Favorite Front End

[silar]

I've tried a few different FE's and have to say Hyperspin is by far hands down the most feature packed, 'Does everything I want it to do', front end.  At first I was a little overwhelmed by everything with it, until I tried a few others and realized they just didn't even compare.  I ended up sticking it through and spent a little bit of time each day over a week playing around with it.  Once I got into it, it wasn't overwhelming at all.

I ended up purchasing the platinum membership, and a subscription to emumovies so I didn't have to manually download all the themes and movies for the emulators and games, but I do like that fact that you can download all that on your own if you don't have the money or aren't willing to pay.

I'm kinda with the others that to me for an arcade system, I'm not going for some elegant, snooty, ipad looking, media center looking front end  .  I want a 'slap your mama in the face', bold, bright, arcade looking, easy to get use to front end  !

Even my wife and kids love to use it.

[wcndave]

Hi, I know this post has died down recently, but I will be adding my vote for MaLa, as I tried HS and had no clue how to get started.  Even just working out which of the many downloads I needed seemed complex.  I must admit though that I did not invest a huge amount of time trying.

MaLa worked right away, has loads of options, I created my own skin and edited the layout in no time at all, and it looks great / fast / simple to use.

Before I sing those praises too much though, I have encountered some problems, and also have a few doubts that could lead me to having a proper go at HS.

1. the last update to MaLa was 19/6/2011.  No update in two years...
2. Focus, on starting up with windows, the "start" button (but not the taskbar) is visible on bottom left and has focus.  I actually had to map some keys to alt+tab to get around this.
3. Intro video.  I have a video which then merges into the layout.  On launch from windows it's fine.  On startup I get a blank screen until the layout loads.  This means that with a kick as OC computer ad windows loading in 6 seconds from cold start, and replaced post / windows loading messages that all blend, my really kick ass "start up showing off sequence" is ruined by no video.

I really think that the lack of releases for it means that this won't be resolved, and I don't blame a developer who's not getting paid for getting bored of a project after a while, however this definitely pushes me towards HS again...

Can anyone speak for where MaLa is/is going?

[keilmillerjr]

Can anyone speak for where MaLa is/is going?

I sent Simon Loader an email Sunday:

I noticed the last WIP was 1.745 in 2011. It has been a long time since an update has been released. Will there be any further development?

Yes, just ran out of motivation

It takes a lot of hours to keep active

One day :-)

[retrostark]

weird to think that i have not heard of some of these. i am also surprised to see some of the results of the poll.

[wcndave]

Yes, just ran out of motivation

It takes a lot of hours to keep active

One day :-)

Thanks for that, I shall try my query on the Mala help board then, rather than here.

[unclet]

I shall try my query on the Mala help board then, rather than here

You can always try PM'ing BYOAC member "Loadman" directly for MaLa help.  Not sure if he is still working on it or not, but I know he inherited the Mala code to work on from the original designer many moons ago.

[Chris John Hunter]

Hi

I have started a thread for Build Your Own Front End.

If anyone is interested in creating their own front end. That can either operate on its own or as a parent to other emulators / front ends please let me know on the other thread.