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[Cospefogo]

Hey Bomb-Bloke!

Where can I get the XBMC SHORTCUT CREATOR?
I can't download it anymore from the original link on the first page.

Please, can you give me a direction?
Thanks so much!

Cospefogo.

[Cospefogo]

Never mind!!
Just found it on RessXtras.

Thanks BombBloke!

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm not entirely certain which vesion made its way into the Xtras. The one on MediaFire at present is v14 (I just up the number each time I make a tweak, and log it in the manual file) - that link tests out as ok currently, not sure what happened when you tried it.  

[Cospefogo]

Strange!!
Now the link is working back normally.
But yesterday night I got no luck!

Anyway, the version I have has NO "Refer to FBL's "favorites.ini" file" on its internal configs. For sure mine is older than the mediafire one. But this older version worked like a charm.

I just used the listing.txt generated by the .PY code and pointed the thumb location (as PNGs) to inside my collection of MAME flyers. Since MAME roms and flyers are all specific universal names, I got 99% of success, few games had no flyers (I will correct manually).

Now I understand why RessurrectionX was after some MAME rom naming stuff - all cuts are generated using the rom name itself and not the real game name. I assume there is no other fix for that except by manually adjusting all cuts, correct?

Matter of fact I think I will keep only cuts for the best classics, so it is no big deal.

Mister BombBloke, thanks again for this VERY useful tool.
SUPERB.

Cheers,
Cospefogo.

[Bomb Bloke]

Sooner or later I'll find a simple referrence document that can be used to automatically deal with MAME naming. Or have one shown to me. Wink wink.  

[ressurectionx]

Hey BB....

I only included the next-to-last version in the CutFile Creator pack I released because for all of the systems I covered, that's the one I had been using.  I didn't release any cutfiles or creators for MAME in my upload.   Unfortunately, MAME (CoinOPS/FBL) cutfiles were just going to be too much work for me in the end.  I'm completely burned out on the XBox work now man.    

So... here's hoping you guys can figure out an easy way to make the creators so that if things are updated in the future that they can be re-spawned whenever games are added.



Thanks a ton for all of your help these last few years BB.  Your hours spent coding stuff I'm too impatient to ever learn saved me literally hundreds or even thousands of hours of tedious manual labor.  If only we had been working together 4 years ago, I probably would be wrapping up my work sometime last year.

Truly, thanks again for everything you've done,
~Rx

[Cospefogo]

QUOTE(Bomb Bloke @ May 28 2010, 12:24 AM)

Sooner or later I'll find a simple referrence document that can be used to automatically deal with MAME naming. Or have one shown to me. Wink wink.  

BombBloke,

I think this can work for you...
http://mindcaster.tr...me/gamelist.txt

Maybe it is easy to turn it to something like (filtering the unnecessary info)
#Real Game Name1@romname1;
#Real Game Name2@romname2;
#Real Game Name3@romname3;
...
and use it on the Shortcut Creator.

What do you think?
What else do you need?
I am like a open door to help on this.

Another suggestion regarding MAME:

In my case I have a large collection of flyers. This is easy to get around, there are many compilation of flyers available on the internet. Since MAME rom names and flyers are 100% compatible to each other due to the internal mame naming system, Shortcut creator is a guaranteed success --- but now comes the tricky part.

To have the directory with the shortcuts to be image-cached on XBMC we need TBN files, correct? At the moment those TBN need to be manually created somewhere else, or then the user should just point to the original PNG files (since they are all gathered together on a same directory [like F:/icons]) and keep the things UN-CACHED. So my idea is:

- The user runs GenerateDirectoryListing.py on the ROM list
- The user obtains the listing.txt
- The user copy the listing.txt to inside the flyers-or-screenshots directory
- The the user runs a new .py file - something like: GenerateTBNfromListing.py - and this script creates a new folder and make a copy with only the necessary image files (pointed by the listing.txt) with extension renamed to thumb.

Bingo! Now we have shortcuts with TBN for MAME flyers (or even shots) without the need of manually picking a flyer for each game and renaming to TBN. And also, this avoids the user to have the full 3000 flyers directory duplicated inside the Xbox with 3000 images renamed to thumb.

If you are out of time (or have no interest on this) I will bulk-rename all my 3000 flyers to TBN, create the shortcuts again, run the XBMC, and - after all files have been cached - I will rename the TBNs back to PNGs.
=D Easy move too.

Maybe it will be easier to to that than to bother you, ha ha...
=D

And one final point - I am no big fan of having cuts using the screenshot of a game, but yesterday I was curious to try with some Xport Emulators... however, I can't proceed due to Xports screenshots directory format.

How complex it to modify the script (or add a Xport parameter on the Config) to, at the moment of pointing to the shots dir, having a extra addendum with the game name (that cames from listing.txt) as a subdirectory in the screenshots path? I do basic PHP... and with some extra time maybe I could modify the java by myself (maybe maybe maybe maybe), but for sure this is much more simpler for you.

Thanks again, man.
And don't need to worry much about this.
Its only ideas.

Cospefogo.

[Cospefogo]

Hey guys!

I think I am mistaken about the XBMC caching thing.
It looks like XBMC caches everything, not only the TBN files.

I was having the wrong impression about the caching system because
everytime I open one of my CUTS folder (with around 850 cuts inside)
XBMC presents a dialog saying "reading media info", or something like
that.

But it is already reading FROM cache... I got a dialog just because
the directory has sooo many files.

=D

Cospefogo.

[Bomb Bloke]

QUOTE(Cospefogo @ May 28 2010, 06:56 PM)

I think this can work for you...
http://mindcaster.tr...me/gamelist.txt

I'd have no trouble parsing that, but there are a couple of problems. First, I'm not sure it's complete - is this because MAME lacks support for all the missing sets? For example, I notice a whole bunch of child and encypted sets missing, same as in the last document I dealt with... Ideally, I'd be able to account for every game for every emulator that "has" to use certain ROM naming conventions. If no single list deals with them all, I'll compile a bunch of smaller lists together to make a complete version for use with all such emulators.

The other issue is that it's only dedicating 32 characters per game title. If a game needs more then that, it simply crops the text...

QUOTE(Cospefogo @ May 28 2010, 06:56 PM)

If you are out of time (or have no interest on this) I will bulk-rename all my 3000 flyers to TBN, create the shortcuts again, run the XBMC, and - after all files have been cached - I will rename the TBNs back to PNGs.
=D Easy move too.

Maybe it will be easier to to that than to bother you, ha ha...
=D

This would indeed likely be the easiest way - a variation would be to create a copy of your image set, rename the whole lot to TBNs (ren *.* *.tbn), then dump the fliers in with the CUTs. You can then simply delete the image copies once caching is complete.

QUOTE(Cospefogo @ May 28 2010, 06:56 PM)

And one final point - I am no big fan of having cuts using the screenshot of a game, but yesterday I was curious to try with some Xport Emulators... however, I can't proceed due to Xports screenshots directory format.

How complex it to modify the script (or add a Xport parameter on the Config) to, at the moment of pointing to the shots dir, having a extra addendum with the game name (that cames from listing.txt) as a subdirectory in the screenshots path? I do basic PHP... and with some extra time maybe I could modify the java by myself (maybe maybe maybe maybe), but for sure this is much more simpler for you.

Hmm! To memory, the Xtras screenshot packs were initially stored in the same way XPort screenshots are handled - You'd have a folder for the system, then a sub-folder for each game, with numbered images inside.

I'd implemented a way to use the CUT Creator with the Xtras, but eventually they were changed to a completely different system (which didn't need any special treatment at all). I never removed the compatibility code though, as I'm not one to throw stuff out.

Anyway, tell the CUT Creator you're embedding thumbs, and point it at the the XPort folder for the system you're dealing with (eg, E:\Screens\GBA, or something like that, can't remember off the top of my head). Tell it you're using an Xtras pack, and the Xtras image to use is whatever the the emulator calls the first screenshot (I'm pretty sure the default option will be correct for this).

That should do the trick.

[Cospefogo]

Mister Bomb Bloke,

I understand your point regarding the Mame thing, no problem.
It is really true, the list is faraway to be complete.

Anyway, thank you very much for your attention on my questions.
And thanks for the tips... I am working down here now to manually
adjust my cuts names.

Regards,
Cospefogo.

[Bomb Bloke]

So I realised the (easy to find) official MAME source would probably be a suitable alternative to the X-Box port. Yes, yes, I know - sometimes my genious astounds even myself.

So now the app includes its own game list file, which covers about 8500 sets. I imagine it can guess the rest (eg, the decrypted sets, which, as Kenshiro mentioned, aren't recognised by MAME for who knows what reason). I'm kinda getting the impression at this point that anything FBL/FBA/whatever supports, MAME supports, so I doubt there's any need to go hunting for more titles. Though I still don't consider myself an expert on the subject.

Including regional + child set info in with the game titles is optional.

[Cospefogo]

QUOTE(Bomb Bloke @ May 30 2010, 05:50 AM)

So I realised the (easy to find) official MAME source would probably be a suitable alternative to the X-Box port. Yes, yes, I know - sometimes my genious astounds even myself.

So now the app includes its own game list file, which covers about 8500 sets. I imagine it can guess the rest (eg, the decrypted sets, which, as Kenshiro mentioned, aren't recognised by MAME for who knows what reason). I'm kinda getting the impression at this point that anything FBL/FBA/whatever supports, MAME supports, so I doubt there's any need to go hunting for more titles. Though I still don't consider myself an expert on the subject.

Including regional + child set info in with the game titles is optional.

Yes BB, I agree with you.

Regarding the old conversation about decrypted sets, bootleg sets, clones, versions and so on - Me, Myself and I - really do not care about them. I remember Kenshiro spoke about this in the past saying that he loves to have all available versions of a game, every single rom, update, parent, clone, etc etc.

My vision is different - having ten different Street Fighter Alpha 1 in my romset it annoying.  I like to have just "A GAME/ONE GAME" to just "PLAY IT". Ha ha ha... Please don't get my wrong, I am not trying to be rude (English is not my main language.)

So, when I suggested a MAME document was just to - at least - help a little for the people who are creating Mame shortcuts. In my opinion, even as a incomplete documento list, it already saves A LOT of time on the manual renaming labor.

I understand your professional vision of the situation - avoiding at maximum to offer a incomplete feature - but I think that having half/incomplete automatic renaming on MAME is better than have no automatic renaming at all...

Cheers!!
Cospefogo.

[Bomb Bloke]

Hmm, I think you mistundestand me... I posted another version of the CUT Creator, which now has full automatic naming as far as MAME ROMs are concerned. Plus the ability to "guess" a few child sets that MAME doesn't support.

I dunno whether that covers all other emulators that identify games using archive filenames, but I would expect it does.

Since I couldn't find a complete "MAME document" online, I created my own based on the MAME source code.

[Cospefogo]

QUOTE(Bomb Bloke @ May 30 2010, 09:24 AM)

Hmm, I think you mistundestand me...

Ha ha... Yes I did!
Sorry!
     

I will check it right now!
Thanks!

C.

[Cospefogo]

Hey BB!!

There's nothing else to wish on this world!
Your program worked like a charm.

Every SINGLE MAME SHORTCUT game is now perfect named
on a blink of an eye! Good as gold! Thank you very much!!

I just need to inform a tini-tiny bug however: the program
hangs up and present a error on your parsing routines on
one single MAME game --- Street Fighter 1 (rom name: sf.zip)

I think it is due to the 2 letters only for the rom name.

Anyway, I skipped this game and everything else was great.
RessurectionX should check this...
I bet he will love.

Cospefogo.