Johnny 5, CPViewer, CPmaker questions

[Tiger-Heli]

I have two things I would like to accomplish - first, generate a set of CP images showing my CP and the functions of each button that I can display in EmuLoader.  Second, have the images either displayed or auto-generated when I pause the games in MAME.  Ideally, I would like to have an image with 4 directional arrows displayed for 4-way games, and 8 directional arrows for 8-way games.

Here's where I stand on this.

Johnny 5 - I understand how to make this work, but it only runs on Win2k for me and not on Win98.  http://fe.donkeyfly.com/forum/index.php?topic=120.msg545#msg545 (and my gaming computer is Win98).  I can generate the images using Johnny5 even using the directional arrows, but my MAME ctrlr files are on my home PC. . .  I end up swapping the mylayout.jpg file and running it from the command-line, taking a screen print, pasting it into Irfanview, and saving it with the appropriate name in my \emuloader\hints\ folder, but this is a lot of work for 1600 games.

CP Viewer - I just started playing with this again today.  It works under Win2k, but it wants to place it's files in the Root directory rather than the folder I specified, no biggie, but I have the following questions:  Basically, I got it working about like Johnny5 does, but  I have the following questions:

There doesn't seem to be a way to display misc labels like "2P Alternating", "Player 1 Controls", like Johnny 5 does.

There is a history label - Does this pull the miscellaneous info from Controls.dat, If not what does it use as a source?  (Also, if not, is there any way to display this info?

Is there a way to use different background images with it?

There are options for Exit Key and Preview Key.  How do I set these, and how does it know what game to display the info for.  (And could I set them both to P and have it work when I paused and unpaused regular MAME?)

I ran the program under Win2k with a 1024x768 layout at 1152x864 screen resolution.  The only way to clear the layout from the screen was to select it in the taskbar and select Alt-F4.  This will be inconvenient if I am running at 1024x768 and the image is full-screen.

Is there a way to have it run a batch file and auto-generate all the images.

BuddaMAME - I know it is supposed to be able to display the viewer info when I pause the game.  I have the binary of BuddaMAME 0.96, I think, but I don't know how to set this up and get it working.  Also, I typically run MAME games at 800x600, but I run Vector games as 1024x768, and sometimes use lower resolutions for other games.  But Johnny and CPViewer are configured (by me) to run at 1024x768.  Do I need to re-do them to work at 800x600, or will BuddaMAME auto-scale them?  How do I get them to switch, or should I just re-config to work at 800x600 and have a smaller preview for the vector games.

Thanks in advance!!!!!

[Buddabing]

I have two things I would like to accomplish - first, generate a set of CP images showing my CP and the functions of each button that I can display in EmuLoader.

[Tiger-Heli]

PM me if you need help.

PM sent.

[Veinman]

I'm going to be delving into all this very soon (once I get my cab all wired and then figure out mamewah). What exactly is emuloader?

[Tiger-Heli]

EmuLoader is a very full-featured MAME frontend - similar to MAMEwah, but a lot more Windowsy.

[SirPoonga]

emuloader is what alot of people over at mameworld use.  It's hosted on mameworld too, isn't it... goes off to check.  it is like mame32 on steroids.

[jcrouse]

CPViewer

There is no way to display "misc" labels.

History source = mame.dat

Different Backrounds = Yes

Exit key is used for closing the app when it is displaying controls for a game.

Preview key = I can't remember (I'll blame it on age )

I wrote the app for personal use. I use MameWAH as my FE. It displays the info for the game that is currently highlighted in your game list. It ONLY displays before Mame is launched and not while Mame is paused.

If you have an exit key configured it should close the application and eliminate your Alt-F4 issue.

Batch file and background image generation = No, it only uses a static predefined background image for Mame. However, with Jerry Fath's CPVW add-on it is possible to feed it a commandline parameter for the background image. I use this for my consoles because I have a different background image for each platform that contains the consoles logo.

Hope this helps,
John

[Howard_Casto]

With the help of budda's tools, j5 can do everything you are aksing. 

Try actually reading my wip, 98 woes *should* be fixed upon the next release. 

[Tiger-Heli]

PM me if you need help.

E-mail sent.

[Veinman]

Does AtomicFE work with these control viewer apps?

[Tiger-Heli]

With the help of budda's tools, j5 can do everything you are aksing. 

Try actually reading my wip, 98 woes *should* be fixed upon the next release. 

I read the wip, but the latest Johhny5 has been pending for something like a year.  But I have decided to do use Johnny5.  It won't work on 98, but it works well on Win2k.

I noticed that Johnny tends to ignore the position tag if I use the -justprint option, but I can avoid this (I think) but setting my screen size to the desired output resolution.

[Tiger-Heli]

Just wanted to take a minute to thank BuddaBing for all the Personal Message help setting up CPMaker and creating Batch Files.  I really appreciate it.

[Veinman]

Tiger- could you post the info you received? I started trying to figure this stuff out and am having the following problems:

1. When I try to run cpmaker.exe, it flashes on the screen for a second and then disappears. Documentation seems thin at best on that one.

2. Buddamame- I'm using it for my emulator, but I also don't see how to tell it to launch an app / display an image, etc. Is it only prepared to work with cpmaker?

3.  cpvw - I have it showing my background, but it doesn't put the controls on it. It doesn't seem to care what I use for the -r switch. It should be finding controls.ini, since it's in the same path.

[jcrouse]

3.

[Buddabing]

1. When I try to run cpmaker.exe, it flashes on the screen for a second and then disappears. Documentation seems thin at best on that one.

2. Buddamame- I'm using it for my emulator, but I also don't see how to tell it to launch an app / display an image, etc. Is it only prepared to work with cpmaker?

Thin? Anorexic!

The CPMaker executable should be run with a romname and optional cloneof name as parameters.

If you have extmakectrl 1 in your mame.ini, BuddaMAME will call a batch file named "makectrl.bat" in your mame directory. If you have an empty makectrl.bat, you can display any artwork you want when pause is pressed, just name it controls.png in your mame directory.

Unfortunately I am working on another project now, but I promise I will create more robust documentation for you in the future. For now, you can PM me any questions you might have. Or you can consult the examples I have provided for you.

[Veinman]

CPVW needs to be used in conjunction with CPViewer.

John

I have both installed in the same folder.

[Tiger-Heli]

Tiger- could you post the info you received? I started trying to figure this stuff out and am having the following problems:

1. When I try to run cpmaker.exe, it flashes on the screen for a second and then disappears. Documentation seems thin at best on that one.

2. Buddamame- I'm using it for my emulator, but I also don't see how to tell it to launch an app / display an image, etc. Is it only prepared to work with cpmaker?

3.  cpvw - I have it showing my background, but it doesn't put the controls on it. It doesn't seem to care what I use for the -r switch. It should be finding controls.ini, since it's in the same path.

BTW, I ended up using Johnny5 to make the images and CPmaker to display them.  Also, I didn't care about hiding unused controls, so these instructions bypass that.

CP Maker Setup - First, download new versions of CPMSUPPL.ZIP and CPMIMAGE.ZIP from the links above.  You unzip them to a folder under MAME - i.e. you should have CPmaker.exe in the same folder as mame.exe, beneath MAME you should have folders for CPMimage, ctrlr, images, layout, panels, xmlcache.

(Alternately, you can install CPmaker in it's own folder with these subfolders, and copy the MAME.exe file to this folder)

Test with "CPmaker 1942" - It shouldn't show anything on screen, but it should create a controls.png image with a hotrod panel with three buttons and a trackball.

Now to make it work for you - I already had a layout (graphic) and a .lof (positions) file for use with Johnny5, so I did the following (using BuddaBing's advice):

Copied mylayout.jpg (from Johnny/layouts/images) to C:\Mame\images\tiger.jpg.  Copied Johnny/layouts/default.lof to C:\MAME\layout\tiger.lof.

I then copied C:\MAME\ctrlr\keybd.cfg to tiger.cfg.  (You should be able to use your defined .cfg file, but I didn't have one and the default MAME one didn't work.).

Then do the following:

- Change your cpmaker.ini so that the line containing "panelfile" that is not commented out to read "panelfile,1panel.ini,"

- In your panel directory, edit 1panel.ini to read:
panelfile,tiger.txt,
majority,tiger,

- Copy one of the panel files, such as panel2.txt, to tiger.txt

- Edit tiger.txt:
startpanel,tiger,
controller, -- your ctrlr file here with no path --
layout, -- your Johnny5 layout with no path --
template, -- your background image with no path --
endpanel,tiger,

Delete all controls and label entries in tiger.txt

I.e. panels\tiger.txt looks like this:
startpanel,tiger,
controller,tiger,
layout,tiger.lof,
template,tiger.jpg,
endpanel,tiger,

(Already done) - Copy your ctrlr file into the directory pointed to in your cpmaker.ini, under "ctrlrpath"

(Already done) - Copy your background image into the directory pointed to in your cpmaker.ini, under "imagepath".

(Already done) - Copy your Johnny layout into the directory pointed to in your cpmaker.ini, under "layoutpath".

You can change the path names in your cpmaker.ini to point to wherever you want, keeping in mind that CPMaker may not understand paths with spaces in them.

This got CPmaker working, but the font size was not consistent, and only the buttons and directional information was shown, whereas Johnny would give me gamename, simultaneous/alternating, 4-way/8-way, and extra info.

I decided what I wanted was to have a bunch of pre-made images in the the C:\EL Pics\Hints folder that EmuLoader could display and BuddaMAME could display.

To do this, I placed a copy of Irfanview in my Johnny folder (so Johnny saves .png images).  Then I created the following batch files (edit in Notepad and save as txt with the .bat extension.

Batch1. bat

johnny5 %1 -justprint
copy controls.png D:\WS\images\%1.png

I later moved the files from D:\WS\images to C:\EL Pics\Hints.  BuddaMAME can handle spaces under Win98, not sure about other OS's.

Batch2.bat

call batch1 statriv2
call batch1 005
call batch1 yard
call batch1 vsyard
call batch1 1941
call batch1 1942
call batch1 1943
call batch1 1943kai
call batch1 1944
call batch1 19xx
call batch1 openice
etc.

I did some creative find/replace in Word to create Batch2.bat.  A couple of warnings:

On a P4 1.8 Ghz, this program takes about 45 minutes/1000 games and for a 1024x768 image, requires about 300M/1,000 games.  You might want to run it overnight, and make sure you have enough free disk space.

Once started, the screen will flash black and then back, so you really can't get anything done on the PC while it is running.

On Win2k, Ctrl-Break and Ctrl-Z had no effect, I was able to shut it down using Ctrl-Alt-Del and ending task on it from the task manager.  Not sure what will or won't work on other OS's.

Now to display the image in BuddaMAME, first edit your MAME.ini so that -extmakectrl is set to 1.

Then create a makectrl.bat file in you mame directory.  I expanded mine to look like this:

echo off

rem the above statement keeps commands from being displayed
rem This command deletes the current file to prevent a previous version from being displayed rem in the wrong game.

del controls.png

rem this copies the parent file to the mame directory

copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%2.png" controls.png

rem this copies the clone (current game) file to the mame directory

copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%1.png" controls.png

The only drawback to this is a lot of the clones will have "No controls specified", but the parent will use the same controls, so you need to manually delete a lot of the clone images.

Finally, for Buddabing - this works great for horizontal games.  (Image is converted from 1024x768 to 800x600, but looks good).  If I were less lazy, I would re-do Johnny to recreate the images at 800x600, but I am that lazy.

Ideally, I wish there were a way to have BuddaMAME switch to 1024x768 and display the controls full-screen when paused and then switch back to the game resolution afterwards.  (Or at least display the controls full-screen at 800x600 if I am running a 224x288 vertical game at 800x600 res).

I think this can be done using multires, but I don't know if you want to make multires a requirement for BuddaMAME, or if the display were done from an external .bat file, I don't know how to display the image full-screen after running multires.

FWIW.

[Buddabing]

Nice post! I saved it for my own use in documentation.

FYI you could also use my ListGen utility to generate your batch2.bat:

Your filter.sql would be:

Code: [Select]

.separator ' '
select 'call batch1',romname from gamedata;
Then run 'listgen -frontend romlist -skip_final_step -output batch2.bat'

[Howard_Casto]

J5 doesn't give accurate output unless you also include the "cloneof" parameter. 

so you need to send

johnny5.exe %1 -cloneof %2  -justprint with "%2" being wherever the heck budda stores the cloneof property

[Buddabing]

J5 doesn't give accurate output unless you also include the "cloneof" parameter.

[Tiger-Heli]

Lastly, makectrl.bat can be changed to use the normal picture, and the parent's picture if the normal picture is not available:

Code: [Select]

echo off

rem the above statement keeps commands from being displayed
rem This command deletes the current file to prevent a previous version from being displayed rem in the wrong game.

del controls.png

rem this copies the appropriate controls.png file

if exist "c:\EL Pics\hints\%1.png"
   copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%1.png" controls.png
else if exist "c:\EL Pics\hints\%2.png"
   copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%1.png" controls.png

The previous two lines already did this -

rem this copies the parent file to the mame directory
copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%2.png" controls.png

This will replace controls.png with the parent file of the game, if none exists, you will get a file not found and move on.

rem this copies the clone (current game) file to the mame directory
copy "c:\EL Pics\hints\%1.png" controls.png

This will either copy the exact romname (possibly replacing the parent image) or if not found, will leave the parent image in place.

Either method should work, though.

Buddabing-  Could you look at these questions from my earlier reply:

Ideally, I wish there were a way to have BuddaMAME switch to 1024x768 and display the controls full-screen when paused and then switch back to the game resolution afterwards.  (Or at least display the controls full-screen at 800x600 if I am running a 224x288 vertical game at 800x600 res).

I think this can be done using multires, but I don't know if you want to make multires a requirement for BuddaMAME, or if the display were done from an external .bat file, I don't know how to display the image full-screen after running multires.

[Buddabing]

Either method should work, though.

If both images exist, then you'll need a copy /Y on the second one to avoid a prompt.

Buddabing-

[Tiger-Heli]

If both images exist, then you'll need a copy /Y on the second one to avoid a prompt.

Probably, I didn't seem to, but I may not have run into the condition either.

I don't know how to dynamically switch resolutions like you are describing within MAME. Using -artres 2, the resolution is usually sufficient to be able to see text clearly. I think the cost/benefit ratio of figuring it out would be high.

Not really a resolution problem, per se.  It would just be nice if the image weren't scrunched into the little area that MAME uses for vertical games.

Howard is working on a way to display Johnny output directly when pause is pressed without invoking any special code within MAME. This might be a good solution for you if you need higher resolution in your pause display.

Probably so.  We'll see when it is out within the next two days, right Howard?