benjam47

I have gone into the Weather application and set up a single location (Whittier, CA), and everything is working correctly from within the Weather application itself. However, the weather icon that shows outside of the application is always showing a temperature from some other location. I'm pretty sure it's not 36 degrees in CA Any ideas?

Very nice feature! I'd like to second the vote of being able to customize the name of the emulator

MAME settings has both a "Snap Path" and a "Video Snap Path". Can we have this for custom emulators as well? Right not all my snaps (except for MAME) go to waste because I can only put the video path in the "Snap/Video Path" option. If I have an image but not a video for a particular game, it would be nice if it would show the image. I guess I could just copy the contents of my snap directory into my video directory, but it would require an additional step after doing future emumovie updates. Thanks.

I suspect (although I could be wrong) that 7z will unextract RAR files nearly as fast as WinRAR. However, I am working on a new command in GELW called "REGISTEREXTENSION" that will allow you to specify any program and command-line options to unextract a particular extension. eg: REGISTEREXTENSION .ZIP "C:\Program Files\7-zip\7z.exe" "e -o%D %T" REGISTEREXTENSION .RAR "C:\Program Files\WinRAR\WinRAR.exe" <command line options> (I don't have GELW in front of me so the above example might not be completely accurate, but it's close) I have never tried having GameEX extract the zip for me, but in that case you should be able to have a GELW INI that does not run the UNZIP command. You'll lose out on being able to use the IDENTIFY option however, and I don't think that GameEX has a similar option. You'll also lose out on the CLEANUP option, but I *assume* that GameEX will delete the files that were extracted after the emulator is run?

It should work with any emulator that accepts the required arguments (eg: the ROM to launch) on a command line.

Do you have the .NET Framework 3.5 installed? (Downloadable URL is included in the first post). If not GELW will crash. Also, your REGISTERDT line needs to include the executable (eg: "C:\Program Files\DAEMON Tools\daemon.exe". Sorry this was not very clear in the documentation. Re "no games found": I have my GameEx configured to display all files (*.*) in my ROM folder for a particular emulator, so it happily displays .zip, .rar, and any other files in that directory. Re "and 7-zip only compresses on average less than 5% better.". I agree, I like RAR files too. But are you saying that WinRAR will uncompress a .RAR faster than 7-zip will uncompress the same .RAR? If so then I would definately look into adding WinRAR support.

Thanks for the feedback. DT and 7Zip are all that GELW currently supports. Keep in mind that 7-Zip can extract RAR files as well. If there is some reason why you need to use another tool like WinRAR, let me know and I can look into adding support for it. If you give me the command line syntaxes for other disc-mounting utilities (both for mounting and unmounting), I can look into adding them to GELW.

After struggling with this plugin for a few days, I was about to come on here and plead for help, but I think a last ditch effort paid off. . . In order for this plugin to work, I have to start GameEx using "Run as Administrator" (I'm running Vista obviously). Same with the test program attached to this thread. I need to do some more testing but that *seems* to have resolved my problems (previously, the plugin did not appear to ever successfully change the map) Hope this helps anyone with a similar problem. Thanks for the plugin HeadKaze! Just one suggestion: Please add the path/filename of the mapfile that was loaded to the log, and any file access errors. Even after reading the docs, I spent some time guessing as to which path it was trying to read the map from, whether or not I was supposed to include the .um extension in the .ini file, and whether there were any permission errors reading the file. For example, if I instruct the plugin to load a map that I know doesn't exist, the log shows that it has selected that map, but no error messages when it tries to read the file

Attached to this message is the beta version of a simple wrapper I have made for launching emulators. The documentation that I will paste to this message discusses its features and how to use it. I hope some people will find it useful. Feel free to send me feedback here or at benjam47@gmail.com. Full C# source is included for anyone that wants to improve it (for source code licensing information, refer to the license text in the source code). As I mention in the documentation, as this is the intial release please consider it to be an unproven beta. Have fun, Cory ------------------------------ GameExLaunchWrapper version 0.0.1 (06/12/2008) Summary: GameExLaunchWrapper (GELW) is a program designed to be a middle-man between GameEx and your emulators. GELW can perform the following tasks: * Uncompress your game images to a temporary directory * If your archives contain more than one file, GELW can identify which file to launch in your emulator based on file extension. If there are multiple matches, GELW will choose the first alphabetic matching file. Thus, if your filenames include notations such as (Disk 1) or (Disk 1 of 2) or (Side A), etc., GELW will choose the first disk. * Mounting image files in Daemon tools * Launch your emulator, passing any command line options needed including the name of the game file to launch * Cleanup the temporary directory after the emulator has closed. Disclaimer: This is the first version of GELW. Consider it a beta and use as your own risk. Full C# source code is included. Please send feedback to benjam47@gmail.com Installation: GELW requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, downloadable from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en GELW itself does not require any fancy installation. Just copy the GameExLaunchWrapper.exe executable to a directory (eg: C:\Program Files\GameExLaunchWrapper\) Usage: To use GELW, you first need to create a script which will instruct GELW on the steps it should be performing. The script is a text file that you can create in notepad or any other text editor. Each line of the text file should contain an instruction as documented below: Script keywords (in alphabetical order): CLEANUP This keyword will delete any temporary directory created by GELW. Example: CLEANUP COMMENT <comment> This keyword is ignored. You can use it to add comments to your script Example: COMMENT This script is for the NeoGeo Nebula emulator IDENTIFY <space delimited extension list> This keyword instructs GELW to search the temporary directory for files that match the extensions you specified. The extensions should be listed in priority as the first matching file will be selected. If multiple files have the same matching extension, GELW will sort the files alphabetically and choose the first one. Example: IDENTIFY ISO CUE LAUNCH <program name> <arguments> This keywords instructs GELW to launch your emulator. Use double quotes (") to surround the program name or arguments if they contain spaces. In the arguments, you can use the following macros: %T : Replaced with the path/file of the selected game file. %[1-9]: Replaced with the corresponding command line argument that GELW was called with. MOUNT Mounts an image with Daemon Tools. Daemon Tools is run from C:\Program Files\Daemon Tools Lite\daemon.exe unless the REGISTERDT keyword (See below) is used to specify the Daemon Tools path PAUSE Pauses the script. This is not useful unless you are using debug mode with GameEx, because otherwise the GELW window will not be visible. REGISTER7ZIP <path / filename to 7-zip> Informs GELW of the path to 7-zip. If this is not specified in your script, "C:\Program Files\7-zip\7z.exe" is assumed REGISTERDT Informs GELW of the path to Daemon Tools. If this is not specified in your script, "C:\Program Files\Daemon Tools Lite\daemon.exe" is assumed. UNMOUNT Unmounts an image with Daemon Tools. Daemon Tools is run from C:\Program Files\Daemon Tools Lite\daemon.exe unless the REGISTERDT keyword (See below) is used to specify the Daemon Tools path UNZIP <path/filename to unzip> Instructs GELW to create a temporary directory and unzip the passed archive. Generally, you will pass %2 as the parameter to this keyword, which will use the archive that is passed to GELW (from GameEx) as the filename. Example: UNZIP "%T" WORKINGDIRECTORY Sets the working directory that GELW will use when executing the LAUNCH keyword. Example: WORKINGDIRECTORY "C:\Emulators\Nebula\" Examples: The following section contains a number of scripts that I am using in my setup. You will likely need to make minor modifications to make them work for you (updating path names mostly) If you want to use one of these, copy and paste the individual script into notepad and save it (For example, save as C:\Program Files\Arcade\Amiga\GameExLaunchScript.txt. Then follow the instructions in the next section to configure GameEx to launch GELW using this script ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Amiga winuae emulator UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY ADF LAUNCH "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Amiga\Emulator (WinUAE)\winuae.exe" "-f %T" CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Apple II using applewin UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY DSK LAUNCH "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Apple II\Emulator (AppleWin 1.14.0)\applewin.exe" "-d1 %T" CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Mattel Intellivision emulator using Nostalgia UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY INT LAUNCH "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Mattel Intellivision\Emulator (Nostalgia 4.2)\NOSTALGIA.EXE" "%T" CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for NeoGeo using Nebula UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY ISO MOUNT WORKINGDIRECTORY "C:\Program Files\Arcade\NeoGeo\Emulator (Nebula 2.25b)\" LAUNCH "nebula.exe" "neocd" UNMOUNT CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Amiga winuae emulator UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY NDS LAUNCH "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Nintendo DS\Emulator (NO$GBA)\NO$GBA.exe" "%T" CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Sega CD using the Gens emulator UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY ISO MOUNT WORKINGDIRECTORY "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Sega 32X\emulator (Gens 2.14)\" LAUNCH "gens.exe" "%T" UNMOUNT CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Sega Dreamcast using nullDC emulator UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY CDI WORKINGDIRECTORY "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Sega Dreamcast\Emulator (nullDC 1.6)\" LAUNCH "nullDC_100b1_6.exe" "-config ImageReader:defaultImage=%T" CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMMENT GELW Script for Sega Saturn (using SSF emulator) UNZIP "%2" IDENTIFY BIN ISO MOUNT WORKINGDIRECTORY "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Sega Saturn\Emulator (SSF 0.09 Beta R1)\" LAUNCH "SSF.exe" UNMOUNT CLEANUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Configuring GELW in GameEx: In your Emulator setup in GameEx, set the following fields: Working Path: The directory that you installed GELW to Command Line: Call GameExLaunchWrapper and pass it two parameters: The name of the script to execute, and the name of the game image to process. For example: GameExLaunchWrapper.exe "C:\Program Files\Arcade\Amiga\GameExLaunchWrapperScript.txt" "[ROMPath]\[RomFile]" GELW001.zip

Thanks for the feedback everyone.. I think for the moment I'm going to let Tom take it from here.. I'm just glad I got an interesting discussion going If there is interest in having a wrapper do anything fancier than what GameEx ultimately ends up supporting (games with multiple disks, locating the correct rom from a compressed file with multiple file types inside, etc...) I'd be glad to revisit working on a wrapper to handle those complexities.

I'm sure everyone, myself included, would prefer it to be native in GameEx.. Bring it on Tom

Thanks. I am a registered GameEx user myself, and wouldn't want to do something to cause grief to Tom, so I'll wait for some more feedback before making any decisions. It's really not a complex program, but could be useful to those without experience in creating batch files or making simple programs to handle some tricky emulator setups.

Hi all, I have written a simple wrapper for GameEx to assist in the launch of emulators through GameEx. In short, when configuring an emulator in GameEx, you point the command line to my wrapper instead of to the emulator. On the command line of the wrapper, you include the rom path/filename, the emulator path/filename, and a comma delimited list of file name extensions that identify the rom. When the wrapper is called with GameEx, it will determine if the rom is archived (rar, zip, and 7z presently supported). If it is, it will extract it to a temporary directory. The wrapper will then locate the rom to use from the extracted file(s) based on the extensions you passed to the wrapper. So if you archive contained a bunch of files, it will be able to determine which one is the rom. This is useful for archives that might contain more than a single file (eg: a cue, img/iso/bin, and mp3 all in one archive). Once the rom is found, it will then launch the emulator and pass the correct path/filename of the rom. Anyway, I've found it pretty useful for complex emulator setups, and for emulators that don't support reading archived files directly, and I've seen several posts in this forum that indicates that something like this might be useful to others. Since I wrote it for myself, I would need to do some cleanup to make it useful to the general public, so I wanted to gauge the interest before taking that project on. I'd be glad to include the source as well (currently VB6, but I will likely convert to C# if I end up modifying it for general use). If I'm reinventing the wheel because something more powerful already exists, please let me know Cory

Maybe someday Tom will add the ability for us to add custom filters based on SQL queries that we could put in the databases

There are many features in GameEx that individuals may or make not take advantage of. I suspect that this option would be useful to people like me that make my arcade available to less hard core gamers (ie family and guests), who might want a quick way to filter out blockbusters from total flops. After all, if Moby ratings were really as useless as you describe, then.. they probably wouldn't exist at all.

Hi, I noticed the Access database contain a MobyRanking and MobyScoring field. Is there a way to utilize these fields in GameEx filters (in the same way that you can filter by Year, Genre, Manufacturer when you are viewing an emulator in GameEx). Thanks.