WebMAME released

[Lilwolf]

http://webmame.wikidot.com/start

What is it?

Its a application server that allows you to configure a middleware mame type executable from your browser. 

Reason I wrote it.  I decided I didn't want 2000 games per control panel on my system (which was easy with MultiMAME) but I wanted the 20 that I really play on there.... And make it easy to add more later.

You can add categories of games, then add games or remove them (for now one by one).  Then you can launch them from either your browser (on that machine or others) or you can run them from a command line.

examples

launch a game (sf2) in a category fighter
in browser - "http://localhost/mame/fighter sf2"
on command line - "fighter sf2"

Get a -listxml custom for just those games in the category fighter
in browser - "http://localhost/mame/fighter -listxml"
on command line - "fighter sf2"

Add a category (trackball)
in browser only - "http://localhost/config/trackball create"

Add a game to category
in browser only - "http://localhost/config/trackball marble emul mame"

Add a game using a different emulator
in browser only - "http://localhost/config/trackball propcycl emul mjornir"

notice how one category can launch multiple emulators.  Sorry, currently I only support MAME, but thats only because I only support -listxml right now.  I will get dat files working soon.  But anything you have a listxml file should work if the command line is mame similar.  Again, this will be beefed up soon.

Also, if you want to try a game that isn't in any category yet (to see how well it works with a given control panel?  or a game you don't like, but  a friend does.
in browser only - "http://localhost/launch/mame starwars"

Future plans:

• Web pages to display all games per emulator or category
• Add game to category from those pages
• Launch game from those pages
• Add additional emulators
• Add wildcard adds (add all games with name street fighter to fighter category)
• History, controls.dat, catver.ini ect to webpages

I'm sure I will think of others as I go. 

Let me know what you think

Lilwolf

[sWampy]

Sounds cool, looks like you could combine this with some php/ajax/mysql to make some truely awesome frontends that were completely open source/cross platform.

[Lilwolf]

I was thinking flex/flash myself.  But thats very long term.  Initially it will be only configuration and simple web pages (with css support so people can make them look how they want)

But the nice thing about middleware pieces...  There are tons of frontends out there that do a great job.  And most work in minutes if you have a plain jane single version of mame.  Once you get this (or multimame) working, you can switch frontends in a matter of minutes.

[Lilwolf]

Quick release v0.2

- Added arguments to emulator
- Increased speed for -listxml parsing
- Cached listxml data

[sWampy]

I was thinking flex/flash myself.  But thats very long term.  Initially it will be only configuration and simple web pages (with css support so people can make them look how they want)

But the nice thing about middleware pieces...  There are tons of frontends out there that do a great job.  And most work in minutes if you have a plain jane single version of mame.  Once you get this (or multimame) working, you can switch frontends in a matter of minutes.

I was thinking that one of the open source dvd/mp3/game organizers or one of the store front/bbs packages or even one of the photo gallery organizer packages could be tweaked to do games.