1630 replies to this topic

[JLPicard001]

Messing around with Future Pinball, got it running smoothly with BAM and FutureDMD.  Tried running a FP game from PinballY but it's requiring ADMIN version.  Is this normal for Future Pinball within PinballY?

[mjr]

Messing around with Future Pinball, got it running smoothly with BAM and FutureDMD.  Tried running a FP game from PinballY but it's requiring ADMIN version.  Is this normal for Future Pinball within PinballY?

 

If you're running program "X" in Admin Mode, then anything that launches program "X" needs to be in Admin Mode.  So are you running FP in Admin Mode?  I'm guessing you must be.  

 

I personally think it's better not to run anything at all in Admin Mode if you can avoid it, since it creates no end of problems with interoperating programs.  It seems like about 90% of the reason people think they need Admin Mode is that they tried checking that stupid little box in the properties dialog at some point in their troubleshooting history, and it didn't help, but they never bothered un-checking it.  So if you're unsure about why Admin Mode is a factor here at all, maybe that's what happened this time.

 

Keep in mind that you shouldn't be running PinballY itself in Admin Mode under any circumstances.  You should be running that separate "PinballY Admin Mode.exe" program that's included in the install.  Kind of weird distinction, I know, but there's a method to the madness (explained in the help).

[djlunchbox]

Messing around with Future Pinball, got it running smoothly with BAM and FutureDMD.  Tried running a FP game from PinballY but it's requiring ADMIN version.  Is this normal for Future Pinball within PinballY?

 

If you're running the latest BAM, you do not need to run in Admin mode. I don't think I am and PBY runs perfect. I don't think I run VPX in admin mode either and it runs smooth as well. 

[mjr]

 

Messing around with Future Pinball, got it running smoothly with BAM and FutureDMD.  Tried running a FP game from PinballY but it's requiring ADMIN version.  Is this normal for Future Pinball within PinballY?

 

If you're running the latest BAM, you do not need to run in Admin mode. I don't think I am and PBY runs perfect. I don't think I run VPX in admin mode either and it runs smooth as well. 

 

That's great news about BAM - I wasn't sure about that one.  VPX definitely has no reason to run as admin.  That leaves DOFLinx-with-FX3 as the only thing I'm aware of that actually needs it, and the great news there is that ddh69 has already fixed that for the next release, so as soon as that's available, I think admin mode will be completely unnecessary across the board.

[byancey]

 

Open source is the whole reason I started looking at PinballY, great job mjr 

 

 

I'll echo that.  Great job mjr.

 

I actually submitted a pull request of my own yesterday evening which adds support for default back glass, DMD, and topper media on a per-system basis (VP, FP, FX2, etc.).  I was leveraging this feature in PinballX  for my topper and DMD windows, and now I have that behavior replicated in my local build of PinballY.

 

I think my next step will be to add another PinballX feature that isn't in PinballY yet.  I need the ability to omit tables for a specific system from the "All Tables" filter, while still allowing them to be selected via a specific system filter.  I use this option in PinballX for my Future Pinball tables, which are all 3D-only and require me to break-out my 3D BAM glasses.  I want the tables accessible from a specific list when I'm playing 3D, but don't want them mixed with all my other table filters, including All Tables. 

[mjr]

byancey - I saw your PR too; I'll check it out when I have a chance.

 

Re the filters: you might actually want to look at the Javascript capabilities for that.  It might save you a couple of hours of work that you can do in two minutes with Javascript.  Check the Worked Examples section with the "family filter" for a starting point. 

[byancey]

byancey - I saw your PR too; I'll check it out when I have a chance.

 

Re the filters: you might actually want to look at the Javascript capabilities for that.  It might save you a couple of hours of work that you can do in two minutes with Javascript.  Check the Worked Examples section with the "family filter" for a starting point. 

 

Thanks for the tip.  I'll check that out.

 

When you say "Check the Worked Examples section", where exactly is this?  I've looked through my PinballY repo, the PinballY webpage, and the forums in this section, and it's not obvious what you are referring to here.

 

EDIT:  Nevermind.  Found it here:  http://mjrnet.org/pi...edExamples.html

Edited by byancey, 18 September 2019 - 02:46 PM.

[JLPicard001]

 

Messing around with Future Pinball, got it running smoothly with BAM and FutureDMD.  Tried running a FP game from PinballY but it's requiring ADMIN version.  Is this normal for Future Pinball within PinballY?

 

If you're running program "X" in Admin Mode, then anything that launches program "X" needs to be in Admin Mode.  So are you running FP in Admin Mode?  I'm guessing you must be.  

 

I personally think it's better not to run anything at all in Admin Mode if you can avoid it, since it creates no end of problems with interoperating programs.  It seems like about 90% of the reason people think they need Admin Mode is that they tried checking that stupid little box in the properties dialog at some point in their troubleshooting history, and it didn't help, but they never bothered un-checking it.  So if you're unsure about why Admin Mode is a factor here at all, maybe that's what happened this time.

 

Keep in mind that you shouldn't be running PinballY itself in Admin Mode under any circumstances.  You should be running that separate "PinballY Admin Mode.exe" program that's included in the install.  Kind of weird distinction, I know, but there's a method to the madness (explained in the help).

 

Ok yes I managed to install Future Pinball with elevated Admin Rights.  I found this via task manager, Details, then under the elevated column I see Future Pinball listed as YES, so it is running as Admin, but not sure how to remove it from running as Admin.  

[mjr]

Ok yes I managed to install Future Pinball with elevated Admin Rights.  I found this via task manager, Details, then under the elevated column I see Future Pinball listed as YES, so it is running as Admin, but not sure how to remove it from running as Admin.  

 

Usually it's just a matter of finding the Future Pinball.exe that you're running, and then right click -> Properties -> uncheck "Run as Administrator".

[byancey]

Re the filters: you might actually want to look at the Javascript capabilities for that.  It might save you a couple of hours of work that you can do in two minutes with Javascript.  Check the Worked Examples section with the "family filter" for a starting point. 

 

Took me a bit more than a few minutes to work through it, but the Javascript worked like a champ.  My 3D Future Pinball tables are now hidden for "All tables" and all other filters with the exception of the system and category filters.

 

My next step with JavaScript will be to figure out how to do custom menus, as I'd like to bring specific category filters to the top level of the main menu, and tuck the existing filters into a filter sub-menu.  Looks like this should be doable via JavaScript, either by modifying the existing menu, or replacing it with one I build up from scratch myself.

 

Oh, I also submitted another small PR that adds an option to the Audio/Video dialog to mute button sounds when auto-repeat kicks-in.  Just another small detail I liked from PinballX that was not yet implemented in PinballY.

[byancey]

 

 

Looks like someone has implemented support for underlay images and submitted a pull request out on GitHub: https://github.com/m...inballY/pull/80

 

The change has not been reviewed, approved, merged into master and released yet, but if you're feeling impatient and adventurous, you could always pull and build it yourself.  It's actually pretty straight forward to build PinballY using the instructions provided by mjr.  I think "opensource"is my favorite feature of PinballY.

 

Yeah, that was actually me

I figured that seeing as I was asking for something pretty straightforward, and it's open source, I should just do it myself. I have a couple more ideas too, so if mjr approves I'll keep going (and probably will either way in my own branch).

Open source is the whole reason I started looking at PinballY, great job mjr 

 

 

Beowulf99, I just pulled your underlay support into my build.  Actually used it to add an underlay to the status lines at the bottom of the playfield.  Worked perfectly!  Thanks for sharing. 

Edited by byancey, 20 September 2019 - 06:28 AM.

[Teahaus]

Looked through this thread and noticed a couple of mentions of pinballY not having focus upon boot-up.  Whenever I boot my mini-cab, everything boots normally but my flippers don't work until I use the computer keyboard.  Then they suddenly function per the button mapping.  I can also enable them by unplugging and replugging the USB connector from my zebsboard plunger.  Any ideas how I can get it to work first-time upon booting?

[Thalamus]

It has focus for me. But I start everything manually. Are you ? Is there maybe something else starting up taking focus away ?

[BoltBait]

For me, I need to pause before starting up PinballY so that I can calibrate my VirtuaPin Digital Plunger... otherwise, it plays havoc with the menuing system.

 

I wish there was some way to detect this and cause PinballY to prompt me to calibrate my plunger before showing the menu.

 

EDIT: This is because if you don't calibrate the plunger, the steady state of the plunger flutters slightly causing it to trigger a launch button repeatedly. Maybe I could just configure PinballY to ignore that button.

Edited by BoltBait, 23 September 2019 - 12:27 AM.

[mjr]

Looked through this thread and noticed a couple of mentions of pinballY not having focus upon boot-up.  Whenever I boot my mini-cab, everything boots normally but my flippers don't work until I use the computer keyboard.  Then they suddenly function per the button mapping.  I can also enable them by unplugging and replugging the USB connector from my zebsboard plunger.  Any ideas how I can get it to work first-time upon booting?

 

That sounds like a new one to me - the plugging and replugging business is weird.  The *usual* problem people have with focus is just plain *focus*.  In your case, I'd say it's not a simple focus issue, because your regular keyboard is working.  With regular focus issues, the keyboard is precisely what *doesn't* work.

 

Are you sure this has anything to do with PinballY, other than that it happens to also be launched at startup?  It really sounds more like a USB or device issue to me given that rebooting the device fixes it.  Have you tried this without PinballY involved at startup, to see if the device starts up normally then?

 

 

For me, I need to pause before starting up PinballY so that I can calibrate my VirtuaPin Digital Plunger... otherwise, it plays havoc with the menuing system.

 

Maybe a little Javascript to the rescue?  There isn't a "startup" event at the moment (maybe there ought to be one), but the next best thing is a zero millisecond timeout in the startup code:

 

setTimeout(function() {
    alert("Getting ready!  Please calibrate the plunger now...");
}, 0);

You can drop that into scripts\main.js and it should automatically execute.

Edited by mjr, 23 September 2019 - 01:03 AM.

[BoltBait]

 

For me, I need to pause before starting up PinballY so that I can calibrate my VirtuaPin Digital Plunger... otherwise, it plays havoc with the menuing system.

 

Maybe a little Javascript to the rescue?  There isn't a "startup" event at the moment (maybe there ought to be one), but the next best thing is a zero millisecond timeout in the startup code:

 

setTimeout(function() {
    alert("Getting ready!  Please calibrate the plunger now...");
}, 0);

You can drop that into scripts\main.js and it should automatically execute.

 

 

OK, that did the trick.  However... now, I must press ENTER on my keyboard to pass that spot.  Not ideal for a B2S cabinet.

 

I'll think on this and report back what I decide to finally do.

 

EDIT: I wonder if I can do something with Popups.

Edited by BoltBait, 23 September 2019 - 04:03 AM.

[mjr]

OK, that did the trick.  However... now, I must press ENTER on my keyboard to pass that spot.  Not ideal for a B2S cabinet.

 

Yeah, that was just a quick-and-dirty first draft.  You can get pretty arbitrarily sophisticated with js, though.  Maybe just ignore all keystrokes until you press some particular key?

setTimeout(function() {
    mainWindow.message("Getting ready!  Please calibrate the plunger now, and press Start when you're ready!");
    function ignoreKeys(ev) {
        if (ev.key == "1") { // or whichever key you have mapped to Start
            mainWindow.off("keydown", ignoreKeys);
        }
        else {
            ev.preventDefault();
        }
    }
    mainWindow.on("keydown", ignoreKeys);
}, 0);

[BoltBait]

Yeah, that was just a quick-and-dirty first draft.  You can get pretty arbitrarily sophisticated with js, though.  Maybe just ignore all keystrokes until you press some particular key?

I like the look of the message. However, I'm not sure why, but pressing any key on my cab dismisses the message... so, no keys are getting ignored?

 

Therefore, calibrating the plunger was still causing havoc with the menuing system.

 

BUT, I did remove Joystick 16 from the Launch keyboard mapping and that helped as the plunger activates JS16 when the plunger is pressed in.  And, if you don't calibrate the plunger, it toggles JS16 constantly until you calibrate it.  Once calibrated, it only activates JS16 if you press the plunger in pretty far.

 

(I originally mapped JS16 to the Launch command thinking that once I selected a table, pressing the plunger in would launch the table directly without going into the menu... which it actually did not. It just kinda made the plunger another Start button... so, you still had to press it twice to actually launch a table. Removing this mapping is no great loss as I never used that function anyway because it didn't act as I thought it would. Just pressing the start button twice was easier anyway.)

 

So, SUCCESS!  I run PinballY and it displays the message to remind me to calibrate the plunger.  I calibrate the plunger and then any button on my cab dismisses the message and I'm ready to play games.

 

Thanks!

[mjr]

BoltBait - sounds good.  A couple of points:

 

> However, I'm not sure why, but pressing any key on my cab dismisses the

> message... so, no keys are getting ignored?

 

and:

 

> BUT, I did remove Joystick 16

 

There's your culprit.  *Keys* were getting ignored.  *Joysticks* weren't.  Different event - "joystickbuttondown" instead of "keydown".  I didn't think to filter out the joystick events.  What I should have done in the first place was to base this all on the command button events instead of raw key events, as those represent the translated command button presses independently of what kind of input device originated them.  Here's how that would look:

 

setTimeout(function() {
    mainWindow.message("Getting ready!  Please calibrate the plunger now, and press Start when you're ready!");
    function ignoreKeys(ev) {
        if (ev.command == "Select") {
            mainWindow.off("commandbuttondown", ignoreKeys);
        }
        else {
            ev.preventDefault();
        }
    }
    mainWindow.on("commandbuttondown", ignoreKeys);
}, 0);

You probably don't need that any more, but I thought I'd mention it for the sake of others looking at the thread later.

 

> I originally mapped JS16 to the Launch command thinking that once I selected a

> table, pressing the plunger in would launch the table directly without going into the

> menu... which it actually did not.

 

That actually is what the Launch command does.  You might want to give it another try now that you have the startup problems worked out.

[BoltBait]

There's your culprit.  *Keys* were getting ignored.  *Joysticks* weren't.

 
Perfect!
 
That's what my script looks like now (only I edited the text of the message with instructions on how to calibrate the plunger--it was nice to know that "\n" works in the string for line feeds).

 

I think this script will be critical for anyone who has a VirtuaPin Digital Plunger.

 
 

> I originally mapped JS16 to the Launch command thinking that once I selected a
> table, pressing the plunger in would launch the table directly without going into the
> menu... which it actually did not.
 
That actually is what the Launch command does.  You might want to give it another try now that you have the startup problems worked out.

 

OK, I remapped JS16 to the launch command and it works exactly as you said.

 

So, now, once I select a game, I can press Start twice to play it or simply press the plunger once.

 

(I'm not sure why it wasn't working before... might have been a misconfiguration of the keys or something to do with plunger calibration or both.)

 

ANYWAY...

 

Every time I tinker on my cab, it gets one step closer to perfection!

Edited by BoltBait, 23 September 2019 - 09:18 PM.