[Release] Compo4all MAME - ladder/scoreboard competition for classic arcade games :)

[JePP]

Hey skeezix, I'm having some thoughts about this wonderful piece of software. Can you window-size the application pretty please? Or add any way to minimize the app? I'm often playing a game, then want to check out my score on the website using Arora, then come back to playing the or another game. It's possible already through use of the Pandora button but it's all very awkward and window-sized instead of fullscreen would make things a lot easier. Also, the updating process for each game takes ages and repeats itself more often than should be necessary... Always takes time to switch between games, makes the whole experience a tiny bit annoying, while it overall is an awesome app, of course.

 

[Kumaki]

Well, the synching could be sped up...but I do not want window-size, I like fullscreen for this.

I hope there is a way to make both happy...a button that will window0size it for those who want window-size...and default be fullscreen.

 

[Ziz]

Hey, I don't know, whether this have been suggested before, but how about a web interface for profile creating?

If I think about the security of boards against spam, there are in fact only two barriers against spam:

• Making it hard to create accounts for bots (e.g. with captchas)
• Moderation

At the moment account creating is only possible on the pandora, which is as I think a bad thing. In a couple of months dozen people will own GCW Zeros. Why not giving them the possibility to commit scores too aaaand adding a bit more security incidentally?
So my idea is to have a very simple account management system as web interface. You can create an account (with captcha or other security barriers) and then you can download your profile-file to your handhelds like the gcw. Or maybe the Caanoo or even your PC! With this profile-file then you can easily commit scores like you are already able to on the pandora.

The C4A Manager program for the pandora could use these generated captchas, too. Of course the pandora users shouldn't be forced to use a web interface...

Furthermore the already given but never used username and password would make sense then, too!

So much win!

Just my 2 cents

greetings, Ziz

 

[skeezix]

I've not published yet .. But there is a 'download profile' option .. I figured you'd need it to share your profile to other devices


Adding a web profile creator does seem obvious .. Duh i'll add to my list.. Or get milkshake on it


Jeffphone

 

[Ziz]

/>


I've not published yet .. But there is a 'download profile' option .. I figured you'd need it to share your profile to other devices


Adding a web profile creator does seem obvious .. Duh i'll add to my list.. Or get milkshake on it


Jeffphone

That would be so cool! But nevertheless think about the captchas. I would do some advertising in the gcw channel, if you or milky would implement it.

 

[Asmo]

@ Skeezix -

don't know if you've popped into the 'suspicious scores' thread lately, but something weird happened in MsPacman - I've been awarded a bizarro 7 digit score of 6797973 (looks oddly symmetrical, never mind impossible).

I did play a game that day, but didn't finish it - I reset (F3) and quit to go do something else, without scoring. Didn't see this until the next day, now I'm wondering what happened?

 

[Kumaki]

One look wouuld tell me that the Ms Pacman score was a fake, since you can only score in multiples of 10.

 

[Ziz]

One look wouuld tell me that the Ms Pacman score was a fake, since you can only score in multiples of 10.

So, if you would be a c4a-moderator, what would you do? Deleting his score? Deleting all his scores? Deleting his whole account because of cheating (what is in fact not the cause as it seems)?

 

[Kumaki]

No, I would simply delete that ONE score only.

As I said, in a different thread...anyone smart enough to cheat....would also know that Ms. Pacman can score multiples of ten only, so that score was an obvious fake/glitch.

Since Asmo's other scores on Ms. Pacman and other games are not questionable...I would have to assume the glitch theory.

Besides, in america, anyway, one is always innocent until proven guilty.  I'd like to see anyone PROVE that was a cheat.  Because I don't think anyone could, since I don't believe a cheat was involved.

I do not know what is possible with the programming to run any sort of a "check" to make sure scores are valid.

For example, if any sort of a simple check were in place on this particular game, just the multiple of ten check...this score would have been rejected as invalid, anyway.

Certainly there should be some way to build in some simple checks, but again, I know more about Fourth Century Mongolian warlords than I do about coding.

 

[porg]

So are some of these bugs fixed in the aforementioned forum posted PND? Link appreciated!

It was posted to forum since it was/is an unstable test version

@skeezix: Please post the URL of this intermediate version. Had waited for a repo update for 2 weeks, but didn't come. Would at least like to check out that intermediate version. Can we expect an update in the next 2 weeks? (2w for real, no pun intended)

@Forum moderators: I had opened skeezix's profile and had gone through his post history to find the post with the aforementioned software myself, but the forum's post history feature is very limited (only the recent 5 posts, that's not much to follow such an active member as skeezix). Is it possible with this forum software to enable an option such as "load more" (dynamic HTML) at the end of the post aggregation or some paging controls?

 

[skeezix]

The preliminary version would be in one of pmoprog's UI threads, I think.

Certainly within 2w I expect to have the slightly faster c4a-mame out (that also handles the 'tell me which mame rom to run' for his frontend, and some few other fixes.)

I'm in and out of town this week, not near a PC much, limits my options .. but soon as I stabalize in a week, its top priority; or earlier, with luck.

jeff

 

[porg]

Compo4all MAME, preliminary release from 2013-05-21 at: http://www.skeleton.org/tmp/compo4all-mame.pnd

(Skeezix: Your hint was right: Found the URL in a "Tournament Hub" post after 1.5h of browsing, due to the aforementioned lack of search/following capabilities of this forum software)

 

[Neelix]

@Forum moderators: I had opened skeezix's profile and had gone through his post history to find the post with the aforementioned software myself, but the forum's post history feature is very limited (only the recent 5 posts, that's not much to follow such an active member as skeezix). Is it possible with this forum software to enable an option such as "load more" (dynamic HTML) at the end of the post aggregation or some paging controls?

If you click the "Find Content" button instead of going to the Posts view, you can get the kind of history you were looking for.

- Neelix

 

[sebt3]

Just a little post to tell how easy it is to add c4a support :

1) send a config file to skeezix, below is mine for shmuppan. (Jeff fixed it for me, thanks buddy)

Spoiler

{
"active": true,
"plugin": "scoreonly",
"module": null,
"alltime": true,
"platforms": [ "pandora" ],
"league": "all",
"shortname": "shmuppan",
"longname": "Shmup Pan",
"ordering": "ascending",
"dispunit": "points",
"type": "int",
"field": "indie",
"genre": "shmup",
"execinfo": {
"pandora": {
"type": "standalone",
"pnd_unique_id": "shmuppan-shmuppan-12049",
"last_known_filename_hint": "shmuppan.pnd",
"command_line_add": "",
"last_known_appdata_hint": "shmuppan",
"file_dependancies_hint": ""
}
}

}

2) I added the following code to my start script after the game launch :

SENT=0
if [ -e scores.txt.posted ];then
for s in $(diff scores.txt scores.txt.posted|awk '$1=="<"{print $5}');do
echo "Submitting $s score on your c4a profil"
./bin/sc so push edited pandora $s
export SENT=1
done
elif [ -e scores.txt ];then
for s in $(awk '$4!=0{print $4}'<scores.txt|sort -unr|head -3);do
echo "Submitting $s score on your c4a profil"
./bin/sc so push edited pandora $s
export SENT=1
done
fi

if [ $SENT -eq 1 ];then
cp scores.txt scores.txt.posted
fi
granted my scores file have 4 columns but I guess you can adapt that easyly enough
3) ???

4) profit !

 

[TrashyMG]

Worth mentioning here is what I wrote for OpenTyrian in C, if people are curious.

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/11113-opentyrian-in-the-repo/?p=246830/URL]

I suppose the most important bits are these:
 

sprintf(c4all_command, "./sc so push opentyrian_ep_%d pandora %lu >/dev/null 2>&1",episodeNum,player[0].cash);  //push the Spaghetti client command to a string appending the episode number and score

c4_all_ret = WEXITSTATUS(system(c4all_command));  //This gets the return code from the spaghetti client..


if (c4_all_ret != 0) {
    //Code to show it failed
} else {
   //Code to show it submitted fine. 
}

 

[Ziz]

Worth mentioning here is what I wrote for OpenTyrian in C, if people are curious.

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/11113-opentyrian-in-the-repo/?p=246830/URL]

I suppose the most important bits are these:

sprintf(c4all_command, "./sc so push opentyrian_ep_%d pandora %lu >/dev/null 2>&1",episodeNum,player[0].cash); //push the Spaghetti client command to a string appending the episode number and score

c4_all_ret = WEXITSTATUS(system(c4all_command)); //This gets the return code from the spaghetti client..


if (c4_all_ret != 0) {
//Code to show it failed
} else {
//Code to show it submitted fine.
}

Furthermore you can use sparrowNet now for a solution without any system call or needed spaghetti client + possibility to test on not-pandora hardware:

//Somewhere in the init code:
spNetC4AProfilePointer profile = spNetC4AGetProfile();

//At the end of the game:
//With "GAME_NAME" the name of the game and
//with "POINTS" the score to commit.
//15000 is the time out in ms.
if (profile && spNetC4ACommitScore(profile,GAME_NAME,POINTS,NULL,15000))
{ /*Submit failed*/ }
else
{
//Cycling until the score is committed
while (spNetC4AGetStatus() == SP_C4A_PROGRESS)
#ifdef WIN32
Sleep(1);
#else
usleep(5000);
#endif
if (spNetC4AGetStatus() == SP_C4A_OK)
{ /* Score was successfully committed*/ }
else
{ /* Some error, checkable with spNetC4AGetStatus()*/ }
}

Of course you don't have to cycle until the score is committed. You can just keep on in the game and submit in the background. After 15 seconds it stops to try anyway.

 

[TrashyMG]

Actually the GCW Zero portion of the code that elwing owns on our shared opentyrian git branch has that in his section.. It's disabled currently if compiled for the Pandora, mainly because I haven't had time to test it and I was unfamiliar with your system. I may revisit it sometime.

Not sure if I've seen an opentyrian score submitted from the Zero yet though..