read.me for GoMame v2.3 Yet Another Mame Frontend (this one perpetrated by Greg Bryant) GoMame was written as an exercise to play with C++Builder v6, and to have a front-end that matches what I want for my needs. Source code is available, and feature requests (and, of course, donations :) are always welcome. One of the reasons MAME is cool is the huge number of games it supports. One of the reasons MAME is such a pain is the huge number of games it supports. One of the focus areas for GoMAME is controlling what you see. To start, there are a variety of ways to filter the data built-in - via the GoMAME settings dialog. Future releases will add the capability to create your own filters. Requirements ============ Intel 386 (or better) running Microsoft Windows (Tested on XP Pro, XP Home, 98SE) Regular MAME for Windows (either standard or 32 bit version, but not MAME32) v111 ~20MB of free space (includes full catver, nplayers & History information in the database) Optional ======== catver.ini (available from http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/ ) history.dat (available from http://fandemame.emu-france.com/ ) nplayers.ini (available from http://nplayers.arcadebelgium.be ) controls.ini (available from http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/controls.php) mameinfo.dat (available from http://www.mameworld.net/mameinfo/) These files add a great deal of information about the games. The "recommended games" filter is created from history.dat. They should be placed in the same directory as the MAME executable. Installation ============ Upgrading from 2.x is as easy as running the installation, though you will want to do a full database rebuild (which the program should force you to do anyway). If you are upgrading from a pre-2.x version, please uninstall first. Run the install program, which will unzip the files into a directory and create a program group. You will probably want to have unzipped catver.ini, nplayers.ini, controls.ini, mameinfo.dat and History.dat into the mame directory prior to running GoMame. Current Features ================ "Child-proofing" Features, including password controlled lockout of "Mature" games, lockout of changes to GoMAME configuration, and Blocking of MAME's in-game configure key ("Mature" filter auto-generated based on info from catlist file) List of "Favorite" games can be imported/exported for sharing Game list can be filtered to only favorite games, only "recommended games", or only missing roms. Drag-n-drop column ordering & Resizing Relocate snaps/history to right, left, or to an independant window Manages global MAME ini files and per game ini files Right-click on Column Titles to hide/unhide columns Search almost any field Use "Status" columns to control visibility of games Auto-hide of filtered columns Support for multiple ROM directories Will extract screenshots from snap.zip if used Screenshots can be copied to the clipboard for use in nearly any Windows application Game Information Provided ========================= The following information comes from mame.exe -listinfo ROMName Description Year (ROM Release Year) Controller (Controller Type) Players (Number of) CloneOf (Original ROM Name) ROMStatus (good, preliminary, etc) ColorStatus (see previous) SoundStatus (see previous) Buttons (Number of) Manufacturer (of ROM) Channels (sound channels) Freq (frequency (for refresh rates?)) Samples (ZIP file for samples used by this game) Video (raster or vector) Orientation Resolution (width x height x color depth) BIOS (BIOS file required) Resource Type (0 = Game, 1 = BIOS) The following information comes from catver.ini Category VersionAdded (MAME version, not GoMAME version) Mature ("Adult" content) The following information comes from history.dat History Bio The following information comes from controls.ini controller type The following information comes from mameinfo.dat Mame info (who knew?) Recommended Games Point Release modifications - planned (1 - bug/critical, 5 - nice to have) =========================== // todo 3: Add mame.ini backup option (first, every, if no exist(default)) to properties // todo 3: Change title column to show index // todo 5: if something is highlighted in the grid or in the history display, put it in search box on ctrl-f Future Features (planned) ====================== User-defined filters (i.e. structured ad-hoc queries against the attributes of the games) Tree view of games based on DB fields i18n support for localization Support outcalls to rom check apps Contacts ======== Bug reports: greg@bryantrecording.com Paypal Donations: bryantg@yahoo.com Source download: http://www.bryantrecording.com/software v2.3 Changes (Full history is in the source read.me) ============ Another long year, and I didn't even update this to the current version of MAME. This version goes up to build 117 of MAME. In 117u2, the INI file handling was changed, so I have left that for the next version. If you are using mamepp, and are newer than 117, you will need to manually copy your mamepp.ini created by GoMAME to mame.ini. Other than catching up on the configuration changes for 117, Top and Bottom placement of the screenshot and history info were re-implemented, along with auto-resizing of the screenshot and a grab bar so you can control the size of the database grid versus the screenshot area yourself. No more bouncing around of the side image.