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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Kid Raster on January 24, 2023, 08:19:11 pm

Title: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: Kid Raster on January 24, 2023, 08:19:11 pm

Hey now!  It's been a long time since I've posted, and wanted to first say hi again.  Nice to see some of the old crew still here kicking it around, and so many new peeps!

So I'm looking for a SUPER plain basic frontend for MAME (running on WinXP).  Just wanting to boot into a list of games that can be selected via joystick and button.  No mascots, no crazy graphics, no wheels, no video previews, no snaps.  Just a plain-ass black screen with white or yellow text (or something) that I can select up to maybe...ten games from.  I've been reading a lot about this over the last week, but just can't seem to find the right thing.  This photo is an example of what I am looking for- just plain Jane, pick a game from this plain ol' list.  Is there a frontend you guys suggest that can handle this?  Any help appreciated!

( I know this pic is of a PC10 cart- I'm just using it as a reference.)

 :cheers:

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: danny_galaga on January 24, 2023, 10:52:49 pm

You could use Mala. It has bells and whistles options, but if you don't install any snaps and remove the default background pic, it will look something like what you are after. It's not too CPU hungry.

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: pbj on January 24, 2023, 11:18:56 pm

AdvanceMenu. Text only.



https://www.advancemame.it/menu-snapshot

 (https://www.advancemame.it/menu-snapshot)

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: Kid Raster on January 25, 2023, 10:27:21 am

I appreciate your messages, I will have a look at these today!

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: Kid Raster on January 25, 2023, 07:54:00 pm

MaLa is where it's at!  I think I'll use this for this basic little project.  Thanks a million!

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: danny_galaga on January 31, 2023, 01:47:23 am

No worries. Looking forward to seeing you R project 🙂

Title: Re: Very basic frontend needed- care to give me your opinion?
Post by: gildahl on February 16, 2023, 05:46:34 pm

You could try my arcadeEIP software at the link below.  If you use the automatic game switching feature, you could get away with no menu at all.  If you do want a menu, it can be very minimalistic (graphics optional) and it is on the "back-end" rather than "front-end".  So its extremely unobtrusive.  You could even just use hotkeys, your own minimalistic front end written in AHK, or an external Elgato Stream Deck attached to your machine or running on your phone to select your games.  I honestly can't say whether it will run on XP though as I have never tried it. 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,165138.msg1741421.html#msg1741421