Press a key launch a file

[DinoRoger]

Here is an application I wrote today to go along with me LED programmer that I hope to finish soon.  I am using this app to run a batch file to light/flash leds when a certain key is pressed.  I assign the key to the same value as my coin buttons in mame.  So now when a person inserts a quarter the coin and player led will blink.  I will be releasing my LED software/hardware once it is finilized.

There are many other uses to this application other that what I am using it for.  I am giving away the exe with no warranties.  Use and distribute as you see fit.  ENJOY!

When you launch the application a small icon will appear in the systray.  Double-click this icon to configure the program.  Program must be running but can be hidden to systray and still remain functional. The application will save any changes automaticly to the same directory as the application exe file. Program runs in most Microsoft Windows Operating System and require Visual Basic 6 RunTime Files.

FILE:
http://www.pchelplive.com/dinos/KeyWatcher.exe

SCREEN SHOT:


PS: I am also working on another app that does the simular task of launching apps by reading what rom(game) is in memory.  For example when the application detects Frogger has been ran it can launch a application.  This will be awesome if you have a LED ticker or something.  You can now flash the name of the game, maybe even on the marquee. .

[Valiam Arkais]

 This will be awesome if you have a LED ticker or something.  You can now flash the name of the game, maybe even on the marquee. .

This is an excellent idea.  Nice work!

[anthony691]

Good work (again)

[Valiam Arkais]

I just tried it out and it worked great.  Couple of things I noticed (in case you were looking for feedback, if not, ignore all of following).  

1.  I wish I could use some shift+keys or F9 keys.  If I were to use this application for anything beyond dedicated gaming situation this would be nice.  I would suggest using whatever control is used for assigning keys for windows shortcuts (right click shortcut, click properties).

2.  I noticed that the key press is still sent to the running application.  Maybe a negative thing in some situations in others it would be a positive.  

3.  I ran it with something that was in full screen mode and noticed a flash of the task bar at the bottom after every time I ran the application.  

Thanks,

-Valiam

[DinoRoger]

I just tried it out and it worked great.  Couple of things I noticed (in case you were looking for feedback, if not, ignore all of following).  

1.  I wish I could use some shift+keys or F9 keys.  If I were to use this application for anything beyond dedicated gaming situation this would be nice.  I would suggest using whatever control is used for assigning keys for windows shortcuts (right click shortcut, click properties).

2.  I noticed that the key press is still sent to the running application.  Maybe a negative thing in some situations in others it would be a positive.  

3.  I ran it with something that was in full screen mode and noticed a flash of the task bar at the bottom after every time I ran the application.  

Thanks,

-Valiam

1. Yep quick program and didnt want to get into too much fancy stuff.  Letters, Numbers, and Symbols will suffice for what it was written for.

2. The key press must be sent to the application for my use.  For example you drop a quarter in and it launched a batch file to blink my LEDs.  if I didnt make the key return also to the application then the quarter (key value) would never be seen by mame and that would be no fun. LOL

3. Ya the icon in systray may flash but there again for what it is designed or you should have youe front end open and should not even see that icon.

[DinoRoger]

Here is another utility I finished that can work well with the program above.  This utility will play a wave file called SOUND.WAV in the same directory of the application EXE.  Nothing will be displayed on the screen or taskbar, you will just here the file play.  For example setup your sound directories and copy PWAV.EXE and your wav file re-named to SOUND.WAV and have the application above call PWAV.EXE in the directory you choose to activate a sound when a key is pressed.  Example layout

\SOUNDS\CoinSound\
..PWAV.EXE
..Sound.wav

\SOUNDS\Player1Start\
..PWAV.EXE
..Sound.wav

In my scenerio I assigned the keys 1-4 to activae PWAV.EXE in the \SOUNDS\CoinSound\ directory.  Now when anyone inserts a quarter you here a coin wav file being played in the background.

Use your imagination and come up with some cools sounds.  I hope to have a web site up soon for all my utilities since the ideas seam to be flowing fast these days.  Maybe will start collecting submissions and build a nice arcade related WAV file stash for this app.

APPLICATION DOWNLOAD:
http://www.pchelplive.com/dinos/PWAV.exe

[Howard_Casto]

Dino mind you this is just my opinion and you know what that's worth, but that's about the worst app I've ever heard of.  I don't give criticism without reason so let me explain....

#1.  In 99.9% of all games out there the game itself makes a sound when you insert a quarter or press a start button and thus your sounds would merely interfere with them.  

#2.  If this is intended for front end use then it's unneeded as virtually every fe out there has changable event sounds, including sounds for when a game is selected and started.  

#3 See #1

#4 Everyone already has this app, it's called event sounds and is part of every version of windows.  It allows you to assign a sound to any keypress or event.  You can even save sound schemes to go with windows themes.

I love your enthuasim but perhaps you should really think about an app before you go off and make it.  The others have been pretty nice but this is a serious bad idea.  

[DinoRoger]

Dino mind you this is just my opinion and you know what that's worth, but that's about the worst app I've ever heard of.  I don't give criticism without reason so let me explain....

#1.  In 99.9% of all games out there the game itself makes a sound when you insert a quarter or press a start button and thus your sounds would merely interfere with them.  

#2.  If this is intended for front end use then it's unneeded as virtually every fe out there has changable event sounds, including sounds for when a game is selected and started.  

#3 See #1

#4 Everyone already has this app, it's called event sounds and is part of every version of windows.  It allows you to assign a sound to any keypress or event.  You can even save sound schemes to go with windows themes.

I love your enthuasim but perhaps you should really think about an app before you go off and make it.  The others have been pretty nice but this is a serious bad idea.  

The quarter sound is just an example of what you will be able to do with my application.  The app ac perform and function launch any file.  Let me give some ebtter examples of how I will be using it.  Use your imiagination and think of other, not just sound.

Display game information on a small LCD marquee displayer per game automaticly.

Light LED's under control panele buttons for only buttons that will function per game.

Have the computer speak the name of the game as it is being loaded.

[Howard_Casto]

All of the things you just described are done at the beginning of the game launch.  Thus this could be done in a wrapper which would save soem resources as you don't have to constantly look for the game name. (actually you do if you are using it for other things, but it's still not a 6% spike)  My point is you haven't mentioned anything that would be useful to do during a game.  It's still an interesting idea and I would like to see what you can do with it, I just don't see a lot of uses that would take advantage of the fact that it's a resident program.  

Btw.  You really need to start explaining yourself better.  The way that was worded it sounded like you were writing another app just for wav sounds.  

[DinoRoger]

All of the things you just described are done at the beginning of the game launch.  Thus this could be done in a wrapper which would save soem resources as you don't have to constantly look for the game name. (actually you do if you are using it for other things, but it's still not a 6% spike)  My point is you haven't mentioned anything that would be useful to do during a game.  It's still an interesting idea and I would like to see what you can do with it, I just don't see a lot of uses that would take advantage of the fact that it's a resident program.  

Btw.  You really need to start explaining yourself better.  The way that was worded it sounded like you were writing another app just for wav sounds.  

In my first post I never even mentioed wav files?  I have many applications I am working on and come here to see what uses you would like me to include.  If you do not have any ideas I am sure many others might.  Many of the ideas are at their beginning stage and need imagination to help them grow into a usable program.  Once the program is finished an even now resource problems are not a problem to stop develepoment.