Attract-Mode Support Forum
Attract-Mode Support => General => Topic started by: progets on December 19, 2016, 10:12:17 PM
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1. Create a master romlist of all your games. (This will take a while to build if you have many systems and/or roms.)
Configure-->Emulators-->Generate Collection/Rom List-->Set all of your game emulators to “Yes†and then click “Generate Collection/Rom List†and enter the name “All Systemsâ€
2. Setup Search, Filter, Favorites and Tagging (if you haven’t already)
Configure-->Plug-ins-->KeyboardSearch-->Enable=Yes
Configure-->Plug-ins-->KeyboardSearch-->Trigger=Custom1
Configure-->Controls-->Custom1=S
Configure-->Controls-->Filter Menu=F
Configure-->Controls-->Add/Remove Favourite=A
Configure-->Controls-->Add/Remove Tags=T
3. Go to your newly created “All Systems†Display/Wheel and check it out
Once you create a master romlist that contains all of your games there are many ways you can use it. Here are just a few examples.
1. Press the “S†key to open the Search Plug-in and enter “Mario†then press the “Enter†key. This will show you all of your Mario games.
To remove the search press the “S†key and delete “Mario†and press the “Enter†key
2. Create a filter for Mario games
Configure-->Displays-->All Systems-->Add Filter-->Enter Filter Name=Mario Games-->Add Rule
Target=Title
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Mario
3. Create a filter for a Shooting Games genre
Configure-->Displays-->All Systems-->Add Filter-->Enter Filter Name=Shooting Games-->Add Rule
Target=Category
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Shooter
4. Create a custom Display/Wheel for Mario Games
Configure-->Displays-->Add New Display-->Enter Display Name=Mario Games
Collection/Rom List=All Systems
Global Filter-->Add Rule-->
Target=Title
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Mario
(optionally you can hide the “All Systems†Display from “Show in Cycle†and/or “Show in Menu†after your done)
5. Create a tag group for Mario Games
Press the “T†key-->Create new tag-->Enter new tag name=Mario Games
Press the “S†key-->Search for:=Mario
Go to a game you want to add and press the “T†key-->Add tag:’Mario Games’
<repeat the step above until you have all the games you want to tag>
Press the “S†key and delete “Mario†and press the “Enter†key
Configure-->Displays-->All Systems-->Add Filter-->Enter Filter Name=Mario Games-->Add Rule
Target=Tags
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Mario
6. Create Favorites
Go to a game you want to add and press the “A†key-->Add ‘<game name>‘ to Favourites?=Yes
<repeat the step above until you have all the games you want to have in Favoritres>
7. Create a 80’s game filter
Configure-->Displays-->All Systems-->Add Filter-->Enter Filter Name=80’s Games-->Add Rule
Target=Year
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=198
Tip: The "All Systems" Display looks and works best when you use the same or simular "Layout" for all of your Emulator Displays.
If you found this interesting or helpful please let us know how you like to use your master romlist.
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6. Create Favorites
Go to a game you want to add and press the “A” key-->Add ‘<game name>‘ to Favourites?=Yes
<repeat the step above until you have all the games you want to have in Favoritres>
Once I do this how do I get just those to show up in a menu somewhere?> I want one favorites screen with the favorites from all the emulators.
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You can press the "F" key and choose "Favorites" from the filter list.
You could also create a new display for "Favorites" as I describe in #4 and make your Global filter only show favorites.
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I did this and I am not getting any roms showing in my new display
here is the screen shot of what I did.
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For this to work you must mark your favorite games from the newly created All System display and not from the individual system displays.
Then you can add this rule to your new "All Favorites" display:
Configure-->Displays-->All Favorites-->Global Filter-->Add Rule-->
Target=Favourite
Comparison=equals
Filter Value=1
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Thank you, that was the part I was missing.
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For this to work you must mark your favorite games from the newly created All System display and not from the individual system displays.
Then you can add this rule to your new "All Favorites" display:
Configure-->Displays-->All Favorites-->Global Filter-->Add Rule-->
Target=Favourite
Comparison=equals
Filter Value=1
THANK YOU!!!!
This is what I was missing, I have the full list now in a separate favorites list, I just have one last question, how do I get a snap (I want to use hte MAME snap) to show for the favorites? Right now it just shows static, what file do I need to get from where and where do I put it? I have looked all through my file system and I just can't figure that out.
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Each game will use the artwork defined in each emulator. If you want a video for the display menu to show you need to put it in ./attract/menu-art/snap/. It needs to be named to match your display name, "All Favorites.xxx" in your case.
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Thank you, that did it. I copied the MAME one and renamed it to my favorites and it works like a charm!
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Thank you for the walk through on how to setup favorites in Attract Mode! It seems like this answer isn't anywhere.
One other question though, is there a limit in the file size or games on the all games list that I am generating? I made a rather large ROM list with a lot of games and it showed up blank in AM . I tried it with just a small amount of games, and the list showed just fine. Any idea?
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Thank you for the walk through on how to setup favorites in Attract Mode! It seems like this answer isn't anywhere.
One other question though, is there a limit in the file size or games on the all games list that I am generating? I made a rather large ROM list with a lot of games and it showed up blank in AM . I tried it with just a small amount of games, and the list showed just fine. Any idea?
I have never come across any limit and have never heard anyone else that has either.
I'm not certain I understand your question. Are you talking about the "All Systems" list or the "Favorites" list you created that showed up blank?
Post the display configuration screen that you are using that showed up blank.
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Sorry about the post. I tried the exact same thing again and it worked. Go Figure
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Hi.
So I was able to create an all Systems rom list and display in attract mode. I can then filter on favourites. Works great
However on the main display wheel, it displays a big question mark on the "all systems" display I.e the main selection wheel for the emus. The others corrctly display a graphic that show FBA, N64 etc
How do I change the ? To something more meaningful e.g a favourites graphic ?
Thanks
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Hi.
So I was able to create an all Systems rom list and display in attract mode. I can then filter on favourites. Works great
However on the main display wheel, it displays a big question mark on the "all systems" display I.e the main selection wheel for the emus. The others corrctly display a graphic that show FBA, N64 etc
How do I change the ? To something more meaningful e.g a favourites graphic ?
Thanks
Place an image that matches the Display Name in the appropriate folder.
For example
/home/pi/.attract/menu-art/wheel/All Systems.png
or
/home/pi/.attract/menu-art/wheel/Favorites.png
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Thanks. I'll give it a go tomorrow
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Worked perfectly. Thanks
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wow thank you for this, I've been looking for this solution for a long time, Is this the easiest method to create a custom collection list?
For instance I want to group all of my favorite Street Fighter Games together for use on a theme I already have downloaded, all of the games are under their original system folders but I would like to have them together under their own theme would this be the best method? Or would it be easier to create the xml on my PC and then just import it over?
Thanks
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wow thank you for this, I've been looking for this solution for a long time, Is this the easiest method to create a custom collection list?
For instance I want to group all of my favorite Street Fighter Games together for use on a theme I already have downloaded, all of the games are under their original system folders but I would like to have them together under their own theme would this be the best method? Or would it be easier to create the xml on my PC and then just import it over?
Thanks
I recommend this method because it can all be done from the AM GUI. It's also the only method that will allow you to search games across all systems in AM. The multi system filtering and search makes it easy to build your customs lists and will contain the metadata from your systems lists.
You can manually create a list by hand but most people that do this leave out the metadata for: year, manufacturer, genre, number of players, etc.
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@moderators - What happened to this original post?
P.P.S. If anyone has the original post, please re-post it.
Update - I replaced the OP with the help of hermine.potter. When I went to edit the post, it was there but had messed up characters (maybe for the migration?)
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wayback machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20170328030521/http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1165.0)
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wayback machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20170328030521/http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1165.0)
Cool! Thanks hermine.potter.
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This is a great old post with tons of great info. With that said, if I make a single master "arcade" list with let's say 3 systems (Mame, Atomiswave using Demul, and Naomi using Nulldc), then how do I create a filter so that I can select only Mame games, or only Naomi games in the list? Is it even possible?
I've tried something like this which does NOT work:
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Naomi
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This is a great old post with tons of great info. With that said, if I make a single master "arcade" list with let's say 3 systems (Mame, Atomiswave using Demul, and Naomi using Nulldc), then how do I create a filter so that I can select only Mame games, or only Naomi games in the list? Is it even possible?
I've tried something like this which does NOT work:
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Naomi
It looks right and works for me. Post the first 50 lines of your arcade.txt romlist.
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Okay I figured it out.
I was actually doing this.
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Arcade (Naomi)
or
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value="Arcade (Naomi)"
I see the problem was having the space (2 words or more). And doing the quotation marks didn't fix it either. Simply putting "Naomi" works enough though. So is there absolutely no way to have multiple words as a value in the Filter Value field?
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Okay I figured it out.
I was actually doing this.
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Arcade (Naomi)
or
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value="Arcade (Naomi)"
I see the problem was having the space (2 words or more). And doing the quotation marks didn't fix it either. Simply putting "Naomi" works enough though. So is there absolutely no way to have multiple words as a value in the Filter Value field?
Yes, you can have spaces and/or use multiple words in the Filter Value Field. The issue with your rule is actually the parentheses "(" and ")". You must escape a parentheses with a backslash.
Your rule should read like this
Target=Emulator
Comparison=contains
Filter Value=Arcade \(Naomi\)
Here's a similar post with the same type of issue. http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2499.msg17050#msg17050 (http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2499.msg17050#msg17050)
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Ahh so that's the trick. Thanks a lot. It all makes sense now!
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Hi projets
If you wanted a filter for "most played games", is it limited to Mame only or does it extend to games that are invoked by other emulators?
I ask this because the documentation for Attract Mode suggests that catver.ini is necessary for a "most played games" filter.
Thanks.
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Hi projets
If you wanted a filter for "most played games", is it limited to Mame only or does it extend to games that are invoked by other emulators?
I ask this because the documentation for Attract Mode suggests that catver.ini is necessary for a "most played games" filter.
Thanks.
You can have a "most played games" filter for any emulator/display, it's not limited to MAME or a catver.ini. These statistics are stored by AttractMode based on the "romlist" used to run the games.
Keep in mind the context of this post. An "All Games" romlist will store its statistics separately from your individual romlists (i.e. NES, SMS, etc.).
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Thanks, progets. I now understand.
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Fantastic ;D
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One way of doing things might be to create only a masterlist rather then different system lists and access the different lists data from masterlist e.g. for sega genesis create a rule [Magic Token] equals to sega_genesis. This would auto create single fav/ played time etc since we are following a single masterlist. Filters for system can be made by two or more rules so shouldn't be difficult.
The only issue is if AM will take more time processing the masterlist. MAME has around 6500 entries, Amiga has around 5000 so masterlist could potentially contain tens of thousands entries.
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One way of doing things might be to create only a masterlist rather then different system lists and access the different lists data from masterlist e.g. for sega genesis create a rule [Magic Token] equals to sega_genesis. This would auto create single fav/ played time etc since we are following a single masterlist. Filters for system can be made by two or more rules so shouldn't be difficult.
The only issue is if AM will take more time processing the masterlist. MAME has around 6500 entries, Amiga has around 5000 so masterlist could potentially contain tens of thousands entries.
You said it yourself. It seems to me a very bad idea to make a romlist with the more than 20,000 games of my Raspberry pi. ::)
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One way of doing things might be to create only a masterlist rather then different system lists and access the different lists data from masterlist e.g. for sega genesis create a rule [Magic Token] equals to sega_genesis. This would auto create single fav/ played time etc since we are following a single masterlist. Filters for system can be made by two or more rules so shouldn't be difficult.
The only issue is if AM will take more time processing the masterlist. MAME has around 6500 entries, Amiga has around 5000 so masterlist could potentially contain tens of thousands entries.
You said it yourself. It seems to me a very bad idea to make a romlist with the more than 20,000 games of my Raspberry pi. ::)
If used properly (meaning the master romlist is the only romlist used and everything else is a filter) the romlist and filters are only loaded once when AM boots. Yes, if you have a ton of roms this can take a few seconds (especially if on lowend hardware like a Pi) but once the romlist is loaded it never needs to be reloaded because it's never switched.
Other things to consider
- not everyone has a huge rom collection
- people that do have huge rom collections don't always have every rom they own setup/showing in AM
- the concepts of this thread are helpful in making any combined romlist (it doesn't need to be a master romlist)
- the concepts of tagging, favorites, searching, etc. are helpful for anyone that has interest in AM
PS - You can make copies of your system romlists and edit them (remove extra data, rename and placed in corresponding folder) to be tag romlists to be used as filters for the master romlist. Then you can remove/hide all system romlists from being displayed only using the master romlist.
PPS - The master romlist concept isn't going to be everyone's preference.
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i love the idea,
but how would you lode different systems with different emulators ?
under one romlist.
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i love the idea,
but how would you lode different systems with different emulators ?
under one romlist.
The same way you would without a master romlist. Keep in mind that in the OP you're creating the master romlist using your existing romlists. Using one romlist doesn't limit you to one emulator or display configuration.
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If used properly (meaning the master romlist is the only romlist used and everything else is a filter) the romlist and filters are only loaded once when AM boots. Yes, if you have a ton of roms this can take a few seconds (especially if on lowend hardware like a Pi) but once the romlist is loaded it never needs to be reloaded because it's never switched.
Other things to consider
- not everyone has a huge rom collection
- people that do have huge rom collections don't always have every rom they own setup/showing in AM
- the concepts of this thread are helpful in making any combined romlist (it doesn't need to be a master romlist)
- the concepts of tagging, favorites, searching, etc. are helpful for anyone that has interest in AM
PS - You can make copies of your system romlists and edit them (remove extra data, rename and placed in corresponding folder) to be tag romlists to be used as filters for the master romlist. Then you can remove/hide all system romlists from being displayed only using the master romlist.
PPS - The master romlist concept isn't going to be everyone's preference.
You are right, since the list is simple text even a very huge list will be around 7 to 8 mb so should work ok after first (boot) processing (or somehow creating a cache - which will only require regeneration when we make changes) but each filter would require AM to search and create a list on fly which matches the rule-set, I think this might be slow on very big lists.
i love the idea,
but how would you lode different systems with different emulators ?
under one romlist.
You will make all the emulators cfg files as you normally do. In master/all systems romlist a rom entry will mention the emulator so by pressing select AM will boot the game according to details given in emulator.cfg.
You can then make filters like genesis_all, genesis_action etc by making a rule-set Emulator equals to genesis or in case of category filters two rules like Emulator equals to genesis and Category equals to action.
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You are right, since the list is simple text even a very huge list will be around 7 to 8 mb so should work ok after first (boot) processing (or somehow creating a cache - which will only require regeneration when we make changes) but each filter would require AM to search and create a list on fly which matches the rule-set, I think this might be slow on very big lists.
Filters are built when the romlist is loaded. They are not regenerated when switching filters. You can see this when running the console version of AM. You can also see the exact time it took to load the romlist and the filters in the console.
I could make the argument that a slight delay when starting AM is better than a delay every time you switch to a different romlist.
Again, this idea isn't for everyone but hopefully it helps some people. After all the thread was written three years ago.
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Jist to clarify cause I'm pretty illiterate to this stuff I can use this same idea to make new collections displays right?
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Jist to clarify cause I'm pretty illiterate to this stuff I can use this same idea to make new collections displays right?
Yes, you can use this concept to create new collection displays.
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Jist to clarify cause I'm pretty illiterate to this stuff I can use this same idea to make new collections displays right?
Absolutely, in-fact collections (meaning items can be from multiple systems) is best utilized with a unified list.
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Edited as I posted the wrong information
See below for the correct information.
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If you read the whole thread you will see that every display you create can/will use the masterlist romlist. You will just create filters, favorites or tags to make each display show what you want. This way there is only one All Systems romlist used and everything is included. You would hide all your regular system displays and use the filters/tags/favorites to make each display show what you want.
I.E. NES display uses a global rule to only show the emulator for NES games.
I.E. NES favorites uses a global rule to only show the emulator for NES game and a second rule for favorites.
I.E. Your Pac Man display uses a global rule to only show Pac Man tagged games.
I.E. Your Mario display users a global rule to only show Mario tagged games.
I.E. Your all favorites display uses a global rule to show games from the All Systems romlist to show all of your favorites.
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I try not to read too much lol
I prefer things in simple terms like you have just said rather than all technical.
However, yes all of my displays were using my old system, which is why they did not work then. So I will have to change them to the new system.
I presume it is ok to change the keys used, e.g I prefer F for favourites rather than A for Add.
However, many thanks for this, at least I now have favourites working 100%
Regards
Mark
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Key setup doesn't matter as long as you substitute your key verses my key when reading the thread.
I use "F" for the "Filter Menu" because my systems has been setup for a long time and I rarely add favorites.
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I am not sure if you have would be interesting seeing a video of your setup, how you have it laid out etc, what theme you use. What collections and stuff like that.
At the moment I have seven main categories for my main menu, and then behind those are nested sub collections
So for Arcade
I have all games, arcade systems (boards), arcade collections and genres.
Which is making me think that potentially I am not going to be able to use just the All Systems all of the time, unless they have some form of marker instead of the XML file,
No that is fine, I just looked at the All System file, it has the main emulator for that game, so I should be able to use keywords from that to separate arcade from consoles etc.
My favourites will a mixture of favourites and games that I have never played before, I did try to create favourites and a bucket list favourite list as well. So the bucket list will be a game that I have never seen before but it looks a brilliant game.
However, I suppose now that I am on All Systems, if that is the default list for things, then tagged files should work better now, so I might be able to just tag files and have that in a separate list.
Just an update, I tried on my Bubble Bobble Arcade section using All Systems, to which I got all games across all the systems as you would expect.
As I have my emulators set up so that they are MAME (Arcade) I set up a rule where emulator contains (Arcade) and then it strips out the consoles etc.
I could then add the results into my favourites.
Regards
Mark
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Since I migrated to AM (Attract Mode) from a different frontend, my setup isn't a typical Attract Mode setup. It's very complex and uses RocketLauncher which isn't required in AM.
If you want to know more read this thread http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2401.msg16418#msg16418 (http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2401.msg16418#msg16418).
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I will no doubt in the future have to use RL once again, I believe that you can run some Teckno Parrot games now from this without having to use TP itself.
After using CoinOps for the past couple/few years a lot of what I knew on RL and XML files are buried deep inside of my mind, and I am slowly remembering how to do things on an XML set up.
I really need to go through my HyperSpin tools and see which ones can help me with AM such as creating XML files etc it is pretty bad that HyperList has not been updated for what looks like years, E.G they do not even have the PS3 as a system.
Emu Movies is just as bad, so many missing artwork and video's that really should have been completed years ago, but it looks like they just done the basic bare minimum work, charged everyone £60 or whatever I paid for a life time subscription, and then never bothered to add any more to it. When you become a slave to the CoinOps World then you tend to become stupid and reliant on other people for graphics and rom sets etc.
I still download certain rom packs but I mainly rip out the roms and certain artwork such as logos. Sadly a lot of rom sites will eventually get shut down due to stupid youtubers that make posts on where to download roms from, one of which has a lot of taboo company roms, and as they have shut down a lot of other sites that supplied their roms, these new sites will not be up for long, so at the moment it is a case of try and grab stuff while it is still there.
Right shower and shops time, I hate going out shopping on a Sunday, but ran out of beer so needs must
Regards
Mark