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Romlister on Steroids


Antropus

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This is just a preview of an app I'm developing for over a year now, on and off. Still missing some things, but already packed with useful features. I grew tired of the bugs found in romlister and how little reliable its filters are. I also missed some other things so I decided to create my own application. Some key features: - It supports catver.ini, nplayers.ini, listxml.xml and history.dat at this point - It has a ton of filters to choose from and a context menu to help you to select things fast - It can search and retrieve all the artwork and roms you have locally, any number of them, in just seconds - This search engine allows you to pre-visualize your artwork as well and double click will open it in full screen - Even if you are using complex Boolean filters, you will get results in just seconds. It gets even faster once you filter the main trash (unplayable, fruit machines, mechanical etc) - Exports lists to multiple formats for different frontends using a comprehensive set of options - Searches are precise and fast and you can pass as many arguments as you want, as long as they are separated by ",",";" or "|". Single words or full sentences work. - It has a software list parser in it - You can select and delete entries as you go, see history info and rom statuses under a popup window that also shows you the flyers - It can merge lists, as long as they are in the same format, so you can for example create a bunch of lists and if you decide later on, you can simply stitch them all together as a single list - It is a game launcher. You can double click any game to start playing. - It shows the game status visually, with color coded lights on the arcade machine image on the right - It will also display marquees, snaps, icons on the arcade machine, in real-time - Based on your filtered list, press a single button and choose a folder and all roms in that list can either be copied or moved to the new location - In the near future, you will be able to save and retrieve your filter presets - Lists exported are always available in a dropdown menu, so you have access to your lists at all times, within the program, with the ability to parse them back to your "mylist", merge anything else and then re-export it. - It uses a config.ini that's saved on exit and can be modified manually to fit your needs - It doesn't use any crazy merging of huge files to get all the information in one place. Instead, just drop your support files (catver, nplayers, mamedat, history, listxml) into the folder "support files" and they will be parsed on load, so you can update them quickly and easily - It has a rating system that is saved on a separated ini file using the same structure as catver and nplayers, so in the future those files can be exchanged among users - Filters are in development to support ratings and artwork as well, so you will be able to quickly see what artwork is missing or the ones you have, exported as a nicely formatted list you can use - I'm planning to add an overwrite feature so anyone will be able to edit any field and save as a private DB, that can later be shared, integrally or as separated, exchangeable ini files. I see this as a potential to have a custom version of catver and nplayers publicly maintained, so if someone gives up on those projects at some point (as it happened with controls.xml...), the community can keep them alive - It has a ton of pre-configured systems that can be filtered (neogeo, cps1, cps2, etc) - I'll add a backup system as well This system can deliver a clean list, ready to be used in just a few seconds if you know what you are looking for. Here are some screenshots showing what it does at this point. Some stuff is a little temporary, obviously, but you will get the idea. Btw, this is the first time ever that I'm showing this in public and it's going to be ready when it's ready ;) artworkandlocalroms.pngcontextmenu.pngfilters2.pngfilters3.pngfilters4.pngfilters5.pnggameinfo.pnggamelist.pnglistexporter.pngneogeofiltered.pngsearch.png Please visit my other thread here, where I'm developing a super fast "sideloader" for LaunchBox. It's a local scraper and mame migration tool that will make things VERY easy and VERY fast to import your Mame collection into LaunchBox: Lightspeed Mame Importer -Kris
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I don't know if it has this feature, if it's in the plans or even if it is possible. But I would love to have the ability to import my entire romset and then go in and build a clean list of games and then have one click to copy out all the necessary roms to a folder so I could have a nice, clean romset. This would be so awesome if it's possible for people who want to build a small streamlined mame cab without importing an entire romset and then dealing with generating a new list.
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lordmonkus said I don't know if it has this feature, if it's in the plans or even if it is possible. But I would love to have the ability to import my entire romset and then go in and build a clean list of games and then have one click to copy out all the necessary roms to a folder so I could have a nice, clean romset. This would be so awesome if it's possible for people who want to build a small streamlined mame cab without importing an entire romset and then dealing with generating a new list.
Yep, already in there ;) "- Based on your filtered list, press a single button and choose a folder and all roms in that list can either be copied or moved to the new location".
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And with the new suggestions from the other thread, I'm planning to support importing Favorites from MAMEUI and parsing of LaunchBox.xml straight to my lister and back to LaunchBox. It will take me sometime as this is a much bigger beast, but I'll do that ;) Now about the price... Well, it's free, as it should be. I've been using stuff created for free by other users, downloading free stuff for many years now and this is my way of saying thank you to a community. I'm developing those things in my spare time, while learning programming and it's a pleasure for me to solve those little puzzles, so any new feature I take as a little challenge and I'm at a point where the logic is pretty figured out, so adding things doesn't take me too long. I wish I had more free time though, but I've got a full time job, a wife and two kids ;) -Kris
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  • 10 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Really glad I found this thread. I've been scouring the net looking for a ROMLister alternative. Then I find this thread. I don't even know what I typed into google, but I bookmarked this thread last night.

@Antropus: I'm not here to bug you about "when's the release date? When's it coming out? What's taking so long?"

I'm familiar with software development and don't have any desire to add additional stress. Besides, I can tell it's a labor of love you're doing. Which I'm sure we're all grateful for.

Having said that ... any news? lol Yeah, it's an old thread so I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask if it's been abandoned or if it's still "done when it's done."

Not to add any unnecessary pressure, but I'm making a gift for my friend (Retropie) and I'm at that point of filtering the games list to the ones I know he'd be interested in. It's just ROMLister is showing it's cracks.

There's a house warming party next week and I want to give it to him then. So if you got something ready, awesome! If not, no worries, I can muck my way around in ROMLister. Actually in combination with LightSpeed, it could probably be done. Just a little more work.

That's all. Thank you for reading. ^_^

(Moderators, if you'd prefer I'd start a new thread instead of resurrecting this old one, then please delete my post.)

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