Recicling buttons in MAME

[zobook]

I'm planning the design of a CP. I thin it will be 6 "action" buttons, one "start" button and not sure about a "coin" button or a "home brew" coin door. The question is, i don't want a lot of "mame" related buttons. I thinking about just one used in combination with the others and the directions.

If i call this special button the "MAME" button, i will push MAME+Left and bring the menu(normally TAB), y press MAME+right and pause (normally P), MAME+Down is UI_Select (normally ENTER) and MAME+Up will quit (normally ESC). In this way i keep mi hand on the control and with the other y keep the MAME button pressed as needed.

Will somethin like this work well? I plan to use a really (really) cheap hacked USB gamepad.

Of course, some stranger that comes to play will be  but that's OK, if you wanna play, you have to pay the price 

Any suggestions will be welcomed

[u_rebelscum]

Will somethin like this work well?

Yes. 
Official Mame comes with ctrlr files for HotRod, X-Arcade, and SlikStik that do something like this.  You might want to take a look at them as examples, but take note: they don't have a "mame button" so use combos of just normal keys, and I hate their UI_Cancel mapping (so I change it, see below).

My suggestions:
- Set UI_Select to p1 button1.  Easier and pretty intuitive.
- Be careful about UI_Cancel.  I'd be very reluctant to make it close to any other combo or any common key presses.  Which is why I don't like the hotrod etc UI_cancel, and one reason I'm suggesting not have UI_Select as you said; if the joystick bounced from down to up before you let go of your mame button, or you pressed right+up & mame when you want to pause, oops.   How about mame button + start1 + p1 up?  If not that, at least do mame + p1up + not p1left + not p1right.  (not: when mapping press twice quickly)
- I like the idea of the "mame" button, over using combos of common buttons.  The Ipac and keywiz have similar buttons to your mame called shift & shazaaam, respectively; the difference between your's and those is the shifting/shazaaaming is done inside their encoders instead of mame.\.  OTOH, others here might suggest not even having the separate mame button.  Up to you.
- Setup to your liking using mame's tab, "Input (general)", then copy cfg/default.cfg to ctrlr/yourname.cfg.  Then use the ctrlr file (what I do), or just keep it for backup.
- Don't forget the UI directions (UI_up, UI_down, etc), and maybe (depending on your layout) the dual stick directions (P1_joystickright_up, P1_joystickleft_up, etc).

Good luck!

[zobook]

Thanks for your suggestion

if the joystick bounced from down to up before you let go of your mame button, or you pressed right+up & mame when you want to pause, oops.

I think about that after i post, the "rebound" may be a problem. I liked the idea of remapping to mamebuton+buttonx because solves that problem.

Maybe the UI_Cancel (the most "dangerous") could be something like MAME+button1+button6 (thinking about a 2 rows of 3 buttons layout) so you can't press it accidentally. The other actions (pause, menu) can be safely just mame+buttonx and as you said UI_select can be just button1 (wich will be harmless in most situations).

I really like the advanced configuration of controls mame has. the posibility of using some complex like (x  AND y) OR z OR (j NOT k) is very good. i always keep a backup of the cfg when i have configured all to my taste (just in case i screw things up).

In Marcianitos page there is a very good tutorial about that (spanish only, sorry)

Thanks again