The Tournament Hub (Launcher)

[EvilDragon]

Hmm, some quicklist (popping up using a hotkey) might be good as well.


If we got over 100 games, scrolling through them with all those banners would take a while.


Select a game from that quicklist and the UI would jump to that banner.


Filtering by system (MAME, Homebrew, SNES, etc.) might be good as well, maybe skeezix could add such flag in the API?

 

[pmprog]

Hmm, some quicklist (popping up using a hotkey) might be good as well.

If we got over 100 games, scrolling through them with all those banners would take a while.

Select a game from that quicklist and the UI would jump to that banner.

Filtering by system (MAME, Homebrew, SNES, etc.) might be good as well, maybe skeezix could add such flag in the API?

Finding games will be simple if you just key in one or two letters from the game's name. However, processing all the items (even offscreen they'll need some processing, I've an idea how to cut some of those bits down though) does concern me. I'll definately have to look at stress testing soon
I figured the "favourites" will be your quicklist, and was thinking of you being able to hide unfavoured games (in addition to uninstalled games)

Jeff already provides a MAME/Indie flag, which will be used to determine whether to launch via the MAME build. I guess that could be expanded upon?

I'm not sure exactly how I could integrate that sort of grouping in this system, will have to think...

 

[mcobit]

I really like the look of this. Keep up the good work!

 

[Kumaki]

Do we have to download a new C4A to get this?

EDIT: Saw on Repo...updated to the latest.

Thanks for Ladybug!

Any chancet we could get Frogger on there sometime soon?

That and Berzerk would be really fun.  I'm good at Frogger.

 

[pmprog]

I've not discussed the finer details of the release with Jeff yet (regarding whether we drop this in over his current UI, or if I just look for his PND and start it myself), but yes, it will need to be downloaded when available.

As much progress as I'm making, I'm still a way off releasing. That said, I might start looking for some beta testers soon.

 

[pmprog]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BltUwKfJFfU?feature=oembed

Demonstrating the "favouring" system - I really like that name, so thanks porg - It didn't properly reorder, so I'll look into that

Also, what do people think of the UI on the item selection? (Rotating scores & controls?)

 

[NearTao]

Overall like the look, it has the snappy!

You might not be looking for suggestions around this, but would it look cleaner to just have the game 'marquee', and a button to select it to 'flip' it over to get more detailed meta-data information such as scores, personal score, genre and such?  I don't mind the scores on the main UI so much, but some of the artwork looks like it's had some time to put together and it's a shame to not get a clear view of it in at least one display mode.

 

[TrashyMG]

Wow! looking great!

 

[Neelix]

Also, what do people think of the UI on the item selection? (Rotating scores & controls?)

Actually I don't particularly like that mode of display...  takes too long to rotate through all the displays...  but I'm not sure how  to improve on it...

Have you considered horizontally scrolling it instead?    

Could the control legend go at the top or bottom of the screen, and just overlay the scores over the selected item?  (perhaps in a slightly smaller font to fit two scores at once)

- Neelix

 

[Monkfish]

overall its looking great, really nice style. Also i have to say i'm in agreement with Neelix, perhaps scrolling data would be better. I have a question though, could it show the games i have played and the games i havent, maybe with a colour indicator of some kind (for example i dont use 0.106 roms, only 0.110, so i couldnt play the MAME component).

 

[pmprog]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have a look at how the "selection" detail is shown later. Just facing a bug with the greyscale code, which only occurs on the Pandora build

 

[Kumaki]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BltUwKfJFfU?feature=oembed

Nice look.

Better if the FAVORites...move to the front of the UI.  Perhaps it is supposed to, and that is what you mean by "re-ordering?"

 

[Kumaki]

overall its looking great, really nice style. Also i have to say i'm in agreement with Neelix, perhaps scrolling data would be better. I have a question though, could it show the games i have played and the games i havent, maybe with a colour indicator of some kind (for example i dont use 0.106 roms, only 0.110, so i couldnt play the MAME component).

clrmamepro is your friend, Monkfish.

It could convert your 0.110 roms to 0.106 roms.  and you keep BOTH FILES.

All you need is clrmamepro and the right .dat file.

If an idiot like ME can figure out how to use clrmamepro, I bet you could.  Then you can join in all the fun.

OR...

Manna has been known to fall from Heaven for people who PM the right person...wink, wink.

 

[skeezix]

Looking pretty hot!

At this rate, it'll completely eclipse the frontend built into c4a-mame, so I don't mind just dropping it in there; but as you likely will build in to let it run non-mame stuff as well (indie, SNES, etc), we'll have toi play it by ear; ie: if people do not want mame, but they want your launcher, then it has to be an independant download.

This makes me think that c4a-mame should be a pnd, without a frontend; it woudl be a 'module' in concept; get your frontend, and let it run stuff; it woudl check for the required module and filter out stuff (or grey out?) the stuff that needs a module; could even check with the repo to ensure the latest copy of a module is present. If someone in turn launches a module, the module coudl in turn look for and launch the frontend.

ie:

- launch a module

--> look for frontend and fire it up, exiting the module

- launch the frontend

--> check for updates (everyone should be current ideally, to keep it fair)

----- of the frontend -> report if old

----- of the modules found -> report if old

--> check image cache, pulling down marquees as needed (on demand, in background)

--> do a dir list for games for that module (server can dsend the list), so you know what to filter out or grqay out in the games list

--> show filtered list

----- by default, show the module list with a marquee per module ("arcade" "indie" "snes" "..."), and when they tape or pick one of those, then slide into the actual selections that are available for that module

*shrug*

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Oh, you also need to have cool retro arcade background music/noise; like bleep-bleep-bwop! pacman noises etc.

You could pick one of thse mp3s and truncate+and+loop it to get a pretty awesome background:

http://arcade.hofle.com/

jeff

 

[pmprog]

Better if the FAVORites...move to the front of the UI. Perhaps it is supposed to, and that is what you mean by "re-ordering?"

Yes, that's what I was referring to. Oh, and in case you hadn't notice, I had all the English debate removed, so please, give it a rest

This makes me think that c4a-mame should be a pnd, without a frontend; it woudl be a 'module' in concept;

I like that idea - petitSeb could do with a system like that for CodeBlocks IMO


I was thinking that I could always mount your PND anyway from my launcher and run the game from there, I think the only downside to that is that it's your front end that syncs the scores - not like on MiniSlug and Microbes where they push their own scores.

get your frontend, and let it run stuff; it woudl check for the required module and filter out stuff (or grey out?) the stuff that needs a module; could even check with the repo to ensure the latest copy of a module is present. If someone in turn launches a module, the module coudl in turn look for and launch the frontend.

Well I'm already working on greying + filtering out uninstalled games - which is practically the same thing. petitSeb's looking at the issue with al_lock_bitmap, as it seems to corrupt the stack when you do (it's either on the lock, or the unlock).


I think the Repo and versioning might have to wait. Repo interaction might make it a bit more closer to PNDManager as well (which is kind of what I wanted in this, but that's later)

Oh, you also need to have cool retro arcade background music/noise; like bleep-bleep-bwop! pacman noises etc.

What's wrong with the current background track? It's a C64 track by Steve Rowlands.


Anyway, I'll take a look at the link. I've already changed the settings file so it now saves what track to play, which means I'm going to add several tracks, and the user (player?) can pick which one they want on (if any). It'll also be easy to copy your own files in.

 

[Kumaki]

Well, this is the music for me!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xN5SkwYZNKA?feature=oembed

 

[Monkfish]

the C64 music is fine, though perhaps some sound effects from Juno First or something equally cool would be good if you're scrolling through (why isnt that game available for C4All yet?)

 

[pmprog]

Just to let everyone know, this is coming along quite nicely. Jeff's just sorting out server data to tell me how to launch each game. Once that's in, I think we'll be ready for some beta testing. Not all features will be present (they'll still be worked on), but some (if not all) of you will be able to get your grubby mits on a PND to test

 

[Kumaki]

Just to let everyone know, this is coming along quite nicely. Jeff's just sorting out server data to tell me how to launch each game. Once that's in, I think we'll be ready for some beta testing. Not all features will be present (they'll still be worked on), but some (if not all) of you will be able to get your grubby mits on a PND to test

That sounds good.