Welcome to the new year one-and-all. This is a big release update for pfeMAME that I worked on for a while (and the early hours over the Xmas break). Quite a few background code changes and bug squashes. Further work on being able to apply themed color across most controls (This required some rather annoying rewrites due to list controls and their optional replacement (ultimatelistctrl) not working the same way.
I’ve also spent a lot of time making what I hope are improvements to the tileview (videos, scrolling info). Joystick navigation has also been cleaned up so you can now select which joystick device (out of 2 for python) you want to use for application navigation – and you can now use the joystick for navigation in the main view.
See below for a list of notable changes and read the changelog for details.
• On first time run, all ROM categories will now be selected, rather than none. This helps the user to actually see ROMs in the main list after the first refresh or restart.
• Default sound options were not displayed right under Windows (not sure about Linux). This is due to the ‘default’ sound device being changed to ‘Auto’ when it used to be ‘dsound’. Latest MAME docs don't seem to reflect this.
• On first time startup, the first ROM in the list will now be selected. This means that if the first thing you select is Random Play, it will work.
• Changed the default view in TileView to All ROMS rather than Favorites. For first time users opening to a potentially blank screen because you haven’t set any favorites yet probably makes them think they have done something wrong.
• Fixed issue where video mode ‘Auto’ was not displaying in the Video preferences. I had fixed this for the BGFX backend but not for the main VIDEO.
• Added a note to supporting Windows 11 as I have now tested this.
• Added media playback to TileView. Pretty cool. The video, if available, will play in a loop.
• Added joystick navigation to the mainview. Up and down to select and button 1 to run the ROM.
• Fixed a bug that may have been around quite some time. Joystick events in TileView were bring triggered when a ROM was run if using a joystick within the ROM. This caused a total mess and made the ROMs unusable.
• Added selection of which joystick to use for pfeMAME navigation.
• Added management for when a media playback system is not available on the operating system, or if wxPython has been built without this support. The media control playback is now disabled rather than raising a notimplemented exception and exiting.
• Have tested operation under WSL2. The application works (although some manual playing with file paths may be needed). It can also run MAME but getting sound to work is almost impossible with WSL at present.
• Added page down and page up button control to the main ROMs list
• Fixed (mostly) a very longstanding issue I had where with some large page jumps the main ROMs list would not redraw correctly and leave blank lines. This is an issue with the ultimatelistctrl that never seems to have been fixed completely.
• Fixed an issue whereby the video timer was not reset when moving between ROMs. This could cause it to try and play a video for something that no longer exist. Under Linux this would throw a major background error (but not stop things working).
• Main window checkallroms progress bars are now echoed in the application icon under Windows (And MAC however work needs to be done to get pfeMAME working under MAC as I don’t have a development platform for that OS).
• Added auto scrolling of the ROM information in TileView as you can’t scroll it manually.
• Added support for displaying the mameinfo.dat file information for the selected ROM in the main view. The Rom Information window has been changed to a notebook with two tabs (One for ROM Info and the other for MAME info). The filepaths window has been updated to include support for selecting the mameinfo.dat file.
• The changelog can now be viewed from the About menu on the main screen. NOTE, this does require python-docx to be installed using pip if you are using the source code.
• Changed the Dark Mode background color to Charcoal rather than black. I think the contrast is easier on the eyes.
• Altered Dark Theme colors so that the white part of alternating line colors is now light grey.
• Fixed a bug that would cause an error if the history file path was not set
You can download this release from HERE.
Please read the manual as it has everything you need. Please report bugs. You can email pfemame@gmail.com or use the features on the sourceforge site to create a ticket, leave a review, or chat.
pfeMAME is a front end for the Multiple Arcade Game Emulator (MAME) written in Python. It is cross platform (tested on Linux - Ubuntu and Windows). It also includes a graphical Tile View designed for MAME cabinets which allows control using joystick / gamepad. It supports favourite game flagging, MESS systems, per-rom input mapping, and a Tiled view for arcade cabinets. It was written with a minimalist view in mind but also because there were some features that I wanted that other front ends just didn't provide.
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pfeMAME version 2.19 has been released today
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