Game Manager Review

[greynurse]

Hi Tom,

Draco suggested I post some siggestions I included in a post in the General Section re. the Game Manager. I hope they are do-able without adversly affecting the main program, which is really good and why I have stuck with PinballX as the frontend of choice for my upcoming cab.

 

A Sort by:
Ok, we have a number of sorting options / filters in the main program window, but what about some sorting options / filters in the Game Manger itself. Like filtering table types, year, manufacturer, tables with / without image types. This would make it easier to to perform housekeeping (see Clean up below) for those who are time poor or not confident editing XML files.

Clean up:
I don't know about you, but unless I diligently edit PinballX Game Manager everytime I install / delete a table, I wind up with many irrelevent entries.
The ability to select those entries in the Game Manager and group delete save the user a lot of time.

Thumbnails:

Having a placeholder for thumnail images of the playfield screenshot so the entry in the Game Manager could be more readily identified as the correct one. I'm thinking something along the lines of how I can currently nominate a screenshot folder on a B2S backglass if I mouse over the backglass. Perhaps the table can be launched from the Game Manager and a similar option be presented upon pressing Alt + Print Screen when mousing over the playfield. Not only could the playfield image be directly copied in to the relevant folder, but a thumbnail generated for the image placeholder in the Game Manager.

This might be done by invoking a nominated image editor or calling an arbitry image editor. I'm a bit in the dark on how exactly this would work, but I thought I'd throw that in there.
 

The image database:
Too many old, poor resolution images and videos for todays monitors and graphics cards to do justice. I appreciate the community contributing to the database via the FTP site, but there should be either a minimum quality allowed for upload, or a "shadow" data base for low res images and videos. I know that we've been given the option to record our own videos and still images of tables and backglasses, and that's a good thing.

And it would be nice if we had a more current selection of wheels, and a bigger selection of flyers and instructions to download rather than having to surf the web. I was thinking some incentive for non subscribers to upload their quality images to the FTP could be on offer. This would entail having a naming convention so that the resulting list in the Game manager would make sense, of course. I think it would be worth exploring. It would enhance PBX as a product. (Very much a suggestion and I would be happy to discuss further & contribute if needs must)

 

Cheers

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks for the feedback. Noted. However the databases etc are an open system, you could code your own game manager and create the content too.

[Mike_da_Spike]

Is it possible to generate the videos in pbx /gamemanager from the commandline ?.

Sometimes I change the datavase manually and I only want to generate the missing videos (table and bachglass)

[greynurse]

Re databases; noted, Tom. I wouldn't know how to start my own Game Manager at this time. But it's food for thought.

Just going back to the thumbnails suggestion. I've noticed that, with Windows 7, upon opening Future Pinball Tables and taking a screenshot with BAM installed lets me dump the playfield image into the apprpriate PinballX folder of choice. It appears to also take a snapshot of the backglass at the same time and does the same thing, which is cool because I know that the images are where I want them to be . But not so for VP. taking snapshots with Alt + Print Screen only loads the image onto the clipboard. So my suggestion for thumbnails could work for VP tables, but might make an attempt at loading a thunmbnail into a placeholder in the FP list in Game Manager a bit tricky. Just saying.

[scutters]

@greynurseI've posted this link before i think; https://mega.nz/#F!p3hREDgB!pEWMJvVQ7t3Sv_TmrxdU-w!52AzHIDR (it's not mine so i'm not uploading to ftp)

Plenty of flyers & instruction cards on there, if you have space on your hard drive you can just download the whole lot and copy them to the respective pinballx media folders, then when you add a game this files are already 'pre-populated' - so long as you match the name.

I like the sort / filters ideas for game manager!

[Mike_da_Spike]

I'm not a developer, but have some thoughts about a basic gamemanager with search etc.

I want to start in the new year to give it a try. 

[greynurse]

I'll watch with great interest, Mike. PM me if you want some input.