A more complete daphne game list for MaLa

[TheShanMan]

I'm finally starting to get around to doing more than just basic incorporation of daphne into MaLa. I'm going to merge some games into the mame list using SGT's well known hack.

But I also want to maintain a normal daphne list. The problem is I want more complete information than just the rom names in the list. I found this old thread, which sums up what I'm looking for pretty well http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=56865.0:

I have Mala set up as my front end and really love it.  The only feature I would like to see is text file support for non-Mame emus like Daphne and Visual Pinball.  With Mame, my front end looks great with the company, year, controls, etc. listed.  When I switch to Daphne and VP, it looks so empty.  I'd like to create my own text files with the appropriate info and include it in Mala.  Does this option exist and I just don't know how to do it?  I'm probably the only idiot who cares about this, but figured I would ask.   

I don't necessarily want to be able to generate it - I'll settle for someone posting their daphne list if it's complete with name, company, year, etc (please zip it up and post it!). But with that thread being so old, perhaps there's a way to generate it nowadays? I can always do it myself but why reinvent the wheel if others already have this?

[driph]

Since ShanMan asked the same thing I was about to, figure I might as well dredge up his thread. :]

Is there a way to add text info for non-MAME EMUs in Mala? I'd love to include data like year, manufacturer, etc in my dedicated Daphne layout...

[TheShanMan]

You're really going back into the past! 

I don't think I ever solved this directly, but I did solve it indirectly I believe, by using MultiMAME to basically trick MaLa into thinking the daphne games were really mame games, so they're all in the same list (emulator). I'm happier anyway because to me, all arcade games should be together, not segregated into laser vs. non-laser.

A bit of a learning curve, but I'm happy with the results. I don't remember exactly what I did to feed it the extra metadata, but I think you basically end up with a super game list xml file (mame style) that has all the mame games plus all the daphne games, and then I either edited it directly, or else multimame had some provision for setting all of it when it generates the super xml file.

If you go down that road and have trouble getting it to work, let me know and I can check to see how I have it configured.

[SGT]

Yeah I think you're going to have to combine the Daphne list with the Mame lists.  You can still group all the Daphne games into its own custom "mame" game list.   I use the following method to do this, but I know some use multi-mame as TheShanMan mentions:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=68419.0

[driph]

You're really going back into the past! 

Yeah, figure that for the benefit of future searchers, might as well add to an existing unanswered thread than start a whole new one, even if it is a year old. Heh.


Looks like I'm going to have to explore a bit, then... the cabinet (an Interstellar Laser Fantasy) is a dedicated Daphne machine, and most likely won't be running MAME at all, but your workaround may be an option.

I wonder how difficult it would be to add support for non-MAME game info into future builds of MaLa? I can't code, but I would definitely be willing to contribute to history.dat-esque projects for other platforms. I'm a video game history buff, so the more background info that can be shared with players, the better!

[driph]

I cheated.

Since there are only 16 supported laserdisc games in Daphne, I went the manual route, and created a custom snap for each game containing the general info I wanted to portray.

Excuse the somewhat garish color scheme, it's matched up to an Interstellar cabinet.



Top left is video, bottom left is a snap. As MaLa doesn't seem to like transparent pngs, I used an all-white snap image to compare a screenshot to a psd, cut out the background needed, and then added text for each game.

[TheShanMan]

Clever approach. Glad you found a working solution!

[jasonbar]

Howdy-

I've got a near-full set of artwork for Daphne (and other) games already--see this thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=92510

Also, I've updated mame.xml, controls.ini, & history.dat to include all the extra metadata for Daphne (and a few other) games.  Attached (hooray for working attachments!).  Append these to the ends of the appropriate files per SGT's sage tutelage, & then refresh your main game list in MaLa & add (or re-add) these games to any lists you want.

Enjoy!

-Jason

PS--had to zip the 3 together because the forum barfs on certain attachment extensions...and then you also lose all your post text you typed!