Mala "please create the mame main gamelist..."

[jspicher]

Hello everyone,

I've done a bit of searching on this forum but didn't find the help l was looking for.
I am attempting to edit my mame game list(s) to remove [...], (...) etc from my game titles.
However whenever l click "Edit game list..." from the Options -> Game lists l am given an error that says: "Please create the mame main gamelist with Mala first or choose another working directory!" 

What does that mean, what am l supposed to do?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[system01]

If you want your own pruned gamelist, try keeping 'all_games.mlg' in its original state, and make a new one and name it what you like and put it in the same location.

Then in MaLa: Gamelists tab > Options tab, you can pick your new list and tick the "don't use All Games list'.

[system01]

Or maybe I didnt read that right.  Did you already create the all games list?  If not, you need to sit back and let it do this the first time.  RMB on the front end to find 'refresh'.

[jspicher]

Hi System01,

Well this is a fresh install of Mala, but l believe that l must've screwed up somewhere. Is there a way to force Mala to "redo" this step?

By say deleting all of my gamelist files or something?

[system01]

OK, so on your first startup, where it gives you all the dialogs about can't find this or that, etc, I believe it will automatically ask if you want to do a list refresh.  It takes a little while, but let it do it.

Then when its done, if you go to the 'game list' tab, you should only see 'all games'.  Using the editor (the separate app) you can make your own, either from blank or by copying 'all games'.  Save it as something descriptive, like 'working.mlg' or 'good.mlg' or something.  Put this in the same folder as 'all games.mlg' (usually just X:\mala\).

When you start mala back up and look at the lists tab, you should see 'all games' and your new one.  Look at the above post to hide 'all games'.

If you want a really quick way to produce lists, check out Romlister (http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/).  It lets you enter a ton of queries and build a list in many formats, including mala.

...If youve already launched all this setup stuff (first time ran), you can always RMB on the main MaLa screen and pick 'refresh all games'.    Make sure you weed through both the mame config menus and the 'MAME Executable > Config' and square away all your paths FIRST.  RMB > Options to get there.

MaLa works a lot on a "is the file there" strategy.  If you just delete the MLGs, they disappear in MaLa, just like layouts or snaps or anything.

[loadman]

Another option is the use the gui-options-gamelists 'remove brackets from names' . This will do it on the fly.