rebuild game list not working

[TheShanMan]

I'm putting multimame on my system and I'm trying to get the game list to rebuild when I pick the multimame.exe file. It does prompt me about doing it, but when I say yes, it clearly does nothing since the game list immediately becomes active. What causes this to fail? Multimame does launch mame and daphne games for me if I call it manually, so I don't think it's a configuration problem with multimame. In fact, if I set mala's mame executable back to mame.exe, the same problem occurs.

[loadman]

I'm putting multimame on my system and I'm trying to get the game list to rebuild when I pick the multimame.exe file. It does prompt me about doing it, but when I say yes, it clearly does nothing since the game list immediately becomes active. What causes this to fail? Multimame does launch mame and daphne games for me if I call it manually, so I don't think it's a configuration problem with multimame. In fact, if I set mala's mame executable back to mame.exe, the same problem occurs.

I have never used multimame before but I cetainly would like to know what is going on with mame.exe at least.

Have you recreated your mame.xml file?

I have had issues in the past when changing mame versions and not recreating this file. 

Possibly I should get mala to promt you to do that. 

If you still have problems would you mind posting the tail of the debug log please. 

[TheShanMan]

multimame does -listxml. It basically tries to look like mame from a command line perspective. Am I supposed to manually recreate mame.xml whenever I update mame (or in this case switch to multimame)? When it prompted to recreate my game list I assumed it would run -listxml automatically to build a new mame.xml and a new game list. I guess it would help to know exactly what it does when you click OK on the options dialog and it prompts you to update the game list.

I'll try turning on debug logging on next time I'm on the cab.

[loadman]

multimame does -listxml. It basically tries to look like mame from a command line perspective. Am I supposed to manually recreate mame.xml whenever I update mame (or in this case switch to multimame)? When it prompted to recreate my game list I assumed it would run -listxml automatically to build a new mame.xml and a new game list. I guess it would help to know exactly what it does when you click OK on the options dialog and it prompts you to update the game list.

I'll try turning on debug logging on next time I'm on the cab.

I have added to the next version of mala to ask the user if they wish to recreate mame.xml  when they allocate the mame executable 

Good Luck

[TheShanMan]

OK, now I think I get it. Currently mala never creates the xml file, but when you click OK and it prompts about rebuilding the game list it is only talking about the mala game list file, and it assumes the xml file is up to date (bad assumption). Prompting to recreate the xml file would be a good idea. I'm sure there must be a good deal of confusion in this area for users, and that will help a lot. It might also help to be more specific in the prompts, as in "MAME executable has changed. Would you like to rebuild the MaLa game list file from mame.xml?"

[loadman]

OK, now I think I get it. Currently mala never creates the xml file, but when you click OK and it prompts about rebuilding the game list it is only talking about the mala game list file, and it assumes the xml file is up to date (bad assumption). Prompting to recreate the xml file would be a good idea. I'm sure there must be a good deal of confusion in this area for users, and that will help a lot. It might also help to be more specific in the prompts, as in "MAME executable has changed. Would you like to rebuild the MaLa game list file from mame.xml?"

I agree. Done   

FYI MaLa used to only prompt you to create XML if no file existed already. It was not such a big deal when mala first came out but as time has passed there are significant differences between mame XML versions.

[TheShanMan]

Still having trouble getting the refresh to work. Again, after prompting me it appears to do nothing as my videos immediately start back up. This is all I got in the log file with debug enabled.

Code: [Select]

2008/10/09  19:46:32.42   Info: Collecting game list files (mlg) in D:\mala\
2008/10/09  19:46:32.42   Info: Writing params to ini file
2008/10/09  19:46:32.46   Info: Setting params from ini file
2008/10/09  19:46:35.40   Info: Collecting layout files (*.mll) in D:\mala\layouts\
2008/10/09  19:46:35.40   Info: Collecting game list files (mlg) in D:\mala\


[TheShanMan]

Any ideas loadman? Maybe I'll try deleting my gamelist files and see if it will regenerate them in that case?

[loadman]

Any ideas loadman? Maybe I'll try deleting my gamelist files and see if it will regenerate them in that case?

Is this Multimame? 

It works for 'mame' ok for me.

Possibly you could send me or point me to the mame version you are having issues with

[TheShanMan]

It doesn't seem to be working with multimame or mame. Refreshing isn't supposed to be instant as I recall, right? I've been checking the game list after I try it for a game I expect to show up, but it's kind of a pain so it would be nice to see some other evidence that it's working or not working. Confirming that it's not instant would help in that regard. And should I be seeing something in the log file that relates to it? You didn't mention anything in regard to my log file output.

[loadman]

It doesn't seem to be working with multimame or mame. Refreshing isn't supposed to be instant as I recall, right? I've been checking the game list after I try it for a game I expect to show up, but it's kind of a pain so it would be nice to see some other evidence that it's working or not working. Confirming that it's not instant would help in that regard. And should I be seeing something in the log file that relates to it? You didn't mention anything in regard to my log file output.

When you refresh you do get items in the log so something is wrong somewhere.

[TheShanMan]

How would you recommend proceeding then? Is there something I can try? Or do you want to beef up the logging in that area for the next release? I'm not necessarily in a HUGE hurry to get this resolved, though I can't really take advantage of multimame (or newer versions of mame, with added games for that matter) until I get somewhere with this.

Just had a thought - does the refresh bail for any reason after prompting? Since multimame and mame are reporting the exact same version string, could it be that mala decides after the prompt that it doesn't need to do anything after all?

[loadman]

How would you recommend proceeding then? Is there something I can try? Or do you want to beef up the logging in that area for the next release? I'm not necessarily in a HUGE hurry to get this resolved, though I can't really take advantage of multimame (or newer versions of mame, with added games for that matter) until I get somewhere with this.

Just had a thought - does the refresh bail for any reason after prompting? Since multimame and mame are reporting the exact same version string, could it be that mala decides after the prompt that it doesn't need to do anything after all?

Sorry, I don't have much bandwidth to do homework on that right now.

Family and kids are wanting Daddy time today.  (A nice sunny day in Sydney Australia)

I would suggest a fresh bare bones mala install in a seperate folder and see what happens 

[TheShanMan]

That's fine as I'm just looking for ideas - the fresh mala idea is a good one. I'll try it!

[TheShanMan]

I figured out the problem! Refreshing the gamelist ONLY works if the All Games list is active. The right click menu item is disabled and doesn't work, and the auto-refresh doesn't work either. Switch to the All Games list and it works.

Is there a good reason to disable that functionality if the All Games list isn't active? Seems like it should work no matter what, especially since you can hide the All Games list (as I do).

Hopefully you can fix that for the next beta???

[loadman]

I figured out the problem! Refreshing the gamelist ONLY works if the All Games list is active. The right click menu item is disabled and doesn't work, and the auto-refresh doesn't work either. Switch to the All Games list and it works.

Is there a good reason to disable that functionality if the All Games list isn't active? Seems like it should work no matter what, especially since you can hide the All Games list (as I do).

Hopefully you can fix that for the next beta???

Firstly. Well done for figuring that out. 

I don't hide my main list so that did not occur to me

So do you mean you need a way of refreshing the 'all games' list if it is displayed or not?

My concern is if I allow the refresh of the 'all games' list when you can't see it then a user many get confused to what is happening. 

As this is a function a user is not going to use very often could I possibly just enable the selection at any time but just post a message that they need to enable viewing of all games to refresh the main list?

[TheShanMan]

I might have been a bit unclear. It's not just enabling the main game list that makes it enabled. You have to actually be showing the main game list at the time of refreshing. In other words, if you have a "favorites" game list that is active, you can't refresh the main game list.

Even with the main list hidden, I would need it refreshed for editing game lists. Also, if someone who has the main list enabled has their "favorites" list active, they'd want their main list updated because if they switch to that main list it shouldn't be out of date.

I wouldn't think it's confusing if the right-click menu or the auto-refresh prompt say "refresh the main game list", but you could always provide a little more explanation to the prompt. However, I think anyone who would try to refresh the game list through either method probably understands that their "favorites" list is not the main game list. After all, this is an administrative task, not something my 6 year old son would do.

One other thing that I'm not too sure on... even if you don't have the main list enabled and/or active, can't refreshing the main game list affect all other lists? In other words, if a rom changes in some way (such as a minor change to the game name), wouldn't that automatically be reflected in the other lists, like the favorites list? Or are the other lists 100% independent after you first create them?

So in case it's not obvious, I am not in favor of your suggested solution. But I appreciate you giving attention to this and making it better!

[loadman]

Not sure if I agree with you here about 'out of date' unless I still don't understand.

From what I hear, most MaLa users set up with a Mame version and a set of roms and stick with it once they are happy with the cab

The only time you need to refresh if if you add roms or change mame versions which usually is not too often.

Refreshing the main list does not effect other lists. It is used as a base to build smaller lists from.

I think having a refresh option on a list you can't see that does not have any effect on the list you are looking at would be more confusing to most users.

However I would like to avoid any confusion caused when changing mame versions as you experienced and an open to suggestions on that   

So if the mame version changes it is important that the user undertstands that a refresh is really required, so .. any ideas?

Should I just enforce it or just recommend a user what they should do?

[TheShanMan]

What I meant by "out of date" is exactly what you mentioned: updating to a newer version of mame. Or in the case of MultiMame, it could just be adding in some daphne games or something like that.

So you're right - you don't need to do it too often (unless you're mucking with your multimame game list, in which case it might actually be often ).

I'm not sure why you think enabling the refresh option would be more confusing... look how long it took you and me to figure out why refreshing wasn't working in this case. Therefore I would say that the current behavior is at least as confusing.

I don't like the idea of telling the user what to do when it would be SO easy to have mala do it for you. Why not just provide a descriptive message? "MAME has been updated. Would you like to refresh the 'All Games' list? This refresh will have no effect on other game lists." Heck, you could even provide a similar message when picking refresh from the right click menu. It's always bad to disable a menu item unless it will be obvious to the user why it's disabled and how to get it enabled. It's always better to at least provide a message when that menu item is picked saying why the operation can't proceed. But in this case, it certainly can proceed as long as you convey to the user precisely what the operation does and doesn't do.

Hope I've made progress on convincing you.

[loadman]

Cool.. I will ponder on this

Posssibly I could have mala 'unhide the list' and switch to it and then refresh it then hide it again and telling the user what is happening along the way. ?