[ATTN TOM] Pinball Arcade GUI Change

[Drybonz]

3 hours ago, Carny_Priest said:

TPA is fun to play, but there isn't anything there that is not already done with more flair by the Visual Pinball community.

I have to completely agree... the more complications and problems TPA throws at us, the more I like VP... and I liked it a lot in the first place.

[Tom Speirs]

I agree too. I don't bother with TPA myself.

[mace]

13 hours ago, Carny_Priest said:

Meaning that I have a minimal investment in TPA. I only have four tables: the free table and the three in the launch pack from way back in Season 1. Don't get me wrong. TPA is fun to play, but there isn't anything there that is not already done with more flair by the Visual Pinball community. It is also nice to play the trial versions on my iPad when I am away from the cab. With PinballX, FCM, DOFFX2, and dmdext filling in the support gaps that Farsight won't cover, it is becoming a worthwhile platform for cab users.

Sadly I'm struggling with DOFFX2, my input controller only outputs joystick buttons and that program only seems to respond to keyboard presses. I tried mapping the keys using another program but it clashed with x360ce which I'm running to enable the plunger....

[TerryRed]

37 minutes ago, mace said:

Sadly I'm struggling with DOFFX2, my input controller only outputs joystick buttons and that program only seems to respond to keyboard presses. I tried mapping the keys using another program but it clashed with x360ce which I'm running to enable the plunger....

I use Pinnacle Game Profiler to map my xbox 360 gamepad controls to keys. There is an OVERRIDE feature that allows you to either block or override specific controls being sent to the game. This way it will only send a mapped keystroke instead of buttons and keystrokes at the same time, etc...  sometimes, the OVERRIDE feature is necessary for some games to work at all (ie, XINPUT OVERRIDE)

 

There's also XPadder, but I have never used it with TPA.

[mace]

17 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

I don't want to risk breaking other things but yes definitely for the waitfor setting. I noticed this was hard coded to make it actually longer if it was below a certain value (such as 5 or 0). Try using the attached and make sure you set it to something supported by the Setup Wizard (minimum 5).

PinballX.zip

Perfect Tom, my tests line up with Carny_Priest i.e. I can consistently get the correct tables selected with WaitFor=9 and Table Select Delay - long, those appear to be the magic numbers, the loading is faster with this version too. Thank you!

[Carny_Priest]

FYI, FCM is now up to date with the latest TPA. Table selection works perfectly fine with it. Thanks!

[mace]

Hi Tom,

Couple of points,

I'm seeing a long table exit to the TPA tables +24 seconds similar to the issue with VPinball that was fixed in build 2.12:

I've tried slamming the door on TPA using a 'run after' TASKKILL command but it makes no difference, outside of PinballX the close and forced close are practically instantaneous.

Secondly there seems to be an issue with focus as my loading had now stopped and the selection falls to 'last table played' each time - I don't think that's its a PinballX problem but as I mentioned above it started after I updated to the latest Nvidea drivers, it may be that my build is odd but I've uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times and it seems that the only way to keep things going is a clean Nvidea install for new drivers not a straight update. Just mentioning it here in case it helps someone else, as usual with these short comments there's about a week of testing to make sure that it was a driver issue.

[Draco1962]

Not sure if this has anything to do with what you are experiencing,  but did you add the latest TPA 8 Ball Deluxe table to your Pinball Arcade .xml? If not, ignore for this issue and accept as a reminder to do so if you haven't. 

[mace]

13 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

Not sure if this has anything to do with what you are experiencing,  but did you add the latest TPA 8 Ball Deluxe table to your Pinball Arcade .xml? If not, ignore for this issue and accept as a reminder to do so if you haven't. 

Thanks Draco, yet another hole in the menu opens up.........I still live in hope that Farsight will allow direct calling of tables at some stage.

[PcTeknic]

Yesterday I tried and I gridposition not open tables. I also tried with FCM that still does not work . We spent years trying to see good in our PinCab and Pinball Arcade pass us. I think it's time that we move from them, tomorrow I disable PA and put on sale on Steam.

[Draco1962]

8 hours ago, mace said:

Thanks Draco, yet another hole in the menu opens up.........I still live in hope that Farsight will allow direct calling of tables at some stage.

That is one reason why I was hoping for at least the option of selecting from My Tables instead of A-Z, but I suspect that they may still be doing other tweaking of the UI as well. 

Mine quit working correctly even before this latest table addition in A-Z.

Until there is direct loading of tables from command line or other type of viable cabinet support, I am disabling it on my cab and moving on.

[Carny_Priest]

Yes, FS tweaked the UI again in a pretty big way.

Tables are grouped in three lists: A-F, G-Q, and R-Z. Scrolling within each group is "OK" although I think it would require different key delays than what PinballX is currently offering. Movement between groups is kind of funky. It can probably be worked out again, but who wants to do this every month? Might as well wait until development on the UI is done... if ever.

 

If I were just a touch more cynical, I'd say that they are doing this to ruin the experience specifically for cab users.

[Draco1962]

A recent FB Messenger conversation between me and a rep from FarSight Studios regarding cabinet support for TPA:

Me: Will The Pinball Arcade ever provide true virtual pinball cabinet support for its tables? While our community is probably small in comparision to the larger more casual TPA community, theor enthusiasm for creating a more realistic pinball experience is second to none.

TPA: Hello there!

Unfortunately Cab support has been put on hold, but if you go to the Pinball Arcade fan forums there are some people there with camera modes to help get the game running.

Me: The problem with the camera mode is that it breaks with every UI change and new table added. Most cab users have tables from other emulators and sims that accessed via a frontend, such as PinballX or HyperPin that unify all via one interface. All but The Pinball Arcade offer command line support to load the tables. Adding such support should not be that difficult. Adding the ability to position the DMD on the monitor of choice shouldn't be much more difficult as others provide this as well. Just adding command line support for calling the individual tables would go a long way with the community in continued support for your product.

TPA: It is not that it is difficult, it has to do with our licensing agreements, we do not have permission for full cab support. Sorry for the trouble.

That should be the end of any expectations for cabinet support for anyone expecting it over the last few years. It would have been nice to know that there was never any intent to provide it, I respect the fact of licensing. I get that. I don't get why it was not mentioned sooner rather than dangling the carrot other than to draw in the extra sales.

[PcTeknic]

Ok. Disable PA and put on sale.

[Adultery]

I'm more surprised that they promote the mod.

[Draco1962]

1 hour ago, Adultery said:

I'm more surprised that they promote the mod.

Agreed as this would seem to be a blatant violation of their license agreement.

I will be moving this to my GameEx PC and off of the pincab and calling it a day. I will not purchase another table from them. My primary interest in purchasing their tables was in being able to help support troubleshooting the game app support from within PinballX,

It seems that having the integrated support is a waste of Tom's time at this point with the frequent changes even to the new UI, but not my call. Others are picking up on the Mega Docklets for TPA at this time, which is great as I have lost my interest in creating any more for this app.

Most if not all of the tables are available via Visual Pinball so I will enable the ones I like and move on with life.

[PcTeknic]

Totally agree.

If they do not want to support anything and do not facilitate things, we do warming up head instead of passing them?

[Carny_Priest]

I don't believe that FS supports or promotes the mod. PinballArcadeFans is not a FarSight Studios site AFAIK. 

[Draco1962]

7 minutes ago, Carny_Priest said:

I don't believe that FS supports or promotes the mod. PinballArcadeFans is not a FarSight Studios site AFAIK. 

I think what is being referred to is the reference in the response I received from the TPA/FarSight rep regarding using the mod:

 

On 8/21/2016 at 3:10 PM, Draco1962 said:

TPA: Hello there!

Unfortunately Cab support has been put on hold, but if you go to the Pinball Arcade fan forums there are some people there with camera modes to help get the game running.

 

[Carny_Priest]

Oh, you're right. Well, take it up the chain to that rep's manager and see if that mod has any sort of "official" sanction. I'm kind of doubting it. 

I do like that there are those in the community that are taking the bull by the horns and enabling cab users to add a lot of capabilities to TPA: fixed camera, backglasses, real DMD, and some feedback support. Even with all of that, I don't see it adding anything that Visual Pinball does not already do. But I would like to see these capabilities develop further to support Stern Pinball Arcade on a cab. It may be the only way to get latter day SPIKE based games on a virtual cab in the foreseeable future. Of course, it is not to say that FS may design it in such a way to make it impossible to work on a virtual cab. I guess we'll just have to see.

[Draco1962]

I think as long as they are not the ones violating their licensing agreement with the manufacturers then they will continue to turn a blind eye to the mod. I am fine with leaving it at that and not pursuing it any further with them or pursuing any further promotions of their product. They clearly dangled the carrot in front of the checkbook of the enthusiasts with no intent of ever providing them with direct cabinet support of any kind. I will put no more into their coffers or steer others to them until they make good on that promise.

[rothbauerw]

I get all the frustration.  I still like PBA and plan to continue to play it on my cab.  

With all the difficulties testing PinballX built-in integration, I decided to play around will autohotkey to see if I could get that to work.  After hours playing changing up key combinations and timings, I threw in the towel.  The interface is designed for touch, not keyboard manipulation.

Given some more time to noodle on it, it dawned on me to try mouse input to simulate touch.  After a couple hours of scripting, I have a solution that's working reliably.  My setup is included below for anyone interested in giving it a try.

Pinball Arcade it setup under Other Systems.  I call my table selection script from startpba.bat which rotates the screen, runs my autohotkey script, and then starts the PBA Free Cam Mod.  [TABLEFILE] is used to pass the table name to the script.

[System_4]
Name=Pinball Arcade
SystemType=0
WorkingPath=C:\Pinball\Steam
TablePath=
Executable=steam.exe
Parameters=-applaunch 238260
LaunchBeforeWorkingPath=C:\Pinball\PBACamMod
LaunchBeforeExecutable=startpba.bat
LaunchBeforeParameters="[TABLEFILE]"
LaunchAfterWorkingPath=C:\Pinball\PBACamMod
LaunchAfterExecutable=endpba.bat
LaunchAfterParameters=
Enabled=True
WaitForProcess=PinballArcade11.exe
LaunchBeforeEnabled=True
LaunchBeforeWaitForExit=False
LaunchBeforeHideWindow=True
LaunchAfterEnabled=True
LaunchAfterWaitForExit=True
LaunchAfterHideWindow=True

You will need AutoHotKey installed for the pba.ahk to run.  Make sure to set the AutoHotKey.exe to run as administrator.

 

endpba.bat

pba.ahk

Pinball Arcade.xml

PinballX.ini

startpba.bat

[PcTeknic]

If you compile .ahk in .exe, the users no need AutoHotkey.

FCM don't work actually.

But thanks for share your work.

[Tom Speirs]

If you guys are willing to test again I will have a go at this.

 

Cheers.

Tom.

[mace]

23 minutes ago, Tom Speirs said:

If you guys are willing to test again I will have a go at this.

 

Cheers.

Tom.

Happy to help Tom,

I must admit I'm not in a good place with FS but having invested the dollar I'd like to think we can see it through.

Thanks for making the offer too.