How to display controls mapping before a game is launched

[retrometro]

If this isn't a MALA question, feel free to move the thread to Software...

I've just spent a week going through my favorite games and customizing control mappings and am finally done.  While there are some conventions I use (e.g. if its a one button game, make all 7 buttons all mapped to button1, etc), some games that have unconventional controls are mapped in the way that makes the most sense to me for that game.  Take Ikari Warriors and Tron Discs for example...

What's whe best way through MALA or other FE's to show how I've mapped the buttons before a game starts?  A bonus would be if it could read the game or history info to label what each game does.  I would be okay even if I have to edit each screen manually.

thanks!

[dgame]

I use the ~c_button1 ~c_button2 ~c_button3 variables in MaLa layouts.

NOP recently added support for this in RomLister 13 beta 7.

If you wanted to use this method you would need to setup RomLister and edit the controls.xml to match your changes.

If there is no entry in the controls.xml then RomLister correctly assigns the number of buttons and has ‘button x’ as the labels for used buttons and ‘not used’ for the others. The bottom line is that when generating Mala lists using RomLister (13b7 and up) all control entries will have something in them.

I attached two screen shots and the Mala Layout file. I have a six button layout so this shows the stick type, number of buttons, and what the buttons do.
 
I had to keep it simple because Mala Layouts don’t seem to be able to use more than eight text fields. I asked about this limitation and got no answer.

[SGT]

Here is the utilities wiki.  Scroll down to Control Panel software.  Headkaze's utility is called CPWizard.

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Utilities

[TheShanMan]

I was going to say CPWizard too. One thing you can do with it is export images. I have been planning to do this and have them show in mala, so I know exactly what to expect before I launch a game.

[retrometro]

Thanks for the tips, that is exactly what I'd like to see.  I'll have to try it tonight.

[retrometro]

It looks like cpviewer is ALMOST exactly what I was looking for.  I've taken a picture of my control panel and just used the default template to move buttons around to match.

However, I've done a LOT of button mappings that adds to or changes the default mappings in the standard controls.ini.  For example, any game that has only one button, I've remapped within mame to use all 7 buttons so that any button can be the fire button.

Do any of the other utilities read from the mame ___.cfg file to match button assignments?  As it stands, I'm going through and editing the controls.ini manually

thanks.

[TheShanMan]

I've never used cpviewer, but cpwizard does use the game cfg files.

[retrometro]

I've never used cpviewer, but cpwizard does use the game cfg files.

:-o

I'll have to try that out.  thanks!

[retrometro]

I've never used cpviewer, but cpwizard does use the game cfg files.

I'll have to try that out.  thanks!

cpwizard definitely looks great and seems well maintained on a regular basis.  Using blockout as a test, it didn't seem to read my blockout.cfg.  Standard disclaimer applies that I've just downloaded cpwizard and skimmed the install and help.  I've not really configured it so if there's a config that tells it to read the cfg just let me know.

So below I have:

1)  Panel configured using cpviewer but non-default buttons edited in controls.ini
2)  Panel using cpwizard (not customized yet, just to show mappings not read from blockout.cfg)
3)  Paths settings in cpwizard
4)  Contents of blockout.cfg

cpviewer mapping


cpwizard mapping


cpwizard path


blockout.cfg

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- This file is autogenerated; comments and unknown tags will be stripped -->
<mameconfig version="10">
    <system name="blockout">
        <video>
            <target index="0" view="Pixel Aspect (4:3)" />
        </video>
        <input>
            <port tag="IN0" type="P1_BUTTON4" mask="16" defvalue="16">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_LSHIFT
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="IN0" type="P1_BUTTON2" mask="32" defvalue="32">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_H OR KEYCODE_Z
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="IN0" type="P1_BUTTON3" mask="64" defvalue="64">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_9 OR KEYCODE_X
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="IN1" type="P2_BUTTON4" mask="16" defvalue="16">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_RSHIFT
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="IN1" type="P2_BUTTON2" mask="32" defvalue="32">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_S OR KEYCODE_I
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="IN1" type="P2_BUTTON3" mask="64" defvalue="64">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_Q OR KEYCODE_K
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="DSW2" type="P1_BUTTON1" mask="64" defvalue="64">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_EQUALS OR KEYCODE_0
                </newseq>
            </port>
            <port tag="DSW2" type="P2_BUTTON1" mask="128" defvalue="128">
                <newseq type="standard">
                    KEYCODE_A OR KEYCODE_W
                </newseq>
            </port>
        </input>
    </system>
</mameconfig>

[headkaze]

You shouldn't be editing controls.xml manually. The labels in CPWizard need to match the keycodes your using in Mame. It's probably best you read the help file before asking questions

[retrometro]

You shouldn't be editing controls.xml manually. The labels in CPWizard need to match the keycodes your using in Mame. It's probably best you read the help file before asking questions

I'm not editing controls.xml to get cpwizard working.  I'm editing controls.ini for cpviewer.  This is cpviewer's work around for modified controls.

theshanman mentioned that I should try cpwizard because it reads individual games' cfg files.  I assumed that pointing cpwizard to where the cfg files are would be it.

In the example, blockout's default maps work fine out of the box for cpviewer and cpwizard.  However, I've changed the key mappings so that 3 buttons are duplicated and the 4th button is moved.  I didn't see this in your guide.  If I've missed it, let me know.

[headkaze]

Check these things

1. The keycodes for your CP layout in CPWizard match the keycodes set in Mame. CPWizard does not work like CPViewer, it's more like Johnny5 where it uses keycodes. Using keycodes means it can read cfg files and remap controls so the keycodes have to match.
2. I don't know how CPViewer works but you don't need to edit controls.xml for CPWizard. CPWizard does use the .cfg files to remap controls if you have (1.) sorted. You will have to restart CPWizard if you change your controls in Mame.