ML TNG Release Notes
--------------------
December 6th, 2011
Beta u50 release

Major Addition: Added support for .XML Softlists for both MESS and MAME,
including those systems which have multi-slot mounting capabilities.
Usage is simple but can be confusing at first. The file mlreadme.txt will
show you what to do you mount carts for these multi-slot systems. When
the softlists are shown on screen, they currently are NOT checked for
have/missing, it´s simply a list of what the emulators states is available
to you to run via softlists. If multiple softlists are available to the
user, the description will be appended to show that with "{name_of_xml}".

Game level increased to 50000. This should cover even the largest .XML
softlist combinations (eg: crc_flop.xml and cpc_cass.xml, for instance,
is currently well over 26000 entries)

Added support for use of Haze´s "CompleteMAME" build, which is technically
a MAME and MESS combined build. Versions 0.144u1 and later are supported.
Be sure to edit your favorite.ml file with the name of the executable.

Snapshot support has been enhanced to include support for the .INI entry
"snapshot_directory" as well as default softlist snapshot support for
both MAME and MESS image packs, per system.

Fixed "command_line_addition" entry in FAVORITE.ML and it now works as
expected. Note, if you include any rompath information, it will not be
taken in account when doing the initial rom checks.

Got rid of some dead weight - Icons in support of command.dat viewing. I
never got them to work 100% correctly as they corrupted some normally
viewed text. The command.dat file can still be viewed but the special
icons are no longer shown. I may add them back if requested.

Dropped "Finding Default Browser Information". This was done primarily
due to the fact that non-administration accounts will often send a popup
warning you that this program is modifying your registry. The fact is
that ML was running REGEDIT to determine the contents for the variable
located in: "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOThttpshellopencommand" in order to
determine system default. Now, by default, Internet Explorer is used
until paste a new path to the "browse_path=" line in FAVORITE.ML.

ML used to have a feature for MESS which retained the last run for you (a
filename called MESSLAST.ML), so you could use a ´default´ configuration
when running a specific system. This has been superceeded by a new file
output called "commandlines.txt". This was designed to catch all command
lines produced for MAME/MESS and is appended every time a game is launched.
You may Edit or Delete this file whenever you feel the need. The lines
saved in the file can be used to put into .BAT files, if desired, to run
games directly via a shortcut.

Large text floods that accompany some games when you run them sometimes
greatly delay the restart of ML when the captures are thrown back to your
console window. Anything more than 5000 bytes is now saved to a file
instead, with a filename based on the time and what output it is.
(EG. 2011-12-05_115725_megatech-1.txt = DATE_TIME_SETNAME-1/2.txt)

Thanks go to B2K24 for his helpful testing and suggestions which has given
me the the impetus to continue working on ML a lot more lately.

Related links:
[ Frontend Downloads ]