LEDBlinky - LaunchBox not keeping controls lighted

[johnstewart]

I am trying to integrate LaunchBox Premium 6.11 with LEDBlinky 6.3.0.1 and MAME 0.177

The demo of game controls works nicely when scrolling around LaunchBox. However, when I launch a game, what happens is that the correct controls are lighted up briefly, and then turn off (or, if I have the option to "Light LaunchBox Controls" in LEDBlinky set, it appears to revert to those instead of leaving the currently running game's controls lighted).

I'm using LaunchBox itself to launch the games (no RocketLaunch, etc.)

I sent my debug.zip to arzoo, the LEDBlinky author, and he had this to say:

Quote

I looked over the log and what seems to be happening is after LEDBlinky receives the GameStart event it immediately receives a GameSelected event (which turns off the game controls). Are you using something like RocketLauncher with LaunchBox? I’m not sure why LaunchBox would sent the GameSelected command immediately after the GameStart command. We may need to get Jason involved with this issue.

 

I don't see anything appropriate to configure within LaunchBox itself other than to simply enable LEDBlinky.

 

Control mapping:

 

The only thing I haven't sorted that may be related that I can think of is to configure LaunchBox controls. The "LaunchBox Controls" appear to be buttons I don't expect and I've been unable to re-map under Options (whenever I click a button, and it changes the box to "Press Button...", it does not appear to accept any input from any buttons on my UltimateUI board, or any key on the keyboard).

 

Is this perhaps related? Is there anything else anyone can suggest?

 

Why would LaunchBox be sending the GameSelected command to LEDBlinky after launching a game?

thanks
 

 

[Jason Carr]

Hi John, this is interesting. We're using it effectively without these issues, so I'm wondering what the differences might be. Are you using LaunchBox instead of Big Box? Is that the difference?

[johnstewart]

I've been trying to get it working in LaunchBox, but am 99.9% sure it's the same behaviour when I switch to BigBox. I can confirm when I get home this evening (can connect remotely, but can't tell what the LEDs are doing from here.). =)

Two questions:

- There are no config options within LaunchBox, right? All I can see is to enable it, and specify the path to LEDBlinky.exe.

- What options are you selecting within LEDBlinkyConfig? I've poked around a bunch trying different options. I'll take some screenshots here.

[johnstewart]

LaunchBox 6.11
LEDBlinky 6.3.0.1
MAME 0.177

LEDBlinkyConfig screenshots follow.

LaunchBox selected as FE:

Game Options tab:

FE Options tab:

LaunchBox tab:

MAME Config tab:

Misc Options tab (don't think anything really relevant, adding for completeness):

 

In mame.ini as well I have set "output" to "auto", which effectively does NOT allow it to communicate with LEDBlinky. I had previously set it to "windows" and launched LEDBlinky with "1" option, to get MAME to talk directly without a frontend. But I changed to work on getting LaunchBox / BigBox integrated.

 

Edit: also just added the debug.zip from LEDBlinky which arzoo looked at.

Edit2: ack, removed debug.zip as it contains private info.

From debug.log, we can see Joust starting:

[10/01/2016 15:35:51] Event Started: GAME_START
[10/01/2016 15:35:51] ROM/Game: [JOUST] Controls: [MAME-JOUST]

 

But then LaunchBox is, after launching, 1 second later, saying GAME_QUIT and LIST_SELECTED:

[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Completed: GAME_START
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Started: GAME_QUIT
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Completed: GAME_QUIT
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Started: LIST_SELECTED
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Completed: LIST_SELECTED
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Received Event - Queue:[1] Msg:[9~joust~MAME].
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Started: EMULATOR_SELECTED [MAME] []
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Emulator: [MAME] 
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Completed: EMULATOR_SELECTED. Fast Load.
[10/01/2016 15:35:52] Event Started: GAME_SELECTED [joust] [] []

 

 

Edited October 6, 2016 by johnstewart
Took out .zip

[johnstewart]

FYI arzoo was able to reproduce, and said it was LaunchBox only. I finally got a chance to test this morning and can confirm.... the lights to appear to be lighting up as expected in BigBox mode!

[jking3]

I have the controls lit up with bigbox, @arzoo, is there anywhere I can set RGB settings for these controls? Right now its just white. I'd also like to add in a few other admin buttons to define. I can figure out where it pulls the bigbox settings from, but where is the Speak commands defined for launchbox controls?

 

Thanks

 

Jesse

[arzoo]

15 hours ago, jking3 said:

I have the controls lit up with bigbox, @arzoo, is there anywhere I can set RGB settings for these controls? Right now its just white. I'd also like to add in a few other admin buttons to define. I can figure out where it pulls the bigbox settings from, but where is the Speak commands defined for launchbox controls?

 

Thanks

 

Jesse

Jesse,

Try using the LEDBlinky troubleshooting app - it may be able to identify why you're controls are lighting up white. If that doesn't help, email me the debug.ZIP file and I'll look it over. As for modifying Launchbox/Bigbox speech commands, from the Controls Editor click the the "FE" button. That will allow you to alter what LEDBlinky speaks for each control.

[johnstewart]

@arzoo, or anyone else with a working LEDBlinky/BigBox setup, would you mind sharing your LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml?

 

It appears BigBox is lighting up controls based on the mappings there, and I'm certain I don't have all of them set. For example, if I set a button to map to KEYCODE_ENTER, then BigBox appears to light up that button when showing BigBox's controls (right now when showing BigBox controls, it seems to be fairly random what buttons are lit up).

 

thanks

[jking3]

@arzoo, Geez. I never saw the FE button in the controls editor before, I looked everywhere at least I thought! Thanks for pointing that out. 

 

 

 

[arzoo]

7 hours ago, johnstewart said:

@arzoo, or anyone else with a working LEDBlinky/BigBox setup, would you mind sharing your LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml?

 

It appears BigBox is lighting up controls based on the mappings there, and I'm certain I don't have all of them set. For example, if I set a button to map to KEYCODE_ENTER, then BigBox appears to light up that button when showing BigBox's controls (right now when showing BigBox controls, it seems to be fairly random what buttons are lit up).

 

thanks

The LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml file is unique to each users control panel configuration (hardware, wired ports, input codes, etc.) - so sharing the file is really of little help. LEDBlinky uses data in the BigBoxSettings.xml to determine the input code for each BigBox control. When the input code in the BigBox settings xml matches the input code in the LEDBlinkyInputMap xml, then that control will light up. Hope this makes sense.

Edited November 6, 2016 by arzoo
typo

[johnstewart]

16 hours ago, arzoo said:

When the input code in the BigBox settings xml matches the input code in the LEDBlinkyInputMap xml, then that control will light up. Hope this makes sense.

 

Thank you, @arzoo. I definitely think I'm missing something (again!). =)

 

Within BigBoxSettings.xml, I'm not seeing anything that relates to anything in LEDBLinkyInputMap.xml. This is what seems to be related to the controls there:

 

    <ControllerSelectButton>-1</ControllerSelectButton>
    <ControllerBackButton>2</ControllerBackButton>
    <ControllerPlayButton>3</ControllerPlayButton>
    <ControllerPageUpButton>5</ControllerPageUpButton>
    <ControllerPageDownButton>6</ControllerPageDownButton>
    <ControllerFlipBoxButton>0</ControllerFlipBoxButton>
    <ControllerPlayMusicButton>0</ControllerPlayMusicButton>
    <ControllerViewImagesButton>4</ControllerViewImagesButton>
    <ControllerExitButton>0</ControllerExitButton>
    <ControllerVolumeUpButton>0</ControllerVolumeUpButton>
    <ControllerVolumeDownButton>0</ControllerVolumeDownButton>

 

 

... just specifying an integer, it seems.

And within LEDBLinkyInputMap.xml, the input codes are all KEYCODE_<SOMETHING> like this:

    <port number="1" label="P1B1" type="R" inputCodes="KEYCODE_LCONTROL"/>

 

How do they correlate?

That setting KEYCODE_SELECT on the LEDBlinky side to a button affected what button was lighting up led me to believe that BigBox was keying on a certain set of input maps on the LEDBlinky side. But I'm not seeing how to connect the dots here.

 

I'm attaching my own files in case they're helpful.

 

 

BigBoxSettings.xml

LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml

[DOS76]

I just looked into using LEDBlinky for the 1st time but it doesn't seem to work with the Zero Delay Encoders so it looks like I'm SOL for now any chance that support for these will be added at one point.

[arzoo]

2 hours ago, DOS76 said:

I just looked into using LEDBlinky for the 1st time but it doesn't seem to work with the Zero Delay Encoders so it looks like I'm SOL for now any chance that support for these will be added at one point.

I'm always willing to work with the hardware manufacturers if they want to contact me.

[DOS76]

After reading more I don't believe the encoder has an led controller it just allows for the buttons to light up when you press them. Thanks for answering though.

[arzoo]

6 hours ago, DOS76 said:

After reading more I don't believe the encoder has an led controller it just allows for the buttons to light up when you press them. Thanks for answering though.

I was wondering about that. No worries!

[arzoo]

8 hours ago, johnstewart said:

 

Thank you, @arzoo. I definitely think I'm missing something (again!). =)

Within BigBoxSettings.xml, I'm not seeing anything that relates to anything in LEDBLinkyInputMap.xml. This is what seems to be related to the controls there:

    <ControllerSelectButton>-1</ControllerSelectButton>
    <ControllerBackButton>2</ControllerBackButton>
    <ControllerPlayButton>3</ControllerPlayButton>
    <ControllerPageUpButton>5</ControllerPageUpButton>
    <ControllerPageDownButton>6</ControllerPageDownButton>
    <ControllerFlipBoxButton>0</ControllerFlipBoxButton>
    <ControllerPlayMusicButton>0</ControllerPlayMusicButton>
    <ControllerViewImagesButton>4</ControllerViewImagesButton>
    <ControllerExitButton>0</ControllerExitButton>
    <ControllerVolumeUpButton>0</ControllerVolumeUpButton>
    <ControllerVolumeDownButton>0</ControllerVolumeDownButton>

... just specifying an integer, it seems.

And within LEDBLinkyInputMap.xml, the input codes are all KEYCODE_<SOMETHING> like this:

    <port number="1" label="P1B1" type="R" inputCodes="KEYCODE_LCONTROL"/>

 

How do they correlate?

That setting KEYCODE_SELECT on the LEDBlinky side to a button affected what button was lighting up led me to believe that BigBox was keying on a certain set of input maps on the LEDBlinky side. But I'm not seeing how to connect the dots here.

Currently LEDBlinky only lights up BigBox buttons that are mapped to the keyboard <KeyboardXXXX>n</KeyboardXXXX>. It does not light up buttons mapped to game controllers <ControllerXXXX>n</ControllerXXXX> values. This will be added in the next release. As for the number (n) in the <KeyboardXXXX>n</KeyboardXXXX> node, it's a .net System.Windows.Input.Key value and LEDBlinky converts that to an ASCII value.

[Fursphere]

On 11/7/2016 at 7:36 PM, arzoo said:

Currently LEDBlinky only lights up BigBox buttons that are mapped to the keyboard <KeyboardXXXX>n</KeyboardXXXX>. It does not light up buttons mapped to game controllers <ControllerXXXX>n</ControllerXXXX> values. This will be added in the next release. As for the number (n) in the <KeyboardXXXX>n</KeyboardXXXX> node, it's a .net System.Windows.Input.Key value and LEDBlinky converts that to an ASCII value.

Hi Arzoo - 

Is this the next version of LEDBlinky or the next version of LaunchBox?    Just asking for clarification, since I seem to have having the same problem with my cabinet.  My keyboard encoded buttons (iPac controlled, admin buttons) light up, but my main controls which run off Akishop PS360+ encoders don't seem to light up at all.    

thanks

[arzoo]

2 hours ago, Fursphere said:

Hi Arzoo - 

Is this the next version of LEDBlinky or the next version of LaunchBox?    Just asking for clarification, since I seem to have having the same problem with my cabinet.  My keyboard encoded buttons (iPac controlled, admin buttons) light up, but my main controls which run off Akishop PS360+ encoders don't seem to light up at all.    

thanks

The next version of LEDBlinky will light up the BigBox joystick buttons.

[Fursphere]

excellent, thanks Arzoo!  

[arzoo]

On 11/25/2016 at 9:44 AM, Fursphere said:

Hi Arzoo - 

Is this the next version of LEDBlinky or the next version of LaunchBox?    Just asking for clarification, since I seem to have having the same problem with my cabinet.  My keyboard encoded buttons (iPac controlled, admin buttons) light up, but my main controls which run off Akishop PS360+ encoders don't seem to light up at all.    

thanks

Just wanted to let you know that I've release an update to LEDBlinky (v6.4) which should resolve the problem with the controller buttons (joystick buttons) not lighting up.