Mouse-only front end?

[paigeoliver]

I have a Dynamo Tournament Solitaire coming this weekend. It has a small problem that I am fairly sure I can fix. If I can fix it, then I am leaving it as it.

If I can't, then it is Mame all the way. (Which basically consists of removing the computer that is already in it, and replacing it with another one).

So, what I was getting at, is there a good frontend around that will work with just the mouse? I don't want to use Mame32 or anything janky like that.

[SirPoonga]

Wow, most frontends are not designed like that as they assume joystick controls.

[Jakobud]

Mouse only?? Wow, well you could try something like EmuLoader.  I know you can get around in it with only a mouse.  It will look crappy in a cab though.  Game Launcher supports mouse only.  You can control the menu cycling using the mouse however I'm not sure you can choose a game using the mouse button....

[Lilwolf]

I might be adding mouse support to jfront.  

Amazingly enought... I JUST got my trackball actually into a control panel recently...  It DOES have a 8way flight stick on it (which currently controls the frontend) but every time the kids come down... they start flipping around the trackball...

[paigeoliver]

I may have to add some buttons inside the coin door, (hooked up via one of the sooper cheap keyboard encoders I bought on ebay), as I have encountered another issue.

The "Press any button" prompt does not count the button of a serial mouse as a button.

Mame doesn't seem to recognize the 3rd button on a serial mouse.

I REALLY don't want to add anything to the perfect control panel, so I am just going to go with a bank of admin buttons inside the coin door. I was hoping on just using that third button as both "credit" and as a shift button to exit, and/or pause. But the third button not working deal, combined with the "press any button (except mouse buttons)" thing means that I am stuck with admin buttons.

[Spaced Invader]

You could use Joyemu. It works with DOS & Windows 9x/ME. Version 4.1 includes...

Support for mouse input: 4 direction movements, 3 fire buttons, autofire individually set for each button; the mouse can be used alone or together with one or two joysticks

Link:
http://members.tripod.com/~szanella/joyemueng.htm

Edit for info: This should fix that third mouse button problem too...it'll let you map it to a key. Hope this helps!

[Howard_Casto]

Every good fe supports mouse input, but here's the problem.....  You need mouse button 1 for starting the game and mouse buton 2 for exiting..... Now you can scroll up and down the currently gamelist with the mouse axis in dk, but how exactly are you going to change to another list? You need a minimum of 4 buttons to navigate in most modern fe's.  

[rockhopper]

How many lists do you need for trackball only games? I would have thought one list would do it

[paigeoliver]

I would have absolutely no reason to have more than one game list. There are only like 20 roms on the thing in the first place. I skipped out on a lot of the vertical games, just used the horizontal tball games and Tempest, Millipede, and Centipede.

I think I am going to need a few admin buttons anyway. There are a megaton of suitable PC games that I could add if I just had enter and escape buttons. Just going to put them all inside the cashbox door (lower of the 2 coin doors). I also plan on making the coin reject button trigger a switch, and possibly hooking up the bill acceptor (it seems to work).

Another possible place for admin buttons is on the back door. The cabinet is small enough to reach around back and slap a button.

Finally, an option would be to put all those lockbar holes to good use, and add a small box over them on one side with buttons on it.

I am REALLY tempted to add a 4-way joystick and 2 more buttons to this thing. But I also REALLY don't want to alter the panel. Good thing I don't have a 1 1/8th metal holesaw around, otherwise I probably would have already done it. Doing that would mean I had all 4 major Mame cabinets. (8-way horizontal, 8-way vertical, 4-way vertical, and 4-way horizontal). I also considered adding that Tac/Scan spinner that I had, but I can't get the darn thing off the panel it is on.

[Howard_Casto]

Then I would reccomend mine.... As far as I know it's the only fe that supports analog scrolling via the mouse.  This will be necessary with such few buttons.  (ie the faster you move the mouse the faster the gamelist scrolls)  It does require sensitivity adjustment though to get it just perfect for your particular hack, so be warned.  

[paigeoliver]

Then I would reccomend mine.... As far as I know it's the only fe that supports analog scrolling via the mouse.  This will be necessary with such few buttons.  (ie the faster you move the mouse the faster the gamelist scrolls)  It does require sensitivity adjustment though to get it just perfect for your particular hack, so be warned.  

Hmm, I read through your FAQ and it doesn't seem like I have even close to the system needed to run your frontend. The computer in this thing is a Pentium 400 with 64 ram and onboard video.