FX3 clean hotseat / classic lists without extra emulator / duplicating media / duplicating tables in all tables section

[Outhere]

With FX2

Have the 1st button go straight to the game and have the 2nd button stop at the hotseat menu ...
 Would that be possible?

[joyrider3774]

2 hours ago, Outhere said:

With FX2

Have the 1st button go straight to the game and have the 2nd button stop at the hotseat menu ...
 Would that be possible?

It is theoretically possible but it would require a complete new program to be written and i think there already exists a pinball fx2 launcher to do some things like that. The app i wrote is based on the fact that a game has command line parameters for enabling certain options like the -class and -hotseat_3 etc options. Each button on my app gets assigned a different set of those parameters and i just launch the pinball fx3 game with the required parameters. Thats all the app basically does, i dont send keypresses or things like that to any game using my app it just requires command line parameters. I'll look up the pfx2 launcher which does send keypresses and the like and perhaps you can use it for hotseat as well, i'm not going to create a seperate program to do so. What i needed for my cab was only the app in its current state and its working fine on my cab. I just thought the community would benefit from it as well since there was no way to select these options and released it on github with full source so anyone can take it and improve upon.

I'm already trying to add joypad support and thats something i don't require myselve but i'm willing to try to add it in and got a version at home working with my xbox 360 wireless controller but i'm not sure i'll add much more myselve as everything i wanted works for me and i've got plenty of work left on other things of my own cabinet which only arrived last friday at work.

When i get home i'll seek up that pinball fx2 launcher or if you can tell me the command line parameters for pinball fx 2 for hotseat i can tell you what to change in the ini file to make it work, if they dont exist it wont work with my app

 

@outhere this launcher works based on sending keypresses and has support for hotseat / multiplayer options http://www.nukelauncher.com or there is even a thread here 

 

[Outhere]

That's what I use now for FX2...
I just thought maybe your program would also work
Your program is much quicker but I will stay with NukeLauncher 

Thanks for taking the time to share your program

[Draco1962]

Unfortunately, NukeLauncher does not work well with the integrated Pinball FX2 support in PinballX. Having a program like this while being able to load a configuration for either Pinball FX2 or FX3 would be awesome!

[joyrider3774]

well if someone tells me the command line parameters for hotseat mode in pinball fx2 i can add it in. but i don't think they exist and as such my program can't be made to work with it. The only way would be to send keys to the program to select hotseat mode inside the game which is basically what nukelauncher is doing i think and my app is not designed todo this

My app is already generic, you can copy the exe and rename it, launch it close it immediatly (Q / Alt +f4) and then start changing the button sections in the ini file (which will have same name as renamed exe) to add the command line parameters needed. But if a game (does not matter which) does not support command line parameters to select certain options it will never work unfortunatly. The only reason this works for pinball fx3 is because they have a -class and -hotseat_X parameter. If pinball fx2 has similar options it's easily added if it doesn't it can't be done this way.

I made it generic and already forsaw 4 extra buttons if they ever add a -tour (to select tournament classic style). And perhaps in the future there might be other games supporting certain commandline parameters then this app can be used as well but if the options are not available i'm affraid it can never work and the developpers would need to add the command line options first to the game. There's no way around this unfortunatly.

I'm also having problems with joypad support, it seems in windows 10 i need to select in the controller settings part a prefered joypad if i don't do this or windows does not do it for you the app will not detect the joypad. I also have one very old generic usb pad that does not work with the axises but it is possible to use buttons to navigate as well and that does work.

My xbox 360 wireless controler however is working without a problem, but things like xbox 360 ce won't work because as far as i understand xbox 360 ce only works for programs using xinput api, which i don't currently, i'm just using a component that uses windows api functions to get joypad input which seems to work with some of my joypads so i'm not sure about it all. I have not looked at how hard it might be to use xinput in delphi

[Carny_Priest]

I don't think that there is a hotseat command line launch parameter for FX2. That was a feature that came after the initial release of FX3. Doubtful that Zen will port it back to FX2 given that they don't sell FX2 anymore, I don't think.

 

I expect NukeLauncher might work fine if the system type is set to Custom instead of using PinballX's integrated support. The solution does require more housekeeping to ensure that it is working correctly as the selection process is based on a table's position on the main menu grid. The positions change as new tables are added.

[Outhere]

NukeLauncher works good under - Other systems

[davsouto]

 

Quote

About hyperspin & focus you mean my app does not get focus or pinball fx3 ? as i added code in my app for it to be always on on top and force it to be the foreground window every X seconds. Could you give me more details about the setup you are using or upload me the bare minimum configuration somewhere (without media etc) so i can simulate the setup on my main pc and perhaps see what's going wrong ?

In Hyperspin I am running Pinball FX3 through Rocketlauncher UI through the module AHK that I attached.
When I launch your script, it puts it in first place but when it has to run Pinball FX3.exe appears minimized witch no focus and I have to press ALT + TAB. Once ALT + TAB is pressed everything works perfectly but I have not found the reason why I have to press ALT + TAB.
If you can take a look I would appreciate it @ joyrider3774.

Pinball FX3.ahk

Pinball FX3.isd

[joyrider3774]

5 minutes ago, davsouto said:

 

In Hyperspin I am running Pinball FX3 through Rocketlauncher UI through the module AHK that I attached.
When I launch your script, it puts it in first place but when it has to run Pinball FX3.exe appears minimized witch no focus and I have to press ALT + TAB. Once ALT + TAB is pressed everything works perfectly but I have not found the reason why I have to press ALT + TAB.
If you can take a look I would appreciate it @ joyrider3774.

Pinball FX3.ahk

Pinball FX3.isd

It could be it happens because i'm forcing my app to be the foreground window every X Seconds. I'll make an option to be able to disable that functionality but i'm not certain that's the cause. I have no experience whatsoever using hyperspin so i'll have to make a similar setup to see if have the same problem. But I might pm you a link to a new version (for you to test only) with that option to force the foreground window in it so you can disable it and see if it makes a diffrence. My app does remain always on top until its closed but could be it's the foreground window pushing that does it. I'll keep you posted

[joyrider3774]

released a new version with joystick support that might work with cabinets not using keyboard encoders but where a joypad is simulated.  I also added a new FORCEFOREGROUNDWINDOW where you can specify how the app forces its window to the foreground. In the initial version it was pushing it always to the foreground every x milliseconds (= value 1), but now will default to not forcing it to the foreground at all (value = 0) and you can also specify a value 2 where it will force the window only once to the foreground at startup and never again. So if you want previous settings change value to 1 after starting the new version once.

https://github.com/joyrider3774/PinballX_Launcher_app/releases/tag/v2.0

Be sure to read updated readme to find out more info related to joystick / joypad setup

https://github.com/joyrider3774/PinballX_Launcher_app/

[Mike_da_Spike]

Looking forward to it, to test it on my cab