Mapping keys

[nullus]

Hi there,

seeking out for the ideal frontend for my little mame cab I came across GameEx a few days ago and I must say that I'm nearly convinced .

As far as I can judge: Very good job, Tom!

One thing that remains to be clarified is the remapping of keys in GameEx.

The FAQ tells me to go for the custominput file in conjunction with the scancode file. Of course "enable custom input" has to be activated.

This works out fine but having the custominput file in mind, there are by far not all keystrokes mentioned GameEx uses.

I.e. how would I map the control for "volume up" (which is "ALT + Cursor up" by default) to "shift + v" or something else?

BTW I don't get the function of "Shift1_Paging" and "Shift2_Volume". It might have something to do with my problem...

Another key I would like to remap is the "ESC" key. How could you do this using the custominput file as it is not outlined there?

The reason I'm asking for is that I use the "Keyboard hack" way to control my Mame Cabinet. Due to blocking and ghosting phenomens I'm limited to use certain keys whilst others can't be used without running into trouble.

A second thing I'm struggling with is that GameEx does not keep all settings in mind for the weather. Interestingly he remembers the city I chose, but next time I start GameEx, the language (which was set to "german" as I'm located in germany and furthermore I am german ) switches back to "english". I'm pretty sure that I don't have restrictions in my "cookie" settings and what makes mw wonder is that obviously he remembers the city but not the language...

Any help appreciated as I'd like to give GameEx a serious chance to be my frontend no. 1

[Tom Speirs]

Hi there,

seeking out for the ideal frontend for my little mame cab I came across GameEx a few days ago and I must say that I'm nearly convinced  .

As far as I can judge: Very good job, Tom!

One thing that remains to be clarified is the remapping of keys in GameEx.

The FAQ tells me to go for the custominput file in conjunction with the scancode file. Of course "enable custom input" has to be activated.

This works out fine but having the custominput file in mind, there are by far not all keystrokes mentioned GameEx uses.

I.e. how would I map the control for "volume up" (which is "ALT + Cursor up" by default) to "shift + v" or something else?

BTW I don't get the function of "Shift1_Paging" and "Shift2_Volume". It might have something to do with my problem...

Another key I would like to remap is the "ESC" key. How could you do this using the custominput file as it is not outlined there?

The reason I'm asking for is that I use the "Keyboard hack" way to control my Mame Cabinet. Due to blocking and ghosting phenomens I'm limited to use certain keys whilst others can't be used without running into trouble.

A second thing I'm struggling with is that GameEx does not keep all settings in mind for the weather. Interestingly he remembers the city I chose, but next time I start GameEx, the language (which was set to "german" as I'm located in germany and furthermore I am german  ) switches back to "english". I'm pretty sure that I don't have restrictions in my "cookie" settings and what makes mw wonder is that obviously he remembers the city but not the language...

Any help appreciated as I'd like to give GameEx a serious chance to be my frontend no. 1 

Hi, I can't help with the weather as that's an application by someone else on the web. It's also not possible to change the escape sequence for the keyboard. Although you can also use keys 2 and 6 pressed together.

The shifted keys work in combination with the direction keys. So Shift 1 and up pages up, and Shift2/Volume and down turn the volume down. Its not possible to have a single key assigned for these functions as I said they work in conjuction with the directional keys. If you wanted to map to shift - v, youd need to make the shift key to "Shift" and the up key to "V", but of course then V would always function as up.

If you want to use GameEx you may be better buying an IPAC or XAarcade controller rather than a custom keyboard hack. Also Ill think yourll find not many front ends have a cutom escape key. GameEx is a little special in itself in that it can detect Escape and close an emulators process.

[nullus]

Hi Tom,

thanks for your quick reply!

Hi, I can't help with the weather as that's an application by someone else on the web.

Problem solved! As the language setting didn't seem to be part of the cookie I went through the settings for html applications. The solution was to change the php variable in this URL: 10foot.cbuenger.com/mceWeather/index.php?start=1〈=2 to

10foot.cbuenger.com/mceWeather/index.php?start=1〈=1

It made my language settings permanent. I know, not really GameEx business but maybe someone is interested in that... .

The shifted keys work in combination with the direction keys. So Shift 1 and up pages up, and Shift2/Volume and down turn the volume down.

I think I am a bit too stupid to follow... . What IS shift1 and shift2?? Initially I thought it would be left and right shift buttons but that's obviously not the point. Could you bring some light to a rookie?

If you want to use GameEx you may be better buying an IPAC or XAarcade controller rather than a custom keyboard hack. Also Ill think yourll find not many front ends have a cutom escape key. GameEx is a little special in itself in that it can detect Escape and close an emulators process.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No way. Why should I buy an IPAC? I'm on low to zero budget for my little project and I figured out that my old keyboard (controller) does a perfect job! I have up to 16 independent simultaneous keystrokes available without any problems of blocking, ghosting, delaying, etc. As I'm familiar with a little bit of soldering there really is no reason for me to spend money on a dedicated controller which would do exactly teh same. Anyway, I found a way to circumvent that problem by simply assigning the ESC sequence to a button not used for Gameplay (I.e. "Player One" button). As I'm basically free of choice in MAME I can map the originial ESC command to Shift + ESC which works without any problems.

The crazy thing now is that I solved the problems and I really love the outstanding functionality of GameEx , but obviously the program brings my PC down to the knees. Although I turned off any "special effects" and went down with colour depth and resolution GameEx doesn't "run like silk" in any way.

Seems that it is really too ressource intensive and simply to much for my 1GHz, 256 MB HP-Vectra PC :( . I'll give it another try tonight with some tweaking and I hope that I'll find a satisfying solution now that I got used to the idea of building a home theater center instead of a pure MAME cabinet with the help of GameEx... .

[Tom Speirs]

Hi Yes, unfortunatly GameEx is designed for modern hardware and a 1GHZ 256mb is not modern hardware . Could you explain how or what exactly is the resource problem on your PC? Also the latest version runs quite a bit quicker. So try that.

The shifted keys just means this key is used in conjuction with a directional key. IE its designed to be held down with a diretional key. I can't think of another way to explain it.