M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II Documentation

CHANGES - v0.2.b5, 16-OCT-2008

fix: general bug fixes
imp: improved functionality
new: newly added functionality
wip: (incomplete) work in progress
doc: documentation changes
inf: informational only

v0.2.b5, 16-OCT-2008:

fix: corrected a serious bug in ROM state and gamelist caching introduced by trimming the data - please remove all cache files from previous releases before using this version, otherwise QMC2 is likely to crash (rm ~/.qmc2/mame.lxc ~/.qmc2/qmc2.rsc ~/.qmc2/qmc2.glc)
fix: corrected the shortcut scope of several actions
fix: ROMAlyzer (cosmetic): don't start analyzing if the gamelist is empty
fix: tool bar and status bar didn't show up on first start
imp: SDLMAME options template updated to 0.128
imp: build: added new make option PHONON (enables Phonon based features if set to 1, which is the default for Qt 4.4+)
imp: revised a number of menu item texts
imp: layout improvements for the ROMAlyzer (file I/O indicator now vertical)
imp: code cleanup: prepend QMC2_ to SDLMAME macro internally
imp: build: added new make options CCACHE & CCACHECMD (uses ccache compiler cache if CCACHE is set to 1; default is 0 - check/set CCACHECMD if enabled!)
imp: exchanged Qt logo due to Qt rebranding as of 4.4.3
new: support for MAME output notifications via a named pipe (SDLMAME 0.127+)
new: emulator control panel changed to a multi-column tree widget displaying more information like the game name, its LEDs (if applicable), the current emulator status and additional notifiers/values not handled statically (in a sub tree)
new: added a copy command menu item to the emulator control panel's context menu to allow for easier copying of emulator command lines to the system clipboard
new: individual joystick axes can now be enabled/disabled at will (this should make Sixaxis users happy :)
new: the number of lines kept in the ROMAlyzer log can now also be limited
new: optional support for background music playback (requires Qt 4.4+ / Phonon API - feature will be completely disabled for Qt 4.3)
new: the boolean emulator option values true and false are now also translatable
doc: added Q2.9 to FAQ

v0.2.b4, 19-AUG-2008:

fix: joystick mapping initially didn't work before the options were explicitly applied
fix: keep game-specific emulator configurations open only as long as they are really needed
fix: corrected support for keyboard shortcut mapping with multiple modifier keys
imp: try to use system locale to setup the language if no language was specified (or if the language is unavailable within the translations); fallback to us as last resort
imp: joystick test and calibration widgets are enclosed in scrollable areas now to allow for better handling of high amounts of axes or buttons; due to this, the layout management for these widgets was totally revised
imp: minor speed ups for loading of XML and gamelist caches by reading data block-wise
imp: SDLMAME options template updated to 0.127 (yuvmode replaced with scalemode, removed cheat_file, added new options cheatpath, videodriver, audiodriver and gl_lib)
imp: code cleanup: use constants instead of numbers for logical gamelist columns, prepend QMC2_ to JOYSTICK and OPENGL macros internally
imp: trimmed XML cache data - saves memory and disk space (plus adds a minor speed improvement upon cache reading)
imp: build: check required Qt version on call to qmake (see qmc2.pro*)
new: show number of (real/virtual) CPUs on system information page (about dialog)
new: the frontend and emulator log browsers can now be limited to the amount of lines they keep in memory (the default is unlimited as before)
doc: added Q2.8 and Q3.5 to FAQ

v0.2.b3, 07-JUL-2008:

fix: if a null pixmap was retrieved, display the ghost image instead (of nothing)
fix: under rare circumstances, the game specific emulator configuration wasn't updated correctly (empty widget)
fix: positions of about dialog and doc browser were incorrectly restored on showEvent()'s
fix: when switching between detailed gamelist and parent/clone hierarchy during reload, QMC2 crashed under certain circumstances (not absoluteley sure if this bug existed before or if it was introduced by new features of this release :)
fix: avoid auto-selecting first game in list if switching views during gamelist reload
fix: adjust icon sizes of shortcut redefinition buttons
fix: restore "Default" style selection correctly after language switch
fix: corrected several position- & size-restoration bugs for all child widgets with restorable layout
fix: corrected null pixmap on startup issue for the restored game selection if there is no preview- or flyer-image available for that game
imp: SDLMAME options template updated to 0.126 (new options aviwrite, coin_lockout, snapname, snapsize, snapview, debug and debugscript, changed default for joystick, updated several descriptions)
imp: build: added new make option OPENGL (enables OpenGL features if set to 1)
imp: use QWidget instead of QFrame for (standard) preview & flyer widgets
imp: enabled on-the-fly switching to system default style
imp: all independant widgets (dialogs) are now explicitly created as sub-windows which allows them to be individually minimized / restored regardless if they have parents or not (new window flags: Qt::Dialog | Qt::SubWindow)
imp: build: added support for distribution specific build on openSUSE 11.0, Fedora release 9 and Yellow Dog Linux 6.0
imp: build: moved os-detect.sh to scripts/ directory (where it belongs :)
imp: build: changed os-detection to be architecture independant for Linux distributions
new: optional use of OpenGL to draw images (previews & flyers) - decided at compile time with the new OPENGL make option (OPENGL=0 is the default and paints on a normal QWidget; using a QPainter on a QGLWidget is actually a bit slower)
new: optional direct GUI control via digital and analog joysticks (joystick support is enabled by default, use make option JOYSTICK=0 to completely disable it - note that compilation of QMC2 with enabled joystick support requires an SDL 1.2.11+ development package to be installed on your system!)
new: support for MAME's history.dat game information database
new: support for MAME's mameinfo.dat emulator information database
new: show memory information (total, free, used) in about dialog (see system info)
new: toggle fullscreen mode of main widget
doc: added Q2.6, Q2.7, Q3.4 and build instructions for Ubuntu 8.04, openSUSE 11.0 and Fedora release 9 to FAQ

v0.2.b2, 05-MAY-2008:

fix: automatically save favorites list & play history on exit only if they are not empty
imp: completed Polish translation of options template (Julian Sikorski)
imp: SDLMAME options template updated to 0.125 (new option maximize, changed default for bios)
imp: confirm clearing of favorites list & play history
new: French translation by Vincent Bousquet
new: improved template reader for emulator options (using QXmlStreamReader)
new: template syntax changed to a new format to allow for easier translation (note that this format is NOT compatible with older versions of QMC2!)
new: game's short name (game ID) now also included in gamelist, plus added sorting by game name
inf: SDLMESS can only be used when compiled against the MAME target, of course :)

v0.2.b1, 26-MAR-2008:

fix: replace "~" with "$HOME" in path options when exporting ini's or checking ROMs
fix: corrected removal of entries in emulator control
imp: build: replaced make option MAME with EMULATOR (to prepare for multi-emulator support)
imp: SDLMAME options-template updated to 0.124a, cleaned up XML syntax to be well-formed
imp: don't disable import / export buttons when the gamelist is reloaded
imp: clean support for plural translation in natural language (includes a translation of the native language "us")
imp: fallback to the native description if the template doesn't contain a translation for an option
imp: build: improved make rules for the creation of binary translations with lrelease
imp: game context menus of search, favorites and history lists now also include ROM check & analyzer entries
imp: reduced memory consumption when cached XML data is used (white space stripped)
imp: action & shortcut reservations for (planned) arcade mode added
new: Qt 4.3+ required
new: XMAME support dropped (the XMAME project is inactive since MAME 0.106, so it isn't worth the hassle)
new: support for multiple ini-paths added to import & export functions
new: added new setting ToolbarState to save/restore the toolbar position
new: added a built-in ROMAlyzer to deeply analyze a game's individual ROMs and CHDs
new: Polish translation by Julian Sikorski (template translation yet incomplete)
inf: treating QMC2 as a multi-emulator frontend from now on
inf: SDLMESS has been successfully tested to be supported as well, WolfMAME should also work fine

v0.1, 05-FEB-2008:

imp: SDLMAME options-template updated to 0.123
inf: SVN revision 431 released as QMC2 0.1 final

v0.1.b12, 04-FEB-2008:

fix: fixed a serious bug when QMC2 needs to (re)parse the gamelist data due to MAME version changes which caused crashes and undefined behavior (the cause was just a minimal slip, though :)
fix: don't try to analyze data if an incompatible executable was selected
fix: corrected several time measurements to be more precise
fix: force initialization of customized shortcuts & GUI control keys at early startup
fix: corrected preview check for previews in game sub-dirs below PreviewDirectory (gamename/XXXX.png)
imp: SDLMAME options-template updated to 0.122u8
imp: greatly improved about dialog, including system information summary
imp: improved key event filter to better handle complex & varying event-sequence patterns
imp: log a warning if the template version could not be determined (for whatever reason)
imp: save/restore widget positions of doc-browser and about-dialog during runtime
imp: avoid UI setup of welcome dialog if QMC2 configuration check is okay
imp: allow gamelist widget updates while pre-caching icons (looks better on slow machines)
new: QMC2 logo, application icon colorified accordingly
new: XML gamelist data cache to speed up loading of -listxml output from MAME
new: option ListXMLCache added (default: ~/.qmc2/mame.lxc)
new: added Home, End & Esc to the list of remappable GUI control keys
new: icons for detail/hierarchy switch (actions) added
new: options ZipTool (default: zip) and ZipToolRemovalArguments (default: $ARCHIVE$ -d $FILELIST$) added
new: options FileRemovalTool (default: rm) and FileRemovalToolArguments (default: -f -v $FILELIST$) added
new: support to remove obsolete samples & image files (previews, flyers and icons) either from directories or ZIP archives - uses external tools to remove files (rm) or ZIP entries (zip)
new: simple tool executor dialog added (see toolexec.*)
new: option ProgressTexts added to optionally show short descriptions of current processing in progress bar (default: false, current behavior)

v0.1.b11, 24-DEC-2007:

fix: long timeout on exit for Qt 4.3+ fixed
fix: fixed processing of BIOS ROMs due to changes to the XML output since MAME 0.117u2 (older MAME releases are still supported)
fix: save & clear current game's MAME configuration on gamelist reload (if open)
fix: reset horizontal scrollbars on log-updates (minor bug)
fix: don't freeze GUI if MAME executable is specified incorrectly
fix: correctly update ROM statistics for an individual ROM check (thanks to Christopher Stone for reporting this bug)
fix: correctly honor custom color palettes for GUI styles (which can be setup with qtconfig)
fix: minor translation fixes
fix: corrected (hidden) selection of filtered games
fix: worked around a Qt bug when POS1/Home is pressed and the first item in the gamelist is hidden due to ROM state filtering; QMC2 now selects the first VISIBLE entry instead
fix: fixed several item selection bugs when changing between lists (gamelist, search results, favorites and play history) - note that this fix is only effective, if Qt 4.3+ is used
fix: when switching back to the (full-detail) gamelist view, the next item selection issued by a mouse-click wasn't correctly recognized
fix: corrected unwanted double paint-event when selecting games through the parent/clone hierarchy view
fix: make MAME executable setting unchangeable during gamelist reload
fix: avoid temporary game reselection when adding a game to the play history (at game start)
fix: corrected focus issues when switching between lists
fix: when the ROM state filter was setup to hide ALL states, QMC2 crashed under certain circumstances
fix: corrected save/restore of game selection in the case that ALL ROM states are filtered
fix: corrected build issues due to type-ambiguity on certain 32-bit platforms (like Win32)
imp: SDLMAME options-template updated to 0.122 (several new settings, some removed or replaced)
imp: added Qt version, selected MAME target and language code to greeting string (see frontend log)
imp: removed some useless/annoying tool tips
imp: build: alphabetical output for make help and make config
imp: ghost image scaled down by 50% (faster)
imp: several layout improvements for configuration dialog
imp: delay search by 250ms so it doesn't hamper the user when he/she is quickly typing a pattern
imp: speed up for ROM state filter by iterating over the internal gamelist item map instead of the QTreeWidget itself
imp: exchanged QAction::activated() with QAction::triggered()
imp: code cleanup / macro consolidation (see macros.h)
imp: faster game selection by search, favorites and history lists
imp: delay game preview/flyer/config updates by a configurable amount of milliseconds to better sync to item selection in all lists
imp: change to gamelist tab if F5 or F6 is pressed
new: import/export from/to mame.ini/gamename.ini (SDLMAME) and xmamerc/gamenamerc (XMAME)
new: added ROMAlyzer script from Carsten Engel (see scripts/romalyzer.pl) - WORK IN PROGRESS
new: BIOS ROMs are now also supported (but obviously cannot be run); the ROM status icon will contain a white "B" to indicate that this is a BIOS (when using the classic image set)
new: determination of MAME and configuration template version (see frontend log)
new: added gamelist cache to speed up reload process; the cache will be automagically recreated if the MAME version changes or QMC2 thinks the cache is invalid / out-of-date
new: added optional sample-path setup to welcome dialog
new: added new setting RetryLoadingImages: if unset, QMC2 will cache the ghost image where no images were found (default: true, current behavior)
new: added new setting StandardColorPalette: if unset, QMC2 will use the custom palette which may have been setup with qtconfig (default: true, current behavior)
new: image set support - select at compile time with new IMGSET variable (default "classic", alternative image sets "crazy" and "crazy-black" by Armin Schmidhuber)
new: added new setting AutoTriggerROMCheck: if set, QMC2 will automatically trigger a ROM check if neccessary (default: false, current behavior)
new: reload gamelist automatically if MAME executable changes
new: added new setting UpdateDelay; controls the delay in milliseconds between a game's selection and the update of its preview, flyer or MAME configuration
new: if Qt 4.3+ is used, QMC2 will now save & restore the header states of all tree-widgets, except the game specific MAME configuration widget which is too temporary to be valuable for save/restore
new: added remap function for shortcuts & GUI control keys
doc: todo: define missing features for 0.1 final, add planned features for 0.2 series

v0.1.b10, 20-JUL-2007:

fix: raise visible widgets when starting up
fix: reselect current item after applying ROM state filter
fix: fixed a serious bug in MAME options handling which showed up for Qt 4.3.0
fix: corrected online flyer directory/file switching (didn't open/close ZIP if changed)
fix: earlier restoration of gamelist view to avoid flicker when starting up
fix: use showNormal() if options widget is requested but currently minimized
fix: build: corrected snapshot creation (same timestamp for tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives)
fix: avoid processing of subsequent QCloseEvent's for main widget
fix: auto-adjust size of welcome widget
fix: requests for a context menu on an empty part of the gamelist or parent/clone view resulted in a segmentation fault
imp: color enhancement for "mostly correct"-indicator (sphere image)
imp: build: make option SDLMAME=(0|1) replaced with MAME=(SDLMAME|XMAME)
imp: code cleanup in many places
imp: better GUI responsiveness when determining the total number of supported games (early phase of gamelist reload)
imp: some GUI icons replaced, actions in toolbar reorderd, tool-tips corrected
imp: build: new OS detection mechanism for distribution-specific configuration, see new make options DISTCFG, OSCFG and arch/os-detect.sh
imp: build: added new make targets os-detect, help and config
imp: build: changed name of make option TIMECMD to TIME
imp: SDLMAME options-template updated to 0.117 (several new settings, some removed)
imp: header texts of gamelist and parent/clone view now left-aligned
imp: build: cleaner make output
imp: application-wide shortcuts
imp: better calculation of icon sizes
imp: major layout improvements for options-widget
new: Qt 4.3 support
new: support for PNG game icons (stored in a ZIP archive or a single directory)
new: added menu items for flyer and icon check
new: sort by year or manufacturer, additional columns for gamelist and parent/clone view
new: options: IconDirectory, IconFile, UseIconFile, GamelistColumnWidths, HierarchyColumnWidths, Toolbar and new settings for check dialogs
new: restore column widths of gamelist and parent/clone view
new: image check dialog (includes preview-, flyer- and icon-checks)
new: sample check dialog
new: individual ROM state check added
doc: added section about action shortcuts to readme.html
doc: added several FAQs

v0.1.b9, 30-MAR-2007:

fix: avoid applying ROM state filter while other processing is active
fix: reset parser interruption flag before applying ROM state filter
fix: avoid copy of SVN-directories for 'make install' (only relevant for SVN source)
fix: build: added colrm script to fix qmake check on SunOS
fix: install: change ownership of installed files to uid/gid of installer (normally root)
fix: don't show game context menu when gamelist data is not yet available
fix: start cursor movement at current game when switching lists/views
imp: more time measures, straighter logging
imp: change Makefile to support multiple pre-defined ini-paths per MAME option (thanks to Christopher Stone)
imp: easier specification of search pattern (thanks to Christopher Stone)
imp: improved quality of ghost image ("no image" indicator)
imp: use PNGs only, also for docs
imp: removed annoying tool-tips for obvious gamelists
imp: options: browse tool-buttons improved (icons)
new: application icon (data/img/mame.png)
new: added support for preview and flyer compression based upon minizip-1.01e
new: settings FlyerFile, UseFlyerFile, PreviewFile, UsePreviewFile and GamelistView added
new: added hierarchical parent/clone view, plus corresponding switch, menu items and shortcuts
doc: several new FAQs, credits revised

v0.1.b8, 23-FEB-2007:

fix: missing line-feed for "last message repeated N time(s)" message
fix: incorrect position restoration for options-widget under certain circumstances
fix: restoration of selected game failed if treewidget received focus during gamelist reload
fix: build: "make DEBUG=2" failed for welcome.cpp
fix: replace all occurances of "~" with "$HOME" before passing the argument strings to MAME (thanks to Christoper Stone who found the bug and its solution)
fix: install: add flyer directory to install target
fix: clear flyer image on gamelist reload
imp: more changes to allow for easier package-creation - thanks to Christopher Stone for his input on this matter
imp: removed informational log message for missing previews
imp: removed obsolete setting MAME/FilesAndDirectories/ROMPath, using MAME/Configuration/Global/rompath instead
imp: build: clean creation of debugging code (see DEBUG make option in Makefile)
imp: avoid multiple processing of MAME options within game-subtree
imp: performance of ROM state verification improved
new: Qt 4.2.0+ required for all MAME targets (Qt 4.1 support dropped!)
new: support for game flyer images, new setting Frontend/FilesAndDirectories/FlyerDirectory
new: settings can now be reset to their system-wide default values (all at once); if no system-wide default configuration exists, the built-in default for the respective setting will be used
new: search function for MAME options (enter an alphanumeric string while the MAME options widget has focus)
new: built-in style support, new setting Frontend/GUI/Style (Default = system default / specify on command line)
new: ROM state filter, new settings Frontend/Gamelist/Show[CMINU]
new: previews can now also be stored as PreviewDirectory/gamename/xxxx.png (PreviewDirectory/gamename.png has prescedence, if it doesn't exist, the highest existing value of xxxx will be used)

v0.1.b7, 12-DEC-2006:

fix: weird layout problem in setup-wizard (welcome.ui)
imp: updated Qt language file (from Qt 4.2.2)
imp: ROM verification enhancements to support SDLMAME 0.111+ (which changed the way it reports missing ROMs)
new: install target for make
new: many changes to support system-scope (/etc/qmc2/qmc2.ini) and user-sope (~/.qmc2/qmc2.ini) configuration
new: build: SDLMAME support is now the new default (use "make SDLMAME=0" for XMAME support)!
new: icons now embedded into application (see resource file qmc2.qrc)
new: added optional ROM path setting to setup-wizard (welcome.*)

v0.1.b6, 29-NOV-2006:

fix: widgets disabled during gamelist reload not re-enabled if parser prematurely stopped
fix: ROMs with attribute runnable="no" removed from gamelist (caused incorrect counters)
fix: total game count determination didn't cleanly return in case of an error
fix: build: check qmake version for ALL targets
fix: ROM check: don't rely on full lines from sub-process, buffered output might be truncated
imp: some code-cleanups
imp: removed log entry for loading of preview images
new: selectable criteria and order for gamelist sort (case insensitive) - note that Qt 4.2.0+ performs much better due to the new "stable sort" for QTreeWidget (and other item views)
new: when emulators are still running when QMC2 is about to exit, the user can decide to kill them or keep them alive
new: options Frontend/Gamelist/SortCriteria, .../SortOrder, Frontend/GUI/KillEmulatorsOnExit and MAME/FilesAndDirectories/ROMPath added
new: SDLMAME-support, including new options template (use "make SDLMAME=1" to enable support for SDLMAME, default is XMAME!)
new: setup-wizard: checks valid configuration and asks for MAME executable if neccessary
new: added ROM state M(ostly correct) for verification result "best available" (indicated by a yellow-green sphere)

v0.1.b5, 10-OCT-2006:

fix: build: check qmake version before qmake run
fix: add missing tooltip for gamelist reload action
fix: serious memory leak for reload of the entire gamelist (missing buffer clear)
fix: re-initialize ROM verification counter on every ROM check, making it non-static
fix: several fixes regarding empty settings (no configuration file on first start)
fix: Makefile changes to support Qt 4.2.0+
fix: crash when parser prematurely stopped upon user request
fix: restoration of widget position for options dialog fixed
imp: some code optimizations for references to the ROM state cache
imp: GUI speed-ups at start
imp: more phrase translations for gamelist
imp: scroll auto-selected items to top
new: options VerifyROMs and CatalogFile removed (no longer needed)
new: options Version, Responsiveness, HistoryFile and FavoritesFile added
new: log a warning if the ROM state cache appears not to be up to date
new: preview images can optionally be scaled "smoothly" (nicer, but slower)
new: processing play history and favorite games
new: additional (context menu) actions and icons for game favorites, play history and emulator control
new: settings changed to ini-format / user-scope ($HOME/.config/qmc2.ini)
new: Qt message handler (Qt messages are logged to the frontend log)
doc: some additions and corrections to readme.html and faq.html
doc: html-formatting changed to better support Qt 4.2.0+

v0.1.b4, 01-SEP-2006:

fix: parse also ROMs marked as "runnable=no" (BIOSes)
imp: error message for missing previews changed to informational
imp: changed OS-dependant configuration file to arch/`uname`.cfg
imp: code cleanup
imp: improved game-reselection / auto-scrolling in gamelist to circumvent a Qt 4 "misbehavior"
new: rudimentary about dialog added
new: browser for online documentation added
new: ROM check / ROM state cache
new: option ROMStateCacheFile added
doc: major additions to data/doc/html/us/readme.html, unneccessary sym-links removed
inf: options-template (data/opt/template.xml) updated for xmame 0.106

v0.1.b3, 27-AUG-2006:

fix: tab-position west appears buggy since Qt 4.1.4 (shows no text); changed to tab-position north
fix: adopted xmame command line parameter changes since 0.104 (tested with xmame 0.106)
imp: Makefile and documentation changes to reflect that a system-wide installation is not neccessary (nor recommended)
new: “make snap” (snapshot) target added to Makefile (same as “make dist”, plus date- & timestamp)
doc: many additions to readme.html

v0.1.b2, 01-APR-2006:

fix: browse button for template file must be disabled during gamelist reload
fix: added missing tool- and status-tips for game preview and MAME options
fix: first focus widget should be the gamelist
fix: fixed layout restoration bug for options widget
fix: corrected a bunch of MAME configuration related bugs
fix: clear background before scaling a (potentionally transparent) image
imp: moved template file option to MAME tab where it belongs
imp: improved phrases and translations
new: added options template for SDL display-target (see data/opt/...)
new: save/restore of game selection at exit/start and gamelist reload
new: improved game selection scheme (games can now also be selected in the search result widget)
new: context menu added for search result
new: preview scaling now optional, original image size if disabled
new: using QPixmapCache for preview image cache'ing (LRU-cache)
new: customizable image cache size (1-1024 MB, default 64 MB)
new: ghost icon shown in gamelist's value column if no preview was found
new: preview check routine added
new: many action icons and ROM status images added
new: colored sphere icons displayed in front of each game description indicating the ROM status

v0.1.b1, 03-MAR-2006:

initial version