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Button Mapping Graphic Display
ErikRuud:
Here is how I do it on my machine.
I create images that look like this:
I place these in my snap folder for MAME. These then get displayed in GameLauncher instead of the usual screen shot of just the game.
neuromancer:
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Granted, you would still have the issue for those games that had been re-mapped and the different cp layouts that people have chosen.
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Maybe we should start our own project. What we would need is a translation table for button values, and a listing of controls used. It would need to be a database friendly file that had columns (fields) for each type of control (like trackball, horizontal 2-way stick, 8-way stick, etc,) and also columns for each button. The controls field would be the number of those controls it has (0 for none). The buttons fields would have the name of the button on the control panel (Like fire, shield, magic, hyperspace, etc.).
It would be pretty easy to do the input. We could probably get help from all the other people who want controls for their games ;-)
Of course, some people might swap some of the buttons around for various games, but I think they could be expected to handle those on their own.
It would be pretty easy to make a layout in Filemaker Pro that had buttons and controls that anyone could drag around to simulate their panel, but Filemaker is sort of expensive. Actually, it probably wouldn't be too hard to write a Visual Basic program that would read the inputs and draw the panels. I'm assuming there would be some way to save the images as .jpg or .png files.
The more I think about the exceptions, the more challenging this project becomes! Robotron uses 2 sticks at the same time, and they should be labled "move" and "fire". For defender, my panel uses P1 buttons for reverse and hyperspace, but P2 buttons for thrust, fire, and smart bomb. Then some games use two buttons pressed at once for an action. qbert has a diagonal stick. Defender's stick moves up and down while galaga's move side to side. Star Wars has 4 buttons that all do the same thing.
I might just draw pictures in Illustrator for my favorite games, and let any hypothetical visitors figgure out their own.
Bob
SirPoonga:
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Of course, some people might swap some of the buttons around for various games, but I think they could be expected to handle those on their own.
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If it was just a database then there is no issue, a person deals with the data however. Button 1 in mame will always be the fire button for game X. A person deals with that data however.
You can easily get what controls, how many players, how many buttons from the mame exe right now. Just know what exactly button 1 is is another story.
neuromancer:
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If it was just a database then there is no issue, a person deals with the data however. Button 1 in mame will always be the fire button for game X. A person deals with that data however.
You can easily get what controls, how many players, how many buttons from the mame exe right now. Just know what exactly button 1 is is another story.
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Button 1 will be fire in game x until someone changes it to something else. Example: Vanguard requires 4 fire buttons in a diamond pattern. Most people probably don't have that on their control panel, so they might remap the 4 fire buttons to the player 2 joystick.
Bob
SirPoonga:
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Button 1 will be fire in game x until someone changes it to something else. Example: Vanguard requires 4 fire buttons in a diamond pattern. Most people probably don't have that on their control panel, so they might remap the 4 fire buttons to the player 2 joystick.
Bob
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No no, I don't mean button 1 on the control panel, i mean button 1 in mame.