MaLa FE. Under new management.

[loadman]

~~~  Insert clearing of Throat sample here-      

Fellow Arcade Enthusiasts,
 
For better or worse, MaLa (the Mame and more Front End) has entered a new phase of development as I am now the holder of the MaLa source code.
 
This basically means that any future releases for the foreseeable future will be released by me. If you didn't know I have been a MaLa enthusiast (or freak) for the last 3 years, based in Australia.

There will also be a new website. This new website will host new MaLa releases and submissions from MaLa users such as Layout and Plug-ins etc. The new website will be on-line soon, 'Space Fractal' is working on that with me right now.

    If you really don’t care about MaLa don’t bother reading beyond this point  ;-)

_______________________________________________________________________________
 
    I am very thankful to the author SWINDUS not only for the many hours of his free time he has spent so far developing one of the most popular FE's today, but being generous enough to hand over the code rather that let it fade away prematurely like we have seen in recent years with other FE's and Jukebox software development. Swindus work and life commitments have held him back on MaLa development for some time, but I hope he can rejoin the project in some capacity in the future as he is incredible talent in my view.
 
    The short term future of MaLa releases will be focused on minor bug fixes (you know what they are    ) and enhancing the already versatile Plug-In interface. The plug-in interface will continue to allow other talented software developers to get involved in the project. After that is in place I will look at other enhancements such as better mame 64 bit(Fixed already) and vista support, but layout 'Bling bling' probably won't a priority as there are already other FE choices both current and near release that cater to that.     Instead I will probably focus on continuing  MaLa's current philosophy of being simple to use yet very versatile and powerful.   
 
    I am a relatively inexperienced coder with limited time to spend on this project, so no doubt I will be relying on external development advice. What I lack in development skills I think I make up for in management skills ( I guess that makes me MaLa Manager?) . To this end I will be open to using development from others in the form of donated code snippets, advice or complete DLL's that MaLa can reference. If you are a developer please advise me if you want to get involved in the future of MaLa.via a PM or e-mail.
 
I will also be relying heavily on the existing MaLa users such as the German MaLa forum members and the very good members of BYOAC forum to continue to support new users with issues and general queries , as this will allow more time I can spend developing MaLa rather than spend too much time answering forum posts. Persons assisting in this way will have any future enhancement requests prioritized by me (if possible).
 
    While I have your attention I would like to thank other developers (including FE authors) in recent times joining in the spirit of this hobby and working together for varied solutions. As we should now all realize there isn't a 'Best FE' for all users.  The Best FE for any user is the one that best suits there personal taste and needs.
 
I will let you know when the new website is ready.

Thanks in advance for your continued support.
 
Loadman AKA Simon.
 
Now stop reading this boring Forum post and go and play a frikken Game!!!!  :-)

[Havok]

Good luck, you'll need it!



 

[BobbyG66]

Loadman,

Thanks for taking this on.
It's a great program! I made the switch a while ago and am lovin' MALA.
Like you said, easy to set up, but powerful options.

Kudos to SWINDUS for giving birth to a great piece of software.
Long live MALA!!! 

[Space Fractal]

I switched meself to MALA, due to the Ultimarch 369 Joystick plug-in  , it work very good. Hence a user Plugin "forced" me to due that  .

I took apart to coding a new homepage. The content should been finished soon, which have some spelling, missing some text and so on.

Either I and Loadman might update the homepage over the time.

And kodus to SWINDUS to send the source to loadman as properly the most MALA fanboy out here (he-he).
[just kidding]

[Bloodwyn]

You will do a GREAT job.

I look forward to seeing whats next for Mala!

Bloodwyn

[Brian Zellinger]

Heh, I already thought you were the original developer.

[joebells]

I know you said its not in your cards currently to work on theme stuff but I think if true alpha png transparency could be added it would be stellar. I don't use it currently as anything I try to come up with needs shadows over transparent parts, or at least rounded transparent parts and mala makes it look horrible when it makes a part transparent.

Has swindus asked for it to remain closed source? Or could the source be opened up now ensuring its never able to be completely abandoned should you have something happen or just get very busy?

[Cakemeister]

What joebells said, are you planning for it to be open source?

Good luck loadman.

[AllisterFiend]

I know you said its not in your cards currently to work on theme stuff but I think if true alpha png transparency could be added it would be stellar. I don't use it currently as anything I try to come up with needs shadows over transparent parts, or at least rounded transparent parts and mala makes it look horrible when it makes a part transparent.

Has swindus asked for it to remain closed source? Or could the source be opened up now ensuring its never able to be completely abandoned should you have something happen or just get very busy?

Just figured I'd join in and also say that the reason I have never switched over to MALA was due to the fact that the alpha transparency was never added.

Good luck loadman!

[Space Fractal]

If MALA use GDI, transparency wont been happens. It need to change its graphics system to example GDI+ before it can support it.

I think MALA should use This GDI+ instead, which transparency png's should been supported. But that might been down priority, due to other things that is more important. Like bug fixing and so on.

It seen this is the most asked feature, even I do think themes works like fine for me.

[solderguy1]

Congrats and condolences Loadman.

One thing I'd like to see is a single page collecting every single Mala layout (or at least graphical links).  Of course, a separate section of Mamewah ones would be nice too.  I've spent lots of time searching message boards, they're scattered everywhere.

[TOK]

Thanks for taking over the project.

I'm using MaLa on 3 machines right now, so actually just some refinements rather than an overhaul would be fine with me. I'm probably somewhat in the minority in that I don't care about video and transparency. I just want something that uses minimal overhead, and handles things like rotation and custom resolutions well (which MaLa already does). Really, my only issue is that I sometimes get unexplainable errors from time to time when booting... The "MaLa has encountered an error and must close" thing.

Good luck with it, and thanks for the support you've already offered. 

[arzoo]

Let me know if you need any help!

[Space Fractal]

Congrats and condolences Loadman.

One thing I'd like to see is a single page collecting every single Mala layout (or at least graphical links).  Of course, a separate section of Mamewah ones would be nice too.  I've spent lots of time searching message boards, they're scattered everywhere.

This is due that way I have created the php code (I did coded the new webpage for him, since I got that PM before officiel annonce, and dedicated to help). When the page is expanded with more more themes, user cabs, a single page is not very good.

Think about if you have collected 20-25 of them or more? That why I did that. Later I do look if I can make some tooltip to the link to include a tumpnails, but not sure I can get that to work.

I might add a "Show All" or something like that later as a alternative.

I dosent think collection of a competer FE skins is good. But instead he might linking to the mamewah skin page, but it not MALA job. Let see what loadman think.

[unclet]

I would like to see a total rewrite of the code if possible.  I have ideas for 5 new intricate features which would be nice to have implemented in the next couple of weeks if possible. 




Just kidding of course ......  good luck, and thanks for taking this on ....   

[loadman]

I know you said its not in your cards currently to work on theme stuff but I think if true alpha png transparency could be added it would be stellar. I don't use it currently as anything I try to come up with needs shadows over transparent parts, or at least rounded transparent parts and mala makes it look horrible when it makes a part transparent.

Has swindus asked for it to remain closed source? Or could the source be opened up now ensuring its never able to be completely abandoned should you have something happen or just get very busy?

OK. I Thought this would be raised at some point 

The main code will remain closed.  Even if I could open it you would have to deal with a German Delphi IDE and work out how to install all the 3rd party Delphi IDE components that have been set-up for MaLa. Swindus tried to direct me how to do it remotely    but in the end was easier for him to send me a drive. I am just very thankful he didn't hold onto the code.   .  The IDE (Delphi 5) and errors are still in German (which is not ideal for bug fixing for me) but Swindus said he would not give up on trying to get it to work on a English IDE (Probably Delphi 7). Crossing my fingers that he can do it.  Then error messages that pop up when debugging or when MaLa crashed for users would be in English to give me a better chance of working out the cause.  I just mention this so to encourage Patience with MaLa development for a while.

anyway......

 BUT !!!   I have an idea of having most of future expansion done via a Plug-ins which could be open source (in any language that can create a real dll like Delphi, C++, Pure Basic). EG Possibly the Plug-in module could be expanded to handle layout display? And use GDI+ and support alpha channel...  I dunno yet, these are just ideas at this point. My main concept at this point is I manage the main MaLa code so others can develop....

One thing I'd like to see is a single page collecting every single Mala layout (or at least graphical links).  Of course, a separate section of Mamewah ones would be nice too.  I've spent lots of time searching message boards, they're scattered everywhere.

Well, ALL the MaLa one's will definitely be there. This is being worked on now. But I won't host MameWah ones unless someone can get me permission form the authors.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone!!

[squirrellydw]

sweet, good luck, can't wait till the bugs are worked out.  Any chance of making a plugin for the u360 so you can use any controller to scroll through the games?

[loadman]

sweet, good luck, can't wait till the bugs are worked out.  Any chance of making a plugin for the u360 so you can use any controller to scroll through the games?

  I don't think I'll be making any more plug-in's for some time. I have enough on my plate now.  The idea is I expand the plug-in interface so others can develop for MaLa  So to that end I will help.

Have you asked FatFingers?

[squirrellydw]

Hey FF what do you think, can it be done??

[SGT]

A big thanks to Loadman for this undertaking.  This new expanded plugin interface sounds like a great idea.   Now if we could only get him speaking German.  I say we should take up a collection and send the man to Deutschland for the summer. 

[headkaze]

You got my support loadman! I think the first thing you should do is fix that keyhook bug that screws with Mame64. Let me know if you need any help!

EDIT: Making progress already MaLa now works in Mame 64; just delete MaLaKeyHook.dll from the MaLa folder

[swindus]

Just want to write some words too. Thanks a lot for a nice time being the developer of an arcade frontend. Was not always fun but I learned a lot, so thank you. Also a big thanks to all the plugin developers and layout creators! Now its time for me to let it go and work on other things.

I know Loadman and all the other devs here will do a good job and there will be some nice addition to the current MaLa version in the future. And it will be fun for me to use the new versions on my cab! Can I do some feature requests please? ;-)

Have a good one!

[headkaze]

You've done a great service to the arcade community swindus and I'm glad you've passed on MaLa development to loadman instead of just dropping it. Hope to see you around anyway I know how life can make it hard to sometimes.

[Space Fractal]

it should been possible which OS users use, so MaLaKeyHook.dll only read under Win 98 (which this dll was made for)? That dell should only need under Win 98.

Swindus, I hope you still upload your cabs, when the homepage is open.

I trought delphi was combatible with all language, and just switch to the new components used (like English Delphi 5)? Seen it a bigger problem. but hope you got to work with english version of the IDE.

The only problem I found in MALA, is it only support around 12 joystick buttons under navigation. Hope that one can been fixed. By now I use a Joy2Key application to override that problem.

[headkaze]

it should been possible which OS users use, so MaLaKeyHook.dll only read under Win 98 (which this dll was made for)? That dell should only need under Win 98.

Swindus, I hope you still upload your cabs, when the homepage is open.

I trought delphi was combatible with all language, and just switch to the new components used (like English Delphi 5)? Seen it a bigger problem. but hope you got to work with english version of the IDE.

The only problem I found in MALA, is it only support around 12 joystick buttons under navigation. Hope that one can been fixed. By now I use a Joy2Key application to override that problem.

That's another way to go loadman, you could use GetVersionEx() API to check the version of Windows and load the dll only if it's 98.

Should be simple to add support for 32 buttons on joysticks. Swindus is probably only polling the first 12 so changing it to 32 will probably be all you need.

[loadman]

That's another way to go loadman, you could use GetVersionEx() API to check the version of Windows and load the dll only if it's 98.

Great Idea  :-)

Should be simple to add support for 32 buttons on joysticks. Swindus is probably only polling the first 12 so changing it to 32 will probably be all you need.

Possibly  I seem to recall that Swindus said that it was a windows restriction holding it back to 12 buttons (as it used it's API) but I could be wrong. It's on the list 

[headkaze]

Possibly  I seem to recall that Swindus said that it was a windows restriction holding it back to 12 buttons (as it used it's API) but I could be wrong. It's on the list 

It should be using DirectInput for joystick polling and that supports lots of buttons (256 from memory). If it's not using DirectInput it should. I don't know how to read joystick buttons without it.

[swindus]

Should be simple to add support for 32 buttons on joysticks. Swindus is probably only polling the first 12 so changing it to 32 will probably be all you need.

Thats it. WINAPI supports 32 buttons.

[swindus]

it should been possible which OS users use, so MaLaKeyHook.dll only read under Win 98 (which this dll was made for)? That dell should only need under Win 98.

Swindus, I hope you still upload your cabs, when the homepage is open.

MaLaKeyHook.dll is for the emulator exit hook but can be replaced by HotKeys on XP or newer systems. The HotKey stuff does not work with fullscreen DirectX apps (emus) on Win98 systems.

Sure, will upload my cabs to the new site!

[loadman]

MaLaKeyHook.dll is for the emulator exit hook but can be replaced by HotKeys on XP or newer systems. The HotKey stuff does not work with fullscreen DirectX apps (emus) on Win98 systems.

Great, Well here is a link I found to determine windows version. This should do the job to determine if I should use Keyhook or not on MaLa start.

http://www.swissdelphicenter.ch/torry/showcode.php?id=316

Thats it. WINAPI supports 32 buttons.

Ahh..... I will attack this code, In the section headed:

Code: [Select]

procedure TfrmMain.CallbackJoy(Buttons: Word;
          ActionX, ActionY, ActionX2, ActionY2, ActionXP, ActionYP : Integer;
          AJoystick: Integer);

[headkaze]

Great, Well here is a link I found to determine windows version. This should do the job to determine if I should use Keyhook or not on MaLa start.

http://www.swissdelphicenter.ch/torry/showcode.php?id=316

Yep, that code's using the GetVersionEx() API

You could simplify it alot to just check if it's 98 before using LoadLibrary on MaLaKeyHook.dll.

Eg.

Code: [Select]

var osVerInfo: TOSVersionInfo;
osVerInfo.dwOSVersionInfoSize := SizeOf(TOSVersionInfo);

if GetVersionEx(osVerInfo) then
begin
if (osVerInfo.dwPlatformId = VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_WINDOWS) { 98 or ME }
{ Load the MaLaKeyHook.dll }
end if
end;
end;

[SGT]

Just want to write some words too. Thanks a lot for a nice time being the developer of an arcade frontend. Was not always fun but I learned a lot, so thank you. Also a big thanks to all the plugin developers and layout creators! Now its time for me to let it go and work on other things.

I know Loadman and all the other devs here will do a good job and there will be some nice addition to the current MaLa version in the future. And it will be fun for me to use the new versions on my cab! Can I do some feature requests please? ;-)

Have a good one!

Swindus, You have done the community a great service with what I can only imagine is absolutely tons of work.  Thank you very much for Mala.

[Space Fractal]

look like these "bugs" can been fixed first, when you got it all running. Hoping transparency png can been added, but this is not a high priority for me.

I through WinApi only supported 16 buttons (which I did have that limit in BlitzPlus and see that limit too in various older applications as well)? No matter, seen it can been fixed too. But by now I just working out using joy2key application.

[loadman]

Swindus, You have done the community a great service with what I can only imagine is absolutely tons of work.  Thank you very much for Mala.

well... I printed out some code here at work. Small text and double sided it still took a while to print on a high speed laser printer and I think it used many trees to make the paper required

[rooter]

I noticed that you said there was a better 64bit version of Mala.  Has it been released?  I have been using version 1.04 for a while now and I am having issues with it.

Thanks.

[edge]

Swindus - your decision to hand over your baby to Loadman is commendable.     Instead of Mala falling behind and becoming obsolete, you have given it a new life.  Thank you! 

Loadman - best of luck, buddy.     You have always been the most vocal and helpful Mala follower.  I would love to help out again once things slow down around here.

[shock_]

Thank you swindus!  Thank you loadman!

[headkaze]

look like these "bugs" can been fixed first, when you got it all running. Hoping transparency png can been added, but this is not a high priority for me.

The problem with alpha transparancy is it slows down the whole FE too much otherwise swindus would have kept support for it in there. The best thing to do would be to port the whole video engine to Direct3D but without a 3rd party library that can be quite a chore. Maybe once loadman gets a bit more familiar with the code he might consider something like that, but I can say Direct3D and OpenGL are not API's that can be learnt overnight. Something like SDL might be worth taking a look into.

[loadman]

I noticed that you said there was a better 64bit version of Mala.  Has it been released?  I have been using version 1.04 for a while now and I am having issues with it.
Thanks.

No you misread the posts.  Support for mame64 not a new mala 

[youki]

Good luck LoadMan! 

Just started and already a tons of requests! 

Welcome to the wonder world of FE Coder!

Front End User are like women... they always want more!