Emu Loader Change Logs

# version 6.6 change log - December 23, 2012

## Fixed

### Applied a dirty fix for the "gamename.zip not found" message, for sets with no ROMs ("Game Details" screen)

### "Ghost" effect not being applied to unchecked files in "Delete Selected Games" feature

### MAME games with no ROMs were being handled as "missing ROMs" (pongf, ide_baseboard, hdd, and others from MAME Plus!)

### Proper MAME NVRAM file type detection ("Delete Selected Games" feature). This is just a cosmetic fix, to display correct file type descriptions...

### Fixed my TShadowLabel component. It was cutting 3 pixels at the right side and 1 pixel at the bottom. The regular TLabel component also does that when text have "Italic" style enabled or the component is set to "disabled"

### Menu item caption was appearing as hints in some menus/popup menus

### Button "Yes" being executed when pressing "ENTER" key, while button "No" is focused (MessageBox screen)

## Changed

### Rewrite of "Emulator Setup" screen. A new "glowing text" unit is in for testing (might be removed/replaced in a future build)
To avoid repaint crazyness (like TLabel component), the new "CreateGlowText()" function can only be used with TImage components

### Visual updates on a few screens that have "emulator select" and "image category select" panels and/or screens

### Rewrite of "Image Category / Image Layouts" settings screen and fixed a few visual bugs

## Improved

### Delete multiple games at once has been completely rewritten.
- Added game config files (cfg; nvram; eeprom; sram; flash) to "Delete Selected Games" feature. Also added ".flash" files detection for Demul (nvram folder)
- ALL selected games are now scanned, not just available ones. This is necessary since config files are included in the search, and you might have config files but not the actual ROMs/CHDs files
- Files list no longer appear while scrolling the games list. Instead, a "Files Details" button is available if you want to see the full files list (all games or selected games)
IMPORTANT: You cannot select individual files per game to delete anymore. A new checkbox group has been created, called "Check File Types to Delete".
There are three options: "ROMs", "CHDs" and "CFGs/NVRAMs". Just check the file types you want to delete and uncheck the ones you want to keep. It's very simple

### Rewrite of "Show Game Details" screen and a few optimizations. Still not final... I'm not yet happy with how it looks

### Buttons "No" / "Yes" re-arranged in MessageBox screen. Button "No" should be on the right side...

### Replaced open/save file dialogs by Windows native dialogs. The proper dialogs are displayed now on Windows 7 :)

### Finally found a way to compile the project with a high res icon with many resolutions, including 256x256

## Removed

### Feature "Delete Game Config Files" is no longer needed

### Feature "Delete Not Used Game Config Files". It's way easier to manually empty config folders from all emulators anyway...

## Added

### Support for MAME v147u1 new "mame.ini" settings

### It's bigger... it's better... zipped images is BACK!
- Files are extracted directly into a memory stream (RAM). No temporary files are created - All systems are supported
- If you modify any of the .zip files, Emu Loader must be restarted, or you can disable/enable images (F6 hot-key) - Files must be placed in the same folders as images, for each system
- None of the rename/delete features support zipped images, because it's ultra mega dog slow to update .zip files - Each .zip file is closed after the image is loaded. This prevent files from being locked and always opened...
- The priority is still unzipped images. If no unzipped images are found (both parent and clone), .zip files are searched
- Use of internal string lists for faster file searching
- Filenames for each image category (same as MAME Plus! / MAMEUI). Same filenames for all emulators as well:
- Title Snapshot: titles.zip
- In-Game Snapshot: snap.zip
- Marquee: marquees.zip
- Flyer: flyers.zip
- Cabinet: cabinets.zip
- Control Panel: cpanel.zip
- Control Panel Layout: cpanellayout.zip
- PCB: pcb.zip
- In-Game Artwork: snapartwork.zip
Notes:
1. if you select the same image folder for different systems, the same .zip file will be used!
eg.: select same folder for snaps in MAME and ZiNc. EL will search images for both systems using the same "snap.zip" file
2. Searching internal lists, it takes zero ms (milliseconds) on a list with 30 thousand items (15 ms on a list with 60 thousand items, 30 ms on a 120 thousand list... and up on larger lists)
Unzipping files takes between 15 ms to 50 ms, depending on how big or small the .zip file is. This is measured on a Core I7 2600 3.4GHz)

# version 6.5.4 change log - September 15, 2012

## Fixed

### Critical error: a few important features were not working due to new "TrkGlassButton" button types still being handled as regular "TButton" on many functions

### Several games filters were not working due to a glitch in the source code... sorry, my fault

### Button "Image View Mode" is now the last button in images tool bar button... as it should have been from day one

# version 6.5.3 change log - May 27, 2012

## Fixed

### Rename/delete images was never possible, unless the main menu "Images" was accessed first

### Rename/delete images with popup menu was not working while in layouts view mode

### Minor UI bugs

### Quiting the frontend in full screen mode. After restart EL and disable full screen mode, main window state was not restored correctly

### Images panel visible when restarting EL in thumbnails view mode

### Feature "center image splitters" was not working correctly for some layouts (image layouts view)

### Buttons / checkboxes / radiogroups components disappear when pressing the ALT key (Windows themes support is buggy in Delphi 7 for some components)

### Game selection's alpha blend setting was always disabled on restart

### Panels in "Image Layout Settings" screen were not being correctly shown/hidden (visual bug only)

### Splash screen's texts frame not moving along with splash screen while dragging it

### Several UI bugs in MAME settings screen, including tooltips

## Changed

### Main menu bar is gone. All options are now in the first button at the main tool bar buttons. Can also be hidden

### Modified my splitter component to accept a single color, a popup menu... and more goodies

### Splitters in main screen set to "Office 2007 Luna" style by default. Customizable at preferences screen, "General" page

### Replaced all top/bottom bars by my new TPanelEx component with vista grandient styles (external image files no longer needed)

### Moved Daphne settings from preferences screen to its own config screen and added new settings. A new file is created: "\emulator_ini\daphne_el.ini"

### Moved "\images\msgbox_icons\" folder to "\resources\main_icons\msgbox_icons\" and converted into .ico files

## Improved

### Dual gradient selection bar visually improved (menus / popup menus)

### Preferences screen make-up. Sections separated by pages

### New hint control to mimic Windows 7 hints/tooltips (games list has its own custom hint, it cannot be changed)

### More code cleanups and optimizations

### Replaced all checkboxes, radiogroups and groupboxes by my new custom components. Custom label colors and shadow texts

## Removed

### Select random game feature on main tool bar buttons is gone. This feature never worked right while filters are enabled

### The following files are no longer needed (all from "resources\images\" folder):
"msgbox_bottom.png", "msgbox_bottom_border_left.png", "msgbox_bottom_border_right.png", "checkbox_on.png", "checkbox_off.png", "msgbox_top.png", "systembk_top.png", "textbar.png", "textbar2.png"

## Added

### New settings for "Image Layouts View"
- "Show Splitter Grip Icon" -> toggle on/off grip dots in splitter (images popup menu)... enabled by default - "Customize Splitters" -> customize splitters appearance (images popup menu, preferences screen / "Images" section) - "Splitter Style" -> fixed gradient colors, "single color" style can be customized (preferences screen / "Images" section)
- "Center This Splitter" -> center only one splitter on a image layouts view (mouse right-click directly on the splitter)
- "Enable Layout Dimensions" -> show a window with the size of each image panel (in pixels), for extreme fine-tuning (images popup menu)

### Option "Category / Layout Settings" added in images popup menu for quicker access

### New setting for main tool bar filters: "Bound To Games Panel". Check this option to limit the tool bar to the games list panel. This will increase the size of the images panel even more (menu "View" / "Tool Bar" and in "Customize Tool Bar" screen
NOTE: if the games panel is too short, use the small tool bar buttons or increase the games panel width by using the splitter

### New setting: "Show Image Border" (enabled by default). Show a 7 pixels border around the image panel (images popup menu)

# version 6.5.2 change log - February 28, 2012

## Fixed

### Minor command line fix for Supermodel 0.3a (run games)

## Added

### Support for Demul v0.5.7

# version 6.5.1 change log - February 25, 2012

## Fixed

### Games with discrete audio were not being parsed correctly from -listxml output (MAME)

### Feature "Delete Selected Game(s)" was not searching CHD filenames correctly and not listing them on the game files list

## Improved

### More source code cleanups

## Removed

### CHD Sub-filters removed. Only a single CHD filter is available from now on. File "chd_mediatypes.ini" no longer required

### CHD compression type info completely removed from the project. Now only the header version is shown

### Support for "Game FAQ Files" and "PCB Info Files" removed (preferences screen, game info feature)

# version 6.5 change log - February 21, 2012

## Fixed

### Since MAME 0.144u7 main CPU tags have a " : " char in the tag name (-listxml output). Dunno why they did this... :_(

## Added

### View game info from Progetto EMMA website, since MAWS is offline and there's no ETA on its return (if ever)
To change between them, go to main menu "Images", and select one of the options. "Progetto EMMA" will be the default setting from now on

### Support MAME v0.145u1: new CHD header v5 detection (no compression type detection though)

### Support new settings for the latest Supermodel 0.3a-WIP ("Supermodel Default Settings" and run games)

# version 6.4.2 change log - January 28, 2012

## Fixed

### ROM status begin set as missing for available games. I guess I missed that small tiny detail. All is good now :)

# version 6.4.1 change log - January 22, 2012

## Fixed

### ROM CRC32 checksum was not being parsed correctly from mame's -listxml output (several sets). This greatly affects game audit!

### Game status not being properly set on missing sets, showing wrong info in "Game Details" screen and set status icon at games list's status bar

# version 6.4 change log - January 10, 2012

## Fixed

### Minor cosmetic fixes in the user interface

### Application crash after deleting a game .zip file... this bug has been there for months :_(

### Events of several buttons and components in "MAME Settings" screen were missing (folders tabs). Not a single bug report about this either :_(

### Status bar not updated after single game scan (audit)

### The folder for SEGA Model 2 Emu config file could not be located, as the folder was not being properly set. That means NO ONE could run games with the frontend! Sadly, nobody reported this :_(

### Games list was not being generated at startup, if games list file and ROMs database file were not found

### Minor bug that was not properly adding merged clone "names" into "arcade\mame_merged.ini"

## Changed

### If option "Set All Games Available", only the games from the selected "scan games" option will be updated (not the entire games list). But the "arcade\system_name.miss" file will not be updated

### Selection bar updated

### Blank icon renamed to "blank_icon.ico" and it's now a 32-bits icon ("resources" folder). "MAMu_ Icons Manager" feature updated to use this new icon

### Big core change 1! From now one, the entire ROMs database is loaded in RAM for easier and faster access. You must re-create the games list for all systems!
- ROMs database changed again ("\arcade\systemname_roms.el" files). Used by following features: "scan games (audit)", "scan results" and "game details"
- no more "baddump" / "nodump" tags detection (this is not a ROM manager), although "nodump" is set if the checksum is empty
- the "is / is not device rom" tags are now placed before the rom name (MAME only)
- entries "gmtitle", "cloneof", "biosname" removed since they're not needed anymore
- an addition of 3 seconds to load the ROMs database, when loading the games list

### Features "Scan Games (Audit)" and "Scan Results" updated to use the new ROMs database format. The data needed (game info and ROMs list) are read directly from the games list

### Big core change 2! Game set status info expanded into three categories and added directly into game list files ("arcade\system_name.el"), for easier access and game auditing. You must re-create the games list for all systems!
- code 0 -> available game
- code 1 -> missing ROMs/CHDs - code 2 -> missing (no .zip file found)
- file "arcade\system_name.miss" still used to display ROMs status in "Game Details" and "Scan Results" screens

## Improved

### Code cleanups

## Removed

### The following "selection bar" settings were removed (preferences screen, "Selection Bar" frame box)
- "Full Item Paint" -> it's always enabled anyway
- "White Text Color" -> not needed anymore
- "Gradient Bar" -> gradient selection bar is always enabled now

## Added

### New scan games option: audit multiple selected games at once :)
- only games from ONE system will be scanned (based on the first selected game) - option located below "Selected Game [Shift+F5]", called "Selected Games (Multiple)"... games popup menu, "Scan Games (Audit ROMs)" sub-menu or just use the hot-key "Shift+F6"

### New selection bar option: "Round Corners". Enable or disable the rounded corners in the selection bar (preferences screen)

# version 6.3 change log - December 15, 2011

## Fixed

### Average FPS was not being shown after exiting a MAME game, if "Show Error Messages" was also checked (main menu "View" / "Command Line")

### Paiting bug when selecting items on large icons view mode

## Changed

### The -listxml output file is no longer deleted after creating a MAME games list. It is now a fixed file: "elfolder\arcade\mame_listxml.xml"
It will only be updated if a new MAME build is used. It takes way too long for this file to be created
Avoid deleting this file manually...

### XP themes must be enabled from now on, so EL can work properly. Windows 7 needs aero interface. Otherwise, the UI will be all messed up

### New screens for Delete/Rename image files

## Improved

### New rename/delete images dialog

## Removed

### No more true color icons (24-bits) support. EL was built for XP icons from day one (32-bits, alpha blend)
MAMu_ icons still supports 8 bits (256-colors), 24 bits (true-color) and 32 bits (XP-icons) and that will never change

### Support for Win9x / WinMe is gone

### Setting "Force Quotes (XP/Win7)" (main menu "View" / "Command Line"). It has been disabled for many builds

### Setting "Disable Icon Stretch (48x48)". Not needed anymore (MAMu_ icons)

### File "EmuLoader.exe.manifest" is not needed anymore. Themes is always enabled from now on and there's no way to turn them off

## Added

### Support for the new control tags format in -listxml output (MAME 0.144 and newer). Games with dual joysticks are displayed correctly at "Game Details" screen. File "ini_files\control_type.ini" updated (MAME Plus! also supported)
Old MAME builds are still supported (minimum 0.84)

### Support 48x48 icons for MAMu_ icons (alpha blend-32 bits, true color-24 bits and 256 colors 8-bits)
Only when using tiles view mode or standard/grouped views with "extra large icons" settings enabled

# version 6.2.1 change log - Novermber 24, 2011

## Fixed

### Game sets that have no ROMs where being set as missing as there is no ROMs list for the audit feature. They are all set as available sets from now on (pong, a2600, nes, etc). This fix only applies to "MAME Plus!"

## Changed

### Changes in "MAMu_ Icons Manager" feature:
- new "Mechanical" column in missing icons list
- icons do not get copied/updated when closing the screen with the window close button ("Copy zzz to Selected Games" setting)
- support for multiple zzz icon files for the missing icons list. Missing icons list will be checked against all zzz icon files found in icons folder. files naming MUST be "zzz_nameofyourfile.ico" (always start with "zzz_")
- icons in the "Delete Not Working Icon" screen are now properly loaded, due to multiple "zzz" files (right after scanning for missing icons) - feature "Update Not Working Icons" is broken for now

### Updated "Delete Config Files" feature (games popup menu) to support the new nvram file system for MAME (nvram\gamename\*.*)
Notes: - this is only supported with single game selection!
- old .nv files are still supported...
- multiple folders support for games with multiple bioses, like NeoGeo... "systemname_biosnum.nv"
- delete config files when multiple games are selected, only the old "nvram\gamename.nv" method is supported

## Improved

### 3rd pass when creating MAME games list is way faster now

# version 6.2 change log - October 27, 2011

## Fixed

### Workaround for ROM names with equal char " = ". Due to the way the frontend was coded, this char cannot be used on ROM names. ROMs are validated by CRC32 checksum only, ROM names are irrelevant. This applies to the "gamtor.c" driver only (for now)

## Changed

### The available ClrMAME .dat file is now used to create Supermodel games list (file: "SupermodelSEGAModel3_xml.dat")
But game info is incomplete. A working MAME list is needed to fill the blanks (optional)

### Changes in "MAMu_ Icons Manager" feature:
- new column in missing icons list: "Mechanical"
- icons do not get copied/updated when closing the screen with the window's close button ("Copy zzz to Selected Games" setting)
- support for multiple zzz icon files for the missing icons list. Missing icons list will be checked against all zzz icon files found in icons folder. files naming MUST be "zzz_nameofyourfile.ico" (always start with "zzz_")
- icons in the "Delete Not Working Icon" screen are not properly loaded, due to multiple "zzz" files (right after scanning for missing icons)

## Added

### Support for new MAME 0.143u8 settings ("MAME Setting" screen)

# version 6.1.9 change log - September 27, 2011

## Fixed

### On a fresh install, large icons (32x32) are displayed instead of standard size (24x24)

### Red alert! Red alert! CRC32 checksum for several Demul games have leading spaces (-listxml output), causing EL to set these games as "found with missing roms". Funny, after many months, only ONE user reported this bug!!!
I don't use Demul so, I never got this problem

## Added

### Support for MAME v0.143u6

### Support for Supermodel v0.2a (older builds are no longer supported!)
- emulator settings and custom game settings are saved on EL's own .ini files (folder "\emulator_ini\supermodel_ini\")
- settings from "emulator_folder\Config\Supermodel.ini" file are never read or used by the frontend
- a working MAME 0.143u6 games list is required to create a Supermodel games list (older versions are not supported)

# version 6.1.8 change log - August 22, 2011

## Fixed

### Game titles in SEGA Model 2 XML file fixed. Many thanks go to user "Retroplay" from RetroRoms forum for fixing them

## Added

### Changes in the frontend's core to support MAME v0.143u3 new device sets ("mie", "namco50" and others)... from "-listxml" output
- new file, listing all games that use ROMs from device sets ("\arcade\mame_devicesets.ini")
- new "IsDeviceSet" field in games list files ("\arcade\system.el"). Also a new "devices" section is added, listing all device sets - new "IsDeviceROM" field in ROMs list files ("\arcade\system_roms.el")
- separate .zip sets support for these new devices when scanning/auditing games ("mie.zip", "namco50.zip" and others)

### New main filter: "Device Sets" that show only device sets (main filters button, right next to the Bios filter)

### New "Devices" filter (extra filters tool bar button):
- "Show Games With Device ROMs" -> show all games that use device ROMs - "Show Games With No Device ROMs" -> show all games that do not use device ROMs - "Hide Device Sets" -> hide all device sets (same as "Hide Bios Sets")

### Feature "Game Details" (Ctrl+I hotkey / mouse right-click) have the following new information: - "Device Set / Yes" -> so you know it's a device set, not a game
- "Device ROMs / Yes", "Device Set #" -> if a game use device ROMs and the set names of the devices - "Device Zip" (in "Game Files" section) -> show if the .zip file for each device set is found or not - Text tag "Device ROM" on each ROM that's from a device set (ROMs list panel). This is only shown on games, not device sets

### Feature "View Missing ROMs/CHDs" (F8 hot-key) updated to list device names and "device_name.zip" found or missing
NOTE: this feature support a max of 10 device sets per game... for now (will be increased if needed for future MAME builds)

# version 6.1.7 change log - July 09, 2011

## Fixed

### Window status (normal/maximized) not being correctly handled when switching between windowed/full screen mode

### Main menu "Images" showing up when initializing the frontend in full screen mode

### Selected game not visible on screen after resizing the main window or resizing the preview snapshots panel

### Document files updated ("docs\" folder). Some of them had incorrect/incomplete information

### In-game snapshot not being updated after exiting a game

### Fixed a huge bug that was messing up image layout settings when switching between layouts, and when switching between classic and layout view modes

### game snapshots were not loading correctly in layouts view mode, if one of the images was not found

### Application crash when changing image's "stretch" setting (classic view mode only)

## Changed

### Bios selection in "MAME Default" and "MAME Game/Driver Custom" settings screen only show sets for games that have external bios sets, like "Neo-Geo", "PlayChoice-10" ("Miscellaneous" tab)
This way, a bios won't be selectable for games that do not use bios or for MAME default settings

### Renamed "Scan Results" to "View Missing ROMs/CHDs". This feature is ment to show you only available games with missing ROMs/CHDs... not after using "Scan Games" feature

### Favorites profiles removed. Only a single favorites list is supported from now on
Either create a new favorites list or rename one of the favorites files from "\ini_files\favorites\*.el" to "\ini_files\favorites.ini"... and remove the "fav_username=" line (first entry in the file)
You can delete "\ini_files\favorites\" folder and its files
The "Validate Favorites File" option is at main menu "Settings" / "Maintenance"

### Replaced "Number of Screens" by "Audio Type" (only used by MAME)

### Screen "Emulator Setup" re-write
- Simplified interface. Only emulator filename needs to be selected
- MD5 checksum info removed (useless)
- New "Update System" button. Useful if you change emulator file and have "New Emulator Detection" option disabled (preferences)

### ClrMAMEPro XML .dat files must be in frontend's main folder now, and named as follows:
- ZiNc: "ZiNc_xml.dat"
- SEGA Model 2 Emu: "SEGAModel2_xml.dat"
As of this version, both files will be released with frontend's binary package... no more .dat file hunting :-))

### Moved games scan result files (.miss) from "arcade\scan_results\" to "arcade\" folder

### Control type entries in "\arcade\system_name.el" files have MAME's control names now
A new file is also available listing all control types ("\ini_files\control_type.ini"). You can expand this list manually if a new MAME has a new control... even AFTER creating a MAME games list

### If version info cannot be parsed from emulator binary, "Unknown" will be set automatically (no more user input)

### New "game status" icon at games list status bar, next to the game name label
- green ball : available game (.zip found and ok) - black ball : missing game (.zip missing)
- yellow ball: have game with missing ROMs/CHDs (.zip found)

## Improved

### Minor user interface tweaks... for consistency

### Feature "Delete Clone Images" updated. Removed multi-screens support (main menu "Images" / "Maintenance")

### Text filter bar updated. New visual, easier to use. More options available
To change options, click on "settings" button and select the desired filter. Remember, checking "Include Tool Bar Filters", the filters from main tool bar buttons will also be applied

### Game snapshots were being loaded three (3) times over at startup!

## Removed

### Feature "Bios Sets [M.A.M.E.]" (main menu "Emulator"). Select a bios using custom game/driver settings

### Feature "Convert Snapshots". Snap files are automatically renamed after exiting MAME anyway

### Hidden games feature is no more. Wanna hide games from kids and stuff ? Easy... don't have the ROMs in your computer
... or edit "\arcade\mame.el" manually and remove the games you don't want (NEVER remove the first game of each section!)

### Multi-games loading feature removed (megatech, and others). This will not be supported by the frontend anymore. The folder "arcade\multi-games\" and its files can be deleted

### "Classic" filter is gone (arcade filters). It's an old filter, when MAME only had Neo-Geo as a driver with external bios sets

### Support for "Screen Resolution", "Save State", "Audio Samples" infos is no more (MAME has LOTS of games without resolution info)

### Option "Display Image Label Info" ...pointless

### Support of following ZiNc features:
- Glide rendering settings ("ZiNc Settings" screen)
- Option "One Setting Per Line" from preferences screen (only single line settings from now on)
- Driver custom settings support (only game custom settings from now on)

### SEGA Model 2 Emulator default settings and custom game settings is no more. The settings file "emulator.ini" have a lot of comments and they were being removed every time you changed something with the frontend. Most option can be changed directly in the emulator anyway

### Emulator default settings for Demul is gone. You can set ALL options directly into the emulator, including ROMs folders

### Setting "Show Not Available Image" is gone. The "not available images" are always displayed now

### Delphi component "VirtualTreeView" is not used anywhere on the project anymore... references and component links completely removed from the project

### More source code clean-up.

## Added

### Frontend documentation files accessible in "Help" main menu

### Support for latest MAME build

### New "Extra Filters" button in main tool bar. All filters from the main menu "Game Filters" are here now. The main reason ? To remind you that these filters exist! They are also saved/restored on restart from now on

### New filter: "Audio Type" (extra filters tool bar button):
- Standard Audio: most games, using sound chips
- Discrete Audio: games that use discrete sound circuits
- Wave Sample Audio: games that use external .wav samples for sound

### XML .dat file for "SEGA Model 2 Emu" v1.0 finally added :)

# version 6.1.6 change log - May 01, 2011

## Fixed

### Atomiswave games not loading with Demul emulator

### Waste of RAM when switching view modes in "MAMu_ Icons Manager" screen (missing icons list)

### Columns sorting was not working when columns positions changed

## Changed

### Removed multiple folders support for MAMu_ Icons feature. If you were using multiple folders, please select a folder for each system again. Relative path support is also removed

## Improved

### Feature "MAMu_ Icons Manager" improved. More "Not Working" icons features

# version 6.1.5 change log - April 22, 2011

## Fixed

### Played column was not being sorted correctly. All other columns are sorted as strings so, they should sort correctly

### When in grouped view mode, all columns were being indented (clone games). Only the title column should be indented

### Games filters were messing games list up (main tool bar buttons, left panel filter, text bar filter)

## Improved

### After scaning a single game, left panel filter is re-applied if enabled

## Added

### New setting: "Disable Clone Indent" (main menu "View"). Check this option to prevent clone games indentation (grouped view mode only)

# version 6.1.4 change log - April 19, 2011

## Fixed

### Supermodel games list not being created at a fresh install

## Added

### New feature: AlterMAME ("Emulator Setup" screen and games popup menu). You can select an anternate MAME build to run games
See the help button in emulator setup screen, "AlterMAME" panel (after selecting MAME system) for more info

# version 6.1.3 change log - April 18, 2011

## Fixed

### Custom settings were not being saved ("SEGA Model 2", custom game settings)

## Changed

### Fancy new splash screen with transparency and alpha blend effect!!! Also, new about screen

### Custom settings (game and driver) are loaded automatically now, if the custom settings file is found
This is how MAME works, and that's how it will work for all other supported systems (except Daphne and Demul that do not support custom game/driver settings)

### Custom game/driver settings files moved from "frontend\arcade\" path to a new folder: "frontend\emulator_ini\".
For easier access and to separate them from games list files. Old folders and files will be automatically move to the new folder (ZiNc and SEGA Model 2)
Supported systems: ZiNc, SEGA Model 2, Supermodel: SEGA Model 3

### Removed all instances of VirtualTreeView component from the frontend, except from the "left panel" feature that requires a TreeView component. Improvements made:
- standard and grouped view modes converted to use EasyListView component. all views use the same component now
- no need to reload the games list when switching view modes, except for grouped view that requires special handling
- slow games scrolling with mouse wheel fixed
- better integration with other features that need to extract game details info from the main games list

## Improved

### Removed hourglass cursor from a few functions

### Support for "Windows Clear Type Fonts" improved. I think all screens can show clear type fonts now

### Changed all "CompareText()" function calls to "AnsiCompareText()" (multi-byte and accented characters support!) :)

### Major source code cleanup

## Removed

### Scan games list cannot be stopped anymore, to avoid crashes and weird errors

### Custom command line feature is "gone with the wind...". Blame those damn leechers that keep using my frontend for profit!
...plus, I've never ever used this feature anyway. Also, to prevent people from using unsupported emulators with the frontend

### Folder "resources\images\topbars\" and all its .png files are gone as they are not needed anymore

### Columns profile per system is gone (standard/grouped view modes). All systems share the same sort parameters
Columns settings file renamed to "frontend\ini_files\columns_profile.ini"

## Added

### Support for Supermodel: A SEGA Model 3 Emulator
NOTES:
- you need a working MAME games list to use this new emulator (games and ROMs list extracted from MAME)
- emulator settings and custom game settings will be stored in "frontend_dir\emulator_ini\supermodel_ini\" folder
- emulator default setting stored in "supermodel.ini" file (frontend custom folder)
- custom game options stored in "gamename.ini" files (frontend custom folder)
- there is no support for custom driver options since Supermodel only has SEGA Model 3 games
- merged games are not supported and no split-merged sets either
- ROMs paths info is stored in "EmuLoader.ini" file, for now. Multiple paths are supported
- options "vertex shader" and "fragment shader" are available. use them at your own risk!

### New feature: "Save State Manager". View/delete/rename save states files of your MAME and Supermodel: SEGA Model 3 games (main menu "Games List")

### Feature "Show Not Available Image" is back. If setting enabled, will display a "Not Available" image instead of an empty panel... when the image category for the selected game is not found (snapshot, cabinet, flyer, etc)
All images must be in .png format and they are placed in the new "frontend_dir\resources\images\no_image\" folder.
See "docs\el-notavailableimage.txt" for more details

# version 6.1.2 change log - March 22, 2011

## Fixed

### Colors and transparency in MAMu_ icons not being handled correctly. White frame surrounding many icons is gone.
They are perfect now, and there is a small speed improvement in the loading function :)
Tiles view mode, with "Disable Icon Stretch" option checked

### Removed the annoying "Devices for games are not supported, only for bios sets." message when creating MAME games lists

### Timer in splash screen is back. Now it's really working properly... I swear :)

### Minor fixes and tweaks in "MAMu_ Icons Manager"

## Added

### New preferences setting: "Text In Bold". Check this option to enable font style "Bold" in selected items (requested feature)

### Features "Scan Missing Images" and "Scan Not Used Images" merged into "Images Manager" (main menu "Images"). Minor fixes and some optimizations were also made.
Like MAMu_ Icons Manager, you can work with both lists at the same time. Some key features:
- rename not used images
- ability to maximize the window for better visual
- columns width on missing images list are saved/restored in "el_extras.ini" file
- images are loaded as icons in not used images list
- not used images are separated by folders, shown in different groups, for easier access
- move not used icons to another folder

# version 6.1.1 change log - March 13, 2011

## Fixed

### Folder "arcade\multi-games\" was not being created when creating MAME games list, crashing the frontend

### Disabled the timer in splash screen (for now) to fix a bug when creating multiple games list at startup

### Daphne games list was not being created, and the scan for .zip files was crashing the frontend.
Funny that no one ever reported this!

# version 6.1 change log - March 11, 2011

## Fixed

### Proper detection of MAMu_ icons (color depth and multiple icons inside .ico file):
- several icons were displaying white/black background colors in transparent areas
- only the 32x32 icon is loaded, regardless the view mode used
- icons are now loaded using their original color pallette (no conversion to 24-bit color depth)
- added support 32-bit icons (alpha blend)

### Feature "Scan For Missing MAMu_ Icons" was not loading game name icons, only bios icon or driver icon (options "Show Game Bios Icons" / "Show Game Driver Icons" / "Reload Icons")

### Text in auto game docs window was not being moved to top when selecting games

### Access violation when trying to delete game config files (Demul system)

### Feature "Not Used Game Config Files" was not working with Demul system and "Delete Files" button was not working at all!!! (main menu "Settings", "Maintenance")

### Delete files button in "Not Used Zip Files" feature was not working at all!!! (main menu "Settings", "Maintenance")

### I totally forgot to implement the function to delete files on "Delete Clones Images" (main menu "Images", "Maintenance")

## Changed

### Convert screenshots feature re-write (main menu "Images", "Maintenance"). Replaced VirtualTreeView by EasyListView and some performance tweaks

### Updated EasyListView component to latest SVN (February 2011)

### All splitters replaced by a custom gradient splitter, easier to resize panels (main screen and others)

## Improved

### Minor tweaks

### Removed the hour glass cursor from a bunch of functions because they don't make sense

### Text in games list status bar updated to display game name, clone name and bios name: "mslug3h [clone of mslug3] [bios: neogeo]"

### Splash screen timer does not reset to zero when switching from creating games list to scanning games functions. Now you can see the total time it takes to create games list/verify your games sets

### Merged left panel populate functions into one since they are almost the same (main screen and left panel editor)

### Added column "Bios" into the games list (left panel editor) and the width of game title column is now dynamically resized

### Replaced Delphi 7 "RenameFile" function (it uses MoveFile() function) by a custom function that uses "MoveFileEx()" function... it fixes errors in Windows 7 when renaming files

## Removed

### File "\ini_files\daphne.ini" not needed anymore (Daphne v1.0 is the lowest supported version)

### Custom titles are no longer supported for image layouts feature

### Custom labels for game columns is gone (details / grouped view modes). Pointless feature...

## Added

### New text filter bar (main tool bar buttons, right side). Yep, you can filter games by title, manufacturer or driver name now. Just Type a partial description, hit ENTER key or press the apply button and BAM! :)
Main filter tool bar buttons are partially supported: "System", "Parent / Clone", "Have / Miss", "Working / Non-Working", "Bios / No Bios" and "Hide Bios" from main menu games filters.
There are some options buttons below the text box: "Filter by title", "Filter by manufacturer", "Filter by driver name", "Enable/disable filters on main tool bar buttons".
Clicking on the "Reset" button will reload the main filters (without this new text bar filter)

### New setting: "Setup Folders", image category tool bar button. Easier to know where to go to setup folders

### Setting "Path to hash files" was missing in MAME settings screen

### Support for SEGA Model 2 Emu v1.0 (scripts are not yet supported, if ever)

### Support for the new mechanical tag on games list (MAME 0.141u1 and newer)

### New filter: "Interface Type" with 2 options "Classic" and "Mechanical" ("Games Filters" main menu)
NOTE: unlike others, this setting is saved in "EmuLoader.ini" and restored when restarting the frontend

### Support for MAME 0.141u3

### Preliminary support for multi-cart games loading: megatech (MAME v0.141u3 and never only! Other emulators are not supported)
There is a new folder listing all supported systems (when creating a games list): "\arcade\multi-games\"
... that's it for now. you cannot run multiple games with this frontend yet!!!

### Features "Scan Missing MAMu_ Icons" and "Scan Not Used MAMu_ Icons" merged into "MAMu_ Icons Manager" (MAMu_ tool bar button). Minor fixes and some optimizations were also made.
Managing missing / not used icons is easier than ever!. Some key features:
- rename not used icons
- all new history system for not used icons, so you can keep track of changes made to each icon (.txt files located in "resources\icons_history\ folder)
- when renaming a not used icon to a valid MAME game name, the icon is immediately loaded into the missing icons list
- ability to maximize the window for better visual
- columns width on missing icons list are saved/restored in "el_extras.ini" file

### New MAMu_ icons feature: "Switch Game Icons" (MAMu_ tool bar button). Have two game icons that you need to switch places because MAME switched two games parent/clone, clone/parent ? This is what this feature is for

# version 6.0 change log - December 02, 2010

## Fixed

### Features "Run Game (Custom)" and "Run Game (Extra)" were not working at all due to wrong indexes (games popup menu)

### Emulator folders info used by EL not being reloaded into memory after acessing custom game settings (all systems)

### Default bios setting not being selected on the list (MAME settings screen)

### Feature "Not Used Zip Files" was not working correctly and other systems were fully dependable of a working MAME setup (main menu "Settings" / "Maintenance"). It's also a little faster. Again, EL is NOT a ROM manager. Please use ClrMAME or RomCenter to maintain your ROMs collection. Use it at your own risk!

### Float values on MAME custom game options were being handled as strings (cosmetic fix)

### Konami Viper game "ParaParaParadise 2nd Mix" (name: ppp2nd) was not being correctly detected

### Entries "Game Zip" / "Parent Zip" being listed with "gamename.zip not found" for Taito G-NET. This system does not use gamename.zip sets (Game Details screen)

### Unwanted horizontal scroll when selecting games in Standard/grouped view modes

## Changed

### Updated settings screen to MAME 0.140u1

### Updated FastMM library (Fast Memory Manager) to v4.97

### Game docs (mameinfo.dat and others) support only at MAME's main folder from now on

### Moved 'el_extras.ini' file to EL's main folder (makes more sense)

## Improved

### Several tweaks in the source code and user interface

### You can now select an existing file for the effect overlay, using EL's file dialog box, or type the filename into the edit box (MAME settings screen, "Options" / "Video 1" tab)

### Extra game info extracted from MAME for all ClrMAME based systems, when creating ZiNc, Demul, SEGA Model 2 games lists

### Controls info for Daphne games are extracted from MAME, if available (create Daphne games list)

### Merged "uFilesUtil.pas" routines into "uCommon.pas" (file uFilesUtil.pas no longer available)

### Auto game documents feature (preferences screen):
- duplicate settings not allowed anymore
- clear the checkbox to disable an info

### Relative path support for games list background image (preferences screen)

## Removed

### Support for the following systems completely removed from the project (EL is a M.A.M.E. frontend anyway):
- AGEMAME: Merged into MAME
- Mjolnir: Discontinued and old MAME drivers. The only game that can be fully played anyway is "Starblade"
- PinMAME: Discontinued. Also, without the actual pinball tables, you can't play anything
- HazeMD: MegaDrive/Master Systems games are in MAME for quite some time now, and the emulator will get no further updates
- Another Arcade Emulator (AAE): Discontinued and its unique features might be implemented in MAME
NOTE: you will have to re-create games list for "Demul" and "SEGA Model 2" systems

### Commented options support for mame.ini files is gone (using ' # ' char, on old MAME builds)

### Windows 7 cosmetic fixes removed from EasyListView and Virtual TreeView components as they were causing glitches

### Custom description support for image categories is gone. There's no point editing their titles anyway

### Label image info custom colors is gone

### Option "Smooth Scroll (Double Buffering)" is gone (VirtualTreeView / EasyListView). I've never noticed any difference with this setting anyway

## Added

### New setting: "Disable Icon Stretch (48x48)", MAMu_ tool bar button. Enable this option to prevent MAMu_ icons from being stretched when using "Tiles" view mode or "Standard / Grouped" view modes with "Extra Large" icons (48x48)

### New left panel filter: "Discrete Audio": filter all games that use discrete audio (create file at "Left Panel" main menu)

### Support for multiple MAME directories: "sample files", "artwork files", "font files", "crosshair files", "controller files"

### New MAME option "Run Game with Effect Overlay", games popup menu "Run Game (Extra)". You can run games with an effect overlay located in one of the artwork folders (unzipped PNG files only!). Useful to test effects without changing mame.ini

### Small reminder button in game docs panel to open the hidden popup menu (top/left)... you can call the popup menu at any position, not just this button!

# version 5.9 change log - October 10, 2010

## Fixed

### Video output "GDI" setting on mame.ini misspelled (write)

### Setting "ClrMAMEPro XML Data File" not clearing after pressing "Clear" button (Emulators Setup screen)

### A few minor fixes

### The following MAME filters now sort games correctly: "Naomi", "Naomi 2", "Naomi GD", "Naomi 2 GD" (does not work 100% for Demul)

### An empty file was being created when trying to load ROMs folders if file was not found (emulator main settings file)

## Added

### Updated MAME settings to v0.139u3

### Preliminary support for a new emulator: Demul v0.5.6 (Sega Dreamcast / Naomi hardware):
- Since its games list output is based on ClrMAME database and the emulator itself can create the file, the external "ClrMAMEPro XML Data File" is optional. If not selected, the internal "-listxml" output will be used
- Game column's missing entries are extracted from MAME's games list, if available
- Only zipped sets are supported (GD-ROM image must be inside game .zip file)
- MAME CHDs (v0.139u3) are NOT supported yet (GD-ROM based games)
- Feature "Delete Game Configs" (games popup menu) support both NVRAM files (.eeprom; .sram) - Multiple ROMs folders support (native support on Demul) - Multiple bios sets is not supported yet (and it might never be) - No support for game custom options

### New games filter: "SAMMY Atomiswave"

# version 5.8.7 change log - June 02, 2010

## Fixed

### Access violation on "Not Used Zip Files" feature when MAME .zip files list is empty

## Changed

### Rollback VirtualTreeview component to version 4.7.4 as newer versions are messed up

### Replaced VirtualTreeView games list for EasyListView... "Left Panel Editor" screen only (right panel)

# version 5.8.6.1 change log - April 23, 2010

## Fixed

### MAME create games list feature missing a new input type: "keyboard"; also, the new DVD-ROM CHD media type was not being correctly assigned

# version 5.8.6 change log - April 22, 2010

## Fixed

### Website addresses updated on main menu "Help" / "Visit Homepage"

## Improved

### Updated components VirtualTreeView to v4.8.6 and EasyListView to v2.1.0 (latest SVN)
Front-end updated to meet some of the component's changes

## Removed

### none

## Added

### New mame.ini options for MAME 0.137u1 (MAME Settings / Options / Input tab)

### New debugger option "Internal Debugger" (MAME Settings / Options / Miscellaneous tab)

### New games filters: "CHD DVD-ROM" (CHD sub-filter); "System 246 / 256" (main filter); "Namco System 246 / 256" (Namco sub-filter)

# version 5.8.5 change log - February 12, 2010

## Fixed

### MAME game titles ending with ", The" were being wrongly parsed and the following game titles are fixed:
ssideki4
lastblad
lastbladh
lastbld2

### HazeMD and PinMAME game titles ending with ", The" fixed. The full title is now parsed correctly

### Game title fix not needed for systems based on ClrMAME Pro .xml database files (ZiNc, SEGA Model 2, AAE)

# version 5.8.4 change log - December 26, 2009

## Added

### Support for MAME v0.135u4 new feature: "Number of Processors" (3rd video tab, "MAME Settings" screen, "Performance")
In Emu Loader, this feature lists all CPUs that Windows detects. Info taken from Windows registry:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\"

# version 5.8.3 change log - September 28, 2009

## Fixed

### Some weird user messages in "Not Used Zip Files" feature (main menu "Settings" / "Maintenance")

### Delete/move selected files in "Not Used Zip Files" and "Not Used Game Config Files" features was freezing after removing items from the list

### User selected bios was not being added into the command line (MAME, multi-bios games)

### Front-end freezing after running "BlinkBkEdit() function". It was using "GetTickCount()", not accurate on new CPUs (Core2Duo, PhenomII, etc). "No one reported this since the function was added... FATALITY!"
Replaced by "Sleep()" function that can handle microseconds. Other functions do not require this.

### Function "Export Games List" was only working for "standard" and "grouped" view modes (left panel popup menu)
Again, no bug reports :_((

## Changed

### Updated EasyListView/CommonLibrary to latest SVN source (August 10, 2009)

### File "\docs\el-readme.txt" updated with latest changes

### FastMM library updated to version 4.94

## Improved

### Minor tweaks in the user interface and source code

## Added

### New feature: "Delete Game Config" (access on games popup menu or "Sift+DELETE" hot-key)
Use this to delete CFG/NVRAM files from MAME based emulators, NVDATA file from SEGA Model 2, CFG file from ZiNc and Another Arcade Emulator (AAE)
When selecting one game, you are able to check/uncheck files. When in multi-selection screen, all games will be listed and you will be able to check/uncheck what files you want to delete or keep. Also, use the "Check All CFGs" / "Check All NVRAMs" buttons to check/uncheck all files for all games
Daphne system is not supported by this feature, and there's no recycle bin support!

### New feature: "Not Used Game Config Files" ("Settings" main menu, "Maintenance")
Scan all systems for not used configuration files (cfg and non-volatile RAM). It works similar to the "Not Used Zip Files" feature. All systems supported, except from Daphne

# version 5.8.2 change log - July 16, 2009

## Added

### Support for MAME v0.132u5

# version 5.8.1 change log - July 04, 2009

## Fixed

### EL standard game icons were not being reset after disabling MAMu_ icons (EasyListView view modes only)

### Adding .zip files as folder in the select directory screen is back... :_((
I thought I had it fixed but I was wrong. The only way to really get rid of this annoying bug is to disable the "zip as folder" feature in Windows (who uses this annoying feature anyway ???)

### MAMu_ icon was not being loaded at startup on the selected game

## Changed

### Not used 24x24 icons removed from several .ico files ("\resources\main_icons\arcade_filters\" folder)
Some icons in "resources\main_icons\" folder also changed

## Improved

### ImageIndex value is not assigned directly into main games list anymore (game icons)

### Minor and invisible bug fixes

## Removed

### Play custom from arcade controller layouts since it has been removed from the front-end quite a while ago

### Support for the hidden "\arcade\customgames.el" file

## Added

### "Triforce" main games filter

### New thumbnails setting: "Show Game Title". Disable this option to hide game titles while in thumbnails view mode (main menu "Settings" / "Thumbnail Settings")

### Added some missing widescreen resolutions to MAME and ZiNc settings screens (resolution drop-down buttons)

### Move folder up/down buttons on the following screens: "MAME Settings", "ZiNc Settings", "SEGA Model 2 Settings", "MAMu_ Folders"

# version 5.8 change log - June 02, 2009

## Fixed

### Taito G-NET games being set as found with missing ROMs/CHDs when the bios set if found and ok, but the CHD is missing
This is a special case to avoid all G-NET games being set as missing ROMs/CHDs since this system only use a bios set. The Konami Viper system is similar but some of its games have a game set...

### View game details was being called while multiple games selected

### Left panel editor not working if MAME binary file is not defined

### Selected game not visible on screen when switching between windowed/full screen modes

### Wrong system being scanned: "Scan For Missing MAMu_ Icons / Images";

### Columns width in hidden games editor were not being updated correctly after manual resize

## Changed

### Delete game files improved (single/multiple selection). Now you have a files list of the game (Game .zip and CHDs). CHD files are unchecked by default for safety (enable the "Always Select CHD Files" checkbox so they are checked automatically).
Only files that are found will be listed, even if the games is set as available. You can uncheck any file(s) you want to keep :-))
NOTES:
-> for single selection, the amount of CHD files is unlimited but for multiple selections, they are limited to 3 (three) CHD files per game. If appear a game in MAME with more than 3 CHD files, the front-end will be updated...
-> the multiple selections screen is a little more complex, but filled with hints all over it
-> Recycle bin is NOT supported so, be very careful on the game files you want to delete!
-> only available games and found games with missing ROMs are supported
-> This feature is accessed by selecting one or more games and hitting the "DELETE" key or using the "Delete" option in games popup menu

### Replaced all select folder dialog calls by EL's custom folder dialog

### Updated EasyListView component to latest SVN sources

### Moved debug.ini custom options (Set/Delete) to "M.A.M.E. Only" sub-menu (games popup menu, "Custom Options")

## Improved

### No more zip files or hidden folders in browse for folder dialog

### Generate .ini files for left panel is now based on the main games list, except "Refresh Rate" (still depends on MAME's -listxml output)... they are lightning fast too (main menu "Left Panel")

### Minor UI optimizations

## Removed

### Option "Enable Multiple Selection". Multi-select is always enabled

### Daphne v0.99.7 pre 5 support removed

## Added

### New file when creating MAME/ZiNc games lists: "mame_chd.ini" and "zinc_chd.ini" ("frontend\arcade\" folder)
It contains a list of all CHD files for each game and the specific media type for each CHD (in case a game use more than one CHD file and each of these files are in different formats (hard-disk, CD-ROM, GD-ROM, flash cards, etc...)
This file is used when deleting game files and might be used on other features for a quicker access (acessing "\arcade\systemname_roms.el" is slow if the file size is too large!)

### Support MAME 0.131u3 new .ini files "horizont.ini" / "vertical.ini" (games popup menu, "Custom Options" / "M.A.M.E. Only")

# version 5.7.6 change log - May 08, 2009

## Fixed

### Detection of large files (bigger than 1.7 GigaBytes) and sorting "file size" columns was not possible due to the range of the "integer" variable type... updated all required variables in the project to "Int64" (64-bit integer)

### Option "Move Selected to Folder" implemented (scan not used MAMu_ icons feature, popup menu)

### When selecting parent or using the find game edit box in "delete multiple games files" window, the previous selections were not being de-selected (games popup menu, "Delete" / "Game File")

### All available Taito G-NET clones were being added in the merged sets list. Probably other games that use a bios set but no game set is being added in the list as well (not fixed)

## Changed

### Simplified "delete multiple game .zip files" feature. No more checking games to delete. To keep any game just remove it from the list using the "Remove Selected" button

### Scan for not used MAMu_ icons only scan ".ico" files from now on... file "\ini_files\el_mamu_exclude.ini" updated to only list files with .ico extension

## Improved

### Updated function "GetFileSize" (uFilesUtil.pas) to use Int64 (64-bit integer variable)

### Files list of "delete not used zip files" feature now have columns that can be sorted (main menu "Settings" / "Maintenance" / "Not Used Zip Files")

## Added

### A couple more details in the CHD info (game details screen, left panel)... also, file size for game .zip and .chd :)

# version 5.7.5 change log - May 04, 2009

## Fixed

### Game status not being updated after scanning games (only between "missing" and "found with missing ROMs/CHDs" status)

### Main screen not being set active after exiting a game

### The "Played x" captions in tiles view mode were being loaded without using virtual mode after exiting a game

### Convert snapshots feature now support and rename up to 100 images per game

### Scan games feature was not handling games with missing ROMs/CHDs correctly

### Wrong CHD media type for some ZiNc games

### ZiNc games set as available when all ROMs are found but .zip files are not in the same folder (not valid for ZiNc emulator). All files (.zip / .chd) must be in the same folder, but the .chd file can be placed in a sub-folder with the name of the gamename (like MAME). You do not need to add this sub-folder into the ROMs paths!
Remember that EL support multiple ROMs folders, even if ZiNc doen't, but to run games, all files of a particular game must be in the same folder
And NO MERGED sets!

### A few games filters fixes (you need to create MAME games list again to apply them):
-> CHD tags "scsi0" and "scsi1" are moved to "CD-ROM" media type (\ini_files\chd_mediatypes.ini" file)... for now. This fixes all Konami System 573 games that were being set as hard-disk based games instead of CD-ROM
-> Konami Viper games were wrongly tagged as "Hard-Disk" CHD types. Changed them to "Compact Flash Card"... hard-coded into the "uMain.CreateGamesListXML" function!
-> American Laser Games were wrongly tagged as "Hard-Disk" CHD types as none of the discs are dumped yet. Changed them to "LaserDisc"... hard-coded into the "uMain.CreateGamesListXML" function!

### Taito G-NET games were not being correctly detected due to not using "gamename.zip" files, only bios sets. But now, games that you do not have the .chd file are set as found with missing ROMs (Taito G-NET only) :_((
...some other games do not use "gamename.zip" as well but are not on this fix ("Konami Viper" system)

### Visual bug in the message box when vertical scrollbar is visible

### The current favorite profile was not being correctly selected when opening the favorites profile editor

### Image resampler not being applied at startup and when switching between classic/layout image view modes

### Merged games were not being added into the merged list ("\arcade\systemname_merged.ini")

## Changed

### All ZiNc icons renewed

### Only 1 system support for "Scan Missing Images / MAMu_ Icons", "Scan Not Used Images / MAMu_ Icons"
...old screens with TreeView and multiple systems at once was a mess :_(

### Scan not used MAMu_ icons: changed popup menu option "View Excluded List" to "View/Edit Excluded List" so you can edit and use the updated files list in real time ("\ini_files\el_mamu_exclude.ini" file)

### New setting in popup menu on scan missing MAMu_ icons screen: icon size 16x16 or 32x32 :)

## Improved

### Games details screen:
-> CHD files are always audited in games details screen, no matter the status of the game
-> The parent CHD info is displayed in the ROMs list if the CHD of the clone game is not found but the parent CHD is (only if filenames are different)
-> Header version info for older CHD files (versions 1 and 2) are still displayed, but are not supported by the front-end

### Minor optimizations to the scan results screen

### Changes and optimizations in customize hidden games screen (main menu "Games Filters" / "Hidden Games" / "Customize")
-> Search patterns and columns width are saved in "el_extras.ini"
-> Games are now validated by "game name" and "system ID" tags only (no "clone of" anymore... kinda pointless)
-> Removed "Delete Duplicates" button. Done automatically when using "BEGIN SEARCH" button
-> All lists replaced by EasyListView components (cleaner and easier to work with)
-> This feature is main games list dependant now. External files ("\arcade\*.el" and "catver.ini") are no longer used to build the list in the editor. The scan is NOT affected by the main games filter
-> New layout :)
-> Fixed loading hidden games into the editor (very old bug!). It was not checking for the system tag. If there's a game with same name on different systems, they would all be added
-> System icon displayed with game icon on the first column

### Feature scan audio samples optimized and UI updated

### Other features are also dependant on the current main games list instead of "\arcade\*.el" and extras. Main games list is processed twice as fast and the progress bar became reduntant...
- "Scan for Missing Images / MAMu_ Icons"
- "Scan for Not Used Images / MAMu_ Icons"
- "Left Panel editor"
- "Scan Audio Samples"
- "Customize Hidden Games"
- "Not Used Zip Files"

### Heavy optimization on add/delete games to/from favorites/hidden list functions (10000 items in 2 seconds!)

### Tweaks and optimizations to EL's custom select file dialog (virtual mode)

## Removed

### An extra (and invisible) background for the icons was being draw on top bars (all screens)... guess I forgot to remove it from the source code

### Revised and removed some more reduntant lines of code in the entire project

## Added

### Disk entry detection when creating games list for systems that use ClrMAME's external XML databases

### Support for ROMs list on ZiNc (based on ClrMAME XML file). EL can detect missing ROMs/CHDs on this system now ("\arcade\zinc_roms.el") :)
Get the ClrMAME XML file at Logiqx website (ZiNc v1.1 only!). The missing data is extracted from the MAME games list (if available).
Also updated file "\ini_files\zinc.ini", split in 2 sections: "[driver]" and "[gameindex]"
That makes Daphne the only system without ROMs list support...

### Support for ZiNc bios entries. Now you have "parent / clone / bios" games IDs. The ID for all other systems were re-arranged, except MAME. You must re-create games list for all systems, except MAME. Also added 2 new icons for the ZiNc bios: "ZiNcBios.ico" and "UnZiNcBios.ico"
Note that you cannot run ZiNc bioses, this is only to improve games scanning...

### New option to scan all games with missing ROMs/CHDs (games popup menu, "Scan Games" / "Missing ROMs/CHDs")
Support all systems, except Daphne

### Support for MAME 0.131

# version 5.7.4 change log - March 21, 2009

## Fixed

### Image resampler not working with layouts view mode

# version 5.7.3 change log - March 21, 2009

## Fixed

### ROMs were not being shown correctly in game details screen, when tagged with bad checksum (ROMs List)

### Media type of CHD based games was not being set correctly when creating a MAME games list

### Single game scans were not updating the games list file (.el) correctly in some cases

### After adding/deleting games to/from favorites/hidden games list, the memory vars were not being updated with the new game selection

### Found ROMs info in game details screen was not including CHDs with bad checksum

### Main window out of focus after exiting MAWS game info

## Changed

### CHD files are verified thru its SHA-1 checksum now (header version 3 and 4). Unfortunately, CHD files that use a header version 1 or 2 are not supported by the front-end anymore!
You must create your MAME games list again

## Improved

### MAME CHD files are correctly validated now, by detecting the "MComprHD" tag and the header version. If the tag doesn't exist, the CHD file is set as invalid, and the MD5/SHA1 checksum is not verified

### Game details UI changed a little bit. CHD files are also listed in the "Game Files" section. It shows file found or missing status, and the version of the header next to it... :-))

## Removed

### Option "Generate ZiNc Driver File" from main menu "Settings" / "Maintenance"... no use for it anymore

## Added

### Support for MAME 0.130u1
Detection of the new version 4 header (CHD files). Headers version 1 and 2 are no longer supported by the front-end

### New CHD type added: "PCMCIA" in "\ini_files\chd_mediatype.ini" (used when creating MAME games list)

### New games filters added: "Taito G-Net System" and "CHD - PCMCIA"

# version 5.7.2 change log - March 15, 2009

## Fixed

### Image resampler is updated correctly when switching between view modes (classic, layouts) and it is applied to all panels when in layouts view mode

### Selecting the already selected image resampler, the item was being set as unchecked

### Internet link for MAWS game info updated to the mameworld.info server

### Expand/collapse buttons on left panel tree were being disabled after toggling alpha blend

### Image resampler correctly set at startup

### Access violation on scan for missing images, missing MAMu_ icons, not used images and not used MAMu_ icons

### Fatality! Evil Bug Wins... Game was not being properly re-selected after changing games filters...

### CHD filename was not being shown correctly at game details screen if CHD name also contains the parent name ("_parentchd_" tag)

### Year and manufacturer were not being detected on bios entries, leaving these infos blank in the games list (MAME based emulators)

### Features to create .ini files for the left panel were missing a few games that has no information ("Left Panel" main menu)

## Changed

### Removed minimum size limitation from the screenshots panel

### Main menu / popup menus font changed from "Segoe UI" to "Trebuchet MS"

### Updated the convert snapshots to EL format feature. Only works with the "Gamename/Increment" naming format

## Improved

### Alpha blend and background color on all TreeView lists that contain a games list are updated to match the settings of the main games list, except background image (hidden games list, MAMu_ missing icons, left panel editor, games list font settings and some ListView lists)
This also improves visibility if using dark background color

### Selection bars colors and texts optimized for a large range of background colorsSome code merging to remove duplicated functions/procedures

### Added a button in left panel editor's toolbar to restore default sizes for window, panels and columns width

## Added

### Button at preferences screen, "Folders" tab: "Setup Image Categories Folders", for those who cannot find the folder setup screen in main menu "Images"

### Setting: "White Text Color (For Dark Backgrounds)" that will paint selected text in white-ish instead of the blue/red colors. It works only when alpha blend is enabled (preferences screen)

###

### New games filter in main tool bar buttons: "Game Orientation" (Horizontal / Vertical)

### New menu item in game documents popup menu (mouse right-click): "Customize Panel". A shortcut for those that do not know about it ;)

### Support for MAME v0.130... CHD files can be at any folder now. The old "romfolder\gamename\gamefile.chd" method is still supported. I'm moving my 3 images to "c:\mame_roms\chd_files\" folder :)
NOTE: you still do not need to set folders for CHD files if using the old method

### A few more options to create .ini files for the left panel:
- Screen refresh rate
- Year
- Manufacturer

### Search keywords in hidden games editor is now saved/restored in file: "\ini_files\hidden_games_keywords.txt"

# version 5.7.1 change log - February 18, 2009

## Fixed

### Some default front-end settings on a fresh install were incorrect (first run)

### Colors of selected items (EasyListView and Virtual TreeView) were being set incorrectly

### Selected game not being visible on the screen when in grouped view mode

### Selecting next image category/layout with hot-key F10 was not working. Now changed to:
- Ctrl + F9 -> show previous
- F9 -> show next

### The array "image[???].NoImageLoaded" was not being reset correctly when the image to be loaded is not found

### Some arcade controller hot-keys were not working. Also, keys assignments were changed to simplify future updates and to use similar buttons on all controllers (Browse games with arcade controller feature)

### Message about average FPS and error messages before running games showing for systems not based on MAME

### Removed code redundancy and fixed possible bug when editing column settings in the customize columns screen

### Some system specific items in games popup menu were enabled when they shouldn't. Also, they are now hidden instead of disabled

### UI bug in custom command line settings screen (paremeters list)

### Width of left panel is automatically adjusted when resizing it. Horizontal scrollbar is not needed anymore

## Changed

### View ROMs paths have its own screen and you can view folders for all systems at once

### Added a new screen for "games list font settings" more detailed and moved it from preferences screen to main menu "Games List"

### Moved "Image Category / Layout Auto Switch" setting from images popup menu to main menu "Images" (easier to find)

### Delete multiple games files improved:
- added support for games with missing ROMs (.zip found but game set as missing) - added a checkbox on each game so you can uncheck all games you want to keep
- changed component to EasyListView
- view mode is set to tile and it shows in 2 lines:
-> first line is the game's title
-> second line is "game name [clone of], zip file with full path
NOTES:
- if game is merged, it will display "merged [parent zip file with full path]" - if game is marked as missing ROMs/CHDs it the selection bar is red - font settings are applied on this list (parent, clone, preliminary, miss ROMs/CHDs) - Zip files are Merged games and games where the .zip file is not found are unckecked by default

## Improved

### Daphne folder is now loaded into RAM to simplify a few functions calls

### Optimized a few functions in uCommon.pas file and removed some redundant coding

### More source code optimizations:
- Like in EasyListView, all general functions and procedures for VirtualTreeView will begin with "VTV_" to group all of them into one place and to make it easier to read

### Games have their defined fonts and selection bar colors on hidden games editor and left panel editor :)

### Optimized hot-keys for games list and arcade controllers (when feature is activated)

### Selection bar turns red on current selected filter (MAME Games Filters screen)

### Updated EasyListView component to latest SVN source that fix a couple UI bugs

## Removed

### Main menu / popup menu themes is no more. Only the default theme is available from now on

### Setting "Bold Font In Selected Game" is gone. Font of selected items are always in bold style

### Selection bar colors customization (preferences screen). Only fixed colors are supported, blue for have/miss games and red for games with missing ROMs/CHDs (red ribbon might be used on other screens, but for a different situation)

### procedure uCommon.GetGamesFilesList() and function uCommon.ExtMatch() deleted as they are not being used anywhere

### Alpha blend for EasyListView / VirtualTreeView components have a fixed factor of 128 from now on (half alpha blend)

### Background color of sorted column is gone (games list treeview). No need since you have the sort icon in the header (ascending/descending)

## Added

### New main menu "Settings". This menu item will hold several front-end settings
Menu items moved to the new settings main menu:
-> All items from main menu "Advanced User" (main menu also removed)
-> "Favorites - Profile Settings" moved from "View" main menu

### New feature: scan for not used zip files (main menu "Settings / Maintenance")
Use this to list all .zip files that are not being used by any game (all systems supported)
WARNING: if you share ROMs with different emulators on the same directory, take extra careful when deleting files. Recycle bin is NOT supported by this feature
-> You can choose to delete files or move them to another folder

### Support for SEGA Model 2 Emulator v0.9 and its new settings (emulator.ini)

### Features "delete current image" and "rename current image" support all 3 image panels when image layouts view mode is enabled (images popup menu, mouse right-button click)
I finally found a way to verify what image component is calling the popup menu!!! :-))

# version 5.7 change log - January 26, 2009

## Fixed

### Cheat settings updated to latest MAME build (MAME Settings screen)

### Access violation when using Hidden Games feature and the file "hidden_games.ini" does not exist

### Image info panel:
-> appearing when switching from layouts view mode to classic view mode, when setting is turned off
-> not being emptied when no image is found -> not updating its text after turning on/off

### Scan audio samples feature was not working (main menu "Games List"). Apparently nobody use this thing because I never got any bug reports on this bug

### "Danger Will Robinson... DANGER!"
Columns profile editor load/save was not working correctly and, when closing the editor while viewing a different profile than the actual profile being used on the games list, this new profile was being set and messing up data for all columns when opening the columns editor again.
And even more disturbing... nobody reported this fatal bug for the last 18 months!

### Pixelated game icon on several screens. Also, they are now displayed directly into the TImage32 canvas :-))

### Select file for left panel editor was not working correctly (custom EL select file dialog)

### Glide renderer config now load/save keys settings (file "glide_renderer.cfg", ZiNc settings screen)

### Glide renderer detection was not working, making EL load/save settings on the wrong renderer CFG file (ZiNc settings screen)

### Some minor bugs in the favorites profiles editor

### A bunch of small fixes everywhere... mostly UI

### Transparency (alpha channel) and smoothness were not being applied corretly on any top and bottom bars

### Incremetal search still working on EasyListView when "Control Games List With Arcade Controller" is enabled

### Access violation when auto-selecting an item in TColorBox component if its OnSelect event is empty

### Filter for "Sega System 24" was not showing any games (driver name on newer MAME builds have changed)

## Changed

### Several files renamed ("resources\main_icons\" folder)

### Minimum screen resolution increased to 960x600 (16:10)... but you still can use EL at 800x600
I recommend 1024x768 as minimum resolution as this is a Windows application, not for arcade monitors

### Front-end main icons reduced to 16x16 (tool bar icons are still 24x24)

### Virtual TreeView component updated to v4.7.0 and to the latest SVN version

### EasyListView component updated v2.0 and to the latest SVN version

### Menu theme "Office 2007" renamed to "Default", but .ini entries remain the same

### Several changes to columns profiles feature:
- Default profile name changed from "default.ini" to "col_profile_general.ini"
- Columns profiles folder is no more. All files will be saved in "resources\ini_files\" and must begin with "col_profile_systemname.ini"
- Profiles editor only works for the selected system (no more editing profiles for multiple systems at once)
- Only 2 profiles are available for each system: "General" for all systems (default) and "System" that can only be used by the selected system

### View emulator versions and games list versions replaced by a new and single screen "File Versions" (main menu "View")

### User interface on several screens are changed and lots of controls were replaced to simplify future updates in EL

### Updated FastMM to version 4.9.2 (several fixes and full support for Delphi 2009)

### Moved image layouts feature (title edit and visible layouts) and image category settings (category titles, visible categories and folders settings) from preferences screen to a new "Category / Layout Settings" screen that can be accessed from main menu "Images", "Category / Layout Settings"
This has been done to merge all features in one place and for easy access. Also to improve loading time of preferences screen at startup and remove all these ListView components from sitting idle in RAM without reason

### Moved "Control Games List With Arcade Controllers" from preferences screen to main menu "Games List" and renamed it to "Browse Games With". To disable this feature just select "Keyboard + Mouse"

### Moved "Auto Rename Snapshots To Old Format" from preferences screen to main menu "Images". These 2 settings are enabled by default and are for conveniece only. If you want to keep MAME snaps original filenames, disable it

## Improved

### Optimizations to popup menus (context menus), main menu, UI and a bunch of common functions

### Aut-select previous/next visible game instead of the top game in the list after using certain features: selete game, add/remove favorites and hidden list

### Converted a lot of functions into procedures since they do not need to return a confirmation value. Don't know if this saves memory or if the reduced memory usage is relevant

### Some error/warning message boxes replaced by a blinking background in edit boxes (left panel editor screen, favorites profiles screen, emulator setup screen). Other features will use this new function in the future

### Optimized the icons loading at startup and merged a couple "ImageList" since they use the same icons

### Some settings on EmuLoader.ini have been simplified and merged. Some other entries renamed

### All ListView components replaced by EasyListView since it's safer and far easier to work with. By doing this, several functionality and visual bugs were fixed

### Height of top and bottom bars reduced

### Browse for folder (multiple folders) dialog box now have a "Include Subfolders" checkbox and the dialog was completely coded from scratch.
[WARNING] If you have "view zip as folder" feature enabled on your OS, when opening a folder with lots of .zip files, the dialog will take some time to read sub-folders and display them on the screen. The only way to fix this is to disable "zip as folder" from Windows. Google it and you'll find out how to do that

### Browse for folder (single) and select file dialog boxes optimized to reduce redundant lines of code

### Removed the "Close" button command from several screens since the TButton component have a "ModalResult" property that closes the form automatically without a single line of code

### MAME "snapshot_directory" entry in "mame.ini" is updated automatically when closing the new "Image Category / Layout Settings" screen (all MAME based systems, if they are available)

## Removed

### Left-overs in "EmuLoader.ini" from previous builds

### Some unused icons ("resources\main_icons\" folder)"

### Unused variables and old codes thru the entire project (some functions are still there, commented out)

### AnotherArcadeEmulator settings screen removed completely from the project

## Added

### Filter: "Missing ROMs/CHDs" (tool bar button "Have / Miss Games")
Select this filter to display all games that have one or more missing ROMs/CHDs

### Feature: Customizable font for games found with 1 or more missing ROMs/CHDs (preferences screen, "Games" / "Games List" tab, "Font Settings" box, "Missing ROMs/CHDs"). Games where the .zip was found but there are ROMs or CHDs missing, will be displayed in a different font. It uses the same files as the "Scan Results" feature (games popup menu)
Not all systems are supported!

### PinMAME system is back (only Win32 binary is supported)
NOTE: I am NOT adding native support for "Visual PinMAME" tables so please, do not ask

### New files added for PinMAME

### Setting: "New Emulator Binaries Detection Enabled" (preferences screen, "General" tab, "Miscellaneous" tab, "Startup" frame box)
Disable this option to prevent the front-end from verifying the checksum of available emulators, for a faster start (enabled by default)

### Images tool bar buttons:
- toggle classic/layouts view mode
- delete snapshot of selected category (classic view mode only)

### New .ttf font: "Consolas", used in the project (this font is way better than "Courier New")

### The window position and size is restored on left panel editor screen ("ini_files\el_extras.ini" file)

### Support for MAME 0.129u2 including new CHD types: "Video Home System" and "Compact Flash Card"

# version 5.6.2 change log - October 22, 2008

## Fixed

### Front-end crashes on some systems with Vista x64 and 4GB RAM

## Changed

### Updates to "\ini_files\mame_filters.ini" file

### Disabled AAE setup screen to avoid messing with "aae.ini" file and due to the fact that you can configure the emulator directly in its own menu (why re-invent the wheel, right ?)

## Improved

### Some minor improvements on some screens and popup menus

## Added

### Expanded the "CHD" games filter with more options:
- "Hard-Drive" -> games that use a hard-drive device (ide, scsi, disk)
- "Laserdisc" -> games that use a laserdisc media
- "CD-ROM" -> games that use a CD-ROM media
- "GD-ROM" -> games that use a GD-ROM media

### New file to detect CHD correctly based on new CHD filters: "\ini_files\chd_mediatypes.ini".
This file contains a list of tags found on MAME's "listxml" output, and it's a temporary fix. If there is one or more tags missing, you can add them into this file

### New Sega games filters:
- Sega Naomi GD-ROM
- Sega Naomi 2
- Sega Naomi 2 GD-ROM

### New files:
-> folder: "resources\main_icons\arcade_filters\"
"chd_hd.ico", "chd_laserdisc.ico", "chd_cdrom.ico", "chd_gdrom.ico"
"naomigd.ico", "naomi2.ico", "naomi2gd.ico"

# version 5.6.1 change log - August 07, 2008

## Fixed

### Could not select .avi file to record with MAME

### Setting debugscript was being saved as comment if value is empty (MAME settings)

## Changed

### Read/write emulator/game full setting only works on MAME and AGEMAME. All other emulator have support for paths only (this is for MAME based emulator only!)

## Improved

### Left panel files can now handle any word surrounded by asterisks. They will be converted into sub-nodes.
The section "[ROOT_FOLDER]" is not required anymore but if this section is not found, it will be added automatically (required, so the tree nodes can be created correctly)

## Removed

### Support for "optionXx (NULL) (not set)" entries from MAME based emulators (mame.ini)
This means that configuring old MAME/AGEMAMGE builds and HazeMD/Mjolnir emus with EL is no longer possible (I might do something about that in a future version, but can't promisse anything)

## Added

### Support for MAME 0.126u3

# version 5.6 change log - June 01, 2008

## Changed

### Create games list for "SEGA Model 2 Emu v0.8a" and "AAE beta 1 update 5" emulators are updated to use the new XML files from Logix (ClrMAMEPro).
Old .dat files are no longer supported!

### AAE and SEGAModel2 games lists must be created again due to changes in the ROMs IDs (games list files)

## Added

### Support new settings for MAME 0.125u8

### Support for SEGA Model 2 Emulator v0.8a. Emulator settings screen updated, but unfortunatelly the format and comments of "emulator.ini" file cannot be maintained

# version 5.5.1 change log - May 23, 2008

## Fixed

### Option "Enable Image Label Info" not being disabled at startup

### Access violation when viewing MAME game faqs (auto game docs)

### Load/save MAME input, load MAME savestate was not working. Also removed warning message when hitting the cancel button

## Added

### Support to create AVI output with MAME 0.125u1 (games popup menu)
... files always created in "multimedia_files\" sub-folder of MAME's "snap" folder

### Re-added empty bios value support (MAME settings) using a new checkbox named "Default = Empty Value"

# version 5.5 change log - May 13, 2008

## Fixed

### When exiting MAWS view, games list focus was not restored

### MAME ini files not being generated when setting emulator options from "Emulator Setup" screen, making settings all messed up

### Error when loading image background in treeviews and listviews if file does not exist

### Bug that did not always minimized the front-end when running games (when feature is enabled)

### Weird bug when running Model 2 emu. Front-end window is now restored correctly

### Vista taskbar / Vista Flip3D previews now show correctly when the front-end is minimized... yay!

###

### Game name in status bar not properly set when switching between games filters

### Minor visual bugs

## Changed

### All MAME WAV/MNG files are now created in the same folder: "mamesnaps\multimedia_files\"

### No more folder restrictions for MAME playback/record input and save state files

## Improved

### No need for the arrow in drop-down buttons anymore (tool bar buttons)

### Feature "select parent game" does nothing if parent is not found or is hidden

### Save file dialogs merged and simplified

## Removed

### "Delete .wav / .mng Files" popup menus

### Custom MAME wave output folder (preferences screen)

## Added

### Support for LCD screen type when creating MAME games lists (no support in screen type filter though)

### Incremental search by game name now works for view modes that use EasyListView

### Support for MAME 0.125

# version 5.4.1 change log - March 23, 2008

## Fixed

### Menu theme, font color of selected item was not being applied

### Snapshots not always displayed after image panel was set empty

### Scan for missing icons was not running games in some view modes

### Games list not being correctly sorted (left panel editor)

### Access violations in scan missing/not used icons/images

## Changed

### Scan for not used images. Only files that are not used by any games are removed

## Added

### New setting: "Auto Rename Snapshots to Old Format" / "Delete Files After Rename" (preferences, "Images" / "Categories" tab)
This will automatically rename snaps from new MAME format "\gamename\0000.png" to the old format used by the front-end "full_gamename0000.png". Click on the "help" button next to its checkbox for a more detailed info... disabled by default

# version 5.4 change log - March 07, 2008

## Fixed

### Select parent game was bugged

### Access violation with columns profiles if a column index is invalid

### Several visual bugs

### Button "Resize screenshots area" was not working correctly in some layout

### Prev/next images browse buttons were bugged (blue ones)

### Image types auto cycle feature not working in some cases

### Add/remove to/from favorites/hidden list was not working right

### MAME features: "record .wav; .mng"; "record/play .inp; .sta" was not working. Funny no one reported this... does anyone use these features ? :(

### Button "Clear Selected" not working in "Delete Multiple Games Files"

### Several cosmetic fixes (too many to list)

### Open picture dialog, replaced by open file dialog

## Changed

### Image type is now known as "Image Category". Entries in "EmuLoader.ini are changed as well

### Renamed "Show Command Line Before Running Game" to "Run Game Confirmation Dialog" (main menu "View")

### Renamed "Auto Cycle Previous/Next Image Types" to "Image Category Prev/Next Auto Switch" (images popup menu)

### Column "Description" renamed to "Title"

### Renamed "Resize screenshots area" to "Center Splitters (Resize Images)" (images popup menu)

### Feature "Automatic Game Documents" is now called "View Game Documents"

### You cannot rename image files while in layouts view

### Replaced game documents tool bar panel by a popup menu (mouse right-click)

### Moved "\resources\msgbox_icons\" folder to "\resoureces\images\msgbox_icons\"

## Improved

### Columns positions ([Position] section) are not saved in profiles if their positions are same as default... to prevent further errors

### Major rewrite on prev/next image buttons. Only sequential image filenames are supported from now on, meaning you no longer can have gaps in filenames like:
"galaga.png"; "galaga0002.png"; galaga0008.png"
These files must be renamed as:
"galaga.png"; "galaga0000.png"; galaga0001.png"

### Even more source code cleanup and optimizations (again and again and again!!!) ^-^

### Systems filter menus (tool bar button and main menu "Games Filters") are only visible if the emulator and games list are valid)

### Face lift and optimizations on all screens and some features

## Removed

### System view mode is gone. To view games by system use the system filter (main tool bar buttons or "Games Filters" main menu)

### Feature "Open in a window" (view game documents) is no more

### File "\resources\images\NoSnapshot.png" is no longer used. A blank image panel is displayed when no valid screenshot is found (for the 1st image only)

### Tray icon is no more. EL now stay minimized when running games. TrayIcon component is also removed from the project

### A bunch of images from "\resources\images\" folder and sub-folders (not used anymore)

### Several icons from "\resources\main_icons\"folder that are not used anymore

### Option: "Blend Clone Icons in 50%"

## Added

### Support for MAMEUI games icons

### Large icons, small icons, tiles view modes are back! (EasyListView v1.72)
-> Everything works, except the following limitations / bugs:
- No virtual mode to keep it as simple as possible
- Incremental search does not support searching by game name
- Visual bugs that cannot be fixed (EasyListView's fault)
- No support for arcade controllers to navigate in the games list (still working on a solution for this one!)
- No hot-keys support for some actions
-> Some visual tweaks were added (preferences screen, "Games List" tab):
- "Gradient Selection Bar", a nice customizable gradient bar. Thumbnails view looks awesome with this...
- "Selected Full Item Paint" will select the entire cell (text + icon)

### Thumbnails view mode! (EasyListView v1.72)
This is an experimental feature. Only game snapshots are supported
-> Feature:
- Custom settings (main menu "View", "Thumbnail Settings"):
1. Size scale from 90x90 to 400x400
2. Enable/disable border and color customizable
3. "Show Parent if Thumb Not Found": Load parent snapshots if clone snapshots are not found (enabled by default)
- All thumbs are processed within threads for faster loading
- You can delete game snapshots directly from this view mode. Just select all games you want and use the new "Delete Selected Game Snapshots" option in the games popup menu, new "Thumbnails" sub-menu
- MAMu_ icons are not displayed in this view mode
- Reload selected Thumb (games popup menu, "Thumbnails" sub-menu)
- Reload All Thumbnails (games popup menu, "Thumbnails" sub-menu)
- Images preview and game documents are disabled in this view mode. To convert snapshots, use the "Convert Snapshots" menu item from the "Thumbnails" sub-menu (games popup)
- Games filters are fully supported, including the left bar -> NOTES:
- If you keep switching between thumbnails and other view modes very fast, EL might crash
- This feature use A LOT of memory when viewing all games. About 240MB to load one thousand images, at 125x125 size. The bigger the thumbs, more memory will be used
- Thumbs are loaded only when games appear in the screen for the fist time to save memory, if you are using a filter with only a few games

### View modes for the images preview (main menu "Images", "View Mode" menu item):
-> "Classic Mode": old 1 image mode with no multi-screenshots or layouts support
-> "Layouts Mode": new view mode with multi-screenshots and layouts support

### Show/hide images layouts and change their title. To edit a title, select the one you want and hit "F2" hot-key (or use the "Edit Title" button), and type the new description directly into the list. Hit "ESC" key to abort or "ENTER" key to confirm the change (preferences screen, "Images" / "Layouts" sub-tab)
Note: single layout cis always visible so do not try to hide it!

### New setting: "Layout Prev/Next Auto Switch" (images popup menu)
Enable this so you can cycle between images and layouts with the prev/next blue button, while in layouts view mode (same as image category auto cycle)

### Ability to hide panels in the layouts customize screen (dual and triple layouts), so you can view only 1 or 2 images in a triple layout and 1 image in a dual layout.
Panels sizes might not be saved/restored when restarting, and there can be weird results when hiding panels (layouts were not ment to have hidden images!)

### Hidden games feature is changed into a filter now ("Games Filters"). Valid options are:
-> "List All": all games are visible
-> "Hidden Games": only games listed in the hidden list are visible
-> "No Hidden Games": all games are visible except the from in the hidden list

### New Delphi component: "ExTrackBar". A trackbar with labels and other stuff

### New images resampler filter: "Scale2x". This one doubles the snapshots resolution, and support only title snapshots and game snapshots

# version 5.3.1 change log - February 11, 2008

## Fixed

### Screenshots alpha blend was disabled

### Crash when scanning ZiNc and Daphne games lists

### Games with multiple controls were not being properly filtered when using "Control Type" filters (main menu "Games Filters")

## Changed

### Files renamed/moved:
-> from "\ini_files\favorites\default.ico" to "\resources\main_icons\favorite_user.ico"
-> from "\resources\tray_icons\el_icon1.ico" to "\resources\main_icons\trayicon.ico"

## Improved

### "Bad Dump" / "No Dump" info in scan results screen for each ROM/CHD

### Display screenshots is a lot faster

### The "no snaphshot" image is shown only when the first screenshot is missing. When using previous/next buttons, if screenshot is not found, the last one loaded is not removed

### Hint for previous/next screenshot buttons

### Even more source code cleanup and optimizations

## Removed

### URL label link on top of game documents window/panel

### Files deleted:
-> Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"leftpanel_root.ico"

### Folder and all its files "\resources\tray_icons\" deleted

### New MAME snaps filename format. Only the old "fullgamename0000.ext" is supported from now on (use the new "Convert Snapshots" feature to avoid renaming all files manually)

### Icon files from favorites feature. No more custom favorites icons

## Added

### Multi-screenshots layouts!!!!!!!!!
View up to 3 screenshots at the same time
-> Features:
- set what image types to use for each layout using the "Customize" menu item in the new "layouts" tool bar button
- switch layouts easily using the new "layout" tool bar button
- resize each image using the splitters
- settings are saved in the new "[front-end]\ini_files\screenshot_layouts.ini" file
- each image panel use the background color configured in preferences screen
- each image panel have a hint with its type description so you know what is being shown (just pass the mouse thru the image)
- features disabled multi-screenshots is enabled: "filename / resolution label"; "change image types"
- use the new "Reset Screenshots Sizes" menu item (images popup menu) to center the splitters into the screenshots preview area (current layout only!)
- use the same image type in more than one place

### New Delphi component, "RichEditURL". URL detection is within the game document text now :)
No HTML tags support though

### New setting: "Set All Games as Available (Scan Games)" (preferences screen) See the help button next to this setting for more info...

### New feature: "convert snapshots from MAME to EL format" (main menu "Images")
Use this to convert all your "gamename\0000.png" snapshots to "fullgamename0000.png"

### Added the "Screen Resolution" column back (1st screen only). You need to re-create your games lists again. I will not add refresh rate though
Warning: you must delete all your games lists and columns profiles before using this new build if you are upgrading from v5.3 or EL will crash!

### New button in screenshots tool bar to resize its area so only description column is visible

### Driver "m52.c" into the "Irem Old School" filter for "Moon Patrol" game

### New files:
-> Folder: "\resources\images\img_layouts\"
"img2_layout1.png"; "img2_layout2.png"; "img3_layout1.png"
"img3_layout2.png"; "img3_layout3.png"; "img3_layout4.png"
"img3_layout5.png"; "img3_layout6.png"
-> Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"img1_layout.ico"; "img2_layout1.ico"; "img2_layout2.ico";
"img3_layout1.ico"; "img3_layout2.ico"; "img3_layout3.ico"
"img3_layout4.ico"; "img3_layout5.ico"; "img3_layout6.ico"
-> Folder: "\resources\images\
"msgbox_top.png"

# version 5.3 change log - January 26, 2008

## Fixed

### Clone games not showing in the list when using grouped view mode and "show available only " or "show missing only" filters
This fix will show parent games in the list one way or another, so clones can be shown

### Access violation when trying to delete .zip games while game is set as missing (MAME only)

### Driver status info in "game details" screen was not showing for all systems

### ClrMAMEPro .dat files info not being restored on restart

### Input playback / record was not working

### Add games to hidden list not working... also fixed re-select item if feature is enabled

### Re-select item after deleting games from favorites lists

### Random game button is finally fixed
Also, added a timer of 03 seconds. If no game is chosen by then, the first visible game on the list is selected... to prevent front-end from freezing when games list is too small

### System nodes still showing when they shouldn't (system view mode)

### Game name not being reset when no games are selected

### Threaded timer was not being stopped in some operations (splash screen)

### Entries not being properly handled in scan result files (.miss)

### 10 seconds delay when running emulators in some systems

## Changed

### Support for the new MAME image format "\gamename\0000.png" is reduced to the first 2 image types (title snapshots / game snapshots). All other image types will only use the old format "full_gamename0000.png"

### "Emu Loader image format (fullgamename0000.png) is always enabled now, and the new MAME format is optional. Removed the setting from "Images" main menu

### Files renamed:
-> Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"image_07_gameartwork" to "image_08_gameartwork"
"image_08_maws" to "image_09_maws"
"filterarcade_10_aae.ico" to "filterarcade_09_aae.ico"
"filterarcade_09_mjolnir.ico" to "filterarcade_06_mjolnir.ico"

### Game details screen remade

### Moved Mjolnir from 8th to 3rd system in the list

### Playback / record input files are now read/written inside a game sub-folder
You only need to set the main folder for the inp files and EL will add the game name sub-folder automatically (just the way the savestate feature works)

### ROMs/CHDs marked as "nodump" are never checked and will be marked as valid since games can run even when they are missing (mainly for MAME)

### Format of "sysname_roms.el" files are changed. ROM size info is removed since it's never used by the front-end when scanning the games list

## Improved

### Frame box label of image types folder selection show all possible file formats for each type (preferences screen, "Images" tab)

### Code optimizations and removal of some unused functions / variables

### Status bar "game name" label now show "gamename [parent_gamename]"

### Select item function is a lot faster and its implementation is 100% ghost-safe

### Reduced image filters to 3 states: "off", "Linear" and "Lanczos"

## Removed

### Status bar panels: "game size"; "current favorite profile"

### Status bar icons and customization

### Files removed:
- Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"statusbar_game_size_emu.ico"; "statusbar_game_size_zip.ico"; "emu_pinmame.ico"
"filterarcade_06_pinmame.ico"; "unzipfile.ico"
- Folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
"PinMAMEParent.ico"; "PinMAMEClone.ico"; "PinMAMEBios.ico"
"UnPinMAMEParent.ico"; "UnPinMAMEClone.ico"; "UnPinMAMEBios.ico"
- Folder: "\resources\images\topbars\"
"emu_pinmame.png" - Folder: "\resources\images\"
"NoGamesAvailable.png"

### PinMAME system is gone...

### ROMs list from game details screen. Not much useful...

### ROM size info from "sysname_roms.el" file. EL never check ROM sizes anyway (you'll need to re-create all your games lists...)

### Game size info is gone. Wanna know a game's size ? Go to MAWS for that info

### Setting "Display Zip Error Messages" since the new zip library does not open the file if there are errors

### "No Games Available" when games list is empty (unnecessary screenshot)

## Added

### PCB image type added back

### New files:
-> folder: '\resources\main_icons\"
"image_07_pcb.ico"

### Some emulator settings for Daphne. Also added support for laserdisc players other then the "Virtual" type (preferences screen, Emulators tab)

# version 5.2.1 change log - January 18, 2008

## Fixed

### No need to select a game in the main list to edit left panel filters

### Left panel's node height fixed to 18 pixels (same as games list with 16x16 icons)

### Main menu / popup menus not loading / using custom themes (preferences screen)

# version 5.2 change log - January 17, 2008

## Fixed

### Merged sets being added more than once in "\arcade\mame_merged.ini" file

### MAME ROMs folder selection was auto-sorting the list

### Scan games function now search all MAME folders for .chd files

### System node were counting as games when using system view mode

### All system nodes were visible when selecting one system (system view mode)

### Random game button was bugged again (this feature is very slow when just a fewer games are visible)

## Changed

### Files updated:
-> folder: "\resources\images\"
"about.png"; "logo.png"
-> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"statusbar_game_size_emu.ico"; "statusbar_game_size_zip.ico"

### Files renamed:
-> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"image_12_gameartwork.ico" to "image_07_gameartwork.ico"
"image_13_maws.ico" to "image_08_maws.ico"

### Moved "number of screens" from main tool bar buttons to "Games Filters" main menu

### Hot-key for "previous image type" is now F9 and for "next image type" is F10

### Status bar "standard" size changed to 16x16 icons. 24x24 icons were removed

### Image type #1 (game snapshot) cannot be disabled anymore (preferences screen)

### Moved screenshots "stretch" and "display parent images" settings back to screenshots popup menu and removed the "settings and special effects" button from the tool bar

### Added a "ClrMAMEPro Data File" edit box in "Emulator Setup" screen so you can define a .dat file for all systems that need it to create the games list. There is no need to put a "SEGAModel2Emulator.dat" in "\ini_files\" folder anymore
If the file is not found or not defined, when creating the games list you will be prompted to select one

### Read/write resolution settings for "SEGA Model 2 Emulator" was bugged
Also, added support for custom resolutions

### Remove "Show expanded Items" menu option from "View" main menu and added a new "Collapse Tree" / "Expand Tree" to toggle between collapse and expanded

### Merged sets are a MAME exclusive feature from now on. This front-end will not support merged sets for any other system, including MAME based ones (AGEMAME, PinMAME, HazeMD, etc...)

### The follwing options are now MAME exclusive features (games popup menu):
-> "Run Game and Playback Input"
-> "Run Game Game and Record Input"
-> "Run Game and Load a Save State"
-> "Run Game and Record Wave Output"
-> "Run Game and Record MNG Output"

### Game documents feature is a MAME only feature now (it always was)

### Moved "Auto Previous/Next Image Type" from main menu "Images" to images popup menu

### Audio samples, main chip, display, sound, input, driver status and savestate info are now extracted from MAME's "-listxml" output... for bios entries

### Read/write columns profiles were adding the full path twice on the filename string, preventing the profile to be read/written

## Improved

### More code optimizations (again, no speed gains)

### Display game screenshots is a little faster (not noticeable for most of you)

### Support for "filter / Mature" entries in .ini files (left panel)

### Only available systems can be selected when scanning the games list (games popup menu)

### Removed the "Delete Selected Games Files" option from games popup menu ("Delete" menu item), and changed the "Delete "gamename.zip" menu option so it can handle multiple selected games as well, using the same "Delete" keyboard hot-key

### Treeview's FullExpand() command used instead of a loop (don't know why I never used this command before...)

### You can delete files in the "Select File" screen using the "Delete" keyboard hot-key

### Centralized all the calls for the "\ini_files\" folder and its sub-folders into one function

### Updated the function that create games lists based on ClrMAMEPro .dat files so other emulators can also use it

## Removed

### DOS box run mode. Games run with DOS box in normal state and extract games list / emulator version minimized

### The following image types are gone: "Select"; "Versus"; "Wallpaper"; "Hardware"; "PCB"
Go to MAWS to check on these images...

### Files deleted:
-> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"filter6_numscreens_all.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_1.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_2.ico";
"filter6_numscreens_3.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_4.ico"; "mamu_scanmiss.ico";
"mamu_scannotneeded.ico"; "binary.ico"; "statusbar_total_games.ico";
"create_gameslist.ico"; "emu_extrafiles.ico"; "image_07_select.ico";
"image_08_versus.ico"; "image_09_wallpaper.ico"; "image_10_hardware.ico"
"image_11_pcb.ico"; "image_nextno.ico"; "image_prevno.ico"

### Support for zipped images is gone... for good this time

### Customize images tool bar. You can only show or hide this bar from now on

### Image type button from main tool bar button. Now only available in images tool bar

### Option: "Use MAME Games Info" for ZiNc system. If a MAME games list already exists, EL will get all extra info from it automatically

### Option: "Delete All Visible Games" from favorites popup menu. If you want to delete all games from a favorites list, enable "Multiple Section", select all games and use "Delete / Delete All Selected Games Files" (games popup menu)

### Several menu items from games popup menu "Delete" (sorry but you're gonna have to delete files manually from now on)
-> "Config File"
-> "Nvram File"
-> "Input File"
-> "Save State File"

### Number of screens column from the main games list... you still have the filter in the "Games Filters" main menu

## Added

### Support for a new emulator: "AAE - Another Arcade Emulator"
New emulator that run vector games using OpenGL width hardware acceleration, adding some cool effects. A ClrMAMEPro .dat file is required for this system (go to "Logiqx")
Note: this system support only full split ROMs (no parent/clone relationships)!

### Main filter "Parent/Clone" is also applied in the left panel

### New left panel popup items:
-> "Apply Main Tool Bar Filters": Use this option to re-apply main filters from the tool bar buttons
-> "Export Games List": Export the current games list to a .ini file so you can use it as a new filter for the left panel

### New button for the MAWS web browser tool bar: "Exit MAWS", to exit the browser and load the game snapshot image type

### New feature: "Left Panel Editor" (main menu "Left Panel" / left panel popup menu)
This is what you've been waiting for. A complete editor for all your custom filter needs
You can even edit existing filters like "catlist.ini", "artwork.ini", "series.ini" and others. Read "docs\el-leftpanel.txt" file for a user guide
There are 2 possible options:
-> "Create a New Filter": the editor will open with a new filter already initialized waiting for your input
-> "Edit a Filter": after selecting a .ini from the list, the editor will open and load the filter so you can add/remove folders or games
The editor is very easy to use and visualize. See the "help" button at the editor's tool bar for a small tutorial
Warning: only MAME is supported by the editor. Even if you select games from other systems, they will not be added

### New files:
-> folder: "\resources\images\topbars\"
"filters.png"; "emu_aae.png"
-> folder: '\resources\main_icons\"
"emu_aae.ico"; "filterarcade_10_aae.ico";
"leftpanel_btn_add.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_delete.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_save.ico";
"leftpanel_btn_help.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_addgame.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_deletegame.ico";
"search.ico"
-> folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
"AAEParent.ico"; "AAEClone.ico"; "UnAAEParent.ico"; "UnAAEClone.ico"

### Detection of available screen resolutions, based on your video card+monitor
Used in ZiNc settings screen, SEGA Model 2 settings screen, AAE settings screen

### New filter: "Save State" in "Games Filters" main menu

# version 5.1.9 change log - January 04, 2008

## Fixed

### File "\arcade\system_name.el" not updated correctly when doing a single game scan

### Left panel custom background color not being set (same as games list)

### Scan results was not checking for merged sets and adding all those games to its list

### ZiNc games showing when using "Vector" filter

### History label (top game documents panel) was bugged

### Bad treeview colors in "check for missing images" and "check for missing MAMu_ icons"

### Executing games with "Run Custom Game Settings By Default" enabled was searching only for game custom command lines

### Setting / deleting "debug.ini" for MAME was not working correctly

## Changed

### Scan results changed to not include games where "gamename.zip" is not found (for both master and clone sets

## Improved

### Emulators setup screen UI updated for easier access

### Fixed appearance of ListView lists in several screens (for Windows Vista)

### Multi-selection enabled for the left panel filters. Select a bunch of filters and all games from those filters combined will be displayed in the list
Single selection is still supported... of course

### Left panel now use the main filter "Have / Miss". Note that selecting this main filter will overwrite the select filters from the left panel!

### Columns editor UI improved a little bit for easier maintenance

### Minor improvements to the left panel

### More optimizations for easier maintenance (no speed improvements)

### Reduced to 10 tries the "Random Game" feature so the front-end does not fall into an endless loop. Useful if you are viewing a list where most games are hidden

## Removed

### Games list icons are not validated anymore. If there is one or more files missing, the icons in the games list will be messed up

## Added

### Support for MARP data file (http://marp.retrogames.com)... game documents feature
File is updated daily. Download it from this link: http://marp.retrogames.com/marp.dat
Place it in "[frontend]\ini_files\" folder or MAME root folder.

### New main menu: "Left Panel"
This menu will have some special options. One of them, create special filters using Emu Loader's internal database, to be used with the left panel
Menu Items so far:
"Create Control Types File" -> create a "controltype.ini" with a list of all MAME control types and its games. Some users might want to use this filter instead of the one from "Games Filters" main menu

### More improvements to the left panel:
-> Left panel popup menu:
"Apply Selected Filters" -> use this menu item to enforce the left panel to apply its selected filters (useful when multiple filters are selected and you used the main filters and want to revert to the left panel)
"Collapse / Expand Tree" -> collapse or expand all items in the tree
"Reload TreeView" -> reload all .ini files into the treeview (no filters are applied!)
"Default Panel Size" -> restore the default width of the left panel

### New files: -> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"leftpanel_root.ico"
-> folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
"MAMEParent.ico"
"MAMEClone.ico"
"MAMEBios.ico"
"UnMAMEParent.ico"
"UnMAMEClone.ico"
"UnMAMEBios.ico"

# version 5.1.8 change log - December 20, 2007

## Fixed

### When disabling left panel, main tool bar filters were not being applied again

### Hidden games stay hidden when left panel and hidden games features are enabled at the same time

### Open/close button for root nodes in left panel disappearing when starting front-end with left panel enabled

### Memory leak in "game details" screen

### Incremental search not working in several screens

## Improved

### Files that do not follow the standard format are not added into the left panel (catver.ini for example)

### Merged some more functions to remove unecessary code duplicates

## Removed

### Several audit icons from folder "\resources\main_icons\"

### Artwork filters from "Games Filters" main menu. Also removed support for the now old artwork.ini (thanks Mr. Do!)... "[frontend]\ini_files\artwork.ini" file
Only the new artwork.ini file is supported and is to be used with the left panel

### Audit feature is completely removed from the project (see new feature "Scan Results" for more info)

## Added

### Added a new main tool bar button: "Left Panel Filters" for easier access and removed the menu item from the "Games Filters" main menu

### Left panel now have a popup menu with some options

### New files: -> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"left_panel.ico"
"scanresult_ok.ico"
"scanresult_badcrc.ico"
"scanresult_notfound.ico"
"scanresult_game.ico"

### Support for custom background image and font for the left panel Same background image as games list and font is the same as parent games font

### New options for MAME 0.122 in MAME settings screen

### Custom width for the left panel is now saved in "EmuLoader.ini"

### New folder "font_ttf" with some custom fonts used by the front-end, in case you don't have them

### New feature: "Scan Results" (games popup menu)
Every time you scan the games list, files are created or updated in a new folder: "[frontend]\arcade\scan_results\". Each system have a file with the ".miss" extension, except for "ZiNc" and "Daphne" systems (no support for these 2). Only games that have missing ROMs/CHD are added
There are 2 options for this feature:
1. Selected Game ("Shift+A" hotkey) -> view the results of a single game
2. All Missing Games ("F8" hotkey) -> view the results of all missing games for all systems
NOTES:
- At least one ROM or CHD file must be found for each game or it will not be added in the list
- Green status is for "Ok" ROMs/CHD files
- Red status is for "bad checksum" and is for CHD files only (no ROMs)
- Gray status is for "missing" ROMs/CHD files
- If you download a new .zip file you must re-scan the games list since this feature does not do any scanning, it only read "system_name.miss" files

# version 5.1.7 change log - December 04, 2007

## Fixed

### Some sample files being set as "not used" in "Scan Audio Samples" (main menu "Games List")

### New history link label background color and font settings not updated with game docs settings

### Cannot create a new favorites profile when "Default" profile is selected

### Default ini file for MAME based emulators not created on a couple situations

### Bug when editing ROM paths in emulators settings screens

## Changed

### Renamed "Bios Sets" to "Bios Sets Settings" and removed the "Default / User Define" options. This feature is now enabled by default (non-default biosset is automatically loaded when starting MAME games). Remember that this is a MAME only feature

## Improved

### Some code optimizations for easier maintenance and redundancy removal

### More internal updates for the upcoming large icons view mode

## Added

### New system: Mjolnir - Arcade Emulator v0.4 [Namco's System 21, System 22, and Super System 22 harware]
Another MAME based emulator. It works the same way as MAME. Enough said :-)) Ini files (mjolnir.ini; etc) might not be fully compatible though

### ROMs files format updated with one more field so EL can know if a specific ROM is from a bios set or is a regular ROM. This will only be used by the new audit system ("mame_roms.el", "agemame_roms.el", "pinmame_roms.el", "hazemd_roms.el", "mjolnir.el")
New format: rom_name=rom_size¬rom_crc32¬rom_status¬is_bios_rom;
bios.ic23_l=65536¬e5693ce3¬baddump¬1;
pacmanh.6j=4096¬5c96a733¬¬;
Note that you don't have to recreate your games lists... at least not until I finish rewriting and activate the new audit feature

### New feature: Left panel filters
Same panel as in MAME32 but with a huge difference... you can have as many sub-levels as you like, all you need to do is create a section in the file like so:
file: 'catlist.ini'
[My filter / Maze / Top View / Multiplayer / Level 33.1 / Konami]
game1
game2
.
To toggle this feature ON/OFF, use the new "Enable Left Panel" setting in "Games Filters" main menu (enabled by default)
NOTES:
- you do not need to add all sub-levels way down to the last one (EL will do that automatically)
- all files must be placed in the new "[frontend]\leftpanel_filters\" folder
- you can have a custom description for each root node (.ini file). Just create a new section inside called [TITLE] with the following format:
[TITLE]
FolderTitle = Type any description you want here
- other files like "catver.ini", "nplayers.ini", "mameinfo.dat", etc... are still located in "[frontend]\ini_files\" folder
- All files from MAME32 are supported, "rankings.ini", "series.ini", "catlist.ini", "version.ini", "artwork.ini", and others
- Use mouse right-button click to call popup menu

# version 5.1.6 change log - August 27, 2007

## Fixed

### Auto game document #6 not being correctly read (preferences screen)

### Painting bug when scrolling games list while auto game documents is enabled

### Columns profile not being saved on certain cases (front-end startup)

### Columns profile .ini file is always deleted before saving again... to fix bug

### Games not being set correctly in grouped view mode. You'll need to re-create your games lists to fix this bug

### Custom driver options was setting game name instead of driver name

### Entries with null value now do not have "# entry" (mame.ini)... ctrlr, mngwrite, etc

### Couple bugs when scanning games list and CHD files

### Accesss violation when deleting multiple .zip files (progress bar bug)

### When favorites profile is empty, it was not being set as default at startup

### A few internal bugs

### The drop-down box # 6 (preferences screen) was reading the setting from the drop-down box #5

## Changed

### Renamed "Hidden Games Enabled" to "Activate Hidden Games" / "De-activate Hidden Games"

### For MAME based systems, all driver .ini files will now be handled in "[mame_inifolder]\source\" folder. For MAME builds older than v0.118u2, you will need to move the files to "[mame_inifolder]" manually

### ZiNc games now use the field "ScreenType" to hold the index of games, so EL can run them with ZiNc emulator

### Games list files are changed again. Please re-create all your games lists

### User interface in games filters selection screen has changed. Filters descriptions are now displayed as hints as you move the mouse over each option

## Improved

### Feature "Scan Audio Samples" ("Games List" main menu)
It only shows a list of sample from missing games and sample files not used by any game

### First change to start implementing large view mode, using "EasyListView" v1.60 component
On every game selection, the full game data will have to be redirected to memory variables
I just hope this does not generate the bug from old EL buids...

### Removed systems lists from main menus to add them at runtime... much easier to add new systems in the future since I don't need to manually add the menu items

### Main buttons tool bar / images buttons tool bar / status bar customization simplified

### Customize columns screen

### Bios sets selection screen (main menu "Emulator", "Bios Set" menu item)

## Removed

### Menu setting: "Use Controller" (main menu "Emulator")

### Menu theme selection from "View" main menu. To select a theme go to preferences screen, "Front-end" tab, "Menu / Popup Themes" sub-tab

### Game size (.zip file size)

### Top bars and feature descriptions from some screens. Also some files from "[front-end]\resources\images\topbars\" folder

## Added

### ROMs validation. All games are now fully scanned when updating the games list. If a game is missing a single ROM, it will be set as unavailable
Notes:
- ROMs of bios sets can now be placed in game sets (parents and/or clones)
- ROMs of bios sets can now be placed in game sets (parents and/or clones)
- you can put ROMs of game sets into bios sets, but parent set must still exist
- you still cannot put ROMs of parent sets into clone sets
- ROMs for ZiNc and Daphne systems are not fully scanned (no ROMs list...)

### Customize main menu and popup menu colors (preferences screen, "Front-end" main tab, "Menu / Popup Themes" sub-tab)
Notes:
- You can create as many themes as you like. They will be saved in "\ini_files\menu_themes.ini" file
- Setting "Frame Round Corners" is used for both selection band and checked items
- You can set single color, 2 colors gradient or 4 colors gradient for the selection band
- Theme "Office 2007" cannot be modified

### A pretty timer in status screen so you can keep track on how long a task is taking. This is my first piece of code that use a second thread! :-))
Only create/scan games use this timer for now

### Fix for clone games with CHD files. File "\arcade\mame_roms.el" is updated to support filenames of clone CHD + filename of the parent CHD, using a ' _"parentchd"_ ' tag, like so:
Game: konam80u
CHD : 826uaa01.chd
Parent CHD: 826eaa01.chd
.. sample from "mame_roms.el"..
826uaa01.chd_"parentchd"_826eaa01.chd=0¬456f683c5d47dd73cfb73ce80b8a7351¬;
This means that the front-end will detect both chd files and if found will set the game as available... Make sure to create the games list again

### New files to keep track of merged games located in "[frontend]\arcade\" folder (MAME based systems only)
- mame_merged.ini
- agemame_merged.ini
- pinmame_merged.ini
- hazemd_merged.ini

### You can resize game columns directly into the list now. Columns profile will be saved when:
- exiting the front-end
- swicthing between system filters
- when opening columns customizer screen

### Support for html link on new history.dat (not directly into the richedit box, but with a label above it)

### New menu option: Reload "catver.ini" / "nplayers.ini" / "artwork.ini" (main menu "Games List")
Use it to load the info from those files without restarting the front-end

# version 7.3.1 change log - August 25, 2013

## Fixed

### Misc filters were not being validated when using text filter bar

# version 7.3 change log - August 22, 2013

## Fixed

### HBMAME settings file was not being loaded if you have MAME and HBMAME in the same folder tree

### Columns were not being updated after closing customize columns screen

## Added

### Number of players option added to the text bar filter

# version 7.2 change log - August 01, 2013

## Fixed

### Previous/next image buttons were not working correctly. Also, they do NOT work at all if the "load image with threads" button is enabled

## Added

### New misc filter: Hide Device Sets with no ROMs
Check this option to hide all device sets that have no ROMs (for MAME and HBMAME). Note that this does not hide device sets with ROMs (like mie and qsound)

### Support for MAME 0.149u1

# version 7.1 change log - July 11, 2013

## Fixed

### Crash fix for Demul 0.58 (create games list)

### Some systems were still using media type index higher than 1. You must re-create games lists for all systems that use CHDs or disc image files (Daphne, Demul... except MAME/HBMAME)

## Improved

### Optimizations in view audit results feature. Support up to 19 devices per game. I doubt a game will use that much devices... future proof :)

## Added

### New arcade filter: Taito Type-X System

### New column "Game Status": available, missing ROMs/CHDS, missing

### Extremely ultra mega preliminary support for 7-Zip files. This is an experimental feature. I recommend to keep your MAME/HBMAME/Demul collections in ZIP format though. With 7-zip you can save around 3GB of HDD space if you have ALL MAME games but c'mon... 500GB external HDDs USB 3.0 are so cheap these days!
- for MAME/HBMAME and Demul only!!!
- file "7z.dll" must be placed in same folder as EmuLoader.exe (file must be downloaded separately)
- if you do not have ROM sets in 7-Zip format, you don't need "7z.dll" as Emu Loader works just fine without it
- very high compression profiles will be slower to handle (compared to zipped sets)
- Zip and 7-Zip formats are supported at the same time. You can have mixed sets in both formats, no need to convert your entire ROMs collection
- newer 7z compression profiles might not be compatible as the only Delphi library I could find compatible with Emu Loader's internal code was coded in 2011 (not by me...). There is no way to adapt EL's internal code without breaking the entire project!
- MAME/HBMAME audio samples are also supported... are .7z samples supported in MAME ?
- for information, the library source code is "source\sevenzip.pas" and 7z.dll version supported in v4.65.0.0

# version 7.0 change log - June 26, 2013

## Fixed

### -FATAL BUG: image zip content lists were not being re-initialized after switching images categories/layouts. Only fixed by restarting the application

### Application crash when creating games lists or auditing games. Equal chars ( = ) of ROM names replaced by by minus chars ( - )

### All ROM names are now checked for HTML tags, fixing A LOT of unusual ROM names (cosmetic fix)

### False "file not found" messages due to a couple variables not being handled correctly at frontend's startup (cosmetic fix)

### Wrong system icon and game name in Emu Loader's "Select File" custom dialog (cosmetic fix)

### Fatal bug haunting Emu Loader for more than a year! When game is already set as missing, ROMs list was not being updated in "system_name.miss" files after auditing... games with device sets were the most affected
This was a big problem as available ROMs were being shown as missing, making it impossible to update ROM sets
I don't know how I could have missed this for so long!!!

### Several minor fixes, app settings and cosmetic fixes

### Images layout feature was being initialized TWICE at startup!!!

### Images splitter grip icon not being set at startup if setting was disabled

### Minor bug preventing EL from deleting "arcade\systemname.miss"

### Columns could be clicked while in grouped view... this mode does not allow sorting for obvious reasons

## Changed

### File "biosset.ini" is only used for MAME now. This file's purpose is to change the bios used on systems with multiple bios sets (like Neo-Geo). This prevents other emulators from messing this file up

### MAMu_ icons folders unified into a single folder. Select folder is now in Preferences screen, "Games List" page. Relative path is supported (relative to Emu Loader)
- EL use the same icons for all systems, but the following systems can be in a sub-folder (not required):
ZiNc: "mamu_icons_dir\zinc\"
DICE: "mamu_icons_dir\dice\"

### Option "Run Game [AlterMAME]" is gone (games popup menu), and a new "Autorun Game with AlterMAME" menu item is added (ON/OFF toggle). Feature is located in emulators setup screen and in games popup menu
Just choose an alternate MAME build in Emulator Setup screen, run game normally. If it fails (MAME exit code 2), Emu Loader will try to re-run the game using AlterMAME executable
The AlterMAME feature now works as it was originally intended...

### Feature "Show Game Docs" now display info for MAME only. No point showing info on other systems

## Improved

### Several tweaks and optimizations everywhere

### Favorites list is always loaded with games list now, regardless of the feature being enabled or not. This causes a tremendous speed up when switching favorites on/off. One downside... games list loading can be up to 2.5 seconds slower if you favorites list is larger than three thousand games

## Removed

### Settings "Bold font style in selected games" is removed. Pointless feature...

### MAME features "Show Average FPS" and "Show Error Messages" are no more. When running a game with missing ROMs, a error message will popup after exiting the emulator, and the "Game Details" screen can be open, showing what ROMs are missing for the game... this CANNOT be disabled and it's supported on all systems (except Daphne)

### Button "Delete Image" removed from images tool bar. This feature can only be accessed in images popup menu (mouse right-click)

## Added

### Support for MAME 0.149

### New emulator support: HBMAME (HomeBrew MAME), completely independant from MAME: http://hbmame.the-chronicles.org
Most MAME based features are supported
- support for games with multiple bios sets like Neo-Geo (biosset_hbmame.ini)
- partial merged sets support (just like MAME)
- game custom settings
- game audio samples detection. also, scan for audio samples in "Games List" main menu
- features from "Run Game (Extra)" games popup menu are supported - NO support for mameinfo.dat, history.dat and other docs
- support for catver.ini, languages.ini and others
- detection of device sets and games with CHDs
- AlterMAME is NOT supported

### New emulator support: DICE: Discrete Integrated Circuit Emulator
- it uses an external ClrMAME XML games list "DICE_xml.dat", created by myself specially for Emu Loader. It has more game info compared to regular XML lists
- ROMs folder cannot be customized. ROMs sets, zipped only, must be placed in DICE's own "roms" sub-folder
- Games with no ROMs are set as available

### Display orientation, number of players and controls types are now extracted from external ClrMAME XML .dat files, if available. This is mostly for DICE...

### Support for zipped MAMu_ Icons (icons.zip). YES you read it right!
Notes:
- for ZiNc games, icons from "icons\zinc\" sub-folder are used, if found but it's not required
- for DICE games, icons from "icons\dice\" sub-folder are used, if found, to avoid mixing with MAME icons (not required)
- MAMEUI icons do not have those special sub-folders. Icons from the root .zip folder are used instead

### New setting: "Dark Font Selection Bar", for those who want to use a white font in games list (preferences screen, Games List tab)

### Multi-column sorting. Sort by 2 different columns at the same time (request). Usage: click on first column header, then hold Ctrl key and click on a second column header
Notes:
- this is a hack and extremely experimental... not a true multi-column sort implementation!
- it only works with ascending sort (A to Z)
- only works with details view mode

### Re-added screen resolution and screen refresh rate info in games list columns

# version 6.7 change log - February 20, 2013

## Fixed

### Random application crash after selecting games

### Menu option "Enable MAMu_ Icons" was grayed out after selecting folders for icons

### Image Layout "tripple 6" was not loading/saving image 3 width correctly

### Games splitter bar disappears when making the games list panel too small

### Auditing multiple selected games was showing the system selection window. It's not necessary as the system of the first selected game is used. Games of different systems cannot be scanned together on this feature!

### No more script error messages when using web browser game info (ProgettoEMMA) on certain games (88games and others)
It was as simple as enabling the "silent" mode in the TWebBrowser component

### A few buttons in images tool bar should not be visible when viewing game web info

### Clicking the close button in message box window was not returning the correct "abort" message

### Unfocused lists had wrong sized selection bar

### Images tool bar buttons still visible after disabling preview images, while info game docs panel enabled

### Images panel messed up when disabling preview images, while internet game info is being used

### Preview images being loaded twice at startup. Startup is now 2 seconds faster

## Changed

### Button "Toggle view mode" in images tool bar moved to a fixed position (second button). Easier to switch between view modes as it never moves to another position

### Finally updated the Graphics32 component to latest v1.9.1. There are no speed improvements though

### Renamed "Enable Layout Dimensions" to "Show Layout Dimensions" (images popup menu). You'll need to re-enable this setting

### User interface back to the good old looks. No gradient backgrounds, glowing texts or glass buttons

### Fixed background color of many controls to pure white RGB(255, 255, 255)

### Main image panel does not change color anymore, it's always black... as it should have been

### Replaced the last semicolon char " ; " by the special " ¬ " char. Now EL can have game titles with semicolon (Japan titles ?)
Games list files are updated automatically at startup

## Improved

### Showing preview images on selected games is a bit faster. If the game image is already loaded in images panel, it is not loaded again (parent + clones related games). This is good for zipped images and when "load using threads" is disabled
eg.: selecting "Elevator Action" and its clones. If you only have the image for the parent game, selecting its clones will not reload the parent image... if it's already loaded

### Switching between image layouts is lightning fast now!

### Replaced the "Lanczos" resampler filter by "Hermite". It's faster and it looks better. No noise, phantom pixels or over-sharpening added to the image

### Expanded the "Interface Type" filter in "Misc" filters (tool bar button) to include fruit machines in the mechanical option, and added a "Fruit Machine" option. Also, for better filtering, catver.ini is also used if available

## Removed

### Setting "Show Image Border" is gone. 7 pixels border in images panel is always enabled from now on. It looks more professional...

## Added

### Load preview images using threads
- Preliminary feature, disabled by default. To enable it, check the first button in images tool bar buttons
- It works great for images layout view mode and zipped images, as all 3 images load at the same time
- Unzipped images are also supported, but the speed gain is less apparent
- One nice side effect, no lag when scrolling the games list (if images panel is enabled)
- If you select games too fast, sometimes images of the last selected game might not load. This was necessary to prevent the application from crashing
- a 2 milliseconds delay was added before loading each image panel, to avoid crashes when switching between image layouts views
- Best used with multi-core CPUs

### New filter: "Games ROMs" ("Misc" filter button) -> you can choose to show only games with ROMs/CHDs or only games with no ROMs (pong ?).
For MAME Plus! this is handy since it has more than 30 games that do not use ROMs

### Re-added the function to select random games. Access "Select a Random Game" in games popup menu (mouse right-click) or with the "Ctrl+R" hot-key. There will be no tool bar button for this. It does NOT work with the grouped view mode!

### Support for "languages.ini" from AntoPISA Progetto-SNAPS. Place file in "emuloader\ini_files\" folder
- new column in games list (details, grouped views)
- new "Language" option in "text bar" filter settings (tool bar buttons)