Discussing New EFind Entries

[8-Cyo]

can anyone provide a full efind for DiscoHawk? I've been wanting to find time to do that for years?

I returned!
DiscoHawk is just a tool for BizHawk that converts iso or bin/cue to img/ccd/sub. Unless you want to first convert a bin/cue and then run the ccd in BizHawk.

[butter100fly]

sorry, just ignore me.....tired after that last release....

[8-Cyo]

What I plan to do is make a new EFind ini for OpenMSX and all systems it supports (including C-BIOS and ColecoVision), but I currently have not QP due to changes and I didn't take advantage to download it again when I had the chance, now I can't download it, but once I download it, I'll begin with it

[butter100fly]

Thanks! To explain this (now stickied) topic for any noobs: QuickPlay can find emulators on your machine, all of them, in one scan, and set them up in QuickPlay so they can be immediately used to run your games. There are thousands of emulators already setup in those efinds, including all the different systems supported by MAME, RetroArch and so on....The configuration files for all the emulators are in a really simple text format in the 'EFind' directory under where you have your QuickPlay executable. Once you see them, you'll see how easy it is to update and amend them, you need no special knowledge, and you should then understand how useful to other people it would be to post any efinds you update here, and i'll put them into the next QuickPlay release. So if you find something out-of-date: just update it and post it to us! (Currently the efind format lacks a notes field, there is a tradition of using the 'homepage' field for any additional information, just read 'notes' when you see 'homepage')

You can either amend the text files in QuickPlay - open the efind editor in the Emulators menu (useful if you're starting out to undertsand how the compression text works), and once you do that a few times, you'll probably just start to do it in a text editor for speed instead.

[8-Cyo]

But I do not promise it will be soon, I also plan to create a copy of your MAME EFind for MESS (I see MESS-only is still being used even if 4 years have been passed since it merged with MAME).

A possibly problem I see to MAME EFind is the case someone gets/compiles Arcade-only of MAME, and then imports it to QP, appears the huge list for MAME and the user can't use none of them... I don't know I'm just imaging this, you can ignore this I'm saying but don't be impressed if this is reported as a bug.

After making the EFind updates in the beginning of the year, I did never learned how the compression works, at first I thought it was a SHA-1 checksum but I did never checked it, it's just I am dumb XD.

[butter100fly]

Ah yes I see your point! Thanks! If you only have MAME Arcade to use QuickPlay, you will get thousands of emulators that can't be used. Its difficult with things like this because I don't want to create settings that the inexperienced user will have to understand in order to be able to use the MAME functionality, but we do want advanced users to be able to stop the mess_mame.ini efind creation. I will think about that thanks for raising. Ideally we'd probe the users MAME executable for whether its Arcade only or not (do you have any ideas how to do that?)

I'm not sure what you intend to do with the Mess_Mame.ini but be aware that, as i've suggested above, it should be generated by QuickPlay, live, only when you scan a MAME XML, so its 'special' unlike any of the other EFinds, if you want to change things in it they should probably be changed in the code that produces the efind from your MAME XML, rather than in the Efind itself (I have no way of incorporating any changes you make in that file for other users to benefit from, because as soon as they run a MAME scan, your changes would be overwritten with the new ini file that QuickPlay will make). Really I need to remove that EFind from the QuickPlay install files (I should never have had it as part of the release fileset) because the contents of the file depend on what version of the mame.xml you have scanned (and what version of QuickPlay you have scanned it with). If you want an updated Mess_Mame.ini, you run the MAME tool in the Arcade menu against your version of the MAME XML. Hope you understand me? The file is only about MESS ie: the non-arcade emulators because the Arcade efind with the MAME and other executables in it, is just a simple EFind (and probably needs updating by someone )

So you're saying you understand how the compression string works now yes? it simply changes depending on which of the boxes you've ticked in compression options for that EFind entry. Its a pity it looks like a SHA yes!

[8-Cyo]

Ah yes I see your point! Thanks! If you only have MAME Arcade to use QuickPlay, you will get thousands of emulators that can't be used. Its difficult with things like this because I don't want to create settings that the inexperienced user will have to understand in order to be able to use the MAME functionality, but we do want advanced users to be able to stop the mess_mame.ini efind creation. I will think about that thanks for raising. Ideally we'd probe the users MAME executable for whether its Arcade only or not (do you have any ideas how to do that?)

If you have a uncheck all or even better, have a folder-style for every EFind file that you can show/hide it's contents AND uncheck it to uncheck all emulators (or systems in case the EFind is just one emulator). Will solve this, but if you have already implemented this, sorry (I have to soon download QuickPlay, need to find a chance to do it, I hate my internet)...

I'm not sure what you intend to do with the Mess_Mame.ini but be aware that, as i've suggested above, it should be generated by QuickPlay, live, only when you scan a MAME XML, so its 'special' unlike any of the other EFinds, if you want to change things in it they should probably be changed in the code that produces the efind from your MAME XML, rather than in the Efind itself (I have no way of incorporating any changes you make in that file for other users to benefit from, because as soon as they run a MAME scan, your changes would be overwritten with the new ini file that QuickPlay will make). Really I need to remove that EFind from the QuickPlay install files (I should never have had it as part of the release fileset) because the contents of the file depend on what version of the mame.xml you have scanned (and what version of QuickPlay you have scanned it with). If you want an updated Mess_Mame.ini, you run the MAME tool in the Arcade menu against your version of the MAME XML. Hope you understand me? The file is only about MESS ie: the non-arcade emulators because the Arcade efind with the MAME and other executables in it, is just a simple EFind (and probably needs updating by someone )

I don't plan to change Mess_Mame.ini, what I'm thinking is that users STILL download/compile MESS only (the consoles only part of MAME) from here: https://messui.1emulation.com/ or other emulation pages, but mess64.exe isn't the same as mame64.exe. If you really made a way to produce a EFind automatically from the XML file, there is no problem, it would do the same with either MAME (the complete one, built officially by the developers at the MAMEdev site), or MESS-only. Of course the main focus is the complete MAME, but MESS-only users would be happy of it if it's possible. Again, I like the idea of system detection, but won't it also detect the arcades too?

So you're saying you understand how the compression string works now yes? it simply changes depending on which of the boxes you've ticked in compression options for that EFind entry. Its a pity it looks like a SHA yes!

I get it, heh! So it is the zip, rar, those files, I thought it was a SHA-1 of the whole text except the compression itself, but now it's clearly when you say it.

[butter100fly]

Yes sure I see, at the moment you're right the MESS-only support is incomplete and you won't be able to print softlists for a MESS-only executable, even though there is a Mess Frontends.ini EFind. I need to fix that and i'll open a ticket

I think i'll move our converstion out of this topic, as this sticky is supposed to be for posting efinds!

[8-Cyo]

Yes sure I see, at the moment you're right the MESS-only support is incomplete and you won't be able to print softlists for a MESS-only executable, even though there is a Mess Frontends.ini EFind. I need to fix that and i'll open a ticket

I think i'll move our converstion out of this topic, as this sticky is supposed to be for posting efinds!

Yeah hehe, I think I've been in my nerd mode and anywhere I'm in my nerd mode I write a lot of words and nothing can stop me, once you move it (from my post after your advice for noobs) we can keep talking about this. If you have not ideas for a thread name, read my subject

[8-Cyo]

Oh, already you did, and I didn't notice it XD I'm dumb