JOHNNY5 VIEWER USAGE

Heeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny(5) (click to enlarge and click again to expand, they will look MUCH better):

The above images show the output of Howard Casto's Johnny5 Viewer with the games 1943 and Joust.  I highly recommend using this viewer over my previous suggestions, which are posted here.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

I just realized some of you may not have heard of the Johnny5 Viewer and may be wondering what it does.  Mahuti from BYOAC provided a pretty good textbook style definition, which I have expanded below:

• A graphical viewer which shows game control information ovelayed on an image of YOUR control panel, based on a gamename sent to it from a frontend, your key assignments in MAME, and information in controls.ini.

And here's a more real-world example, based on the 1943 image above:

• Most of us who use MAME have wondered how a new game was played, forgotten how we mapped the keys in a particular game, or shown our control panel/cabinet to a friend only to have them look at it and say "That's cool!!! How do I use it???".  Johnny5 answers these questions for us.  For example, I can send Johnny5 1943 from the command prompt (or a frontend/script) and the image on the left above will appear, telling me:

• The full name of the game
• How many players it supports
• Whether gameplay is Simultaneous or Alternating
• That it uses an 8-way Joystick
• That my Prodigy™ joystick should have the lever switched to the right to be in this mode.
• That the red buttton is FIRE and the yellow button is SPECIAL (based on the actual arcade control panel labels)
• That pressing both buttons together causes the plane to loop.  

Finally, to really appreciate Johnny5, we should look at how it has evolved:

• Prior to the controls.dat project, if I wanted to know how to play 1943, I would have to start MAME and go to the Inputs - This Game screen.  This would tell me that the game used a joystick and two buttons and the buttons were mapped to L Ctrl and L Alt.  I would have to remember which buttons corresponded to Ctrl and Alt on my panel, and play the game and mash buttons to see what they did or whether the joystick was 8-way or 4-way.
• After the controls.dat project, I could open controls.ini in a text viewer and find out that the joystick was 8-Way, Button 1 was FIRE, Button 2 was SPECIAL, and pressing both buttons together caused the plane to loop.  So I had all the data I needed to play the game, but it was very hard to obtain.
• After the release of Johnny5, (with proper frontend support), I can view the image above and know what the controls are used in the game.  This is great, but doesn't help me if I fire up MAME without looking at the info first, or forget what it was after starting the game
• Recently (as of Sep2005), Howard Casto has released an AutoHotKey (AHK) script for WinXP users and Buddabing has released BuddaMAME (for Win98SE or WinXP) which allows users to view Johnny5 output while MAME is paused.  Life is good!

INTRODUCTION

This site is best viewed in at 800x600 or higher resolution.  Note that much of the code sections use ToolTips and JavaScript is required to view them.

This page will detail the many ways of using the Johnny5 viewer with a frontend and will take you through the process of setting it up and getting it working.  I tend to take a systematic, crawl before you walk method, so I will generally show you how to do things and have you test things out along the way to make sure the basic steps (running the viewer with default layouts, running the viewer with custom layouts, launching the viewer from a frontend) are working, before adding more advanced steps.

Also, detailed instructions are provided for EmuLoader only, (although some MAMEwah references are included also), but most frontends can support at least some of these procedures.  There are basically five ways of integrating Johnny5 with a frontend and MAME.  (Note that for the most part, any of the methods may be used independently or in combination.  An overview of the different methods and their implementation follows:

METHOD 1 - STATIC IMAGE VIEWING

This is perhaps the most universal method (greatest frontend / OS support) of using Johnny5 with a frontend.  The idea is that screenshots of Johnny's output are saved in an images folder and viewed in the frontend as desired.  Here are screenshots showing the images method in use in EmuLoader and with two different layouts in MAMEwah.  (Again, click to enlarge and click again to expand for best image quality.  The MAMEwah images were highly compressed and show lots of pixellation.  The actual screen images are much better.)  (I personally use this method and Method 5 below).

• Advantages - Doesn't require any additional CPU loading or memory requirements.  Simple for users to use. At least in EmuLoader, information is available if desired, not available if not desired.  (You don't have to view the info if you don't want to).
• Disadvantages - Initial set-up of a full MAME set probably takes about 6-8 hours to run on a P4 1.8 Ghz computer, and the screen is constantly flashing, so you can't do much else with it. . . (This is an overnight enterprise).  Images are around 200K each, so I think a full set would be about 1Gb of storage required.  Images are static, so if Controls.ini changes, or you re-map controls in MAME, you have to create a new image.  Image is not very helpful if you are in the middle of a game and realize you don't know how to play it.
• Limitations - Should work with any OS, once the images are created.  Should work with any frontend that can display images (you might have to replace the snapshots with CP images.  Works best with desktop computers and frontends that scale images well.  On an arcade monitor or with a busy layout, they information displayed my be too small to be useful.

METHOD 2 - LAUNCH FROM HOTKEY

This method involves pressing a HotKey (such as "J") to launch either the Johnny5 viewer or display a screenshot of it similar to the images above.  MameWah supports this.  EmuLoader does not support this method.  I think Dragon King will support it.

• Advantages - Image is only viewed when needed.  Assuming Johnny5 is launched, image is current with latest key-mapping and controls.ini data.
• Disadvantages - Casual users or visitors wouldn't know it was there.  Old users would have to remember what the HotKey is.  Also not useful once MAME is launched.
• Limitations - Will only work with certain frontends.  Frontend must be able to call a separate (from MAME) application and pass at least the gamename to it when a specified key combination is pressed.

METHOD 3 - LAUNCH PRIOR TO MAME LAUNCH

Under this method, Johnny5 comes up immediately prior to the initial launch of MAME.

• Advantages - Image is current with latest keymapping and controls.ini data and displayed when you start the game, so if you forgot before launching MAME you still get to see it.
• Disadvantages - Personally, it would get a little annoying waiting for the viewer to come up to explain how to play Galaga, for example.  OTOH, other users might not know how to play Galaga and want to see the screen.  Also, if you get used to clicking through this screen, you could think you know what the controls are, but then not know when you are actually playing the game (and not be able to bring the viewer back up)..
• Limitations - Requires a frontend that can launch a batch file with the game name rather than MAME (or launch a separate application prior to launching MAME).

METHOD 4 - LAUNCH AUTOHOTKEY SCRIPT ALONG WITH MAME - JOHNNY5 LAUNCHES WHEN MAME IS PAUSED

This is actually the method Howard Casto is working on and favors.  Basically, when you are playing a game and press the P key, MAME is minimized and Johnny5 is displayed.  When you press the P key again, Johnny exits and MAME resumes.

• Advantages - Almost the best of all worlds.  If you need to know what the buttons do, just pause the game.  If you don't, just keep playing.  Works with all MAME's without requiring any changes or customs builds.
• Disadvantages - Script is still kinda buggy (12Sep2005).  There are two Error Modes.  In the first mode,  MAME does not pause when the viewer launches, so you have a chance of your character dying before you can get back to the game.  In the second mode, MAME pauses, but when you exit the viewer, MAME remains paused, and it is unpredictable when MAME will restart.
  
  In reality, there is a greater drawback even if the script were working perfectly:  The concept works fine for short pauses to view the controls used.  However, the current method of pausing MAME leaves the screen intact (but dimmed) so you can plan your next move.  (I.e., Enemies approaching from the NE, need to flee to the NW).  With the current script, this reference information is lost, so if you took a LONG pause and returned, you would likely die soon after exiting the viewer.  This could of course be minimized in some games by pausing at normal intermissions, if possible.
• Limitations -  AutoHotKey works fine with Win98, but the script and MAME do not.  So this can only be used with WinXP, Win2k, (or WinNT?).  Win98SE does not work (and likely will not ever), and presumably WinME will not work either.  Also, frontends must be capable of launching a batch file with the game name rather than MAME (or launching a separate application prior to launching MAME).

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

This implementation uses a modified version of the AHK script to launch the viewer while MAME is paused.  I personally am using this along with Method 1 above.  I chose to use the Start of Button 1 buttons to launch Johnny5.  So if I want to know what controls a game uses, I pause MAME and press Player1 Button1 or Player1 Start and the viewer comes up.  Then Escape or pressing the button again takes me back to MAME (paused) and P allows me to continue.

• Advantages - Out of all of the implementations, I like this the best, and I consider this entire concept the best improvement since automatic video hardware stretching.
• Disadvantages - Visitors may not know that this is available or what the key is to launch the viewer.
• Limitations -  As above - only works with NT-based OS's, frontend must be able to launch batch files.

IMPLEMENTATION

See this page for getting Johnny setup and working.  Then decide which method(s) you want to use and see this page for Method 1 - Static Image Viewing, this page for Method 2 - Launch From Hotkey, this page for Method 3 - Launch Prior to MAME Launch, this page for Method 4 - Launch AutoHotKey Script Along With MAME - Johnny Launches When MAME is Paused, and this page for Method 5 - Launch AutoHotKey Script Along With MAME - Johnny is Available From a HotKey.

COMBINATIONS

Basically any of the methods may be combined with the other ones as follows:

Method 1 and Method 2 are independent, and activating either has no effect on any of the other methods.

Method 3 - Launch Prior to MAME Launch may be combined with either of the AHK script methods by combining the batch files so the new batch file launches Johnny, the AHK script, and then MAME, in that order.

Method 4 and Method 5 COULD be combined by adding the two script components together, although I can't imagine why you might want to do so.

ADVANCED CONCEPTS

Basically, in this section, I am posting other ideas for what COULD be done with Johnny5 and the AHK Script.  None of these have been tested, but if someone wants to experiment, or if anyone has other unique ideas and wants me to add them, let me know.

Update - There has been a lot of success with the advanced concepts below and I have moved the data to it's own page here.

Johnny5 - Basically, there aren't a whole lot of uses for Johnny5 outside of MAME (more below).  OTOH, by the time you have Johnny5 set-up, you probably have a very good rendering of your Control Panel which could be very useful.  (I think Howard Casto will eventually modify Johnny5 to work with other emulators, though.)

AHK Script - The AHK Script is a great discovery and I can see lots of ways to exploit it.  A few are listed below:

• MAME - It would be fairly simple to modify the AHK script to launch different programs or additional programs along with Johnny5.  So, when MAME was paused, in addition to Johnny5, AHK could launch WinAmp to play your PacManFever.mp3 file, er, or maybe that's just my idea, uh, nevermind . . .
• ZINC - IIRC, Zinc uses the same structure and even many of the same games as MAME.  It should be possible to tweak the controls.ini file and the AHK Script and point Johnny5 to the Zinc folder and have Johnny5 launch when Zinc was paused.
• MESS - Again, IIRC MESS uses the same format as MAME, so it should be possible to develop a controls.ini file (Huge . . . good luck) and then tweak the AHK Script and point Johnny5 to the MESS folder and have Johnny5 launch when MESS is paused.
  
• DAPHNE, Chankast - I will cover this for Daphne, but the Chankast solution would be similar, especially if you were only interested in a few titles in Chankast.  Daphne is a great program, but it only supports a few games.  The easiest solution would be to take the image files used by Johnny, add custom titles and labels to them in PhotoShop or another editor, and then use some program (maybe Irfanview), called from the AHK script to display them full-screen when MAME was paused.  Another possibility would be to create faked controls.ini files and MAME-style ctrlr.cfg files for the games and then use Johnny to display them as if they were MAME games.
• NES, SNES, N64 Emulation, Console Emulation in General -  This is the opposite of the Daphne example above.  Daphne supports a handful of games using different control panels.  Console support hundreds of games using the exact same controller.  The solution here would be to create a simple panel image in Photoshop that would work for each particular console, and then modify the AHK Script to display this image when the console emulator was paused.
  

ALTERNATIVES

Now that you have a feel for what can be done with Johnny5, I thought it would be a good idea to cover the alternatives to using Johnny5, not really because I recommend any of them (with the conditional exception of BuddaMAME), but more to save you the trouble of wasting your time setting them up, only to find Johnny5 more useful.  There are three programs that will be considered as alternatives - CPViewer, CPMAKER, and BuddaMAME.  Detailed information beyond what I am posting here is also available in this thread on BYOAC.

CPViewer - CPViewer is JCrouse's application, and is available here.  I evaluated it after I had Johnny5 working, so that has some bearing on the discussion.  The program is VERY easy to use and set-up (but Johnny is also if I hadn't wrestled with using it in 98 before it supported it).  My main gripe with it is that it lacks the ability to display labels such as "2-Player Alternating"  "Player Joystick Type" (2-Way Joystick (Horizontal) above) or the miscDetails field from controls.ini.  Unfortunately, I consider this very important information.  The viewer does have the ability to display text labels inverted for use on cocktail cabinets, which I don't think Johnny5 supports.  I haven't tested it, but I think the AutoHotKey (AHK) Script could be modified to call CPViewer instead of Johnny, if you decided to use it instead.

CCCPVW - CPVW is available here.  This is JCrouse's explanation of it:  CPVW is a stand alone viewer that is MUCH faster at displaying the image on the screen and filling the labels. It's written by Jerry Fath. It's only tie to CPViewer is that it uses a CPViewer layout file to find out the label attributes.

CPMaker - CPMaker is BuddaBing's viewer.  The files are available here and documentation is available here.  Here is a screenshot of CPMaker output for 1942 (click twice to enlarge, but it doesn't look much better either way):

Perhaps, I could have cleaned up the fonts, but the program will never display ANY info besides the button labels and directionals.  It also was VERY hard to set-up.  I have been using computers since before Windows 3.1 and it took several PM's and E-mails to Buddabing to get the image above to this point.  The main "feature" of CPMaker is supposed to be the ability to shade controls that are not used.  Personally, if Johnny5 doesn't throw a label on a button, I can make a pretty good guess that it's not used.  And if you REALLY want to, you can shade unused buttons in Johnny5, although you might end up with a LOT of images and LOF files if you choose to do this.

BuddaMAME - BuddaMAME is BuddaBing's solution for displaying images when MAME is paused.  It is also available here and documentation is available here.  I recommend not using it with CPMaker, but rather creating static images using Method 1 above, and then viewing them in BuddaMAME.  This works very well in horizontal games and not so well in vertical games as the images is "squished" to the same width as the MAME game borders.  Screenshots from 1943 and 1944 (see disadvantages) are here (again click twice to view):

BuddaMAME also incorporates skip warnings, -skip startup frames, LED driver engine, and MAME movie maker, making it a very nice MAME build in its own right.  (I use it as my primary build with CPMaker disabled).

• Advantages - Principal advantage is this can be used in Win98SE, while the AHK Script cannot.  Another advantage is that since the code is integrated into MAME, there are no "timing" errors with MAME not properly pausing/unpausing at the proper time.  Also, since the code is intergrated into MAME, there is no problem using this method with ANY frontend.  
• Disadvantages - Principal disadvantage is that the display is less than optimal, especially for vertical games.  Also, I personally prefer that AHK and Johnny pretty well works with any MAME version, while BuddaMAME has only been created since MAME 0.92 and I have to wait for Budda to update it or try to compile my own to use it with later/earlier versions of MAME.  It also may be difficult to read at low screen resolution and suffers from the same "situational awareness" problem as Method 4 above.  Also, running at artwork resolution 2 may cause performance issues with slower CPU's in games using artwork.
• News:  Leave it to me to find the one game bug with the program.  I originally tried to take the 1944 image above on a Win2k machine with BuddaMAME 0.97.  1944 was running centered at the top border of the screen at about 3/4 screen width.  I tried on a WinXP box with BuddaMAME 0.96, manually copying the controls.png hints file to the BuddaMAME directory and disabled makectrlr.bat  (when I should have been trying to sleep).  The game was full screen, but the image didn't display because I had copied it to the wrong directory.  I copied controls.png again, BuddaMAME ran full-screen, but when I paused it, I found I had copied the 1942 artwork, and the artwork was displaying at approximately 3/4 screen width.  I finally got the correct controls.png file, but now 1944 was running at 3/4 screen width also.  I then ran 88games, which was full-screen and actually used it to take the shot, which was full-screen also.  Then I changed desktop resolution to from 1024x768 to 800x600 (Mame runs at 800x600).  1944 was still 3/4 screen width.  Then I changed back to 1024x768 and edited mame.ini to disable intctrlr and extctrlr.  1944 was still 3/4 screen width.  Then I deleted controls.png and 1944 was full screen.  (Weird!!!)
• Set-Up and Usage - I will assume that you have already set up Johnny5 per this page and created a library of images in C:\elimages\layouts per this page.  Buddamame does not include all of the standard MAME folders, so the first step is to install a current build of MAME (I recommend installing to C:\MAME) from http://www.mame.net/downmain.html and then if you need help setting it up, configuring it per the MAME guide at EasyEmu (don't set any mame.ini file options yet, though).  Next, you want to download BuddaMAME from the link above and extract it to the C:\MAME (if you used my advice) directory, overwriting the official files.  Next step is to create a mame.ini file.  If C:\MAME\mame.ini exists, delete it.  Then open a command prompt and type the following pressing enter after each line.  (See ToolTips for explanations.)
• C:
  cd\
  cd MAME
  mame -cc
• The next step is to open the mame.ini file (in Notepad or Wordpad) and modify the following lines in these two sections (See ToolTips for explanations):
• In ### Mame CORE misc options ###
• artwork_resolution      2
• In ### Options added by Buddabing ###
• intmakectrl             0
  extmakectrl            1
  ctrlr_override          0
  noshowctrl              0
• All other values may be set according to personal preference.
• The final step is to create the makectrl.bat file.  To do this, copy the text below, and paste it into WordPad or NotePad.  Fix the directory names as required, and save the file as a text file named makectrl.bat in the main BuddaMAME directory (the one with mame.exe).  Thanks to Buddabing for providing the file.  See ToolTips for explanations:
• del controls.png
  if exist "c:\elimages\layouts\%1.png" goto copygameimage
  if exist "c:\elimages\layouts\%2.png" goto copyparentimage
  rem neither game image nor parent image exists
  goto end
  :copygameimage
  copy "c:\elimages\layouts\%1.png" controls.png
  goto end
  :copyparentimage
  copy "c:\elimages\layouts\%2.png" controls.png
  :end
• At this point, BuddaMAME should be working and display your controller files when you pause a game.