*Planned and Possible Feature Requests*

[shimoda]

Bill, I know you are on your way with this thing, but Koolbrez67's video gave me an idea. The "bumping" pointer is so cool already, but with the idea of the wheel, I get the spinning wheel feature idea. Instead of the usual pointer, could that special artwork be a .swf file that actually had a moving pointer (like on the Price is Right wheel)? Actually, could there be two files for that pointer, say pointeru and pointerd (and for horizontal, pointerl and pointerr). When the wheel moves up, the pointeru.swf plays. Or maybe the flash would have some other function to read and respond based on the action. This is probably more difficult to incorporate but it just struck me as a cool possibility to an already amazing FE (getting better every day!).

[Huggybaby]

1) It would be cool and extremely helpful if the Wheel Settings/Wheel tab had a preview so you could see your adjustments in real time, like is done already for wheel text.

2) Emumovies are currently incomplete, so it would be nice to have missing movies filled in with snapshots. So, you would specify your snaps and videos directories in the ini file like so:

[video defaults]

path=F:\Mame Files\emumovies\

path=F:\Mame Files\snap\

First movies are checked and if a movie is missing, the snaps are checked, or vice versa---whichever line came first would have priority.

I don't see a way to specify multiple paths in the GUI.

Thank you.

[firefoxian]

Multiple emus in the same wheel is a great idea, so you can create genre related wheels. Do you have to enter extra info in the xml to define the system/emu?

How do you control the dimensions/scaling of wheel images in the settings?

I would also love to see a video delay of 1/2 seconds so you see the background and theme first. A launch delay of games with a short message or image would be great too.

most of this has been done. did you find my latest hyperlaunch?

[Dano]

can i suggest a change of the "being worked on" colour in the list in the OP from yellow to orange?

[Dano]

also i had an idea, i don't know if it would be useful or even possible to do, but what about making themes renamed zips for file association purposes?

like instead of, sy, off the top of the list:

3countb.zip

becomes

3countb.hst

it's still a zip file, but .hst can be associated with hyperspin separately and have a cool icon, and with the addition of a path.txt in the zipfile, can be double-click install from wherever

sample contents:

Themetype=MAME (or Mainmenu or DAPHNE or whatever)

# this theme by some person who made the theme, shout outs to some dudes

# this theme may be used by whoever for whatever blah de blee comment strings ftw

i hope this makes sense, not had enough coffee yet

[MrX_Cuci]

"Multiple emus in the same wheel is a great idea, so you can create genre related wheels."

Is actually was thinking about this aswell. I now have the arcade classics main theme and want to have multiple system themes underneath it. I already made some XML's for it (see hyperlist) I want to put Neo Geo, Sega model 2 etc there.

Same goes for Nintendo main theme. Put Super Nintendo, Gameboy, NES etc. system themes underneath it.

[Dazz]

Multiple Emus on the same wheel was added with version 1.0.

[MrX_Cuci]

My question is actually how to put multiple system themes underneath a main theme item.

For instance

Main theme:

Mame

------System themes:

------Neo Geo

-----------Game themes / games

------Sega Model 2

-----------Game themes / games

------Sega ST-V

-----------Game themes / games

Main theme:

Media

-------system themes:

-------Movies

-----------Movie themes

-------Music albums

-----------Albun themes

etc.

You could do this by using the genre.xml with wheel only, but there are so many good themes for the above it would be a shame not to use them in a proper way.

[Lashek]

The system would have to be rewritten to support "sub-sub-wheels", it is currently only "main system wheel->sub wheel" with a button to load genre wheels. I (personally) don't foresee this occurring anytime soon. Then again, only Bill can tell.

[jwferne]

I'd love to see multiple favorites lists for any particular emulator. So Dad can have his favorites MAME games w/shooters and stuff, then a mellow easy list of games for the kids.

Back on Mamewah, you could create multiple lists and name them as well. Was a nice little feature

[Dazz]

I've asked Bill for multiple favorites lists, so hopefully that can be added.

However, regarding MrX_Cuci's question about sub-sub-wheels, I don't see that coming ever. Unless Bill decides to re-write the engine, but he just got done with that and I don't see it happening again anytime in the distant future.

[deejub]

I would like to see the control panel graphic displayed on a secondary monitor when a game is run. Then I could mount one of those cheapo 2-4" lcd's directly into my control panel and it would tell what the button layout for the currently running game is.

Setup your c.p. button layout in HQ then a simple text file for each game like

b1=high punch

b2=high kick

b3=low punch

b4=low kick

[iammud]

I've asked Bill for multiple favorites lists, so hopefully that can be added.

What I was thinking would be cool is if you could have a favorites style list on top of any XML. EG MAME.xml MAME.txt Fighter Games.xml Fighter Games.txt

This way we can keep our xml's more friendly to a complete mame list, then quickly add games to the txt when the game is working, or themed.

[GreatLamer]

If the PC submenu works like tha main wheel the program will be more comfortable of use. Tried to insert PC games to a subcategory, read the instructions but too tiring the whole thing so I stop the usage of program temporarly. On the other hand, this is the best frontend for emus-only.

[NIVO]

id love to see settings in HQ that are "checkable" so you could simply checkmark "Hide all mahjhong games" and "Hide Mature games". This would be the ideal way versus editing a file of any sort as you could simply leave the roms/movies/screens/themes in place should you choose to have them return at a later date at your leisure. Also saves time editing files and having to install/remove files. Very beneficial to those with children to remove unwanted content. Thanks

[ninjalo]

id love to see settings in HQ that are "checkable" so you could simply checkmark "Hide all mahjhong games" and "Hide Mature games". This would be the ideal way versus editing a file of any sort as you could simply leave the roms/movies/screens/themes in place should you choose to have them return at a later date at your leisure. Also saves time editing files and having to install/remove files. Very beneficial to those with children to remove unwanted content. Thanks

As a father of three, I agree with this idea.

[curtis-r]

Separate key(s) to exit Hyperspin vs. the key to return to the Main Menu would be great. In other words, a kiosk mode option.

[sure hope I'm not such a newbie that this is already the case & I couldn't find it ]

[galvitron]

I was wondering if there is anything to accomodate people with wider screens than 1048 x 768. I know this has been brought up in the past. Hyperspin was not made for wide screen users and those of us that use it full screen have to live with a bit of screen stretching. Although I would prefer not stretching the screen, I live with it because even stretched HS beats every other FE out there graphically and effect wise. I also know one of the reasons it hasn't been considered is because all the themes are made at 1048x768 and there is no way it would be reasonable to redo all the themes for people with wide screen monitors. There then would be the issue of themes being released and having different versions for different resolutions and it could become a nightmare. I understand and completely agree that in that way it would be more trouble than it's worth...

However... just an idea...

How about if there was a choice for regular size screens and a choice for wide screen monitors in the config settings. Regular size monitors would continue to display the way they do now. Wide screen could display the whole Hyperspin wheel non-stretched at 1048x768 but there would be a seperate image placeholder off to the left or right of the wheel for putting a system or theme related image like in the whole media folder image1 image2 etc area. Think of it kind of like the way you see MAME displays an artwork overlay on the sides of some vertical shooter games.

It could be like an "Overlay" or "Widescreen" image folder alongside the other media folders for themes and sytem themes. Maybe with a "default" overlay image if no custom one is there. I could imagine custom images could be made containing maybe the game or system logo or text description of the game or something in this regards.

I don't know if it would be possible, but it would certainly be a way to accomadate the widescreen owners by letting them run HyperSpin non-stretched in a practicle way and would not require a complete redoing of any of the themes. I can't be the only widescreen user out here? What do you think?

I too have the issue that 1024X768 is stretched. I run windows and hyperspin at 1920X1080 and everything is stretched.

It is not the end of the world, but it kind of sucks that all those sharp, pretty themes are fuzzy looking.

But I don't know what a good solution would look like. All the themes are designed for 1024 X 768 so either the themes get stretched which brings back the scaling issue, or there is a surround with no active area.

Maybe a scaling of the theme when rendered so that the xml positions are scaled out and the theme elements are shown at native resolution? This would introduce extra spacing between the theme elements and screw up the composition, but may look ok...

[zig]

Will there be a new version of HyperTheme released with Hyperspin 2.0?

I don't know how difficult it would be, but...

It would be great if HT could automatically "clip" the preview video inside of round,oval etc shaped video frames.

[BadBoyBill]

You can probably clip the videos yourself now , flv's support alpha channels so any part of the video can be transparent, you just have to learn how to do it. I havent done it personally myself but would be cool to see.

[zig]

Do you mean alter the .flv itself? Then the video would have to be uploaded with the theme? Isn't that a no-no?

[blackielee13]

I too have a widescreen monitor and it drives me crazy to see the boxarts all stretched. I would be happy if there were just an option to force hyperspin into 4:3. I dont mind the black bars on the sides. and the idea of a default image "overlay" type of thing is a great idea. there could be a bunch of them...kind of like the interstitial background images. We could have one that looks like curtains at a theatre..or whatever.

[Dazz]

Just wait for 2.0. It has HD/widescreen support.

[Aileron]

Could running hyperspin 2.0 on a secondary monitor be implemented?.

[kronic24601]

Hey ... stop trying to keep adding stuff. Let's get the core done, THEN we can add features with 2.1, 2.2, etc...

For me ... I can't wait to be able to remove ROMs directly from Hyperspin (or at least the XML reference). It's always such a pain to get the selection of games together.