- How would your layout look?
- What features do you dislike about existing frontends?
The biggest thing for me is having all the arcade games together regardless of what emulator they're running on.
...
graphically rich like HyperSpin
•How would you envision the navigation flow working? How would the menus function?
•How would your layout look?
•What features do you dislike about existing frontends?
•What features would you like to see in a frontend that does not yet exist?
•How do you prefer to manage your game lists?
•How would you like to see your folders structured?
•What would you like to configure your system?
As a veteran of this, some advice. Forget about the gui atm... that is completely unimportant. Work on the backend. Filtering, list generation, full configurability for emulators that launch in an unusual way, ect. That's the important stuff. You'll notice that a lot of comments thus far reflect this.
One of hyperspin's biggest issues, like a lot of the flashier fe's is that to do any fancy list generation, you often have to rely on a convoluted third party program or opening up a god awful xml file and having to edit the rom's entry manually.
I'm not knocking hyperspin at all, but it's always "more flash more animations" when you can't even do basic stuff like list merging and filtering easily.
Yes... Please...graphically rich like HyperSpin
Preferrably in a way that doesn't make me feel like a baby having a stuffed toy shaken at it.
As a veteran of this, some advice. Forget about the gui atm... that is completely unimportant. Work on the backend. Filtering, list generation, full configurability for emulators that launch in an unusual way, ect. That's the important stuff. You'll notice that a lot of comments thus far reflect this.
One of hyperspin's biggest issues, like a lot of the flashier fe's is that to do any fancy list generation, you often have to rely on a convoluted third party program or opening up a god awful xml file and having to edit the rom's entry manually.
I'm not knocking hyperspin at all, but it's always "more flash more animations" when you can't even do basic stuff like list merging and filtering easily.
In regards to what badmouth was saying, I know some people are all gung ho around xml, but for a gamelist as potentially massive as all of mame's games as well as other games, console, emulators and what-not, a xml file is going to be frikkin gigantic. Disc space isn't an issue at all, but having to parse that stuff and load it into memory certainly is at least if you want to search for stuff and filter things on the fly.
Delimited text files or a full on database work a lot better. I always did it like so:
rom|Game Name|parent|driver|year|manufacturer|orientation|controls|... ... ...
I used bars for the delimiter because some game titles often had commas in them and it avoided having to re-format the game names. You want to put more static stuff at the beginning of the entry and more subjective/transient stuff like controls.dat data or ini's or what have you last.
And yes you can absolutely do it via xml, but remember, with a delimited text file you have the bare minimum of extra characters for separations and white space. That means even if you load your entire master list into memory for easy access, it isn't that big. Like I said, if you want to use some database software, you can make the first entry a table of contents/legend and most dbase stuff will let you auto-load a delimited text file.
I hope some of that is helpful.
our ideas too far outside of what you wanted to work on?
my cab is the only windows machine in my household. some people prefer "free and open source" more over "best". first can be part of second. may even equal like "free and opensource" = "best".
if puddle-fe gets reality, i am first to propose to zagadka to include it in AGLAD.
emb, for me this is quite the project of the year :) would you mind sharing a journey log?
thanks!
Alex
One thing I have found tricky is list management. I'd like to see list mgmt abilities built into the front end.. What do I mean?
(this may exist in some front ends I certainly haven't tried them all)
1: an Admin type mode that uses the front end but allows you to do list management (you would see master games lists, that a normal "user" wouldn't see)
2: A way to easily either "export" or "save" flagged games (favorites) into a new or existing list(s). (admin mode ONLY)
So when the front end is in normal mode you would only allow certain lists to show up. So when my friends are over they wouldn't even see the master lists that I use for testing games. When I go into admin mode I can scroll through my master games list and test whatever I want, and then if I am happy with how it runs/controls are setup/etc.. then I can exit the game and add it to one of my lists that I want it to show up in.
Basically built in list management.
So in Admin mode I go in, and I scroll through the "master games list" and test Game X, and am happy with how it runs, graphics are working, controls setup the way I want. I exit the game and am back in the front end. Then I can select Add to List, and then I can choose what list I want to add it to.
Now I didn't have to create a new list with romlister or edit some textfile of games or mess with where the rom/game files are on my system etc....
The video and descriptions herein - pretty much an exact copy of what's already in Attract Mode, albeit more smoothly animated. Nothing wrong with clones of course, healthy competition.
Another beta version should be out within a couple days and I am still looking for a couple more beta testers. Some of the features for this next build include HyperLaunch support, attract mode, animation enhancements, mouse hiding, window scaling, along with a few other new features. Future versions will include things like plugin support, abilty to use HyperList or dat files for collections, and the ability to group multiple collections together.
Feature status log is here:
http://www.retrofe.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0 (http://www.retrofe.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0)
In addition to beta testers, I am also open for anyone interested in submitting a default theme for the frontend (as there currently is not one right now).
It looks really good man. I know that isn't saying much but I don't exactly roll out the compliments so keep that in mind.
I'm looking for a coding project to tinker with. Any thoughts on open sourcing this?
I had started tinkering with a frontend that could open hyperspin themes. Didn't put a whole lot of time in it, but the concept was mostly working(except for themes that had embedded swfs)
An alternative FE that supports Hyperspin themes would be absolutely freaking amazing.
I'm looking for a coding project to tinker with. Any thoughts on open sourcing this?
I had started tinkering with a frontend that could open hyperspin themes. Didn't put a whole lot of time in it, but the concept was mostly working(except for themes that had embedded swfs)
I'm looking for a coding project to tinker with. Any thoughts on open sourcing this?
I had started tinkering with a frontend that could open hyperspin themes. Didn't put a whole lot of time in it, but the concept was mostly working(except for themes that had embedded swfs)
RetroFE will not be open source although I will be giving a few people access to the source code. This is mainly for controlling quality (I want to avoid having bunch of subpar forks). Maybe at a later date it will become open source.
The main reason I plan on keeping the project closed source is because of quality purposes.
While the project is closed source, it will have a plugin system with an api people can use.
I'm looking for a coding project to tinker with. Any thoughts on open sourcing this?
I had started tinkering with a frontend that could open hyperspin themes. Didn't put a whole lot of time in it, but the concept was mostly working(except for themes that had embedded swfs)
RetroFE will not be open source although I will be giving a few people access to the source code. This is mainly for controlling quality (I want to avoid having bunch of subpar forks). Maybe at a later date it will become open source.
The main reason I plan on keeping the project closed source is because of quality purposes.
While the project is closed source, it will have a plugin system with an api people can use.
I really wish you would reconsider making it F/OSS. We're currently working on creating a new version of Cabrio FE (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?38071-A-new-Hyperspin (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?38071-A-new-Hyperspin)), and I think it would make sense to join efforts here rather than doing the same thing twice. Your goals pretty much match ours, and I think we could benefit from working together on this one.
Cool. Any thought as to when a binary release might occur? :applaud:
Cool. Any thought as to when a binary release might occur? :applaud:
Thanks for open sourcing.
Do you have feature and bug lists and will you accept pull requests?
This looks really awesome. I've been looking for something to replace my simple Hyperspin Setup. The one thing that keeps me there is ability to filter by genre. Is this anything like this possible or in the plans?Yes.