CPWizard and other emulators

[Zzap]

I have a 2 monitor set up where I have my control panel showing up on the second monitor which is working great for Mame games. I have tried setting up a profile for Daphne laserdisc games but am getting the following error in the logs when it tries to draw the layout (note I have made a copy of the Daphne exe for each laserdisc game to make the config super simple):
 
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: OnProfileCheck (Profiles) -> Emulator Running hWnd: 0x3736164
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: OnProfileCheck (Profiles) -> Window Rect: {X=0,Y=0,Width=800,Height=600}
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: OnProfileCheck (Profiles) -> Command Line: spaceace.exe sae vldp -x 800 -y 600 -framefile F:\daphne\framefile\spaceace_framefile.txt -fullscreen -useoverlaysb 0 -bank 0 10011000 -bank 1 00000110 -nohwaccel
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: OnProfileCheck (Profiles) -> GameName: Space Ace
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Show
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Emulator Running: Space Ace
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Game Found: Space Ace
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Reading Database
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Parsing Labels
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Getting Game Details
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: TakeScreenshot (ProgramManager) -> Taking Screenshot
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ShowSub (ProgramManager) -> Showing LayoutSub Form
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: ERROR @ Paint (LayoutManager)
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:38:53 PM:    at bf.a(Graphics A_0, Int32 A_1, Int32 A_2, Int32 A_3, Int32 A_4, Boolean A_5)
[4024] 4/05/2013 4:39:01 PM: OnProfileCheck (Profiles) -> Emulator Stopped
 
Has anyone else got CPWizard working ok with Daphne? At this stage I would be happy to just create a static layout per game even!

[Dawgz Rule]

I have it working without issue on a single monitor.  My recommendation would be to jump up on the spesoft forums and post your issue.  They provide excellent support and should be able to identify the root cause of your issue. 

[Zzap]

Just in case anyone has a similar issue, here's what my fix was (a bit of a hack, but it works!). Basically this way tricks CPWizard into thinking the Daphne games are actually Mame games and displays the info.

• Edit Mininfo.xml to add entries for the Daphne games, using names such as lair, lair2, spaceace etc (I think there are already some entries for the Mame versions?? I created my own with different names)
• Make a bat file with a line in it that sets the window title to look like Mame (e.g. "TITLE MAME: [lair]"), and another line to call Daphne
• Have the front end call the bat file, CPWizard will see the bat file windows titled MAME, think it's actually mame, and then using the name in the square brackets at the end, it looks that up in the Mininfo.xml file and shows the appropriate game info.
• It can be worth adding marquees, snaps, cabinet pics etc into the mame directories as appropriate depending on what you are showing on your CP screen

Hope that was useful for someone else, note that the Mininfo.xml file will be overwritten by CPWizard when it rebuilds its lists (I think this happens if you have the reload option ticked, or if you change the mame directory settings?) Either way, it's worth keeping a copy of the edited version just in case it breaks.