Theme Editor Control Panels

[bkenobi]

I was playing around with the Theme Editor last night and found the custom control panel viewer! When did that get added? Anyway, Is there a way to have different CP's for different games and/or types of games? Let me explain what I'm trying to do, then maybe HK or someone else in the know can answer.

My CP is 2 player with 7 buttons in a NeoGeo/SF layout using LS30 (rotary) joysticks and a pair of guns. When I have a game with 4 or less buttons, I use the NeoGeo buttons. If there are 5 or more, I use the SF buttons (6 button layout). If it's a gun game, I use the guns (duh). And, if the game uses rotary joysticks, then I use the rotary portion of the joysticks (well, once I get the rotary circuit finished ) and whichever button layout is appropriate.

So, what I want to do is have at least 3 CP layouts. 1) Standard NeoGeo (so button 1 is the left most button). 2) SF layout (so button 1 is the upper left button). 3) Light gun (using a background image that shows a gun).

Basically, I have a couple questions. First, when will CP viewer be added to GameEx, if at all (I don't want to spend a bunch of time now on something that is 6 months to a year off)? Second, can this CP viewer do the things I have suggested? It looks very similar to both CPV2 and Johnny5 in many ways, but that doesn't mean it has the same features. Johnny5 can have different control types/manufacturers/romname/etc setups. CPV2 can have different CP's for each rom/console/etc. Is this type of capability available in the GameEx CP viewer?

Thanks and keep up the excellent work!

[Tempest]

I was playing around with the Theme Editor last night and found the custom control panel viewer! When did that get added? Anyway, Is there a way to have different CP's for different games and/or types of games? Let me explain what I'm trying to do, then maybe HK or someone else in the know can answer.

My CP is 2 player with 7 buttons in a NeoGeo/SF layout using LS30 (rotary) joysticks and a pair of guns. When I have a game with 4 or less buttons, I use the NeoGeo buttons. If there are 5 or more, I use the SF buttons (6 button layout). If it's a gun game, I use the guns (duh). And, if the game uses rotary joysticks, then I use the rotary portion of the joysticks (well, once I get the rotary circuit finished ) and whichever button layout is appropriate.

So, what I want to do is have at least 3 CP layouts. 1) Standard NeoGeo (so button 1 is the left most button). 2) SF layout (so button 1 is the upper left button). 3) Light gun (using a background image that shows a gun).

Basically, I have a couple questions. First, when will CP viewer be added to GameEx, if at all (I don't want to spend a bunch of time now on something that is 6 months to a year off)? Second, can this CP viewer do the things I have suggested? It looks very similar to both CPV2 and Johnny5 in many ways, but that doesn't mean it has the same features. Johnny5 can have different control types/manufacturers/romname/etc setups. CPV2 can have different CP's for each rom/console/etc. Is this type of capability available in the GameEx CP viewer?

Thanks and keep up the excellent work!

Bkenobi - You might want to check out the CPWizard!

I'm just messing with you! It's quiet in here tonight...

I was just reading everthing I could find regarding the Theme Editor, and came across your post. The real reason I am replying is that I noticed (that nobody else replied) that your number of posts is getting close to your member number. Do you get a prize when they are equal?

Pay Attention, and make it worthwhile when it comes about.

Have a Good One....

[bkenobi]

Yeah, I asked that before HK announced the CPWizard. There still isn't a super easy way to do this, but with the CPWizard, it's something that's manageable.

[Tempest]

Yeah, I asked that before HK announced the CPWizard. There still isn't a super easy way to do this, but with the CPWizard, it's something that's manageable.

This may not be that hard. You may know this already, but for the rest of the masses.....

I discovered while working on the documentation for CPWizard the use of "Mame Keywords". I think its in Edit > Options > Mame, but it may be on a different Tab. I had been complaining to HK that I didn't like how the CPWizard would display "LEFT","RIGHT", next to the joystick, and the spinner, and the trackball, when for instance playing Tempest. I thought he should come up with a way to display only the labels next to the "best" control for that game.

The answer was staring me in the face the whole time. I made copies of my CP layout, and named them joystick, trackball, and spinner.

I then removed the inappropriate labels from each panel. E.G. I removed the labels next to the trackball, and joystick for the spinner CP layout.

Using "Mame Keywords" I used the word "spinner" to trigger the use of my spinner layout. No more unecessary labels! Nice and clean!

I would assume that you could do the same thing for your button layout. Make one CP layout for up to 4 button games, and a second for 6 (or7) button games. The only thing that I'm not sure of is where the data is coming from for the matches to "Mame keywords", so I don't for sure that there is a way to trigger for the number of buttons. I would assume that it is from Control.ini.

Maybe I'll try to figure that out today, as my joystick panel doesn't display when it should. I used the word "joystick", and I probably should use "joy" for 2wayjoy, 4wayjoy, etc. You know what? I will play with it, and get back to you.

11 more posts till you match!

[Tempest]

OK, I'm finished with my investigation.

It looks like HK is using the <control name="control name here"> information from controls.xml

For buttons the line is <control name ="Just Buttons". So the way things are, I don't think you could change your CP to display differently based on the number of buttons.

However, there is a different line that reads <player number="1" numButtons="3">

If HK could be convinced to use this information as well, then you could do what you want.

Does anybody know how to search through the controls.xml file, and output a list of the <control name="control name here"> options?

E.G.

Just Buttons

4-way Joystick

Etc.

With the joystick type information, you could have a different CP for 8-way, 4-way diag, etc.

It would take the guess work out of it if we had a list available to use in the CPWizard>"Mame Keywords"

Headkaze - does all of my speculation look right to you? Do you have a list of "Mame Keywords"

I could go through it by hand if necessary. (hopefully that won't be necessary!)

Edit: I just checked to see if "Mame Keyword" allowed pattern matching *joy* didn't work, so it looks like you would have to set up a different keyword for every joystick type, although they could all use the same CP layout.... or maybe a different layout for "Just Buttons, and let the joystick be your primary mame layout.

[Tempest]

Allright - I played with this some more...did I say it would be easy?

The data in controls.xml is is not totally accurate. E.G. asteroids is listed as having 3 buttons, and a 2way joystick. My contol panel picture for Asteroids clearly shows 5 buttons (buttons only)

There are many names for what I would consider the same control: spinner,paddle,360 steering wheel,turntable, etc.

there is a second field called <constant name="dial"/> that would be more useful (at least I think so, but maybe there are problems there too) but that is not where HK is getting his data from.

There were quite a few other problems in other games as well, but I did not note what they were, but so far this looks far from easy.

Headkaze - any comments?

[headkaze]

I have 7 buttons with the 4 NeoGeo buttons along the bottom. I just put an entry in cfg\default.cfg for NeoGeo and CPWizard displays the labels correctly. CPWizard should take any custom mappings into account. There could be problems if your Mame's ini file is not called mame.ini and located in Mame's root folder. CPWizard expects this file because it's only really meant to work with vanilla Mame.

[Tempest]

I have 7 buttons with the 4 NeoGeo buttons along the bottom. I just put an entry in cfg\default.cfg for NeoGeo and CPWizard displays the labels correctly. CPWizard should take any custom mappings into account. There could be problems if your Mame's ini file is not called mame.ini and located in Mame's root folder. CPWizard expects this file because it's only really meant to work with vanilla Mame.

Ok. that will help Bkenobi, but where are you getting the information for "Mame keywords" from? Basically I'm trying to figure out what the options are. I guess Ideally it would be nice to select them from a drop down box, if there aren't too many.

[headkaze]

Ok. that will help Bkenobi, but where are you getting the information for "Mame keywords" from? Basically I'm trying to figure out what the options are. I guess Ideally it would be nice to select them from a drop down box, if there aren't too many.

Take a look at this controls.xml entry

<player number="1" numButtons="2">
	<controls>
		<control name="8-way Joystick">
			<constant name="joy8way"/>
		</control>
	</controls>
<labels>

See where is says <control name="8-way Joystick"> well it checks if the keyword is contained inside the control name. Now that I'm thinking about this, maybe it would be better to use the constant name?

I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve the way CPWizard works, but I need it to be explained in great detail with examples, and games to test etc. Some of Mame's control mapping system is still confusing to me. There are probably ways I can improve on these things.

[bkenobi]

Actually, those images are perhaps misleading. I guess I should have listed my layouts as 1-4 button games (what I called Neo Geo) and 5-6 button games (what I called SF). I use the Neo Geo buttons as the default layout since those feel more natural. The problem is that I would have to setup a override ini file for any game with more than 4 buttons rather than just NeoGeo games like it sounds like you do.

That may not make sense. If not, I can try to rephrase. Last time I set everything up, I did it manually by going to every game that had 5+ buttons and changing their config. I'm not really that interested in doing that again (since I never reconfigured after the controls update in ~118. Any thoughts?

[headkaze]

Actually, those images are perhaps misleading. I guess I should have listed my layouts as 1-4 button games (what I called Neo Geo) and 5-6 button games (what I called SF). I use the Neo Geo buttons as the default layout since those feel more natural. The problem is that I would have to setup a override ini file for any game with more than 4 buttons rather than just NeoGeo games like it sounds like you do.

That may not make sense. If not, I can try to rephrase. Last time I set everything up, I did it manually by going to every game that had 5+ buttons and changing their config. I'm not really that interested in doing that again (since I never reconfigured after the controls update in ~118. Any thoughts?

Does CPWizard not display the correct labels? Is that what your saying? CPWizard should read your ctrlr (if you have one) and all cfg's for each game. Then it should use that information to display labels correctly. So it shouldn't matter which way you have your controls remapped it should take that into account. If it's not working correctly then it's either a bug or some other problem.

[bkenobi]

Actually, the problem I just mentioned isn't CPWizard related. The problem is that I have 2 styles of controls for my cab (Neo Geo and SF). I use the 4 button Neo Geo for anything with 4 or less buttons and the SF layout if it has more. My last question was really a question about MAME since I thought you were saying by creating a NeoGeo.ini file, you could change the way buttons are setup. If I misread, that's my bad.

[headkaze]

Actually, the problem I just mentioned isn't CPWizard related. The problem is that I have 2 styles of controls for my cab (Neo Geo and SF). I use the 4 button Neo Geo for anything with 4 or less buttons and the SF layout if it has more. My last question was really a question about MAME since I thought you were saying by creating a NeoGeo.ini file, you could change the way buttons are setup. If I misread, that's my bad.

I was just saying since neogeo ROM's all have the same parent you can set up an entry for it in default.cfg and it will mean any Neo Geo game will use those mappings. Easier than doing each game manually.

[Tempest]

Take a look at this controls.xml entry

<player number="1" numButtons="2">
	<controls>
		<control name="8-way Joystick">
			<constant name="joy8way"/>
		</control>
	</controls>
<labels>

See where is says <control name="8-way Joystick"> well it checks if the keyword is contained inside the control name. Now that I'm thinking about this, maybe it would be better to use the constant name?

I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve the way CPWizard works, but I need it to be explained in great detail with examples, and games to test etc. Some of Mame's control mapping system is still confusing to me. There are probably ways I can improve on these things.

Ok. that's what I thought... this is cut from my #6 post above:

There are many names for what I would consider the same control: spinner,paddle,360 steering wheel,turntable, etc.

there is a second field called <constant name="dial"/> that would be more useful (at least I think so, but maybe there are problems there too) but that is not where HK is getting his data from.

So, yes I think it would be better, but my first thoughts aren't always the best.

I was also wondering if there was a way to extract all of the different <constant names> from the control.xml so that they could either :

1. Be included in the documentation so that the user would know what the options for "Mame Keywords" are.

or

2. Be able to be selected from a drop down list of "Mame Keywords" within the CPWizard program. (providing that the list isn't too long)

If you could read my posts #5 and #6 above it may clear things up.

Also I am willing to help in anyway that I can.

[headkaze]

Ok. that's what I thought... this is cut from my #6 post above:

So, yes I think it would be better, but my first thoughts aren't always the best.

I was also wondering if there was a way to extract all of the different <constant names> from the control.xml so that they could either :

1. Be included in the documentation so that the user would know what the options for "Mame Keywords" are.

or

2. Be able to be selected from a drop down list of "Mame Keywords" within the CPWizard program. (providing that the list isn't too long)

If you could read my posts #5 and #6 above it may clear things up.

Also I am willing to help in anyway that I can.

A drop down list of all the keywords, yeah good idea. I'll look into adding that next release.