no focus on start button after table load with tpafreecammod

[eustonr]

Hi,

After many hours, I've given up.

I have a home made cab, and I was setting up Pinball Arcade today with PinballX and tpafreecammod. It works - it loads the right table, However the START button isnt in focus. So hitting my launch button doesnt work. 

The mouse position is just shy of the start button - maybe 50 pixels to the left and down - so maybe its a tpafreecammod bug. Dunno.

Anyway I tried loads of things to fix it - but I've given up, as AHK cant send keystrokes, joy or mouse commands to Pinball Arcade. It just needs either a mouse co-ord, or even a right arrow key stroke - but for the life of me I cant get it to register with TPA.  I think tpafreecammod is intercepting the input, and I dont know how to stop it. I've turned off hotkeys in tpafreecammod, but it makes no difference.

 

My "inovative" (but unsatisfactory) solution in the end (after wasting a day on it)  was to map my flippers to the d-pad in x360ce. That at least (with a tap of the right flipper) gives me focus on the start button and I can start the table without reaching for my keyboard. And the dpad doesnt affect the play.  But thats not good enough, really.

 

Anyone have any ideas? 

 

The table I was trying was Star Trek Vengence. I havent setup any of my other tables yet in PinballX - so the issue might be specific to that table. I'll try the others tomorrow.

[Tom Speirs]

Its been a while since I looked at it but as far as I know Pinball Arcade support is working. PinballX does not send any mouse clicks as far a I remember, just key strokes. It sounds like you are trying to do your own thing, but why? Or a video may speak a thousand words here.

You will need to post the ini, log and database xml file.

I think freecammod supports direct launching by command line too?

[Mike_da_Spike]

Last time I looked at it (must be more than a year ago), I think I had the same issue. 

Tpa launches fine with freecam mod, but the screen thats show the info for the playscreen where you need to press ok, didnt respond to my launch button too.

I could not find a way to avoid this screen (should be away after first play, but sometimes keeps comming)

I managed it via AHK, first some alt tab, to get correct focus, than the position of the OK button and sen left mouse click.

Than my buttons works to start the game etc.

Not sure if you experience the same as I did

[eustonr]

Ah, after a good nights sleep, I worked it out.

My problem was AHK cant sent keystrokes/mouse movement to TPA Free Mod without being in Admin mode.

I knew this of course, but I was caught out because within the script I did this :

     RunAs, Administrator, password

     mousemove, blah, blah

     RunAs

Stupid mistake - That doesnt work - it only sets admin mode for anything run via the run command - and nothing else. I had to set the compiled script as admin via properties instead.

For anyone interested, these are my config and scripts. It all works great - without having to exit pinballx. And I think its simpler than other solutions I've seen around.

PinballX

 Run_Pinball_Arcade.ahk - compled and set as "run as administrator" - this is all necessary because FreeMod has a bug - and doesnt land the mouse in the right place on table start. And I want the table to start automatically.

Start_Pinball_Arcade.ahk

Stop_Pinball_Arcade.ahk - compiled and set to run as Admin - This script is necessary as PinballX cant/doesnt kill TPA when you hit the exit button.

[Mike_da_Spike]

Nice one !

[joyrider3774]

there is a trick with vanilla freecammod to get the play button to focus. Just press left flliper once then right flipper. It will move your ball selection to the left and then to right but also make it possible to select the launch button. It is possible i use left & right button for flippers. Not sure which button i press (could be enter) to make it actually launch the game. Thats what i do. The only problem i had is with those info screens about the table that sometimes popup. I only use freecammod to launch the games and perhaps the camera stuff can't remember but i had disabled the cabinet mode because the dmd part does not work but that's off topic. I have not started my pinball cabinet in a long time so can't check

[eustonr]

My solution handles the info screens as well, because I'm using a relative mouse move, then a couple of ENTERs, so I can dismiss the info screen (if any) and start the table automatically - whether I get an info popup or not. .  That might not work for someone who maps the ENTER to a ball launch though - but changing the ENTER to a CLICK in my code should work too...

I'm quite happy with freecammod now its working. I used Cevo's DMD, backglass, and POV files from the ftp site - its a nightmare without those.  (thanks cevo!)

The only real issue I have now is the time it takes to start a table.  Visual Pinball is a LOT faster. So is Zaccaria, and thats with steam too.