MAMEWorld Forums - Programming - Re: Create a linux front end to mame

> MameUI is written in 100% raw on-the-metal Win32 and isn't even remotely portable.
>
> The existing Linux frontends really aren't bad, but I agree that a MameUI lookalike
> would be popular. As long as it was a separate frontend I wouldn't cause any trouble
> :-)

I always think where there's a will, there's a way. If you can't make a direct port, do what just about every game programmer has done since the Atari 2600 days; do a remake of it to look and play somewhat identical (although the former was out of the question on the Atari!). I'm sure each window and dialog can be made practically identical with a bit of work. If I had Linux and knew anything about programming (e.g. not simple hacks which change hex bytes into different hex bytes), and of course permission from the MAMEUI team, I'd probably make it myself. If you had the source code nearby and take a screenshot of each and every item in MAMEUI under Windows, it couldn't be that hard to make something up. Take Winamp 2 and XMMS for instance; same style UI, different internals. I even converted the default XMMS skin to use on Winamp as it actually looked half decent compared to Winamp 2's 8-bit one.

On the subject of MAMEUI, has anyone tried it run under Wine?