History.xml for MAME: Get information and histories about games

MAME's History.xml

History.XML ver. 2.71b (Nov. 24, 2024)

The MAME History.xml is a file that gives you access to all trivia, facts, tips and other information for your favorite games and machines in your favorite gui/frontend. It serves information for MAME games, machines and software lists in the Info tab.

MAME's History.xml: How to use it ?

MAME users: put the file "history.xml" in the folder called "history".
Please delete the history.db when updating the history.xml.

MAMEUI users: put the file "history.xml" in the folder called "dats".

UI/Frontend developers ?

Structure of the new history.xml, how it should be read:

Information for the mainlist entries: <entry> <systems> <system name="rom_name" game="yes" /> <system name="rom_name2" game="yes" /> <system name="rom_name3" game="yes" /> </systems> <text>information to show</text> </entry> Information for the softlist entries: <entry> <software> <item list="softlist_name" name="rom_name" game="no" /> <item list="softlist_name" name="rom_name2" game="no" /> <item list="softlist_name2" name="rom_name" game="no" /> </software> <text>information to show</text> </entry> Special case (when an entry appears in both softlist & mainlist): <entry> <systems> <system name="rom_name" game="yes" /> </systems> <software> <item list="softlist_name" name="rom_name" game="yes" /> </software> <text>information to show</text> </entry>

Information

The archive includes:

THE ORIGINAL FILE:
- History/history.xml

TYPE SERIES:
- Folders/Machine Type.ini (more detailed)
- Folders/Machine Category.ini (more general)
- Folders/Game Or No Game.ini (even more general)

DECADE SERIES:
- Folders/Arcade By Decade.ini
- Folders/Coin-Op (Games) By Decade.ini
- Folders/Coin-Op (Non-Games) By Decade.ini
- Folders/Computers By Decade.ini
- Folders/Consoles By Decade.ini
- Folders/Electronic By Decade.ini
- Folders/Gambling By Decade.ini
- Folders/Hardware By Decade.ini

All the ini files are generated using the history.xml information.

MAME's Folder ini: How to use it ?

Folder ini files should be extracted to a "folders" folder in your MAME folder.

To use a folder ini file in MAME, you to need to select and click the Category option in the filter panel on the MAME user interface.

A new menu appears where you can select the ini file and the filter (called group) you want.