pfeMame Changelogv0.999

• As of now, any pre-packaged Windows version is for 64 bit installs and will not run on 32 bit. If you need 32 bit then you will need to package it yourself as I cant manage the time involved in packaging different versions.
• IMPORTANT: As of this version, if you wish to have support for Home Computers (systems), you must use a version of catver.ini that has categories for home computers (e.g. ZX Spectrum). Try http://www.progettosnaps.net
  • The category description for the rom / program / game etc needs to be 'Home Computer', 'Game Console', etc..
• Games categories window modified to put the categories list into a scrollable panel. Had to do this as the latest catver.ini files have too many categories to fit onto the screen without overflow (Due to MAME and MESS being merged). The buttons are at the bottom of th escrolling panel so you have to scroll to the bottom to get to the buttons (I know this can be done better but that's for when I have more time)
• Started adding support for systems (e.g. ZX Spectrum) as follows;
  • As of MAME 0.164 MAME and MESS have been merged. This means that MAME can now run MESS systems like the ZX Spectrum. I have allowed these to be built into the main games list (after a refresh).
  • Added a Systems Support option to global preferences. Selecting this requires a manual refresh of the games database.
  • Added a Systems folder to the file paths – this is where your systems programs will be stored (in subfolders named after that particular system
  • Games list now also looks in a defined 'Systems' folder for the particular system (e.g. spectrum) and then media in that folder that fits the mame listmedia requirements for that system. This media or games / programs are then added to the main game database list
  • The category description for the rom / program / game etc needs to be 'Home Computer'.
• Have disabled game error / message output capture until I can solve a lock up issue found in Windows10 testing whereby if the game is exited very quickly after running (say 5 seconds), the code locks up at the p.communicate().
• Fixed the About window and Properties windows not closing properly without generating an error under windows 10 (Regression testing required for Windows XP and Linux)
• All child windows now have a specified pfeMame icon to show in the title bar – was needed under windows (Linux obviously doesn’t use it)
• Removed the website reference from the 'About' window as it doesn’t exist anymore – just not enough time & money to pay for it.
• Fixed the code in add to favourite – was throwing an error if a game wasn’t currently selected when added to the favorites.
• Fixed bug in filepaths input that was throwing an error if the Systems folder was undefined.
• Fixed bug in filepaths input that didn’t check for an invalid Cheats folder
• Added the Backspace key to be able to be used to delete a game from the favorites list (Up until now you could only use the Delete key)
• Improved some of the code used to build the games database to streamline just a little
• Added a 'Controls' popup window under HELP. This displays a list of the in-game controls for MAME.
• Have fixed the annoying problem when running the stand alone executable version under Windows where a console window would open whenever running a game, verifying roms, etc.
• The manual has been updated. It also now contains a known problems section.
• Substantial improvement in speed when building / rebuilding the games database. As an example, a large library with over 4000 games used to take 50 seconds on a very fast machine. This then reduced to 19 seconds after the code opimisations.
• Fixed the embedded icon not displaying correctly in Windows VISTA/7/8/10 (Would only work in XP).
• Created and including in source code distribution a 'setup.bat' file to simplify the building process for Windows distribution builds.
• Updated the windows build setup.py file to include file name, description, and version. This information is then included in the built EXE file.
• Fixed an annoying windows related issue where any warnings / errors were written to another log file and also caused a popup window after closing the application telling you to review the log file. This was just plain annoying so good riddance.

   v0.998

• When looking for game snapshot images to display, it now looks to see if a folder exists with that game/system name. If it does, it grabs the first image in that folder which should be named 0000.png. This adds support for system image snapshots which get put into a folder names as the system (e.g. spectrum).
• Tile view now updates the number of runs globally – meaning that when you return to the main window mode, the number of runs has been updated there as well as in the database. To do this I had to remove the feature that brought the played game to the top of the list.
• A few cosmetic changes to the games list header to make it stand out a bit better
• Fixed a bug in the type ahead filtering for search. It was all of a sudden broken with a newer install / version of mame (not sure exactly which one). Just decoded the strings into UTF-8 for the comparison and it fixed it.
• Added a text display on the screen to show the database cache age in days
• Added a check to make sure a game was actually selected before allowing the game to be run – just prevents odd output errors if you click the Play Game icon after first running the application but not selecting any games
• After performing a database cache manual refresh, the search input box is cleared. Had to be done as after a refresh the games list is rebuilt and reset to the start so any previous search value is useless.

 v0.997

• When you select a different view from the drop down list, and search text in the search input box is deleted as the search is reset anyway
• Removed 'memcard' from the file paths window as it is no longer used by MAME (I had previously released a quickfix by dumping it from the command line but still had to delete it completely.
• Fixed the incorrect naming of variables in the [driver].ini files (INI path). This was causing INI file read errors from being reported in the 'Messages' window after running games. NOTE: YOU NEED TO DELETE YOUR INI FILES IN THE 'INI' FOLDER AND RESET ANY GAME SPECIFIC PREFERENCES FROM STOPPING THIS ERROR FROM POPPING UP IN FUTURE – SORRY FOR THE PAIN.
• Cosmetic changes in the Preferences window
  • Moved an asterisk to better location for readability
  • Removed a wayward ')'
  • Removed 'opengl16' and 'none' from the video rendering options. OpenGL16 for Linux worked on some linux platforms and not others. 'None' was an option to not draw any video at all and is really only there for MAME developers so I didn't see any practical need for it.
  • Arranged some options in a grid view to better utilise space and make room for the expanded set of artwork options
  • Added an expanded set of artwork options
• Added a full expanded set of artwork options to the system and game specific preferences including backdrops, overlays, bezels, control panels, and marquees
• Fixed some logging info when running games. It was always saying the game ran in Tile View even if it was normal view, and the message stating if using default or game specific preferences wasnt being displayed and logged
• Minor cosmetic changes in tile view;
  • 'From:' text changed to 'Available in this view:' as it makes more sense
  • Size of instructions and informative text reduced to fit things in a bit better – may still need some work though
• Added 'Number of runs:' into the Tile view information panel
• Fixed the way the search field is reset – now the previous search value is only reset when the view drop down box is altered.
• Added into preferences a field for the Games Cache number of days of age – now you can define how many days will pass before the program prompts you to update the games cache
• Some code improvements to the Check All Games function and window – slight speed improvements
• Moved the platform check (windows, linux, etc) into functions.py so that in the future additional platform checks can be centralised

  v0.996

• Removed the setting of the memcard folder from the run game command line. This command seems to have been removed in the latest version of MAME for some reason. I cannot yet find a reason why.

   v0.995

• Re-fixed the absolute paths for icons, images, files etc. The method I previously used was not 100% when it came to Linux / Windows and has now been tested to work under the following conditions;
  • Windows & Linux
  • Running application source(.py) from command line
  • Running from editor
  • Running compiled .exe directly
  • Running compiled .exe from a desktop shortcut
• Updated the pfemame.ico file to be more correct (multiple embedded resolutions). Design has also been updated
• Under windows, the EXE has an embedded icon
• Added to preferences the ability to highlight games that don't have a corresponding rom file in the ROMs folder path
• Fixed some graphical layout issues in the main view under Windows – the View combobox and search entry field top border were being overdrawn by the toolbar icons.
• Altered the way the games list is refreshed after changing; star ratings, number of runs, and adding to favorites. The list will now maintain whatever filter view it had previously prior to these actions.
• Fixed a bug that caused games with no category listing in catver.ini from being repeated may times in the game list as it tried to find a match through the categories.dat file.

  v0.994

• Added a new preference to set the default filter view for the main game display so that the application will switch to your preferred view after startup (All, Favorites, Exists)
• Re-ordered some of the preferences in the preferences view
• Fixed relative path pointers so that if the application is run via a link (especially under Linux), the path to supporting files etc is correct and errors are prevented
• Added a check for the mame version and displays the version on the main screen
• Updated the formatting of the messages window to improve display
• Added the pfemame version number and mame executable version number display to the tile view

  v0.993

• Fixed a bug in verify roms code, and check all roms code. I was not specifying the full path name to the roms. This would be ok if the mame.ini file contained the rom folder but as I am trying to get away from that this code needs to work correctly.
• You can now use .7z rom files - fixed a bug that prevented rom files with different extensions (e.g. .7z) from being shown in the exists list. I was filtering for .zip only.
• Fixed a bug that caused an error to be generated if after first time run you tried to set some game categories before the games database had been refreshed (or a restart performed)
• Fixed a 'feature' in tile view where if the mouse is used to click on a game image then the focus and location is screwed up. The idea is that the mouse is not used at all but if you do use it then the keyboard commands my stop responding and you're stuck unable to exit the view.
• Fixed the MAME logo in tile view – had accidentally made it very dull in previous release
• Some formatting changes to the rominfo window – looks nicer – fits better.
• 'Preferences' changed to 'Default Preferences'
• Enabled Game Specific Preferences. When a game is run, it will now check first if an INI folder is set up, and if so, if a valid game INI file exists. If it does it will read out any game specific preferences and use those rather than default preferences.
• Updated the preferences window to support either default or game preferences mode
• Game preferences changes write to the INI file in the INI folder path
• Added to the right click menu 'Game Preferences' so that game specific preferences can be set
• game command string and running code from main view and tile view combined into common class and imported from separate file. Code efficiency improvement.

  v0.992

• Added TE_RICH and TE_AUTO_URL to the game info text control – this should format the game URL as an actual URL.
• Added a busy info display for when building the game icon list. This is the only real way to tell the user what's going on as the icon list is created before the window is drawn as the control has to be created before it is inserted into the sizer etc etc. At the moment the icon list only takes ages if in preferences the option to not scale the icons is selected. Although counter intuitive, this is because scaling is done on the fly dynamically on only the icons displayed so its reasonably fast on modern systems (I don't have an older system to see how it goes on them). When you don't select the scaling, the icons will be displayed full size and nice and pretty. Only problem is that the program has to work out the maximum size of the largest icon so that it can set the row height up. The only way so far to do this is to scan each and every icon in the file path and check their sizes on startup, and then just set the row height to the largest size – hence this takes ages.
• Replaced the list control used in tile view for displaying the game list with a customized control built up with a series of text controls. The main reason for this is to have better control of how it all worked and looked, as well as solving the problem of displaying a scrollbar which I don't want (especially in Windows as it looks UGLY).
• Altered the horizontal spacing math in tile view as at some image sizes it was forcing the information panel off the RHS a bit.
• Updated the Quickstart & readme file. Also removed from the distribution files – just download it separately.
• Update the tileview code to include a panel around the information panel area and then applied a color to the panel. This will allow me to apply some color to this area to make it stand out a bit
• Tidied up the code in TileView and split the information panel out into a sub class
• When using the type ahead search, it will now also look for a match with the rom file name, not just the game name
• Removed the logging of the filtered list creation as it was firing too many logs when using the type ahead search
• The search is also more intelligent now. You can enter a series of search words that don't have to be in a specific order in order to get the right match – useful if you don't exactly know the right format of a long name (e.g. 'blah blah (bootleg of whatever)' – you could search for 'blah bootleg')
• Quickstart guide changed to pfeMame Manual as there is more detail being added all the time so it's more than just a quickstart guide I think.
• In preferences the video option has been updated to be platform specific (For windows and Linux as I don't know the video options for OSX and don't have access to the operating system for testing). The INI file default writer has also been updated to include these differences when it creates a fresh pfeMame.ini file. This change also fixes the error message in Windows that an invalid video option has been selected.
• Fixed a bug in the default INI file creator that wasn't setting default preferences correctly when creating a fresh pfeMame.ini file.
• When running 'check all games' it checks the roms and also the samples now – while this takes a lot longer, it is more thorough.
• The information panel in tile view now expands to the right to fill up unused space. This makes much more efficient use of space and also allows for longer game names to be displayed.

    v0.991

• Added a block around image drawing to prevent the system from reporting errors with malformed PNG files. In WindowsXP this was still causing crashes due to some odd reason.
• Added some padding around the border of the gametypes window to make it look nicer.
• Added some padding around the border of the filepaths window to make it look nicer.
• Added some padding around the border of the preferences window to make it look nicer.
• Added a check to gametypes for the existence of a path to catver.ini. If not present it warns the user and exits.
• In the main application I have added a check for catver.ini valid path when reading the preferences. If it is not set then it tries to fall back to local copy (out of date) distributed with the application. This is so that the game list is at least built up correctly.
• Added the writing of the results from checking all roms to a text file

 v0.99

• Changed the icon list creation to a 'virtual' method. This greatly speeds up loading.
• Added an option to scale or not scale the icons. Scaling is faster to load.
• Added a 'cached' games database (written to csv file) which speeds up the startup time hugely. The system checks if the cache is older than 5 days and if it is it lets you know that it should be updated.
• Replaced the old blank icon with a transparent 16x16 pixel blank
• Changed 'defaultgamepreferences' to 'preferences'
• Fixed bug that would cause lockup if we tried to run a game without any game being selected. Also fixed the same for rom information
• Added a toolbar
• Changed add to favorites and star rating to only update the logfile if a game was actually selected prior to selecting the option
• Fixed bug introduced with ultimatelistctrl – delete keypress was not being decoded correctly as the event name changes with this control
• Updated the license in the 'About' box
• Added a 'check all' window
• Added a fallback check if the pfemame.ini file doesnt exist – it will be created from scratch
• Added a check if the path for the mame executable has not been set – the application will not try to build the games list and will prompt the user to set the path.
• Fixed a bug that caused lockups / crashes if the categories.dat file didnt exist. Major problem for first-time run.

    v0.985

• Updated filepaths child to remember the last selected folder when defining folders. This is mostly just useful the first time the application is run when you go to set everything up – usually all of the files / folders are in the same path or very close. If you close the window then it forgets the path.
• Added a scrolling games list on RHS of the tileview
• In Tile view I have added a basic check for the operating system type ('win' or 'linux'). This is currently used just to sort out the difference in how the two platforms exit a game and get back into fullscreen mode. It may be useful for other rendering differences later.

   v0.984

• An override class was added for wx.Log to redirect to the game messages box and the application log file. This takes care of the nast popup message 'tEXt CRC error' that happens when I try to display malformed png images.
• Hid the debug panel in text view by default. Pressing the '3' key will toggle it visible / hidden.
• Altered the 'getExists' code so that it first created a list of games in the folderRoms directory before performing the check if they exist. Previously I tested each one on the fly by trying to open it – this is fine if ti is local ona fast drive. If the drive is remote or visualized then this took AGES!!!!. much better now.
• Added the scrollbar to the 'checking if exists' stage of startup
• Removed the border from the bitmapbutton and added a horizontal gap of 2 pixels to the gridsizer. This makes the buttons look just like an image in Windows as they do in Linux.
• Fixed a bug I had introduced into TileView whereby the game would not run – this was introduced when I updated the command string generation – I was trying to write directly to the log file rather than using the remote function call designed for child windows.
• Corrected a bug in the alpha fade out / in of game images in tile view when the screen is scrolled up / down. When scrolled, position 0 would be highlited when it should be the game button with focus.
• In tile view I have adjusted the vertical and horizontal spacings a bit to better lay things out and prevent the highlite box and game text from being cut off at times.
• Fixed a bug that caused the screen not to redraw correctly when coming out of a game in tile view.
• Switched the list control to an ultimatelistctrl. This allows me to use different image sizes so that I can go back to using my awesome 5-star icons. I'm hoping it may also allow me to sort out the slow loading of the icons somehow.

  v0.983

• Joystick navigation in TileView added
• Added preferences to use the game artwork
• Added preferences to show the game icons (can help speedup if the icon sizes are very large)
• Fixed a bug introduced earlier which prevented the output to the log file of the game options when running a game. This happened when I changed the way the 'cmd' is formatted for command line operations.
• Changed the way the game execution command line is built up after I learned a bit more about how the Popen command actually worked. I believe I am doing it correctly now and it also doesn't need the command prompt = True bit which looked odd in WindowsXP.

  v0.982

• Changed the star rating icons to a 16x16 icon as under windows a larger icon would cause a python crash. This is due to Windows using a different control formatting than Linux. Linux allows any mix of different size images while windows does not.
• Created an application icon

   v0.981

• Removed the disable instruction from the game name text controls as under windows XP this caused the background color to become light grey instead of black.
• Added -multithreading option to default game preferences and normal / tile views
• Changed name to pfeMame as my previous name already existed in the Internet (should have checked)
• Added state and input folders settings
• Removed the background color setting that I was using in defaultgamepreferences module for the staticbox. In linux it just provided a nice colour for the outline, but in windows it made the entire background colour look horrible.
• Create my own single choice dialog as the built in one crashes under windows XP.
• In Tile View, removed the wx.Panel and have instead drawn all objects direct to the window. I had to do this in order to get the arrow keys to be detected without holding down the 'ALT' key under windows XP (Linux worked ok). It seems this issue is caused by the differences between Linux and Winodws in how they handle the navigation keys.
• During WindowxXP testing I found and fixed the following bugs;
  • FileDialog was crashing in the folderpaths module due to incorrect wildcard settings.
  • Font settings were failing due to incorrect setting of default font.
  • The command string for building the game list using mame -ll was incorrect. I had followed an example for passing multiple commands to the output by putting them in parenthesis, but If there is just one command then you need to omit the parenthesis.
  • Right click popup over the list control took two right clicks. I found out that I needed to change the event triggering to a button 'down' event, not up. This then ment that I had to manually use a hittest to determine the mouse pointer location and then select that row so that the event calls actually knew what was selected.
  • The search box height was huge whereas under linux it seemed find. This is because I was manually setting the height. I have changed this to default (-1) so that the system font size will now set the height. This way it looks ok under both operating systems.
  • Fixed a python crash if we hit delete on the favorites view when nothing is selected.
  • Created my own 'About' dialog box as the built in one crashed under windows XP