Feature & Enhancement Requests

[Tom Speirs]

Just a reminder:

1. Feature requests for GameEx are activly encouraged.

2. Donations are entirely optional, and have no relation to new features, requests for features, requests for support, or my time.

Tom

[Tom Speirs]

Another one:

I would like to have a Help-Button.

As I have some Emulators in my cab it would be great to have one button (or combination) as a help Button.

It should display the usage of Gameex, but also the usage of every one Emulator. It should Display a Jpg as long as you push the button.

It would be great to configure the button, and to configure one JPG for every emu, program and main Feature of GameEx (DVD, Mame etc)

Thanks!

Cupid

I do like this idea, although I was thinking more along lthe ine of having a customizable Help item at the top or bottom of the Gameslist (bottom normally, but top if an emulators list of games) for each section (Start Page, MAME, HTPC, More programs, and each emulator).

I dont like the idea of asigning this to a button, as theres no point IMHO having help if the user cant see its available, and its not easily accesible. I like the idea of supporting all image types, and displaying the help using the same routines as it does for displaying gamework art, and pictures. There will be settings in the config app to choose what image to use.

There will be settings in the config to specify a path for the image, and enable it or not. Perhaps people can come up with some images for me for the regular sections such as the start page, MAME, HTPC. Then this could be included with the install for the benifit of all.

Thanks,

Tom.

[emphatic]

The source code for this great screen saver is now free!

http://www.geisswerks.com/drempels/index.html

Perhaps someone can incorporate this as a plugin (this is why I posted this here)? Would be very nice if you could put this as a background image, and have the menus on top. Or just as a visual for the jukebox.

Edit: Here's a short (very bad quality, shot with cell phone, should open with Quicktime) video of what it would look like:

http://download.yousendit.com/BC66CAED7A43933B

If you want to know how I got it into GameEx like this, that's an entirely new topic...

Emph

[Tom Speirs]

Well, it's not really a feature request.

I had the idea of a "ingame side bar" when the game is paused. (a little bit like in XBox live).

So I just made a concept how this would look like. I know this would be VERY hard to code and would take a lot of time (if it's possible).

But I just wanted to share my concepts, maybe there are some good ideas or maybe some day GameEx will have such features

Keep up the good work tom! =)

Very nice, and extremelly creative.

Believe it or not some of this may actually happen. Although probably not quite as nicely!

The messaging is certainly possible, and it could be possible to have an in game screen. That would work as follows:

Upon a key press or combo - GameEx would take a screenshot, minimize the emu, then initialize its display system and wait for input, exit game, restart game or return to game. Similar how to the ingame control panel works.

I like the messenging idea, where you have both an inbuilt GameEx messenging and also ICQ. The first one deffinitly never occured to me before.

Anyway, Love it!

[Robert]

When you click on "favorites" and then click on "By System" it would be nice if it showed the same image file for the system that it does under emulators so that you get a nice picture of the console.

[iano]

I was wondering now that we have AVI backgrounds (Thanks Kenclops) would it be possible to have looped audio for standard (static) backgrounds. Let me explain.. I tried out Tom's Tron theme (which is cool) but i couldn't help but think 'Where's the music from the film ?'. I have the film soundtrack on cd and think it would be cool to have the music (a looped track or sample) from the film playing when you're navigating the GameEX menus. It could maybe work the same way you replace the static backgrounds with AVI backgrounds i.e if you're on the Start Menu you could have a looped sample/track named startbak.wav or startbak.mp3 playing looped while you're on the Start Menu. You could have a different looped sample/track called emubak.wav playing while you're on your emulator page etc. You could purposely choose not to have a jukeboxbak.wav / videobak.wav so it wouldn't have a looped sample colliding with your music/video while on these menus. The only other thing is if you were playing music in the jukebox and left that menu (music still playing) the music/playlist would overide (take priority over) the looped samples for the other pages/backgrounds. It would be also nice to be able to assign different sound samples for each button (on your CP) for a theme.

Cheers,

iano.

[headkaze]

I've got another feature request After running my cabinet on attract mode while I'm working on my PC I notice that alot of crap games come up and the occational good one. So my request is to use the MAWs Hall of Fame to have the more popular games show in attract mode. Obviously you still want to see the occational game you've never heard of or rates low. It would also be nice if games in favourites as well as games in MAWs HOF to have a higher probability of being shown.

Another idea related to this is to have a special "Best of" feature in the attract mode. This is where it will show games from the MAWs Hall of Fame but do special screens before hand doing count downs. So here's some examples.

- "GameEx Top 100" appears on the screen in big writing. Then it counts down; big "100" shows on the screen, then it starts game no. 100, then 99, 98 etc. down to 1.

- You could have the MAWs "Top 10 Vertical Shooters", then "10", then show game 10, 9 show game 9 etc. Then "Top 10 Fighters", "Top 10 Casino" etc.

Why is this such a cool feature for attract mode? Imagine running attract and it's showing you all the most popular games. Then you can go up to your cab, press the coin button and play. If you like it, then you can add it to favourites. This can be a good way to find new games!

[Alpha17x]

Suggestion; The option to have menus scroll horizontally, rather than vertically.

Reason; While making a theme I wanted to do something that looked very similar to how one 'scrolls' through the games in Super Mario All-Stars' but it does not currently appear to be possible

Suggestion: In relation to that the option of replacing normal text buttons with png's that can be used as Icons.

Because I'm usually bad at explaining things in words (I'm a concept artist, my brain consists of cartoons and cereal), I've included this horribly done photo representation;

I'm not sure how to make it attach an image properly but here it is (ok nevermind it just wasn't showing up with the preview.

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?ac...ost&id=4348

[fantoboy]

I dunno if this has been mentioned:

I've been tinkering with Meedio, and the media browsing features are pretty nice.

My favorites features: The front end will detect all the movies you have in a folder and download info for them such as synopsis, coverart, actor info,actor photos, rating, and so on. You can then click on the actors and see their info and it'll show you what other movies they are in that you own. Then you can click on the other movie and go to that. The front end will scrape other sites like IMDB for the necessary info.

It does this also for tv shows, and the browsing features are nice too. You can browse by cover like media center or coverflow like itunes. Selecting a tv series will show you an episode list, each episode with a synopsis and screenshot.

Movie details

Movie thumbnails

actors

movie browsing

movie details

TV series

TV banners

TV browsing with fanart

more tv browsing

I like meedio, and I switch back and forth between meedio and gameEx. I'd rather see GameEx with similar features so I could just use one program.

[Lawrence]

After playing around with GameEx for about six months now, here are some things I think would be nice to see in GameEx:

1. Snaps/Extras:

a. A lot of people here I'm sure have spent *much* time gathering snaps, titles, etc. for various systems. For some systems it's not too much work (like just download the files from EmuMovies), but for some, it is an intense amount of work (like going through all the pictures from AtariMania.Com and renaming them for the Atari 8-bit -- or even worse going from site to site to get pics for more obscure systems). In any case, it appears to me that a lot of this work is being duplicated and repeated by many users -- and of course some users just choose to go without. I'd like to see GameEx connect to a central souce -- perhaps EmuMovies -- and download the extras (as an option inside of the Create Snaps menu perhaps). And to extend this idea (and to eliminate unnecessary repeated labour) an option in the Create Snaps menu (or elsewhere) to UPLOAD all extras.

b. Also, I don't like how for Create Snaps it won't do the same fuzzy checking that it does when displaying snaps. If one has a set of GoodTools ROMS for example and a set of No Intro extras most ROMs will show the extras, but some will be missing. In the FAQ on this site there's a question about how to Create Snaps only for ROMs without snaps and in the answer it says that that is GameEx's default behaviour -- but it's not entirely true, as ROMs which work with the fuzzy matching will end up getting a snap created for them, which will override the existing fuzzy matching one. The net result being that if I want to just "fill in the holes" with a set with an already quite good set of extras I end up ruining the snaps.

c. Create snaps for titles (would need to be the manual exit) would be nice too.

2. Full-blown MESS support:

Here's another area in GameEx where I think there is a lot of repeated unnecessary labour. I currently have 60 emulators setup in GameEx and a large number of them are MESS. For more than a few obscure systems, MESS is the only choice available, and for many others it is the best choice. It would be much much nicer to have MESS setup in GameEx more or less the same way MAME is. You'd setup the MESS paths in GameEx and then it would automatically populate the emulators list with all the emulators in MESS. Then the user could trim away the ones he/she doesn't want (make it possible to delete emulators in the emulator list the same as ROMs). Also it could automatically use the (u), (j), (pal), etc. tags to load the appropriate driver in MESS for each system. And it could use the file extensions (like dsk, rom, cas, etc.) to use the appropriate command line option (which is currently a mess [bad pun] to setup in GameEx). For the Mattel Aquarius (which has carts and cassettes) I need to setup MESS twice. once for each media type. Also, the icon packs for systems for MESS could be used (just like MAME) -- giving an icon for each system in the list. This would seriously rock.

Thanks for creating the best front-end ever and giving me so much amusement Tom. I hope you take these ideas into consideration.

[kenclops]

I think it would be cool if we could have gameex identify console 2 player games. Here's my idea:

If a game name has a symbol, say a $ or %, at the end of the name, that Gameex would highlight that game name a different color, and yet, not show the $ or % sign. So when looking at a game list, it would have two colors, one for single player games, and one for two player games.

[Fatone85]

As discussed here:

Disable Video Boxart Download

I think an option to have the video BOXART_ automatically download or to be disabled would be helpful.

I also like the way that the way BOXART is dealt with in the Emualtors. Where the Logo of the said Emulator is used as substitution if BOXART is not present.

This would be a good alternative in the case of VIDEOs, where the "folder.png" could be used instead of downloading the BOXART, if that option is selected.

I really love the way that the Media Library handles Music and folders.

I think this would be absolutely awesome to have as an added option for Jukebox mode (alongside the two currently available [Media Player Library] and [File Audio Tags] ), and maybe with a filter option ... i.e. Only display *.mp3 files etc.

The reason I use the Media Library method of browsing my music is that I have over 40 Gigs of ripped CDs, and they are all separated in alphabetical folders. It would be nice to be able to browse through them the way I do in the Media Library, but through the JukeBox mode

Plus, when browsing through the Media Library, the folder.png and any other non-audio files are shown within the folder I'm viewing, so my friends are always like: "Hey douchebag, Ella Fitzgerald never had a song called Folder!?!"

You can therefore understand my problem.

[emphatic]

a) I would like it if the text objects in the horizontal menu in V4 skins could be centered.

Also/if possible, If I define the width in the Theme Editor to say, 640, but not all text objects fit within that area, they should be totally "off screen" until you cycle through the visible ones and then they will move "off screen" to the right.

(NON VISIBLE AREA) -----------------------------------------640--------------------------------------- (NON VISIBLE AREA)

_________________By Name | By Category | By Manufacturer | By Year | Change View______| Back | Home | Exit |

(Center)

As this menu is already pretty much centered whenever I see it, this would be a very nice improvement.

Emph

[ehuonder]

Love all of the updates Tom. But with this great new Custom Menus feature, I would request that you give us another Name/Value pair to support custom backgrounds for each menu/sub-menu. If no background is specified, default to startbak.png.

For example:

[ROOT]

Title=Start

Bg=startbak.png

Item_1=-1,Games,4

...

[MENU_4]

Title=Games

Bg=MyGamesbak.png

...

Thanks for the great work!

[emphatic]

Here's an idea:

An enhancement to the "Use Bezel for vertical games" would be if you could use a couple of different ones, and set "rules"/"conditions" for which one's used for one specific game. I was thinking:

"Artwork" (root folder)

"folder name" (conditions) - "1" (1990-2009;action)

"folder name" (conditions) - "2" (1984-1989;action)

"folder name" (conditions) - "3" (1977-1983;action)

"folder name" (conditions) - "4" (1990-2009;puzzle)

"folder name" (conditions) - "5" (1984-1989;puzzle)

"folder name" (conditions) - "6" (1977-1983;puzzle)

"folder name" (conditions) - "7" (1990-2009;sport)

"folder name" (conditions) - "8" (1984-1989;sport)

"folder name" (conditions) - "9" (1977-1983;sport)

This way, you'd get a series of three diffrent bezels per genre (don't know how many vertical sports games there are though ) and have them "fit" in with the times they're from.

[Invincer]

I think GameEx excels above and beyond every other frontend out there considering it's ease of use and numerous features. If there was any one weakness or area it is a little stale in (reminded of this by another post); it would be in the area of themes. The ones available range from not bad to good; but none will really knock your socks off. I have tried a mishmosh of the themes to get something I like, but would really like some good selections out there to choose from...

Some suggestions for GameEx (in addition to the "need more themes request to any theme makers out there)

* The ability to choose "random themes", kind of like we can have random intro videos by putting multiple one in the intro folder.

* Maybe the ability to have random page backgrounds for each selection in GameEx

* The ability to choose which folder is the "2nd" image folder on theme backgrounds

* Maybe the ability to create specific themes for specific games

* Random or selectable transition effects from one selection to the next

... Just some ideas, what do you think?

P.S. A plea once more to the theme makers out there... how about some themes with avi type backgrounds? Hyperspin has their flash style themes, but GameEx can actually have avi videos as the background... why is it there are such few selections using it? Again, just some requests and recommendations here and by no means a criticism.

[Boostbaron]

First post, so please allow me to start off by saying how absolutely amazing GameEx is.

If I may, I'd like to suggest a few (probably) easy changes that IMHO would make it a little bit better

-Provide an option to force the 'Goodmerged sytle' game selection menu, (instead of 'Play this game') even if there is only 1 game in the list. It would make the interface more consistent when some of your games are merged, and others (like CDs) are not. Also, that flag looks nice, and provides a bit of information about the ROM too.

-Add more Country flags for goodmerged games. This is especially important when some games have flags, and others do not (ie prototypes) and the titles don't line up properly. I would suggest the following:

• (W) and (JUE) - Use the 'Earthican Flag' from Futurama, and cut off the stripes. (attached)
  
• (JU) and (UE) and (JE) - Either a combined flag (attached) or, preferably, just assign a priority (if U then american, elseif J then Japanese, elseif E then EU)
  
• (none) - Either a plain white rectangle, or if legally possible, a Super Mario Bros '?' block would be pretty cool. Just as long as there's something that stands out, as if to say "click here to play me"
  

-Add an option to pass the goodmerged ARCHIVE filename to an emulator, instead of the ROMNAME. This would make Savegames and savestates cross compatible across near-identical ROMs, and you don't need to remember which version of the game your savestate is stored under. You'd want to add a disclaimer as well, in case you save-state in an area that was removed from later versions of the ROM. (Final Fantasy 4 playboy room anyone?)

-Probably more work than it's worth, but where more than 1 ROM exists, display the previously played title in BOLD so you don't have to remember which version you were playing. Not as important if the previous suggestion is implemented.

-Add a 'preserve aspect ratio' for the intro videos, so they don't automatically stretch on widescreen monitors.

That's probably enough for now. Hope it's ok to group these all into one post.

Thanks,

BoostBaron.

[Tempest]

Regarding: Cleaning Up The Features Request Thread

What Have I Done?

1. Reduced ~900 posts to 17 posts, by:

A. Deleting request that have already been completed, or could be accomplished using one of the new features.

B. Consolidating the remaining posts into one list of feature requests sorted into sections.

C. Added the number of requests for a feature in parenthesis. E.g. (3)

Why?

1. To make it easier for users to browse existing feature requests, before making a new request.

2. To make it easier to track how many users would like to have a specific feature.

How?

If a user would like to add there vote for a specific feature, please post "I would like to vote for 'Search #3' ", and I will increase the number of requests for that item, and delete the users post. Please keep this fair, and don't vote for a feature more than once.

How can you help?

1. I need some of the more experienced GameEx users to look at the list I have made, and If your a Mod, delete any features that have already been completed. If you are not a Mod, please post a list of features that you feel should be deleted, and I will delete them. Sorry, but I don't trust my memory enough to delete any more requests than I already have.

2. If this Post could be moved to the #2 spot, it would be more useful.

Why didn't I delete the other 15 posts?

Simply because I thought that they were too complicated to reduce to a few lines.

Note:

I created this list without any regard to how many times a feature was requested, who requested it, or any other parameters, other than to place them in the group that I felt they belonged.

Previously Requested Features List

Ambience:

1. (3) Could more than one file be selected for the ambience? (A way to have different music tracks playing while I navigate the menus)
2. (3) When I play the jukebox and or movie if I have arcade ambience on it plays in the background. I like it playing when I am playing games but not when I'm listening to music.

Artwork:

1. I use the box art of games for image list, and while this looks good for square boxes, for rectangular boxes the image is cut off (so you only see a portion of the box). Would it be possible to keep the aspect ratio of the image used?
2. A bezel that uses the marquee artwork for a game would look pretty cool. Would GameEx be able to create these when a game is played?
3. Once a game is selected, continue playing .avi snaps at all times, even if a different graphic is highlighted (Draw video off-screen if necessary) This would allow the game music to continue playing in the background, and prevent the movie from starting over every time you move back and forth on the menu. This option could basically be there by default (except when you view a different piece of artwork full screen)
4. Could the ability to choose what is shown in image list be implemented in a future update, but also be independent from "image 2".
5. For a new feature, how about a default image for cartridge, title shot, in game, cabinet etc. When an image doesn't exist GameEx would show a default image for that particular image.
6. I would like to be able to display custom bezels for my games
7. A transparent background, or an option for a transparent background. Just to clarify the concept: I use an app that allows for a flash desktop background (animated, e.g. moving). The ability, or option, to make the GameEx backgrounds transparent would allow me to utilize said background independently of GameEx while the menus, logos, etc. would still be visible and functional.
8. Is there a way for GameEx to display more than one flyer (or snap or marquee for that matter)? For some games, there are many very interesting flyers, but I only know how to pick one to display. Here are my thoughts on how something like this would ideally work: The custom paths idea is problematic because some games have a lot of flyers that I'd like to display. For example, if you go to The Arcade Flyer Archive, you'll find that, for example, Astro Blaster has 6 separate flyers, and 8 if you include the German flyers. I don't want to add a separate custom path for each flyer. Instead, I want to be able to name them sequentially and have GameEx display them in the Flyer category automatically. I think it would be great if GameEx both advanced through the flyers automatically after a user set time delay, and also overrode that and displayed the next flyer if a user defined key was pressed. Also, there is no reason why this couldn't be expanded to all of the artwork categories as well, so that you could have more than one cabinet picture or control panel picture.
9. Hey Tom any chance you could add "Character Select" artwork? http://www.progettoe...lect/select.zip
10. What about an option so that if you have a image and a video for a game then the image would be displayed 1st and if you paused for a second or 2 the video would then kick in and start playing, I was thinking this might be quicker when scrolling down through the games as an image would be quicker to initialize than a video?
11. AVISNAPS start over every time you move to something else on the info page. And nothing gets displayed at all while you're on the game's database description... so I would really hope you could implement that idea.

AutoUpdate:

1. (2) I really like the updates to the Auto Updater. I had a suggestion though...Why not add a way to see details of the update? For instance, if the current version of GameEx is 8.29 and you are asked to update, it will display the updates between 8.29 and 8.51. I don't see any reason this couldn't be just the list from the info page. This way, someone could see if the update was important enough for him or her to launch at that time, or perhaps either wait for the next update or the next login. Hey, it might even save some bandwidth since the download is up to 16mb now!
2. When GameEx ask you for a new update (after you see the change log) the possibility to cancel the update until the next update. It's annoying to cancel the update box every time you start GameEx if you don't want to update
3. Would having the option to have auto update go ahead and download updates when it's not busy and then tell have it auto add a link to the bottom of the menu install new update

Compression / File:

1. Along with Zip & 7zip support, could we have .rar support as well?
2. How about a file manager, that would allow users to move, copy, cut, and rename files directly from GameEx. Also, I would like to see a shortcut to removable media somewhere in GameEx, rather than just have the prompt when you insert a flash drive.
3. (3) Because of the size of files for many of the CD based games (Dreamcast, Saturn, 3D0, etc), I burn my ROMs to DVD's. I do the ROMs unzipped. I do this because if I burn them zipped and run them thru GameEx it wants to make the unzip folder on the DVD which it obviously can't. Would be a great space saver if you could specify in GameEx to make the unzipped folder go to a folder on your hard drive. (Perhaps in GameEx) instead of trying to do it in the ROMs folder.
4. (2) When 7z support is enabled and some games (like Zelda for Snes) have 25+ clones in 1 7z file... make the most recently played one at the top of the list so you don't have to find which one to play each time. Even better would be to have the last played game go the very top of the menu (not just the list) so it would be the selection as soon as the 7z opens.

Configuration:

1. It seems that a lot of questions we get are related to people using the Setup Wizard and not knowing that there are more options available in the Advanced Configuration too. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have a single tool that has everything in it and a way to select basic or advanced before you start. This is a pretty standard way of doing things so it *should* be intuitive to both new and experienced users.
2. Currently, it seems that Capitals=True causes -only- the first letters of words to be capitalized, so roman numerals and other things that should be capitalized read like this: "Final Fantasy Viii" instead of "VIII." Would be nice if it would just make the 1st letter capitalized and not touch the rest.
3. Something I'd like to see with the mameemumap would be for it to use the snaps/other extras automatically from the new emulator. It would save a lot of hassle of renaming snaps and copying them to the Mame snaps folder -- especially since the EmuMovies Mame videos contain even the non-working sets.
4. Can we get 2 more emulator Groups? There are currently 5 Groups available. I need 7.
5. (2) A fourth option in the config for the MCE interaction. Is there any way we could have an extra option that ensures that when GameEx is closed, MCE does NOT immediately open up again?
6. Replace waitbeforekeys with a configurable amount you can insert anywhere in sendkeys sequence, e.g. something like (times in milliseconds still): <1000>,key,<100>,key,key. All on one line.
7. Ability to add more lines of custom inputs to custominput.ini, maybe those from scancodes.txt? ex: VolumeUp= Play/Pause= etc?
8. Maybe an option to broadcast GameEx to both monitors?
9. For systems like Sega CD, Turbo CD, etc., most people use Daemon Tools and launch the ISO before the emulator starts. How about adding a secondary launch option to where you can have Daemon Tools unload the first ISO and load a second with a particular button combination? That way, for games like Metal Gear Solid and a few others which require a disc switch with the power still on with the real PSX, you could do so.
10. (2) Regarding: The, game > Game, The feature. Can you please make this a user-editable list of words please so I can do it with e.g. Super Game > Game, Super / A Game > Game, A / etc? (Games starting with [word1], [word2]...)
11. Add a Timer for how long to display the Control Panel image, so I can set it to display until the emulator loads. Unless of course all this does is slow down the loading process, I'm thinking that it doesn't.
12. In Groups, could the system for the game be displayed next to the name game? Some manufacturers such as Sega have the same name for games on different systems.
13. I would like a feature where the sorting of games will default to the order they appear in the specified map file. Currently, it defaults to alphabetic so that re-orders the games in my map when it displays on the screen.

Input:

1. Custom keyboard: could more than one key be selected for each function?
2. One thing I would definitely love to see is native support of POV hats (controllers that have POV hats i.e. 360 controllers) in GameEx.
3. (5) I'd love to be able to browse through menus using my spinner/trackball Done.
4. Tom... any chance of updating GameEx to permit custom control navigation (L/R/U/D) with the joystick (I have analog Ultimarc 360s connected via USB) in conjunction with keyboard presses (I have my buttons mapped through an IPAC4 via PS/2)?
5. (4) An on-screen Keyboard. I was thinking of using it more for a search feature, but it could be used to jump to letters in a list too, or filter the list. E.g. you type "Double" and everything in the list not starting with "Double" is filtered out. Onscreen keyboard is definitely a big feature request for me too.
6. The ability to map 2 or more separate joy pads using the advance config file. Only one joy pad can be mapped to keyboard at the time being. At least 2 would be great.
7. Add ALL the listed capabilities from the "Default keys and controls" section from the GameEx, Documentation page to the custominput.ini file

Menus:

1. When you browse through your games make it play the same video no matter what your cursor is on. The reason I want to do this is just because there's not enough time to view a video for a game just while your scrolling over it... that way if your browsing down the list there's still something neat to look at... when I select the game is when I think it would be cool to show the video / box shot 4 that exact game
2. I'm not sure how hard this would be to implement, but an option to "Google this game" right below the Box Art, Cart, etc. would be SWEET!
3. Could you please differentiate between 'Live - MAWS Hall Of Fame' & 'Live - GameEx Favorites'. That is Adultery has two separate logos for them but you can only see one logo being displayed for them.
4. I was watching the video linked below and I was wondering if there was any chance of GameEx having an effect like the rotating menu icon switch thing from the Apple TV main menu. http://www.engadget....ce-walkthrough/
5. (6) Display a language icon for the system the game is from. This would be helpful when lists contain games from multiple emulators such as search results, favorites, All Games, Most Played, Last Played etc. Would it also be possible to show a thumbnail and name of the system?
6. (2) I use the favorites a lot and it would be nice once I was in there to be able to sort them by system just like you can sort Mame games by category etc.
7. When you click on "favorites" and then click on "By System" it would be nice if it showed the same image file for the system that it does under emulators so that you get a nice picture of the console.
8. I'd like to see an option to add a platform-specific icon to games lists. It'd be useful for Emulator groups and the All Games list.
9. Could you please make a menu with items to do a full re-cache/reload of various functions? I would like a rebuild Emulator DB, Rebuild Jukebox DB, Rebuild Icon Cache, Rebuild MAME list, etc all in one location.
10. (3) It would be cool if the text would scroll when selected. There are quite a few ROM names that go off the edge of the screen in 800x600 (song titles too in the jukebox) and having the selected text scroll to the left like a mp3 player would be sweet!
11. What about a playtime count for each game, located in that game's selection screen, saying hours, minutes, and seconds. (Days!)
12. I'd like to request the ability to turn song looping off in regards to songs that are called when entering a specific emulator menu. I'd also really like to be able to confine a song to that particular menu. I.e. I choose Nintendo and the SMB cartoon theme plays. Currently it plays over and over and over and over until either I enter a menu with a new song defined (which will then play over and over and over) or start a game. Although when I come back from the game... the song is waiting for me and keeps going. Ideally I'd like the song to play one time when I enter the Nintendo menu, but to stop when I back out.
13. (5) I want to be able to choose a Mame game, then select if I want to launch it with play list audio or pause the play list audio. (Just like in the config program) if we could have 2/3 options like that on top of the standard "start game (default audio option)" that would rock.
14. (2) Would it be possible to add a category like "favorites" to reflect completed or beat games?
15. (4) I would like a section on the emulator page for console information. I have started making a database with some information on each console when it was made type of console and a basic spec of the console. There are a few other ideas that I think could be created from this like filter by console type, manufacturer and year like Mame.
16. Could we have an option, when returning to GameEx, to be one level up? E.g. I launch a game on the play game screen, but when returning, people want it to be back on the game list, not "play game"!
17. A menu item that's called "Most recently emulated games". This is where all the new titles pop up when you do a game list update. This way, you can go through that list to add the newest games to you favorites without having to go through all of the games already on your favorites list
18. (2) I was just thinking about the MAME list and the new merged sets feature today. It seems like it might be cool to have a way to display clones under the parent ROM in a similar way that the merged games feature works. Or, even better, display them similar to the series list. I don't personally want to see all 8000 ROMs (or however many are currently in the MAME set), but I wouldn't mind having access to them. Of course, this only enables the clones; it doesn't do anything for the imperfect.
19. When browsing a list of games and viewing the game info, you get an option under Add to Favorites to "Add to Bookmarks". Bookmarks are games that get added to your Bookmark list and work virtually the same as Favorites except that after you play the game it is automatically removed from the list. There could also be a special key assigned to add a game to your Bookmark list while in attract mode. That way if you see a game you'd like to try out later on you press the key and it is added to your Bookmark list. After you play the game and if you like it you could then add it to favorites.
20. Alpha paging in the Emulated Games List where it lists each system.
21. One feature I would like is a shortcut to "game information screen". I don't like it "ON" in config, considering many people just want to start games on my arcade. But I like to reach it sometimes. Could be some sort of shift key when selecting game.
22. (2) What I want is the ability to rate games. E.G. A simple five star system. I'd like to be able to rate them from within GameEx (like on the game info screen). And finally I'd like to be able to sort by ratings (view all 5-star games, view Nintendo NES 3-star games, view 5-star fighting games, view all unrated games etc).

Search:

1. Search in the game list, when you write part of the name, the list moves to the game automatically. When you push a key in game list now, push GOLDEN and you see G, O, L, D, E and N titles but I see better that when you write GOLDEN you see the first GOLDEN AXE in the game list for example. If you want, you can add this feature for registered users only, like the Search game function available right now.
2. Can the search include the excellent databases being created? Maybe an additional option in the search like the one for <Games> such as <Game Database> Then you could search for themes, characters etc. that are in the description but may not be in the Game name.
3. How about an option to show the last few searches?
4. What would really rock (and I'd actually pay cash solely for that feature) is a search of Karaoke files

Screen Saver / Attract Mode:

1. When set for 'run arcade game', could the time for game change be only 1 minute?
2. I don't really enjoy playing games in screen saver mode, so I usually look at the title and find the game in the list. It would be cool if there were a list of the last 10 or so games that were shown. That way, we could kill the screen saver and play it correctly. Finding it in the list is just a bit slower and more cumbersome.
3. While we're on the topic of the screensaver, one place I see room for improvement is videos in the screensaver. Right now, it is possible to set a time limit on how long a game plays in the screen saver but no time limit for videos -- it will play the video from beginning to end, basically requiring that a special 'just for screen saver' video directory be set with only short videos in it. I look at the screensaver as a demo mode of what the machine can do -- seems to me to make more sense to either have the videos obey the same time limit as the games, or have a settable time limit for each (and preferably have the video start somewhere in the middle, much as the snaps for movies behave). This way, one could use their normal video directories for the screensaver and see short 3 or 4-minute clips of the movies. Then, just like the games in the screensaver, pushing a button could cause the video to play until the end instead of moving on. I feel that would make the screensaver experience much more enjoyable.
4. Could you add an 'attract time modifier' value for each emulator? Say you have the attract/screensaver mode set to run games every two minutes. But you only want to run the Atari 2600 games for 30 seconds. You'd enter a .25 value.
5. It appears that the GameEx generated bezel artwork displayed during screensaver only works for MAME. Would it be possible to have an option to use it for AdvancedMAME as well (or just make it work with it period)? Also, if someone sets up MAME in a separate emulator slot, is there any way to incorporate this auto generated bezel art for the screen saver if it's included?
6. Attract mode, is it possible to have a mode that just cycles screenshots/box art/whatever of emulators you select??? That would be awesome!
7. I would like to have my play list playing in the background and the attract modes audio turned down lower so it doesn't mix through the song, but you can slightly hear it if you listen close enough (depending on the audio level you chose of course).
8. I would like an option for the attract mode to only cycle through the currently selected filter or a pre-set filter such as a category etc.
9. A key combination added that would put GameEx directly into Visualize and or a Visualize screensaver option.
10. Additional settings for MAME screensaver: Show only games from [specify starting year] to [specify ending year]. This way, if you prefer not having say, vector games, or games that are too slow for MAME to handle anyway can now be prevented to run during attract mode.
11. (2) Maybe more screensaver options, e.g. show photos instead of my Mame games? This would make the wife happier.
12. Play a play list when using the slideshow feature, to play in the background when activated. And have that play list play random music within the list?
13. What if, while in screensaver mode, if you choose to have MUSIC and MAME run with sound, you set all the emulators to do the same thing?
14. I enjoy the video screen savers that just play whatever videos you have, but have tried to find one that will play multiple videos simultaneously like a wall of TVs all on different channels. My vision is to see 4, or 9, (or more) videos running simultaneously as a screensaver.
15. (3) An option 'Don't Enter Attract Mode If Jukebox Is Playing' kind of thing. I like the Attract Mode - it just bugs me when it occurs when you're listening to music (have to exit it then queue up/select next track).

Theme Editor

1. I request that the theme editor has the option for setting the order of the background, the foreground and snap/marquee images. Like top, middle, bottom (Photoshop layer style). Right now, to allow the snap/marquee to be on top of the foreground, you'll have to cut a hole in your foreground image.
2. For Theme Editor: Preview button. Opens the theme you're working on in a "preview state", no emus or lists load, just the interface to let you see how things look in full screen in your chosen resolution. This would shave off a couple of hours from getting your themes "just right".
3. Would it be possible to have support for separate background pictures for vertical/horizontal view? I'm working on a dedicated vertical theme, but if I hit ctrl + tab it looks ludicrous, with horrible stretching and a bad 90's interface look that I intend to avoid.
4. I rather like the aniback option, however I would like a way "wibbly wobbly" only some parts of the background. For instance, if you have a neat-o box for the text, that shouldn't move. Maybe a way to do two layers for the background, or just adding an option for a static text box layer in the theme editor

Other:

1. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it's intentional, but GameEx breaks the ability to automatically put the computer to sleep after x minutes. Please fix this, or add an option to allow this. Thanks!
2. When a game's title ends with a period. (Example "Super Mario Bros."), images/movies do not appear when viewing the console's list of games. (ALL games list as well) However, add that game to your favorites, and everything shows up just fine. I'm sure it's a small bug.
3. A feature that will add the Always on top to the secondary monitor so that the primary monitor can still have full control over the desktop.
4. Support for Hi-Spy in GameEx that displays hi-scores from Visual Pinball tables (PinMAME).
5. It would be nice in game ex to have filters like scan lines to look more real arcade on a Pc monitor. Could it be possible?
6. How about the ability to lower the volume of the GameEx sounds (focus, select, etc.) separately from the music volume?
7. Can GameEx change volume whilst launched in an emulator? Quite often I have the volume down, someone will play a game and they want volume. I say "you have to do it from the front end" so they have to exit the game and launch it again. Would be nice if the volume shortcuts worked all the time.
8. Can GameEx exit itself after a period of inactivity?
9. Would it be possible to have an option to enable a panel that shows if you are connected to the Internet?
10. Would it be possible to implement "ID" style color characters for the custom text feature? Like ^9 would make the text red.
11. It would be nice to extend the GameEx Live features to have a few more interactive things: 1) Shout box. Perhaps from the GameEx website, a shout box where you can post messages that appear in GameEx. Maybe with an interface in GameEx so you can send a message to everyone from your cab. 2) Chat room. I know there is already one on the website, but maybe a more integrated one with large text. 3) High Score board for those of us who use hiscore.dat.
12. With Game Extender, sometimes, I keep it running, but hit the windows key to jump out of GameEx to check e-mail really quickly...and end up broadcasting my e-mail, etc. to the world. I know it's hard to read at that resolution, but can there be an option to only publish Game Extender to the world when GameEx is the primary application running?
13. Tom I do hope you'll work on some sort of work around to where using ether OpenGL or D3D is totally seamless to GameEx.
14. Incorporate networking into GameEx. Blue tooth has become almost as common as USB. It would be neat to be able to say, play Pacman on my cell, or a PDA. I know this may be a pipedream but, being able to transfer pictures, music, midi files, ROMS, to a blue tooth or USB device would be way cool.
15. When you shell GameEx and set the cursor to a dot it is hard to see in pc games. I was thinking it would be a nice a feature if it was possible to enable a specific mouse pointer for pc games.
16. What I really dislike is, that it takes a very long time to open big manuals (this is because these were converted to a certain GameEx layout). Maybe we could pre-convert the manuals so GameEx can open them at once.
17. This is more of a suggestion for the Custom Menu editor, but this menu editor should also allow you to select the Custom Background for the menus/items. This would make custom backgrounds easier to manage.
18. I hope I'm not being silly about this, but... you know how in Winamp you can choose advanced title formatting? Like: "[%artist% -]$if2 (%title%,$filepart (%filename%))", you know, so you have control over what gets displayed in the play list? Well... how about something similar for GameEx' title bar?
19. Can the "force shutdown" functionality be extended to all system shutdown type calls? I recently added, "Reboot" to my list, but it doesn't do so if I've logged in remotely during that session (without clicking "yes"...I've got no button for that on the CP). I don't know what commands will prompt the message, but I know "Reboot" does. Perhaps hibernate, logoff, standby, etc?
20. Support for .mng files as background image. I know that they don't work as backgrounds (did a bak.mng and it didn't work even though both bak.png and bak.avi is supported) and it would open up great skinning options (think high resolution animated backgrounds).
21. If not already possible, the ability to play QuickTime movies (.mov), particularly for GameEx intro movies. There are a few Mame intro movies in this format.
22. Say you have a skin that is 640x480, and you create a background image for that @ 1280x480 and having that scrolling slowly from right to left (direction optional would also be cool of course + a checkbox for "keep aspect automatically when skin is resized"). Or even better, scrolling layered pictures at different speed/direction (with transparency) could give instant parallax scrolling!
23. An option to display a randomize BAK (ground) when GameEx starts up would be the max!

Emulators:

Console:

1. For emulator setup a setting for Orientation | Vertical | Horizontal. If left to default, it won't apply for this emulator. This way, the game list setting "show only vertical/horizontal/by screen orientation" would apply to emulators as well.
2. (2) It would be nice if you could customize the text shown for each emulator. Say you setup an app as an emulator that's not really for games, you don't want GameEx to show "Play this game" as the execute button, but have the option to change this (with GameEx using the value given in the language setting as the default if the "launch button text" field is blank). E.g.: I've setup the sequential image reader CDisplay for browsing zipped image folders (e-comic books etc). It would be great to have "read this book" instead of "play this game".
3. (2) It would be very nice to be able to specify separate paths for videos and snaps. For Mame you can already do this. But for the others you can only specify one path
4. How about adding an option for playing Commercials in video format under each emulator. So say under the Atari 2600 emulator at the top where there is <Back> <Home> etc. there is one for <Commercials> and when selected it brings up another screen with commercials to choose from to play for that emulator.
5. How about implementing a cheat book like the one I'm using now "cheat book database" http://www.cheatbook.de/lxb2005.htm
6. Is it possible to have icons next to a game's name? Have seen lots of icons on web pages for icons for Nintendo NDS, Gameboy advance etc. Would be cool to have then show up next to the game name like in Mame.

Mame:

1. It would be nice to be able to categorize by "added to Mame version", like which games were added to which version of Mame. I believe this is in version.ini at http://mameinfo.mameworld.info/
2. It would be nice to be able to filter out certain categories in general like casino, etc
3. For "Advanced MAME settings" -> Input field: 'Custom command line' and 'Custom command line name'. I sometimes like to record my MAME play as an .inp file. It's great if you want to show a friend a trick in game or just for saving a high score. If this field was available, you could add custom command line options to MAME and give it a name in the second field, say "Play and record game to .inp file".
4. (3) I think it would be really nice if on the game info screen and on the attract info overlay there was a nice rotation 3D model of the original cabinet.

Multimedia:

Audio:

1. CD Player option under multimedia like how's there's the built-in DVD player that can automatically detect which drive has the DVD.
2. Built-in Spesoft CD-ripper incorporated into the multimedia section that automatically converts CD tracks to mp3's and allows you to name each song as it plays... like using GameEx as a front-end for the ripper-ripper.

E-Books:

1. I like this method of browsing books, we could implement in GameEx? http://www.gamersweb.it/
2. How about snaps for the e-books?

Jukebox:

1. A now playing section in the corner would be cool!
2. How about adding support for Winamp for the jukebox mode.
3. A hot key to start and stop the jukebox in other applications would be great. Cause sometimes I would like to play music when I'm not at the front end.
4. While listening to the jukebox, sometimes I go away for awhile, come back and the page of the play list has rolled a few screens.... then I have to try and hunt for the little volume icon next to where the track is playing. Is it possible to have the screen auto-roll to the next page when the play list does?
5. An option to run GameEx in pure "Jukebox/Video Jukebox/Karaoke" mode so it could be tailored to those things when you boot it up.
6. Is there a way to show the Play list and have it scroll from track to track displaying album art along the way? At parties I like to put on music and have the album show up but currently when I go and view the play list I have to manually scroll through it to see the music being played.
7. Add an "Up Next" list that will show the next 3 songs in queue. This will probably require reducing the size of the songs window.
8. I was wondering if you could add an option in the Jukebox menu to play your photo slideshow (after a few moments of user inactivity) while your music is playing - kind of like a screensaver.
9. Not sure if this possible already but if you're playing a song in jukebox and you want it to skip back to the start of the track it always plays the previous track. Could it be arranged so that if you hit the previous track button it will first go to the start of the current track being played before going to the start of the previous track played.
10. I would like to see the artist\track\info etc (in jukebox) scroll left to reveal the entire info from the track (artist/song etc) currently playing. I would like to see it continually scroll while that track is playing (like my Ipod).
11. I'd like to see an option in the jukebox menu (or in the main setup), where you could change from play list view to folder view. Play list is great for background music at a party but is somewhat troublesome when you're trying to locate a single song. If you could just choose that single folder and individual song while browsing, it would be great, just like video menu (great with preview and all).
12. Something that shuffles jukebox/media player play lists every time GameEx starts? I know there is a shuffle option, but my setup always seems to play the same set every time it starts.
13. Could you also add a shuffle and play all buttons for playing all tracks within a folder? I've got thousands of mp3s split into different folders by genre but at the moment when I hit play all they cycle through starting from ABC etc so poor old second half of the alphabet never gets a listen!

Karaoke:

1. Is there anyway to make it so all the karaoke songs you have would be organized like the way the songs are organized in the Jukebox. Or at least let me organize it myself in different folders and browse though it myself. I tried doing that before with different folders but it still just displays all my songs.
2. Would like to have Karaoke have subfolder support like videos and such. Also would like zip support added as it does play outside of GameEx with the karaoke plug in.
3. Create a number system for all Karaoke files, then when someone wants to play a music file instead of scrolling through a long list, they can just input the # and the song would play.
4. I would like the option of un-muting the microphone when playing karaoke. As it is now, Karaoke is broken when using in a cab.

Radio Stations:

1. Radio Stations are really well implemented... but there is still one issue. Let's say you select a radio station, and then wander off to a menu that has a custom music folder. As soon as you leave that menu, you're listening to your jukebox play list once again. Would it be possible to connect to the same radio station you just left?
2. When you select a radio station, would it be possible to: 1. Have Next Track / Previous Track select the next/previous radio station in the list. 2. When a radio station is not available, instead of switching to jukebox mode, try the next radio station. Possibly up to a maximum number of retries, then if all else fails, switch to jukebox.
3. How about being able to show a .jpg or .png of the radio station when you select it? Just like when you see screenshots or box images under the emulated games. I want too be able to see a logo of all my radio stations I select.
4. I'd like to see a Sirius radio function, to play the stream through GameEx. (Maybe XM too)

Video:

1. An option in the settings to stretch the video to full screen, stretch the video but keep aspect ratio (stretch until the top or side is hit, basically), or no stretch.
2. Could we have the ability to add music videos to a favorites list? Just like with Mame. Maybe even have one with pictures too?
3. Is it possible for the folders for videos and pictures to automatically go right into the base folder setup in the config app? I have one base folder for videos and one base folder for pictures, and it would be nice to have an immediate view of their contents instead of having to click on "\Videos" or "\Pictures" first.
4. 1) Subtitles support for Divx - subtitle On/Off. 2) Select subtitle for Divx when there are more that one sub. 3) Change languages in divx/ogm/mkv when there are multiple audios.
5. It would be a great feature if GameEx' DVD/Movie player could play videos served from a UPNP media server like Windows Media Connect & Nero Home
6. I have all my videos in subfolders of one main Videos folder according to the name of the show or movie. I want to be able to go the main videos folder and say "Play Randomly" and have it play randomly from all the subfolders. I'd like to be able to enable "also play videos" in the screen saver, point it to that main Videos folder, and have random videos from among all my subfolders show up in the screensaver too.
7. The "Play All" and "Play Random" functions are great but I cannot find a way to skip to the next file/video. I can scan forward and backward but the "Next Chapter" DVD function does not do what I would expect in a play list type situation for video files.
8. (2) A feature I'd like is more control with multimedia. Something to control audio languages and subtitles, change the screen size and aspect ratio of the media on the fly. Right now it's a little too basic for my tastes.
9. Is there any chance of retrieving a synopsis of a film and have it displayed with the box art? Failing that an option for people to type there own in for their films and videos.
10. For those of use out there who use GameEx not only for games, but also as a HTPC solution, I would like to suggest a video frame buffer feature. I serve videos and music from my main pc to my HTPC via wireless g connection to my home network.
11. I would like to see anamorphic output as a choice in aspect ratio for the video player in GameEx. Also settings in the configuration app to edit the font and placement of the subtitles would be ace.
12. I'd love it if the video playback featured some way to seek to time. Perhaps by pressing the right arrow on the remote followed by five then zero then zero - after a few seconds this would jump the video forward five minutes.
13. Could a feature be added that would allow you to show both videos and pictures at the same time without having to switch from videos to pictures? Would be cook to have a slide show where it would show a few pictures then a video or 2 then more pictures then more videos etc.
14. Auto play DVD and videos/videos (on removable media)
15. I love playing avi files and whatnot through GameEx. And the play all feature is nice and all, but when my son sits down to watch some Thomas and Friends, the episodes are about 5 minutes each. Using play all will start at episode 1 and go from there. But an even nicer feature would be to choose a spot and play all from there so I don't have to fast forward through a bunch of episodes to pick up where he left off.
16. I'd like to use Beyond TV to manage my recordings, and GameEx for just about everything else on my HTPC... Viewing shows recorded by Beyond TV, pictures, slideshows, MAME-type games, jukebox, etc. I'd like to use GameEx as the front-end.
    * Support different views of recorded shows in GameEx, similar to Beyond TV's implementation which supports viewing by Series (all episodes of "Iron Chef" grouped together), by Directory (all shows in C:\Shows), or All (like it is now). Read that information from the metadata stored by Beyond TV.
    * Support Beyond TV's Smart Chapter marks and allows skipping of commercials.
    * Bookmark the last viewed timestamp so the user can continue watching from where they left off.

Windows Media Player:

1. (2) Is there anyway of making the new library mode auto play the next track in the folder if there is nothing else in queue rather than just repeating the same track over and over? I'd like to be able to browse through my folders to the album I want and then just start the first track playing and the rest would follow rather than have to queue each track in the album.
2. I would like to use the excellent G-Force visualization plug-in for WMP - http://www.soundspectrum.com/ - with GameEx. G-Force has it's own custom settings for displaying track details over the visualization including: duration, text size and blending options. Can we have an option for GameEx not to display its own track detail information? I.e. leave track information to the visualization plug-in.
3. GameEx supports WMP play lists but doesn't seem to support auto play lists. Is this possible? I wouldn't have to update my play lists anymore after adding new music
4. WMP treats bands that start with "The" (i.e. The Cars) as though there is no "The" for listing alphabetically (WMP lists The Cars in the C's GameEx lists them in the T's). You implemented something similar for games and I was wondering if you could do the same for music.
5. If using windows media player as the default player from GameEx, have the ability to define the usable file extensions for your list. E.g. *.avi;*.mp4;*.flv etc.

[starbuck]

I have a request that may best be accomplished by a plug-in by Tempest.

Currently GameEx has one of the best databases in any frontend. Due to everyone's hard work it is forever evolving.

Could GameEx show every rom in the database in your game list wheather you have it or not and do a compare to the database when you open an emulator. Any rom you don't have would appear in your rom list in a different color indicating that you don't have that rom. Because its in the list, the description would appear and all the great box art, screen shot, avi etc that we get from Emumovies would also appear.

Perhaps it could be set up like Mame to where it only does the compare when you do a update. That way it wouldn't slow down the opening of a emulator by comparing each and everytime.

As always thanks to Tom and all that everyone does to make this a great frontend.

[Nightlife]

To go along with the newest release that features random video previews in the emulator select screen...

How about random vids for MAME and Daphne, too? I have my MAME tucked under "Emulated Games" and Daphne turned on, so it'd be nice to have the random preview vids for them, too.

[ehuonder]

Tom,

Thanks for the continued updates! I have another request for the Custom Menus. I hope this one would be easy for you to add...

I would like to have a new Menu Item type that would allow for a text item to be displayed, along with its corresponding video/image, such as:

item_7=34,MyMenuItemText,0,IconImageOrVideoBasename

but not to do any action if this menu item is selected. Basically, I want to use it to simply display the video/image in the icon area. The main areas that I would like to use this in are: Credits image, cabinet 'making of' video... I'm sure there are other uses as well. I know that these could be placed down within Videos or Pictures, but I need them in my normal menu hierarchy.

Thanks for considering this feature.

[oniicade]

i really hope to see 'partial transparency by alpha channels' in future updates.

IMO, GameEx is one of the best front-ends out there, but it lacks on this very point.

With this feature, a lot of new effects can be reached, like creating nice bars around images/videos

being able to give 'dept' to selection bars, and adding all kind of effects to the screen(on top of the fonts, buttons etc.)

(And so i can finish my front-end ive been working on for the past weeks because i just recently found out about this )

[Krakerman]

Ability to change fonts types, size and color under each emulator option/selection.

[Tempest]

Already requested. Somebody even mentioned the ability to put 'Tags'in the custom text E.G. [Red][s15][bold]This is some text.

How cool would that be?

[Krakerman]

Very nice indeed