How Can We Make MAME ROW Better?

obsidianspider

Now that @meleu has asked me to temporarily take over the MAME ROW postings I'm looking at ways to make creating the posts easier for myself and also how we can make the whole MAME ROW better for everyone.

What would you like to see different/better/whatever?

I'm already working on Monday's post and looking at cleaning up some of the formatting, really long links, etc.

lilbud

@obsidianspider Instead of highest score, we set a different goal. Like for a racing game, 2min for a race. Or for shoot em' ups, get to the boss without losing a life.

meleu

@obsidianspider about the posts, I think we can omit the "Explaining the randomness of the process" section. If someone get curious about it in the future, he/she can click on a previous round link.

The numbers and the strawpoll link are mandatory, obviously. The "what is the MAME ROW" and the previous round links are important IMHO.

The youtube videos are a nice "plus". I really enjoy them, but when I am the poster, I prefer to leave this task with other volunteers. Seeing that other people are contributing with this task makes me happy. :-)

meleu

@lilbud said in How Can We Make MAME ROW Better?:

@obsidianspider Instead of highest score, we set a different goal. Like for a racing game, 2min for a race. Or for shoot em' ups, get to the boss without losing a life.

it would be cool. specially with those games where the score doesn't matter that much.

GtBFilms

@obsidianspider

I can email you a copy of my MS Access 2010 database if you like. I just imported the list of games @meleu provided, and wrote a couple of reports to generate the standard text, and one to generate a random game text to cut and paste in.

Should be a case of copying and pasting, and clicking a button to generate however many random games you want.

I know MS Access isn't ideal, but implementing this on a proper database at my work would probably be frowned upon!

obsidianspider

@GtBFilms That's a nice offer, but I don't have a way to use an Access database as I'm on Mac and GalliumOS (an Ubuntu variant) for my "real" computers.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider said in How Can We Make MAME ROW Better?:

for my "real" computers.

Traditionally, I've always been a "Mac guy" first and foremost and ten years ago I would have taken issue with that statement. Since then, I've watched Apple strip so much functionality away from their operating system in the name of user friendliness, that I'm starting to wonder if their ultimate goal is just to make a toaster that can access Facebook.

lilbud

@mediamogul Well...we already have refrigerators that can access Reddit, so the iToaster is not too far off.

meleu

@obsidianspider Oh God! I think I've got the always-looking-for-an-excuse-to-code disease!

I'm thinking about creating a dedicated github repository to put some tools that will help with the MAME ROW posting task...

I envision a script where you type ./mamerow 20 to get the post text for MAME ROW #20, and it automatically get the random numbers from random.org, check if some of the numbers is an already played game and get a new number if yes, prepare the poll at strawpoll, add the text and the previous rounds links, maybe the youtube videos too. Everything beautifully formatted with markdown and then we can just copy and paste here in the forum...

Maybe this will be my next project when the things get calmer in my "real life". :-)

meleu

Just using this post as a rough requirements specification.

Sorry if it's too technical or a little off-topic. I just want to leave it here for future reference when I have time to work on it (nd maybe some of you can give suggestions).

it'll be a bash script.
random.org HTTP Interface Description is the doc where I can get instructions to get the random numbers from the script.
the mamerow_gamelist.txt needs two more fields, one for the MAME ROW "round" number and another for the retropie forum URL.
the mamerow_gamelist.txt needs to be updated when a game wins the poll, recording the round number and the URL. Critical: if other users will use the script to make the post, they'll need a github account to keep the mamerow_gamelist.txt up to date. Also, I need to discover how to make Pull Requests from script (useful info about it here).
great care must be taken when manipulating the mamerow_gamelist.txt, it will be a critical file. The script must have a rigorous error checking scheme.
poll creation at strawpoll can't be fully automated, but I think I can take advantage of the "Save draft" feature (should we change to another poll web service? I don't know any other).

usage examples

EDIT: The use will be through dialogs rather than command line arguments.

create a new post

./mamerow.sh --new

Check mamerow_gamelist.txt looking for the last round before the new one.
get the 3 random numbers.
check if some of the numbers is an already played game and get a new number if needed.
prepare the poll at strawpoll (note: it can't be fully automated and can be a hindrance).
add the "what is MAME ROW" text
add links to the previous rounds (get the links from the mamerow_gamelist.txt).
if everything is fine, spit the markdown formatted text on the screen to let the user copy and paste on the retropie forum.

update `mamerow_gamelist.txt` with the winner game

./mamerow.sh --update-gamelist ROUND_NUMBER GAME_NUMBER http://RETROPIE.FORUM/MAME_ROW/THREAD/URL

assure that the local mamerow_gamelist.txt is synchronized with the github one.
get the last round number from mamerow_gamelist.txt, increments by one and record the respective GAME_NUMBER entry with the round number and the URL.
update the mamerow_gamelist.txt on github (note: how can I make pull requests from the script?).

show info about a previous round

./mamerow.sh --round NUMBER

show the game name and the URL for the MAME ROW #NUMBER thread on retropie forum.

check gamelist integrity

./mamerow.sh --check-gamelist

Scan for errors in mamerow_gamelist.txt. Possible errors:

games with round numbers and no URL
round numbers must be different and sequential (except the 0, used for phoenix and nrallyx).

ferdnand

Hello, I'm no programmer, but would be nice to use "xlink Kia" with the retropie...Some how , would benefit the retropie, and give a leg up on the other OS....

Just my thoughts....Happy gaming

meleu

@obsidianspider
I'm not cured of my always-looking-for-an-excuse-to-code disease and am working on the "MAME ROW management" tool.

I decided to make it operable through dialogs. Look how it's going (working flow to register the week's winner game):

Why invest time in a code that only one or two people will use?
BECAUSE PROGRAMMING IS FUN!!! :-)

obsidianspider

@meleu I'm not sure what this is doing?

meleu

@obsidianspider I want to automate the post generation. The script will automatically get the random numbers and check:

this game was played before?
this game is a mahjong?

To check if the game was played before, we need to keep the mamerow_gamelist.txt updated. And to avoid editing a not-human-friendly .csv file, the updating will be made through those dialogs. There's a lot of error checking behind the cool dialog boxes. :-)

obsidianspider

@meleu You have much more free time than I do. Creating that post only takes a few minutes for me, but you're welcome to take it back when you're ready. :)

meleu

@obsidianspider Not exactly free time.

My job is to operate an industrial process. When the process is stable the automatism does everything alone and I just have to monitor. I can not play video games in the control room, but I can program and monitor the process at the same time (please, don't see me as a Homer Simpson at work!). :-)

obsidianspider

@meleu

meleu

@obsidianspider LOL. I'm saving this video link to post when people come here complaining about the runcommand's "Press a button to configure" message!!

meleu

@obsidianspider said in How Can We Make MAME ROW Better?:

Creating that post only takes a few minutes for me, but you're welcome to take it back when you're ready. :)

The first version is ready. If you have time, try it. Any feedback is welcome.

How to "install": go to the directory you want and then

git clone https://github.com/meleu/mame-row-management.git

Just execute and follow the instructions:

./mamerow.sh

Cheers!

obsidianspider

@meleu said in How Can We Make MAME ROW Better?:

git clone https://github.com/meleu/mame-row-management.git

I tested it and it seems to work, though it may be a solution in search of a problem. It took me longer to do than my manual process, but maybe because I'm not used to using the tool yet.

Anyway, the post for MAME ROW #22 will be the one that was made using your tool and is now sitting on my computer waiting for Monday.