Finally I succeeded in creating a small frontend for the Mac OS version of OpenMSX. Since all the good names like "Slingshot" and "Catapult" were already taken, I decided to give it the simple name "Peashooter"

Here are some features of the frontend:

- Can manage Disk images, Tape images and ROMs (MSX1/MSX2/MSX2+ ROMs are divided in different subfolders).
- Can support the following file formats: ROM, MSX, MX1, MX2, DSK, XSA, DI1, DI2, CAS, WAV
- Can load preview images in PNG format
- Can parse filenames according to the naming conventions of GOODxxx renamer tools
- Universal binary (Works on both Intel-based and PPC-based Macs)

And these are the known limitations:

- A copy of the OpenMSX Emulator must be placed in the Application folder or in the Desktop folder of the user, and must be named "openMSX" (its default name, usually you have to do nothing but copying the emulator to the Applications folder)

- Since the frontend uses the default configuration of OpenMSX to load the files (C-Bios v0.21), you can't load disk and tape images unless you manually change the default configuration of OpenMSX. I hope to fix this limitation in the future, adding the ability of selecting which MSX machine you want to emulate.

- All the ROM files, Disk images and Tape images must be place in a folder called "OpenMSX User Data" in the document folder of the user. If you don't create this folder, the application will ask you if it can create that folders for you.

All the MSX1 ROMs must be placed in the subfolder "MSX1 ROMs"
All the MSX2 ROMs must be placed in the subfolder "MSX2 ROMs"
All the MSX2+ ROMs must be placed in the subfolder "MSX2+ ROMs"
All the Disk images must be placed in the subfolder "Disks"
All the Tape images must be place in the subfolder "Tapes"

- It's an alpha release... it works on both my desktop computers (one 17" iMac G5 and one 24" iMac Core 2 Duo) and on my MacBook, however since it's highly untested it might not work on your Mac.


You can download the frontend from this link:

www.cesco.it/download/openmsx_peashooter.zip

Heheh, cool! Keep it up and if you need advice or tips or other info, don't hesitate to ask the openMSX developers; we'll be happy to help you.

Is there some (small) web site about this we can link to from the openMSX web site?

As new openMSX Mac user, I'll be looking forward the progress of this frontrend

Very nice Cesco, just a quick question why are you not using the softwaredatabase that comes with openMSX/BlueMSX ? It's located in your share directory and it's called softwaredb.xml.

It's a great looking front end, this was going to be the 2nd step with slingshot but I kinda quit that project... maybe I'll pick it up again someday.

Nice job!

ps can I use those descriptions for the softwaredb.xml ?

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Heheh, cool! Keep it up and if you need advice or tips or other info, don't hesitate to ask the openMSX developers; we'll be happy to help you.

Thanks, In this case I think I'll ask you a question immediately

Is there any parameter or trick that I could use to tell OpenMSX to start the emulation directly in full-screen?

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Is there some (small) web site about this we can link to from the openMSX web site?

Well, I think I could put online a small page tonight

Cool, thanks!

There are several ways to do it. The most complex but aboslutely the most powerful way is what we use for Catapult: use the CliComm protocol. So, you start openMSX with the parameter -control stdio. This way you can give openMSX commands via stdio (using a pipe). Then you can send any console command to openMSX, including full screen. When someone starts a game, you set the proper ROM image (carta goonies.rom), enable power of the MSX (set power on), enable full screen (set fullscreen on) and set the renderer to something else than none (set renderer SDL, or the default: unset renderer). And voila, you have a full screen openMSX window.

Examples on how this work can be found in the source code of Catapult and in the Contrib directory that comes with openMSX.

A simpler method: make a file (myfile.tcl) with the text: set fullscreen on and start openMSX like this: openmsx -script myfile.tcl
It will still briefly start in windowed mode like this, though.
But you can put any command or script in the file, of course. openMSX will execute it.

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But you can put any command or script in the file, of course. openMSX will execute it.

/me edits script.tcl and writes "make coffee"

Great work, cesco!

Here is the website: http://openmsx.cesco.it

Cool, added to the openMSX web site. Were my hints helpful?

Yes, thank you. Right now I'm creating a function for calculating the HASH for my files, and I'm hoping to be able to release an ALPHA 2 soon with the support for multiple machine configurations

Cesco: Repeat of my question why don't you use the Software.xml file? It can identify most of the MSX roms currently used.

I have just release, unfortunately still without a machine configuration manager but with some bug fixed and some new little features (like the ability to change the sorting order of the list, by description, by year of publication and by manufacturer)

You can download it at http://openmsx.cesco.it

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Cesco: Repeat of my question why don't you use the Software.xml file? It can identify most of the MSX roms currently used.

I'm indeed looking at that XML file. I'm actually making a function to calculate the HASH code for a file in order to compare it with the HASH codes provided into software.xml, so I'll be able to identify games and apps listed.

You could also use openMSX itself for this... RUn openMSX in the background with the ROM file and capture the output it gives from the softwareDB lookup... This is a bit of a hack though, but it works, until we change the output format (it's not meant to be used for stuff like this, but I think we should provide openmsx_info topics about this, so that you can get the info in a machine readable format).

Cesco the reason why i ask is : http://romdb.vampier.net/database.php if you want a different format outputed I can do that.

Manuel I know you discussed this with Wouter, I think it's overdue

But in this case it's probably about populating the list and not about giving feedback to the launcher.