release it publicly, I'd be very excited (PM me if you want to take it off list).
• I have a vertically oriented monitor and the panel gets squished (aspect ratio not maintained). What do I need to do to correct this?
• I could have sworn that 1.70 showed numbers for the PLAYER START labels, but they appear blank now - did this get broken?
• I'm working on separate layouts for 3 and 4 player games (I have external boxes that plug into my panel with DB9 cables) but I can't get the alternating filter to work. The only filters I set for my layout map are numplayers=3 and alternating=no. Then when I try to preview Rampage, it falls back to the default layout. If I change alternating to a *, then it works (but of course that's not how I want it configured). Rampage does list as 3 players and not alternating, so it seems that there's a bug in determining which layout to use.
• I noticed that when I pause mame, there is a flicker where the desktop becomes visible for a moment and then mame plus cpwizard appear. Is there any way to eliminate that? It's not a huge issue, but of course ideally you want cpwizard to essentially appear to be part of mame, not something that is clearly distinct.
• I don't know if this is common or not, but I have been editing my layouts and settings on my desktop machine and then copying certain files over to my cabinet. This would include my layout maps (including default "mame layout" map) and panel files (including graphics, because not all of them came with the install). A "deploy to cabinet" feature would be cool, where you would specify the UNC path to the remote cpwizard installation and it would copy over all relevant files and/or settings. Certainly not critical by any means, but if this is something many people do manually, then it might be worth adding.
• Oh, and I still think making the preview window modeless just like the object properties window would be very handy while making several iterations of tweaks to a layout.
  

I finally moved my cpwizard stuff over to my cabinet today and tried it out. It is fantastic and a tremendous addition to it. Thanks so much and keep up the great work!!!

[headkaze]

The main issues I have with my code to send keys to Mame is (a) stability, because I use a dll to attach to the Mame process and subclass it's WndProc calls it might inadvertantly cause Mame to crash. If you exit CPWizard before closing Mame for example, Mame will crash. This is because the only way to inject keys into Mame's new Raw Input System is to "hack" your way into it. And (b) The fact the host application needs to run on any CPU and launch either the 32 or 64 bit versions of the dll (which I have working) but because CPWizard is still only 32-bit because of some of the 32-bit dependancies I will probably have to launch a separate program to inject the keys. It's just a little "ugly" for my liking so I am hessitant to implement it.

As for modifying the Mame source to pause, I don't think it would be that difficult. All you have to do is add a new message for the "Mame Output" window (check out output.c) there is a function called output_window_proc(). Basically you would add an extra event using RegisterWindowMessage() (lets call it IM_MAME_PAUSE).

Inside winoutput_init()

im_mame_pause = RegisterWindowMessage(IM_MAME_PAUSE);

Then inside output_window_proc()

if (message == im_mame_pause)
    mame_pause(Machine);

From CPWizard I simply say PostMessage(hwnd, im_mame_pause, 0, state); to pause Mame.

Anyway something like that should work. I would prefer to use this method and create a diff for it as it doesn't have all the problems my other method brings.

I have a vertically oriented monitor and the panel gets squished (aspect ratio not maintained). What do I need to do to correct this?

Have you tried replacing the background image to be a vertical orientation? You will have to move all the buttons around to make it look right, but it should work okay.

I could have sworn that 1.70 showed numbers for the PLAYER START labels, but they appear blank now - did this get broken?

No I don't think it ever did this. Just add a "Custom Text" label if you want to put numbers on your start buttons.

I'm working on separate layouts for 3 and 4 player games (I have external boxes that plug into my panel with DB9 cables) but I can't get the alternating filter to work. The only filters I set for my layout map are numplayers=3 and alternating=no. Then when I try to preview Rampage, it falls back to the default layout. If I change alternating to a *, then it works (but of course that's not how I want it configured). Rampage does list as 3 players and not alternating, so it seems that there's a bug in determining which layout to use.

Yep you found a bug. I'll upload a fix soon.

I noticed that when I pause mame, there is a flicker where the desktop becomes visible for a moment and then mame plus cpwizard appear. Is there any way to eliminate that? It's not a huge issue, but of course ideally you want cpwizard to essentially appear to be part of mame, not something that is clearly distinct.

You could try one of the "Hide Desktop Options" under General options. Like "Hide Desktop Using Forms". To be honest I didn't do a hell of alot of testing with all that though. I should probably look into using that same method just for when CPWizard is being shown.

I don't know if this is common or not, but I have been editing my layouts and settings on my desktop machine and then copying certain files over to my cabinet. This would include my layout maps (including default "mame layout" map) and panel files (including graphics, because not all of them came with the install). A "deploy to cabinet" feature would be cool, where you would specify the UNC path to the remote cpwizard installation and it would copy over all relevant files and/or settings. Certainly not critical by any means, but if this is something many people do manually, then it might be worth adding.

There is no cure for lazyness! lol Probably not something I would do. You know what though you could setup a shortcut that will copy over the files to your cab when you double click it. That is how I update things to my cab.

Oh, and I still think making the preview window modeless just like the object properties window would be very handy while making several iterations of tweaks to a layout.

Yes it's a good idea, I'll consider it

[headkaze]

TheShanMan: I uploaded CPWizard again with the fix for using alternative in Layout Maps.

Also I just tried making those source changes I was talking about and got Mame compiling okay, so far so good. All I have to do now is see if I can trigger the pause from sending the message to Mame. I'll let you know how I go

EDIT: Okay I got Mame pausing from CPWizard now I'll just have to put a diff together and release a new version of CPWizard...

EDIT2: Okay Version 1.73 released with a bezel_0124.diff that should add the unpausing. You will have to apply the diff and also go to Edit->Options->Mame and tick "Send Pause Key" in CPWizard. Can you give it a try and let me know if it works okay for you. Can you also test to see if the Alternating variable in Layout Maps works okay now.

[TheShanMan]

I have a vertically oriented monitor and the panel gets squished (aspect ratio not maintained). What do I need to do to correct this?

Have you tried replacing the background image to be a vertical orientation? You will have to move all the buttons around to make it look right, but it should work okay.

I'll give it a try later today.

I could have sworn that 1.70 showed numbers for the PLAYER START labels, but they appear blank now - did this get broken?

No I don't think it ever did this. Just add a "Custom Text" label if you want to put numbers on your start buttons.

The problem with just putting the numbers on there is they will appear whether or not the button is "enabled".

I'm working on separate layouts for 3 and 4 player games (I have external boxes that plug into my panel with DB9 cables) but I can't get the alternating filter to work. The only filters I set for my layout map are numplayers=3 and alternating=no. Then when I try to preview Rampage, it falls back to the default layout. If I change alternating to a *, then it works (but of course that's not how I want it configured). Rampage does list as 3 players and not alternating, so it seems that there's a bug in determining which layout to use.

Yep you found a bug. I'll upload a fix soon.

Confirmed the fix. Thanks! However, I'm trying to get my player 4 controls working. All the keys for player for are on the number pad (num2, num4, num6, num8, num0, numdel, numenter), but for some reason the controls are always dimmed and I can't get them to work. I'm trying it with simpsons. Any idea what could be the problem? Could this be a bug or what could I be doing wrong?

EDIT: Found the problem, and it's the same as the cfg file bug I posted about below, so see that post for more details.

I noticed that when I pause mame, there is a flicker where the desktop becomes visible for a moment and then mame plus cpwizard appear. Is there any way to eliminate that? It's not a huge issue, but of course ideally you want cpwizard to essentially appear to be part of mame, not something that is clearly distinct.

You could try one of the "Hide Desktop Options" under General options. Like "Hide Desktop Using Forms". To be honest I didn't do a hell of alot of testing with all that though. I should probably look into using that same method just for when CPWizard is being shown.

I'll play with these options later today.

I don't know if this is common or not, but I have been editing my layouts and settings on my desktop machine and then copying certain files over to my cabinet. This would include my layout maps (including default "mame layout" map) and panel files (including graphics, because not all of them came with the install). A "deploy to cabinet" feature would be cool, where you would specify the UNC path to the remote cpwizard installation and it would copy over all relevant files and/or settings. Certainly not critical by any means, but if this is something many people do manually, then it might be worth adding.

There is no cure for lazyness! lol Probably not something I would do. You know what though you could setup a shortcut that will copy over the files to your cab when you double click it. That is how I update things to my cab.

Oh, man. You caught me! Yeah, I can make a batch file to do it, you're right. But then again there's that laziness factor (just kidding).

Okay Version 1.73 released with a bezel_0124.diff that should add the unpausing. You will have to apply the diff and also go to Edit->Options->Mame and tick "Send Pause Key" in CPWizard. Can you give it a try and let me know if it works okay for you. Can you also test to see if the Alternating variable in Layout Maps works okay now.

I will kick off a build now to try, and I'll get back to you later. I haven't moved to 0.124 yet, but under the hope that the patch is also compatible with 0.123, I'll try that. If the build fails, I'll try it on 0.124.

[headkaze]

TheShanMan: Just uploaded Version 1.74 and added a special window that should hide Mame minimizing. Also you should turn off the minimize/maximize animations to make it more seamless. Right click on "My Computer", select Properties->Advanced tab->Performance Settings->turn off "Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing". Can you confirm it's working okay. The window should look the same as Mame and it should look like CPWizard just appears over Mame.

Also there was a problem with the bezel_0124.diff file, but I think I have fixed it now, so you might have to download it again.

I'll answer some of your other questions later, I have to head out for a while

[TheShanMan]

Yeah, I was wondering which release that diff worked with - it failed on 123, 124u1, and 124u2, so I had to manually apply it.

I will give that suggestion a try.

One more minor issue. For games that have no information for the "alternating" column, the MISC_ALTERNATING label says "simultaneous", which isn't always the case in that circumstance obviously. Is it possible to just make that label blank if "alternating" is unknown? I noticed this with New Rally X, Saint Dragon, and Simpsons Bowling.

[TheShanMan]

Unpausing seems to work great, as does the transition from mame to cpwizard, so thanks a lot!

The unpausing brings up a question though. I think cpwizard needs a special "unpause" key. I don't want exit to unpause for 2 reasons. One, I use the "show cp only" with "exit to menu" options, so I don't want to require exiting to the menu, and then exiting the menu to get back to the game. Two, I would want to exit cpwizard without unpausing if I want to enter the mame config menu (tab). So if there was an additional input key that I could set to "p", then that would be what I'd like to have.

[TheShanMan]

I found a bug I think. If you change key mappings in mame, and then restore them to the default mapping using the delete key (hit delete twice on a modified key mapping - first time changes to "none" and 2nd time changes back to the default without the inverse background/text colors). CPWizard doesn't handle this properly, and looking at a cfg file I think I can see why. Mame doesn't just remove them from the cfg file at that point - it changes them to a special "default" setting. I've attached an example cfg file, in which all mappings have been changed back to defaults.

EDIT: this is the same problem that was causing my Player 4 controls to be dimmed as I posted about previously. In that case (simpsons) and this case (asteroids) if I rename the cfg file the problem goes away, so CPWizard doesn't like what it's finding in the cfg files.

And while I'm on the topic of changing key mappings, would it be possible to make CPWizard smarter about reloading changed keymap settings? In other words, if I edit the keymap for a particular game, it would be nice if CPWizard would recognize that change without having to close and restart CPWizard, particularly since this is a cabinet with windows hidden (mala is my shell so explorer isn't running). A long time ago (a dozen years maybe!) I remember using some windows api's that get explorer to notify your application if a particular file or directory changes. I don't remember the specifics, or for that matter if that functionality is exposed in C#, but I think that would be a perfect way to get CPWizard to stay up to date with keymap changes. What do you think? Not super critical, but it would definitely be a nice touch.

Hope you're not tired of the feedback yet - just let me know if you reach a point where you want me to leave you alone!

[headkaze]

One more minor issue. For games that have no information for the "alternating" column, the MISC_ALTERNATING label says "simultaneous", which isn't always the case in that circumstance obviously. Is it possible to just make that label blank if "alternating" is unknown? I noticed this with New Rally X, Saint Dragon, and Simpsons Bowling.

Yes I think thats a good point I agree it would be better not to display anything rather than display the incorrect type. I will fix that.

Unpausing seems to work great, as does the transition from mame to cpwizard, so thanks a lot

I agree, I really like that! Thanks for the cool ideas

The unpausing brings up a question though. I think cpwizard needs a special "unpause" key. I don't want exit to unpause for 2 reasons. One, I use the "show cp only" with "exit to menu" options, so I don't want to require exiting to the menu, and then exiting the menu to get back to the game. Two, I would want to exit cpwizard without unpausing if I want to enter the mame config menu (tab). So if there was an additional input key that I could set to "p", then that would be what I'd like to have.

Hmmm I don't know about this one. If you set the option "Back will exit menu" then you only have to press the back key twice to exit out of CPWizard. And if you want to enter Mame's config menu, just press the pause button again.

I found a bug I think. If you change key mappings in mame, and then restore them to the default mapping using the delete key (hit delete twice on a modified key mapping - first time changes to "none" and 2nd time changes back to the default without the inverse background/text colors). CPWizard doesn't handle this properly, and looking at a cfg file I think I can see why. Mame doesn't just remove them from the cfg file at that point - it changes them to a special "default" setting. I've attached an example cfg file, in which all mappings have been changed back to defaults.

Thanks for the config example, things like that really help. That "DEFAULT" entry now uses the default input code as it should. So that will be fixed in the next release.

EDIT: this is the same problem that was causing my Player 4 controls to be dimmed as I posted about previously. In that case (simpsons) and this case (asteroids) if I rename the cfg file the problem goes away, so CPWizard doesn't like what it's finding in the cfg files.

Ahh thats good to know, so the above fix will solve this problem from occuring again.

And while I'm on the topic of changing key mappings, would it be possible to make CPWizard smarter about reloading changed keymap settings? In other words, if I edit the keymap for a particular game, it would be nice if CPWizard would recognize that change without having to close and restart CPWizard, particularly since this is a cabinet with windows hidden (mala is my shell so explorer isn't running). A long time ago (a dozen years maybe!) I remember using some windows api's that get explorer to notify your application if a particular file or directory changes. I don't remember the specifics, or for that matter if that functionality is exposed in C#, but I think that would be a perfect way to get CPWizard to stay up to date with keymap changes. What do you think? Not super critical, but it would definitely be a nice touch.

You can always use the "Dynamic Data Loading" option to have CPWizard load the data for a game each time. It's a bit slower but will read any changes to config files.

Hope you're not tired of the feedback yet - just let me know if you reach a point where you want me to leave you alone!

Nope, definitely not tired of your feedback, I think you've made some great suggestions recently. Two of my favourites are hiding Mame minimizing and the auto-unpause. It makes CPWizard appear more seamless almost like it's built into Mame

[TheShanMan]

Thanks for the detailed feedback and considering all my feedback!

The unpausing brings up a question though. I think cpwizard needs a special "unpause" key. I don't want exit to unpause for 2 reasons. One, I use the "show cp only" with "exit to menu" options, so I don't want to require exiting to the menu, and then exiting the menu to get back to the game. Two, I would want to exit cpwizard without unpausing if I want to enter the mame config menu (tab). So if there was an additional input key that I could set to "p", then that would be what I'd like to have.

Hmmm I don't know about this one. If you set the option "Back will exit menu" then you only have to press the back key twice to exit out of CPWizard. And if you want to enter Mame's config menu, just press the pause button again.

The thing is, I'm trying to make cpwizard just appear and disappear with pause. In other words, if we have friends over and their kids are playing games, they shouldn't need to know the rules to make cpwizard work right. Bear in mind that I'm using the "show cp only" option here. So some kid hits pause during the game and the cp for that game shows up. That kid isn't going to know to hit esc-esc to get back to the game. Naturally, the kid is going to try to hit pause again in order to unpause the game, and it won't work.

Hopefully that's convincing enough. Otherwise, I'll have to unhook cpwizard from the pause system entirely and make it only appear when a shifted key is pressed, which I think would be a real bummer. In other words, it would be relegated to the same hidden feature approach as the mame "tab" menu.

And while I'm on the topic of changing key mappings, would it be possible to make CPWizard smarter about reloading changed keymap settings? In other words, if I edit the keymap for a particular game, it would be nice if CPWizard would recognize that change without having to close and restart CPWizard, particularly since this is a cabinet with windows hidden (mala is my shell so explorer isn't running). A long time ago (a dozen years maybe!) I remember using some windows api's that get explorer to notify your application if a particular file or directory changes. I don't remember the specifics, or for that matter if that functionality is exposed in C#, but I think that would be a perfect way to get CPWizard to stay up to date with keymap changes. What do you think? Not super critical, but it would definitely be a nice touch.

You can always use the "Dynamic Data Loading" option to have CPWizard load the data for a game each time. It's a bit slower but will read any changes to config files.

I may give that a try, but I will probably just live with it as is - I don't want a perceptible slow down. I want it as immediate as possible.

I don't suppose you would consider adding a "reload game configuration" menu item to the cpwizard menu? That would be a nice compromise that I could definitely live with, and it could even be unchecked by default if you think most people wouldn't care about it.

[headkaze]

The thing is, I'm trying to make cpwizard just appear and disappear with pause. In other words, if we have friends over and their kids are playing games, they shouldn't need to know the rules to make cpwizard work right. Bear in mind that I'm using the "show cp only" option here. So some kid hits pause during the game and the cp for that game shows up. That kid isn't going to know to hit esc-esc to get back to the game. Naturally, the kid is going to try to hit pause again in order to unpause the game, and it won't work.

Hopefully that's convincing enough. Otherwise, I'll have to unhook cpwizard from the pause system entirely and make it only appear when a shifted key is pressed, which I think would be a real bummer. In other words, it would be relegated to the same hidden feature approach as the mame "tab" menu.

Set the "Back Key" to be "KEYCODE_ESC|KEYCODE_P" and have the "Back Key will Exit Menu" option set. Then you can press the pause key to show CPWizard and pressing pause again twice will exit back to Mame. The escape key will exit back as well since you can define multiple keys to a single function. I just tested it and it works okay.

[TheShanMan]

OK, that's certainly better than nothing, but then again, if you hit pause when showing the cp and you land on the cpwizard menu, that's not exactly intuitive. And once you're there, it's not exactly intuitive to hit pause again. My goal is to make cpwizard seamlessly and intuitively integrate with mame's pause system, but as it is it's not quite there yet.

Obviously you're not easily convinced regarding this point, and at the same time obviously I feel pretty strongly about my point. Hopefully you don't mind a little back and forth as I try to convince you. I certainly could see not wanting to add another key setting to the input tab, so if that was a big part of your reasoning, then hopefully you like this clever idea I came up with...

It occurred to me on the way home that really you don't even need another setting for an "unpause key" (as far as I can tell). How about this: "Send Pause Key" being checked means it would respond to whatever key mame uses for pause (i.e. no need for configuring a key for this because you can get it automatically from mame). Wherever you are in cpwizard, hitting the mame pause key would exit cpwizard and unpause mame. And the back key would no longer do anything to the pause state in mame (and same goes for the "exit" menu item), so the mame-specific "send pause key" feature would be self-contained and would not "pollute" the non-mame-specific "exit" code.

Have I talked you into it yet?

One other suggestion (for the record it's at the bottom of my wish list): while in the mameinfo/history windows, there is no key repeat. In other words, to get the window to scroll down you have to hit joystick down, let go, and repeat over and over. It's quite a deterrent to viewing anything that's below the bottom of the screen, especially with my vertically oriented monitor. Making it worse, there is a "cursor" in the window which you have to move to the bottom of the screen before you can get it to scroll at all. It would be nice if up/down directly scrolled the window. In other words, if you enter the screen and hit joystick down once, it should cause a scroll of one line. I would be happy for this to go on the backburner if I could get you to implement the pause key though!

[TheShanMan]

I have another feature request for when you run out of other things to work on. For the preview window, it would be really cool to have a "layout" column where it reports which layout will be chosen for each game based on the defined layout maps. That would make it really easy to work on layout maps and then check to see if every game is mapped as expected.

Also, it would be cool if you could filter the preview window list somehow. Would I have to edit listinfo.xml to do it? It would be cool if a separate file could store the list of games you're interested in seeing in the preview list as an easier way than paring down listinfo.xml.

These only affect "design mode", and to me "design mode" isn't as important as "runtime mode" - e.g. I'd much rather see the unpause request fulfilled than this one.

Looking forward to whatever goodies come in the next version, and thanks a lot!

[TheShanMan]

Headkaze, not sure if this interests you, but it appears that sending the pause key to mame can be done without a mame source diff, according to u_rebelscum:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59867.msg828789#msg828789

[headkaze]

Headkaze, not sure if this interests you, but it appears that sending the pause key to mame can be done without a mame source diff, according to u_rebelscum:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59867.msg828789#msg828789

He doesn't actually say how to do it though. Anyway as I said previously I already know how and have written a program that can inject keys into Mame's Raw Input system. I just consider it a hack so I don't want to put it into CPWizard.

Sorry about not replying to this thread in a while, I've been very busy with other projects. The DEFAULT thing in cfg files has been fixed already just haven't got around to making a new release.

[TheShanMan]

OK, that's what you were referring to. I get it now. No problem for me - I don't mind patching and building mame myself (I do it for hiscore anyway). I was just thinking it was a way to accomplish the task that you perhaps hadn't considered.

I figured you were busy with other stuff, so no problem. I'm sure after you work on something for a while you want to take a break from it and work on something else anyway - at least that's how I am. I'm looking forward to the next version with great anticipation, but I can wait until it's convenient for you.

I also look forward to your thoughts on my most recent "special unpause key" comments, although I won't complain if you want to surprise me by putting it into the next version without a mention of it here. Again, no rush if you're busy with other stuff.

[Curatio]

Does the diff file only work with .124? I'd like to get the unpause thing working also, but I'm running .118 right now.

I like ShanMan's idea of making CPWizard appear seamless by using the pause key to both exit CPWizard and unpause Mame, but it would be nice to still have access to the menu sometimes. Is it possible to have separate keys mapped to the "back" and "exit" functions? Another idea might be to replace the menu and use tabs instead. Have it default to the control panel tab, but you can move left or right to navigate to the other menu tabs.

[TheShanMan]

I know it works with 123, but I don't know how far back it will work (maybe headkaze does).

Glad to have another person back me up on the "pause key exits and unpauses" idea! Power in numbers! Hopefully he'll come around on that.

I'm not to excited about the tab idea personally though.

[headkaze]

Two people will help your case TheShanMan 

Consider "Pause Key Exits and UnPauses" on the cards

As for the diff, I believe the mame_pause routine got changed fairly recently to included an extra parameter to specify the state of pause. Because of this the diff will only work since that change. I'm pretty sure it will work for quite a few releases after 124 maybe a few before. I'm not sure what version they changed mame_pause. If you check mame.c and the mame_pause looks like this

Code: [Select]

void mame_pause(running_machine *machine, int pause)
Chances are it will work.

[TheShanMan]

Here are some bugs I've found:

• Quite frequently my buttons will lose their label link - frequently the label link will change to one of the other button labels (most commonly, P1 buttons change to LCONTROL, so I end up with multiple buttons set to LCONTROL, but it's also somewhat common for the label link to just become blank). I've been seeing this perhaps since I first started using CPWizard - initially I thought it was my problem but it has happened so many times now - it seems like every time I make changes and deploy them to my cabinet it will occur to at least one of my layouts, so I have to remember to go through them and double check every button first (a real pain obviously).
• "Show CP Only" only works the first time it's used. You see the CP, then you exit to the menu, and exit back to mame. Next time you view CPWizard (whether same game or different game), you get the menu, not the "CP Only".
• I'm not sure what my kids are doing, but it's fairly common after they have played for a while (without me of course), CPWizard will be "locked up". I can't exit it, and I can't even alt-tab to other applications because apparently it sets itself "always on top". I've also tried clicking the mouse button in case it was a focus problem, but that doesn't help either. I wish I had steps to reproduce, but thought it's at least worth mentioning in case anyone else has run across this too and they can shed more light on it.

[headkaze]

Here are some bugs I've found:

• Quite frequently my buttons will lose their label link - frequently the label link will change to one of the other button labels (most commonly, P1 buttons change to LCONTROL, so I end up with multiple buttons set to LCONTROL, but it's also somewhat common for the label link to just become blank). I've been seeing this perhaps since I first started using CPWizard - initially I thought it was my problem but it has happened so many times now - it seems like every time I make changes and deploy them to my cabinet it will occur to at least one of my layouts, so I have to remember to go through them and double check every button first (a real pain obviously).
• "Show CP Only" only works the first time it's used. You see the CP, then you exit to the menu, and exit back to mame. Next time you view CPWizard (whether same game or different game), you get the menu, not the "CP Only".
• I'm not sure what my kids are doing, but it's fairly common after they have played for a while (without me of course), CPWizard will be "locked up". I can't exit it, and I can't even alt-tab to other applications because apparently it sets itself "always on top". I've also tried clicking the mouse button in case it was a focus problem, but that doesn't help either. I wish I had steps to reproduce, but thought it's at least worth mentioning in case anyone else has run across this too and they can shed more light on it.

- None of these issues can be replicated on two of my machines here. How are you running CPWizard? Resident mode or Standalone mode? Are you running it at startup or from command line etc.?
- Can you check your CPWizard.log file after you experience a problem to check if an error has occured in the application. Those are the bugs that are easy to track down and fix.
- If you run CPWizard without your FE running do the problems still occur?

[TheShanMan]

The label link problem does occur without my FE running because it happens in "design mode" on my desktop system where I pretty much never run my FE. My guess is this is the kind of bug that wouldn't show up in the log file. True? I'd be glad to check next time it happens though. I'm sure this problem doesn't happen all by itself - it's surely triggered by something that I do frequently or by something specific to my layout, but at this point I haven't the slightest clue what that is.

I thought the "Show CP Only" one would be easy to repro. I just tried on my desktop though and I can't repro there. It was happening over and over on my cab last night (I was testing out my layout maps on a bunch of games so it was a lot of "start game, pause, esc enough times to get back to FE, and repeat" and only the first time did the CP come up on pause). I guess I'll have to keep an eye on this one and see if I can figure out what the deal is on my cab. I run it resident (I'm not even sure how you run stand alone mode, but I'm after speed, not minimal resource usage). and it runs as a service using RunAsSvc (set to interact with desktop of course).

As for the "locked up" problem. I just figured out a way to repro it on my desktop! I'm guessing it's the same thing my kids are doing, but I don't know for sure. When a game is running, hit pause and then before CPWizard comes up (usually you gotta be fast!) hit escape to end the game. CPWizard comes up without mame running, and then when you try to exit the menu, it does nothing.

[ryantheleach]

Vote +1 for pause unpauses and returns to mame, now if we had an menu button, that is, a button that gives us the mame menu/gives us the frontend options/ gives us the cpwizard options depending whats on the screen, this would be REALLY cool.


so think it this way,

in mame hit admin gives us the the tab interface,
hit admin again returns to game

in mame hit pause gives us cpwizard,
hit pause unpauses returns to mame

in mame hit pause gives us cp wizard,
hit admin gives us cpwizard menu
hit pause returns to mame or hit admin returns to cpwizard.

just my 2c.

although this would make it rather un intuitive to find the other cool features of this program... maybe a menu at the top of the screen or wherever and use the controls as a background....hang on isn't this that tabs idea...sorry if i just sub-conscientiously hiveminded someone's idea

Edit: make that 4c.

to be able to remap controls using cp viewer in-game would be so much more awesome then mame doing it, (if it doesn't do so already)

think about it, select which control you want, then assign it to the original game button/function, now to get pictures of every game control ever made, lol

Edit: thought about it some more, and imho tabs are definitely the way to go, the problem lays in making them look good... i can see 2 options, either a sideways menu out of the way somewhere that operates on left and right and a butto npress to "enter", or "xbox 360 blades" style where left and right "just work".

[TheShanMan]

Hey headkaze. Remember the suggestion I had of automatically picking up changes to key maps? I ran across the .NET class for notifying you of file system changes (IIRC CPWizard is C#). You didn't sound too interested in the idea, but just in case I thought I'd let you know... System.IO.FileSystemWatcher.

No pressure, but any idea when you might be getting back to CPWizard updates? I'll gladly wait, but just curious.

[jordya]

hey...great application. Thanks.

Stupid question for you...how do you install the bezel_0124.zip patch? Maybe I missed it...or maybe I'm just "noob"erific...

Appreciate any help.

Thanks again

[TheShanMan]

You are just "noob"erific. It requires downloading the mame source code and compiling your own mame binary, which is made quite easy by headkaze's Mame Compiler (see thread of that name in this forum). Also see the hiscore patch sticky thread if you want to have high scores saved for games which normally didn't save them when powered off.

[jordya]

ok, the CP is not coming up automatically when I hit pause in a game. Here is what I did just to confirm...

1. Run the MC64Setup.exe to install.
2. Download the latest source for Mame (mame0124s.exe) and place it in Mame folder (C:\MinGW\source\Mame0124)
3. Unzipped the bezel_0124.zip file to (C:\MinGW\patches).
4. Apply the patch then run press the GO! button to compile.
...this process took 37 minutes to complete.

Then in CPWizard, I ran Export Batch using Bezel output type (Layout and Game info selected) to the following folder...(C:\mame\artwork)
...this took quite a long time as well.

After all that, I loaded MameWah and tested...
When I press pause, CP Wizard loaded up and I was able to select CP and view the CP. However, after I closed CP Wizard and tried pausing the game again...problems arose.

In the Mame video settings, I selected Show CP, which changed my screen ratio so everything was stretched. Also, after I un-paused the game, the CP was still on the screen. I've tried various configurations of showing and hiding the Bezel, CP, etc...and nothing seems to work.

Maybe I'm wrong, but after installing the bezel_0124.zip patch, shouldn't the CP appear on screen and disappear when resuming game play and is it supposed to change my ratio...

thanks again for the help/advice

[headkaze]

First thing I need to explain is that CPWizard can work in many different ways. It's actually a good thing but very confusing as well.

1. If your going to patch Mame and export your bezels then you don't run CPWizard at all. That is meant for people who don't want to run CPWizard in the background. Benefits: For low end machines no extra RAM is used to show your CP while running MAME. Showing the CP is only a pause button away with no delay. Downfall: You can't view things like Game history, Mame history, Command.dat etc. Your limited to viewing only the CP inside Mame.

2. The other method to run CPWizard is standalone (via command line). Benefits: It's not running all the time. You have all the extra features of CPWizard like Command.Dat. Downfall: It's slower to show the menu system because it has to read all the data in for a game each time it's shown.

3. The final method to run CPWizard is resident (running in the taskbar all the time). Benefits: It's running all the time so showing the menu is quicker. You can view data like Command.Dat and Mame history, manuals etc. Downfall: Takes up more memory.

So the bottom line is to have your CP show inside Mame using the bezel patch means you don't need CPWizard running. For the other two modes, you don't need to export bezels at all as all the data is generated dynamically.

[jordya]

thank you for that explination. that helped a lot.

I guess I am trying to implement option #1 and have the CP display when I press Pause during a game.

When I patch mame and export the bezels, it does not seem to work the way it should. The export was successful and I was able to apply the patch and press go to compile in Mame Compiler.

However, during game play...I press (P)ause and it does not bring up my CP. I go into video options and select "show cp". This does show the CP, but my screen ratio changes from standard to full (the screen looks stretched). Also the CP will not disappear unless I go back into video options and select "Hide CP".

what settings should I edit so that when I press P)ause, the CP displays and when I resume, the CP disappears.

do I need to add any other patches like:
0124u1_diff.zip
0124u2_diff.zip
0124u3_diff.zip
0124u4_diff.zip
0124u5_diff.zip