Q u i c k S t a r t

This document should help you get StarLaunch up and running, and tell you what the features of it are. Since it is a big application, chews lots of memory, and has lots of weird features, most of which you won't try to use unless i tell you how :)

Installing.

Grab the zip file, and unzip it into a temporary folder.

Run the setup program.

Select the directory you want to install StarLaunch to, and click on the (rather pixellated) picture of a computer to start installation.

Go and do something while it installs, it takes a little while to copy all the small sized files.

Setting it up

Run the program from the start menu.

Once it gets in, you should see the drives in your computer in the listview, and a welcome message in the webbrowser.

Click Setup.

Make sure the emulators panel is selected.

Click the 'Auto' button, and StarLaunch will ask you where on your hard drive to start searching.

Select the root directory of your C drive (or whatever if you have your emulators on another hard drive. If Windows is installed in another folder, then you'll have to point to notepad manually (see later).

Click the Archives button to select the archivers panel.

Click the 'Auto' button, and then point to a folder that contains the rar, arj and lha dos apps (this can be a parent folder, StarLaunch searches through folders).

That's the major stuff set up.

Adding your own emulator group

Click the 'groups' button to bring up the groups panel.

Click the New button.

Click Next, to go to the second panel.

Type in 'MSX' without the quotes for the emulator group's name.

For the short name, type 'msx' (i'll assume you know not to type in the quotes from now on).

Click Next to go to the third panel.

Type in rom, in the extensions textbox, click Add. type in dsk in the extensions textbox, click Add.

Click Next to go to the icon panel.

Select choose from resource, select resource 23, or select your own 40x40 bitmap for the large icon, and 20x20 bitmap for the small icon.

Click Next again.

Leave the next part unchecked.

Click Next, and a summary'll be presented. Click the Next button (or whatever it is) to finish and make a new group.

Adding an emulator manually (fMSX as an example)

Select the MSX group from the groups combobox.

Click New. Type in fMSX in the inputbox.

Click the ellipse button (...), and select choose emulator. Select your fMSX Exe. Exe name should be filled out for you.

Param order field should read '%rompath%%rom% %params%' without the quotes.

Select the profile by clicking the ellipse next to the profile textbox.

Click the default button to tell StarLaunch that fMSX is the default MSX emulator.

Click OK, and refresh your roms list, and StarLaunch should show MSX roms up.

Using Normal Mode

You're in normal mode by default when you first install StarLaunch. When you exit, StarLaunch will save what mode you're in, and the next time you start it up, it'll go to that mode again.

Normal mode works by reading internal names out of roms, and saving the names to a database, so it loads faster on subsequent folder reads. The first time you load up a folder, it might take quite a long time, but after that, it should load substantially faster.

Databases don't take up much space on your hard drive. Be aware that if you delete them, screenshot paths, and other misc data is saved in the databases too.

The database is actually a class that i wrote, it's not related to MS Access, hence has basically no extra overhead.

Configuring a rom's options

Click on the rom.

If you haven't selected an emulator, click the 'emulators' button, and click on the emulator you want to use.

Click the configure button. StarLaunch should load up the profile. If no configuration has been set, and there is a default configuration, it'll ask you if you want to start off with the default configuration's settings.

Launching a rom

Click on the rom.

Select the emulator you want to use it with, if it's not already set (you only have to do it once, usually the first time is when you configure it's options), by clicking on the 'emulators' button, and selecting the emulator.

Double click the rom.

Using Arcade Mode

Click the 'roms' button.

Select Archive mode.

If you haven't used arcade mode before, StarLaunch will ask you whether you want to load an arcade database, or create a new one.

Click Yes to create a new one.

Type in the filename for the database.

Next, you'll want to add items to the arcade menu:

If you're setting up NeoRage or Callus, click on the 'Roms' button again, then select 'scan for arcade roms', select the scanning profile, then select where to start searching for the emulator, and the rest'll be done for you.

To add your own arcade menu item, double click the Add Emulator listview item, and follow the onscreen instructions, and one'll be created.

Arcade mode works like normal mode, configuring and launching is done in the same way, except you can't select another emulator via the 'emulators' button.

To get back to normal mode, click the 'roms' button, and select normal mode.

Using Mame Mode.

Firstly, make sure that Mame is set up, and that you've got it installed.

Warning: Don't use mame mode over a network. For some reason, StarLaunch will hang when it tries to generate the cached Mame rom list for the first time, i don't know why this happens.

Then just click on 'roms' and select Mame mode. StarLaunch will shell Mame for the list of roms, parse it, and save it in it's own data file which reads a lot faster. Loading Mame for the first time will take a while, but after that, it runs fast.

StarLaunch searches for folders and zip files in both the mame root directory, and the roms directory.

If you ever need to recreate the mame cache, delete the old one (mame.slcache in the db folder).

The rest, just muck about and you'll figure it out :)

Jya!

Dave
starfox@earthcorp.com
ICQ: 866854)