QuickPlay Frontend

What is the background to this release?
Two things:

1. Making MAME Softlists and emulators work even better than ever: the MAME functionality in QuickPlay is really unique, so I'm quite happy now...
   
   After my last set of improvements to the MAME softlists (where I noted that MAME had conflicts in its softlist game names between different media devices and ensured that all the working softlists we use in QuickPlay call the right media type where necessary), I just HAD to play all the MAME softlists. What QuickPlay does, uniquely as far as I know, is presents to us softlists which MAME says works, and present only those games that also say they work.....but i'd never taken the time to load media on all those softlists, do stuff like configure joypads and keyboards, and play games...so I did, I took the time, and I did them ALL. And, a LOT works, really well!
   
   I made a list of the changes that needed to be made to QuickPlay as I went, and the most major areas were systems which weren't being loaded with the right MAME emulator for various reasons, and systems where some kind of loading media is needed. 'Loading Media' means that, if I want to load a floppy disk, I'm going to need a BASIC rom inserted into the system's cartridge slot in order that that will work (e.g.: Thomson TO7), or those NES and SNES cartridges that needed a cartridge inserted into another cartridge for whatever reason. And all that can be automated. Remember: MAME is one of the world's more accurate emulators, its not a simulator, if you want a game to work, you have to load it in the digital representation just as you would do in real life. The list of changes to make got quite large and I implemented all these in QuickPlay and also implemented a method for massaging any earlier MAME system names that had to change for this release. Now if you run the MAME tools from QuickPlay's main menu item, and get the softlist systems working in MAME or RetroArch, you'll have fuuuunnnn...
   
   Remember, you can setup MAME on its own, or you can setup RetroArch's MAME driver (or both if you like!). MAME/RetroArch need to work outside of QuickPlay for anything to work inside QuickPlay, look on their sites for how to do that, then take a look at these pages on the wiki to help you set things up:
   http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/MAME
   http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/MESS
   http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/i ... rchMameMod
   then they'll work with all your other emulators and sets, and the world will be amazing........
2. 8-Cyo has been busy updating the Efinds (these automatically find modern emulators on your windows machine if you set a starting directory, and can help you with information about each emulator), and he's also updated the system file extensions. A big win is BizHawk support via the new EFinds. MAME and RetroArch have taken so much of my time lately, that i'm grateful of help for other emulators: remember: QuickPlay is about making ALL kinds of emulators work, it exists because neither MAME or RetoArch will ever support the newer systems....QuickPlay makes it so you can have them all under one UI, so thanks 8-Cyo for updating other emulators while i've been busy...[/li]

How do I use the new Softlists code if I already made a set of Softlist games?
Just delete the softlist romdata folder you made last time, do another scan and efind like you did before (overwriting all the previous mame emulators), and make another softlist set using the Arcade menu.

Future plans?
I'd still like to automate the media panel for these MAME systems, to setup all screenshots and add info about quirks of each system so that you can play them without hassle. Its amazing when MAME's assets are setup in QuickPlay's media panel, but you still have to link these yourself. Also I've setup Joypads and documented loading in each MAME console and conputer system and it would be great to be able to share that with you in some way (but, for instance, sharing my MAME .cfg and .ini files with you would turn QuickPlay into a different thing, its not prescriptive and limiting atm...but I can assure you 95% of the softlists QuickPlay makes for you can now be played quickly and easily

I feel like i've turned a corner now with MAME, so I hope to be able to conentrate on something else now, probably refreshing command-line support. We'll see....

enjoy the new release....

Thanks.
The only thing that i hope in future for QP is a true portable mode. For QP works flawless in a thumb drive, not depending of a drive letter or the directory that is placed.

I think you need to explain your problem again, I have used many external drives and have never had to touch QuickPlay's drive migration wizard. I use subst, net use and symlinks to ensure that games are where I want them to be. Could you post again, maybe with pictures, explaining what you want to happen and what QuickPlay doesn't do? Maybe if you post on your original thread here, rather than in this release thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1097

I'll post some suggestions in that thread