Custom Menu

[Krakerman]

Ok I've been wanting to do this for along time, but have been reluctant to do it for several reasons which I won't get into. So I thought maybe I would ask my fellow GameEx'ers whom always have the answers and help me tackle this task.

I want to basically create a menu like such:

MAIN MENU:

My Gameroom (Goes to) MAME Games & Daphne

My Pinballs (Goes to) Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, and other PC pinball games ect ect

I think you get the point ... So what is the best way to go about doing this my friends?

[R-DUB]

I have a similar setup with my custom menus.

It is easier than you think to set up.

At the start menu I see

Exit GameEX

Arcade Classics - which contains MAME and Favorites lists

Laser Disk Arcade - which contains all the Daphne games

Pinball Arcade - which contains solid state tables list, EM tables list, original tables list and PC tables list

Console Game Systems - which contains Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis,Playstaion

[Draco1962]

I started a thread regarding Custom Menus here. The main thing to keep in mind is that you always have items within a menu - sounds basic, eh? Some, however get hung up with this. In a nutshell, here is part of how I have mine ordered as follows:

START (Menu)

- Arcade (Menu) - MAME, Daphne, GameEx Flash Arcade Online (Items)

- Pinball (Menu) - Future Pinball, Visual PinMAME, Visual Pinball (Items)

- Consoles (Menu) - Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Bally Astrocade, Coleco Vision, Fairchild Channel F, Mattel Intellivision, Nintendo NES, Nintendo SNES, Nintendo N64 (Items)

- Handhelds (Menu) - Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Game Boy Color, Nintendo Virtual Boy, Sega Game Gear

- Fruit Machines (Menu) - BFM, MFME (Items)

- PC Systems (Menu) - DOS Box, FICS / BabasChess, Flash Games, Game Launcher, ScummVM, Steam, Z-Code Interactive Fiction (Items)

- Favorites (Item)

- Multimedia (Menu) - Search, Pictures (Items), eBook Readers (Menu) - ebook reader, Nook, Kindle (Items)

As you can see, you can nest additional menus within a menu, and items within any, but you always must have a menu to which you may assign and item. This setup works well for me, however, only you can decide what works best for you and you will tweak it a few times! Best to get out a pen/pencil and paper and map it out, input it to the Custom Menus, assign your custom logos and the like. It will take you a little time but I think that you may like it in the end as you have made it yours and not like 90% of the rest using out of the box organization! Not that there is anything wrong with that if that is what someone prefers, but why not be a 10%er?

[Adultery]

I've been putting this off for forever or so. Maybe it's time I jumped in. I hate being folded into the 90%! LOL

Unfortunately I have other things to tackle first (like finalizing Type X which I have been adamantly putting off for a week or so, and Mednafen).

Just promise me you'll be ready to help me, aight Drac?

[Draco1962]

Anytime, bro!

[Krakerman]

Type X has me very interested in it, but haven't tackled this one yet. Looks like alot of searching and digging around to get this going. I've been wanting to redo my entire GameEx setup as it needs a much needed overhaul, maybe this weekend I'll start redesigning it. Thanks for the input Draco you have been much helpful as R-DUB !!

I backed up my entire GameEx directory in case something goes a fowl .

[Draco1962]

Chicken or duck? I like chicken! Especially fried! When can we come over to eat?

[hansolo77]

Here's how I (currently) have my Custom Menu setup. It's really nice in that you can call each item whatever you want, it doesn't have to match the actual setting in the GameEx setup wizard. As you can see, I've added a year at the beginning of my systems. I had originally done this manually in the setup wizard a few years ago, when GameEx would autosort alphanumerically. Now with the Custom Menus, I can move them around whereever I want. You can also add things, like my console emulator for Casio Loopy, where I've added a (not working) since I haven't found a good way to make it work. At the top of the list, I've added a blank "-" to separate the list features from the rest of the games. The only "urk" I have is with the GameBase selections, as it doesn't show the system, just "GameBase System #". This can be a problem when you added more GameBases; if the new system added doesn't go to the next available slot, but rather back to say #2, your custom config mappings get all screwed up.

[Adultery]

Well that turned out even better than I could have imagined! What a great feature!!!!

# This File allows you to cusomize the menu system in GameEx

# Registered Version Feature.

[General]

Enabled=True

# The following sections allow you to choose which items to show and where.

# Each of the following sections is a menu (list in GameEx). [Root] is shown first when starting GameEx

# Sub Menus are in Sections [MENU_[0-100][ eg. [MENU_2]

# Create new sections if required.

# The First item in a section should be Title to specify the title text to be shown

# Menu items are shown in the order of the number suffixing item..

# Each item should start with item_[0-300]=

# Then item type then the text to show and then item parameter.

# e.g item_1=0,MAME,0

# Optional Parameter 2 = Image in themes logo folder without path and extenstion

# e.g Item=-1,Custom Menu,1,MAMEALL

# The Item Types are as follows

# -1= Submenu group. Goto other menu. Parameter = Menu number e.g Item=-1,Sub Menu 1,4 goes to [MENU_4].

# - Will be listed in GameEx as "Sub Menu 1"

# 0=MAME

# 1=Emulator. Parameter = Emulator Nunber

# 2=Application. Parameter = Application Number

# 3=Web Application. Parameter = Web Application Number

# 4=Theme Picker

# 5=Start Screensaver

# 6=Configuration Application

# 7=Statistics

# 8=Export To Mce

# 9=Most Played

# 10=Last Played

# 11=Random Game

# 12=Favorites

# 13=All Games list

# 14=News

# 15=Search

# 16=Exit

# 17=Log Off

# 18=Shut Down

# 19=Hibernate

# 20=Standby

# 21=Restart

# 22=Videos

# 23=Play DVD

# 24=Jukebox

# 25=DVDs on Disk

# 26=Radio

# 27=Media Library

# 28=eBooks

# 29=Karaoke

# 30=Pictures

# 31=Daphne

# 32=Emulator Group. Paramater = Group Number

# 33=Blank Line

[ROOT]

Title=Start

Item_1=-1,Arcade Games,1,GameEx

Item_2=-1,Console Games,2,Console

Item_3=-1,Handheld Games,4,Handheld

Item_4=

Item_5=

Item_6=32,Windows Games,1,Windows

Item_7=-1,Homebrew Games,17,PC Systems

Item_8=-1,Favorites & Most Played Games,18,MAMEFavor

Item_9=-1,Jukebox,5,jukebox

Item_10=-1,Videos,6,Video

Item_11=-1,News & Weather,7,news

Item_12=

Item_13=-1,Search,19,Search

Item_14=5,Start Attract Mode,0,screensaver

Item_15=-1,Exit GameEx,8,Exit

[MENU_2]

Item_1=-1,Nintendo,11,_Logo__Nintendo

Item_2=-1,Sega,14,_Logo__Sega

Item_3=-1,Atari,15,_Logo__Atari

Item_4=-1,Misc Consoles,16,Console

TITLE=Console Games

[MENU_1]

Item_1=-1,Arcade Machines,12,mame

Item_2=-1,Pinball Tables,13,Pinball

TITLE=Arcade Games

Item_3=36,GameEx Arcade,0,GameEx

Item_4=

Item_5=

[MENU_4]

Item_1=-1,Nintendo,3,_Logo__Nintendo

Item_2=-1,Sega,9,_Logo__Sega

Item_3=-1,Misc Handhelds,10

TITLE=Handheld Games

[MENU_10]

TITLE=Other Handhelds

Item_1=1,SNK NeoGeo Pocket,18,Neo Geo Pocket Color

Item_2=1,Atari Lynx,19,Atari Lynx

[MENU_12]

TITLE=Arcade Machines

Item_1=0,MAME Games,0,mame

Item_2=1,TAITO Type X,31,Type X

[MENU_13]

Item_1=1,FUTURE Pinball,29,Future Pinball

TITLE=Pinball Tables

Item_2=1,VISUAL PinMAME,17,Visual PinMAME

[MENU_11]

TITLE=Nintendo Games

Item_1=1,Nintendo Entertainment System,3,Nintendo NES

Item_2=1,Super Nintendo,2,Super Nintendo

Item_3=1,Nintendo 64,1,N64

Item_4=1,Gamecube,22,Nintendo Gamecube

[MENU_14]

TITLE=Sega Games

Item_1=1,Master System,8,Sega Master System

Item_2=1,Genesis,7,Sega Genesis

Item_3=1,Sega CD,6,Sega CD

Item_4=1,Saturn,21,Sega Saturn

Item_5=1,Dreamcast,28,Dreamcast

[MENU_15]

TITLE=Atari Games

Item_1=1,2600,11,Atari 2600

Item_2=1,5200,12,Atari 5200

Item_3=1,7800,13,Atari 7800

[MENU_16]

TITLE=Other Console Games

Item_1=1,Sony Playstation,20,Sony Playstation

Item_2=1,NEC TurboGrafx 16,10,TurboGrafx 16

Item_3=1,GCE Vectrex,16,Vectrex

Item_4=1,ColecoVision,14,Colecovision

Item_5=1,Mattel Intellivision,15,Intellivision

[MENU_17]

TITLE=Homebrew Games

Item_1=1,Beats Of Rage,24,OpenBOR

Item_2=1,Misc Homebrew,30,PC Systems

[MENU_3]

Item_1=1,GameBoy/GameBoy Color,5,Gameboy Color

TITLE=Nintendo Games

Item_2=1,GameBoy Advance,4,Gameboy Advance

Item_3=1,DS,27,Nintendo DS

[MENU_9]

TITLE=Sega Games

Item_1=1,Game Gear,9,GameGear

[MENU_5]

Item_1=24,My Jukebox,0,jukebox

TITLE=Jukebox

Item_2=2,Rhapsody,1,rhapsody

Item_3=29,Karaoke,0,karaoke

Item_4=26,Internet Radio,0,Radio

Item_5=27,Media Library,0,media

[MENU_6]

TITLE=Videos

Item_1=22,My Videos,0,Video

Item_2=34,YouTube,0,youtube

Item_3=23,Play DVD,0,dvddisk

Item_4=27,Media Library,0,media

[MENU_7]

Item_1=14,RSS News Feeds,0,news

TITLE=News & Weather

Item_2=3,Weather,1,Weather

[MENU_8]

Item_1=16,Exit GameEx,0,Exit

Item_2=18,Shutdown MegaMAME,0,ShutDown

TITLE=Exit GameEx

Item_3=21,Restart MegaMAME,0,ShutDown

Item_4=7,Statistics,0,statistics

[MENU_18]

Item_1=12,Favorites,0

TITLE=Favorites & Most Played

Item_2=9,Most Played,0,most

Item_3=10,Last Played,0,last

Item_4=11,Random Game,0,random

Item_5=

[MENU_19]

TITLE=Search

Item_1=15,Search...,0,Search

Item_2=13,All Games,0,allemu

[hansolo77]

I knew you could do it..

[Adultery]

Lies! Haha!

It was more a matter of motivation. LOL