Mamewah custom batchfiles config ?

[MadEditor]

Hi

It's been a long time since I configured my cab and I have some trouble now to configure Mamewah for another project.
I've gathered a bunch of old dos games, configured them with dosbox. As i could'nt find a frontend i liked for dosbox, i created a START.BAT file in each game folder. This BAT file call dosbox with the game.
But i want to use only relative PATH ! (This will be on an external HDD and so the drive letter can change)

So to call the game with mamewah i made a DOS.bat like this

CD DOS
cd %1
call start.bat

Now I'm trying to configure that in mamewah...

Here's what i've done ...

### DOS.ini (mamewah v1.63) ###

emulator_title                            OLD DOS GAMES

### List Generation Settings ###
rom_path                                  ..\..\GAMES\DOS
rom_extension                             
dat_file                                 
nms_file                                 
catver_ini_file                           
list_generation_method                    rom_folder

### Execution Settings ###
pre_emulator_app_commandlines             
emulator_commandline                      ..\..\DOS.BAT "[name]"{dosbox}{safelaunch}
post_emulator_app_commandlines           
general_app_commandlines                 

### Artwork Settings ###
artwork_image_paths                       ..\..\GAMES\DOSsnap
movie_preview_path                        ..\..\GAMES\DOSvideo
movie_artwork_no                          1
enable_fuzzy_search                       1
history_dat_file                         
history_dat_artwork_no                    1

### Screen-Saver Settings ###
enable_music_in_screensaver               1
select_random_game                        0
saver_type                                slideshow
movie_path                               
movie_fullscreen                          1
quit_delay                                0
saver_commandline                         

### Additional Settings ###
music_path                               
lcd_display_file_path                     
description_display                       [description]{scroll}

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_list                              0       

the "..\..\" trick worked for everything but the command line !!! (artwork are ok, list generate correctly)

For the commandline a get this error :

20/01/2009 0:42:01 Error: 5 Invalid procedure call or argument in MsgExecCmd

It work perfectly if i put this commanline

emulator_commandline                      G:\GAMES\DOS.BAT "[name]"{nodosbox}{nosafelaunch}

But as I said before i want relative path ...

HELP PLEASE :-)

[MadEditor]

For the same project, another question i can't find back...

I've named all my game' folders like this : "Name Of The Game (year)(developper name)"

Is there a way to use those information in a mamewah layout ? can it recover the year and developper name in the folder name ?

I know mamewah can filter the (year)(developper name) out in the game listing but i can't remember how ?

Thanx...

[Minwah]

Best way to do this is to create shortcuts for each of your dos games...use custom config file(s) if neccessary. An example target:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.exe" -noconsole -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.72\xwing.conf"


Then point your Mamewah rom_path to a folder you have placed all these shortcuts in. Set the emulator_commandline to 'PC' and away you go. I have a few dos (& PC Windows) games setup this way in one Mamewah list.

[MadEditor]

I'd like to avoid the LNK files solutions ... I'not ready creating 400+ shorcuts and .conf files...

I've already made those START.BAT i talked about... At that point the mamewah solution was not in my mind ...

Anyway I want to keep all this portable so there's always the relative path problem, in a lnk there's no way to use a relative path ...

I'm sure there's a solution in which i don't have to go making 400+ files again... .LNK or whatever :-) :-)

Does mamewah absolutely need the drive letter in the emulator commandline ?

I tried like this :

emulator_commandline                      \games\DOS.BAT "[name]"{dosbox}{safelaunch}

and i get the same error:

20/01/2009 0:42:01 Error: 5 Invalid procedure call or argument in MsgExecCmd

[Minwah]

I'd like to avoid the LNK files solutions ... I'not ready creating 400+ shorcuts and .conf files...

OK I don't blame you!

Does mamewah absolutely need the drive letter in the emulator commandline ?

Yes it does. There is one way around it:

In mamewah.ini, set 'emulator_root_path = g:\games',
Then in your mame.ini file:

emulator_commandline                      [emurootpath]\DOS.BAT "[name]"{dosbox}{safelaunch}
rom_path                                  [emurootpath]\DOS
artwork_image_paths                       [emurootpath]\DOSsnap
movie_preview_path                        [emurootpath]\DOSvideo

etc..

This would still require you manually change the drive letter in emulator_root_path if neccessary, but only this one place would need to be changed.

HTH

[MadEditor]

Thanks ... I Guess i can live with it :-)

What about those info in the Folder name (year, dev), can mamewah recover them there ?

Otherwise i could easily create a .dat file or something equivalent but what structure should i make ?

And i Know Mamewah can strip off those info when displying the gamelist but i don't remember HOW :-)

[MadEditor]

I found the filtered list otpion i forgot about... so now i have my list Clean with only the Games Names ...

I still can't find any info as to how recover the year of the game and the Dev of the game...

Is there a way for mamewah to recover those info from the foder name or should i create a file listing those info?