Feature & Enhancement Requests

[mesk]

Would be cool if we could read mameinfo.dat & messinfo.dat & history.dat in GameEX.

What does the community think?

[Necromancyr]

I thought that's where it got the info for the info screen? Well, two of them. I know the history.dat for mame for a rom isn't in there I don't think. Agree it might be useful to determine which rom to use or know about bugs. Maybe as an option in the menu. That screen is one of the few things I have next to no issues with now (Biggest one being that when you go down to marquee's, the marquee disappears from image2...which can screw up the layout).

[Draco1962]

Enhancement Request - Allow for proportionately scaled Bezels for High Def displays or any display bigger than 800x600. This will allow for greater flexibility in creating custom bezels for use on HTPC displays without so much "letter box" space showing when running games that originally displayed in lower image sizes and different aspect ratios.

[Tom Speirs]

Enhancement Request - Allow for proportionately scaled Bezels for High Def displays or any display bigger than 800x600. This will allow for greater flexibility in creating custom bezels for use on HTPC displays without so much "letter box" space showing when running games that originally displayed in lower image sizes and different aspect ratios.

As far as I am aware Bezels are handled purely handled by MAME not GameEx.

[Draco1962]

Would it be possible to program GameEx to override MAME's handling of the bezels and apply it's own settings based upon the theme's default resolution?

[Adultery]

I thought the lay file handled bezel size and positioning?

[Draco1962]

Maybe overriding MAME is not the answer, but working with the lay file to crop in the middle a background file, for example, that is 1680x1050. GameEx would read the lay for that ROM and crop the middle proportionately, allowing the background image to appear on either side of the game being played. Another alternative (and using far less code to read and make calcs based on the lay file and theme would be to code for a custom "background" image, so , if I am making a theme based on The Wall and want to have a wall background appear "behind" the game's bezel to fill in the Empty Spaces (black letter box bars) with the game displaying as it currently does within the bezel.

[mesk]

Nobody but me would like to be able to read history.dat & mameinfo.dat in GameEX?

[Draco1962]

Tom and Ben,

Below are a few enhancement requests following the release of the new icon "ribbon" views in GameEx:

ENHANCEMENT REQUEST #1: Add "cover flow" type functionality to new ribbon view

The new view is great, but it is limiting to theme creation in that the item being highlighted by the selector is dynamic as opposed to centered on the screen. This causes the decription text for the icon to move as well. By implementing a cover flow type view, this will center the icon selector in the middle of the screen and cause the ribbon to flow left or right of center as needed, but will retain the focus in a constant or static location on the screen. Benefits in creating new skins using this view will include being able to strategically place select text and image boxes to enhance the experience. of the end-user. Additionally, this will create less confusion for the end-user and that feeling of being "lost" as the items change as the selector focus will always be middle screen.

ENHANCEMENT REQUEST #2: Enable Theme Editor Override of user view settings

The ability to override user view settings will greatly minimize end-user frustration when a new theme is released but allowing the author the ability through Options within Theme Editor to override some of the user view settings when utilizing the new Ribbon view. This will also benefit the theme creator in being able to release their theme with the views they originally intended for use with the theme.

[Adultery]

#2 is a definite must. Not all themes are compatible with the new views. This almost needs to be forced to keep themes consistent with their design and purpose.

[Draco1962]

New Views Enhancement Request #3: As an adjunct to #2, add editable elements for the two new Ribbon views (small and large)

This will allow for additional flexibility in theme creation by allowing for the placement (same as the menu bar) anywhere within the creators theme.

[T-Jay]

In regard to this feature/enhancement request, I know that there are some users who use 'mediabrowser' for thier video/dvd collections and as this new view is like the 'pearl theme' in Media Browser I can see themes being ported from mediabrowser to game-ex and vice-versa. With Game-Ex being more game focused, media brrowser video/dvd focused, and with media center studio dropped in the mix I can see in the future a 'more integrated' solution with HTPC's - something at the moment is missing which is no-one's fault by the way!!

Also - the next generation of retro gamers are going to be more console based then I also see that this should bring in new users for Game-Ex especially since they would have no interest in cabinet building (unilke us old farts over 30!). I can see the reasoning behind the new GUI, and if my console games were still on my htpc, then I too would be creating a theme for the new interface.

Finally - as Microsoft are going down the Windows Embedded route, I can see standalone HTPC's with modded MCE GUI/Game-EX GUI/Mediabrowser GUI all done for the end user in the future, we have already seen this happen in our own niche market with ready built cabs with embedded Frontends.

With these feature enhancements it will be a positive step towards more creativity from us users which can only be a good thing

Basically - I could have just said 'Adultery, I agree!!' which would have been a tad shorter

[Draco1962]

Bu T-Jay, what would be the fun in that?

[T-Jay]

I suppose its because I was an early adopter of MCE (xpmce2005!!!) and have seen this excellent piece of software go from strength to strength - it fitted a need then, but it's only since my cab I have been a more active member on the forum tho!

Probably why I have said what I said

[Draco1962]

I know this is totally off topic but have you heard anything about whether or not someone is going to pick up where the author left off with the Media Center Studio software for modifying MCE?

[T-Jay]

I found this workaround here: - http://www.hack7mc.com/2011/11/media-center-studio-installation.html as if you are like me, once you have a working setup you don't tend to need to update/use it until you actually need to download it again!

I have posted a topic here -

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=10687

so to keep this topic on-topic

[starbuck]

Now that Tom has worked his as* off on karaoke, I have a neat request. GameEx downloads album art for mp3's. Could Gameex do the same for karaoke. Gameex could either download the album art based on the album cover for the karaoke disk or even cooler would to download the boxart based on the song title and band or singer. All the themes have an empty box just waiting for something to fill it.

[flocke28]

This is for Ben Baker's Plugin Manager and the LCD/LED Plugin

Hey Ben,

could you please change the LCD Plugin to use Hyper LCD dll's to works with more LCD Displays?

I have a LCD that works with a compatible HD44780 chip (ch341a) over USB Port

LCD Smartie can't replace your plugin

Thank you

René

[Gildahl]

...Just moving my feature request over from the General forum...

Although "Favorites" works well today as a means of centrally managing favorites, the addition of a "Favorites" view within emulators would be very desirable when browsing by individual system--which is my personally preferred manner of browsing.

Right now the individual console emulators offer useful filters such as "By Category", "By Manufacturer", and "By Year". What I would like to see is a "Favorites" filter added to that list. And to top things off, I'd love to see an option in the setup wizard to set the default filter used for each emulator. This way, when I enter a console's game list, I can choose whether to see the full list of 900 games, or just the 40 favorites on that system and swap between these views on the fly.

[Gildahl]

Another small modification I'd like to see in the UI is for the cursor to skip over empty rows in lists. For example, if I set up a custom list having a blank line, such as

Item_3=33,0,0,

this will insert a blank line in my list...but when navigating down the list, the cursor still stops on this blank line. A more conventional behavior would be for the cursor to skip over these blank lines.

Thanks!

[T. Goodchild]

I was hoping to have radio buttons for views you can enable and disable. With the new views added, it is too hard to scroll through the 6-8 different types one at a time in sequential order ex (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) to get to the one you want. I have disabled the live video ones but it is not enough as the new tablet views are very obtrusive to certain themes and make navigation a nightmare with a mouse or gamepad. If each view were able to be turned on or off we could keep the views we like per emulator and only have to switch between 2 or 3. ex (1-4-7). Either that or an option in theme editor to disable more views.

[Draco1962]

I was hoping to have radio buttons for views you can enable and disable. With the new views added, it is too hard to scroll through the 6-8 different types one at a time in sequential order ex (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) to get to the one you want. I have disabled the live video ones but it is not enough as the new tablet views are very obtrusive to certain themes and make navigation a nightmare with a mouse or gamepad. If each view were able to be turned on or off we could keep the views we like per emulator and only have to switch between 2 or 3. ex (1-4-7). Either that or an option in theme editor to disable more views.

Going to +1 on this as well. I have similarly requested an override via Theme Editor to specify the views to be used within a theme for each screen created. Likely this would come as part of the the requirements for Version 5 themes so as not to break existing themes.

[Dan_Dan_91_07]

I would really like to be able to remove the "by category" option within the game selection menu, but keep the options that allow you to sort games by their year and manufacturer. Currently I have to disable the whole menu if I want the "by category" option removed.

This is because the catver's choices are not to my personal preference and I have disabled it, plus I will not be able to create one myself for a long time from now.

Thanks

[Krakerman]

Maybe have the menu scroll similar to the way Maximus Arcade works when you select emulators. Displays 1 at a time so you can have a graphic picture for each menu item and when you scroll left or right it moves accordingly.

So for example:

BACK HOME EXIT

Would be just:

BACK

Scroll to the right and it would show the HOME option only ... Scroll to the right again and it would display EXIT only as well so you only see one at a time not all 3 at once.

[Dan_Dan_91_07]

^ If it helps with the construction of your theme, I'm completely with you on this one.