Une nouvelle version de ce frontend multi-systèmes a été publiée. Voici la liste des nouveautés:
Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth Emu Loader!
Humongous amounts of drawing bugs where fixed since last build. That was all thanks to the night mode. I would have never found them bugs without it...
Quite a few internal changes were made in favor of the night mode. Further improvements to my TPanelEx and TShadowLabel Delphi components were required. I've had so much fun working on Emu Loader these past 4 weeks, I tell you.
Many "under the good" bugs were also fixed. But let me say this first: you must create games list for all arcade and MAME software lists all over again. This is required due to recent internal changes. Not doing so will cause a cataclysmic event!
The goods:
- Emu Loader's audit system was still flawed. Bios/devices were not validated 100% in some situations. Model 2 board ROMs for SEGA Model 2 Emulator were also completely ignored.
- Support for Supemodel 3 Emulator latest SVN 735 build. You lhave to reconfigure the emulator and game custom settings within the frontend since .ini file entries have been renamed. I took the opportinity to add support for save states. You can select a save state before loading a Model 3 game now. I've also fixed quite a few bugs related to Supermode 3 usage. The most important is proper command line parameters, that were completely messed up.
- Emu Loader was adding bogus files to games in MAME software lists. Some of them are battery ROMs. These are not game files and should not be added to the game's files list. Most affected are cartridge softlists nes.xml and msx1_cart.xml.
- ROM/CHD size is now added to arcade games files list. There is no file size validation, it's just used for information. Currently used in Game Details screen and Arcade Games Scan Results screen.
- Games Search tool bar repalced by a floating panel. This is the only way I found to implement tool bar colors customization.
- Filter Arcade Games by Main CPU tool bar replaced by a floating panel (Arcade Misc Filters button). Again, to allow changing tool bar colors.
- The interface of several screens were updated to support night mode. Some of them look incredibly beautiful.
- New Night Node Customization settings in preferences screen. Only tool bar colors can be customized for now.
- Preferences screen redesigned so its contents don't clutter in a small space.
And here's the golden goose: tool bar icons were complete redesign! Outer frames split from the icons into overlay icons.
These overlays are dynamically drawn on top of the filter icons. Located in the new \resources\main_icons\overlay\ folder, you can easily customize them to your liking. Full alpha blend support. There's a set for the night mode and another one for the light mode.
Large icons were resized from 44x40 to 48x48, and small icons resized from 28x22 to 30x24.
I took the time to create extra large 68x68 tool bar icons for those like me with 4K (3840x2160) and 2K (2560x1440) screen resolutions. They look awesome. There's also new 30x24 arcade filters small icons for the small tool bar.
Fixed
- Non-game files were added to a MAME software list games
*some games have "rom" entries (battery backup, NVRAM, etc) but are not game files and should not be added ("hash\nes.xml", "hash\msx_cart.xml", others)
*you must re-create all your MAME software list games lists again, either delete all files in "frontend_dir\arcade\mame_softwarelist_games\" folder (easier) or select "Enable: Overwrite Mode" when choosing the arcade scan mode
- FATALITY! When validating multiple selected games, bios/device sets were not validated at all (works fine with scall all games, scan single game)
- FINISH HIM! Games of "SEGA Model 2 Emulator" were not validated correctly, "model2.zip" board ROMs completely ignored
- When running single MAME arcade games, frontend was trying to detect the "machine title", intended for multi-slot machines ("uMain.GetTitleMachineToUse" function)
- Timer freeze when applying games filters on grouped view mode
- Button "Default Grid Size" and "Show Game Title" were not repainting thumb preview images (Thumbnail Settings)
- Font style was set to game filename instead of game title in "Delete Multiple Selected Games Files" screen
- Some messages were not showing up in splash screen when creating games lists, specially for "SEGA Model 2"
- CRC-32 / SHA-1 checksums of unzipped game files failed to be generated
*some games could not be added to the games list (console/computer systems only)
*most noticeable in "Game Details" screen
*mostly for Unicode filenames
*console/computer games only (ported from EmuCon)
*some internal functions updated to support "WideString" parameters and slightly modified to fix this bug
- Frontend crash when trying to open a .zip / .7z Unicode filename in "Game Details" screen (console/computer games from EmuCon) ... this bug is almost 2 years old!
- Megatons of drawing bugs thru the entire project
Changed
- Changes and improvements to games tool bar:
*resized large icons from 44x40 to 48x48
*resized small icons from 28x22 to 30x24
*added 68x68 icons size support, useful for 2K (2560x1440) and 4K (3840x2160) screen resolutions
*added a white background in the lower text so it's visible in night mode
*several icons were completely remade
*split the icon outer frame from current icons into separate overlay icons, located in a new "resources\main_icons\overlay\" folder
.overlay icons are painted on top of the icon, alpha blend support
.overlay icons can be customized to your liking without altering the filter icons
*replaced the "Search" tool bar by a simple button; edit box and buttons are now placed in a new floating panel below the main tool bar
.you can move the panel around by dragging it with the title bar
*finally removed the dreadful "TCoolBar" control; tool bar background colors can now be customized (night mode only)
*Renamed settings entries in "EmuLoader.ini", you need to customize buttons again in "Customize Tool Bar"
- Improvements to "Arcade Games Filters" screen (tool bar button)
*if filter icon not found, the "no icon" was not set correctly
*added support for 68x68 and 30x24 icon sizes, found in "resources\main_icon\arcade_filters\" folder
*choose an icon size to browse the filters list: "Extra Large (68x68)", "Large (48x48)", "Small (30x24)"
*additional tweaks
- Moved "Tool Bar Buttons" menu options from "View" to "Games List" main menu, renamed "Small Tool Bar" to "Icon Size" and expanded to:
*Extra Large (68x68)
*Large (48x48)
*Small (30x24)
- Changes to "Customize Tool Bar"
*replaced "Small Tool Bar" checkbox by a "Set Icon Size" buttons group: "Very Large (68x68)", "Large (48x48)", "Small (30x24)"
*removed "Search Games Bar" checkbox since it's now listed with the other buttons
*renamed "Hide Tool Bar" to "Show Tool Bar", so it's the same title as the checkbox option in main menu
*additional tweaks
- Moved "Show Games Status Bar" setting from "View" to "Games List" main menu, where is belongs
- Changes to Preferences screen
*size increased to 850x600 to give its contents more breathing room
*moved "Internet Game Info" panel from "Images" to "General" page
*renamed TSlitter component names of games list and images to avoid overlap settings; you must customize splitters again as "EmuLoader.ini" entries were also renamed
*additional interface tweaks (still needs work)
- Changes and fixes to "Supermodel 3 Emulator" features
*entries in file "frontend_dir\arcade\emulator_ini\supermodel_ini\Supermodel.ini" have changed to avoid settings overlap
NOTE 1: you must re-configure AND save the emulator default settings to update the .ini file
NOTE 2: settings key names are the same as emulator's "Supermodel.ini" file, but not all of them
*game custom setting files changed as well (change/save emulator default settings first!)
NOTE: you must re-configure AND save the game custom settings again to update the .ini file
*additional interface updates
*FATALITY! game custom settings were not added properly to command line when running games (nobody noticed this ?!)
.custom settings and emulator default settings were added twice to command line
.new behavior: emulator settings is now loaded first, followed by game custom settings file (just like MAME)
.if game setting is the same as emulator setting, it's no longer added in "ganename.ini" file (just like MAME)
*when running emulator in full screen, if the custom resolution is not valid, current desktop resolution will be used automatically
*if game filename is not found, emulator will not run; it was causing the "Error: Invalid Function 1" message on emulator exit
Replaced the "Main CPU MAME Filter" bar by a floating panel
*it was wasting too much space above the main games list
*the "enabled" filter state is now restored on a frontend restart ("Arcade Misc" filters tool bar button)
*panel position is always at the top left corner of the games list
*you can move the panel around by dragging it with the title bar
*limited the games search pattern to MAME / HBMAME as it's useless for other systems
*added support for night mode
- Several tweaks to "Delete Multiple Selected Games" screen; also added "night mode" support
- Changes and fixes to "Arcade Scan Games Results" screen ("View Missing ROMs/CHDs" in games popup menu)
*added a Device column to easily identify game sets with device ROMs
*added a file size column (you must create all arcade games lists to see this info)
*MAME CHD file sizes are detected "on the fly" while scan results list is being generated
*missing files texts are now painted in a dark gray color (light mode) and silver color (night mode)
.status columns text is painted in red color; much easier to spot missing files
*device ROMs were not properly tagged as device ROMs; weird bug as it was working fine for games with multiple device sets
*parent ROMs/CHDs were not properly tagged as parent files, making it not show "Parent" text in status column
*moved controls from bottom bar to top bar, reducing waste of space
*increased selected system icon size and font size of emulator/games list version texts to keep in sync with other screens
*window now have a fixed width size of 1015 pixels
*when viewing a single game, the window height will be shortened to avoid waste of space
*removed the redundant Close button since you can close it with the caption bar "close" button (or ESC key)
*"filename.zip found" and "filename.zip not found" texts are now in "green" and "red" color for easier reading
*status texts are now properly separated by comma; it gives a whole new meaning to the texts being shown
*support for night mode; visibility on this mode is much nicer and detailed than light mode
- Tweaks to "Game Details" screen (access in games popup menu or "Shift+I" shortcut)
*missing files texts are now painted in a dark grey color (light mode) and silver color (night mode)
*file size column added to game files list
*MAME CHD file sizes are detected "on the fly" while files list is being generated
*if a CHD filename text is larger than the label dimensions, the hint text will be enabled, hover mouse on it to see it
- Since MAME can load Unicode filenames directly from command line, Emu Loader will no longer convert them to DOS 8.3 format (run custom EmuCon console/computer games with MAME)
Added
- Tool bar colors settings for night mode in the new "Night Mode" page, Preferences screen
*for games tool bar filters, images tool bar and other "captionless" tool bars in the future
*support custom gradient background; gradient can be disabled to use a single color
*frame color is customizable; it can also be disabled
*tool bars with button caption enabled cannot be customized (TToolBar component limitation)
- Added a "Splitter" setting for "Game Documents" panel so you can customize it (Preferences screen, "Game Docs" page)
- Added a "Splitter Style" setting for image splitters, default to "Single Color" (Preferences screen, "Images" page)
- Support for Supermodel 3 Emulator SVN 735 ("Supermodel 3 Emulator Default Settings" screen)
.new settings: "scroll fog shaders", "tile map shaders", "stretch"
.added a "Use Custom [1-1000]" checkbox so you can enable/disable custom "PowerPC Bus Frequency (PPC)" frequency at will
- Added save states support for "Supermodel 3 Emulator"
*select a save state file before loading the game
*valid filenames are "gamename.st?" (state slots go from 0 to 9)
*save state folder is fixed by the Supermodel emulator and cannot be changed ("emudir\Saves\")
- ROM/CHD size info added to arcade and MAME software list sets
*games validation system do not use it, it's for information only
*ROM size info can be viewed in "Game Details" and "Games Scan Results" screens (games popup menu)
*you need to create new games lists for all arcade systems and MAME software lists to see this info, but frontend works fine without it
*games of Supermodel 3 emulator doesn't have ROM size info in "emudir\Config\games.xml"
*games of console/computer systems already have file size info (systems ported from EmuCon Frontend) |
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