ICONS FOR FAVORITES?

[simbamame]

ok heres my delema, in my favorites list all my mame games have a nice little icon next to them the others dont is it possible to have icons for these, and if so how do i add them if not can we ask Tom to build it into GameEx ?

Take frogger at the top its from the PSX so a nice little PSX console pic next to it would be perfect for example. Would be good for somebody looking threw your fav list and maybe seeing 2 froggers and not knowing what system they are on.

Example :

[starbuck]

I like the idea. In fact ,myself and a few others have asked for this in the request forum. I'm sure when Tom has time, he will look at such a request. It maybe something that is more complex then what we think.

[Adultery]

Maybe not either, I think it's creating the .ico files that'll take the most work. A lot of late nights could be spent on this feature. Honestly though, without the icons it would be a lot of effort to code it in and it could be a while before we actually see the icons.

Imagine all the cropping, scaling, etc. Could be fun though!

[Draco1962]

Creating icons is easy enough with most any graphic editing program. There are even some shareware and commercial programs that will convert any image to icon for you. It is a matter of picking something that is recognizable. Most icons used by MAME are 32x32 pixels. Have attached a copy of one I made for N64 and Xbox, with the original graphic.

I just have to wonder, however, how much is too much? We have logos, snaps, titles cabs, 3D cabs, custom art files, etc. Not saying it shouldn't be done or couldn't, but I can think of some features that definitely could use a higher priority (Overhaul of the Theme Editor which is long overdue). Additionally, the icons will have to be created and even if you use the same one for all of your game ROMs, you would have to save a copy to match the name of every ROM to match how it is currently handled for MAME.

Now if Tom could program GameEx to look at the system for the game in the Favorites and have the icon for each system emulated (again, would have to match a proper, consistent naming convention) saved under the GameEx\Icons path and display a system icon for the system, then that I think would be doable and much cleaner.

I would be glad to make my services available to create the system icons to work with such a feature.

n64.ico

xbox.ico

[simbamame]

Creating icons is easy enough with most any graphic editing program. There are even some shareware and commercial programs that will convert any image to icon for you. It is a matter of picking something that is recognizable. Most icons used by MAME are 32x32 pixels. Have attached a copy of one I made for N64 and Xbox, with the original graphic.

I just have to wonder, however, how much is too much? We have logos, snaps, titles cabs, 3D cabs, custom art files, etc. Not saying it shouldn't be done or couldn't, but I can think of some features that definitely could use a higher priority (Overhaul of the Theme Editor which is long overdue). Additionally, the icons will have to be created and even if you use the same one for all of your game ROMs, you would have to save a copy to match the name of every ROM to match how it is currently handled for MAME.

Now if Tom could program GameEx to look at the system for the game in the Favorites and have the icon for each system emulated (again, would have to match a proper, consistent naming convention) saved under the GameEx\Icons path and display a system icon for the system, then that I think would be doable and much cleaner.

I would be glad to make my services available to create the system icons to work with such a feature.

I wonder if its possible to add some code to when you select to add to favorites it asks would you like to add a system icon and maybe have a list that you select from, maybe the list could be a configurable item that could be added to GameEx?. As to being too much i disagree, as i think the favorites list looks odd with some icon'd roms and others not, I think it would look a lot better and more proffessional with icons there, gives GameEx yet more features that other front ends dont have. ( but thats just my opionion ).

I wonder if its possible to code into showing the icon along side the favorite rom, as its done with mame i can image its doable, but obviously Tom would need to confirm this.

Ian.

[Draco1962]

I definitely do not disagree with you about a unified appearance. My point was more to what point does the programmer draw the balance between form and function. Since it was something enabled for MAME, it may not be that much more code to add to at least draw from an icon path as I suggested previously to default to an icon based upon the system emulated for the game in favorites. If not that difficult, I am sure he will probably add this to his to-do list at some point. Might need to move this thread to the Feature Requests so that it gets good notice.

[Adultery]

I like the system icon idea. Takes a ton of the work out actually. It could work the same way it currently does for the snap not found image, just add an artwork field in the advanced config and add a module to the theme to display it.

Maybe the theme module is a bit tougher to pull off, but the bracketed text can already sub out for that country's flag if the roms are in goodname format so it shouldn't be that difficult. But really I have no idea when it comes to the way GameEx handles these procedures.

[Draco1962]

Kinda what I was thinking. GameEx already uses an icon path for the weather icons. Initially, wouldn't really need to have any additional artwork paths specifically for this, just an internal call to the system being emulated for the game and display the correspondingly named icon in that path. Would take out the guesswork on the user end.

[starbuck]

System icons are already available thru the web. I have an icon for most systems already, (In anticipation for the time when this feature is made available) When in the favorites list, with the system icon displayed, you would know instantly what system the game is for. (My icons look like a miniture of the system snap.)Game icons now are a different story, a number of sites have icons for a number of games but it would be a nightmare rounding them all up. This would be a great add for Emumovies. Icons for systems and games all in one location. An additional field in GameEx and we are ready to go.