Author Topic: List tips and tricks (or customizing your list)  (Read 6169 times)

akafox

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List tips and tricks (or customizing your list)
« on: October 22, 2016, 11:38:55 AM »
READ THIS FIRST:

1. Understand I am not responsible if you destroy or delete your setup and hard work. You were the one that chose to try this. I did not threaten or make you do this!
2. Before attempting this: back up your attractmode folder!!!!!!!
3. You will need a basic working understand and knowledge of the spreadsheet program you are using.
4. You will need to understand and know how to set up attract mode and make it work before attempting this.
5. This is a quick explanation it is not meant to be a in-depth guide.
6. The mini-walk through is just an example for you to do if you want to so that you understand how this works
7. Refer to number three
8. Refer to number two
9. Refer to number one

To make "custom lists" in Attract Mode is easy. You could build one using rom lister and import them. Yes. What about some other ways?

I'll give you a few examples:
1. I have merged my Daphne and my DICE games/lists into my Mame list. They are arcade games aren't they? :P

2. Want to show off the cab right? So you have a fighting game "tournament" just to get that guy to shut up about how good he is at (insert game name here). You could filter them using filters easy enough..but you are missing some games. You know the console only fighters (yeah they were bad/good/whatever but still this is just an example. So you can merge them all into one list.

3. You can make a list of games across systems that are your favorites then you don't have to scroll to find them.

4. Let's say you have many emulators and don't want to scroll to each one be it different emulators or different versions of mame. (I have a system that runs 3 versions of mame, daphne and final burn alpha) I combined them into one "arcade" list.)

5. You have cue bin files but only want one game listed (of course!) You can use this to get rid of them and have a clean list renamed and organized how you want them. (Good for optical disc based systems)


Well I'm going to show you how to do it. I say this is easy and it is. However it can be time consuming depending on the type of lists you want.

First you need tools:
1. A text editor
Windows Notepad (NOT wordpad)
Linux vim, nano, leafpad
Mac TextEdit

2. A spreadsheet program
Windows Excel, Libre Office
Linux Libre Office, Open Office or Gunmeric
Mac OS X Numbers

3. Time and Patience.

First create your list(s) normally. From here you have two options:
1. You can create a new (blank) list
     or
2. You can use a "main" list (ex. mame list)

To create a blank list make a new "emulator". You will need to create a list of some kind of list first just scan a one rom you copied over to a temporary folder. Now open your lists folder and open the list you created..or your "main" list in your text editor. Next open your second list in your text editor. Highlight the entire thing. (Windows , Linux Ctrl+A Mac (insert here)) Now copy it (Windows, Linux Ctrl+C Mac (insert here)) Next in your first/main list place the cursor at the beginning of the first blank line..now paste the contents there. (Windows, Linux Ctrl+V mac (insert here)) Now the first line of that text would be headers..we don't need those because they are already at the top of our first/main list (that is where they belong) so erase that line.

Now save your list. If you open this "emulator" in Attract mode it would be a merged list..however it will not be in alphabetical order so that is where or spreadsheet program comes in to play here. Now you want to copy the entire new list now paste it into your spreadsheet program (make sure you have A1 highlighted). When you do it will ask you for the delimiters. You want to make it (;) Then it will paste correctly in each cell and column. Now you want to highlight the entire thing and sort the list alphabetically. (each program is different.) Make sure to have each column highlighted or your list will be "weird"!

From here you can add or delete any information you wish..but always leave the Name column alone! Last you want to save it as a a csv file you can name it whatever you wish. Now rename the csv file to a txt file. (Ex. mame.csv -> mame.txt) The name of the list will be the "emulator" name. Open Attract Mode and you should see your new combined list!

Some tips and tricks:
'98
'99
2000

2000 will always come first....but it's not in order now. You can cut the "98 99 games" and then paste them above the 2000 games listing and then save it. Attract Mode will then display them "in order".

Changing the game name to whatever you want. (say for example the DICE emulator) just change the Title listing (ex pong to PONG) Leave the Name listing alone! that is what AM needs to load the game! (This is great for the ZiNC emulator as you can rename 2 to Street Fighter EX.)

Ok now the mini-walkthrough:

1. move/copy your attract folder somewhere else on your computer so its safe. We will be starting from scratch.
2. delete your lists from the lists folder and your emulators from your emulators folder
3. start attract mode and create two new emulators (let's use mame and nes)
4. set them up like normal (remember to generate lists for both emulators!)
5. Quit attract mode
6. navigate to the attract/romlists folder (in linux .attract/rom folders)
7. open one of your lists and copy it...all off it! (crtl+A)
8. Open your spreadsheet program. and paste it in starting from A1
9. Paste it using the semi-colon ( ; ) as a separator
10. open your other list that you wish to add to the bottom (last used) row in your spreadsheet and paste it like above
11. SAVE the new spreadsheet!
12. From here you may change, add, delete, rename, sort as you please.
      a. NEVER change anything in the Name (A) column! (However you do need to add it in your sorting..or your list might load asteroids instead of pacman :P )
      b. NEVER change anything in the 1 row. N-E-V-E-R these are your headers...if these are missing or changed your list is useless! (or may not load or cause AttractMode to crash)
      c. Ctrl+Z (undo) is your lifesaver here!
13.  Let's assume that you have merged the MAME and NES lists and that you want to have them sorted by name.
14. You want to highlight everything (ctrl+A) then sort by Title (the header in the B1 cell) This is the column that is shown in the list in Attractmode. (The Name is what your emulator uses to start your game that's why it never changed.)
15. You now have (for example) two jousts donkey kong and pacmans
16. delete the donkey kong and the pacman that have MAME beside them under the emulator column (C) Don't delete the text delete the entire row! (no empty spaces in between text.)
17. delete joust that has NES in the Emulator (C) column.
18. Under the Title (B) Column change pacman to pac is the man.
19. Now save your list as a text.csv (or csv) file (YES THIS ONE! because that is what type of file that attract mode creates..thus NEEDS to work!)
20. go back to the rom lists folder and rename the list to name.csv to name.txt.
21. start attract mode and look at your new list start pac is the man...notice the nes emulator comes up and it's still pacman. Quit the emulator.
22. Start donkey kong..notice it's the nes emulator not the arcade version.
23. Start the joust emulator and notice the mame emulator comes up. Quit the emulator.
24. quit attract mode
25. copy/move your attract mode folder back to where it belongs
26. now you can make you lists the way you like!

This should be able to be done on a raspberry pi that uses Atrractmode also However you will want to copy the list to a "real" computer to do this and them copy it back to the pi...it will be much easier and faster. Coping the list to a computer from the pi is an exercise for the user. Although I'm sure you can ssh in and open it up in your file manager on your "real" computer easily.

I have done this many times and have had great results.

Questions..problems? Ask me.

Happy gaming! :)
People want life easy..then complain about it