Newbie questions (and some feature requests?)

[NLS]

Hello everybody.

I am trying to (re)evaluate various front-ends to see what fits my needs and I have some questions about attract mode that seems to erm... attract much interest esp. now with version 2.0.
Please help me fill the gaps...

- Is AM fully portable? (seems it is)
- Does it support relative paths in configuration files?
- Does it support zipped mame extras? (for example snap.zip with all PNG inside instead of a snap folder)
- Does it support MAME software lists? I've seen some "emulators" preset to some MESS setup (and again set for specific mess machines). But is there a way to configure a single entry unifying MAME and MESS functionality?
- Scrapper will mess with my existing extras or is there a way to add what is missing to it's own AM path and use it in addition to existing extras? (reason for that is to keep extras "clean" for other uses or torrent seeding).

Also one think I have noticed that it certainly misses, is an easy way to setup paths. There is no system selector, we need to type. At least we can edit the cfg files directly.
Actually many settings that should probably be scroll-lists are type-in I think (so the user needs to know what you expect in there).
This wouldn't be an issue if you didn't have a configuration mode at all (and users where expected to edit the config files), but since you do, I expected it would be more user friendly.

That said, I like seeing progress and some fresh air in front-end... erm... front. Keep up the good work.

[bionictoothpick]

Relative paths work perfectly on my windows setup. I find I might add too many ../../ on occasion, but it works with more rather than less.

This is the mess-snes config:

executable         ../attractmode/addons/mame/mame64.exe
args                 snes -cart "[romfilename]"
rompath            ../../../attractmode/addons/snes/roms/
romext               .smc;.zip
system               Super Nintendo System
info_source          listxml
artwork    flyer           ../../attractmode/scraper/SNES/flyer
artwork    marquee         ../../attractmode/scraper/SNES/marquee
artwork    snap            ../../attractmode/scraper/SNES/snap
artwork    wheel           ../../attractmode/scraper/SNES/wheel

[NLS]

Indeed I verified that relative paths work (and over a UNC path too!).

Zipped extras don't work though and I haven't found a way to see filtering (will find this) or history.dat (enabled in plugins and correct path).
Actually I would expect more support for .dats.
In fact I think a bare minimum for any front-end should be to support what extras MAME own GUI already supports.

Waiting for some feedback/helo with the rest in my original post. Thanks.

One more thing: Would love an "offline" scrapper. i.e. a scrapper that is called without running the full front-end, maybe even just command line.

[hermine.potter]

@NLS
-"Offline Scraper":
This depends on your own rom-cover-management (same and correct filenames of romfile and cover).
If your emulator system already exists in scraper-folder (e.g. C:\attract\scraper\zsnes\flyer), then rename your cover to same romfilename and move files to this folder
game123.smc <=> game123.jpg
Next time you start AM, it imports new cover automatically.

-Commandline:
CMD > change to your attract-folder > type:
attract.exe /?
You will get all parameters. There is the -s parameter for scrape-art:
attract.exe -s zsnes