[Request] Rebuilding ListInfo

[Gildahl]

Evo creates its game list based on the mame executable specified in the setup wizard.  Anytime that executable changes it forces the game list (ListInfo.xml) to be regenerated.  While this is almost certainly the correct default behavior for most users, it creates an issue for me.  I use multiple versions of MAME, and the executable I want to specify in the wizard is not mame itself but a compiled script called mame_launcher.exe that redirects to the correct version of MAME.  

The trouble is that if I specify mame_launcher.exe as the MAME exe, it can't generate ListInfo.  If I point to a real mame.exe, it generates the list properly, but the moment I change it back to my script, the list is wiped out.  Arghh! 

It would be really nice if there was some way to circumvent the default behavior of rebuilding the list whenever mame changes.  For example, a message in the UI such as "MAME has changed, do you want to rebuild list, yes or no?".  Even better would be decoupling the exe that runs the games from the exe that is used to generate the ListInfo in the wizard.

[Adultery]

That really kinda falls outside of the purpose of integrated mame support. Whatever your script does (and without seeing it), it's likely there are (or will be) other ways to do what you're trying to do.

Not selling your suggestion short, just being realistic.

[Gildahl]

Actually, GameEx already does this.  It displays "Update List?" if Mame has changed.  Without this or some other resolution I can't really use Evo practically since there's no way I'm going to use just one version of mame.  New revs add new games and improvements but they also break old things as well.  So if I want to add, say Raiden 2 to a perfectly working library, I certainly don't want to have to migrate my whole game list to a new version of MAME!  I did this sort of thing once and its a nightmare.

Anyway, you may be perfectly right in that Evo may ultimately provide another way of doing this (and that would be fine).  For example, I think an even better solution would be to make mame a fully supported emulator type in the emulator list (once Evo gets that far).  This way one could create multiple instances of mame and combine them in any fashion desired.  For example, I could create a Mame145, a Mame162, and a Mame174 instance each pointing to their own folder and rom list, and then create a single emulator group out of them called MAME.  In fact this would enable me to get rid of the script altogether.  

[Adultery]

Well I'm just saying, there is MAME Mapping Magician for this already in traditional GameEx, and that wil be redone for Evo. I certainly understand the need is what I meant.

[Gildahl]

Ah.  Got ya.  I had looked at mapping magician a long time ago but ended up using my own script since it didn't quite do what I had in mind.  

What my script does is search for a rom in all versions of MAME and then runs it in the most recent version that it finds it in.  Thus, if I want to promote a game from say rev 145 to 174, I just add the rom to 174 and it automatically runs in that version.  If I don't like the way it works I just delete the rom from 174 and it immediately reverts to run in whatever version it previously ran in.  It avoids the need to map individual roms since the behavior is dynamic.

Since this is very unique behavior that I'm not expecting Evo to duplicate, I'd prefer to be able to just continue doing this on my own (especially since I actually do other things in the script as well).  Just adding the option to not update the listinfo upon load (like existing GameEx does) would be an adequate solution.  

BYW, I think Evo is going to be great and look forward to its further, eh,..evolution.  If you happen to be prioritizing the next new few features to add my votes are for (1) the above described ability to suppress the listinfo update on demand, and (2) the run before and after command line options (need 'em to run my game controller scripts).

[RIP-Felix]

I think the ultimate solution would be to setup multiple MAME versions in the emulator section and use an emulator group to combine them into one listing. Of course since only the integrated MAME is enabled in the evo alpha, you can't do this yet.