I was going to write my own front end/windows shell but decided to go with MAMEWAH instead since it does virtually eveything I need it to. I'm getting it to work bit-by-bit and was thinking that maybe we as a community could help by compiling a little FAQ. The problems I've had so far:
No list of ROMS:
FIX: Used mame32 to output the file mame.dat from the dos screen (didn't work from the run command). I opened a DOS window (win98) changed to my mame directory
cd c:\games\arcade and typed
-mame -listxml|xml2info > mame.dat Then changed the mame.ini to read: "list_generation_method rom_folder_vs_dat_file"
No snapshots/graphics.
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=23347;start=msg190339#msg190339FIX: I registered the paintx.dll from the run command.
Custom layout not being used.
FIX: RTFM

. It's outlined in the \mamewah\docs\layout.txt
Catver info not being displayed.
FIX: This one troubled me. The catver.ini file must be in your root MAME folder (
c:\games\arcade for me) Then the mame.ini must be edited to read:
catver_ini_file C:\Games\Arcade\catver.ini
I was leaving out the catver.ini. Then enter MAMEWAH and regenerate the game list.
FYI: I downloaded the zipped 0.87 version of catver.ini from
http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/This has all been On Win98se, MAME 0.58 & MAMEWAH 1.51