Mala Gamelist, Mala layouts and a couple other questions :)

[slsimon]

I am working on creating gamelist from Romlister's default search (those lists in romlister).  Here is my question pertaining to gamelists and my directory structure. 

Where do gamelists need to reside?

I would like to make a directory in the mala directory called gamelists and layouts with sub directries labeled appropriately for each emulator that I plan on using.  My plans are to do the same for layouts  See structure below. 

Where do mala layouts have to reside?  I am thinking the layouts have to have a specific naming convention as well.  Any updates on layout names would be welcome. 

Mala directory structure:

d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala

Would like the gamelist structure as such for organization:

d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\gamelist\mame (multiple game lists in this directory for mame only)
d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\gamelist\nintendo (nintendo only gamelists)
d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\gamelist\ninteno 64\(n64 only gamelist)

Continue this layout with other emulators that I plan on using!!!

I would like the layout structure to be very similiar (organizational structure). 

d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\layouts\mame
d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\layouts\nintendo
d:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\layouts\nintendo 64

Per shock_ suggestions:  I am going to have to create duplicate layouts with those buttons highlighted for only the emulator being used per layout.  See shock_ version 5 layout posted in previous posts. 

My last question for this thread, for now anyway is:
With multiple gamelists for all the different emulators that eventually I will have setup per UncleT's guide which by the way is awesome, is there a way to only be able to cycle through those gamelists for the emulator that is current on the layout screen? 

I will be mapping my buttons as such, well I think
joystick left/right plus button 1 will cycle through emulators
joystick left/right plus button 2 will cycle through gamelists (only want those gamelist to show for the current emulator)
joystick up/down will scroll through games per selected emulator

I am currently working on setting up Mala and should have my layouts done soon.  Please be patient with me and thanks for all your help.  Thanks,

[loadman]

Where do gamelists need to reside?

In the mala directory or the directory you specify in Options-Gui-Layout
in the mala directory

Where do mala layouts have to reside?  I am thinking the layouts have to have a specific naming convention as well.  Any updates on layout names would be welcome. 

Isn't this the same question.??
Have a look at the wiki for some good tips on directory options for layouts. There are two modes you can work in.
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Layout#F.A.Q.

My last question for this thread, for now anyway is:
With multiple gamelists for all the different emulators that eventually I will have setup per UncleT's guide which by the way is awesome, is there a way to only be able to cycle through those gamelists for the emulator that is current on the layout screen? 

Yes ... See pic

[shock_]

I didn't realise gamelist files could go in the layout directory.  I'll have to check that one!

Gamelist files link in with the way you've set up your extra emulators.  It works kinda like this I think...

If you have MAME and two other emulators set up (lets call them 'daphne' and 'pinball'), all the gamelists you create for MAME would exist as files like this:

All Games.mlg
fighters.mlg
shmups.mlg
mahjong.mlg

etc etc

If daphne is the first emulator in your list of "other emus" (see that tab in the options), then gamelists you make for it are created with filenames like:

All Games.ml0
fun.ml0
boring.ml0

... and pinball, second in the list, would be:

All Games.ml1
Solid State.ml1
Electromagnetic.ml1
Original Tables.ml1

etc. 

Now if you can shove all those into separate directories, lovely.  I've never tried it.  Otherwise they'll all just need to be lumped together in your MaLa directory.  Not quite as neat, but since they're binary files (ie you can't edit them by hand with Notepad), to my mind there isn't much benefit putting them in different directories anyway.

Now the layout structure is indeed a different story.  You can use directories for that, but I think you need to put all your layout files in one directory.  You can put all the images into subdirectories, indeed you'll have to since you'll have plural emulator layouts that all reference the same filenames. Example:

/mala/layouts/slsimon/mame.mll
/mala/layouts/slsimon/daphne.mll
/mala/layouts/slsimon/mame/background.png
/mala/layouts/slsimon/daphne/background.png

Make sure you read and thoroughly digest this page, especially for the gamelist-specific stuff.

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

The gamelist files, I thought, live in the mala directory (although loadman suggets they'll be okay in the layout directory too) - but the gamelist-specific layouts (.mll files) will all live in the one layout directory ("slsimon" in my example just above).

Regards your controller settings for swapping lists question
That won't quite work.  See loadman's screenshot above - one button is marked as "shift", in this case CTRL (which equates to button 1).  You can't have left/right + button 1, and left/right + button 2, because there is only one "shift" button.
See my email for discussion about problems I've had with people understanding shifted interfaces, anyway!  You've got lots of buttons / sticks on that panel, why not use one stick up/down for emus, one gamelists and one for games scrolling?

[loadman]

I didn't realise gamelist files could go in the layout directory.  I'll have to check that one!

Don't bother  I made a mistake

Coffee please 

[slsimon]

I didn't realise gamelist files could go in the layout directory.  I'll have to check that one!

Gamelist files link in with the way you've set up your extra emulators.  It works kinda like this I think...

If you have MAME and two other emulators set up (lets call them 'daphne' and 'pinball'), all the gamelists you create for MAME would exist as files like this:

All Games.mlg
fighters.mlg
shmups.mlg
mahjong.mlg

etc etc

If daphne is the first emulator in your list of "other emus" (see that tab in the options), then gamelists you make for it are created with filenames like:

All Games.ml0
fun.ml0
boring.ml0

... and pinball, second in the list, would be:

All Games.ml1
Solid State.ml1
Electromagnetic.ml1
Original Tables.ml1

etc. 

Now if you can shove all those into separate directories, lovely.  I've never tried it.  Otherwise they'll all just need to be lumped together in your MaLa directory.  Not quite as neat, but since they're binary files (ie you can't edit them by hand with Notepad), to my mind there isn't much benefit putting them in different directories anyway.

Now the layout structure is indeed a different story.  You can use directories for that, but I think you need to put all your layout files in one directory.  You can put all the images into subdirectories, indeed you'll have to since you'll have plural emulator layouts that all reference the same filenames. Example:

/mala/layouts/slsimon/mame.mll
/mala/layouts/slsimon/daphne.mll
/mala/layouts/slsimon/mame/background.png
/mala/layouts/slsimon/daphne/background.png

Make sure you read and thoroughly digest this page, especially for the gamelist-specific stuff.

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

The gamelist files, I thought, live in the mala directory (although loadman suggets they'll be okay in the layout directory too) - but the gamelist-specific layouts (.mll files) will all live in the one layout directory ("slsimon" in my example just above).

Regards your controller settings for swapping lists question
That won't quite work.  See loadman's screenshot above - one button is marked as "shift", in this case CTRL (which equates to button 1).  You can't have left/right + button 1, and left/right + button 2, because there is only one "shift" button.
See my email for discussion about problems I've had with people understanding shifted interfaces, anyway!  You've got lots of buttons / sticks on that panel, why not use one stick up/down for emus, one gamelists and one for games scrolling?

As usual, thanks shock_ for the advice.  What is really confusing to me at the moment are the keyboard/controller and available mappings above per the screen shot above and a couple others.  Well if my controller setup will not work, I will need to adjust.  Looks like the ctrl is by default the shift key.  Why the crtl key?  Ok, well lets say that I want to be able to change emulators, change gamelists within each emulator and be able to move up and down the games with player 1, would a controller setup as such work:

shift or ctrl (joystick left/right) - change emulator
(joystick left/right) change gamelist when emulator is selected
(joystick up/down) scroll through games

Oh, by the way I have a four player control panel, with 6 buttons per player, player start and coint start for each player, trackball with two buttons, spinner, and four admin buttons (pause, enter, exit, admin). 

shock_ I will be reviewing the link above yet tonight.  Thanks to all for their expertise.  Could not do this without the help.  Thanks,

[shock_]

would a controller setup as such work:

shift or ctrl (joystick left/right) - change emulator
(joystick left/right) change gamelist when emulator is selected
(joystick up/down) scroll through games

Oh, by the way I have a four player control panel, with 6 buttons per player, player start and coint start for each player, trackball with two buttons, spinner, and four admin buttons (pause, enter, exit, admin). 

shock_ I will be reviewing the link above yet tonight.  Thanks to all for their expertise.  Could not do this without the help.  Thanks,

Yep that will work.  That is exactly how mine was working until I watched a friend try to operate it, and even with "help" in the layout, he couldn't.  Hence me ditching that idea the other day.

I saw your panel on the artwork thread - that's why I thought of using joysticks rather than buttons.  In general, having to "shift" anything adds mental load to people because it isn't intuitive.  The only (non-admin) function I have now that requires shift is adding a credit with my encoder's shift/start1 and start2 buttons.

And I'm sure you could do this without help, but it might take heaps longer, as it did for me!!

[slsimon]

Decided to try to tackle the layout directory issues this afternoon since the wife and kids are away.  The only layout that I have currently is for the mame emulator only.  Thought I would try to get this working first and duplicate layouts, and directories later.  My mame.mll file was in the root of the mala directory to start and worked.  So I decided to create a layouts folder.  Move the mala.mll file there.  I then created a sub directory called mame.  I moved the mame.pdf and mame.png files there.  Now, of course, I can't get my mame layout to work when mala runs.  Mala wants to load the default layout.  According to the mala website, the mame emulator background needs to be called mame.mll.  I also played with the  auto layout switches, (emulator, gamelist) and use layout names for directories switch with no luck. 

Am I missing something?  I will keep on hamering away.  I am also working on the quicksoundswitch application per this post: 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73889.0

[loadman]

My mame.mll file was in the root of the mala directory to start and worked.  So I decided to create a layouts folder.  Move the mala.mll file there.  I then created a sub directory called mame.  I moved the mame.pdf and mame.png files there.  Now, of course, I can't get my mame layout to work when mala runs.  Mala wants to load the default layout.  According to the mala website, the mame emulator background needs to be called mame.mll.  I also played with the  auto layout switches, (emulator, gamelist) and use layout names for directories switch with no luck. 
Am I missing something?  I will keep on hamering away.  Ihttp://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73889.0

It is loading the default layout because it can't find the mame.mll file.

There are two options for layout file arrangement (in mala for or sub folder) either way The *.mll must stay in the mala directory (or the global directory specified)

Until you understand how it works I would get it working first with all layout files in the mala directory and the 'use the layout names for directory names, checbox UNchecked.

Now all you need to do is match the layour names with the emulator and have the emulator switch checkbox checked.

I just tried it and it works.

[shock_]

re-read the "layout structure" part of my mega post earlier in this thread.  You'll get it with some fiddling, I am sure