PinballX Enhancements/Features Requests

[scutters]

A couple of ideas for the wheel;

1. For animated wheel users have an option to animate only the wheel image of the game that is in focus (so only one of the the five visible wheel images is animated). Might help with performance, but main reason would be to emphasise the wheel of the in focus game.
2. Have an option to remove the intermediate (moving) wheel locations during wheel rotation. To be honest, i'm not sure 100% sure how this would be in use - i tried putting together some still frames without the transitioning locations shown and it looked good to me, but it may be different (or 'feel' different) when movement is in response to user input

[minivp61]

Hello.  I would like to see a feature that would keep the apron visible after starting a table.   I have a screen on top of the cabinet that displays the instructions. It would be nice if it always stayed on .  

[Tom Speirs]

11 hours ago, minivp61 said:

Hello.  I would like to see a feature that would keep the apron visible after starting a table.   I have a screen on top of the cabinet that displays the instructions. It would be nice if it always stayed on .  

Hi, I would not consider this a feature request. It should do this already as far as I am concerned. Please post a regular topic and I will investigate. Thanks,

[minivp61]

@Tom Speirs  I think i figured part of this out.  It might just be my odd ball issue.  But i noticed a PNG Instruction card zoomed in and took up the whole screen when launching the table.

But jpeg and other stuff did not and disappeared.     Not sure why, but I figured somethign out.  

By the way, i noticed the Flash instruction cards still  display in the front end.  Will this go away as Microsoft removed flash from windows?  

 

[PcTeknic]

Microsoft has removed Flash from Windows completely for two or three months now.

[Draco1962]

9 hours ago, PcTeknic said:

Microsoft has removed Flash from Windows completely for two or three months now.

Tom has this remedied for now in recent releases.

[PcTeknic]

I recently tested manufacturer's .apng images made by Scutters as DMD images.
In the selection of tables PinballX shows them with their animation and I love how they look.
But when executing a table, the animation stops.
It would be great if they were still excited after launching the table.
I also saw that the DMD Images search (after finding no video), is limited to the name of the table.
Would it be possible that when not finding an image with the name of the table, it was looking for the manufacturer, before showing the default?
This would allow us that instead of having 50 Gottlieb logos, one for each Gottlieb table that does not have DMD, we would have one, two or three logos at most, for example Gottlieb (-1979), Gottlieb (1980-1991) and Gottlieb (1992-).
This applied to all folders not only means less space occupied, the really important thing is that we don't worry about having to add DMD images of the tables that do not have DMDs.
If they can be .apng great, if they should be jpg or png there is no problem, if you follow those search criteria we will win a lot.

--------------------------------------------------

Hace poco probé las imágenes.apng de fabricantes hechas por Scutters como imágenes de DMD.
En la selección de mesas PinballX las muestra con su animación y me encanta como quedan.
Pero al ejecutar una mesa, la animación se detiene.
Sería genial si siguieran animadas tras lanzar la mesa.
También vi que la búsueda de DMD Images (después de no encontrar video), se limita al nombre de la mesa.
¿Sería posible que al no encontrar imagen con el nombre de la mesa, buscase por el fabricante, antes de mostrar el default?
Esto nos permitiría que en lugar de tener 50 logos de Gottlieb, uno por cada mesa de Gottlieb que no tiene DMD, tuvieramos uno, dos o tres logos como mucho, por ejemplo Gottlieb (-1979),  Gottlieb (1980-1991) y Gottlieb (1992-).
Esto aplicado a todas las carpetas no solo supone menos espacio ocupado, lo realmente importante es que nos despreocupamos de tener que añadir imágenes de DMD de las mesas que no tienen DMD.
Si pueden ser .apng genial, si deben ser jpg o png tampoco hay problema, con que siga esos criterios de busqueda ya ganamos mucho.

[pindapoe]

Hello, I noticed that now mouse cursor is hidden by default in the last versions, the problem is that when I try to adjust the VpinMAME window, it becames a bit nightmare. Could be this feature optional in settings?

[testfly]

How about a way to tell if I have a table that is playable or if I don't have it setup yet or just using it as background for the attract mode?

 I tried using the "YEAR" field and just adding the word "PLAY" meaning if I see the word PLAY then I know I have that table and can launch it. However it looks like only numbers can be used in the "YEAR" field.

I photoshopped the word PLAY in this screenshot I took of my playfield as an example of a table I can launch and play.  

There may be another option I am not aware of. If so Please advise.

[Mike_da_Spike]

11 hours ago, testfly said:

How about a way to tell if I have a table that is playable or if I don't have it setup yet or just using it as background for the attract mode?

 I tried using the "YEAR" field and just adding the word "PLAY" meaning if I see the word PLAY then I know I have that table and can launch it. However it looks like only numbers can be used in the "YEAR" field.

I photoshopped the work PLAY in this screenshot I took of my playfield as an example of a table I can launch and play.  

There may be another option I am not aware of. If so Please advise.

Didn't understand what you exactly wanted to accomp6ish with the word "play"

But now I think I do.

You can also do it the other way : all tables are playable, except for some.

In my cabinet I added a unicode character in the description name.

So i have 'under construction', ' work in progress etc

You can filter er on those as well.

But maybe Tom wants to add a free text field as you requested as well.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Mike_da_Spike
Removed Denglish (as far as I could find)

[testfly]

11 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Didn't understand what you exactly wanted to accomp6ish with the word "play"

But now I think I do.

You can also do it the other way : all tables are playable, except for some.

In my cabinet I added a unicode character in the description name.

So i have 'under construction', ' work in progress etc

You can filter er on those as well.

But maybe Tom wants to add a free text field as you requested as well.

Hummm... Are the stars one of those unicode images?

[Mike_da_Spike]

5 hours ago, testfly said:

Hummm... Are the stars one of those unicode images?

Yes, unicode has 1, 2 and 3 stars as well. 

unicode has a lot images, but the above ones are the ones we think that are usable for tables

[davy33]

Hi Tom! The possibility to search table by name would be great! Something like the "enter initial in highscore" to jump direct to the table....

[Dudemeister]

Hi there,

I'm currently using a Joystick/trackball console for my retro gaming and pinball.  Currently Pinball X selection is done using one of the joysticks, but my console also has a trackball as well as a spinner.  The spinner is one of those devices that were used in arcade games like Tempest or Disks of Tron, and it's basically seen by the OS as a single axis (X) mouse.  The cool thing about it is that it can spin freely for seconds on end, and also have extremely control when you control it in small increments.

I would very much like to see an option where I could use the spinner for game selection.  I really think this would make game selection much slicker and natural than using the joystick or flipper buttons.  So much so, that some here might want to mod their own consoles to add a spinner just for this purpose.

Anyway, enough of the hard sell, I would be grateful if someone (Tom?) would look into the possibility of adding mouse/trackball/spinner support to Pinball X.

 

Thank you

[SteLo]

PinballX/Game Manager to not clear the custom xml fields.

I like to use also other programs to manage my database-xml-files.
E.g. PinballX Database Manager because it provides additional properties like <IPDBnr> or <dateadded>.
But when I am in PinballX to rate a table, PinballX will delete the additional properties of that table.
When using Games Manager, the additional properties of all games will be lost after save.

It would be greate, if PinballX would only change e.g. the rating-property after I changed the rating and leave the others unchanged.

Thanks, Stefan

[pindapoe]

Hello,

It will be nice an option in settings to hide/show the cursor mouse, for me at least, it's useful to see the cursor mouse to customize VpinMAME DMD.

Thanks!

[MulletLife]

It would be nice if you could exit System X (ex mame, fx2, fx3, etc) and go back to the System Menu when you have 'one click launch' mode activated.  With quick launch, it seems you must CLOSE PBX to get back to the system menu. Without one click launch, you have to hit ENTER, then go to systems which is counter intuitive. 

Thanks

[SixOfTwelve]

Hi, relatively new user here, so this may have been answered already (or I'm just too dumb to find the search function in this forum):

Two questions/requests:

 

1. Is there a way to center the text and graphics in the display window?

I use my DMD monitor to display the production year, so all I want in the main window is the title, the system logo and the company logo. However, since it's all left-justified, it doesn't look as nice. A way to select the placement of the text and image elements would be great.

 

2. Can we add an extra keypress option for Flyer Display, like we have for the Instruction Cards?

I have a separate "info" button to show the instruction cards on my backglass monitor.

I also want to keep my cab menu as simple as possible (no "last played", no "add to list", no ratings, no favorites), so the menu is configured to launch the table immediately upon pressing start. I'm thinking it may be nice to add another "flyer" button to show the flyers. Alternatively, how do you call that function from an .exe file? I could easily rig up an AutoHotKey script if I knew what to trigger.

 

Thank you!

[scutters]

16 hours ago, SixOfTwelve said:

1. Is there a way to center the text and graphics in the display window?

I use my DMD monitor to display the production year, so all I want in the main window is the title, the system logo and the company logo. However, since it's all left-justified, it doesn't look as nice. A way to select the placement of the text and image elements would be great.

Not sure if you've tried this but for what you want to show (company and system logo) i'd be tempted to turn off the Additional Detail window and use the option to overlay the logos on the wheel image instead.

Think number 2 (show flyers button) would have to be a new feature.

[Mike_da_Spike]

5 hours ago, scutters said:

Not sure if you've tried this but for what you want to show (company and system logo) i'd be tempted to turn off the Additional Detail window and use the option to overlay the logos on the wheel image instead.

I think @SixOfTwelvewants to show the details, but have the text centered when no year and ratings are showed. 

[SixOfTwelve]

2 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

I think @SixOfTwelvewants to show the details, but have the text centered when no year and ratings are showed. 

Actually, what @scutters suggested is a relatively good trade-off. I'm losing the plain text, but 99% of the wheel images are readable enough so it's not a problem. Also, the plain text title is always visible at the bottom text bar, so it's a really good solution for me. Thank you both for your replies!

(Also sorry about the state of the cab in the pictures, it's still very much under construction)

[MrGrynch]

The Page Up/Down feature says it goes to the next/previous letter in the alphabet.  While this is true, the actual behavior is a bit non-intuitive.  When moving forward the behavior is as expected, but when moving backward it isn't.  Let's say I am on Bomb Jack and hit PAGE DN.  It will bring me to the LAST "A" in the list of games starting with "A".  That's not what I would expect.  Now I have to continue moving backward to get to games that occur earlier in the alphabet.

Can you change the behavior so that paging up/down always goes to the first entry for the letter?

Thanks!

 

[Draco1962]

1 hour ago, MrGrynch said:

The Page Up/Down feature says it goes to the next/previous letter in the alphabet.  While this is true, the actual behavior is a bit non-intuitive.  When moving forward the behavior is as expected, but when moving backward it isn't.  Let's say I am on Bomb Jack and hit PAGE DN.  It will bring me to the LAST "A" in the list of games starting with "A".  That's not what I would expect.  Now I have to continue moving backward to get to games that occur earlier in the alphabet.

Can you change the behavior so that paging up/down always goes to the first entry for the letter?

Thanks!

 

Merged this into the Enhancements & Features Request thread.

[Mike_da_Spike]

Is it possible to make the 'Lists' entry scrollable, if the menu is too long ?
Right now, I loose entries, because I created a lot of filters and custom XML's

[MrGrynch]

When in attract mode, the underlay image remains displayed.  This presents a "burn-in" issue since it's never changing.  I'm proposing that the wheel images and overlay fade out when attract mode starts, and comes back as soon as a button is pressed.