AttractModeListMgr - A new app to manage AttractMode lists

[bobretro]

Hi,
I wrote a little app, mostly as an exercise to learn python, that helps you maintain your AttractMode display lists.  It simplifies the filtering process, allowing you to select or deselect entries within your list based on various criteria.  When you save your changes, AttractModeListMgr simply adds "excluded" to the "Extra" field in your list file.  This allows you to put one simple rule in your display:

Extra not_contains excluded

It's a work-in-progress, but is pretty functional.  As stated in the documentation, I suggest backing up your AttractMode files first just in case.

The github page is here: https://github.com/bobRetro/AttractModeListMgr

You can download the windows distribution in the windows folder.  No install required, just unzip and run the executable. (Created with py2exe)

[mahuti]

Cool. Will check it out

[manzarek]

Hi, can you put some screenshots and explain better what this program can do? You know I'm not English and I write with Google Translate

[bobretro]

Hi, can you put some screenshots and explain better what this program can do? You know I'm not English and I write with Google Translate

I'll post some examples soon, but here's a more complete description.

I found that using the display filters in AttractMode worked o.k., but didn't give me the level of refinement I wanted for creating the exact list I wanted.
This app allows you to perform all of your filtering in an easy-to-use GUI interface outside of AttractMode and then simply apply 1 filter (Extra not_contains excluded) to your display in AttractMode.

Some problems were:

• Some games showed in the list but didn't work.  This was the main reason I wrote this, to be able to validate all list entries for MAME and exclude them.
• Generally I prefer to exclude clones, but that's problematic because there are some clones I want to keep in my list.  This app allows you to uncheck the clones in the GUI and then check any clones you want included
• The search functionality allows you to search by various categories.  Once you get the search results, you can hit Ctrl-A to select all of the results, right-click and select "uncheck" and those items will now have the "excluded" value in the "Extra" column of your .lst file.

I'm already working on some enhancements that I think people will enjoy:

• A Save Favorites option that takes all of the favorites from all displays and creates a Favorites.txt file alphabetized by title name.
• The ability to use a non-grouped display mode.  Currently you can only view items grouped by parent (using the cloneOf column) or title.
• Adding more columns to the search criteria, right now you can only search by Name, Variation and Category (status is in the search box, but doesn't work because there is a menu item for selecting all failed or passed entries)
• Deselecting using entry variations such as !, USA, PAL, etc
• Manual sorting using drag-and-drop

Feel free to post feature requests.

[manzarek]

Great thanks I will definitely use it

[manzarek]

when i start the executable it opens and closes immediately after,

Code: [Select]

AttractModeListMgr.exe