METHOD 5 - LAUNCH AUTOHOTKEY SCRIPT ALONG WITH MAME™ - JOHNNY5 IS AVAILABLE FROM A HOTKEY

NOTE:  This page is covers the updated method where Johnny5 is only launched when MAME is paused, not any time MAME is running.  Thanks to Allister Fiend for researching this.  The previous version of this page is no longer recommended, but is documented here.

NOTE:  In order to view the ToolTips in the coding sections (aqua background), you must have javascript enabled.  This page assumes you already have MAME, Johnny5 and your frontend of choice configured and just wish to add support for launching Johnny5 from a hotkey while MAME is active (paused).

INTRODUCTION

This page explains how to add support for launching the Johnny5 Viewer from a HotKey when MAME is paused.  This is my preferred method of using Howard Casto's great idea of using an AutoHotKey (AHK) script to launch Johnny5 when MAME is paused, as it avoids much of the quirkiness of Method 4 - Launch AutoHotKey Script Along With MAME - Johnny5 Launches When MAME is Paused.  However, the linked method is more conventional, and you may prefer it if it works with no problems on your system.

Major thanks to AllisterFiend and Papaschtroumpf of BYOAC and Thalon of the AHK Forum for making this possible as it is much improved over my previous effort.

The script is based off one of the early Beta versions of the AHK script, but works fine, so I did not bother to update it.  Two version of the script are available, a simple version that uses Escape as an Exit MAME key, and a complex version that uses "=" to exit MAME.

MAJOR LIMITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

This method only has one major limitation:  The script only works under Win2K or WinXP (WinNT?).  (Win98SE or WinME are not supported.  MAME will not launch the AutoHotKey (AHK) script when paused under these OS's).

MINOR LIMITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

The only minor limitations to the script are that your guests may not know it is threre, and you may need to plan what keys you want to have call and exit Johnny5.  Usage is pretty straightforward, though.  For my panel, I chose to have either the Player 1 Start, Player 1 Button 1, Player 2 Start, or Player 2 Button 1 activate Johnny5.  Any of these keys or the Escape key will exit Johnny5.  Most of your guests will figure this out intuitively.  If you wanted to, you could set it up so that any button on your panel launched the script, but I am not sure how this might affect gameplay.  (I saw no noticeable lag when using the P1 Button1 button in normal gameplay).

The only other minor consideration is that pressing the Escape key with the script loaded and without Johnny5 displayed, causes the script to exit.  Therefore, if you have MAME's User Interface display (Dip Switch settings, Key Assignments), you should use the Return To Game option or re-start MAME to use the AHK Script.  I consider this barely worth mentioning, as these are configuration issues, and I consider the script to be something I would use after configuration is complete, but it is worth mentioning.

NOTE:  The above problem is stated as applying to the Escape key, but it really applies generally to any key to exit MAME.  If you set a different key to exit MAME, you will change it using the UI CANCEL assignment, which also changes the key to back out of the config screens and you will also change the exit key in the script so that the script is not running when you quit MAME, so the problem continues, just with a different key.

PRELIMINARY SET-UP

First off, this is optional, but if you are using WinXP, I highly recommend installing the "Open Command Window Here" Powertoy from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx.  This will let you right-click on a folder and have a command prompt pointing to it. I think Win98SE already includes this feature (although you might need TweakUI to add it).  I'm not sure about other OS's.  I will assume from here on that you have it installed.  If you choose not to install it, you will have to navigate to the proper directory using "CD" commands as covered in the batch files below.

Other ways of adding this are shown here (Win2k), here (Win2k), here (Win2k), and here (Win98 up).  In case all this fails (and for me in one case it did), you can simply copy cmd.exe from \WindowsRoot\System32\cmd.exe to the applicable folder and double-click that.

AUTOHOTKEY SCRIPT SETUP - SIMPLE VERSION

The first step is to download and install the AutoHotKey Program.  The standard installation defaults are fine, or you can change them, it doesn't really matter.

Next, you want to download the script from here.  I recommend extracting the Script to the c:\johnny folder, but I think it will work from a different folder as well.

Below is a copy of the AHK Script.  I modified Howard Casto's original version, and am by no means an expert on AHK, but I have added ToolTips in case you are curious what is going on.  Right-click on the script and select "Edit" to modify it.  Red entries are modified from the original script and MUST be changed for the script to work.  Blue entries only need to be changed in some special circumstances, see the ToolTips for information.  Black entries are unchanged defaults and should be left alone, unless you are very familiar with AHK:

• #SingleInstance force
  #Persistent
  ; The asterisk prefix makes the remapping more complete on XP/2k/NT. For 9x systems you can remove it.
  DetectHiddenWindows, On
  ~p::
  {
     if p_pressed = 1
       p_pressed = 0
     else
       p_pressed = 1
  }
  return
  ~Ctrl::
  ~1::
  ~2::
  ~A::
  {
     if p_pressed = 1
  {
         If ScreenState =1
      {        
          send, {Escape down}
          send, {Escape up}       
          WinActivate,%Title%
          WinRestore,%Title%
          WinActivate,%Title%
          WinWaitActive,%Title%      
          ScreenState=0          
      }
      else
      {        
          WinGetActiveTitle, Title
          J5=Johnny5.exe %1% -ahk 1000
          if 0 >1
              J5=%J5%  -clone %2%
          if 0 >2
              J5=%J5%  -driver %3%       
          Run,%J5%, C:\johnny, max
          ScreenState=1             
         }   
  }
  }
  return
  ~Escape::
  {
  if ScreenState=1
  {
          WinActivate,%Title%
          WinRestore,%Title%
          WinActivate,%Title%
          WinWaitActive,%Title%        
          ScreenState=0              
  }
  else
  {
      ExitApp; Assign a hotkey to terminate this script.
  }
  }
  return

The script above works as follows:

• Pressing "Ctrl (left or right)", "1", "2", or "A" with MAME running and active does nothing.  MAME runs normally and will respond to these keys.  Pressing "Ctrl (left or right)", "1", "2", or "A" with MAME paused displays Johnny5.  Pressing any of those keys with Johnny5 displayed closes Johnny5 and restores MAME.
• Pressing "Esc" with MAME running closes MAME and unloads the script (and AutoHotKey) from memory.  Pressing "Esc" with Johnny5 displayed closes Johnny5 and restores MAME.

Discussion Points - See Method 4, following both scripts for discussion points on the AHK script and MAME oddities.

Okay, at this point, you should have the script properly configured.  Now let's try it out!

BATCHFILE SETUP AND TESTING

NOTE:  The following suggestions are optimized for EmuLoader 4.7 (and up).  EmuLoader 4.7 has very robust batch file support.  It will run the default.bat file first, but it will also search the directory for any <gamename.bat> file and run that instead.  So for example, if you wanted to use an older version of MAME for Battlezone, you would simply copy the default.bat file and rename it as bzone.bat, then edit the file to point to the older MAME version.  MAMEwah will work with a default.bat file, but would be just as happy with a mame.bat file in the MAME directory, or just calling the AHK Script directly prior to launching MAME, but I will get to that later. . .

Create a new folder, recommended C:\mamebat.  Open notepad, copy the text below (aqua background), paste and modify as required (see ToolTips), and save as a text file named default.bat.

• echo off
  c:
  cd\
  cd johnny
  start johnny5.ahk %1
  cd\
  cd mame
  mame %1
  exit

NOTE:  This was a simplified example for maximum compatibility.  It is not required to do so, but if your frontend can pass cloneof and driver data to the batch file, you could modify line 5 above (start Johnny5.ahk %1) to read:

• start johnny5.ahk %1 %2 %3

To test the batch file, right-click on the C:\mamebat folder and select "Open Command Prompt" (or otherwise open a command prompt at the C:\mamebat prompt) and type default followed by a working rom name and press enter.  MAME should launch normally.  When you press Pause and press any of the launch keys, Johnny5 should pop up with the correct information for the current game.  Pressing any launch key again or Escape should return you to MAME.  Pressing Escape should exit MAME.  You should not see any viewer windows or the AHK icon in the status bar after you exit.

If the batch file does not work properly, I recommend a systematic approach to troubleshooting:

• Navigate to your MAME directory, open a command prompt, and type mame and a romname followed by enter.  Ensure MAME starts properly and pauses properly.  This verifies MAME is setup correctly.  (Once I had BuddaMAME still configured to use the external viewer and didn't realize that was what was happening rather than the script.)
• Navigate to your c:\johnny directory, open a command prompt, and type Johnny5 and a romname followed by enter.  Ensure Johnny5 launches and displays the correct information for the romname.  This verifies that Johnny5 is working.  If this fails, try running Johnny5 with the -debug flag, and, if necessary contact Howard Casto for assistance.
• While in the c:\johnny directory, open a command prompt, and type start johnny5.ahk and a romname followed by enter.  Ensure the AHK icon appears in the statusbar.  Press one of the launch keys and verify that Johnny5 is displayed with the correct information for the romname.  Press any of the launch keys again and verify that Johnny5 closes, but the AHK icon stays loaded.  Press any of the launch keys again and verify that Johnny5 again launches with the correct information.  Press Escape and verify that Johnny5 closes, but the AHK icon stays loaded.  Press Escape again and verify that the AHK icon disappears from the status bar.  This verifies that the AHK script is being loaded and mostly working.  Perform the following steps to troubleshoot: 

• If the AHK icon fails to appear, verify that AHK is properly installed and .ahk files are associated with AutoHotKey.  Try reinstalling the application if necessary.
• If Johnny5 fails to launch, verify the path to Johnny5 in the script and the line that contains J5=Johnny5.exe do not have any typos in them.  Possibly try substituting Johnny5 for another program like Notepad or Wordpad and verifying that this is launched.  Try commenting out or removing commands from the script and see if this helps.
• Finally, if Johnny5 launches but does not display the correct game info, try either adding the -debug flag to the J5=Johnny5.exe line in the script, substituting Notepad or Wordpad for Johnny5, or looking at the .bat files created by Johnny5 to verify the correct romname info is being passed to Johnny5.  Minwah had an error with this, and I am awaiting resolution on it.

• Next, while in the c:\johnny directory, open a command prompt, and and type start johnny5.ahk and a romname followed by enter.  Ensure the AHK icon appears in the statusbar.  Now, navigate to the MAME directory (cd\ - enter, cd mame - enter) and type mame and the same romname followed by enter.  Perform the same tests as initially run and verify that the script behaves properly.  This verifies that the script is compatible with MAME.  If Johnny5 does not display at all, you may have some type of compatibility issue with your system, but I don't know how to troubleshoot this.
• Finally, if all the above works fine but default.bat fails the initial check, look for typos in the default.bat file.
  

EMULOADER INTEGRATION

Launch EmuLoader (4.7 or above).  Text shown is for 4.7.4.

From the taskbar, select Advanced User>Alternate Batch Files.  Ensure the MAME tab is selected, and click the enabled checkbox.  Click the icon following default file and navigate to C:\mamebat\default.bat (if you followed the example) and click "open."  EmuLoader can pass the Name, cloneof, and driver parameters for use with Johnny5.  I recommend using these and modifying the batch file to accept them as shown above.  Select the default parameters button and they will be added.  Alternately, you can delete cloneof and driver and only pass name and the script should still work.  You can also add or remove other parameters as desired.  Next, from the taskbar, select the File>Preferences>General>Games tab and click "Use Custom Options by default."  Finally, if you want to hide the annoying Command Prompt Window, select the File>Preferences>General>Advanced User tab, under the "MS-DOS Box State" option, select either "Hidden (not recommended)" or "Minimized".

You can also set Alternate Batch File settings for Zinc, Daphne, AgeMAME, or PinMAME if you want to use custom batch files with these emulators.

That should do it, and EmuLoader should now launch the AHK script prior to launching a game.

MAMEWAH INTEGRATION

Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with MAMEwah.  I have set it up and used it previously, but it is not my frontend of choice (no offense to it or MinWah), so I am not very familiar with it.  I have consulted with MinWah on these settings and have personally verified they work, as described using Versions 1.61 and 1.62B5.  I will post file names and settings for these versions.  BTW, if you are also new to MAMEwah, I found this guide very useful in getting it working.  (You might also want to review the support files at Jcrouse's site.)

• Method 1 - If you are using from MAMEwah 1.62b1 up to the latest (24Sep05) (1.62B6 Beta) version of MAMEwah (from the MameWah forum), I think you can basically ignore the batch files above and use the APP PREVIOUS command.  However, MAMEwah cannot pass the driver parameter, nor can it send the start command from the APP PREVIOUS line, so you first want to create a file named J5.bat (Howard Casto includes this with his script) in the c:\johnny folder containing only the line start johnny5.ahk %1. Then set APP PREVIOUS to C:\johnny\J5.bat.  For version 1.62B5, this involves setting the following lines in your (typically) C:\mamewah\config\mame\mame.ini file:
• ### Execution Settings ###
  pre_emulator_app_commandlines              C:\johnny\J5.bat [name] {nodosbox} {safelaunch}
  emulator_commandline                             C:\mame\mame.exe [name] {autodosbox} {safelaunch}
  post_emulator_app_commandlines           
  
• Method 2 - This method may be used with any version of MAMEwah.  You can also look through your MAMEwah config files, find the line where it calls C:\mame\mame.exe and modify this to call C:\mamebat\default.bat (after creating it above, of course).  Note that if you previously had the {autodosbox} flag set, you need to change it to {nodosbox} or MAMEwah will relaunch the game from the beginning the first time you exit MAME.  For MAMEwah version 1.62B5, this involves setting the following lines in your (typically) C:\mamewah\config\mame\mame.ini file:
• ### Execution Settings ###
  pre_emulator_app_commandlines             
  emulator_commandline                             C:\mamebat\default.bat [name] {nodosbox} {safelaunch}
  post_emulator_app_commandlines
• For MAMEwah version 1.61, this involves setting the following lines in your (typically) C:\mamewah\ini\mame.ini file:
• ### Execution Settings ###
  emulator_executable                       C:\mamebat\default.bat
  commandline_format                       [name] {nodosbox} {safelaunch}          

NOTE:  Ensure that you don't have any trailing spaces after the entries above or the viewer may fail to launch.

OTHER FRONTENDS

Unfortunately, I don't have much info on setup with other frontends.

CONCLUSION

Well, that's about all I have to say.  Hopefully this page was helpful for you.  If you see anything major that I got wrong, know of a better way to do this, or if you just can't get it to work, shoot me an E-mail and I will either fix the page or try to help you out.