# Usage Tips

PinballY aims to be easy enough to use that you don't need a manual, so anything I have to write down here is kind of a failure on that score. My hope is that you'll be able to find everything yourself by exploring the UI. But it's worth mentioning a few things that might not jump out at you the first few times you use the program.

## Arranging windows

You can arrange all of the PinballY windows just like any other Windows program's windows. Just drag them where you want them and resize them as needed. Right-click in a window to hide it entirely, or to switch to full-screen mode or "borderless" mode (which hides all of the normal Windows caption and border controls).

## Main menu

When you're browsing games, you can access the Main Menu at any time by pressing the Start button (the "1" key by default, but you can of course change this in the options). The Main Menu has commands to launch the game in its pinball player program, view the game's full details, show the game's instruction cards and promotional flyers, give the game a "star" rating, add it to your favorites, and select various "filters".

## Right-click menus

Some of the more frequently accessed window layout and setup options are available as right-click menu options. Try right-clicking in each window to see the available commands.

## Game list filters

The Main Menu provides options for a whole bunch of filters, which let you select a subset of games to display in the wheel. This can make it easier to find games if you have a large collection. The filters let you select games by era, manufacturer, player system, star ratings, how long it's been since you last played them, how long it's been since you installed them, and by any category tags you create yourself.

## Operator menu

PinballY makes many of the basic game setup functions and global program options available through the "Operator Menu", which you can access by pressing the "Service Enter" button on your coin door service button panel, if you have one. If you don't, you can access this menu via the Exit menu, which you can reach by pressing the Exit/Cancel button. See Operator Menu for more details.

## Categories

The Operator Menu lets you set up categories, which are essentially "tags" that you can apply to each game. Edit a game's categories by going to the Operator Menu > Game Setup > Select Categories. You can add your own categories from there via the Edit Category Names command. You can assign any number of categories to each game. Once you've set up a category, it'll appear under the category filter menu, which you can reach from the Main Menu via the Filter by Category command.

## Unconfigured table files

By default, the list of games shown in the "wheel" includes all table files that PinballY finds in the "tables" folders for your installed systems, even if they haven't been set up with titles, media, and other details yet. You'll be able to spot these easily because they'll be shown with default background images, and the raw filename will be used in place of a title.

This notion of including configured and unconfigured games side-by-side probably won't appeal to everyone's tastes. I like it because it makes it easy to see everything on my cab. I don't have to go hunting through my table folders to see what's there and what needs my attention. And giving it the needed attention is easy: just select Game Setup from the Operator Menu and you can enter details, download media, and capture videos, right from the keyboard menus. Setting up new games was a bit of a chore in the older systems; I find this new way to be a lot easier and faster. But if you think this is stupid, no problem. Open up the Options dialog; go to the Game Wheel page; check the box for "Hide unconfigured games".

You probably have some tables that you never intend to add to the game list, such as backup copies or test games. Don't worry - you can easily kick these out of the list. Just bring up the Operator Menu and select "Hide Game". That will relegate the game to a separate Hidden list that will never show up - unless you specifically ask to see the hidden games by selecting "Show Hidden Games" from the Operator Menu.

## Startup audio/video

You can make PinballY play a custom video and/or audio file each time the program starts up. See Startup Audio/Video for details.

## Admin mode

A lot of pin cab users are accustomed to having to run some or all of their software in "Administrator Mode", meaning that you give the software full system privileges as though it were a core operating system component. It's best to minimize this, since Admin Mode opens up your system to more risks from malware and program bugs, but many pin cab users just give up and run everything in Admin mode to work around weird problems.

PinballY has some features can will help you at least reduce Admin mode usage. Ideally, you should be able to eliminate Admin mode entirely, but you might have some programs that really do require it for one reason or another.

The big thing that you shouldn't do with PinballY is to run the main PinballY.exe program in Admin mode. You might be used to doing that with other front ends, but don't do it with PinballY. Instead, if you find that you must use Admin mode, run the separate PinballY Admin Mode.exe program instead. That program identifies itself to Windows as requiring Admin privileges, so you don't have to explicitly set the "Run as Admin" checkbox in the properties and you don't have to use the "Run as Admin" command from the desktop. Just run it like a normal program and it'll automatically use Admin mode. (You'll still see a User Access Control [UAC] warning from Windows asking for your permission to do this, so this isn't some kind of end run around the Windows security system.)

See Admin Mode for full details.