CPWizBiz - Game Controls Display

[stigzler]

Hi folks. Just a quick share of something I've knocked together. Dunno if useful to you fellas. I'm mainly over on another FE (hence the newb here!), but this should work with all FEs:

CPWizBiz is a multi-system game info and controls generator. Use it to display the controls for any game on any system. It also creates a dynamic layouts, leveraging media such as images, video, flash, youtube, gifs and scrollers.

More Details and Download Here:

http://www.magoarcade.com/software/cpwizbiz

Edited March 31, 2017 by stigzler

[adu]

Waow, will try it, it can be a nice addition to a Vewlix with a dynaimc marquee and controls

[stigzler]

Certainly would + would be interested to see your rig. 

[zerohex]

@stigzler - I have been fiddling the past day or so with this.  Not sure what I'm missing but I have configured a system and game for BigBox and then another for MK Komplete (PC).  How do I get it to switch between the 2 when I launch the game in BigBox?  All it does it stay on the last active one I was working on in CPWizBiz/CPWizard.

 

 

[stigzler]

Have you looked at all the videos and documentation?

Docs:

https://cpwizbiz.codeplex.com/documentation

I'm not very clear on what you've done or what you're aiming for, but basically you have two routes to adding a game/system setup with CPWizBiz:

a) via command line - e.g:

cpwizbiz.exe -gm "WipEout 3" -sy "Sony PlayStation"

b) By going to the "Change Setup" tab, click "Clear" and then Type the gamename and then choose the system (and the other fields if you want). You can then setup the Game on that System. 

You then use CPWizBiz by getting BigBox to issue the above command line when it launches a game. Sorry, I don't know launchbox/bigbox well enough to tell you how to do that, but seeing the quality of this FE, their will invariably be a way to run additional command lines on game launch.

Hope that helps. 

btw - the Game and System cmd line parameters are the minimum. You can send other parameters as outlined in the docs. 

Edited March 29, 2017 by stigzler

[zerohex]

I think that may have been what I was missing.  I'll have to test later today.  For some reason I was thinking it was the magic button of loaders and would automatically know what BigBox is running.  But now that you say we have to issue a cli command before launching game to tell cpwizbiz what game control images to load it makes more sense.  I had went through the videos for setting up systems and home control, etc.  Setup one game, MK Komplete to test.  Will let you know results once I test now that I believe I have an ides of the correct way to do it.

[stigzler]

OK. Cool. Good luck. 

CPWizBiz is only setup  for one frontend at the moment, but keen to support other front ends too. There's one function in CPWB which allows you to translate system names as stored in BigBox into the CPWB standard. I'm not sure if BigBox has standardised system names, but if it does, I just need to create a map file from one to the other. 

For example, BB might have "Sony PlayStation" whereas the standard in CPWB might be "Sony Playstation" 

If there are standard system names in BB + someone's happy to do an exercise of mapping these - let me know and you help would be appreciated. 

Good luck, brother. 

[zerohex]

Ok, so I did some testing and everything is displaying correctly when running the command via cli.  I did not see a parameter for this but is there once to launch cpwizbiz minimized?  

Also, CPWizBiz stays open so calling it via another cli command does not change the control screen.

For Example:

First command:
CPWizBiz.exe -gm "Home Control System" -sy "NESFlix" -rg "NESFlixArc"

Opens up Control mapping image for BigBox.

Second Command:
CPWizBiz.exe -gm "Mortal Kombat Komplete" -sy "NESFlix" -rg "NESFlixArc"

Nothing changes after this is ran.  

If I run the second command after closing cpWizBiz it will relaunch it and change the CPWizard image.

 

[stigzler]

-edit-

Edited May 29, 2017 by stigzler

[zerohex]

ok, I applied for the group and will start posting there once I am in.

[stigzler]

Whoops - apologies - had membership set up wrong. You should be able to post now..

[JaysArcade]

Nice. I used Headkaze's CPWizard many years ago with Mame on an old Hyperspin build. Old GameEx dude here. Jumped ship for Hyperspin 4 or 5 years ago and now I'm here. Your program looks interesting. Might have to take a closer look if I ever get enough free time. It was always nice with CPWizard to see the control layout whenever I paused. Your program looks like it goes a few steps further. Interesting, thanks for sharing.

[stigzler]

No worries - hope it is helpful for people. Good way to view it - it's like CPWizard+. Headkaze is busy developing the new gameex, so he doesn't have a lot of time to dev his historic ones. Kudos to the fella - CPWizard is over 10 years old + still going! Top chap too. Not wishing to detract from Jason Carr - really respect what he's done with his stuff + love his dev videos. If I wasn't such a GameEx faithful, this would be my next choice. Exciting stuff you guys are doing here and would be exciting to be involved in it's development. 

[JaysArcade]

I'll definitely check out CPWizBiz when I get some free time. 

The original GameEx is pretty solid. I was using Hyperspin and I got caught up in that GameEx Evolution hype waiting for something awesome to happen. Then I found Launchbox. Game over. I still have a lot of respect for the original GameEx though. Tom did an excellent job with it. Headkaze is a good dude too. I occasionally still browse the third party tools over there. There is stuff over there that people on this forum haven't even thought of before. Very young community here. Sometimes it seems like folks trying to reinvent the wheel to do things that were long forgotten about over there. Not that that is bad or anything. We're all in it for the same thing, the love of the games. Good to see you over here and I hope your program gets some love.

[stigzler]

Cheers chap. Good vibe in this community, so hope it continues to do a storm. I think GameEx Evo and Launchbox can co-exist quite nicely, as they are going to offer different things, ultimately. And I won't hold my breath for the love - you seem like you've been in the hobby a while - so you know the type of stuff you see. I've already had one posting (on a FE forum that will remain nameless!) telling me that manually entering controls for games sounded too much like hard work and that he expected that this would have already have been done (for him!?). I've hired a jet and employed a team of data entry clerks to help him out immediately.

Keep on tinkering! 

[zerohex]

Are there any database fields that can be used when calling a 3rd party app?  

For example, when calling and emulator to launch a game it uses something like the following:
dolphin.exe "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE"

Is there a similar way to use the game title, platform, and emulator name? this would allow a general cli argurmant for a 3rd party app like cpwizbiz  For example:
CPWizBiz.exe -gm "{GAME}" -sy "{PLATFORM}" -em "{EMU}

 

[stigzler]

I'd be interested in this too - i.e:

1) what tokens does BigBox allow users to include in cmd lines? 

2) does BB have facility to 'alsolaunch' or 'launchbefore' when launching a game to allow additional apps to be run. Same apply at game close?

If there's enough interest and there are tokens for system and emulator then would be happy to code in some form of mapping for the emulator token (to map BB format to CPWB format). There's alaread mapping for systems - so if anyone has a full list of BB system names or  want to help out updating the existing the current map then let me know

[DOS76]

LB has the ability to add additional apps and to run before and/or after I believe they carry over to BB

[zerohex]

@stigzler I think LB/BB has default systems.  I'll  put together a list of BB System Names that were default.  You can always rename the systems in LB/BB but you can't be accountable for people going off the standard.  

@DOS76 The ability to add additional apps is what this is in reference too.  You can add additional apps but currently if I want to run CPWizBiz as an additional app I have to add a cli argument per game with the game title, platform, etc so it knows what controls mapping image to display.  The idea is that instead of typing out "Mortal Kombat" we could reference a variable that would return the field we are trying to access and then the same cli arguments can be copied to all games.  Furthermore, if there is something to this level, I'm sure Stigzler could do more LB/BB on a CPWizBiz level like he has done with GameEX, if he was so inclined :).  

[stigzler]

@zerohex - nice one. Do you want to help out? I can include you as my Launchbox contact. You could help by mapping the LB systems against the CPWB ones. If you go to the page below, scroll to the bottom, you'll find a spreadhseet at the bottom. 

https://sites.google.com/view/magoarcade/software/cpwizbiz

If you send me your email, I can send you a link so you can become an editor of this.