changelog.txt

[B]AML ideas and planned features (more futuristic ideas)[/B]

WIP      [CORE] JSON database files (specially MAME_DB_main.json, MAME_DB_render.json and 
         MAME_assets.json) could be compressed with DEFLATE to reduce the size on disk. They
         will decompressed on the fly. I have to test if this is faster than no compression at all.
         Use low values of compression in the deflate algorithm. Maximum compression is very
         slow but less compression is fast and may reduce the JSON file size a lot.

         According to Zachmorris, MessagePack is the fastest serialization method in Python 3.

         The module xmltodict is also very interesting and the performance very good in Python 3.

         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329315&pid=2975588#pid2975588
         See https://github.com/vsergeev/u-msgpack-python
         See https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict

WIP      [AUDIT] Samples distributed with MAME are uncompressed and not stored into ZIP files.
         The MAME audit engine must take this into account.
         See comments in mame_scan_MAME_ROMs() @mame.py

WIP      [CORE] AML/AEL must report the aspect ratio of artwork to the skin.
         How to implement this? Using PIL?
         I think best way is that core developers expose the image aspect ratio to the
         skin using infolabels.


[B]AML ideas and planned features (read to implement)[/B]

WIP      [DOCS] Improve the AML wiki in Github and move documentation from Kodi forum to
         Github wiki.

WIP      [CORE] Implement the "Read-only launchers". ROLs are XML files that include the
         launcher information as well as the ROMs information. ROLs are generated with AML,
         can be exported as XML and then used with AEL. AEL will handle ROLs as read-only
         (cannot be edited). If a ROL should be changed, then the XML is edited or regenerated
         and then imported again into AML.

WIP      [MANUALS] Increase the number of supported PDF filters.
         This may require A LOT of Python coding.

WIP      [MANUALS] Support for CBZ/CBR manuals.
         In theory Kodi VFS is able to read RAR files.
         Wait until this is implemented in AEL and then port it from AEL into AML?

WIP      [CORE] Recursive context menus.
         Pay attention to the select() bug in Kodi Krypton.
         This requires Kodi version detection and having different code for Krypton/Leia.
         Start with the context menu in which recursiveness ir more useful.

WIP      [GRAPHICS] Optimize the generation of 3D boxes.
         Cache the background images used in all boxes.

WIP      [GRAPHICS] Respect the aspect ratio in 3D boxes. For example, if the poster in the
         front size of the 3D box is square the 3D box must be square, do not strech the
         poster texture. ScreenScraper respects the aspect ratio of the 3D boxes, have
         a look at examples there (for example, see Mega Drive 3D box and PSX 3D box).

WIP      Retroarch core MAME 2003 Plus allows to save the MAME XML file needed by AML.
         In this core, the XML is extracted using the MAME internal menu, which must be
         opened with the Retroarch core options menu. The XML file is saved in the SAVES
         directory with name mame2003-plus/mame2003-plus.xml
         Exploit this to give support to MAME 2003 and then Android. According to
         Chrisism, Retroarch is currently the best way to use MAME in Android.
         TTBOMK, currently it is the only core to support this feature. Investigate if there
         are more Retroarch cores with this feature.

         See https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/pull/348
         See https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/pull/8
         See https://github.com/libretro/mame2010-libretro/pull/123
         See https://github.com/libretro/mame2010-libretro/tree/master/metadata


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 1.0.3 | xx xxxxxx 2022[/B]

FEATURE  [CORE] Imported some code from AEL master branch to equalize code between both addons.

FEATURE  [CORE] Minor changes and improvements: improved SL standard ROM viewer, improved SL
         audit ROM viewer, ...


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 1.0.2 | 18 June 2021[/B]

NOTE     Version was bumped to 1.0.2 to keep feature-sync with 0.10.2

FEATURE  [CORE] Synched utils.py and misc.py with AEL.

FEATURE  [CORE] Support new history.dat XML format.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=3029005#pid3029005


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 1.0.1 | non-released[/B]

NOTE     This version was never uploaded to the Kodi repo.

FIX      [CORE] Fix crash when building Controls (Expanded) catalog in MAME 2003 Plus mode.
         Also fixed Controls (Expanded) and Controls (Compact) catalogues for empty controls.

FIX      [CORE] Fix SKIN_SHOW_* launchers. 

FIX      [CORE] Fix bug in mame_update_MAME_MostPlay_objects().


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 1.0.0 | 27 November 2020[/B]

FEATURE  [CORE] Port the addon to Kodi Matrix and Python 3.

FEATURE  [CORE] xbmc.translatePath is deprecated in Matrix, use xbmcvfs.translatePath instead.

FIX      [MANUALS] The pdfwr library is not working well with Python 3. PDF image extraction
         have been disabled until this issue is fixed.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.10.2 | 18 June 2021[/B]

NOTE     Code synched with 1.0.2.

FEATURE  [CORE] Synched utils.py and misc.py with AEL.

FEATURE  [CORE] Support new history.dat XML format.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=3029005#pid3029005


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.10.1 | 04 February 2021[/B]

FIX      [CORE] Fix crash when building Controls (Expanded) catalog in MAME 2003 Plus mode.
         Also fixed Controls (Expanded) and Controls (Compact) catalogues for empty controls. 

FIX      [CORE] Fix SKIN_SHOW_* launchers.

FIX      [CORE] Fix bug in mame_update_MAME_MostPlay_objects().


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.10.0 | 27 November 2020[/B]

FEATURE  [CORE] Big code refactoring to prepare Kodi Python API changes.

FEATURE  [CORE] Include Software Lists that have no associated MAME machines in "Machines
         by Software List" filter.

FEATURE  [CORE] Create branch python2 and place series 0.10.x into this branch.

FEATURE  [CORE] Support Retroarch MAME 2003 Plus.

FEATURE  [FILTERS] Implement filtering options NoMissingROMs, NoMissingCHDs and NoMissingSamples.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2964109#pid2964109

FEATURE  [CORE] Different colours for different filters in the root window.

FEATURE  [CORE] In the Setup Plugin CM, Build Fanarts and 3D boxes: add an option to
         build all the Fanarts and 3D boxes at once.

FEATURE  [CORE] Reorganised the Setup Plugin context menu a bit.

FEATURE  [CORE] Export MAME info with billyc999s XML format.

FEATURE  [CORE] New Utility "Show machines with biggest ROMs"

FEATURE  [CORE] New Utility "Show machines with smallest ROMs"

FEATURE  [CORE] Disable Kodi screensaver when launching MAME and reenable after MAME finishes.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2934194#pid2934194

FIX      [CORE] Fixed crash when creating ROM audit database when MAME CHD set was SPLIT.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2975566#pid2975566

FIX      [CORE] Fix parsing of mameinfo.dat 0.226.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.12 | 10 February 2020[/B]

FEATURE  Create a new infolabel $INFO[ListItem.Property(history)] which shows the contents
         of history.dat for a machine. Add an option to include the contents of History.DAT
         in the asset database.
         Once this is tested remove the code to include History.DAT in the plot.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2916270#pid2916270

FEATURE  Option to hide MAME machine flags.
         Contributed by Rychem28.

FEATURE  Option to hide SL item flags.
         Contributed by Rychem28.

FEATURE  Option to display only SL items with ROMs/CHDs available.
         Contributed by Rychem28.

FIX      Fixed parsing of History.dat 2.17.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2913592#pid2913592


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.11 | 26 November 2019[/B]

FEATURE  [CORE] For Software Lists, instead of showing the number of ROMs show the number
         of Items in Flat display mode or Parents in Parent/Clone display mode.

FEATURE  [CORE] Support for MASH's Alltime.ini.

FEATURE  [CORE] Improvements in the JSON index of DAT files. Use dictionaries and not list
         to reduce JSON file size and speed up data access.

FEATURE  [CORE] Improved main statistics.

FEATURE  [CORE] Improve some Software List long names until they are fixed in MAME repository.

FIX      Fixed conversion to int of addon version str in fs_AML_version_str_to_int()

FIX      New history.dat makes AML to crash because one entry could be for more than one
         machine. In addition, the same description can be used over several SLs.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.10 | 10 May 2019[/B]

FEATURE  Option to disable Software Lists at all in Vanilla MAME mode.

FEATURE  Management of MAME Favourite objects (delete missing, delete single).

FEATURE  Management of SL Favourite objects (delete missing, delete single).

FEATURE  Initial support for Retroarch MAME 2003 Plus core.

FEATURE  [CORE] Ability to export DAT files in Logiqx format for MAME ROMs and MAME CHDs.

FEATURE  [CORE] Differentiate between Non-merged and Fully non-merged MAME ROM sets.
         Non-merged sets do not include BIOS and device ROMs.
         Fully non-merged sets include BIOS and devices ROMs (every ROM required to run each
         machine). Pleasuredome ROM sets are Fully non-merged.
         This needs more testing.

FEATURE  [FILTERING] Test the filters for errors. For example, test that all the drivers
         defined in <Driver> exist. Another example, test that the genres defined in
         <Genre> and the controls defined in <Controls> exist.

FEATURE  [FILTERING] Warn the user if errors found in the XML filter definition, maybe in
         a report the user can read later.

FEATURE  [FILTERING] Make a filter report the user can read. Now, only the number of machines
         after filtering is reported.

FEATURE  [GRAPHICS] Generate MAME machines and SL items 3D Boxes.

FEATURE  [GRAPHICS] Refactoring of the Fanart and 3D Box code generation. Creation of graphics.py.

FEATURE  [GRAPHICS] Only generate 3D Boxes if both Fyler and Clearlogo (MAME) or Boxfront (SL)
         are present. Avoid having empty 3D boxes.

FEATURE  [CORE] Improved filter "Machines by Display Type" and removed filter
         "Machines by Display Rotation."

FEATURE  [CORE] New catalog filter "Machines by Display VSync freq." Inspired by
         MASH's MAMEINFO Vsync.ini.

FEATURE  [CORE] New catalog filter "Machines by Display Resolution" Inspired by
         MASH's MAMEINFO Screen.ini.

FEATURE  [CORE] New catalog filter "Machines by CPU" Inspired by
         MASH's MAMEINFO CPU.ini.

FEATURE  [CORE] Rewrite the INI loading engine.
         See comments in header of function mame_load_INI_datfile().

FEATURE  [CORE] New INI file Artwork.ini (produced by MASH's MAMEINFO).
         Catalog filter "Machines by Artwork".
         Note that Artwork.ini places the same machine in different categories. Maybe other
         INIs do the same and currently AML does not support this. This requires
         some changes in AML engine.

FEATURE  New catalog "Version added"

FEATURE  [CORE] New INI file Category.ini (produced by MASH's MAMEINFO).
         Catalog filter "Machines by Category".

FEATURE  [CORE] New "All in one (Extract, Build and Scan)" options:
         1) Delete current to "All in one (Extract, Build, Scan)"
         2) Add "All in one (Extract, Build, Scan, Filters)"
         3) Add "All in one (Extract, Build, Scan, Filters, Audit)"

FEATURE  [CORE] By request of Rufoo, support MAME 3dboxes.

FIX      Fixed a couple of crashes when executing context menus, thanks to Dax9.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2838180#pid2838180

FIX      Fix the render_skin_*() functions. These are called by skins to get a list of
         filters.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.9 | 22 March 2019[/B]

FEATURE  [CORE] Improve statistics of working, non-working games, etc. for the Main filters.

FEATURE  [CORE] [LEIA] Check out the ListItem constructor offscreen parameter in Leia.
         The offscreen parameter increases the speed a bit.
         This requires Kodi version detection and having different code for Krypton/Leia.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329315&pid=2711937#pid2711937
         and https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=307394&pid=2531524

FEATURE  [CORE] [LEIA] Use the new API function ListItem.setProperties({p1:v1, p2:v2, ...})
         This requires Kodi version detection and having different code for Krypton/Leia.
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332283

FEATURE  [FANARTS] Set an order to print fanart assets. This will allow to have images printed
         on top of each other.

FEATURE  [CORE] Improve the Samples scanner and report.

FEATURE  [CORE] MAME and SL plots build timestamp.

FEATURE  [CORE] MAME and SL Fanart build timestamp.

FEATURE  [CORE] MAME render and asset cache build timestamp.

FEATURE  [CORE] Move the utilities from the addon settings into the root menu.

FEATURE  [CORE] Move the report viewer from the context menu to the root menu. The context
         menu is a little bit overloaded and this will alleviate the situation.

FEATURE  [CORE] Use xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItems() instead of xbmcplugin.addDirectoryItem().
         According to the docs "Large lists benefit over using the standard addDirectoryItem().
         You may call this more than once to add items in chunks."

FEATURE  [CORE] Configuring every DAT and INI file one by one is tedious. Instead, define
         a directory where the DATs must be placed and pick the files from there automatically.

FEATURE  [CORE] Add plots for entries in the root window.

FEATURE  [CORE] Renamed the "Machines by Score" filter to "Machines by Rating", to avoid
         confusing with scores in games.

FEATURE  [CORE] Implement context menu "All in one (Extract, Build and Scan)"

FEATURE  [CORE] Refactoring and code cleaning of the addon setup functions (DB build, scanner).

FEATURE  [CORE] Remove redundant fields from MAME DB 'coins' and 'control_type'. Use new
         'input' data structure to replace them.

FEATURE  [CORE] At least two directories for samples are needed. MAME includes a default samples
         directory with some samples used by some machines. Both directories must be configured
         in mame.ini in order to get all the samples working.

         NOTE This feature was cancelled. Only one Samples directory. If the user wants to have
         a complete Good audit, then the samples shipped with MAME must be compressed and
         the ZIP file placed in the unique samples directory. In any case, only three machines
         are affected.

FEATURE  [FILTERING] Implement <Include>, <Exclude> and <Change> tags.
         This will require more work than expected. Currently, only parent machines are filtered
         and clone machines are added after the filtering process. However, to implement
         Include, Exclude and Change tags, all machines must be included in the filter list.
         This will require modification of the filter render engine (must be rendered always in
         flat mode and not in parent/clone mode).

FEATURE  [MANUALS] Progress bar when extracting PDF pages.

FEATURE  [MANUALS] When displaying manuals use cached extracted images if they exist.
         When the manual is extracted, create a small JSON file with the timestamp of
         the extraction so it can be compared with the timestamp of the PDF file to
         test if images must be extracted again.

FIX      In MAME 0.206, some clone merged ROMs are not present in the parent machine, only
         in the BIOS. For example, in machine adonisce (clone of adonis). Before 0.206, such
         ROMs were also present on the parent machine. This change in behaviour crashed AML.

FIX      Fixed the AML addon and MAME numerical versioning scheme.

FIX      Fix crash in "Build MAME databases".
         See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2822949#pid2822949

FIX      Some Software List ROMs are compressed using non-ASCII characters and this make
         the audit engine to crash. I have to investigate how to fix this issue.
         Maybe use the chardet library https://github.com/Wintermute0110/chardet/tree/master/chardet
         I think this should reported creating an issue in MAME project in Github.
         Problematic SL ROM example: SL ibm5170, item wordfndr
         https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/hash/ibm5170.xml#L7521
         The current implementation just ignores non-ASCII files and the audit fails for those
         SL items.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.8 | 23 June 2018[/B]

FEATURE  [DOCS] Documentation in README.md improved.

FEATURE  [LEIA] Kodi Leia will cache the Python interpreter which means submodules will only
         be executed once and cached. sys.argv must be propagated from the entry point code
         into the submodules.
         See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/13814
         and https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=303073&pid=2729071#pid2729071

FIX      Changed source code files to remove BOM. This is necessary to pass Travis tests of
         Kodi official repo.

FIX      ActivateWindow(busydialog) and Dialog.Close(busydialog) have been deprecated.
         Use DialogProgress() for all operations.
         See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/13958
         and https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/13954
         and https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/10699

FIX      Do not use the xbmc.Player() in launcher addons. Instead, use functions like
         xbmc.getCondVisibility("Player.HasMedia"), xbmc.executebuiltin("PlayerControl(stop)"), etc.
         Change proposed by enen92.
         See https://github.com/xbmc/repo-plugins/pull/1886#discussion_r196591764


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.7 | 09 June 2018[/B]

FEATURE  Implemented settings "display_rom_available" and "display_chd_available".

FEATURE  [LAUNCH] Implement "Action on Kodi playing media", "After/before launch delay (ms)", and
         "Suspend/resume Kodi audio engine".
         See https://github.com/Wintermute0110/plugin.program.AML/issues/3

FEATURE  [MAME FILTERING] Improve the Custom Filters (add more filtering options as defined
         in the reference filter file `AML-MAME-filters-reference.xml`).

FEATURE  [CORE] Render the `In Favourites` flag for MAME machines.

FEATURE  [CORE] Optimize the rendering of ROMs in 3 steps: a) Loading, b) Processing and c) Rendering.
         Processing computes all data to render ROMs and Rendering calls Kodi functions. This will
         allow to measure how long does it take to call the Kodi functions for ListItem generation.

FEATURE  [CORE] Reduce the memory consumption during the database generation.
         By default use the options OPTION_COMPACT_JSON = True and OPTION_LOWMEM_WRITE_JSON = True
         See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24239613/memoryerror-using-json-dumps

FIX      Fix crash when executing "Check/Update all objects" if Favourites are empty.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.6 | 25 May 2018[/B]

FEATURE  Improve the user experience when the addon is just installed. Check if databases
         have been built, check for errors, etc.

FEATURE  Add a isMature field to MAME DB. Take the mature information from mature.ini included
         in the Catver.ini ZIP file.

FEATURE  Option in settings to completely hide Mature machines and filter categories.

FEATURE  Asset hashed database. This will speed up launching MAME machines. Note that the asset
         DB must be opened for the Most Played and Recently Played DBs.

FEATURE  Prettify the "Display rotation" filter (use Horizontal/Vertical instead of numbers).

FEATURE  Include number of buttons in controls and some other control information.

FEATURE  Add the Samples of each machine to the ROM database.

FEATURE  Audit the ROM samples inside ZIP files.

FEATURE  Implement "Most played MAME machines"

FEATURE  Implement "Recently played MAME machines"

FEATURE  Option in settings to update all MAME and SL Favourite ROMs. Useful for plugin upgrades.

FEATURE  Implement "Most played SL ROMs"

FEATURE  Implement "Recently played SL ROMs"


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.5 | 11 May 2018[/B]

FEATURE  Option to disable the ROM and asset caches.

FEATURE  CRC32 hash collision detector for MAME and SL ROMs.

FEATURE  MAME ROM and asset cache disable by default. They may be enabled by user that want to
         increase the loading speed. This will be very useful for develpment because
         cache rebuilding takes a long time.

FEATURE  Check if AML configuration is OK or not, and warn the user about warnings/errors.

FEATURE  Improved PDF manual rendering. Use the library pdfrw for image extraction.

FEATURE  Clean ROM cache before rebuilding cache.

FEATURE  Clean asset cache before rebuilding cache.

FEATURE  Clean filters directory before rebuilding custom filters.

FEATURE  MAME audit statistics.

FEATURE  SL audit statistics.

FEATURE  Support for SL Merged ROM/CHD sets (currently only Split).

FEATURE  Added audit timestamps (MAME machines and Software Lists).

FEATURE  Move driver aristmk5.cpp (Aristocrat gambling machines) from Standard to Unusual.
         Also, adp.cpp, mpu4vid.cpp, cubo.cpp, sfbonus.cpp, peplus.cpp.

FIX      Software List ROM size was stored as string and not as int. This made the SL Audit to
         completely fail.

FIX      Fixed audit of MAME machine ROMs (wrong function name).

FIX      Lots of fixes to MAME ROM audit engine.

FIX      Lots of fixes to Software Lists audit engine.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.4 | 29 March 2018[/B]

FEATURE  File cache for SL ROMs/CHDs and SL assets.

FEATURE  Port the file scanner cache from AEL to AML. This will increase the scanning speed a lot!
         Also, this will allow supporting more image types (currently only PNG), manual
         types (currently only PDF) and trailer types (currently MP4 only).

FEATURE  Create an AEL virtual launcher in XML from any AML filter.

FEATURE  Use proper Software List name in "Machines by Software List" filter.

FEATURE  Use proper short name in "Machines by MAME short name" filter.

FEATURE  Clean Render and main machine JSON files. Currently, there are repeated fields on both
         databases like nplayers.

FEATURE  Move flags and plot from the render database to the assets database. Flags are modified
         by the scanner only and plot generated after the scanner. If flags and plot are in
         the asset DB, the ROM cache and hashed DB must be regenerated after the database building
         only and not always like now.

FEATURE  Render PDF manuals consisting of image scans (99% of game manuals are scans of images).
         Thank you very much to i96751414 for allowing use of his PDF reader addon code.
         Have a look at the PDF reader addon https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=187421
         and https://github.com/i96751414/plugin.image.pdfreader
         This initial implementation somewhat works for some PDFs but code can be improved a lot.

FEATURE  Create a hased database for all catalog filter combination. This will require the
         creation of about 5000 json files but will make AEL as fast as possible.

FEATURE  Hashed database for assets, in a similar fashion to the catalog ROM hashed database.

FEATURE  Make a ROM cache and a assets cache for the MAME filters. That will increase the
         loading speed of the MAME filters a lot.

FEATURE  Support MAME artwork by Mr. Do's. Note that Clones use Parent's artwork automatically.

FEATURE  Use Parent/Clone substituted artwork in MAME. For example, most trailers are only available
         for the Parent machine and can be used by Clone machines.

FEATURE  Use Parent/Clone substituted artwork in Software Lists.

FEATURE  Build Fanarts from other pieces of artwork for Software List items.

FEATURE  Build Fanarts from other pieces of artwork for MAME machines.

FEATURE  Test MAME and SL Fanart building.

FEATURE  Custom MAME filters, using XML files. Merge some of the functionality of NARS into AML.
         First, give to support to filter by driver. Later, more filters can be added.

FEATURE  "Browse by MAME short name" and "Browse by MAME long name" alphabetical catalogs.

FEATURE  Renamed plugin from plugin.program.advanced.MAME.launcher to plugin.program.AML.
         Shorter name, shorter databases, higher speed.

FEATURE  Some skin helper commands to display widgets.

FEATURE  Support bestgames.ini and series.ini.

FEATURE  Generate machine plot from MAME XML information.

FEATURE  New Main filters Normal and Unusual.

FEATURE  Show ROMs of a MAME machine that should be in a ZIP file. Supports Merged, Split and
         Non-merged sets, CHDs, BIOS and Devices with ROMs.

FEATURE  Audit MAME ROMs for all machines.

FEATURE  Show SL ROMs of a SL entry. Supports Merged, Split and Non-merged sets and SL CHDs.

FEATURE  Audit SL ROMs.

FEATURE  Display MAMEINFO.DAT information.

FEATURE  Display HISTORY.DAT in information.

FEATURE  Display gameinit.dat in information.

FEATURE  Display command.dat in information.

FEATURE  At launching, do not check ROMs for machines which doesn't have ROMs.
         Requires loading machines database, which will slow down launching process a lot!
         A hashed database of machines is necessary to speed up plugin.
         Better solution for now: do not do any check. Let MAME fail if there are ROM/CHD errors.

FEATURE  Allow user to choose default assets as AEL does in addon seetings.

FEATURE  Trailer support in MAME machines and Software Lists.

FEATURE  Manage MAME Favourites context menu.

FEATURE  Manage SL Favourites context menu.

FEATURE  Create a hased database for main ROM database and Audit ROM database.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.3 | 30 May 2017[/B]

FEATURE  Ability to choose default Icon and Fanart for MAME and SL ROMs in addon settings.

FEATURE  "Parent only" view mode.

FEATURE  Plugin speed has been increased a lot owing to a brand new database design.

FEATURE  Unified catalog system and new machine rendering method.
         Requires wiping of ADDON_DATA_DIR to avoid problems.

FEATURE  Properties can be configured for every individual list in AML.

FEATURE  New Status Device flag. Marks wheter a device is mandatory or not.

FEATURE  Show database statistics.

FEATURE  Favourite MAME machines.

FEATURE  Favourite Software Lists ROMs.

FEATURE  Scan SL assets/artwork.

FEATURE  Manage MAME Favourites.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.2 | 12 February 2017[/B]

FEATURE  Ability to sort cataloged filters by number of machines.

FEATURE  New Main Filter "Machines with no ROMs".

FEATURE  Launch parents with no clones from the parents list in Catalogued filters.

FEATURE  Use a fancy name for well-known MAME drivers.

FEATURE  On filter `Machines by Software List`, substitute short SL name by the proper SL name.

FEATURE  Display MAME stdout/stderr.

FEATURE  Scan Software Lists.

FEATURE  Launch machines with software lists.
        
FIX      Use SORT_METHOD_LABEL_IGNORE_FOLDERS insead of SORT_METHOD_LABEL. This avoids folders
         to be rendered first when sorting listitems alpahbetically.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.1 | 04 February 2017[/B]

FEATURE  AML only works on Krypton now. Updated addon.xml with new fields.

FEATURE  Add support for nplayers.ini.

FEATURE  Count machines in "Extract MAME.xml" step and not in "Build MAME database" step.

FEATURE  Print the number of clones each machine has. In general, print the number of items
         on a submenu.

FEATURE  Add catalog by Devices. This will help launching software list machines.

FEATURE  In a parent list, if there is not clones, then add the ability to launch games from the
         parent list. Only coded for indexed machines and not for cataloged machines.
         See http://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=108507#Post108507

FEATURE  Switch in settings to diplay Working machines only.
         See http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2506150#pid2506150

FEATURE  Improved categories in "Machines by Control Type catalog".

FIX      "I get an error whenever trying to open any "Ball & Paddle" category. I'm pretty sure this 
         is due to the ampersand, because all the other categories I've tried work. This issue doesn't 
         affect ROMs with an ampersand in their name, like Cloak & Dagger."
         See http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186&pid=2506150#pid2506150

         Problem was that the '&' in the Kodi URL was not escaped.


[B]Advanced MAME Launcher | version 0.9.0 | 15 January 2017[/B]

         Initial release

FEATURE  Extract MAME.xml from MAME executable. Tested only on Linux.

FEATURE  Generate main MAME machine database, indices and catalogs from MAME.xml.

FEATURE  Scan ROMs and tell the user about Have/Missing ROMs.

FEATURE  Launch MAME non-Software List (arcade) machines.

FEATURE  Scan CHDs and samples.

FEATURE  Scan assets and build assets database.

FEATURE  Display MAME machine metadata/artwork.

FEATURE  Build Software List catalog.