bombdog

Same problem here.

Oh yes, even better... I did convert the XML files a few months ago so I had a catalogue of all my tables, to assist in removing VP9 tables when I got a better VPX version etc, and to see where I was missing vast swathes of Pinball History and to search for some gaps in years. It was a bit of a pfaff though1 A CSV of the whole XML file output would aid in this job too!

FEATURE REQUEST: A Game Manager 'missing media' text file creation button. On my cab I have a variety of missing media that isn't on the FTP, however it is a bit of a trial to have to try to list and then find this media whilst stood at the cabinet. Given Game Manager does a great job of revealing what is missing from each table, e.g. wheel, playfield etc, can this be written out to a txt file for me to then sit in comfort at my main PC and search or create files? Bonus query - is there a way to easily add or submit any missing media that isn't on the FTP? Perhaps a differential folder comparison between my folders and those which the Game Manager queries. This way any work I do can be submitted back for future FTP downloads for others. BUG: When swapping between allocating media locally, and getting media from the FTP, the 'Online for Import' button sometimes needs pressing a couple of times for Game Manager to recognise from where I intend to allocate data. So 'Online for Import' may be ticked, but it pops up a file browser window, or vice versa. A quick click usually re-initialises this but its a nit-pick bug that does frustrate when doing a longer session on media maintenance. Love the software by the way, Tom! This and GameEx make my cabs come alive.

Seconded, this would be very useful!

Will you be attending the Pinball event in Daventry next week? (And was Play Expo any good?)

Thank you very much. Happy New Year!

Thanks for the reply - I've had some luck with this after your tips. I found that I have needed to change some of the lines and rebuild the ahk. For interest, I removed these lines which I believe are right for your setup: ;Run, %antimicro_Path%\antimicro --no-tray --hidden --profile "%antimicro_Path%\profiles\VP.joystick.amgp" ;Run, dc2.exe -configure="%A_ScriptDir%\dc2config\TPASettings.xml",, Hide and added in Run, "C:\Program Files\iRotate\iRotate.exe" /rotate=90 which would be right for mine, before rebuilding it. Additionally I swapped out a similar line (to rotate it back) at the end, replacing the matching lines. This seems to work nicely and launches the correct table. On exit though, I was getting the Zaccaria pinball application sticking in the background on the 'are you sure you want to exit' screen. Don't know if this is just me. I'll try again tomorrow. Unsure if it's finding the right application or the ahk is dying before ZaccariaPinball.exe is killed. Thank you for the help!

Hmm.. I've read through that page too and can't work out: if there are supposed to be one, two or three scripts in there, due to the commenting implying so. What some of the script is doing - e.g. the antimicro area How I pass a table value to the AHK file and it pick it up. They've done all the hard work for us, but I still can't work out how to use it! Can anyone advise the final piece of the puzzle for us please?

I've got PBA running on my Pinball-X based cab over the past few days, with the addition of bloodydrake's excellent videos (link in the media part of the forum), however I think the key-presses are being confused by what appears to be an inconsistent start-up on the latest version of PBA. Sometimes I get a screen advertising the latest table release, which requires a click-through. I don't seem to see this every time I startup. Often this means the sequence of key-presses in the latest version of Pinball-X that navigates to 'My Tables', has an additional 'continue' button to navigate through. I only own seasons 1-3 of PBA, and sometimes the auto-key pressing takes me through to trying to buy 'The Addams Family' table, a different route through the menus entirely! I've run and played about six tables this evening, four times it navigated correctly, and a couple it didn't and got confused by the advert. Otherwise I can report that it rotates my monitor fine, before navigating to the right table, (with the software we also don't mention picking up too), and exits nicely too. Fantastic integration, it's nearly there.... Could this be worked out with a config file so the keypresses can be adjusted (to try to create a workaround for the appearance of the advert)? Just an idea.

OK - I can report I've got these running on my cab now, and didn't have to rename any of them either! This sort of thing saves a lot of time for us just starting out with setting up a machine. Very impressed with the file-size and quality, and it was useful to not have any audio on them too, as I'd gathered up the audio files from elsewhere. I'll try to get them onto the FTP when i can. If there are files already in place, I'll add them into a sub-folder with your forum name if I can do that. Thanks again!

Oh yes! This one is working better. Downloading as I type. . Just got TPA working with Pinball-X yesterday with the images, on my cab. Be great to have videos running instead! Thank you. Can these go onto the Pinball-X FTP for ease of downloading individual tables for other users? (I've only got the first three seasons, but will keep the other videos for the future)

Thanks for these - but I get the 'decryption key required' too...

Well, I've had another bash at this, and tried to take a screenshot by means of explanation. You can see where the generation of the EMU_1..dbcacheini gets a little confused. As VP tables can be created by different people, it may be that the descriptions for each would be different. Indeed there are tables with the same name made by different Pinball manufacturers many years apart, so one wouldn't want the fields to get mixed up. You can see below where (in my fake set of 8 tables) three tables called 'Abba' all get the same description from one of themThe Beatles tables get information all over the place from the details I've got in the database (e.g. the 1.2 table shows as 2.0)Some bracketed information gets moved across from GoodName to the Name table...when generated OK - so I understand I can't do what I thought I could. I understand the databases could be very large for the 'official' goodsets etc. I worked away on this in the hope I could post a little tutorial for others.... but I can't work it out. My last ditch idea would be to programatically rename my files, but this seemed like a bigger job, especially when they come from a variety of sources and if I get new files and copy them in, Windows would complain the file already exists and thus save me having duplicates... So.... how can I raise a feature request that what I'm trying to do can be done? I'd like the metadata options to be able to for example, pick a year, and see the tables made that year, as that's why I went database and not MAP file. My guess is that it isn't a big coding job, more a workaround of some clever coding that is currently in place to manipulate the goodset, nointro or tosec sets. Cheers Bombdog

Thanks for the response. Yes, I know what you mean about inconsistent results from inconsistent data..... However when I tick the box that says 'Use Database Name', this is the field I would expect to be used consistently in GameEx - it isn't! I don't really want to have to rename all my tables en-masse due to them coming from a variety of sources and there being other bits of information in the filename - hence my using a custom GameEx db to show a tidy list. I'll have to try some square brackets or similar, see if I can fool GameEx into displaying the field I asked it to... I'm loving the system though. Really improves the feel of my cab.

Hi all, I've been attempting to create a custom Pinball database from the VPMAN product, where I've been hoarding Visual Pinball tables over the years. I've got many different versions of tables and rather than rename the original downloaded VPT files, I've used VPMAN to add in the publisher, developer, release date etc. Thanks to the custom nature of GameEx I've been able to export from VPMAN into a copy of the template.mdb file, and append the additional data to the table names. Loading this into GameEx for my Visual Pinball emulator setup works well, however... Strangely, if the original pinball filename (in my GoodName field in my custom DB) does NOT have brackets in it, it is used as the name shown within GameEx even if I have the 'use database names' option set to 'Yes'. All other tables that have brackets in both the filename and the 'GoodName' field. e.g. - in the same file: GoodName = Airborne Avenger 1.3.vpt Name = Airborne Avenger (1.3) (1977) Shown = Airborne Avenger 1.3 (the GoodName - which I don't want) GoodName = Abra Ca Dabra (Gottlieb) (1975) (Luvthatapex) (RC1).vpt Name = Abra Cadabra (RC1) (1975) Shown = Abra Cadabra (RC1) (1975) (the Name, which I want) So.. in my 1000+ tables, I have a strange mixture of GoodName field and Name field being shown. I have written some update statements so I can automatically generate a new mdb file from my VPMAN database, so I can adjust these anyway I wish - so I'm happy to fiddle some more, but has anyone seen this problem before, and knows how to resolve it? Should NoIntro or TOSEC be used instead to prevent this mixture of display names? Is this a 'show database names' bug or is my hacking-together-assumptions not quite right? Thanks Bombdog

Seconded. I've gained a 'second wind' of rather than letting my cab gather dust with the occasional boot-to-windows and run mame32.exe, before using a handheld keyboard to jump through games..... into a fully-fledged, cab-control navigable enjoyable experience, with loads of systems up and running! Well worth the investment