EmuLoader 5.7 released

[Robert]

Front End

 

Fixed

* Cheat settings updated to latest MAME build (MAME Settings screen)

* Access violation when using Hidden Games feature and the file "hidden_games.ini" does not exist

Image info panel:

-> appearing when switching from layouts view mode to classic view mode, when setting is turned off

-> not being emptied when no image is found -> not updating its text after turning on/off

* Scan audio samples feature was not working (main menu "Games List"). Apparently nobody use this thing because I never got any bug reports on this bug

* "Danger Will Robinson... DANGER!"

Columns profile editor load/save was not working correctly and, when closing the editor while viewing a different profile than the actual profile being used on the games list, this new profile was being set and messing up data for all columns when opening the columns editor again.

And even more disturbing... nobody reported this fatal bug for the last 18 months!

* Pixelated game icon on several screens. Also, they are now displayed directly into the TImage32 canvas )

* Select file for left panel editor was not working correctly (custom EL select file dialog)

* Glide renderer config now load/save keys settings (file "glide_renderer.cfg", ZiNc settings screen)

* Glide renderer detection was not working, making EL load/save settings on the wrong renderer CFG file (ZiNc settings screen)

* Some minor bugs in the favorites profiles editor

* A bunch of small fixes everywhere... mostly UI

* Transparency (alpha channel) and smoothness were not being applied correctly on any top and bottom bars

* Incremetal search still working on EasyListView when "Control Games List With Arcade Controller" is enabled

* Access violation when auto-selecting an item in TColorBox component if its OnSelect event is empty

* Filter for "Sega System 24" was not showing any games (driver name on newer MAME builds have changed)

 

Changed

* Several files renamed ("resources\main_icons\" folder)

* Minimum screen resolution increased to 960x600 (16:10)... but you still can use EL at 800x600

I recommend 1024x768 as minimum resolution as this is a Windows application, not for arcade monitors

* Front-end main icons reduced to 16x16 (tool bar icons are still 24x24)

* Virtual TreeView component updated to v4.7.0 and to the latest SVN version

* EasyListView component updated v2.0 and to the latest SVN version

* Menu theme "Office 2007" renamed to "Default", but .ini entries remain the same

* Several changes to columns profiles feature:

- Default profile name changed from "default.ini" to "col_profile_general.ini"

- Columns profiles folder is no more. All files will be saved in "resources\ini_files\" and must begin with "col_profile_systemname.ini"

- Profiles editor only works for the selected system (no more editing profiles for multiple systems at once)

- Only 2 profiles are available for each system: "General" for all systems (default) and "System" that can only be used by the selected system

* View emulator versions and games list versions replaced by a new and single screen "File Versions" (main menu "View")

* User interface on several screens are changed and lots of controls were replaced to simplify future updates in EL

* Updated FastMM to version 4.9.2 (several fixes and full support for Delphi 2009)

* Moved image layouts feature (title edit and visible layouts) and image category settings (category titles, visible categories and folders settings) from preferences screen to a new "Category / Layout Settings" screen that can be accessed from main menu "Images", "Category / Layout Settings"

This has been done to merge all features in one place and for easy access. Also to improve loading time of preferences screen at startup and remove all these ListView components from sitting idle in RAM without reason

* Moved "Control Games List With Arcade Controllers" from preferences screen to main menu "Games List" and renamed it to "Browse Games With". To disable this feature just select "Keyboard + Mouse"

* Moved "Auto Rename Snapshots To Old Format" from preferences screen to main menu "Images". These 2 settings are enabled by default and are for conveniece only. If you want to keep MAME snaps original filenames, disable it

 

Improved

* Optimizations to popup menus (context menus), main menu, UI and a bunch of common functions

Auto-select previous/next visible game instead of the top game in the list after using certain features: select game, add/remove favorites and hidden list

* Converted a lot of functions into procedures since they do not need to return a confirmation value. Don't know if this saves memory or if the reduced memory usage is relevant

* Some error/warning message boxes replaced by a blinking background in edit boxes (left panel editor screen, favorites profiles screen, emulator setup screen). Other features will use this new function in the future

* Optimized the icons loading at startup and merged a couple "ImageList" since they use the same icons

* Some settings on EmuLoader.ini have been simplified and merged. Some other entries renamed

* All ListView components replaced by EasyListView since it's safer and far easier to work with. By doing this, several functionality and visual bugs were fixed

* Height of top and bottom bars reduced

* Browse for folder (multiple folders) dialog box now have a "Include Subfolders" checkbox and the dialog was completely coded from scratch.

[WARNING] If you have "view zip as folder" feature enabled on your OS, when opening a folder with lots of .zip files, the dialog will take some time to read sub-folders and display them on the screen. The only way to fix this is to disable "zip as folder" from Windows. Google it and you'll find out how to do that

* Browse for folder (single) and select file dialog boxes optimized to reduce redundant lines of code

* Removed the "Close" button command from several screens since the TButton component have a "ModalResult" property that closes the form automatically without a single line of code

* MAME "snapshot_directory" entry in "mame.ini" is updated automatically when closing the new "Image Category / Layout Settings" screen (all MAME based systems, if they are available)

 

Removed

* Left-overs in "EmuLoader.ini" from previous builds

* Some unused icons ("resources\main_icons\" folder)", unused variables and old codes thru the entire project (some functions are still there, commented out)

* AnotherArcadeEmulator settings screen removed completely from the project

 

Added

* Filter: "Missing ROMs/CHDs" (tool bar button "Have / Miss Games")

* Select this filter to display all games that have one or more missing ROMs/CHDs

* Feature: Customizable font for games found with 1 or more missing ROMs/CHDs (preferences screen, "Games" / "Games List" tab, "Font Settings" box, "Missing ROMs/CHDs").

* Games where the .zip was found but there are ROMs or CHDs missing, will be displayed in a different font. It uses the same files as the "Scan Results" feature (games popup menu)

Not all systems are supported!

* PinMAME system is back (only Win32 binary is supported)

NOTE: I am NOT adding native support for "Visual PinMAME" tables so please, do not ask

New files added for PinMAME

* Setting: "New Emulator Binaries Detection Enabled" (preferences screen, "General" tab, "Miscellaneous" tab, "Startup" frame box)

Disable this option to prevent the front-end from verifying the checksum of available emulators, for a faster start (enabled by default)

* Images tool bar buttons:

- toggle classic/layouts view mode

- delete snapshot of selected category (classic view mode only)

* New .ttf font: "Consolas", used in the project (this font is way better than "Courier New")

* The window position and size is restored on left panel editor screen ("ini_files\el_extras.ini" file)

* Support for MAME 0.129u2 including new CHD types: "Video Home System" and "Compact Flash Card"

>> Get it HERE.