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View the latest Readme.txt file here.
CPViewer is an add-on for Mame. More specifically for the front-end you use to launch your Mame games. It uses a file called controls.ini to lookup the controls for a particular game. It then displays them on the screen so you know what buttons and movements perform what actions in the game that is currently highlighted in your front-end. Did you ever sit do to play a little and decide to try a new game. Then ask yourself, "What buttons do what?" Well if the game has been documented in the controls.ini file, this won't happen again. Simply press a hotkey (one of your control panel buttons) and a graphic of your control panel will be displayed with all of the character movements or button assignments displayed so you know what buttons perform what actions. It's that simple.
It is an undertaking by a group of people to document, in a usable form, the original controls and movement for the games supported by Mame. You can find out more here.
You can start by looking at the screenshots of it in use on my cabinets. You can also install it and run it from a command prompt to simulate it being launched from a front-end. After you install and configure it perform the following. Open up a command prompt. Switch to your CPViewer folder. Type in a game name in the following format.
If it's a parent ROM like dkong (Donkey Kong), type this (without the quotes): "cpviewer dkong"
If it's a cloned ROM like dkongjp (Donkey Kong - Japan Version), type this (without the quotes): "cpviewer dkongjp -clone dkong"
There are some shots available of it on my cabinets here.
No.
Any operating system that's compatible with Microsoft .Net framework. You can get the latest version here:
A front-end designed to work with an external viewer. MameWAH and Mala are a couple of example that I know of.
You can get the latest version here:
The first thing you will need is a graphic of your control panel layout. It needs to be in either JPG or PNG format and the same resolution as your front-end is running at. In the samples folder the is a graphic that contains many controls. After that, start CPViewer, on the menu select Background/Add Image. Now select Background/Set Resolution. Now your canvas is ready. On the menu click Labels/Add Label and select the labels you want to add. Back on the main canvas drag your labels into position and set their properties, colors, fonts, sizes and what-not. Now save your layout. Now, under Options select Viewer Configuration Wizard and complete the wizard.
You must hold down the CTRL key to select labels. Using this method you can select multiple labels at one time.
This option is strictly for canvas readability. It has nothing to do with the actual text rotation at runtime. At runtime your text will automatically be oriented properly and centered in the label.
It all depends on how your Operating System is oriented in your cabinet. The layouts are displayed automatically according to the rotation angle, 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees from the Operating System orientation. Cocktail cabinets can be a strange thing. Some users display their Operating System horizontally and others vertically. Just pretend that the monitor your running the CPViewer Layout designer on (if it's not your cabinet) is mounted in your cabinet in the same orientation as the OS of the cabinet. Now, make your horizontal and vertical layouts face where the player stations would be. It's tough to explain because sometimes a vertical game layout will need to be designed horizontally on your monitor.
This seems to be a limitation of the Microsoft development environment.
Microsoft VB .Net 2003.