Help!!! Total Newbie needs help navigating

[drurywoodson]

I'm pretty sure I want to use GameEx for the cabinet I'm building, but after my first install and reading through the docs I am extremely frustrated with the interface. I'm hoping that when I get past the initial learning curve I will be happy.

Anyway my problems are these:

1) I can't navigate backwards. The docs say the default key for this is "SPACE" or "BACKSPACE", but on my system, these seem to be the equivalent of pressing enter. Once I select a game the only way I can get to another game is to hit HOME and navigate down through the menus again.

2) Hit ESC once and you exit the game. Hit ESC twice and you exit GameEx. VERY VERY frustrating, especially since I haven't registered yet and it takes forever to get back into it. (If we can solve my navigation problems I will happily register).

3) Can't get game information. The docs say hit ALT-1 for game info. GameEx responds to the ALT key and takes me somewhere in the game lists before I can ever hit 1.

4) I even tried creating a custom keymap. The problem with that is that despite enabling it in the configuration editor, the keys respond exactly the same with the custom keymap as without. The other problem is that the custom keymap only lists about 10 or so functions, and doesn't give any clue as to how to map things like game information.

I'm thinking it shouldn't be this hard to get started.

I'm running GameEx (yesterday's download) on Windows XP with a keyboard (no joysticks yet).

[Tom Speirs]

I think youve just been a little unlucky here.

Ive never heard of 1 happening before, space or backspace should deffinitly navigate back. Have you perhaps turned on custom input, which overrides the default keys?

By default the game information is displayed be selecting a game in the list. The game info page is the one that says "Play this game" at the top. There is no other game info. The shorcut is designed for when the game information page is turned off, and it isnt by default. There are no hidden or special screens. Everything can be selected by simply navigating the front end hence why there isnt any "magic" key mappings, perhaps unlike other front ends.

You can disable the escape key in the configuration.

[drurywoodson]

I think youve just been a little unlucky here.

All too typical for me.

Ive never heard of 1 happening before, space or backspace should deffinitly navigate back. Have you perhaps turned on custom input, which overrides the default keys?

Hmmm... I sure would like to get it fixed. Custom input was definitely off. I turned it on and changed scancodes in the .ini file in an attempt to get around the problem. And unfortunately, it didn't seem to override anything. I just got through turning it back off and turning all the stuff like alpha select off as well. Still broke.

By default the game information is displayed be selecting a game in the list. The game info page is the one that says "Play this game" at the top. There is no other game info. The shorcut is designed for when the game information page is turned off, and it isnt by default. There are no hidden or special screens. Everything can be selected by simply navigating the front end hence why there isnt any "magic" key mappings, perhaps unlike other front ends.

I guess it was my confusion on the game info. I was thinking there was some way to display the information from the history.dat or mameinfo.dat files?

You can disable the escape key in the configuration.

I would like to map the exit GAME-EX key to something besides ESC (like ALT-F4 perhaps?). It would be nice if it was something in between too easy and impossible.

Also, this is low on my priority list, but pressing L to bring up the control panel wizard sometimes (but not always) corrupts the screen making it unreadable. Pressing ESC to take the CP wizard back down restores the screen.

Higher on my priority list -- before we invest any more time in this, please tell me there is a way to configure my controls in a game specific manner before launching a game in Mame? I will be using the Groovy Game Gear 49 way programmable joysticks, and would like to add LED-wiz support at some point.

If it helps, I could email you any of my configuration files that you would like to see. Also, I double checked and I did the actual download at 1:00 AM PST on Thursday Jan 22.

[drurywoodson]

Bump.

To demonstrate my faith that you are going to solve this, I just registered. I've been attempting to install the other front ends, and Mala and MameWah aren't going to look good without way more work than they are worth. Maximus just doesn't do everything I need (but I love their Open GL transitions!). Hyperspin is way cute, but I don't really like the wheel and it doesn't do as much as GameEx (although I do hope you add support for displaying their game themes!). So GameEx it is. Now if I could just figure out how to navigate backwards!!

I've been exploring the forums, and I see that there are plugins for changing the exit key and for the Ultrastik, so I'm sure either one exists for the GPWiz or can be made to exist without too much hassle.

[drurywoodson]

I did a scratch install tonight and took all the default settings and navigation worked. By reenabling the options I was using one at a time I found the culprit. If you go into GameEx Config and select "Display Settings" and enable "Game Launcher Mode" then you won't be able to navigate backwards. Is that a bug?

[bkenobi]

I haven't used Game Launcher mode in quite a while, but as I recall it only has 2 buttons available for navigation. This mode is primarily to help support use in cabinets where there are only a couple buttons available. I don't know how many people use this mode, so it's possible something slipped through the cracks. Thanks for the report. Btw, can you provide a log file for when seeing this bug in the final configuration? That might help Tom narrow down what the actual bug is.

[drurywoodson]

Btw, can you provide a log file for when seeing this bug in the final configuration? That might help Tom narrow down what the actual bug is.

Yes, but I have to work late tonight, so it might be a day or two.

I actually like the look of Game Launcher mode. It's simple and the game graphics fill the screen. It seems like it might be nice for use on my cabinet that's only using a low-res (640x480) TV.

[bkenobi]

The only down side I could find with it was that there weren't many themes that supported that mode. I tried it over a year ago when Tom first released it, and there was one. It was good, but not what I needed on my cab, so I switched back. If you put together a theme for your cab using Game Launcher mode, please share it!

[drurywoodson]

Here's the log file.

log.txt

[Tempest]

Higher on my priority list -- before we invest any more time in this, please tell me there is a way to configure my controls in a game specific manner before launching a game in Mame? I will be using the Groovy Game Gear 49 way programmable joysticks,

I think you are looking for this: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?sh...amp;#entry48139

and would like to add LED-wiz support at some point.

and this: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?sh...564&start=0