Advanced Launcher Game Emulation Set Up Configuration Help

Angelscry · 2012-04-28 23:26

If I have well understand what you try to do : Advanced Launcher will start Osascript that will start your nestopia_launcher.scpt script that will start nestopia with the %romfile% game. So Advanced Launcher must have Osascript as launcher application and /Users/Mido/Desktop/nestopia_launcher.scpt "%romfile%" as arguments. Osascript application must be located here :

Code:

/usr/bin/osascript

mido · 2012-04-29 02:48

SUCCESS!

In order to navigate to osascript (to find where it was hiding at) I had to show hidden files in Mac OS X.

In Terminal:

Code:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Then relaunch the finder as described here.

This is very exciting. I'm sure many refinements can be made here and there but this is a solid start. Thanks a ton for your assistance and your hard work on Advanced Launcher. Cheers! Wink

Angelscry · 2012-04-29 16:16

Yeah !!!! Great news. I'm happy to see that there is a way to start applications not supporting command with Advanced Launcher under Mac OSX systems. Now you will surely not encounter so many difficulties to port this to others emulators and applications.

If you have time, maybe you can post a small tutorial of your method on the Advanced Launcher dedicated board : http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewforum.php?id=4 . It will surely help other Mac OSX users. Then I will maybe also able to complete the Advanced Launcher WIKI pages : http://www.gwenael.org/xbmc/index.php?title=Nestopia

mido · 2012-04-30 02:48

Now that I've focused my energy to trying to play the games, first thing I've noticed is that XBMC needs to be hidden in the finder in order for Nestopia to operate correctly. When XBMC is visible in the background, Nestopia will have choppy video and stuttering audio issues. When XMBC is hidden the games play flawlessly. I've experimented with hiding XBMC within the launcher Apple Script but I really cant get it to work right yet.

New Launcher Script:

Code:

on run argv

    tell application "Nestopia"

        activate

        set rom to (item 1 of argv)

        set rompath to "/Users/Mido/Media/Roms/Nintendo Entertainment System/Roms/" & rom

        set gameon to POSIX path of rompath

        do shell script "open " & quoted form of gameon

    end tell

    delay 3

    tell application "System Events"

        set visible of process "XBMC" to false

    end tell

end run

It seems to work only sometimes. I've included a delay since I thought there might be timing issues between when XBMC executes the script and launching the ROMs. I'm still playing around with this but I thought I throw my progress up here in the meantime. Anyone have any suggestions? It seems like games I've never opened before will work but ones that I have already opened seem to be problematic. Not sure what's going on here. Also, what are people's techniques for getting back to XBMC after they've left an application? Thanks.

Angelscry · 2012-04-30 04:42

For your problem delay it could be due between the moment you activate Nestopia and the moment you are starting setting parameters. If Nestopia take time to be activated, your parametrers will not be set correctly and you will have some problem. I do not know if Apple Script have a function like "Wait until application is activated".

Under Windows or Linux when XBMC take to many resources you have 3 options :

- minimize XBMC windows and maximize it when the started application is stopper.
- suspend XBMC process and restore it when the started application is stopper.
- close XBMC application and restart it when the started application is stopper.

There is surely AppleScript function to do it.

Angelscry · 2012-04-30 22:24

Accordnig to this thread (http://www.snes9x.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5311) it seems that it is possible to start Snes9x (that also do not support command line) like this :

Code:

open -a /Applications/Snes9x.app /path/game.smc

Have you ever try to start Nestopia from Advanced Launcher like this :

Application : /usr/bin/open
Argument : -a /Applications/Nestopia.app "%rom%"

mido · 2012-05-01 03:59

After analyzing the behavior of both XBMC and Nestopia, here's where I'm at:

When you launch something with Advanced Launcher it toggles screen size / state. If you launch XBMC when in "Windowed" mode it will change the state of XBMC to "Full" when my script takes you to Nestopia.. and vice versa "Full" to "Windowed" I'm not sure if that matters but I thought it was worth mentioning as it may or may have something to do with my issues. You can achieve this same thing anytime by hitting Command-F.

I changed the way my script hides XBMC:

Code:

on run argv

    tell application "Nestopia"

        activate

        set rom to (item 1 of argv)

        set rompath to "/Users/Mido/Media/Roms/Nintendo Entertainment System/Roms/" & rom

        set gameon to POSIX path of rompath

        do shell script "open " & quoted form of gameon

    end tell

    tell application "System Events"

        tell process "XBMC"

            click menu item "Hide XBMC" of menu "XBMC" of menu bar 1

        end tell

    end tell

end run

I determined for whatever reason when I tried...:

Code:

tell application "System Events"

    set visible of process "XBMC" to false

end tell

it would put XMBC in full screen mode in the background. Huh

As a test (without using Advanced Launcher) I opened XMBC and then Nestopia ran the aformentioned hide script and it works fast and hides XBMC like it should with Nestopia in the front.

Now my new launcher script up top works to a certain degree... but only when auto-full screen in Nestopia is disabled. For whatever reason when Auto Full Screen Mode is enabled in the preferences it seems like it conflicts either with Advanced Launcher or my script or XBMC or all of the above. I want to say auto full screen mode in Nestopia triggers full screen mode in XBMC but I'm not entirely sure what's going on there. Also, there is a big pause when I hide in applescript with the 'Click Menu Item' method. It works but doesnt seem like the most elegant solution... and I have to go the additional step to to select full screen manually in Nestopia.

Has anyone else been following along with this? Would love to hear if people (specifically on mac os x) are having similar results or know any workarounds.

Angelscry,

I did try to open Nestopia via your new method and based on my results it would open games and sometimes not open games. So I think I'm going to stick to my script for now but appreciate the alternate suggestion.