PinballX Enhancements/Features Requests

[PcTeknic]

I have seen that some B2S.EXE will not close properly from PinballX if you do not have the "Esc" key as "Exit".

With B2S.DirectB2S there is no problem, but the .EXE are open until the "Esc" key is pressed.

We use a keyboard interface for our buttons, we do not use the "Esc" key as "Exit" since Visual Pinball would display the menu.

It would be a matter of adding to the routine that Pinball does to make the "Kill" Visual Pinball, add a "Esc" key to close the .EXE in those cases.

[PcTeknic]

It is necessary to enable the label "Ratting" to put "BESTIAL" to the Roadshow, not enough with 5 stars

[Stexe]

Would still love the option to disable auto clicks. I don't see why they are even there for things like Pinball FX2 and Pinball Arcade as it just messes up game selections.

[Draco1962]

5 hours ago, Stexe said:

Would still love the option to disable auto clicks. I don't see why they are even there for things like Pinball FX2 and Pinball Arcade as it just messes up game selections.

The integrated support does this to support the respective apps UIs. If you do not like it using that, then there is the option to run them as Other Systems where you may have some better flexibility. 

[Stexe]

3 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

The integrated support does this to support the respective apps UIs. If you do not like it using that, then there is the option to run them as Other Systems where you may have some better flexibility. 

 

That was mentioned before, but when I tried using "Other Systems" I ran into a lot more problems. I forget what they were, but it was much worse than simply having the autokey presses (I think it had to do with the game not properly loading and/or minimizing and with AutoHotkeys not running properly). Either way, it would just be nice to have it set up without auto key presses, or a way to customize the auto key presses without going to "Other Systems."

[PcTeknic]

Some B2S.exe stay open After exit, and only clossed when press ESC key.

 

[fuzgi]

Hello everybody

I would like to request a feature improvement for the current PinballX.

Firstly though, I've been using PinballX heavily (6 Systems, over 1500 Pinball Games) for more than a year now on my homemade cabinet. It's great. Thanks to the PinballX-Team once more.

Secondly, a little explanation: With a lot of playtime on all different machines, my interest in Pinball grew more and more and into very different directions since I have access to the feeling of all those different machines. I also noticed that a surprisingly big portion of people – completely unfamiliar with pinball – find my cabinet a great thing, but quickly come up with a lot of questions about Pinball in general. They clearly share my interests, though, mine go deeper obviously. Among those interest are: The art, technical details, unique features, design, companies, construction, production, marketing, (flyers, commercials, etc.) and, overall, the History of Pinball machines. I figured that a virtual pinball cabinet (it's a computer at last) is the perfect "vessel" for those other interests in Pinball, other than playing the emulations. So, I want to turn my cabinet into a Pinball Encylopedia. As pinball is a very visual form of entertainment, pictures (and videos) are the obvious choice for media.

PinballX allready has the feature to display a sereis of images from a source on a hard drive and does it in a very good way (aspect ratio, size, screen usage, etc). I mean the "Flyer Images" feature, of course. I noticed that the current version of PinballX allows up to 8 pictures to be shows for every enabled game (front, back, inside1-inside6). That's not enough for what I envision.

Therefore, my feature request is to increase the number of pictures being able to display as flyer images into the range of dozens (32, 64, 128). This would allow to add more pictures of the following nature, with regards to above interests:

- pictures of the outside of the machines mainly due to the impressive artwork (cabinet and backboxe sides)
- more flyer images (multi language, bigger flyers with comics included or just more than 8 pages, variations of flyers)
- high detail pictures of real playfields and whitewoods
- other promotional material (press releases, magazine ads)
- toy and art close-ups
- Prototypes and early artwork
- etc.
- etc.

I assume that this feature request is rather easy to implement and I'm looking forward for good news with the next few releases of PinballX. Thanks in advance.

Fuzgi

 

PS: I did try what has been suggested in another forums: Create more folders "Inside7" etc., but to my surprise that didn't work. PinballX (I am using 2.31) won't display anything above "Inside6".

PPS: A feature to access the flyer display mode with one button press. (no menu and navigating to flyers, suggested before by me)

[rablack97]

Feature request.....

Would like the ability to add a still image to the backglass while the startup video runs.

[Xantari]

Provide better interface than Game Manager to add pinball tables.

Here is how it could be improved:

1. Instead of choosing each drop down for Wheel, Instructions, Flyer, Audio, Launch Audio, etc. It provides all of them to you with one button press. How this could work is that it would provide thumbnails of all available wheel images, all options for audio, etc in one screen. For audio there would be play icon to stream the audio to pick appropriate file. For instructions and flyers it would provide thumbnails of all options to pick the correct one.

2. Provide option for alternate exe tag in game manager. Right now you have to jump out of game manager to edit this. Instead it should read from all currently used alternateexe tags and put in list. If not present it would allow user to add one.

3. Occasionally game manager jumps to the top of the program, losing your position and you have to scroll back down. I haven't figure out exact cause yet, but it occurs.

4. Launch button does not work if you use alternateexe tag. Instead it launches using the visual pinball default EXE in the primary pinball X settings.

5. Fix the information lookup for wheels, flyers, etc which does not do very good fuzzy matching on game titles. For instance if you did "Terminator 3 (1.0) - SlamT1lt VPX" in description it doesn't find the table. But if you do just "Terminator 3" it finds the table info, wheel, etc.

6. Refresh the table audio lookup. It doesn't appear to link all tables with gtsav's audio project for instance. And future pinball audio is few and far between. I bet this would be fixed if it was an easy "upload my wheel, flyer, etc to the cloud mothership for all to enjoy" button was available in game manager.

7. Allow for wheel, audio, flyer, instructions, etc submissions from within Game Manager itself to contribute to the entire community. This would enhance the database immensly and provide for a frictionless community driven media repository.

8. Provide a way to show "42 users are currently playing this table" for those that wish to subscribe to that feature, so you can see live on screen which tables people are playing as you scroll through your table list. In addition to this make it so you could "compete" with random people on the internet in timed matches or via round robin style of gameplay and include a twitch stream so people could watch :-)

9. Provide a table downloader service that uses standardized naming convention and description format (XML for instance) and coordinating B2S files for an easy one click "install table" option. This would need to include ratings for B2S's, # of downloads so you would get the best B2S available for that table.

10. Integrate help into the game manager. For instance when you hover over buttons it provides info on what those buttons do, or at very least link the entire window to a wiki page that details that window and all of its features.

For Pinball X features here are a few:

1. Scroll table name in information panel when it is to long instead of cutting it off.

2. Provide more loading animations and images in base install

 

[cevo]

First Hello to all and thanx the developer for this best piece of software.

I Use it on my cab from one year and i am satisfied, but i have a feature to add for better experience, is possible to add supports for other external screens maybe internal or via hypermarquee/eds like hyperspin? this is useful for display additional artwork or highscore on a forth monitor over DMD display.

Thanx for your attention

[CyclonePF]

I would love a feature in PinballX to let me control the duration, on a table-by-table basis, that a pinball table is displayed in Attract Mode. My reasoning is that for each pinball table, I have a song that plays while that particular pinball table is being shown. It would be great if I could control the timing so that the song for a table completed before the Attract Mode switched to the next table.

[Smoke.007]

Feature Request - From PinballX, I would like an option to be able to change the table sort order from alphabetical to newest installed tables to oldest installed tables.  I'd hope this option could be listed in the same place that table lists/groups are listed.  I think this would be a great way for family or guests to be able to see find the newly added tables in order from newest to oldest.

Thank you for your time,
Marc

[gtxjoe]

VP folks are starting to create Topper images and they look great.  Bump for request to add support a 4th monitor and dedicated Topper image/video folders.  

[Tom Speirs]

Sounds cool. Links?

[Kellogs]

Hi Tom,

here you go: http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/4672-virtual-topper-image-collection-by-rustycardores/

the file contents 100 toppers, just hve a look. Would be nice to add a 4th monitor to display toppers, either a a picture or a video. If displayed, the topper should remain beeing displayed if the pin is choosen to play.

 

[RustyCardores]

9 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Sounds cool. Links?

Hi Tom, There are some sample pics of my cab with topper at http://www.aussiearcade.com/showthread.php/83000-Virtual-Pinball-Topper/page3

At present I am using the '/DMD Images' folder and the '/DMD Videos' folder to feed the topper as a 4th screen, but this of course means that my DMD screen is unused when using PBX (Please note that the images in link are prior to the #3 DMD screen being installed).  To counter this, I have placed a generic DMD image on screen by making a custom Windows Desktop image, but it would be fantastic if the current DMD system was duplicated and and we had a '/Topper Images' folder, so that the DMD screen could still play an active role. 

Cheers

Rusty

EDIT:  I just remembered that my Instagram has heaps of pics... https://www.instagram.com/rusty.pinball/

[pinlow]

Hi Tom,

I agree with GTXJoe, Kellogs and Rusty, this would be great if it could be integrated! 

Here's an example of a topper video:

 

[TerryRed]

I think having the option to specify more screens....maybe up to 5 (or more) would be amazing. Topper, marquee. control panel (MAME), etc. Instead of specifying their use... maybe just have custom screen 1, custom screen 2, custom 3,etc..

This is something I've wanted for quite a while... it would make making media for my cab so much easier with my dual DMD / marquee screen.... and maybe one day I would also add a topper if more screens were supported.

[Kellogs]

Six screens would be cool. and just like terry said, specify in a custom way. But why 6 screens?

Very easy.

• Screen 1: Playflied
• Screen 2: Backglas
• Screen 3: DMD
• Custom screen 4: Topper
• Custom Screen 5: Credit card
• Custom Srreen 6: Score Card

Screen 5 and 6 could be very tiny monitors to be integrated in a look like aprom. Have a look at the picture, hope you can recognize the edge I had to built, because I needed some Space for the Buttons and the plunger. Also my playfield is almost 10 cm lower than the edge of the Cab.

so please tom, add the possiblility of more than 3 screens to pinballX, it would be fantastic

[Kellogs]

Oh, here is a link to the custom cards:

http://www.pinballrebel.com/game/pins/instruction/zach/zach.htm

http://www.pinballcards.com/

and, if not available, standard cards too:

http://www.pinballrebel.com/game/pins/instruction/index.htm

 

[Carny_Priest]

Hi, my project is a software version of a instruction card slide show viewer (also mirrors the DMD). 

 

 

If the idea is to display a slideshow of various custom cards associated with the table, that isn't quite how PinballX displays its media. To get a slideshow, I imagine that you'd have to convert it to an mp4 video file. I should be able to put together a PBXRecorder style script that can create a video file using ffmpeg. The heavy lifting is still the trimming that needs to happen on the source image files available at the links mentioned above. Those were designed to be printed off by owners of the real pinball machines. In order to display correctly and in the correct dimensions if you care about that, you'd have to go into GIMP, Photoshop, or ImageMagick or something and trim the white space off yourself. At times, some rescaling is involved as well.

Sharing the custom images is another issue. Ken (PinballRebel) has asked not to have custom images on his site (which includes Zach's cards) distributed elsewhere. He has express written permission to host at least the images based on Williams and Bally properties from the current copyright holders. Pinballcards.com is donateware, so I would not share those either. Pinballboy.com has some excellent ones. Don't know his feelings on the subject of sharing off of his site. He uses them to attract people to look at what he's selling, so probably not. Plenty of custom cards shared on Pinside as well among members. 

I've done hundreds of cards for my own project, but I only feel on somewhat safer ground distributing the openly published Stern Pinball cards and Inkochnito's factory reproductions. I've retraced hundreds of these and they are already on the FTP. 

Yeah, we're a community of copyright thieves already so I'll leave it up to the consciences of individuals here to decide if, how, where to share. I'm happy enough to provide the tools if needed, but not so much the media.

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks guys. All sounds like a great idea to me. Ill get on it as soon as I get a chance.

[Stexe]

3 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Thanks guys. All sounds like a great idea to me. Ill get on it as soon as I get a chance.

Any chance on getting the ability to disable and/or customize auto key presses when loading a game? We're basically in a situation where a large selection of the games don't work because they auto select your starting configuration (like stats in Skyrim PinballFX2).

[Kellogs]

10 hours ago, Carny_Priest said:

If the idea is to display a slideshow of various custom cards associated with the table, that isn't quite how PinballX displays its media. To get a slideshow, I imagine that you'd have to convert it to an mp4 video file. I should be able to put together a PBXRecorder style script that can create a video file using ffmpeg. The heavy lifting is still the trimming that needs to happen on the source image files available at the links mentioned above. Those were designed to be printed off by owners of the real pinball machines. In order to display correctly and in the correct dimensions if you care about that, you'd have to go into GIMP, Photoshop, or ImageMagick or something and trim the white space off yourself. At times, some rescaling is involved as well.

Hi Carny

I just meant to add some extra directories, beside the other directories inside the VPin-Version-Directorie, maybe like: scorcard and instructioncard. Inside these directories one can store custom or selfmade cards, to explain the machine. Of course, its up to me to scale them, or get them in a format like png or whatever. The point is, on my machine, I have more than 800 machines installed and I cant see in detail, how to play the machine. OK, I could open the instruction card within PinballX. But it would be much cooler, to select a table, see plyayfield, Backglas and DMD pictures and animations, on top the corresponding topper (if available) and on (which size ever) extra Screens the score and intruction card, if available. If not available, there is nothing to see, or just a default picture/video, just the way it is practiced with the DMD video. 

Some optional screens, if available, to assign to special directories for displaying additional Information, that would be cool. I mean, if Tom can realize it, that a 4th screen is selectable, why not some more screens too. As far as I remember, in setup I have to assign the backbox and DMD to the screens. So why not have some extra screens to be selected if available, only with the possibility to assign certain directories with pictures and videos.

i.e.

• Screen 4 <topper> assigned Dir: /topper
• Screen 5 <scorecard> assigned Dir: /scorecard
• and so on

One does not have to name those screens, just screen 4-6, only assigning to special directories, thats it. The name should be explaining the use. I bet, a lot of people are using 3screen setups allready, a 4th screen for the topper, not a big deal to upgrade an existing machine. Screen 5 and 6 for score and instruction cards, more difficult, realizable, but maybe not common use. Thats why just have the option  to assign these screens to diffrent directories, thats all.

by now, I cant imagine any other function for these additional screens than displaying pictures or videos. Maybe in future this might change, but I dont think so. And if people need more screens, there could be a button: "Add additional screen". I am not a programmer, but I think this is just a funktion with a loop.

Something like shown in the picture. Either the add button or hard coded. For all those screen, only fullscreen is available. Would not make sense to scale the topper or a scorecard.

 

[Kellogs]

@ Tom,

if you need dummy Betatester, I was setting up a testmachine for discribing the installationprocess. By now, only a 2Screensetup, but no problem, to enhance screens.

Willing to test, feed me :-)