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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Le Chuck on February 18, 2014, 09:32:43 pm

Title: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: Le Chuck on February 18, 2014, 09:32:43 pm
Right.  So, it's kind of like inception, or a bad xzibit meme but I need a program that will launch programs from within another program...

Maximus Arcade has a really nice skin feature that allows you to overlay multiple transparent and/or flash objects.  This is handy for making space themed skins.  Maximus Arcade's Batch gamelist feature was a recent add it seems and is buggy as all hell IMHO, but allows one to put all kinds of games from all kinds of systems/emus in one list using .lnk files (shortcuts).  It doesn't play sounds right or display loading screens which really takes the wind out of my sails.  All the other menus do this just fine but you can't integrate multiple sources like in the batch menu because all the other menus require a valid executable to run through and then call the rom/whatever through the command line

so-

I need to trick MA.  I want to point one of the nice complete gamelists at some program that will allow me to execute the .lnk files like roms to mame.  Basically a batch file to run batch files. 

I tried pointing MA at cmd.exe and the using "start %file" to trick it but either my syntax as off or it just didn't work.  Any ideas?  Mame is just an example, any program that will just execute .lnk files cleanly then close out should work.  I'm sure there is a script that could be written to do this but I'm having trouble finding a valid example on line because who honestly ever needs to do something this asinine - I mean besides me?

I didn't post this in the MA forum because this gets more views and the MA part is just background, the inception program is what I'm after.  Danke!
Title: Re: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: thatpurplestuff on February 18, 2014, 09:48:39 pm
I *think* Hyperlaunch 3 will do exactly what you're looking for.  I remember reading that it plays well with frontends other than Hyperspin, but I don't have any firsthand experience actually doing it.
Title: Re: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: melvinbates on February 21, 2014, 08:44:33 pm
Whipped up something in c# that will run a link.  runlnk.exe link.lnk.

http://www.tankitha.com/runLnk.zip (http://www.tankitha.com/runLnk.zip)
Title: Re: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: Le Chuck on February 22, 2014, 09:39:52 pm
Whipped up something in c# that will run a link.  runlnk.exe link.lnk.

http://www.tankitha.com/runLnk.zip (http://www.tankitha.com/runLnk.zip)

I'll give it a shot, I'll have to play around with it some, it's telling me I need additional NET framework to run.
Title: Re: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: melvinbates on February 24, 2014, 01:14:21 pm
Oh, sorry about that.  I can recompile it to only use  .net 2.  Forgot that mine defaults to 4.  I'll go ahead and update it so you don't need to have to get a version you don't really need. 

Just uploaded a version that only needs .net 2.0 , same link. (also added in the interop dll that it uses to read the .lnk files incase that isn't already on your machine.)
Title: Re: A program to launch other programs from an FE
Post by: Le Chuck on February 24, 2014, 03:39:44 pm
Thanks I'll give it a go!