Recommended Front End

[NickC]

What is the best, or a recommended front end? I have tried a few, but they havent worked out for my tastes...game launcher, mame fe

[)p(]

just look at the software section of this site and try them all they all are designed for use in cabs.

(I see emutron has not been added yet...hey pacmanfan did you mail saint about your fe yet so it gets listed there?)

peter

[Chris]

The question is what you are looking for in a front end.  Each has its own stengths and weaknesses.

I'm on the hunt for a new front-end as well.  I would like mine to:

• Be completely non-Windowsy, and not require a mouse
• Not be configurable from within the interface, so it's guest-safe.
• Run multiple emulators, but allow them to be combined in the same selection list.
• Use marquees instead of text to identify each game
• Run non-emulator programs
• Automatically remove the text in parenthesis in a game name like (Set 1), (Bootleg), etc.
• Allow for certain games to be excluded by ROM name
• Show the historical information for each game
• Have multiple game lists

The closest I have come to this ideal is Game Launcher.  Since it's available with source, I'm thinking of tinkering with it to allow the marquee selection, parenthetical text removal, exclusion lists, show the game history, and combining different emulations into one list.  Does anyone know of a front end that comes closer to having this full feature list?

--Cgris

[PacManFan]

I would recommend checking out EmuTron,
I need to email saint to post a link to it. As far as good features, Emutron is highly configurable, and does not look like a windows program.

*Be completely non-Windowsy, and not require a mouse
-Yup
*Not be configurable from within the interface, so it's guest-safe.
-Yup
*Run multiple emulators, but allow them to be combined in the same selection list.
-Yup(Takes a little tweaking from the creation of game lists)
*Use marquees instead of text to identify each game
-Yup(currently it displays both, but the text can be removed by editing the script a little)
*Run non-emulator programs
-Yup (Any program you want with any command line options)
*Automatically remove the text in parenthesis in a game name like (Set 1), (Bootleg), etc.
-Sorta (You can use a perl script or something to go through the game list and remove anything in paranthesis, or you could remove them all by hand(UGH..))
*Allow for certain games to be excluded by ROM name
-Yup (In the game list creation tool, it has powerful configurable Include / Exclude filters)
*Show the historical information for each game
- Not Yet (I need to write a parser for the history.dat file)
*Have multiple game lists
-Definately


You can download the latest release of EmuTron at:
http://216.194.68.209/~admin17/

-PacManFan

The question is what you are looking for in a front end.  Each has its own stengths and weaknesses.

I'm on the hunt for a new front-end as well.  I would like mine to:

[*]Be completely non-Windowsy, and not require a mouse
[*]Not be configurable from within the interface, so it's guest-safe.
[*]Run multiple emulators, but allow them to be combined in the same selection list.
[*]Use marquees instead of text to identify each game
[*]Run non-emulator programs
[*]Automatically remove the text in parenthesis in a game name like (Set 1), (Bootleg), etc.
[*]Allow for certain games to be excluded by ROM name
[*]Show the historical information for each game
[*]Have multiple game lists
[/list]

The closest I have come to this ideal is Game Launcher.  Since it's available with source, I'm thinking of tinkering with it to allow the marquee selection, parenthetical text removal, exclusion lists, show the game history, and combining different emulations into one list.  Does anyone know of a front end that comes closer to having this full feature list?

--Cgris

[Chris]

I would recommend checking out EmuTron,

Thanks!  I'll check it out!

*Automatically remove the text in parenthesis in a game name like (Set 1), (Bootleg), etc.
-Sorta (You can use a perl script or something to go through the game list and remove anything in paranthesis, or you could remove them all by hand(UGH..))

I broke down and wrote a Word 2000 macro to do this.  If it's useful to anyone else, here it is:

Code: [Select]

Sub StripParen()
' by Chris La Mantia
'

DocEnd = 1
While DocEnd = 1
    Do Until Selection.Characters(1) = "(" Or DocEnd = 0
        DocEnd = Selection.MoveRight(Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1)
    Loop
    If Selection.Characters(1) = "(" Then
        Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
        Do Until Selection.Characters(Selection.Characters.Count) = ")" Or DocEnd = 0
            DocEnd = Selection.MoveRight(Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend)
        Loop
        Selection.Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
        DocEnd = Selection.MoveDown
        Selection.MoveStart
    End If
Wend
   
End Sub
Edited to only delete up to the closing parenthesis, not to the end of the line

[creatine28]

Does Emutron support Sidewinder Joysticks(Game port version)? ( I guess I could also just do the key config thing that came with the sidewinder software and assign key values)

I really like the way Emutron looks!  Very cool looking!

Thanks!

[PacManFan]

The current release version of Emutron does not support joysticks   , but wait! there's hope.... I did put in support for joysticks, but I haven't made a release of it yet. I'm testing with USB and gameport joysticks right now. The current release version of the script  will recognize the joystick codes in the keyref sections, but they don't do anything, Go ahead and put them in the script, and I'll release a version in the next day or 2 that supports DirectInput compatible joysticks.

-PacManFan

[creatine28]

Great!  Thanks much!

[PacManFan]

Hey everyone,
There is a new version of EmuTron, Ready for download at http://216.194.68.209/~admin17/
This version supports joysticks, and supports the video mode 320x240 for arcade monitors.
(Yeah Yeah, I know this is a cross post.)
-PacManFan.