Stiles Posted June 19 Posted June 19 (edited) Hey everyone, TeknoParrot Manager (TPM) has come a long way since I first posted this beta. It’s now at v1.0 RC6 and moving toward the final 1.0 release. TPM is a Windows PowerShell tool designed to automate the repetitive work involved in maintaining a TeknoParrot collection while keeping changes visible, backed up, and recoverable. The goal is simple: if you have dozens or hundreds of TeknoParrot games, you shouldn’t have to configure the same things manually over and over again. I’m still looking for testers—especially people with hardware, games, frontends, and library layouts different from mine. What TPM does Game registration and library management Scans extracted games and matches them to the appropriate TeknoParrot profiles. Handles shared-executable and ambiguous-profile situations conservatively instead of silently guessing. Supports large libraries and unusual platforms such as NESiCAxLive, Konami PC arcade titles, Chihiro/cxbxr, Lindbergh and others. Includes a read-only library health check for identifying broken registrations and missing files. Includes repair and backup/restore tools. AutoSync TPM can take a collection of game ZIPs stored locally or on a NAS and synchronize/extract them into your TeknoParrot game library. It understands already-registered games, renamed staging folders, supplementary sources, existing extractions and other situations that previously required a lot of manual cleanup. Controls Instead of configuring every game individually, TPM can propagate known-good controls between games that use the same control family. This includes things such as: light guns wheels trackballs twin sticks other compatible control families TPM is deliberately conservative about control changes. Ambiguous cases are surfaced instead of guessed. Crosshairs 321 included crosshair designs. Visual selection/preview. Automated deployment for supported lightgun games. ReShade TPM can automatically download, verify, extract and deploy ReShade where appropriate. RC6 substantially hardened this process: official installer download; SHA-256 download auditing; Authenticode signer/thumbprint validation; correct 32/64-bit DLL extraction; transactional deployment and rollback; compatibility with Windows PowerShell 5.1; special handling for loaders/configurations that need different deployment locations. The RC6 ReShade path has also been tested on a real TeknoParrot installation with an Action Deka before/after launch test, including confirmation that ReShade loaded into the running game. dgVoodoo2 TPM can automatically download and deploy dgVoodoo2 for games that need it, using the same safety-oriented download/deployment infrastructure. BepInEx update checking TPM detects games that already have BepInEx installed and can check eligible 64-bit installations against the latest stable Windows x64 release. This is an update checker, not a fresh BepInEx installer. TPM does not install BepInEx into games that don't already use it, and it does not update existing 32-bit installations. Downloads use TPM's hardened download pipeline, including GitHub SHA-256 digest verification when GitHub provides one. GPU and compatibility fixes TPM can apply supported compatibility fixes for AMD, NVIDIA and Intel configurations rather than requiring the same fixes to be manually copied from game to game. Force feedback Support includes native FFB Blaster handling plus supported third-party FFBPlugin workflows. PostgreSQL setup Some Incredible Technologies games require an old local PostgreSQL database. TPM can detect games that need it, configure the required database environment, back up databases before changes, and handle both newer TeknoParrot database workflows and older game-specific database restoration. Existing installations are treated conservatively rather than blindly replaced. LaunchBox integration TPM can add registered TeknoParrot games directly to LaunchBox instead of requiring the normal import wizard. You can choose to: add games to Arcade; create/use a dedicated TeknoParrot platform; use your own platform name; maintain both Arcade and a dedicated platform. TPM backs up LaunchBox data before modifying it and provides a restore path. Other frontends TPM also supports workflows for: HyperSpin 2 RetroBat Batocera Safety has become a major part of TPM A lot of RC6 development has been about making automation safe rather than simply adding more automation. TPM now has stronger: automatic backups; transactional file promotion; rollback after failed deployment; preservation of recovery evidence if rollback itself fails; cryptographic download auditing; fail-closed trust checks; preview/dry-run behavior; validation before destructive operations; package certification and regression testing. TPM should prefer asking you to review an uncertain situation over silently making a bad decision. Download audit logging TPM records information about downloaded components so you can see where something came from and what was actually received. This includes applicable downloads such as ReShade, dgVoodoo2, BepInEx, FFBPlugin, Eggman dat files, PostgreSQL/update packages and other live-fetched artifacts, with hashes, source information, transfer information and additional trust/signature information where the particular source supports it. Preview before changing anything If you're trying TPM against an existing library for the first time, I strongly recommend using Preview/Dry Run first. It lets TPM perform its analysis and show what it intends to do without actually writing the changes. Where the project is heading RC6 is primarily about stability, safety and getting the existing feature set ready for 1.0. Work toward 1.0 includes: improved RawInput / RawInputTrackball capability detection; guided trackball calibration and diagnostics, including work aimed at Golden Tee/Incredible Technologies setups; stronger automated documentation/release consistency checks; standardized repository formatting/quality gates; continued improvements to setup guidance and diagnostics; better project discoverability and documentation; continued bug fixing based on real-world tester results. There are also plenty of ideas beyond 1.0. I don't want TPM to become a giant pile of automatic fixes, though—the priority is to make each feature understandable, testable and reversible. What I'd especially like tested If you want to help, you do not need to test everything. Testing one feature on a setup different from mine is useful. Areas where additional real-world coverage would be particularly valuable: large TeknoParrot libraries; AutoSync from NAS/local ZIP collections; LaunchBox and Big Box integration; HyperSpin 2; RetroBat/Batocera layouts; lightgun/crosshair setups; wheel, trackball and unusual controller configurations; AMD and Intel GPUs; ReShade and dgVoodoo2 deployment across different games/loaders; existing BepInEx installations; Incredible Technologies/PostgreSQL games; backup and restore; unusual or ambiguous TeknoParrot profiles. Reporting bugs The best place is the GitHub issue tracker: https://github.com/Jumpstile/teknoparrot-manager/issues Include: what you were trying to do; the TPM mode/feature you used; what you expected; what actually happened; your TeknoParrot-Manager.log when relevant. You can also reply here. I read the thread and tester feedback has already uncovered several bugs that would have been difficult to reproduce on my own setup. Download / documentation / source Releases: https://github.com/Jumpstile/teknoparrot-manager/releases Project: https://github.com/Jumpstile/teknoparrot-manager TPM is currently v1.0 RC6. Final 1.0 is still in development. If you have a substantial TeknoParrot collection—or just one unusual game/hardware combination—I’d appreciate the testing. The objective for 1.0 isn't just “more features.” I want TPM to be something you can trust against a real arcade library: automate the repetitive work, explain what it's doing, back up what matters, and stop rather than guess when something isn't clear. Edited Sunday at 07:11 PM by Stiles New Featues! Quote
Stiles Posted Sunday at 07:12 PM Author Posted Sunday at 07:12 PM We're almost at 1.0. Please give it a try! Thank you! Quote
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