Cabinet not yet, starting with the front-end [Updated]

[zobook]

I still don't have the time/budget/materials for making my dream arcade cabinet, but as i have a computer and some programming skills y decide to star from the front-end.

I want to use my own soft. There are some screenshots (1024x768) showing full-game list and 2 filtered list. Not seen in the screenshots but there are support for other platforms, like NES, SNES, Genesis, etc accesible right now only by keyboard shortcuts (i will change that later, create a joystick drived menu)

The current layout is inspired by "Mission Control" and some others. I didn't borrow images, i draw miself on PSP but "inspired" by them.

There is a LOT of work to do, but is operational

[zobook]

Here are a little beta. The program is usable, but lacks configuration utilities, most things must be done by hand editing the mamenace.ini file.

1) Unzip the files, convert the JPG located in the "pieles" folder to BMP.
 and you are ready to go

2) edit the file MAMEnace.ini, specially the [Emuladores.1] section
the format is as follow #emu=name;full_path;NO;parameters
the NO part is for the future, when some emulators need the parameters enclosed with "" and some not, for mame just let in NO. parameters are just that, parameters you need to pass all the time to the emulator.

3) To add games press [insert] and select the ZIPs (you can select more than one). Then select wich emulator t o use. Using the file "names.dat" the program will give the game the correct full name.

4) Use up and down tho scroll one game at the time, left and right to "page up" and "page down", joy_button_1 or space to start a game, joy_button_2 or enter to switch filter categories. You can change one game categorie pressing F2 and selecting the categories (can be more than one) in the pop up window.

[IG-88]

How powerful a computer are you needing to run this?

[zobook]

Good question. I like to have feedback on that issue. . It runs (for now) only at 1024x768 (the position of the text and screenshot are hard-coded in the exe).

My PC is a P4 HT 3.00 GHz with 512MB, on-board video, and XP and it runs smooth. I tested in my niece PII 350 Mhz with 192MB and Win98 (my old PC) and it runs choppy. But i supose that any 1Ghz UP pc with 256 will do.

As i said, i like tho have feedback, because when i finally build the cabinet, i will not be using my current computer, i like to buy or get other way other PC.

P.D. : the text are in spanish because i live in Argentina. As this is a "personal use software" i don't for now add a translation feature, but may include it later if someone ask for it and want to use it (when other stuff works).

If you have installed "Nasalization Free" font it will use, if not, will use the default font instead.

[zobook]

Some update

The screenshots goes in the "Capturas" folder. The program uses the "clones.dat" file to tell if a game is a main or a clone. You only need the screenshot of the main game, it will use it automatically for the clones.

They should be in BMP format and is better they are 200x200 pixels. it will work with other sizes but the fast pixel resizing can meake it look ugly.

I download the "NIVO's mame screenies complete" and using XNView powefull batch conversion i did the follwoing

1) resizing to 200x200 keeping aspect ratio
2) change canvas to 200x200 maitaining aspect ratio and with black background
3) saving to BMP format in the "Capturas" folder

to strip only the games i have, i open a console in the roms folder of mame and did something like:

Code: [Select]

dir *.zip /b /on > copysnap.bat
then i modify the copysnap.bat addign the "copy " before the filename, change the extension from ".zip" to ".png" and add at the end of line the line " c:\some_folder".
Then when i run the copysnap.bat it copy all the screenshots of my games to the folder "some_folder". From there i use the XNView trick i describe before. to make the modifications i use a little editor of my own aimed to replace the notepad but with the posibility of search and replace new_lines and tabulations (^p & ^t) just like WinWord does (but it loads a lot faster  )

I know that probably there are software that will do all that for me, but i just like to do some things by miself, just for fun. I could also convert ALL the files of NIVO's but seems like a waste of space. I have a 160 GB disk, but still have the old habits from my pc with DOS and a 240 MB disk 

One thig to do is to add support for PNG and JPG screenshots. but for now BMP is fine. I have to take in consideration speed issues. The PNG and JPG take less space but are slower to decode. BMP takes a lot of space but no decode needed. I need some benchmarkings to correct me if i'm wrong  Maybe the decode time is compensated by the slower file size but with todays fast disk i dont know for sure (the screenshots are really small)

I may include some little "delay" in the screenshot loading. That may solve the speed isues. The list has aceleration, if you keep pressing down, the list will scroll faster and faster (to a certain limit, of course). For left & right there is no "repeat", you have to push and release left or right. is not a "bug", is a "feature" 

[FooMonk]

What language / packages are you using? I plan on doing my own frontend in Python with Tkinter, and aside from the evilness of GUI programming, it seems like a good choice.

[zobook]

I'm using Delphi 7 Personal, because is the language i know the most (i dropped VB a long time ago, never get used to C++ and Java), i started with Pascal a long time ago and the transition to Windows whit Delphi was smooth. I still use Delphi 3 Pro until 3 month ago, but as someone in a forum suggest the free edition for personal use of D7 i moved and the result was good (D3 was a lot behind).

The approach is very simple, i try not to overload with options i will not likely use. Is the background image painted on a canvas, then the text printed and a timer pooling the state of the DXJoystick (from DelphiX).

The current state of the FrontEnd is as follow:

1) The Layout changed a little, and i add a image of Mai of KOF with a shadowed outline at the botton right. There is displayed the platform name also. Is not definitive, still looking.

2) Now you can: add game(s) using the [Insert] key, change the properties of a game (name displayed, parameters, emulator used, categorie(s) and game file) using [F2] key.

3) Solve some little bugs related of the loading of the snapshots.

4) The data files and snapshot folders are no longer named with the numeric index of the "Platform" (i.e. 1=MAME, 2=SuperNintendo etc.) but with the name itself. Any forbidden character are replaced with an underscore "_" (that idea comes from AtomixFE if i recall correctly)

5) The FE remembers the last platform played and the last game played on each platform. So if you where playing "Super Mario Bros." on NES and quit the FE, the next time you enter it will be selected (because of the 70/30 law).

To-Do Just Next List:

I will like to add the menu for changing the platform (now is changed pressing 1,2,3 etc on the keyboard) and another menu for changing the categories (which is now cyclic changing by pressing [Enter] or [JoyButton2]

I still not conviced with the fonts, I'm trying diffrent options.

I attach a 7Zip regular Zip file with the current "beta" version of the frontend. As before, the background in the "pieles" folder is converted to jpg for size issues. You MUST converted to BMP before use or the FE will not work. And you have to edit manually MAMEnace.ini to fit your needs (and your emulators). There are samples of game files, you delete them and add your own games, but you can try test it before just to see how it looks.

The text of all dialog boxes is still only in Spanish but it not so hard to understand.

[zobook]

I just add the menus for changing the platform (using joy_b_3) and the categories (using joy_b_2). As soon i fix some minor issues i will upload the updated version for those who want to give it a try

[zobook]

3 more screenshots, showing the current layout, the filter selection and the new history.dat screen. The platform selection screen is similar to the filter one, but diffrent color.

And yes, that ugly "Windows GUI" dialog will disappear and be replaced by an ugly "my own design" dialog. 

the history.dat file is loaded only when needed so it don't uses memory all the time. In fact, the front-end loads it entirely, extract the history of the game and unload it immediately, remaining in memory only the history of the game.

I plan to add options to the ini file to specify if the platform supports history.dat or not (ex. MAME, Capcom and TAITO does, SNES, NES and Genesis don't)

[zobook]

Version 0.3.0 of MAMENace is here.

You need (as usual) to convert the JPG in the "Pieles" folder to BMP and put the history.dat in the same folder of the emulator.

Joystick Usage:

Up & Down = Move List * 1
Left & Right = Move List * 10
Button 1 = Start Game
Button 2 = Select Filter
Button 3 = Select Platform (MAME, SNES, Genesis, etc)
Button 4 = View game history (if supported)

You need to edit mamenace.ini to use YOUR emulators, and add your games (use the [Insert] key to do this

Right now, you cant delete games form the Front-End, you can specify properties of a game pressing [F2] key. Quit using [Esc] key

Comments are welcome

I start another thread about MAMENace in the Software forum, you may take a look
You can download the lastest version (0.3.1) there. It supports translation.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=74073.0