Customising Menus and Other Minor Issues

[2huwman]

I've been using PinballX for several years and love it. There are a few minor issues that I am hoping to get some guidance on:

• The font in the menus seems to change randomly, and some result in text being too wide for the screen. Can I choose one font I like and stick with it?
• Can I change the order of options in the menus or remove options (there are some I never use)
• Can I increase the number of games listed in 'last played' or 'recently added'?
• I've got an ultrawide apron monitor where I display instruction cards. They are displayed in the correct aspect ratio when I'm browsing games in PinballX, but as soon as I play the game the instruction card gets stretched to the full width of the monitor. Can I retain the aspect ratio of the card in game?
• The video playing in my topper always freezes on the first game I play after powering on. If I exit out of the game and go back in it plays fine (and for any other game it's fine after that too). Is there a way to stop that happening?
• Occasionally my topper video moves down to my apron screen. The number and position of the monitors in Windows is the same as always, so it's just PinballX that is occasionally and seemingly randomly moving the topper screen.

Thanks for any advice with any of these issues. 

PinballX.ini log.txt

[Draco1962]

When reporting any issues, it is recommended that you attach (no copy & paste) copies of your pinballx.ini and log,txt files. Some issues are easier to deduce the cause with these upfront, saving those providing support extra time spent requesting these files and waiting for them.

Second, be prepared for requests to split unrelated issues into separate threads. Single threads with multiple issues are difficult to triage and support as well as reference by other users as a possible solution to something they encountered.

Reference these guides:

 

 

[2huwman]

Apologies and thanks for the guidance. I have attached the ini and log files as requested. Any help with the above issues would be much appreciated. 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Although I'm not a developer of PinballX, I have been a user for several years.
Perhaps I can address some questions or guide you towards finding a solution.

On 6/7/2024 at 2:53 PM, 2huwman said:

The font in the menus seems to change randomly, and some result in text being too wide for the screen. Can I choose one font I like and stick with it?

Maybe you have more than 1 font in the Font directory. See paragraph 5.2.2 (media directory) :

Font: Picks randomly (if more TTF fonts are present) a TTF font type to 
display when PinballX is starting. This will overwrite the default 
Tahoma font

 

On 6/7/2024 at 2:53 PM, 2huwman said:

Can I change the order of options in the menus or remove options (there are some I never use)

No, you can not modify it. You can switch to basic mode, but I don't think you'll be satisfied with it. I thought that multiple people have requested an option to customize the menu structure by hiding or adding extra options. You could submit a feature request, and if Tom like it, he might implement it.

On 6/7/2024 at 2:53 PM, 2huwman said:

Can I increase the number of games listed in 'last played' or 'recently added'?

Again, No. 
Before Tom affrf this feature into PinballX, I had created a small program that accomplished almost the same task. After the 1st run,it checks which files are added, but also modified. 
This program includes a settings file, allowing you to modify the number of recently added and changed items. . see [APP] Recently Added/Update tables creator - User Projects - Spesoft Forums (gameex.com) 
I still use it, and it runs automatically when I update my files with DBM. I'm aware there are some typos in the program, but I no longer have the code. Otherwise, I would have created a new, faster version of it based on the data within DBM.

On 6/7/2024 at 2:53 PM, 2huwman said:

Occasionally my topper video moves down to my apron screen. The number and position of the monitors in Windows is the same as always, so it's just PinballX that is occasionally and seemingly randomly moving the topper screen.

Even though everything remains the same as you mentioned, PinballX seems to believe that the displays are changing. I know that @scutters uses many screens in his setup and I haven't heard him complain about screens moving. I only have a 3-screen setup where one screen is simply a dummy. Perhaps try cleaning your screen registry and setting it up again. 
@Wiesshundmade a very nice description : https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=45562&p=462774

[scutters]

2 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Even though everything remains the same as you mentioned, PinballX seems to believe that the displays are changing. I know that @scutters uses many screens in his setup and I haven't heard him complain about screens moving

Indeed, i have a six screen setup (3 small apron screens). Haven't had any issue with screens changing or moving (except after some windows updates 🤬). 

@2huwman instead of screen numbers, you can instead adjust the X & Y offsets as relative values from the leftmost screen. That may work better for you if you don't want to clean up the monitor number entries in the registry.

On 6/7/2024 at 1:53 PM, 2huwman said:

I've got an ultrawide apron monitor where I display instruction cards. They are displayed in the correct aspect ratio when I'm browsing games in PinballX, but as soon as I play the game the instruction card gets stretched to the full width of the monitor. Can I retain the aspect ratio of the card in game?

On 6/7/2024 at 1:53 PM, 2huwman said:

The video playing in my topper always freezes on the first game I play after powering on. If I exit out of the game and go back in it plays fine (and for any other game it's fine after that too). Is there a way to stop that happening?

Can't really comment on these as i use images rather than videos for the topper screen but make sure you have the latest LAV codecs installed , and my instruction card screen is 4:3 so wouldn't stretch in game as you see, would probably need @Tom Speirs to investigate that anyway.

[2huwman]

Thanks very much @Mike_da_Spikeand @scutters. Really helpful guidance. Hopefully @Tom Speirsmay be able to comment on the last two issues. 

[Tom Speirs]

ill look at further improvements to PinballX via development but very thankfully @Mike_da_Spike and @scutters know the current PinballX as well and better than anyone else out there.

Thanks,

Tom.

[2huwman]

Just a quick update, as I've been able to solve some of these problems with the help of @Mike_da_Spike and @scutters

• Font issue in menus fixed (I had multiple fonts in the font folder)
• Number of recently added or updated tables increased to 50 using @Mike_da_Spike's program
• Topper and Apron screen swapping fixed using @scutterssuggestion about using relative values (had to set apron relative to playfield screen, and topper relative to DMD screen for this to work).

The other issues, I have not been able to solve (changing the order of options in the menu or removing options, losing the aspect ratio of instruction cards on the apron monitor when a table loads, topper video freezing on first game load). Hopefully @Tom Speirs can address these in development. Thanks very much to everyone for their help.