Any idea when a rom hide/delete feature will be available?

[bigo66]

Hi, I'm still dealing with hundreds of bad roms that once executed, freeze up my cabinet and force a system reboot. This is a huge PITA. Really want to stay with HS, but desperately need a way to quickly hide/or delete bad roms. Editing xml is not an option as this is a stand-up cabinet with limited access.

Thanks,

[IrishKrush]

Why can't you edit the XML on a seperate computer and replace the existing one once it is complete? I have done this pretty easily before.

[bigo66]

I don't know which games are bad until they are launched. It's going to be impossible to edit the xml 1 at a time with 8,000 + roms. This program really needs a simple way (in game) to hide or delete bad roms like GameEx and a few other quality front-ends. This is the one feature holding me back from using the program. Bad or non-working roms freeze up the OS and require a system reboot.

[BadBoyBill]

So if a bad rom freezes up your OS, then your saying you want to start the frontend all over again just to remove that rom from the frontend? That doesnt seem faster. How bout just running mame by itself to see what roms you dont like before even using a frontend and deleting those roms that way. That way your not constantly restarting the frontend over and over again to delete your roms.

[Dazz]

I do NOT think that having a delete ROM option from the front end is a good idea... I think for one, bigo66 you will want to learn how to use CLRMamePro to audit your ROMS. Learning how to maintain your ROM sets is very important no matter what front end you use. Once your ROMS have been audited then you can create filtered games lists using HyperList or RomLister. With RomLister you can filter out the ROMS that are known bad ROMS and then user HyperList to create an XML list based on your filtered ROMS.

Non working ROMS should NOT give you any issues with getting back to the front end. If a ROM doesn't work in MAME then it gives you an error message on screen and you should be able to exit back. If you're having freezing issues, then there is something else wrong. I have NEVER had a non working ROM lock up my OS, nor any issues that would require a system reboot.

We know nothing about your setup... What version of MAME are you running? Are you running MAMEUI? Command line MAME? v139? v138? What version of MAME are your ROMS for? PC specs? Ram? CPU?

It's very possible that your system doesn't have the specs and is locking up due to CPU or RAM limitations.

[volumetric]

are they freezing up your cab? Hyperlaunch could be running in the background, if you have hide desktop/hide cursor/hide taskbar options on, it may give the appearance of a lock up. can you access your task manager?

[Lailoken]

I've had this idea independently as well, and I can see the arguments for both sides. I agree it would be a bad idea to delete a ROM through the frontend, but how about just the ability to make notes in the Hyperspin log (or a separate log file)?

Press a special key or key-combo to bring up a small menu of flags (e.g. Does not run, Graphic bugs, Bad sound, etc.) so that any user who might run into a problem can send a note to the log and the administrator can check the problems later.

[bigo66]

Have no issues running ClrmamePro and RomLister. My concern doing this and question would be, "Will the xml for each category be generated as well" or just one master xml?

It's important the categories, driving, fighting, etc work. When I say delete, I meant a hide feature. If running ClrmamePro and Romlister do a good job pulling bad roms, then it's something I will look into.

I will get the mame version later when I'm home (think it's 1.039?). It's not a hardware issue. It's running a P-4, 2.7 GHZ cpu on asus mobo with 2 Gigs of ram with Vista 32.

How am I supposed to run mame by itself with 8,000+ roms to see if it works? That seems impossible and more time than what is available for troubleshooting. GameEx offers an immediate delete feature. Whether the rom is bad, doesn't have a screenshot, movie or is too stupid to keep, a hide/delete is one feature needed on HS. When I say delete, I didn't mean literally delete from the hard drive, but removed from the xml game lists and categories so it doesn't show up as an active game.

[BadBoyBill]

That version of mame you have has a built in frontend. I normally don't think this is a very necessary feature and personally won't use it since I do all my rom managment outside of frontends, but since there are a few people that have requested this feature I will go ahead and add it in.

[Secret80'sMan]

He's probably saying that something along the lines of the favorite list but in reverse would work for him, and perhaps others. If users can hit a button and the dialog comes up that says, "remove from wheel?" or "hide from wheel?" and then a YES or NO option that would probably be sufficient for most users I would think.

[BadBoyBill]

Ive been working on this feature the last couple days, it works really good and you can now easily remove items from the wheel, it doesnt actually remove it from your database nor can you ever delete roms from the FE either, this simply sets the new xml flag <enabled>true/false</enabled>, so that the game isnt visible in the FE.

There will be a new adjustable key in HS now called the delete key, and it is the DELETE key by default. Just hit the key to quickly bring up this menu and you can either hit start or hit the delete key again to remove the game. So hittting the delete key twice quickly will remove a game.

http://www.hyperspin-themes.com/images/hyperspin/wip/HSDS.jpg

[bigo66]

Wow! That's exactly what was needed. It will help a lot and will still run the rom management tools. When will the version of HS be available for download with this feature? Appreciate all the hard work coding BadBoyBill. Thanks, a donation to the project will be made shortly :)

[blur]

If running ClrmamePro and Romlister do a good job pulling bad roms, then it's something I will look into.

How am I supposed to run mame by itself with 8,000+ roms to see if it works? That seems impossible and more time than what is available for troubleshooting.

First if the game is freezing your front end then you must be using mame without hyperlaunch, i have freezes only when using mame without hyperlaunch. But even then alt-tab or ctrl-esc or ctrl-esc-shift or ctrl-alt-del helps - so no reboot needed, probably you don't have keyboard on cab so this could be a problem. But if you put mame to launch with Hyperlaunch you will have quick return to the menu or esc key would be enough to close the game.

To delete non working games all at once from your xml file you should use romlister - so you can skip clrmame and just run romlister (check doc section) and use it to filter non working games out - no clone, working list is only about 2200 games - better then ~9000

you can also generate genre xmls with rom lister or you can upload your xml to hyperlist and then get all genres with your xml as input, but rom lister is quite ok.

you can also use your normal full genre files so that you can run some clones from time to time and maybe find some clones that you prefer over parent and put them in your main wheel

you can have as many genre files as you want - for example i have two all games genres - one is lashek's greatest hits, which is named mame.xml so it's loaded by default, the other is "mame all games.xml" - so i can choose to see all games or just best games, and when i go to some genre i also get all games from that genre (not filtered)

you can even have less then 2000 games if you download some already made "BEST OF MAME" list from hyperlist web page and use it.

so i think that instead of waiting for delete rom feature and then removing 7000 games by hand with that feature you should try to master rom lister while you wait, and chances are you won't have to wait any longer :)

as for delete from wheel feature it's not bad idea - it can be used when you have a list with only a few non working roms

[BadBoyBill]

I figured people can use it to delete stupid games they don't like either which can only be filtered by you. I can see it being used a lot for that.

[mviars]

Hidding games you dont like is a great idea BBB. I would also like a hot key that puts a game into a favorits XML file for a wheel Genre selection. That is if there is not one already.

[SORHP]

I believe this is a great addition BBB, Thanks for always considering the feedback you get from us users.

[MrX_Cuci]

This is probably already in....

Hide clones (filter from sets). In Mame this would probably be easy, becuase parents and clones are known. No-Intro however, possibility to hide region dupes. (ex. main region UK, hide all games with same name and different region)

[BadBoyBill]

This is probably already in....

Hide clones (filter from sets). In Mame this would probably be easy, becuase parents and clones are known. No-Intro however, possibility to hide region dupes. (ex. main region UK, hide all games with same name and different region)

Parents only is already in HS, and as far as hide dupes, if you can show me one database we have here on the site (HyperList) that has a dupe then we did something wrong. None of our databases have dupes.

[MrX_Cuci]

It's indeed not there and that worries me. Sometimes the US versions are censored while the European versions are not. (or enhanced even) Other examples....I might even prefer the localized version above the US one.

I could create a full list of all roms and hide the once I don't need I guess.

[galvitron]

Bill,

Not sure if you've done this already, but it is probably a good idea to make sure the delete menu defaults to "No" so that mashing the button doesn't disable the game accidentally...

[BadBoyBill]

Actually it defaults to yes for speedy removal. This shouldnt be a button on your cab that your smashing anyways, its something youre more likely to do with a hidden keyboard or something.