[RESOLVED] Problem with formatted text inside the description field for MAME games.

[u-man]

Hello gentlemen ,

As the title states, i have problems with formatted text inside the description field for MAME games. Many game descriptions have " ´´ ' ´` characters in their texts, but my description field is not able to showing them and shows """ , "'" etc. instead. This obviously makes the text barely readable and unnecessarily long. This is very annoying in my case, because i want to create a low-resolution theme and every single character is precious space. So for example " " will create TEN chracters, instead of two.

Usually i would blame the used font, but my (custom) font has all these characters and they are also showing up properly for example in the game list. So there are no problems with games names or the two selection lines, that shows genres and developers etc. The problem appears only in the description field, that describe the game. The text for the description field is derived either from MAME.exe or from the history and mameinfo files and i guess something is going wrong here. I know it must be some font-coding thing, like ASCII, UTF, ISO coding for example, that creates these "errors".

Is the text for the description field somewhere cached in the GameEx directories? So I could look into it.
And there is one more thing, i would like to know. The description field usually truncates text that is to long, but there a lot games where it simply doesnt truncate and I end up with text that uses 5,6,7 lines instead of a maximum of four lines. So what factor decides to truncate a text or not? Or is this a random thing?

Thanks for any help in advance, u-man

[Draco1962]

Hey there - when reporting an issue for assistance, it is prudent to attach copies of your gameex.ini and log.txt files in your thread.

Also, you mention a specific font being used but did not give the name of the font file - can you do that please?

Lastly, can you attach in your reply a screen capture of the description field display error?

Thanks!

[u-man]

Hello Draco ,

off course i will provide everything needed. All files, including font attached.
Here  the  pictures of the "problem" :

 

And here the description field:

GameEx.ini log.txt LCDv14.ttf

[Draco1962]

Thanks! 

BTW your Magnum_2024 theme looks great! Can you zip it up and attach it as well? Would love to see it added to the repository to share with others if you are so inclined!

If not, you can send it to my attention as a private message so I can see if it replicates in my setup.

[Tom Speirs]

It is fixed for the next release.

Thanks.

[u-man]

Oh WOW, that was pretty fast Tom and I am really, really, really thankful for the fix. Did not even thought it was a bug. However and i dont wanna sound like a ass, there is still one character wrong at least. It is the "&" character. Good example is the description of "Alligator Hunt". Instead of "&", we have &.

The proof of the fix:

but still missing convertion of a character:



And while we are at bugs, I found some other small, minor bug. It has to do with the icons. If you say explicitly to NOT use icons, GameEx will do so, but if the screensaver starts, it will show the icon for the choosen game. This is still fine and intended (on my side), but returning from the screensaver to GameEx, is where the bug is. See my first screenshot in this thread here and look at the game list. The game names have a offset, because there would be the icons and half of the list, would even show them, even if explicitly said not to do so.

To replicate the bug, you might first need to set "show icons" to true, run GameEx once and then set it to false.

The bug:



Again, dont want to sound like a ass..... thank you so much for the fix. It really drove me nuts. Soooo much better now.

@Draco1962: Yes, I intend to share the theme, but currently, there is not much to share, as i really did start from scratch  for the overhaul of my arcade cab. I promise, that even if i dont finish the theme, I will share a WIP Theme at least. Thank you for the kind words and that you like it, i really appreciate it. The theme might end pretty minimal, but with HUGE depth in it, I guaranty .

Edited July 27 by u-man
missing screenshots

[Draco1962]

1 minute ago, u-man said:

 

@Draco1962: Yes, I intend to share the theme, but currently, there is not much to share, as i really did start from scratch  for the overhaul of my arcade cab. I promise, that even if i dont finish the theme, I will share a WIP Theme at least. Thank you for the kind words and that you like it, i really appreciate it. The theme might end pretty minimal, but with HUGE depth in it, I guaranty .

I find that, often, less is more my friend! I look forward to kicking the tires when you are ready! 👍🏻

[u-man]

1 hour ago, Draco1962 said:

I find that, often, less is more my friend!

That is so true. Back in the days, i was more of a collector/horder of games, but real life showed that this is not really a practible usecase. Same goes for GameEx and themes. Great to have all these options but trying to use all of them, is a bit overdose for the "average" visitor on my cab. This becomes even more relevant on low-res CRT resolutions. For example, these icons become clueless in low-resolution. You can barely identify "something" and most of the time they are simply pixel-porridge .

But Draco,  you might can help me with my "top"-menue. See that "by developer" option? I can not find this in "custom" text to change it. In fact i would even like to get rid of it entirely and i know this is possible, because that was the case with my old theme. I just cant remember how it was done .

ATTENTION Tom: It seems that the latest update, is captured in a infinity-loop of "trying to update". At least my GameEx wants to update each time, even after doing it (a couple of times).

[Draco1962]

Try downloading and running the install file again? That has worked for me when "the update loop" occurs.

[u-man]

OK, after running the install file again, the infinity-loop is gone, but I have another problem now. This time it is the marquees. So for most games now, instead of the marquees, i see the manufacturer logo. So for a Capcom game, the Capcom Logo shows up and for a Sega game, the Sega Logo etc.
Marquees are only shown for games, where no manufacturer logo is found. So i guess the priority of what to show first, must have changed.

😜😇😂 Hope there will be another update, sorry Tom.

PS: Still one character wrong at least. It is the "&" character. Instead of "&", we have & in the description field.

[Tom Speirs]

im working on it. hold on.

[Tom Speirs]

You should be all set with 18.68.

Thanks.

[u-man]

Perfect Update. Everything working now. Thank you, thank you, thank you TOM 💖 

PS: Joined Patreon, should be enough for a beer or two .

[Tom Speirs]

Your welcome. Thank you buddy.

[Draco1962]

18 hours ago, u-man said:

But Draco,  you might can help me with my "top"-menue. See that "by developer" option? I can not find this in "custom" text to change it. In fact i would even like to get rid of it entirely and i know this is possible, because that was the case with my old theme. I just cant remember how it was done .

Let's open this as a new thread, please, for further exploration. Be sure to attach and screen caps of the current example.

Thanks!