Happy new year to GameEx users new and old. I am happy to release the first GameEx version of 2012.

• Theme/Skinning:
  • New static HTPC style list option in the theme editor. This gives an alternative list in the start page menus.
  • New theme editor option to not show the weather condition icon and just the temperature
  • Weather condition icons can now be loaded from a theme if in the [theme]\media\weather folder
  • The auto update image can be used with a theme if in the [theme]\media folder. Change autoupdate1.png
  • Themes now support indivdual background images for start menu items. Located in the media\logos\background folder.
• Display and Emulators:
  • New game specific background snap folder for emulators and MAME. These images will be shown in the background when browsing the list when set.
  • If the above path is not specified there is a new display mode to show snaps in the background based on existing art paths.
  • Custom artwork paths for emulators now support videos.
  • The image ribbon display mode now support paging up and down.
  • Several minor cosmetic related bugs fixed.
• Media:
  • GameEx can now act as a full UPNP/DNLA client. This is supported for all media including the jukebox, pictures, media library and Videos. In terms of the Jukebox, GameEx will try to load the entire library and act as it normally does displaying the entire collection. At the present time videos have to be download from the media server and do not stream. The client has been tested with Windows Media Player, Mezzmo and Serviio.
• GameEx will now download and display artist pictures in the Jukebox and will display these if album artwork cannot be found.
• New Get MetaData menu option for the Jukebox to download all artwork.
• Better support of album artwork in the Jukebox.
• With thanks, GameEx now uses the TMDb API for movie artwork and metadata. In addition it will now download movie ratings. TMDb has a very good search engine so matches appear to be quite accurate. Therefore with this release the movie database utility is legacy and no longer included with the install. Please consider contributing to TMDb.
• For videos the create snaps menu option is now called Get MetaData since it now also retrieves box art, descriptions, year of release and rating.
• Their are now three separate folders for videos so GameEx can properly identify metadata. That is Movies, TV shows and other videos. I am currently awaiting approval from theTVdb.com to do more with TV shows. Hopefully I will get it,.
• Again, in my tests the matching is much more accurate than before.
• GameEx will now display videos at the correct aspect ratio when they have a different display size.

• Fixes MAME paths not accepting UNC

• Enhancements:
• All features including search, pictures, ebook reading, video/dvd playback are optimized for touchscreen use.
• Touchscreen and tablet use now has its own configuration page in the setup wizard where various settings can be altered.
• Can automatically detect a tablet PC and configure accordingly. Tablet PCs don't use mouse emulation and therefore need some internal tweaks. This is automatic.
• Thanks to Ben Baker, hooks into MAME to control lightgun and mouse games with a tablet PC and also the ability to send credits and start games with special taps/clicks.
• For emulators clicks can be mapped to key presses.
• Ability to filter MAME and GameEx arcade games for only touchscreen compatible games.
• New screensaver aimed at touchscreen use, which shows date, time, weather, scrolling message and optionally slideshow.
• Touchscreen setting to exit games and applications with certain clicks.
• Thanks to Ben Baker the bypass disclaimer feature is now working with modern MAME releases.
• New feature and setting allowing the ability to quickly resume to the last menu and list when restarting GameEx.
• New help text feature. This allows a simple way to show information and help when launching MAME, emulators or applications.
• There are now separate snap image and preview video paths for emulators.

• Fixes:
• Many sizing, positioning, theme loading/restoring and scaling issues fixed and improved. Mostly for non theme editor themes.
• Fixes not properly disabling the all games list when set.
• Fixes weather icon no longer working.
• Fixes issue where drawing primitives or weather could crash GameEx.
• Improved performance of overlays when playing videos and DVDs.
• Some minor setup wizard fixes thanks to Ben Baker.

• Changes:
• Touchscreen usage is only supported with non theme editor themes (ie default themes).

• Fixes for latest MAME release
• Fixes to touchscreen support
• Fixes inability to disable configuration access from the front end
• Added missing audio and enable/disable settings to the setup wizard

• Now includes and utilizes a Daphne/Laserdisc emulator database.
• GameEx will now look for a custom auto update background image in the selected themes media folder first.
• The manual/ebook viewer now features a fit to page view which can be toggled by pressing select.
• Fixes foreground image being shown when viewing controls.

• Fixes certain GameBase systems not loading.
• New GameBase setting, show desktop, whether GameEx should not try to hide the operating system displaying when launching GameBase. Defaults to true, not hide.
• Fixes TaskBar not showing in themes when the mouse pointer is at y position 0.
• Fixes album and visualizations showing in wrong position with version 4 themes.

• Removed CPU utilization feature as this causes a startup error on Vista.
• Certain elements now appear above the foreground image when it is set to top most.
• New setting to disable and hide the change view menu.

• Fixes not restoring thumbnail view when navigating back.
• The window title now shows total cpu usage and this is also written to the registry for LCD/Plugin use
• Can now specify a command line for ripping DVDs instead of using a profile.
• Due to exchange rate changes the price of a 1 year license has increased by $2.

• Cosmetic fixes and improvements.
• New theme editor setting to make the foreground image absolute top most.
• The MAME list update now filters out mechanical games.
• Fixes GameEx arcade database download not caching.
• Fixes MAME mdb file creation.
• Updated MAME support files.
• Emulator groups and the all games list now include Daphne. Use emulator number 1000.

• Thanks to Ben Baker the Setup Wizard has an improved user interface and now supports window resizing. In addition the Setup Wizard should now support any missing settings from the Advanced Config Application.
• The popup descriptions and ratings can now be disabled and in addition can be used with custom themes and the theme editor.
• Single static images are now supported for custom gameextender artwork paths.
• Updated Italian translation by AlphaUMi.

• For emulated systems and plugins the rom name with extension is available in gamedata.description.
• Fixes some issues setting the current emulator when navigating lists and the game info page.

• Gamebase systems now show second screenshot when possible.
• Fixes a couple of potential bugs.
• Removed a couple of unused library references.

• This version has code, display and memory usage optimisations including the following changes:
• Certain graphic images are now only loaded when first drawn improving start-up and display reinitializing speed.
• Only three emulator databases are kept in memory at one time as opposed to previously all.
• Several arrays redimensioned to fit.
• Removed activex web browser control and replaced with .net version. Web pages seem to load and exit a lot quicker now and it allowed several dependencies to be removed..
• Some unused code and variables removed.
• Fixes view sometimes not being remembered.
• Now does a more thorough scan when searching for valid favorites, most and last played games.
• New compatibility full screen mode fixing a crash when returning from videos for some users and also allowing full screen mode under remote desktop.
• GameEx is now remote desktop aware and will reinitialise the display if running full screen on session starts and ends.
• DVDs on disk now scans quicker.
• DVD Ripping now built in to the interface via the use ofHandbrake CLI. Simply place handbrakecli.exe in the GameEx folder.
• Fixes download timeouts in install package.
• Now features resume for regular DVD disks.
• Fixes memory leak when viewing web pages.

• The search music feature will now additionaly search online for playable radio stations. Registered users will also be able to add found stations to favorites. Eg Example search - 80s new wave
• The existing additional radio stations available to registered users have been audited and validated
• New client side web api for GameExtender server. Good things coming from this soon hopefully.

• Updated Italian translation thanks to AlphaUMi.
• Updated Spanish translation thanks to EvilForces.
• Two new additional custom artwork paths available for emulators.
• The lighter font now has a slight gradient by default.
• Fixes GameBase not working in GameLauncher mode.
• Fixes GameBase systems not showing up if no other emulators are setup.
• Improved startup/intro animation.
• New theme editor setting to disable color keying and enable alpha channel