README - v0.1.b9, 30-MAR-2007

Contents

  1. What is the M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II?

  2. Build instructions

  3. Command line arguments and configuration

  4. Gamelist statistics and ROM status

  5. GUI style plugins

  6. Bugs and restrictions

  7. How to create diffs and install patches

  8. Multi-platform support

  9. Contact

  10. Contributing

  11. License and copyright

1. What is the M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II?

M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II - also referred to as QMC2 - is the successor of one of the first XMAME GUI frontends available on this planet called QMamecat (derived from MAMECAT, which was text-only).

QMamecat was based upon Qt 2; its development was frozen in 2003. QMC2 has been rebuilt from scratch as a Qt 4 project. Parts of the design and code were inspired by its predecessor, but it's not just a remake. We tried to make the new design as flexible as possible to minimize dependencies from frontend- and CLI-related MAME changes, which was a major deficiency of QMamecat. QMC2 now uses a template based MAME configuration scheme, which can easily be enhanced with additional command line options (defined in an XML template file).

As a result of this flexible design, we are able to support multiple MAME targets - currently XMAME and SDLMAME!

QMC2's current major features include:

2. Build instructions

Software requirements:

Software requirement Where to get
Qt 4.2.0+ http://www.trolltech.com/
GNU make 3.8+ http://www.fsf.org/
zlib 1.2.3+ http://www.zlib.net/
SDLMAME 0.109+
XMAME 0.104+
http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/?page_id=163
http://x.mame.net/

Uncompress and untar the source distribution archive:

$ bzip2 -d qmc2-<version>.tar.bz2
$ tar xvf qmc2-<version>.tar

Make sure that the environment is setup correctly:

$ cd qmc2
$ export QTDIR=/your/qt4/installation/directory

At this point, you may have to create (or adjust) an OS-dependent configuration file, if your platform should not be in the list of tested operating environments; see section 8. for more details.

Now you are ready to run the build process:

$ make

If you have an SMP system, you should better run make in jobserver mode, this is completely safe and much faster. For example:

$ make -j3

(replace "3" with "#CPUs + 1")

QMC2 supports both XMAME and SDLMAME, but not at the same time (at run-time, that is). You have to choose which MAME target you're going to use. SDLMAME is the default MAME target. For XMAME, please use the following make command:

$ make [-jX] SDLMAME=0

As soon as QMC2 has been compiled and linked completely, it's ready for use. There is no need to explicitly install QMC2 as it has been designed to work fully self-contained. Even the data-directory can be kept locally, which works well.

It's still advisable to install QMC2 system-wide (you have to do this as root). The user's configuration and his data will be kept locally (in $HOME/.qmc2/):

$ su
Password:
# make install [SDLMAME=0]
# exit

3. Command line arguments and configuration

Usage:

$ qmc2 [qt4_arguments]

QMC2 does not provide any arguments except those inherited by Qt 4.

Here's the list of all optional Qt 4 arguments quoted from http://doc.trolltech.com/4.2/qapplication.html#QApplication

The X11 version of Qt also supports some traditional X11 command line options (please note that some of these arguments are useless as they will be overwritten with QMC2's configuration settings):

Notes:

4. Gamelist statistics and ROM status

Gamelist statistics are shown in the lower-left corner of the main widget, below the gamelist. The letters - and their colors - have the following meanings:

Letter Icon / Color Meaning
L
black
Number of Listed games
C
 green
Number of Correct games (only available if ROM status has been checked)
M
 yellow-green
Number of Mostly correct games (only available if ROM status has been checked)
I
 red
Number of Incorrect games (only available if ROM status has been checked)
N
 grey
Number of games which were Not found (only available if ROM status has been checked)
U
 blue
Number of games with an Unknown ROM status
S
brown
Number of game-matches for the current Search-pattern (if any)

If any statistical number is yet undetermined, a question mark (?) is shown instead.

Individual ROM states are displayed in the gamelist itself, indicated by colored sphere icons in front of each game entry (see table above).

The process of ROM status determination is a very time-consuming task, so it's not started automatically. You have to explicitly trigger a ROM check (see Tools menu) at least once. To speed up this process for future runs, ROM states are cached in an external ROM state cache file (default: $HOME/.qmc2/qmc2.rsc). If QMC2 finds cached ROM state information in this file, it will read the states for each game from the cache when the gamelist is reloaded.

It's in your responsibility to trigger a re-check of the ROM states when anything changes (ROM images or MAME updates). However, if the number of totally supported games is different than the number of cached ROM states, QMC2 will log a warning (see frontend log).

Future releases of QMC2 will probably make this step available for individual ROMs, so changes to only some games of your collection will not force you to fully re-check every ROM. But that's the way it is for now... for MAME updates, there is no way around it.

ROM states can also be used to filter and/or sort the gamelist. Please note that as a matter of principle the ROM state filter cannot be applied to the hierarchical parent / clone view (of the gamelist), because the display of clones depends on the display of their parents.

Notes:

5. GUI style plugins

GUI styles can either be selected on the command line (-style, see section 3.) if the GUI style setting is setup as "Default" or by explicitly selecting a style / style plugin from the respective combo-box in the options-widget.

6. Bugs and restrictions

See todo.html!

7. How to create diffs and install patches

This information is mainly for developers.

Creating a unified diff:

$ diff -urN qmc2-<old> qmc2-<new> > qmc2-<old>-<new>.patch

Don't forget to do a "make clean", or even better "make dist", before creating a patch!

Patching the older version:

$ cd qmc2-<old>
$ patch -p1 < qmc2-<old>-<new>.patch

Note that GNU diff/patch is required!

8. Multi-platform support

As the frontend-code has been designed with full POSIX-portability in mind, QMC2 should work on any UNIX or UNIX-like platform, provided Qt 4 and SDLMAME (or XMAME) are supported on this platform as well.

However, you may have to create or adopt the corresponding OS-dependent configuration file, which is arch/`uname`.cfg. If it does not exist nor fit your local situation, the build will most likely fail:

$ make ARCH=test
Makefile:52: arch/test.cfg: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `arch/test.cfg'.  Stop.

Note that by using the ARCH-variable on the make command line, you could easily specify a local configuration, even if a system configuration file already exists for your platform. Take the one that comes nearest to your system configuration and change it to your needs.

Other than that, QMC2 should build and run flawlessly. In case of any trouble, feel free to contact us (see section 9.).

Also, please send us your configuration file if you try QMC2 on other platforms than the ones included in the arch/ directory. Regardless if you are successful or not, any help is very much appreciated (see section 10.)

9. Contact

Project homepage:

Development site:

QMC2 development mailing list:

10. Contributing

Help and contributions are very much appreciated. Following are the most important areas where we need your support:

If you think you can help us in one or more of these areas, please contact us!

We are using SourceForge.net as our open-source development platform. If you intend to become a QMC2 developer, note that you're required to use SVN (Subversion).

See credits.html for a list of contributers.

11. License and copyright

QMC2 - M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II
Copyright © 2006 - 2007 R. Reucher, Germany, All Rights Reserved

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the license, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

See copying.html.