Post by Jonathan Leung on Aug 20, 2005 23:26:04 GMT -5
I was E-Mailed a question from a man named Robert about his AdvanceMENU configuration. I thought I would post the E-Mail exchanges so if anyone is having the same problem they might be able to gleam an answer from the experience.
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E-Mail #1:
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Tim,
First of all, nice website. Lots of good information.
I’ve been using AdvanceMenu since about 2003, and recently I’ve run into a problem. I had originally set it up to enter and exit a game based on pressing of two buttons simultaneously. Recently, I decided I’d rather have the 1 player button enter a game, and the combination of the 1 player and 2 player button exit the game. I have changed the advmenu.rc file until I’m blue in the face and cannot get it to work. I can get the 1 player button (1 on the keyboard) to enter a game, but no matter what I enter under ‘esc’, the game still uses the old button combination to exit. It’s like it is locked on the old values somehow and not getting a refresh from the .rc data file. Is there somewhere else that this is entered? I did it two years ago, and can’t seem to recreate my success.
I did have three versions of the .rc data file in three different directories (C:\, C:\advmenu and C:\Dmame) but I’m certain that the C:\Dmame is the one being used as it is the one updated by Advmenu when making changes from the UI. The other two still have mod dates of 2003.
Second question, is what configuration are you using in your picture? I really like the colors and the list on the left with the large preview on the right. Is that a custom preview jpg for what appears to be space invaders? I’ve never seen any that looked that good.
Thanks for any help you can offer,
Robert
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E-Mail Reply #1:
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Robert,
First off, thanks for your kind words about the website. Watch for some new updates very soon! More on that later...
Second, your problem sounds very peculiar. Let me first start off simple and ask is your advmenu.rc read only? This is usually the case if you copied the file from a cd rom because cd rom files are read only. To change this, you can use the attrib command with the -r option to change it.
If this is not the case, my next question is what keyboard encoder are you using? If you are using the I Pac or J Pac (which we recommend) then you can program it to when you hold player 1 start and press player 2 start that it automatically hits the escape key. This is accomplished by letting your player 1 start button being your "shift" key that allows alternate assignments for every key. I hope this makes sense but if not please let me know.
About the picture that you see on our site, the configuration is not posted but the advmenu.rc that is posted is also very cool! The advmenu.rc on the site comes from our classic mame cocktail version and has a black background with light green text and selection. I actually prefer this configuration better. The configuration for the posted image does not exist as we have gone to MAMEwah for a frontend which you can see a picture of under the Moore's MAME Machine. The image of space invaders came with the MAME ROM set that we purchased from Doug Burton who is the official burner for Tim's Arcade Restoration and whom we highly recommend. You can check out his website at www.geocities.com/dougburton/.
Right now, I am in the process of building an AdvanceMENU cabinet that looks very close to our MAMEwah cabinet. Watch for updates on this very soon. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Have a great day and good luck!
Jonathan Leung
Computer Technician for Tim's Arcade Restoration
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E-Mail #2:
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Jonathan,
No, the advmenu.rc isn’t readonly…I’m able to change it in both DOS edit and using the menu within advmenu.
I’m using the X-arcade dual joystick controller which I think probably uses an IPAC.
Maybe I’m changing the wrong thing….I remember two years ago when I set the thing up, changing something somewhere in a text file, such that certain button combinations would launch a game, and exit a game. I thought that this was in advmenu.rc. I changed the event_enter to be a ‘1’ which is the X-Arcade equivalent to hitting the one player button. That successfully enabled me to launch a game with the one player button. I changed the event_esc to a ‘1 2’ (space intentional) to correspond to hitting the one and two player buttons at the same time to exit a game. But, no matter what I change it to, the old button combination is the only way I’m able to exit a game which is the equivalent of pressing two buttons mapped to the numbers 5 and 6 on the X-Arcade. Is there somewhere else that defines what keys exit a game? Does advmenu read the rc file and build an XML file or something else, and maybe if it doesn’t like the ‘1 2’ it keeps the last good configuration of 5 and 6? It is boggling my mind. What’s frustrating is that I KNOW I did these 2 years ago when I first setup the original button combos.
I did copy some of the color settings from the example RC file on your site, and I must say they are 10 times better than the default color scheme of advmenu. Much easier to read and I liked the single preview snap vs what I was doing which was displaying the tiled marquee, cabinet and snap.
Oh, and what is the PNG image that you are using in your example file as the background?
Keep up the good work as I’ve bookmarked your site and look forward to updates. I’m jealous of the four person layout you have….Would make playing gauntlet a blast J
Robert
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E-Mail Reply #2:
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Robert,
The read only thing was the first and simplest fix that came to my mind. I have had times where that has happened to me so I wanted to make sure you had not fallen into the same trap.
I am not familiar with the X-Arcade encoder. I do know, however, that they use a custom encoder for their joysticks which is different from the I PAC. To answer your question, AdvanceMENU uses the advmenu.rc to define keys within AdvanceMENU, however, to define the keys for DMAME (which is the emulator you are using) you must use the tab menu within DMAME . Bingo, sounds like you need to define your exit command within dmame instead of AdvanceMENU. The only thing that changing event_esc to a '1 2' does is tells it to exit AdvanceMENU NOT DMAME. Hopefully this will work for you.
As far as the PNG file we are using in the example, it is a custom job done by myself. Most of our
clientele likes our machines because of the custom stuff so I'm hesitant to put it up on the website. However, I'm working on some more custom artwork that I might post sometime soon.
I'm glad you like the color scheme. We are kind of partial to it ourselves! When we first started using AdvanceMENU we used the default color scheme but then we found out that Light Text on Dark Backgrounds shows up better than the traditional Dart Text on Light Backgrounds so we changed it up. Our four player cabinet is awesome and we usually play Gauntlet, Dungeons and Dragons, and X-Men on it. I would highly recommend getting a nice four player joystick at some point, it makes the experience so much better!
Well, hope this helps. Thanks for your interest in Tim's Arcade Restoration and Good Luck in your future MAME endeavors.
Jonathan Leung
Computer Technician for Tim's Arcade Restoration
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E-Mail #3:
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Jonathan,
Well, I feel really stupid….I forgot all about the DMame menu!! I was so sure it was either the .rc or the mame.cfg or some other text file that I edited, that I completely overlooked the TAB menu. That was exactly it and now it works like a champ. Thanks for your patience and expertise…Saved me from going crazy.
No problem on the PNG file. I was just curious as to how that affected the UI, and noticed reference to it in the writeup and in the rc file itself. Guess I could plug one of the game PNGs in just to see what it does.
Again, thanks heaps.
Robert
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Comments:
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Well, this is something that seems simple but can be easily overlooked. Remember that setting up MAME machines (while made easier over the years) is still a complicated process that involves lots of tweaking! Good Luck to all MAME cabinet builders!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail #1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim,
First of all, nice website. Lots of good information.
I’ve been using AdvanceMenu since about 2003, and recently I’ve run into a problem. I had originally set it up to enter and exit a game based on pressing of two buttons simultaneously. Recently, I decided I’d rather have the 1 player button enter a game, and the combination of the 1 player and 2 player button exit the game. I have changed the advmenu.rc file until I’m blue in the face and cannot get it to work. I can get the 1 player button (1 on the keyboard) to enter a game, but no matter what I enter under ‘esc’, the game still uses the old button combination to exit. It’s like it is locked on the old values somehow and not getting a refresh from the .rc data file. Is there somewhere else that this is entered? I did it two years ago, and can’t seem to recreate my success.
I did have three versions of the .rc data file in three different directories (C:\, C:\advmenu and C:\Dmame) but I’m certain that the C:\Dmame is the one being used as it is the one updated by Advmenu when making changes from the UI. The other two still have mod dates of 2003.
Second question, is what configuration are you using in your picture? I really like the colors and the list on the left with the large preview on the right. Is that a custom preview jpg for what appears to be space invaders? I’ve never seen any that looked that good.
Thanks for any help you can offer,
Robert
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail Reply #1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert,
First off, thanks for your kind words about the website. Watch for some new updates very soon! More on that later...
Second, your problem sounds very peculiar. Let me first start off simple and ask is your advmenu.rc read only? This is usually the case if you copied the file from a cd rom because cd rom files are read only. To change this, you can use the attrib command with the -r option to change it.
If this is not the case, my next question is what keyboard encoder are you using? If you are using the I Pac or J Pac (which we recommend) then you can program it to when you hold player 1 start and press player 2 start that it automatically hits the escape key. This is accomplished by letting your player 1 start button being your "shift" key that allows alternate assignments for every key. I hope this makes sense but if not please let me know.
About the picture that you see on our site, the configuration is not posted but the advmenu.rc that is posted is also very cool! The advmenu.rc on the site comes from our classic mame cocktail version and has a black background with light green text and selection. I actually prefer this configuration better. The configuration for the posted image does not exist as we have gone to MAMEwah for a frontend which you can see a picture of under the Moore's MAME Machine. The image of space invaders came with the MAME ROM set that we purchased from Doug Burton who is the official burner for Tim's Arcade Restoration and whom we highly recommend. You can check out his website at www.geocities.com/dougburton/.
Right now, I am in the process of building an AdvanceMENU cabinet that looks very close to our MAMEwah cabinet. Watch for updates on this very soon. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Have a great day and good luck!
Jonathan Leung
Computer Technician for Tim's Arcade Restoration
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E-Mail #2:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan,
No, the advmenu.rc isn’t readonly…I’m able to change it in both DOS edit and using the menu within advmenu.
I’m using the X-arcade dual joystick controller which I think probably uses an IPAC.
Maybe I’m changing the wrong thing….I remember two years ago when I set the thing up, changing something somewhere in a text file, such that certain button combinations would launch a game, and exit a game. I thought that this was in advmenu.rc. I changed the event_enter to be a ‘1’ which is the X-Arcade equivalent to hitting the one player button. That successfully enabled me to launch a game with the one player button. I changed the event_esc to a ‘1 2’ (space intentional) to correspond to hitting the one and two player buttons at the same time to exit a game. But, no matter what I change it to, the old button combination is the only way I’m able to exit a game which is the equivalent of pressing two buttons mapped to the numbers 5 and 6 on the X-Arcade. Is there somewhere else that defines what keys exit a game? Does advmenu read the rc file and build an XML file or something else, and maybe if it doesn’t like the ‘1 2’ it keeps the last good configuration of 5 and 6? It is boggling my mind. What’s frustrating is that I KNOW I did these 2 years ago when I first setup the original button combos.
I did copy some of the color settings from the example RC file on your site, and I must say they are 10 times better than the default color scheme of advmenu. Much easier to read and I liked the single preview snap vs what I was doing which was displaying the tiled marquee, cabinet and snap.
Oh, and what is the PNG image that you are using in your example file as the background?
Keep up the good work as I’ve bookmarked your site and look forward to updates. I’m jealous of the four person layout you have….Would make playing gauntlet a blast J
Robert
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E-Mail Reply #2:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert,
The read only thing was the first and simplest fix that came to my mind. I have had times where that has happened to me so I wanted to make sure you had not fallen into the same trap.
I am not familiar with the X-Arcade encoder. I do know, however, that they use a custom encoder for their joysticks which is different from the I PAC. To answer your question, AdvanceMENU uses the advmenu.rc to define keys within AdvanceMENU, however, to define the keys for DMAME (which is the emulator you are using) you must use the tab menu within DMAME . Bingo, sounds like you need to define your exit command within dmame instead of AdvanceMENU. The only thing that changing event_esc to a '1 2' does is tells it to exit AdvanceMENU NOT DMAME. Hopefully this will work for you.
As far as the PNG file we are using in the example, it is a custom job done by myself. Most of our
clientele likes our machines because of the custom stuff so I'm hesitant to put it up on the website. However, I'm working on some more custom artwork that I might post sometime soon.
I'm glad you like the color scheme. We are kind of partial to it ourselves! When we first started using AdvanceMENU we used the default color scheme but then we found out that Light Text on Dark Backgrounds shows up better than the traditional Dart Text on Light Backgrounds so we changed it up. Our four player cabinet is awesome and we usually play Gauntlet, Dungeons and Dragons, and X-Men on it. I would highly recommend getting a nice four player joystick at some point, it makes the experience so much better!
Well, hope this helps. Thanks for your interest in Tim's Arcade Restoration and Good Luck in your future MAME endeavors.
Jonathan Leung
Computer Technician for Tim's Arcade Restoration
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail #3:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan,
Well, I feel really stupid….I forgot all about the DMame menu!! I was so sure it was either the .rc or the mame.cfg or some other text file that I edited, that I completely overlooked the TAB menu. That was exactly it and now it works like a champ. Thanks for your patience and expertise…Saved me from going crazy.
No problem on the PNG file. I was just curious as to how that affected the UI, and noticed reference to it in the writeup and in the rc file itself. Guess I could plug one of the game PNGs in just to see what it does.
Again, thanks heaps.
Robert
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, this is something that seems simple but can be easily overlooked. Remember that setting up MAME machines (while made easier over the years) is still a complicated process that involves lots of tweaking! Good Luck to all MAME cabinet builders!
