front end similar to mame32/mameui but more cab friendly?

[TheShanMan]

I'm not particularly interested in an eye candy front end. But I want one that's a little more cab friendly than mame32/mameui with some of those features: folders and the "game details tabs" - snaps, history, cp images, etc. Icons in the game list would be nice but not absolutely necessary.

I'd also like the level of game configuration that mame32/mameui provides.

[youki]

Did you look that list?

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

[loadman]

Did you look that list?

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

What he said   

[TheShanMan]

Yes, I looked there, but that doesn't help very much, other than to imply that there may not be a front end like I describe.

[youki]

Few frontend are very customisable.

For instance with Atomic , you can manage to do something very close of what you want.  But with a non negligeable customizing effort.

But of course if you are looking for something "out of the box"  , Atomic or Mala won't fit for what you want.

I know another front end called  ArcadeHits frontend , which is very good and may be very close of your wish. But i think it is only in french.

http://fe.arcadehits.net/

[gonzo90017]

http://www.mameworld.net/emuloader/

[pcb]

I'm not particularly interested in an eye candy front end. But I want one that's a little more cab friendly than mame32/mameui with some of those features: folders and the "game details tabs" - snaps, history, cp images, etc. Icons in the game list would be nice but not absolutely necessary.

I'd also like the level of game configuration that mame32/mameui provides.

What exacty would you like to see in MameUI?  I can make that happen if you can describe what would make it a bit more cab friendly.  You mean like navigation of the menus with Arcade Controls?

[TheShanMan]

That would definitely be the #1 item for making it cab friendly.

I would also like to see the ability to immediately start a game, and when the user exits the game, to return to the front end. I.e. "mameui32.exe centiped" would auto-launch centipede, and when user hits esc, have it kick back out to the main ui, rather than the process just ending (ok, so that's not specifically a cab feature, but it would be a nice way for my centipede cab to start up).

Having ledutil.exe built into MameUI as an option would also be a good cab friendly feature.

And a bug I discovered - shutting down the cab with the PC's power button: MameUI doesn't handle the windows shutdown event, so any changes made (selected game, play counts, changed options, ui changes like visible tabs) during that MameUI session are lost.

Oh, and the ability to show more of the tabs concurrently - for instance to show snap, control panel, and history all at the same time would be awesome. I envision the ability to have more than 1 set of tabs stacked vertically, with draggable splitters in between each tab ctrl.

Is that enough for you? Are you sorry you asked?

[pcb]

That would definitely be the #1 item for making it cab friendly.

Ok, #1 on the list is to get MAME keys to navigate the UI.

I would also like to see the ability to immediately start a game, and when the user exits the game, to return to the front end.

Hmm, we'd need a new switch for this one, otherwise you couldn't run MAMEUI from an front end.  I'll think about it.

Having ledutil.exe built into MameUI ...

I'll look into this too, but it's MAME proper that doesn't have it built-in, you get everything MAME has built-in right now.

Good find on the shutdown.  I'll put that on the buglist.
Not sure I want to rewrite the splitter code to handle multiple tabs, but it's an interesting idea.

Good start list though.  The UI through Arcade Controls (MAME Keys) is a good one.
Of course, it would need to be configurable if a different controller.ini was loaded.

 - Mike -

[TheShanMan]

"Allow game selection by custom key sequences" would seem to imply that cab control support was started, but I couldn't get it to work and couldn't find ANY information on how to get it working (docs or google search).

I understand why ledutil was taken out of mame, but since mameui is mame + frontend, to me it would make sense to add that in as an option for the frontend part of mameui.

And thanks! Do you think any of this might come soon? Or is this more of a "one day I may get to it" thing? I certainly don't expect anything (mameui as it stands today is great as far as I'm concerned), but it would be nice to know what you're thinking in terms of when.

I have thought about looking at the shutdown bug myself and submitting a patch, but not sure how soon I would get to it, particularly since I've never looked at the code before and it's been YEARS since I've compiled it. If you don't think a resolution to this bug might be soon, I may still have a look, but if you think a fix will come soon then there's no sense in both of us doing it.

[Havok]

Just use AtomicFE...

 

[headkaze]

Just use AtomicFE...

 

Yeah I agree! *Havok faints* 

[Cakemeister]

I also recommend Emuloader for this user.

[TheShanMan]

Well from what I've seen, all of the cab friendly front ends are geared more towards "bling". I'm more interested in the kind of stuff Mame32 shows: history/mameinfo, manufacturer, year, etc. Heck, I'd probably do without the info in the grid if I could just see history and mameinfo (and snaps, etc) when I select a game. Having favorites vs. all would also be important.

[pcb]

As far as Arcade controls navigating the UI, I'll try to get this done after the next major release.

The shutdown bug will be first on the list, cab controls 2nd.

The main goal behind MameUI is to make mame comply with the Windows interface and look like a professional windows application.  MameUI has joystick/gamepad support already, and it supports the trackball/mouse interface, like any other windows app.

Best,

 - Mike -

[Green Giant]

Well from what I've seen, all of the cab friendly front ends are geared more towards "bling". I'm more interested in the kind of stuff Mame32 shows: history/mameinfo, manufacturer, year, etc. Heck, I'd probably do without the info in the grid if I could just see history and mameinfo (and snaps, etc) when I select a game. Having favorites vs. all would also be important.

All of the cab friendly versions can show all of those things.

I use mala which shows just about anything you want.  I have a button that pops up the history since it is really long, but year and whatnot can be displayed easily.

Navigation is completley though the joysticks and trackball.

It opens a game on one click, closes and returns to the frontend on one press of the exit button.

All the frontends also support multiple emulators, but you can do just mame.


And yes, they have bling, that is the reason they were made.  The point of a front end is to look nice and do everything mameui can do and more.


Take 10 min to lookup Mala, GameEx, and AtomicFE.  If there are acutally things they can't do, I will be pretty shocked.

[TheShanMan]

I will check it out, and thanks Green Giant. I got the impression from screen shots and descriptions of the FE's that they don't really do that kind of stuff, but since you say otherwise I will take the time to download and figure them out.

Too bad the descriptions don't say "does everything mameui does and more!"

[youki]

Too bad the descriptions don't say "does everything mameui does and more!"

As i said, it is just a question of customization , all this front end are really customisable. It is simply not "out of the box" as you wish. It requires customisation effort.

[pcb]

As far as Arcade controls navigating the UI, I'll try to get this done after the next major release.

The shutdown bug will be first on the list, cab controls 2nd.

Ok, just looked at this.  There is no shutdown issue in the UI.  I just tried it under both XP and Server 2008 (x64).

As far as Arcade Controls, we already have Navigation key codes you can modify till your hearts content.  Check out the list in MAMEUIxx.ini

#
# NAVIGATION KEY CODES
#
ui_key_up                 KEYCODE_UP
ui_key_down               KEYCODE_DOWN
ui_key_left               KEYCODE_LEFT
ui_key_right              KEYCODE_RIGHT
ui_key_start              "KEYCODE_ENTER NOT KEYCODE_LALT"
ui_key_pgup               KEYCODE_PGUP
ui_key_pgdwn              KEYCODE_PGDN
ui_key_home               KEYCODE_HOME
ui_key_end                KEYCODE_END
ui_key_ss_change          KEYCODE_INSERT
ui_key_history_up         KEYCODE_DEL
ui_key_history_down       "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_0"
ui_key_context_filters    "KEYCODE_LCONTROL KEYCODE_F"
ui_key_select_random      "KEYCODE_LCONTROL KEYCODE_R"
ui_key_game_audit         "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_A"
ui_key_game_properties    "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_ENTER"
ui_key_help_contents      KEYCODE_F1
ui_key_update_gamelist    KEYCODE_F5
ui_key_view_folders       "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_D"
ui_key_view_fullscreen    KEYCODE_F11
ui_key_view_pagetab       "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_B"
ui_key_view_picture_area  "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_P"
ui_key_view_status        "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_S"
ui_key_view_toolbars      "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_T"
ui_key_view_tab_cabinet   "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_3"
ui_key_view_tab_cpanel    "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_6"
ui_key_view_tab_flyer     "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_2"
ui_key_view_tab_history   "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_8"
ui_key_view_tab_marquee   "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_4"
ui_key_view_tab_screenshot "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_1"
ui_key_view_tab_title     "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_5"
ui_key_view_tab_pcb       "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_7"
ui_key_quit               "KEYCODE_LALT KEYCODE_Q"


Best,

  - Mike -

[TheShanMan]

Thanks for looking Mike. Not sure what to say - I've shutdown countless times with the power button (which does a normal windows shutdown, not an immediate power off) and it doesn't ever save fe related stuff. But clicking the close button always seems to. So maybe it's not 100% reproducible in all cases, but seems to be 100% reproducible on my machine!

And yeah, I saw that stuff in the ini and tried to get that working, but I couldn't get anything to work. Almost as if work on that feature started but quickly got dropped. And I can't even find forum discussions on that stuff (let alone documentation) - google turns up absolutely nothing. So if it does indeed work, it would be nice if documentation existed for it. Did you actually try it and found that it worked for you? I wonder if it would be worth it for you to send me a working ini file, or me send to you an ini with what I *think* should work and go from there?

I do appreciate you taking the time to look at these issues though!

[TheShanMan]

Well I've been trying out 3 FE's so far: atomic, mala, and mamewah and man, I can't believe how much pain it has been to just get started with the basics. All 3 have been a pain in the rear for different reasons ranging from not being able to get a game list to appear to not being able to show only "available" games (or import favorites from mameui), to not even being able to get the fe to appear properly (i.e. seemingly locked up).

I'm going to try emuloader, but I've sunk so much time into these so far that I'm really starting to lose hope. I don't know what the problem is - I'm following directions in all cases, and I'm a windows application software engineer for pete's sake, so I'm not exactly an idiot with computers!

[Ummon]

You might stick with Mame32. It records settings when 'closed'. Shutting down Windows ends the process.

[TheShanMan]

Not sure what you're trying to say. Windows does send an event to running applications on shutdown, so settings can certainly be saved when it closes due to shutdown. Pcb says that's happening, but for some reason not in my cab.