Posted by jmark on 28, 2000 at 11:39 PM:
In Reply to: Re: how about an instruct.dat file for mame and/or frontends? please comment posted by Druin on 28, 2000 at 4:19 PM:
OK, I think I get the gist at least...
First, MAMEDev, or some derivative team, work up a routine that spits out 'controls' for a particular game - ie. P1 Button 1, P1 Up, etc... along with maybe some text (say, JUMP, KICK, SHOOT etc.)
Second, Front-end developers can take this info and integrate it into their frontends. Since many folks are going to have many different ctlpnl layouts, the feasability of showing different graphics MIGHT be low.
HOWEVER, if you turn it around a little and the front-end shows where P1 Button 1 currently MAPS to along with the text... then all it takes is the cabinet owner to put P1 Button1 etc. 'labels' physically on the cabinet.
This just MIGHT be the beginning of a beautiful new MAME ;-)