Author Topic: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation  (Read 4684 times)

rwebb616

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I'm sure the devs thought through how favorites were to work before designing it, but from the way that it is acting it seems to me that you must have a separate favorites list for EACH system.  This does not make any sense to me.  The reason I say that is because as you go through different wheels and tag favorites, they create .tag files for that SYSTEM .. not a single file for all favorites like I would expect. 

The way I use attract mode is that I have romlists that have every possible game available in them and then use a filter for "Is Available=1" so that I don't have to constantly re-generate romlists when I add new games.  I simply add the roms and they show up.

So I took the same concept and created a single all encompassing romlist with all available roms and set a filter to favorite=1 (the default filter actually) and low and behold no games.  It will ONLY show favorites that are in that display's TAG file.  It makes no sense to me.  Shouldn't there be only 1 tag file generated for ALL favorites?

I don't get why it has to be so complicated.   Instead of using TAG files just have it add and remove entries from a favorites romlist - it could copy the entry that the person is on when they tag it for a favorite and add it to the favorites romlist.  Then no need to generate a list, no need to have tag files it would just work.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying but it seems logical to me and with the number of people posting about favorites this really needs to be made simpler.

Rich

keilmillerjr

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2019, 07:51:29 PM »
I only use mame, so I’m probably not the best for this. I could tell you my favored games based on console. Growing up, you either had Atari, nes, snes or genesis. So the separation makes sense for me.

To make an all in one favorites list. I have an idea. Not sure if it will work. Try it? Create a master romlist. Display filters based on equals custom tag. Then in other displays, add that tag to a rom. Would this work?

rwebb616

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2019, 08:26:31 PM »
Actually I figured it out and the workaround works quite well.  I created a master romlist by concatenating all my system romlists into one.  Then for each system's display I filtered based on Emulator equals and the emulator name.  Now because all displays use the same romlist the favorite function works.  Now to just find the perfect "Favorites" layout to use. 

I am thinking about writing up a tutorial on how I did it because it seems a lot of people are having trouble creating favorites and getting them to work properly.  This is just based on some searching around that I have done. 

I am doing this for a cabinet so I want the interface to be clean and simple so I wanted the ability to quickly add or remove a favorite and then see it in the favorites list.  I also programmed controls for previous and next favorite on the panel so it makes it easy to jump to a favorite when in the specific system's display.

I haven't had a chance to play around with it much yet but I think it's going to work good.

Rich


rand0m

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2019, 08:58:26 PM »
Actually I figured it out and the workaround works quite well.  I created a master romlist by concatenating all my system romlists into one.  Then for each system's display I filtered based on Emulator equals and the emulator name.  Now because all displays use the same romlist the favorite function works.  Now to just find the perfect "Favorites" layout to use. 

I am thinking about writing up a tutorial on how I did it because it seems a lot of people are having trouble creating favorites and getting them to work properly.  This is just based on some searching around that I have done. 

I am doing this for a cabinet so I want the interface to be clean and simple so I wanted the ability to quickly add or remove a favorite and then see it in the favorites list.  I also programmed controls for previous and next favorite on the panel so it makes it easy to jump to a favorite when in the specific system's display.

I haven't had a chance to play around with it much yet but I think it's going to work good.

Rich

A small issue with this setup is that adding any new roms to system will require to update the masterlist each time, which can become a chore. If your master list remains constant then rest of the stuff can be easily managed by using tags. Filters are very customizable in this regard.

I have not used "Is Available=1" seems like a new addition but afaik AM will only list roms listed in the romlist, how exactly will "Is Available=1" work for a rom which you add in rompath/folder without adding it in romlist.

progets

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2019, 09:01:24 PM »
Here's a write up on using a master list for all sorts of things http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1165.msg8455#msg8455

Here's information on scripting a favorites system to your liking http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2737.msg18894#msg18894

progets

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2019, 09:27:32 PM »
I have not used "Is Available=1" seems like a new addition but afaik AM will only list roms listed in the romlist, how exactly will "Is Available=1" work for a rom which you add in rompath/folder without adding it in romlist.

AM doesn't dynamically read the rom folder to look for games. "Is Available=1" is used to not display games in the romlist if there isn't an actual rom for the entry. This is popular for people that want to use databases of games (HyperSpin) but don't want the missing games to show in AM. It's also used by some using a full MAME romlist but don't have all the games.

rand0m

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2019, 09:53:12 PM »

AM doesn't dynamically read the rom folder to look for games. "Is Available=1" is used to not display games in the romlist if there isn't an actual rom for the entry. This is popular for people that want to use databases of games (HyperSpin) but don't want the missing games to show in AM. It's also used by some using a full MAME romlist but don't have all the games.

Thanks progets, I can see the logic behind this function specially for people using full romsets.

rwebb616

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2019, 11:12:26 PM »
Yes, Progets stated it exactly as I use it.  I have a master rom list for mame but only have about 40 or 50 games.  The Is Available=1 filter works great because if I decide to add another rom to the folder I don't have to regenerate the romlist each time. 

The other systems besides Mame are also full romlists and work the same way but now are combined into a single romlist. 

The issue with Favorites is that they are romlist specific so if you are in a display with a romlist called "Arcade" for example and tag a bunch of games as favorites and then do the same in another display with a romlist called "SNES" they will not show in your favorites display unless you're using the same romlist.  So in this case you would have to have two favorites displays one for SNES and one for Arcade and they would have to use the Arcade and SNES romlists respectively.  Having one master romlist solves that issue because all displays use the same romlist with different filters.

Rich
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 11:18:11 PM by rwebb616 »

rwebb616

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Re: Not understanding the design philosophy behind the favorites operation
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2019, 11:19:33 PM »
Here's a write up on using a master list for all sorts of things http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1165.msg8455#msg8455

Here's information on scripting a favorites system to your liking http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2737.msg18894#msg18894

Thank you for those.  The first one kind of explains what I was doing so probably no need for a write-up :)

Rich