Posted by SirPoonga on February 08, 2002 at 01:50:00:
In Reply to: The best front end. (notice no question mark) posted by RandyT on February 07, 2002 at 17:25:43:
Yeah, that's interesting. Being able to change the looks is nice, but usefulness is good to (I'm not saying it is not usefull though).
That's why my frontend rules:) Had to put that in there, hehe. But my frontend is going to be made just for me. I will release it to the public, but like party on, it's an at your own risk thing.
I'll tell you why I'm making my own (if you don;t want to know why hit alt-f4 for windows users, ctrl-f4 for linux users in kde:)
First, didn;t like anything out there except PartyOn. What attracted me to party on was the simplicity and how it didn't look anything like windows. BUT it's major drawback was it was a pain to customize.
After looking around I could never find what I wanted. I do like ArcadeFX and RD, they look cool but they still don't strike my fancy. Plus they weren;t really around 4 months ago when I started my frontend. I'm working on it with a friend and over the holidays we didn't get to see each other much.
We are back on it now. It rocks.
Here's some features and n into to it.
First, it is done in flash. Why flash. It goes full screen and can look nothing like windows. Plus my friend is a god at flash so that helps in the decision making. I wanted it to look good so I needed to work in what he was comfortable in. Plus with flash ther are tons of little subtle animations that brings the frontend alive. It doesn't have that static look most frontends have. Looks very professional.
Second, I use an access database to store everything. database programming is my world. I love them. What does my database store? All roms available for mame, all roms in the roms directory, categories each rom belongs too, and the tables needed to store the user eitable favorites list. First, before someone says arcadefx has a favorites list, that's just one. I wanted infinite lists (theoretically of course) so if I have a friend that comes over he can start his own list on the machine. I am going to have many friends over playing this so that was important. Also since I have to have favorite lists like that I have to be able to search through the roms to find what I am looking for.
That's pretty much the capabilities.
So here's a summary of my features.
The whole frontend only uses a joystick and 3 buttons to work. Mouse support is being added. Most of the navigation and stuff only uses the joystick and one button. The two other buttons only purpose is to page up and down lists.
Next now that we can navigate we have to find the rom that we need. I have alot of roms and navigating through them like other FEs do was a pain. Categories are nice, but not good enough. I do have categories. You can navigate any of the categories (along with faorite lists of course). But I also have a search. I modeled my search like you enter the three initials for high scores. You enter in three letters you want in the search string with the joystick. Indicate whether to only look at the first three letters of the game names or if that pattern can appear anywhere in the game name.
Now that I can find my roms I want to be able to make my own list of games I like to play most often. Also my friends might like their own list too. So I have a favorites section. You can either select an existing favorites or add a new one. Then you can edit the list by search for the roms you want to put in it or delete ones you don't want in it anymore.
Also I have a random button. Since I jsut download roms form mame.dk as I feel like it (like I'll just click on one tht comes up whe you first go to mame.dk) I needed to have a random that randomly selects a game for you to choose to play.
There are the usual frontend things like customizing the navigation keys, turning on or off sound, turning on or off mouse, selecting what mame executable for what roms you want to use, etc..
My frontend also had to be themed. I love pacman, it is themed that way. We tried as much as possible to not use NAMCO graphics. Any graphics that were used are editted (like the blurred background) so someone couldn't steal the graphics an make money off of them for restore kits. Plus it is for now for my use only. The whole frontend revolves around what I want and the fact that my whole cabinet is themed. (I really like themed cabinets like roswell)
My friend will want to use the frontend for himself too and will want to change the looks. He might make it skinnable but that's up to him. I have nothing to do witht he flash side except help him understand how to use actionscript to what we need. The looks are completely up to him after we get it the way I want.
My overall goal was to make it simple, look awesome and nothing like windows, but be very powerful and useful.
Here's a pic of a debug screen.
http://kevin.jonas.com/images/yapfe1.jpg
On the right side where all the variables are will be a pic of my cabinet and we will use the flyers, marquees, and snaps from mame.dk. He said he is going to put the effect of glass over the screenshot to make it look more realistic. I can't wait to see that.
Also that pacman avatar in the upper left, it pulses. The page downa nd page up arrows pulse when you use them. The selector animate as you move it. The categories and favorties are listed across the top like that. To get to search you highlight the pacman avatar and push left (there are visual queues for that now) and to get to options you push up. So in otherwords everything revolves around the avatar for navigation, that;s how we made it only use the joystick and one button for the majority of the navigation. The other two buttons JUST page up and page down that list.
note, that pic is a very early version as we are to the point where he can do his thing and I can do mine. I've seen what he has done so far and it rules. There are a bunch of little animation all over the place that make it come alive. He does it in a way (being a professional graphic designer) that it isn't cheesy either. All of the grpahics are custom made by him. Ther is a cool intro/credit screen that is short. (Shh, that's used to update the available roms lists and available favorites) It's not that long, only about 5 seconds. that was one thing I didn't like about other frontends, they didn't hide the load times. We hide them with animations and such so the frontend looks more fluid.
Anyway, as I said I will release it to the public BUT it is at your own risk. You should just need windows with the latest Access JET driver (4.0) isntalled and flash, all of which are free. I use the JET driver so you don't have to use DSN so you can just copy the frontend over, edit the ini file and away you go.
We plan, in the future, to make a cross paltform version. My friend is going to get a mac after he gets a couple of bonuses. Right now it ONLY works with windows (since that;s all I need). If any of you know flash you know it doesn't do database calls or dynamic graphics. Right now I ahve VB ultils that flash calls to do the database functions and returns the info back to flash. Also utils to convert png to swf to insert into flash on the fly. So that's all windows dependant. The next version of flash is suppose to be a combination of flash and shockwave. THEN we will be able to do it all in one file with no outside programs. We will make it just SQL compliant so it doesn't matter what db you use, as long as you have a db. Then it will probably be officially released to the public with some support.