New version of Kymaera available

[PacManFan]

I posted a new version of my Front End Kymaera to www.pacmanfan.com , This version has a few bug fixes, including the fix for the emu's configs not showing up correctly. There are still a few more things on my to-do list before Kymaera is out of Beta:

1) Documentation
2) Animated Text Colors
3) Screen saver
4) Game import from text files
5) fix the text control's color and font size properties
6) new default skins for various resolutions (including vertical skins)

Most of these are minor issues, and Kymaera seems very stable now.
I'd like to hear about any success stories (or problems) relating to Kymaera.

-PacManFan

[PacManFan]

**bump**

[Boris]

Here is my first test on a fresh install :

1/ config the input
- change the resolution to 1024x768x32
- affect a key to previous and next screen
2/ config mame.emu
- browse for emu exe to choose my mame
- add a rom path
- then select the old path to delete... bug : emu exe back to c:\emu\... (the old value)

3/ I just change this and launch the front end
- front end ok, launching game ok, but no graphic. It is normal as I don't say where they are
- Scrolling is not great, going to next game is ok but there is a problem when you go to previous game.

So exit and back to config the graphics.

4/ I configure the snaps and the marquees. Exit and launch the fe.
- Argh. Now it is long to launch : 20 seconds. The graphics are on a lan disk, which I connect by wifi 11g. Is the fe loading all the graphics ?

5/ Exit, go to the configuration and add the other graphics...
- Argh again ! Launching the config tools is also really long (same amount of seconds)
- Now, with all the graphics configure to the good path, it take 50 seconds to load (the fe or the config tool)

In my mamecab, I will not have the time delay (I hope) because no network access, but it is really strange.
 And I don't understand why the config tool has this impact too... Why did it search for the graphic ?

6/ exit the fe and then relaunch : position are on game one, there is no save of the state

7/ the order : it is not the game name order, difficult to found game

8/ last one for this time :
I go to the next screen... have a look on the screenshot. No wheel for me this time.

Boris

[PacManFan]

Let's see if I can address some of these issues:

Leave the previous /next screens alone for now, Kymaera skins can support multiple "screens" or views of game information on a per-skin basis. Currently I have 3 "screens" , The main screen, the info1 screen and the screensaver screen. It looks like you're viewing the info1 screen, which isn't layed out at all on the default skin. Disable those key mappings to the next/previous screens for now, and stick with the main screen that appears by default, or you canb go into the skin editor and lay out the info1 screen and save it.

I think the speed of loading concerns that you have are 2 things:
The FE loads only the graphics it needs at the time.
1) You are using a wi-fi connection (not as fast as a disk)
2) The first time you use a gamelist, Kymaera converts it from a XML file to a faster binary format to use. This will happen every time you change a game list using the kymaeraconfig program.


Saving the current position in the game list:
Yup, it sure should do that, it's on my to-do list


The ording of games in the game list is defined when you create a game list. I think for the mame_games3.xml gamelist, I accidently sort by rom name instead of game name. You can re-sort that in the gamelist and save it back out.

That preview wheel looks pretty screwed up, I'll have to check my 32bpp rotation code. It should work fine in 16bpp though. I'll put that on my bug list.

Hope this helps!

-PMF