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Generating MaLa gamelists for non-MAME emulators 'RomDir2XML'

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NOP:

--- Quote ---Do you think it would be a good idea to have an option to remove these tags from the ROM names?

--- End quote ---

Funny you should mention that-I was just working on a stand alone app that imported a text file listing of roms and allowed you to bulk delete anything inside parenthesis, and it could certainly have it do square brackets too.  This was done for a user using MAMEwah, but the code is pretty much written and could be used anywhere.

--- Quote ---That would ofcourse give several other problems. Like ending up with 10 different ROMs with the same name in the MaLa game list for instance.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, that's a bit of an issue.  I think you'd first want to keep the tags, since they are based off the filenames, then maybe use RL to filter the list down and create a batch file to move the wanted roms elsewhere, then maybe have something like the above mentioned application to remove the tags and then create a batch file to physically rename the files themselves, then run your app and have RL make a game list from that. 

Ok, that's a bit of a pain, but all the tools are there to do it, although I think that an app could be put together to throw all these applications under 1 roof...

Something that would allow you to scan a folder of ROMs (romdir2xml), filter the files (romlister), move the files somewhere (romlister batch file maker), strip out the tags (above mentioned tool) and rename the results (romlister batch file maker again) and finally create various game lists from the end product...

What was romdir2xml written in, and would you be up for some co-development to create such a beasty?

-jeff!

Spiderstyle:
Hmmm.. I'm sure that could be done in fewer steps somehow..

Just thinking theoreticly here:

1. RD2XML to create an XML file of ROMS in a dir..
2. ROMLister to import the RD2XML XML file, filter the list down and export results back to the same XML file..
3. New application to strip the tags from the ROM names within the XML file. (Not sure if you would actually need to rename the ROM files themselves.)
4. ROMLister to load XML file with stripped tags and export to whatever is the desired end product..

So theoreticly you wouldn't have to move the actual ROM files around, unless I'm missing something..

Sure, that would be possible to do under one roof..

The only downside to RD2XML is that it basicly has no further information about the ROMS it's collecting from the directory it's pointed at. Meaning, all that it's dropping to the XML file is the ROM Name and ROM File Name, so I'm unsure what you would like to filter upon with ROMLister.

Nevertheless, it's always great to improve stuff, so hell yeah, I'd sure be up for some co-development.. :-)

RD2XML was coded in VB .Net..

With kind regards,
Spiderstyle

NOP:
yes.

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.

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.

-jeff!

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.

Minwah:
One thing I would say is do not mess with romname's, make the rom 'description' nice looking for your frontend.

Good idea tho, there is a similar prog out there somewhere to do the same but output as a DAT file (can also be done in ClrMAMEPro).

Recently I made a small app to read a DAT file, remove the bracketed info from the end to get a 'nice' game description, and then bung this info into the 'manufacturer' section - this can be used for filtering. (Actually I did not change the game description as I can trim this info off in Mamewah, but you get the idea...).  The filtering part has proven to be very handy, although not a perfect solution to getting that illusive 'one version of each game' list.

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