johnny5 or CPviewer example

[deadmoney5]

I've been reading a bunch of posts about these control panel viewers and am wondering if someone can post some screenshots of them in action..

For example...say I have Track n Field highlighted in Mame...What would CPviewer or Johnny5 look like in action?

thanks

[screaming]

I've been reading a bunch of posts about these control panel viewers and am wondering if someone can post some screenshots of them in action..

For example...say I have Track n Field highlighted in Mame...What would CPviewer or Johnny5 look like in action?

thanks

  This is the layout I made for my own cab.. When a game is selected in MAMEWAH, I hit a pre-designated button and this pops up describing the buttons in use for the selected game.  

  Everything except for the words is part of the background of the actual image. After I went through setting up the layout in CPViewer, CPViewer, using controls.xml, puts in all the text that you see.

-Steve

edit:  Oops.  Forgot to add the pic

[screaming]

..And here's another example that shows more labels, maybe to give you a better idea of what's going on.

  CPViewer doesn't yet support custom, remapped controls so it only shows the default MAME layout, but you get the idea.

-Steve

[deadmoney5]

How hard is it to do this?

guess I better do some research on this..that's awesome

thanks for the reply!!

[big daddy]

how hard is it?

well I got cpviewer working pretty easily but it doesn't support custom controls and for some reason it occasionally hangs in mamewah.

I've been trying to get Johnny5 to work but can't so far (I posted a message about it on this forum this weekend, but no resolution yet).  I say I can't get it to work...I can get it to work with the general labels (# players, game desc, etc.), but the joystick/button labels don't show up and I'm sure it's because of the whole ctrlr configuration.  The problem for me is that there is a walkthru on using ctrlr ini files on some site, but mame doesn't use those anymore...they use XML .cfg files and there's no walkthrough that I can find about those      So I don't know if I'm doing something wrong in my ctrlr files or if I'm doing something wrong in Johnny5 setup.

[screaming]

nah, it's not too hard.   If you've ever made a layout using one of the various skinners for a frontend, it's the same thing.  Coming up with a good background is the hard part, IMO.

-Steve

[rchadd]

how does it integrate with Mamewah?

for example, i would like...

when i scroll down game list in mamewah menu it would display a graphic indicating the CP layout with the buttons labelled.

is this possible?

or simply display the graphic when a game is selected in the menu, just before it invokes the emulator.

[screaming]

how does it integrate with Mamewah?

for example, i would like...

when i scroll down game list in mamewah menu it would display a graphic indicating the CP layout with the buttons labelled.

is this possible?

  No.  Feature is being considered by Minwah though, so we might be able to expect something along these lines eventually.

  This feature has a couple issues associated with it that make it kind of hard to implement, but all of which just mean that the viewers and the process of integrating the controls.xml information just have to mature a little bit first, before they will REALLY be useful.

  1) Normally all the artwork that gets dynamically updated when you scroll a list are static images on your hard drive.   Since everyone's CP is different and there are many different FE skin/CP combinations, the display is dynamic too.  This can be a slow slow process on a slow processor.

  2) When you're scrolling the list of games, it will blatently show how young the project is..  Maybe kick some butts in gear to get information submitted to the controls.dat project?

or simply display the graphic when a game is selected in the menu, just before it invokes the emulator.

  MAMEWAH can do this now, I believe beginning with with version .97.  Check out the docs for whichever version you're running.

-Steve
 

[big daddy]

how does it integrate with Mamewah?

near as I can tell there are 3 types of integration with Mamewah

1) it can launch automatically when you start a game.  It actually launches before the rom is launched.  It does this for every game though so even if you know the controls for that game you see that control panel each time the game is launched
2) it can launch by pressing a certain key/button at the list view.  This is my preferred integration method.  As you scroll through the list and you are about to launch the game..if you want to see the controls for that game you hit a certain button
3) you can compile a certain patch into mame that allows it to be displayed whenever you hit the pause button.  

Keep in mind that not all the games have the controls documented.  There's a project going on to try to encourage people to document them but there are a lot of games that are yet to be documented.

[SirPoonga]

Well, for Johnny5 you can have whatever background image you want (IE your control panel).    Johnny5 has no background if I remember by default, so it's just a set of 2 player joys and buttons.  All configurable ofc course, like cpviewer.

The thing with Johnny5 is it uses your ctrlr files to display the information correctly.

Here's buddabing's pause hack.
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=22096
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=25555;start=msg210228#msg210228

[SirPoonga]

in ss1.jpg, why is right and left backwards?

[deadmoney5]

I figured it out on my pc, but then realized that my cabinet pc doesn't have .NET framework

Can you download that into a zip?  If so, I can just use my cruzer mini to transfer it

[screaming]

in ss1.jpg, why is right and left backwards?

  Hah!  I just noticed that too when I posted it I don't know why.. it's set up right in the layout designer!

-Steve

[screaming]

I figured it out on my pc, but then realized that my cabinet pc doesn't have .NET framework

Can you download that into a zip?  If so, I can just use my cruzer mini to transfer it

  Sure you can..  It's on Microsoft's site somewhere, but it's a pretty hefty download if you're on a modem.

-S

[BobbyG66]

Where can you get Johnny5?

I have looked at Howards Casto's site, and it's not listed.
Is it under another name? Hidden somewhere?

Thanks
Bob

[papaschtroumpf]

do a search. This was asked 2 days ago, and 3 dys before that...

[papaschtroumpf]

I think this is a summary of the current situation, please let me know if I'm wrong since I have only tried Johnny5 at this time (and unsuccessfully). I will correct this post as mistakes are pointed out. In fact it might warrant its own post once I get the info right, since the controls.dat viewer is becoming the "holy grail" for a lot of us.

This thread is about applications that allow you to display the controls for a specific game using the data from the controls.dat project (the actual data file is either controls.ini or controls.xml),

There are 3 differnet apps: Johnny5, CPViewer and CPMaker

- CPViewer seems to be the easiest to configure but has less features than Johnny5, in particular if you remapped some controls from inside of MAME (for example remap movement to diagonals on an 8-way joystick for Qbert) then CPViewer will not display the right information.
CPViewer has its own layout editor

- Johnny5 doesn't suffer from the limitation of CPViewer but I couldn't get it to work at all (and I'm not the only one with this problem).
Johnny5 also has its own editor but is less user friendly than CPViewer
Johnny5 is more likely to see future development since Howard says he will work on it, whereas JCrouse stated that CPViewer was mostly for his own use and he may not be interested in future development such as CTRL file support.

Both Jonnhy5 and CPViewer are "standalone" applications that can be called from a front end like MameWah, wither at the press of a dedicated button or when launching a ROM

- CPMaker is slightly different in that it is designed to be integrated into MAME (it is a MAME patch) although it seems to be useable as a standalone app (? someone help me here). By integrating it into MAME, you can display the control panel even when the game is running, for example when you pause it.
CP Maker doesn't overlay text onto a background image but actually combines mutliple images to build the final image displayed. One nice thing about this is that it can dim the unused buttons and controls.
CPMAke understands CPViewer's layout so you can use the CPViewer editor.

[screaming]

Great State of the Arcade Nation Address, there papaschtroumpf   It looks to me to be pretty accurate!

  I think the new CPMaker (badabing's baby) will not only enable you to do everything CPViewer (jcrouse's joy) will do (minus the layout editor), but will also allow you to patch the MAME executable to show the controls when you normally would just pause the game.

  I would like to get Badabing's comment on this though because I think just releasing the patch without much information will confuse some people.   From what I gather (without trying first hand yet), you apply the patch in your MAME source directory, then edit the makefile to indicate whether you want to build the MAME patch or the CPMaker executable (CPViewer look-a-like).

-Steve

-Steve

[Buddabing]

Great State of the Arcade Nation Address, there papaschtroumpf   It looks to me to be pretty accurate!

  I think the new CPMaker (badabing's baby) will not only enable you to do everything CPViewer (jcrouse's joy) will do (minus the layout editor), but will also allow you to patch the MAME executable to show the controls when you normally would just pause the game.

  I would like to get Badabing's comment on this though because I think just releasing the patch without much information will confuse some people.   From what I gather (without trying first hand yet), you apply the patch in your MAME source directory, then edit the makefile to indicate whether you want to build the MAME patch or the CPMaker executable (CPViewer look-a-like).

-Steve

-Steve

You are correct. Patch your source code with the patch. Then you can either 1) compile MAME with integrated CPMaker and artwork display code. (default)
2) compile mame with just the artwork display code (comment out CPMAKER in the makefile), or 3) compile standalone CPMaker (run make in the src/cpmaker subdirectory)

I wanted it to be as easy as possible to use CPMaker. All you have to do is patch and compile and it will run out of the box.

Sorry for any confusion.

HTH,
Buddabing

[screaming]

2) compile mame with just the artwork display code (comment out CPMAKER in the makefile)

  What will option #2 do for me?

I wanted it to be as easy as possible to use CPMaker. All you have to do is patch and compile and it will run out of the box.

  This is great! I seriously can't wait to check it out

-Steve

[Buddabing]

  What will option #2 do for me?

You can use a different artwork generator: johnny5's -justprint option, CPViewer (if there is a future version that supports it) or homegrown artwork that's not generated with any program. Option #2 will just display controls.png when pause is pressed.

[papaschtroumpf]

It was my understanding that CPMaker would build the panel picture from graphic elements, just not overlaying text over a background image (so that you could dim unused controls for example), is it not true anymore? (I don't know whow you would do that since johnny5 or CPViewer don't have that concept of a picture for every control).

Also the CPViewer layout designer is easy to use but doesn't appear to have trackball support? Also there is no label for diagonals on the joystick?

[screaming]

It was my understanding that CPMaker would build the panel picture from graphic elements, just not overlaying text over a background image (so that you could dim unused controls for example), is it not true anymore? (I don't know whow you would do that since johnny5 or CPViewer don't have that concept of a picture for every control).

  It is certainly true!  His above post talks about 3 separate configurations of CPMaker, one built into MAME that will display the game's control information when you hit pause, one built into MAME that will just display a controls.png file (in your MAME dir) when you hit pause, and one that's a standalone program that will display the controls for the game passed as a parameter (for using in a frontend).  

  Three separate configurations.  No functionality has been removed - only added!

Also the CPViewer layout designer is easy to use but doesn't appear to have trackball support? Also there is no label for diagonals on the joystick?

  Don't know much about these.. I don't know what CPMaker supports vs. what CPViewer's layout designer uses.

-Steve

[papaschtroumpf]

I haven't had time to go though all the directories in cpmaker (after the patch is applied   ) but files in there seem to imply that it's supported, I'm just not sure how you make it work.
I'm not at my cab so I can't try any of this until tonight or tomorrow night.

[Buddabing]

It was my understanding that CPMaker would build the panel picture from graphic elements, just not overlaying text over a background image (so that you could dim unused controls for example), is it not true anymore? (I don't know whow you would do that since johnny5 or CPViewer don't have that concept of a picture for every control).

  It is certainly true!  His above post talks about 3 separate configurations of CPMaker, one built into MAME that will display the game's control information when you hit pause, one built into MAME that will just display a controls.png file (in your MAME dir) when you hit pause, and one that's a standalone program that will display the controls for the game passed as a parameter (for using in a frontend).  

  Three separate configurations.  No functionality has been removed - only added!

Also the CPViewer layout designer is easy to use but doesn't appear to have trackball support? Also there is no label for diagonals on the joystick?

  Don't know much about these.. I don't know what CPMaker supports vs. what CPViewer's layout designer uses.

-Steve

The standalone version of CPMaker doesn't display anything. It just generates an image. If you like you can use CPMaker to create a background image for use with CPViewer or Johnny5. That way, if you feel uncomfortable compiling MAME or you want to use an unsupported (pre 0.84) version, you can have your frontend call a batch file, which will then call CPMaker to create the background image and CPViewer or Johnny to display it.

[papaschtroumpf]

Well, that's an idea for my "PC games" emulator: I was going to generate a "fake" controls.xml or controls.dat by hand to have it parsed by Johnny5 or CP viewer or CPMaker, but it might be simpler to just make a precanned image (since I have only about a dozen games) and have it displayed by one of the other apps.
I hadn't realized that those apps could display a precanned imaged.

Too bad I can't display it at will while playing the game (side LCD screen anyone?   )

[papaschtroumpf]

actually I'm not sure how to use Johnny5 as a "standalone viewer" that would simply display controls.png (or jpg since j5 doesn't seem to deal with png) and exits when a key is pressed. Maybe don't define any labels but just a background?
I haven't looked at using CPviewer that way.
Is there another view and exit type of app?