Front End Support > MaLa Frontend
Generating MaLa gamelists for non-MAME emulators 'RomDir2XML'
Spiderstyle:
--- Quote from: NOP ---You're correct that it could be done in less steps without renaming the rom itself, but that's only for a mala list, because mala has separate entries for display title and rom name in the output file. other front ends use only a raw text list, so those would have to be renamed or the front end wouldn't be able to find the file. That's still doable through the batch file interface, so not a show stopper.
--- End quote ---
I have no doubt that it'll be doable through some kind of batch, but I feel hesitant to go changing ROM Filenames for various reasons. Which FE's are you referring to that use just a text list with the filenames?
I'd say that this would be a design flaw of the FE, and wouldn't warrant us changing ROM Filenames. No offense, but just how I personally feel. Changing ROM Filenames feels unethical and might give various problems in the future for the user.
--- Quote from: NOP ---I'm probably a little too swamped right now to begin such a task, but I always like having a few things tucked away to work on for a rainy day, so I'll back burner this idea for awhile. sorry if anyone's hopes got up (aside from mine) about this, I just have to get some other things off the plate first.
I absolutely *love* this idea and will be hashing it out in my head for some time to come.
--- End quote ---
I know exactly what you mean. :-) There's always something to do or something to finish up. :-)
I'll also play around with the idea in my head and see if I can come up with a workaround for the FE's that use a plain text list with ROM Filenames as ROM Names. Perhaps make batch files and use those as the ROM Names in the FE textfiles, while leaving the ROM Filenames intact.
--- Quote from: TheShanMan ---I didn't see it mentioned in this thread, but the MalaGamelist app allows you to remove that extraneous information from the names. I've only used it for mame so far, but I assume it is emulator agnostic.
--- End quote ---
You're right. I thought I saw this somewhere and went back checking as well. There's indeed an option in the MaLa GameList application that allows you to remove those tags. And within MaLa itself, somewhere in the option menu's you can toggle a checkbox to hide these tags as well.
--- Quote from: Minwah ---One thing I would say is do not mess with romname's, make the rom 'description' nice looking for your frontend.
--- End quote ---
I feel the same way. But apparently there are some FE's out there who just use a plain textfile with the ROM Filenames as the ROM Filenames AND the ROM Names within the FE Gamelist. Not sure which FE's these are, but personally I'd say this is a design flaw of the FE itself. Nevertheless, I'm sure a solution could be cooked up somehow.
With kind regards,
Spiderstyle
NOP:
--- Quote ---I have no doubt that it'll be doable through some kind of batch, but I feel hesitant to go changing ROM Filenames for various reasons. Which FE's are you referring to that use just a text list with the filenames?
--- End quote ---
well, I've only ever run mala before, so my experience is quite limited, but romlister has support for atomicFE, and when you build a game list there, it ends up being a plain ole text file that is the 8.3 filename of the ROM itself. It very well may have a separate list that it keeps of the user friendly name, I don't know. We were also talking console emulators here, and I have no experience with that other than running them on my xbox, so I might be scaring people while completely talking out ---my bottom---.
--- Quote ---I'd say that this would be a design flaw of the FE, and wouldn't warrant us changing ROM Filenames. No offense, but just how I personally feel. Changing ROM Filenames feels unethical and might give various problems in the future for the user.
--- End quote ---
I agree 100%.
--- Quote ---I'll also play around with the idea in my head and see if I can come up with a workaround for the FE's that use a plain text list with ROM Filenames as ROM Names. Perhaps make batch files and use those as the ROM Names in the FE textfiles, while leaving the ROM Filenames intact.
--- End quote ---
I like it. However, I think we shouldn't burn too many cycles on a solution that may not even have a problem, and as you say, it should be the FE's problem to fix.
-jeff!
loadman:
Here is a screenshot in case you can't find it.
This option just HIDES the extra data from display. It does not delete it so you can uncheck this box and the info will reappear.
:)
TheManuel:
Hi, SpyderStyle and thanks for sharing the application.
I am trying to understand how it helps in case I am missing something.
Last night, I got around to add my non-MAME emulators and started with a SNES one. I have a directory of 941 ROMs that I filtered down from a full GoodSNES set using the UnGoodMerge tool (took off all the hacks, alternate dumps, and non US versions). I set up the emulator in MaLa and specifed that directory as the ROM directory.
I then hit OK and MaLa automatically generated the full gamelist including all of the 941 ROMs and I tested a few of them and worked just fine.
Unless I'm missing the point of your application, MaLa already does what you coded it for in the first place. Where I see it being very useful is if you want to use ROMlister to create special filtered game lists althouth I'm not sure what you would filter for other than file names since I don't know of any catver.ini file for SNES games.
I'm not trying to bash your work but rather would like to understand further what it does.
Thanks.
NOP:
the way I pictured using this tool was to help if your roms were named with things like (J), [b1], [h1] tags in the filename, then you could use romlister to generate a new list after you filter out useless roms like [bx]'s and such.
You essentially did the same work with your own filtering using ungoodmerge, so I can see why this didn't seem useful to you. Most people are unaware of goodTools and the suite of programs that go with it-they just download a fullset of games and then want some way of filtering them.
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