> > Hey, I'll try to be as straightforward as possible. Devs don't make MAME difficult > to > > use because they hate users. It's difficult to use because a command-line > application > > happens to be the simplest application one can make. Therefore it's easy to setup > and > > make changes to the MAME application code. It's easy to add new features like > shaders > > and slot devices and the like. A more user friendly UI would make this development > > much more difficult and much slower. This simple interface has allowed MAME and > MESS > > to develop quite rapidly. It's pretty amazing how many systems the emulators > supports > > and how well the emulator runs. It means more systems and games for YOU, the user. > > Time is the cost for developing MAME, and so the devs have decided to spend that > time > > on the emulators themselves rather than the UI. Nobody's against you, it's just how > > things work out. You'll notice Windows games don't usually use the Windows GUI > > either. They usually have their own in-game interface. That's not too different > from > > what MAME has right now. > > I get that, but you know when there's stuff like mame.exe not producing a mame.ini > anymore, when that's where you have to go to change that 0 to 1 and get the damn > thing you need to finally work...but wait: before that you have to use command line > to create it !? That damn paleolithic thing that doesn't forgive a single mistake and > you end up pulling your hair because people tell you commands that don't work on your > computer ? > And it's not just mame.ini but several other things that have to be done this way too > ? Argh. > I'm just telling you the obvious: that sort of thing won't do. never. ever. > For normal users faster development is not worth such steps back in ease of > access/useability. > > With the many recent changes and additions you MAME devs have brought, for some time > you have focused attention towards baseline, and I suspect people for quite a while > will want to use it more than ever, more than some unofficial builds. > How come do you guys expect those users 'new to baseline and unskilled' not to ask > for more accessibility and features ? So yeah that's expected that they'll ask for a > Win UI among other things. > > I'll just take an example of something that matters to me in particular: since > multithreading was removed GroovyMAME has been down in the mud. > Problem: the sync and lag issues this unofficial build attended to made it clearly > superior to baseline for actually playing. > The removal of multithreading originates from here (mamedev, baseline), and this is > also where I am supposed to wait for its hypotetical return. > Yes you have brought me to log in when I hadn't felt the need to post anything for > many years, and here I am 'bitching'. > > I don't know if you can see my point here; but since you've taken away some of the > interest of unofficial builds and are making baseline more the center of attention, > how long will you keep telling more noobs and unskilled users how to create mame.ini > ? or launch BGFX, or make some sliders appear in the ingame menu, or whatever thing > they want...through command line...before one of you retort to cutting all of those > user monkey heads with a lawnmover braindead/dead alive style ?
You can always make feature requests. Win32 interface isn't going to happen, but you can always ask for things like 'Can you include a script to generate a default config file?' or 'Can you make it easier to configure MAME from within the program itself, so I don't need to edit text files?' I don't know if they'd get accepted, but simple things like this are more likely to be done than telling us command lines are stupid.