MaLa Tree - Video Support at Node Level?

[whynotpizza]

Hi all,

MaLa is just a fantastic piece of work. The learning curve is somewhat steep, and some of the documentation out there could be more comprehensive, but overall this is the best front-end out there, without a doubt! Thank you loadman for the updates and great overall application.

Ok, enough about how much MaLa rocks...

I am trying to setup MaLa using the Tree approach (the non-tree approach won't work due to displaying of All games which is something which is not desirable).

Does anyone know if a video can be used at a "Top Level" within the Tree configuration?

Basically, I have the following:

  My Arcade
    + Mame
    + Visual Pinball

A single root and 2 game lists, each with their own layouts and associated gamelist.

At the gamelist level (Mame or Visual Pinball), I can setup a Video (this works just fine).

However, at the top level, I cannot seem to figure out how to get a video to display when switchig between "Mame" and "Visual Pinball". I want one video for Mame and another for Visual Pinball. This seems to be defined within the Emulator setup/config in MaLa itself, and not at the layout or tree level.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.

   David

[SGT]

<snip>
...(the non-tree approach won't work due to displaying of All games which is something which is not desirable).
<snip>

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  In a non-tree approach you do not have to display all games.  There is a check box to turn off displaying all games so that only your custom lists will show.

[loadman]

Yes .. What SGT said  PLUS

I don't think you can set up a Video at the top level of the tree as there is no corresponding Rom

[whynotpizza]

Hey guys,

Ok, I see that setting and it seemed to work to resolve the original problem of turning OFF the All Games. See attached for Options setting.

That is a bummer I cannot attach a video to a menu node (i.e. something not part of a gamelist/rom). Is this something for v1.06 maybe? 

As a possible work-around to solve my problem, I setup (without MaLa Tree) using the turn OFF approach to All Games -- and have 2 layouts/gamelists -- one for Mame and one for Visual Pinball. I put a 'bogus' ROM game on each list, and defined my own video for it as INTRO movies for each MAME and VISUAL PINBALL. Seems to have worked, although I ran across 2 issues.

1) Sometimes when switching (using keyboard) up and down thru a gamelist with videos, the "focus" seems to get lost and I need to LEFT click the Mouse to gain keyboard control to move thru the gamelist using my arrows. Is this an issue? I tried v1.05 and it acted the same.

2) Is there a way to force MaLa gamelists to always display a specific game on gamelist start? This would allow me to force the INTRO (with bogus rom but associated intro video) to start at load. Is this possibe?

Thanks for the help. 

  David

[loadman]

Hmmm

Perhaps the option of playing a Full screen video on emulator switch would be a compromise.

You could of course skip it by hitting a key/ tapping the mouse.

That might be easier and give a sexy transition to emu changes..

Just an idea

[whynotpizza]

That is a good suggestion I suppose.

After some thought, the original approach I had using the MaLa Tree approach will probably work the best, as I can have a top level "index" which contains Mame, Visual Pinball and other gamelists to pick. The flow of the tool seems to be better using this Tree approach.

Also, I tried using a background song to spice it up, which actually is very cool. Only draw-back is the fact it drowns out the audio of each video file on the gamelist, even when the background music is turned down.

Hmm, decisions decisions.

Anyway, thanks for the help. I think I am set.

One can always hope for a possible v1.06 which allows for video at the root of the Tree.

   

Thanks again...(this is a great tool!)

   David

[loadman]

1) Sometimes when switching (using keyboard) up and down thru a gamelist with videos, the "focus" seems to get lost and I need to LEFT click the Mouse to gain keyboard control to move thru the gamelist using my arrows. Is this an issue? I tried v1.05 and it acted the same.

This issue of MaLa occasionally losing focus is a know issue.

It has never happened to me and I don't know a exact set of circumstances in order to reproduce it.

My best guess is it is linked with game-list/emu switching or just when using emus other than mame because I rarley use anything but one mame list.

Anyway my point is, if you (or anyone else can work out ) a st recipie for this 'loss of focus'. that would be most useful to me to attempt to squash the bug