is there a real simple front end that is customizable for controls used????

[facesmiths]

I am looking every where and I have not found what I am looking for
I want basically a front end that just opens Mame with the game desired and when doe with game (escape out) it returns to the front end. and I don't want every game in existence to be listed just some simple buttons that can open Mame with the game that is on the button.
an example would be to have tempest and tron on it (can't think of any other pal oriented games that use a spinner other than discs of tron) or just having all the Pacman stuff on a front end and maybe simple fire flap games too like Joust, Digdug, and Galaga.

if there is not something this simple is there anyone who could help me with basic codes for accessing EXE's and add an argument like the game name in say visual basic???
I would be eternally grateful.

[TheShanMan]

I found MaLa to be the easiest to get working when I was trying out FE's at the beginning of the year. It will do what you're describing. Probably just about any FE can handle your requirements though.

[youki]

try  AtomicFE  .

you can also if you are very novice , use one of his plug'n play module for mame.

[facesmiths]

ok on atomicFE I see something that worries me and one that seems a bit much. the program is huge (21meg?) what I am looking for is something small as I dont want to bog down the machine anymore than necessary. the thing that worries me is it is asking I run a program to install it and the last time I did this it stopped everything mame32 based from running all together. the program loads but none of the games will play. period. I have wracked my brain to figure out what it did *I saw when the program was installing it said something about disabling something but I don't remember what it was and it did not give me any way of stopping it from doing so.*

so I don't want anything that is more than an exe with some sort of customisable .ini file to change it.

with these new requirements am I out totally and have to write something from scratch?

[BASS!]

If you are looking for something about as slick simple and noobish as possible, give mgalaxy.com a try. It is seriously easy.

[Todd H]

Try GameLauncher. Pretty simple frontend that works fine in Windows.

http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/

[youki]

The distribution of Atomic is about 20 mega.

But in fact, to run it , you just need the Atomic.exe and your .CFG file that is editable with the notepad , and one layout.

The .Exe is about 1Mega , the layout it depends but it can be only few kilobyte.

[facesmiths]

tried Mgalaxy and it was not what I was looking for. I am looking for something really basic for the front end screen and only to handel a few games so it restricts to games that will work on the configuration of the machine(orientation of screen and controls available) I am looking into the gamelauncher but after what happened with one of the previous front ends that took over my code in mame and did something that disabled all older versions of mame32 I am a bit reluctant to just install anything now

[youki]

If AtomicFe is ok for you , except the size.  Once your configuration is done, i say you what to remove to have the minimum needed. 

What is the maximum size you want?

[NOP]

I am looking for something really basic for the front end screen and only to handel a few games so it restricts to games that will work on the configuration of the machine(orientation of screen and controls available)

Perhaps a different approach?
Get ROMLister
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister

It will make lists of games for you that support only your screen orientation and controls available.  Export those lists out to whatever front end you liked the best so far.