This dialog lets you customize the information box that normally pops up whenever a game is selected. (These settings don't affect the "full" information box that you can access via the "Information" command on the main menu. These only affect the automatic box that pops up on its own when a game is selected.)
Show the automatic game info box: This box controls whether or not the box is shown at all. This is checked by default. Un-check the box if you want to remove the box entirely.
Include the game title: Includes the game title in the box.
Use the game's logo graphics: Shows the game's logo (the same graphics that appear in the middle of the screen) in place of the plain text title.
Include the manufacturer's name: Shows the name of the company that originally made the machine.
Use the manufacturer's logo: Shows the manufacturer's company logo instead of the plain text of the company name, if the graphics are available.
Include the system name: Shows the name of the pinball player program that the table was created with (Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, etc).
Use the system logo: Shows the logo graphics for the system in place of the plain text name, when available.
Include the release year: Shows the year of release of the original arcade machine title.
Include the table type: Includes the machine type in the box (Solid State, Electromechanical, Mechanical).
Use the table type abbreviation: Uses an abbreviation for the table type (SS, EM, ME).
Include the rating: Shows the "star" rating for the game.
Include the table file name: Shows the name of the table file for the game, if applicable. This is the .vpt, .vpx, .fpt, or other system-specific file that contains the game.
PinballY doesn't come with graphics for the manufacturer company logos, since most of the logos are official trademarks. If you wish to provide your own graphics files for the company logos, though, it's easy to install them.
File formats: use PNG files for all logos. Use transparency ("alpha") as desired. (PNG is the only format allowed for logos, since it's the only format that supports transparency well.)
Location: place all company logo files in the Company Logos subfolder of your main Media folder, as set in your Folders options. (The Company Logos folder goes directly in the main Media folder. It doesn't need to go in a game system-specific subfolder.)
Name: simply use the manufacturer name as the file name (before the .png suffix), as in Gottlieb.png or Williams.png.
Era-specific logos: many of the pinball companies used different logos over the years. You might prefer to have each pinball table shown with the manufacturer's logo that was appropriate to the table's era. PinballY lets you create different logos for the same manufacturer, and identify the years they were in use. If you do this, the program will pick out the appropriate era-specific logo to display for each table based on the release year for the table, as specified in the table's database details.
To create separate logos for one manufacturer for different time periods, simply add a year range suffix to the filename, as in Gottlieb (1971-1980).png. You can use as many different time periods as necessary for each company. Use a range like (1980-) to mean "1980 and later", and use (-1980) to mean "1980 and earlier". If you provide one or more files with specific time periods for a manufacturer, and you also include a "generic" file with no time period, the program will always give the era-specific files precedence, but will use the generic file as a fallback whenever it can't find an era-specific file that matches the release year it's looking for.
You can create your own system logos for the player systems (Visual Pinball, etc) as follows:
File formats: use PNG files. Use transparency ("alpha") as desired. (PNG is the only format allowed for logos, since it's the only format that supports transparency well.)
Location: place all system logos in the System Logos subfolder of your main Media folder, as set in your Folders options. (This folder goes directly in the main Media folder. It doesn't need to go in a game system-specific subfolder.)
Name: simply use the system name as the file name (before the .png suffix), as in Visual Pinball.png. The name should match the display name in the option settings for the system.
Version-specific and version-independent names: Names are matched by prefix, so a file named Visual Pinball.png will match systems named Visual Pinball 9, Visual Pinball X, etc. If there's an exact match, as in Visual Pinball X.png, that will take precedence over a generic prefix match.