Does this FE exist?

[pragma]

This is my front-end wishlist. I am currently in the process of configuring Lazarus, and afaik Lazarus might already do this, especially with SirPoonga's virtual directory manager which I've just received but haven't tried yet (in fact I don't even really know what it does yet.)

I'm looking for a front-end suitable to run on a MAME cab (i.e. no visible windows gui, full-screen), preferable able to display nicely on 768x1024 (i.e. vertically oriented), and with the following featureset first and foremost:

I want it to present a usable interface to 1000+ games. This is the hardest part. I would like it to interactively present lists... perhaps a first menu would look like:

"2500 games available. Choose games by:"
Show all games
Play type
Manufacturer
Year released
Controls used
Starting letter of the alphabet
etc.
etc.

Then, when one is picked, such as for instance, Controls used, it would show:

Capcom 1222 games
Williams 545 games
etc.
etc.

Again, if for instance Capcom where selected, it would again allow narrowing down by controls type, game type, year, etc. And so on. At every level, we could "show all games" and go into a Lazarus-style list.

Does this exist anywhere?

Thanks for any input.

Paul
T

[)p(]

I'm looking for a front-end suitable to run on a MAME cab (i.e. no visible windows gui, full-screen), preferable able to display nicely on 768x1024 (i.e. vertically oriented), and with the following featureset first and foremost:

lazarus does not yet support rotation. hopefully soon :-)
emutron, advance menu, gmaelauncher and mine do...actually i run mine in 768x1024 on my cab

I want it to present a usable interface to 1000+ games. This is the hardest part. I would like it to interactively present lists... perhaps a first menu would look like:

"2500 games available. Choose games by:"
Show all games
Play type
Manufacturer
Year released
Controls used
Starting letter of the alphabet
etc.
etc.

Then, when one is picked, such as for instance, Controls used, it would show:

Capcom 1222 games
Williams 545 games
etc.
etc.

Again, if for instance Capcom where selected, it would again allow narrowing down by controls type, game type, year, etc. And so on. At every level, we could "show all games" and go into a Lazarus-style list.

Never seen a fe setup like that exactly before ;-)
i myself split the list in categorie sublist and use on the fly filtering to narrow the gamelist down to a manageble size if i feel like it...

peter

[Howard_Casto]

You can quite easily split up the MAME games by those categories, but not on the fly.  

The problem with console games is that info isn't readily available. (such as controls used, ect....)  BUT if you were to find the data and arrange it in a listinfo format, lazarus would read it and you could filter by that data.  At this point in time, there is basically only compiled "extra info" available for visual pinball and mame.  Other emulator developers aren't a thorough.

[pragma]

Hi Howard, Peter. Thanks for your replies. I understand. I am only really interested in MAME for now, but the fact that other emulators don't really have the compiled info is a bit of a drag.

My questions to you... (1) "not on the fly". Why not (specifically for mame)? Is this a technical issue? The files linked on your site seem to have lots of category etc. info by rom that could be parsed somehow; and (2) your emulator does have neat-o filtering (not that I've got it working yet!) but it doesn't seem to allow re-nesting of your filter options... i.e., if I've set up filters, and use one of them to filter a list, I can't re-filter the resulting list with one of the other filters. Is this a technical limitation? Does any front-end have this feature?

This would satisfy my requirement of providing a useful interfact to many games. I could for instance use a filtering system such as lazarus', and then create filters for each year, each starting letter, each play action type, etc. and refine my selection set until I'm ready to go into the full-gui mode with a reasonable amount of games to sort through (I find more than 50 games unrealistic in a cab interface -- isn't this a usability issue for y'all too?)

Thanks for your information and help

Paul

[)p(]

Hi Howard, Peter. Thanks for your replies. I understand. I am only really interested in MAME for now, but the fact that other emulators don't really have the compiled info is a bit of a drag.

My questions to you... (1) "not on the fly". Why not (specifically for mame)? Is this a technical issue? The files linked on your site seem to have lots of category etc. info by rom that could be parsed somehow; and (2) your emulator does have neat-o filtering (not that I've got it working yet!) but it doesn't seem to allow re-nesting of your filter options... i.e., if I've set up filters, and use one of them to filter a list, I can't re-filter the resulting list with one of the other filters. Is this a technical limitation? Does any front-end have this feature?

This would satisfy my requirement of providing a useful interfact to many games. I could for instance use a filtering system such as lazarus', and then create filters for each year, each starting letter, each play action type, etc. and refine my selection set until I'm ready to go into the full-gui mode with a reasonable amount of games to sort through (I find more than 50 games unrealistic in a cab interface -- isn't this a usability issue for y'all too?)

yeah howard add on the fly filtering to lazdx :-)
I myself use the on the fly filtering all the time to select subsets...the most useful i find is orientation, vector/raster, manufacturer and control type...

peter

[Howard_Casto]

Hi Howard, Peter. Thanks for your replies. I understand. I am only really interested in MAME for now, but the fact that other emulators don't really have the compiled info is a bit of a drag.

My questions to you... (1) "not on the fly". Why not (specifically for mame)? Is this a technical issue? The files linked on your site seem to have lots of category etc. info by rom that could be parsed somehow; and (2) your emulator does have neat-o filtering (not that I've got it working yet!) but it doesn't seem to allow re-nesting of your filter options... i.e., if I've set up filters, and use one of them to filter a list, I can't re-filter the resulting list with one of the other filters. Is this a technical limitation? Does any front-end have this feature?

This would satisfy my requirement of providing a useful interfact to many games. I could for instance use a filtering system such as lazarus', and then create filters for each year, each starting letter, each play action type, etc. and refine my selection set until I'm ready to go into the full-gui mode with a reasonable amount of games to sort through (I find more than 50 games unrealistic in a cab interface -- isn't this a usability issue for y'all too?)

Thanks for your information and help

Paul

I don't do on the fly because I wouldn't personally use it.  Also there is a speed issue.  Refiltering all the lists can take upwards of 5 minutes the way I do it now.  And to change the way I do it now would mean changing how the entire fe operates. (It's technical.)

There is going to be a single, on-the-fly list in dxlaz, but it will be based on the existing gamelists.... In other words I don't have to find the game's location again, which is what takes so long currently.  

Just for the record I don't find more than 50 games per list unpractical.  As a matter of fact, if my lists were only 50 games long then I wouldn't bother with a  fe. ;-)  

Although the way peter's fe is setup it's crucial, as it's simply too time consuming to go through several hundred cabinets in fps mode.  That's probably why his does it and mine doesn't.  

[)p(]

 

Although the way peter's fe is setup it's crucial, as it's simply too time consuming to go through several hundred cabinets in fps mode.  That's probably why his does it and mine doesn't.  

jip HC is right on as allways!  i do it mostly in cyl arcade mode...and because it feels more natural to have a limited number of cabs to spin around...

peter

[Minwah]

My FE has the ability to do on the fly filtering, and it's quite quick.  It's slightly limited atm, but still allows filtering by control type etc.  My next release will have better, more flexible filtering.

I personally like to use the clone, input type and 'dodgy' driver status filters to reduce the list down.  Oh and category to get rid of mahjong & quiz games.

[Lilwolf]

I like the idea of have menus going into menus.  Mainly because having 4k games can be hard to find the right one.

but mine will probably never have it since I don't know how to set it in the UI.

Maybe a pullup for setting the filter would be fine.  With lists of lists in that.

Nice idea... but would work best with frontends that display lists...

[Howard_Casto]

That's my issue lilwolf.....

The actual filtering wouldn't be so hard to setup, I'm just too lazy to setup a cascading menu system to guide you through the filtering without the need of a keyboard.  

There are ways of doing it, but it would mean having multiple input event searching and I don't like the idea of nested case statements that huge.

And thus this is why I will have a single  on-the-fly list.  You press a key and one of my menus pop up, which guide you through the filtering process.  My menu system still needs to be converted to dx though.  

[)p(]

On the fly filtering works in my fe similar to the search function that mimics the entering of highscores...but in filter mode left and right walks you through the filters and up and down through the options of each filter, works pretty well..al least for me  

peter

[Magnet_Eye]

"2500 games available. Choose games by:"
Show all games
Play type
Manufacturer
Year released
Controls used
Starting letter of the alphabet
etc.
etc.

Have you tried MAME32?

[PacManFan]

Yeah, but who wants to use mame32 on a cabinet?

"2500 games available. Choose games by:"
Show all games
Play type
Manufacturer
Year released
Controls used
Starting letter of the alphabet
etc.
etc.

Have you tried MAME32?

[Howard_Casto]

Exactly!  

Of course if you have eyesight that good and can read a 10 pt font on an arcade monitor/tv then more power to ya.  Yes I know you can up the font size, but the way it's layed out, all that makes you do is see only the first few letters of each game.  Plus you almost have to use the mouse if you wish to naviagte via categories in mame32.  

Not very cab friendly at all.  

[PacManFan]

I've been trying to beef up the UI in EmuTron to support showing/ hiding /resizing /moving Bitmaps on the screen. I've just added support for an "OnClick -rectangle" activation of Events. I'm trying to see what I can do with it now as far as presenting user menus that slide in/out for catagorys.
I don't know if my FE will be able to support on the fly filtering, I could probably re-sort in real time, I think the list load time is too slow now for large lists (~200k+)(3-4 seconds)

BTW HC, did you decide on a format for the 3d models? Is it going to be an .X file w/ textures in an encrypted zip?

I'd like to get a model to started playing around. My 3d support is almost complete, and I'm adding in regular expression parsing into the script language to support it.

-PacManFan

[)p(]

BTW HC, did you decide on a format for the 3d models? Is it going to be an .X file w/ textures in an encrypted zip?

mail me then i will mail you the mspacman model in x format

peter

[Jakobud]

There is that new FE called Lemon Launcher.  It's basically Game Launcher but it has support of unlimited custom sub-menu's.  Unfortunately its a Linux-only FE.  I hope Dave D. add's support for custom submenu's to the next release...it would be really nice.