Home Page Forums MAME Non-Windows MAME Support MacSDLMESS now with smart lists!

I just finished implementing smart lists, so it is time for another release.

If you have a moment I would love some hard testing on the smart list feature. I am sure I don't have everything hooked up correctly.

MacSDLMESS (July 12 2006)

Still no driver configuration, that is up next.

Sweet. Once I've got SDLMAME totally nailed down I'll have to actually attempt an SDLMESS. Last time it ended in tears and strife but I think I have a better porting methodology now ;-)

Need to finish the new debugger too - I'm about this close to trying to hook the old one up to the NEW_RENDERER, but that would probably make Aaron projectile vomit.

Regarding the new debugger...

You'll need a widget library for that, right? Or you could roll your own.

It's partially usable now on Linux using GTK+ as the widget library (Olivier and I both much prefer working with Qt, but it's license doesn't work with MAME). There's a pretty stable Win32 port with native look-and-feel (GAIM and the Gimp are both kinda popular on Windows now) and a WIP OS X one also with native look-and-feel so I think it'll ultimately be a decent choice.

Any working debugger's good with me

That's the one thing i've missed since moving to the mac platform a year ago.

Actually, i've missed that since moving away from Windows whenever that was. IIRC the version of mame under X (xmame?) didn't animate properly. As soon as you activated the debug window, the emulation window paused and vice versa.

Made it kind of awkward if you use these things for tinkering without really having a good grasp of what you're doing

MacSDLMESS is awesome! Smart Lists are fantastic!

I love that there is a play count and total play time.

My biggest gripe about it right now is that custom column views are not saved. Also, if you try to change the rating for a game, the app locks up. What values are accepted (wouldn't a star system ?� la iTunes be better)?

It'd be great if you'd add the ability to display a screenshot of the currently selected game in the unused space below the list view.

Last thing, the nano audit went from 'not implemented' to 'Fail' for every ROM I have since the last version.

Anyway, MacSDLMESS is ready for becoming a fantastic front end for MAME/MESS.

> My biggest gripe about it right now is that custom column
> views are not saved. Also, if you try to change the rating for a
> game, the app locks up. What values are accepted (wouldn't a
> star system ?� la iTunes be better)?

Yes. I'll add it to the to do list.

> I love that there is a play count and total play time.

Gee, I wonder where I came up with that idea.

> It'd be great if you'd add the ability to display a screenshot of
> the currently selected game in the unused space below the list
> view.

This is a great idea.

> Last thing, the nano audit went from 'not implemented' to
> 'Fail' for every ROM I have since the last version.

What I needed here was a very quick way to determine if a driver was ready to run. So I took the easy way and looked for a ZIP file that matches the driver name in the roms directory next to the SDLMAME app. Do you use unZIPped ROMs? Do you use an INI file to put your ROMs somewhere else?

You should be able to run SDLMAME with -verifyroms [gamename] to do a quick audit, although I don't think I've tested it much lately

Here is a picture of my set up:



I have MacMAME in an Emulation folder inside my Applications folder and did put aliases in the MacMAME User Data so tha MacMAME finds all its folders.

For SLDMAME, I made sure that the correct paths are in the ini file.

MacSDLMESS is in a folder inside MacMAME and I put a 'pseudo' plug-ins folder next to it where I will put SDLMAME/MESS etc. along with the necessary support files (ini, fonts etc..).

BTW, I made an icon for MacSDLMESS using a custom icon of MacMAME that Nathan made for me and added the SDL icon.

Do you like it enough to include it in a future release of MacSDLMESS until somebody more talented than me creates a proper one?

Carbon,

When I implement driver configuration, I'll be able to parse the ini file to determine the actual location of the ROMs folder. Then the nanoAudit will work for you.

Looking at that icon got me thinking of what I am looking for. Here is what I have in mind. A forward facing "all in one" type mac, that has a built-in joystick and button on one side, and an built-in keyboard on the other. This would sort of convey the dual nature of MacSDLMESS.

RBelmont,

I thought about calling the mame app and having it give the thumbs up or down, but decided just to ask the file system for the existence of a file instead. I needed a method that was really fast. If it wasn't fast, I'd have to cache the information at program start.

There is another reason. Every time I call the sdlmame app it shows up in the dock. If I called it 6,000 times (one for each driver) there would be a little blur as the dock kept adding, then removing the icon.