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Topics - wrybread

Pages: [1] 2
1
General / How to avoid showing commandline text when selecting a game?
« on: January 03, 2024, 10:07:11 AM »
I'm using Attract Mode on Linux, and when I select a game it briefly shows the commandline window before the rom loads. I remember there was a fix for this but I can't remember what it was or find it. Any ideas by chance?

2
Ideally I'd love to switch to a given romlist and then load a specific rom when attract mode is launched. Is there some clever way to do that?

3
General / Problem running mame's hiscore plugin from attract mode
« on: June 07, 2022, 02:09:31 PM »
This is driving me nuts, I wonder if anyone has a theory. I'm running mame version 0.175 on Ubuntu, and the hiscore plugin works fine when I run it directly:

Code: [Select]
/home/wrybread/.attract/mame/mame64wry2 -rompath /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/roms -skip_gameinfo -pluginspath /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/plugins -plugin hiscore -verbose mspacman

But when I run mame from Attract Mode the plugin will run but it never loads any high scores.

Attract Mode's mame.cfg file looks like this:

Code: [Select]
executable           $HOME/.attract/mame/mame64wry2

args                 -rompath $HOME/.attract/mame/roms -skip_gameinfo -pluginspath /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/plugins -plugin hiscore  -verbose [name]
 
rompath              $HOME/.attract/mame/roms/
romext               .zip;.7z;<DIR>
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
artwork    cabinet         $HOME/.attract/mame/cabinets
artwork    flyer           
artwork    marquee         $HOME/.attract/mame/marquees
artwork    snap            $HOME/.attract/mame/videos;$HOME/.attract/mame/snap
artwork    wheel           

When Attract Mode launches a mame ROM the command looks exactly like when I run it directly:

Code: [Select]
Config: /home/wrybread/.attract/attract.cfg

*** Initializing display: 'Every Cocktail Table Game'
 - Loaded master romlist 'cocktail_list' in 4 ms (790 entries kept, 0 discarded)
 - Constructed 2 filters in 0 ms (1580 comparisons)
 - Loaded layout: /home/wrybread/.attract/layouts/WryCadeVert/ (layout.nut)

Running: /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/mame64wry2 -rompath $HOME/.attract/mame/roms -skip_gameinfo -pluginspath /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/plugins -plugin hiscore  -verbose mspacman

But the hiscore plugin never finds any high scores. Every time I run it from AM it says:

Code: [Select]
Starting Ms. Pac-Man
hiscore: found hiscore.dat entry for mspacman
hiscore: scores read FAIL

Even though I can see it writing to the hiscore file during game play:

Code: [Select]
hiscore: write_scores
hiscore: write_scores output
hiscore: write_scores end

My theory is that it's an environmental variable that AM is setting? I tried setting the "workdir" variable in AM's mame.cfg file, but that didn't make any difference for me.

I don't imagine anyone has a theory?

(And on a sidenote, the hiscore plugin wouldn't even load until I put the full path to mame's plugin directory in AM's mame.cfg. In other words, this works: "-pluginspath /home/wrybread/.attract/mame/plugin" but this fails "-pluginspath $HOME/.attract/mame/plugin", even though they both translate to the same thing. )

4
Themes / Possible to format text in a layout? Trying to make "headers"
« on: April 12, 2021, 10:34:24 PM »
I'm trying to make section headers inside my layout's romlist. For example, in the following screenshot:



In that layout, the "Just the Classics" stays at the top of the screen, which is great. And the romlist scrolls, which is great. But I'd like to be able to have different sized entries in that romlist.

For example, maybe there would be a large item called "vertical games" in the romlist, that kind of thing. It would scroll with the other items in the romlist, but would be larger.

Is anything like that possible currently in the theme scripting?

Thanks for any help.

5
General / Issue when changing screen resolution
« on: March 30, 2021, 03:13:37 AM »
I have a game that changes the screen resolution, and when I exit the game AM is no longer fullscreen. In other words:

- I start Attract Mode in 1024x768 resolution

- I launch a game that changes the screen resolution to 1680x1050

- when AM exits the game (and the screen resolution is still 1680x1050) the AM window now only takes up a small part of the screen.

I think I remember seeing a setting for dealing with this, maybe redrawing the window after exiting a game? I can't remember though.

Does anyone happen to have an idea?

Thanks for any help.

6
Scripting / A plugin to choose and run a random ROM...
« on: November 02, 2020, 01:28:45 AM »
It's always driven me a bit nuts that the "random" button in Attract Mode doesn't actually run the ROM, it just chooses it. Maybe there should be a second "random" control to choose and then run it?

Anyway, in the meantime, I made a plugin to choose *and* run the ROM. Whoo hoo! Loving having it choose all these crappy old games for me, ha.

EDIT: attaching the updated version here, this should work on all platforms. The rest of the thread is about the old version, before rand0m helped fix it and made it cross platform.

To use, put this plugin in Attract Mode's plugin folder, then go to AM's Controls menu and assign whatever key you'd like to "custom2", which is what the plugin listens for. You can edit the plugin to change that.


7
Scripting / Possible to have two text sizes in rom list?
« on: October 28, 2020, 08:20:17 PM »
I'm trying to modify my layout.nut to have category headings in the ROM list.

For example:


Quote
*** Atari 2600 ***

Pitfall
Combat
Adventure


*** NES ***

Mario Brothers
Maniac Mansion

The ***text*** would be larger.

Is there some way to do that?

Maybe there's some way to process the romlist text, and I could look for special characters that would indicate a different text size?

8
General / Snapshots for Atari roms?
« on: October 14, 2020, 08:32:52 PM »
I don't imagine anyone has a bunch of good snapshots, or pics of the cartridges, for Atari 2600 roms?

Or know where to get them?

I'm also needing a list of the best Atari 2600 roms. I know that's very subjective, but my current Stella romlist is something like 1000 roms, and there's tons and tons of crap. Looking for something a little pared down.

I'm at my username @ gmail.com if anyone feels like sending them over...

9
General / Good emulator for SNES and AM?
« on: October 14, 2020, 03:32:21 PM »
There's a couple of SNES roms I'd like to add to my system, and I'm using ZSNES. That works on my other cabinet, which has a horizontal monitor. But this one has a vertical monitor...

I found the -v parameter, which sets the video mode. However it changes the screen resolution on my system in general, so when I exit the game my monitor resolution has changed.

I'm wondering if anyone knows a way around this?

Or is there some other SNES emulator people recommend?

10
Scripting / Possible to put an icon next to game name in rom list?
« on: September 24, 2020, 09:10:13 PM »
I made my layout show a little cocktail glass icon in the bottom right when the currently selected game supports cocktail mode (let me know if anyone is interested in that, email me at my username at gmail), but I think it would be nicer if it put that icon in the romlist next to each game that supports cocktail mode.

So I'm wondering: how do I put icons next to each game in the list?

Here's the part of my layout that deals with the romlist:

Code: [Select]
// this is the ROM list
local lb = fe.add_listbox( 0, 220, fe.layout.width, fe.layout.height-450);
lb.charsize = 40
lb.set_sel_rgb( 200, 200, 64 );
lb.sel_style = Style.Bold;
lb.selbg_alpha=0;
lb.rows = 15;

Attached is a screenshot of my layout, note the cocktail glass at bottom right.

Is there some way to put an icon next to each game name? I can work out the conditionals, just need help putting any static icon next to the text.

11
Scripting / Joystick button to choose and launch a random game?
« on: September 24, 2020, 03:32:14 PM »
I'm giving one of my cabinets some update love, and trying to set a button to choose and launch a random game.

When I last worked on this I saw that AM can choose a random game, but still requires the user to confirm the choice by pressing the "go" button.

Can anyone think of some clever way to map a button to choose and launch a game with a single press?

Ideally it would be a joystick button, since all my buttons use a joystick encoder.

I had a way to do this before using a Python script, and if all else fails I can use that, but it's a bit kludgey since it needs to close Attract Mode and then relaunch AM when the game ends.

12
Scripting / Possible to execute some command when an emulator closes?
« on: September 26, 2018, 08:04:32 PM »
I'm wondering if I can run some script when an emulator closes? In other words, if I start GameA from a Layout using EmulatorX, can a script run automatically when GameA exits?

I need to clean up a couple of extra windows that I'm running with my emulator, and trying to figure out a method.

13
I'd like to make a screensaver that cycles through games, as opposed to videos of games. And when a user presses a button, no need to exit the cycling, just stay in that game and let the user play it.

Would this be possible?

Any advice for a starting point?

Or maybe something already exists?

14
I have a multi monitor layout, that shows my romlist on both monitors. This lets me choose a ROM from either monitor. Everything works great.

However, when I run the KeyboardSearch plugin, the search dialog appears only on monitor 1. The results, however, properly appear on both monitors.

Looking at KeyboardSearch.nut, the dialog is initted with:

         _last_search = fe.overlay.edit_dialog(
            "Search for:",
            _last_search );

If I add a second dialog after that, they're executed sequentially, not simultaneously.

Maybe there's some way to clone that dialog box to monitor 2?

Or some way to simply move it to monitor 2? If so I could make two separate search plugins, one for when I'm using Monitor 1, and one for Monitor 2, with different triggers to launch each one.

Anyway, thanks for any help, and let me know if any of the above isn't clear.




15
Scripting / How to make a web server plugin?
« on: March 13, 2018, 07:43:28 PM »
I'd like to be able to send my arcade cabinet commands over the network. I was thinking the way to do that might be with a plugin?

Does anyone have any tips on that?

Open to using either Python or Squirrel.

On Linux if that matters.

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