Zombeaver

Yes, you can absolutely do this. I don't use Xpadder much anymore but basically you assign one button to be a switch, and another to be a different input that is only used when you're holding down that switch. I'll post some screenshots tonight.

The more I think about it there are actually quite a few scenarios where it would be useful. For example I use custom configs for all of my PCSX2 stuff, which requires that you direct it to the folder where the config file is located. With the append function you could put everything but the --cfgpath= function into the emulator entry. If the option to include no spaces in the append was present, you could even put --cfgpath= in the emulator entry and the only thing you'd have to put into the game entry parameter field would be "[the config path]". There are plenty of other potential applications.

@Jason Carr One other thought - this is sortof outside the multi-disk thing but would help with it as well. Would it be possible to implement a command-line parameter append function? Currently if you have an emulator setup with its own special command-line parameters and you use the "use custom command-line parameters" function in a game entry, it uses those instead of what's setup in the emulator entry. So, for example, the emulator entry could be setup with -fullscreen but if I tell it to use something custom in the game entry, I would still have to type in -fullscreen as part of it. Would it be possible to add in a separate check box next to the "use custom command-line parameters" and call it something like "Append Command-Line Parameter" so that rather than replacing the whole thing, it just adds it to whatever is in the emulator entry? That way, in this specific scenario, I could have the emulator just setup to have -fullscreen %romfile% at all times, and the only thing I would have to add in is the path to the second disk (or %addapp2% if that were implemented) in the game entry. This could actually help with some other scenarios as well.

Welp...that didn't take long hahaha I didn't name the thing!

Nice! Looking forward to checking that out! Knowing that it will be implemented eventually is all I needed to know! Thanks! Understood. I did have a thought about something that could improve it though it would still require some manual setup for each game - is there any way that some kind of switch could be implemented to pull the path from an additional app? So like in the example I gave for Atari ST, if both the first and second disk got pulled in as additional apps you could use a custom command line parameter of -fullscreen %romfile% %addapp2% and that would inject the rom path from the second disk additional app into the command line (rather than having to type it all out)? Not a huge deal, but it would save some additional time. Just throwing stuff out there! I'll still fiddle with this stuff regardless Thank you!

Yep... this is the kinda crap that gives me nightmares about data loss. All this little crap would drive me insane if I had to do it again. There's a program called Novert. Literally all it's for is to be used with some DOS FPSs that would force you to move forward/backward when you move the mouse up or down (it prevents them from doing this). That's it. Did I setup all of the relevant games in my library to use it? Yes I did. Would I want to have to track down this specific thing and setup stuff to use it ever again? Hell effin' no. I try to backup my stuff regularly but these little things just go on and on and on.

...and in the darkness bind them? In all seriousness though, what exactly is the theoretical use scenario for this (in a basic sense)? What is it that you're intending to use it to do? Is there some sort of functionality that's provided here that would allow people to do something they couldn't normally? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but what's the practical application?

I guess I should have mentioned in those other posts about making a copy of the .dlls though. I guess I've just been doing that for so long it didn't occur to me to mention it. I had the same difficulty you did with configs not doing the job by themselves so that's what I resorted to as well.

I'm with @DOS76 haha I'm sure you know what it is/does, but chances are 99% of the rest of us are gonna be scratching our heads just based on those screenshots. With that said though, as a general rule I would just say "Do you find it useful? Is it something that would help you in some way?" If the answer is yes, then chances are that it will help someone here at some point... even if it goes over most of our heads

You could always ask over at /r/tipofmyjoystick as well. It's a subreddit for this exact purpose

Yeah basically you're just setting up separate entries for the same emulator, with different parameters, and renaming the entries to distinguish them from one another (so you know which "emulator" to pick per game). They don't have to be directed to the exact same .exe but they can be. If you want to use separate installs of Demul though, that's perfectly fine too - the separate emulator entries just need to be directed to whatever Demul path/install you want for each. The point is simply that if you want 1 emulator to do X in one instance and Y in a different instance, you can setup separate emulator entries for each scenario and name one "Emulator - X" and the other "Emulator - Y" and choose them as needed from game to game or platform to platform. I've actually never used it for Demul (I only use Demul for DC stuff) but I use that method pretty extensively with Retroarch. Based on @DOS76's example, the "use filename only" flag needs to be enabled for the arcade stuff, but shouldn't be for DC. This makes it a good use scenario for separate entries (because that flag is likely to make them mutually exclusive).

That's how all of my alternate control "emulators" are setup. Just make a copy of the the core dll and at the end add on something like _alternate_controls_1, then just change the core in the "associated platform" to whatever you name it. No need to type that junk in every time - just change the "emulator" accordingly.

Captain Blood isn't an Atari ST exclusive (there actually aren't too many of those) but it is the only version of the game that contains all of the alien voice samples. It's... a really weird game. It's made by Cryo (at the time called "Exxos") who had a predilection for creating consistently bizarre games that were always a bit off-kilter but also unique and interesting. I've always had a soft spot for their games, even when they were an impenetrable mess. My original exposure to Captain Blood was as a kid on the C64. It was this bizarre, open-ended thing with zero direction and a weird interface full of ambiguous and esoteric symbols. I had no idea what I was doing or even supposed to be doing, but I found it completely fascinating. From the description of a Youtube video titled "The game that made me think I blew up the Earth as a kid": That pretty much sums it up. According to Wikipedia you're supposed to hunt down and kill some clones or something... that's news to me! I just stumbled around from planet to planet talking in weird gibberish to aliens and blowing up planets. Aaaaaanyway... Normal: Scanlines:

Glad you got it sorted

I'm happy to report that the %romfile% works for the purposes of loading multi-disk Atari ST games in Steem. Similarly to @lordmonkus's Daphne example, it's not exactly just "click a button and you're done" but it's an option that didn't exist previously so that's great! In order to instruct Steem to insert the first disk into drive A and the second into drive B via command line, the rom files have to be listed in order so you choose the first disk as your rom through LB: Then you add in the command line parameter and after %romfile% just include the path to the second disk: And voila: It boots up properly and you can swap between the disks as necessary when prompted (via a combination of buttons on the controller if you assign them in the emulator's hotkeys). Thanks Jason!

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with liking the scrolling... I'm just saying everybody has different tastes. Some people love clear logos for individual games. I have no desire to use those whatsoever. I wouldn't force anybody into one or the other. I'd just like to have the option for it to jump. There were times when it would scroll for a good 3 or 4 seconds straight before it stopped on something. It just looks weird to me. It's a really cool feature; might as well let people tailor it to their own tastes.

I see that now. It eventually switched. Does it have to go back to the main menu to do this like it does currently though? Could it jump to a different platform instantly when it decides to do this? I think a "How many games before switching platforms?" field with say 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 / random in the options would be nice too. Toggggggllles. Pretty please?

A couple of thoughts on Attract Mode so far: -It seems to only cycle through games within the platform that you're hovered on the start screen in Big Box. I assumed it was going to cycle between random games across all platforms. I'd prefer it that way if possible. -It's a bit weird seeing it actually scroll through the games list to pick the next game. If there's a way to make it just instantly jump to a different game I think that'd look snazzier. Very cool, just the same!

Ooooh man I am excite. Definitely gonna be giving these goodies a go! Thanks Jason!

Gotcha. Yeah right before you posted that I thought "...could this be why some people are having weird performance from caching?"

Yeah I was actually going in expecting to come back and say "See for example in my arcade platform I can only get to [insert] in my favorites" haha Kinda scratched my head after that

This is the option that you would want to have checked if you want the favorites to appear first in your games list (which it sounds like you do). Sorry, couldn't recall the exact name from memory I think this is checked by default. I'm not positive though. @Jason Carr, out of curiosity, did the number of games that appear in the favorites carousel increase at some point? I definitely remember at one point in the past where I would scroll over in say Arcade (it has one of my longer favorites lists) and it would get to like...letter "F" or so and wouldn't go any further. It's got all of them in there for me now though. Only 64 games but still. "Recent" is the 10 most recent.

Yeah, again there's a limit on the number of games that will appear in the carousel - both in favorites and recent. I don't know what the number is, but there's a limit. You have to press enter (or A on a 360 controller) while hovered over the platform icon/name. That will take you into the full list for that platform. You can set up favorites to either all appear at the top of that platform's list or just in normal alphabetical order with the rest of the games - they'll have an asterisk next to them if they're one of your favorites.

Just to clarify, when you're saying there are ones that are missing in Big Box, you're actually talking about within the full games list itself right - not just the favorites that show up when you hover on a platform on the initial screen? The reason I ask is that there's a limit on the number of games that it will list on that initial screen. I'm not sure what the actual number is, but it doesn't show all of them.