Just to say, I set up attract-mode on and old linux 10 year old laptop with a usb ps2 joypad connected, over the xmas holidays, currently with the cools layout and everything works great. So thanks to everyone who has put work into this project
I initially set it up as and easy to use front end to let my 5 year old son play some of the retro classics i enjoyed in my youth, on various emulators, though now i am considering building a proper dedicated arcade type machine, adding in some extra emulators. Anyhow below is a list of ideas of what would be handy features (maybe some of this exists already)
1. A field on the rom list for age categorization so i could easily filter out games my son is too young to play (so i can still maintain a single set up and turn the option on and off).
2. To be able to hide, rather than delete an existing emulator. Useful when setting up a new emulator as I don't want my son to browse to it, til it is ready, it also lets me restrict choice so he can be happy playing on the megadrive/snes games rather than constantly flicking through to new things.
3. An emulator play-ability status field, so you can build a rom list of all titles but filter out those not currently playable so everything can be kept in one directory for the time when the game becomes playable. Useful for under development emulators (e.g. i recently built reicast and found all types of interesting variations on what works and what doesn't) when I don't want my son starting up broken games.