# New Table Setup

PinballY tries to make it easy to set up new tables as you add them to your system, by letting you enter all of the descriptive information (title, manufacturer, etc) and adding media files from the main program.

Here's the basic process for installing a new table in your PinballY menus.

Step one: download the table. The first step, obviously, is to get a new table and install it on your PC. PinballY doesn't change anything about this part. Just do this like you always did. Go to your favorite download site, such as VP Forums or VP Universe, and grab the new table you're looking for. Unpack it into the "Tables" folder for Visual Pinball or whichever system it uses. Note that there's no need to exit PinballY while you do this; you can leave it running in the background.

Step two: find the new file in the PinballY wheel. By default, PinballY shows new table files in its game wheel, right right alongside your existing games.

Note that you don't have to exit and restart PinballY during this part. You can leave PinballY running in the background while you download a new game, and when you return to PinballY, the new game should be added to the wheel automatically. PinballY checks for new files in all of your table folders each time you switch the program back to the foreground.

A new table file that you just installed will be displayed using its Windows filename, since you haven't entered any of its details yet. PinballY doesn't know the game's true title until you enter it, so all it can show you at this point is the raw filename. Tables in the wheel are sorted alphabetically, so you should find the new table wherever its filename sorts into the table list.

If you don't see the new file immediately, make sure that you're viewing the "All Tables" filter rather than some more selective filter. And if you checked the box for "Hide unconfigured games" in the options dialog, that will obviously prevent the new table from showing up in the normal list. In this case, you'll have to specifically select the "Show Unconfigured Games" filter from the Operator Menu.

Step three: enter the game's details. Once you've found the new file in the game wheel, press Start/Enter to bring up the main menu. There'll be a new command near the top, "Game Setup". The main menu adds this command whenever an unconfigured game is selected. (This command isn't in the main menu for games that have already been configured, but it's always available in the Operator Menu, so you can always go back and further edit a game's details any time after setting it up.)

"Game Setup" will bring up another menu with commands for editing the game. On this menu, select "Edit game details". This will bring up a dialog box that lets you enter the game's title and other bibliographic details.

This is one of the points in PinballY where you'll need to reach for the regular mouse and keyboard. Much as I like the media-rich, button-only UI style for game playing functions, it's just not the right interface when you have to enter a bunch of text. On-screen keyboards with two-button navigation are just way too tedious. So PinballY resorts to an ordinary dialog box here. Note that if you've rotated your playfield, the dialog box won't rotate with it; it'll appear in the normal Windows desktop orientation for the monitor. If you're running on a pin cab, you might prefer to drag it onto another monitor that isn't rotated, such as your backglass monitor.

Now we get to one of my favorite parts. You can see that the Title field has a little drop-list arrow at the right. Click it. This will bring up a list of likely matches from a giant master list (derived from IPDB) of just about all of the real pinball machines ever made. The dialog tries to use the filename to guess the game title, using "fuzzy matching". The closest match is listed first, followed by several other possible matches. If you see the right title in the drop list, just pick it. This will automatically fill in the rest of the dialog with the appropriate values for the selected game, taken from the IPDB data.

The fuzzy matching isn't perfect, and filenames can be cryptic, so the initial list of guesses might not include the title you're looking for. If it doesn't, you can search for the title by typing it directly into the title box. As you type, the drop list will show new matches based on what you're typing. The right title will usually appear after you've entered the first few letters. As before, once the right match appears, just select it from the list to populate the rest of the form with the IPDB information for the game.

Alternatively, if you already know the IPDB number for the game, you can skip the title search and just enter the IPDB number into the box labeled "IPDB ID". Then click the button next to the box to fill in the rest of the form from the IPDB information for that game ID.

And if all else fails, you can enter all of the details manually. You can also manually override anything that you don't agree with from the IPDB data. Just type new values into fields you want to change.

The one other detail you might have to set manually is the System. If you have multiple versions of Visual Pinball installed (which most people do), you'll have to select the one to use with this game. PinballY can't always figure out which VP version to use for a given game, because VP re-used the same file extension across multiple program versions that can't actually use each other's files.

Once you're satisfied with the game's details, click OK to save changes.

See Editing a Game's Details for more information on this dialog.

Step four: download media. Bring up the Game Setup menu again. This time, select "Find game media online", then select "Search". This will bring up your Web browser and navigate to a Google search for a "HyperPin Media Pack" for this game.

At this point, you'll have to rely on your Web savvy to find the right HP Media Pack file. Fortunately, this is usually really easy because the Web search usually works like magic. The top result is almost always the right file from VP Forums. If the Web search doesn't turn up a good result, though, I'd recommend as a fallback that you manually browse for the file in the "Frontend Media and Backglass" section on VP Forums.

Once you find the file on VP Forums or elsewhere, click through the links to download the file. You should end up with a downloaded ZIP file (or perhaps another archive format like RAR or 7z).

Now simply drag and drop the downloaded ZIP file onto the PinballY playfield window. Assuming that the downloaded file is a valid HP Media Pack file, PinballY will show you a list of the media files it contains, giving you a chance to select the individual items to include or skip. Make your selections and select "Add Media" from the menu.

The new media will appear on-screen immediately. Again, there's no need to reboot PinballY.

By the way, if you find any individual media items for a game that you want to add separately, that's easy, too. For example, suppose you find a video of the backglass that you want to install. Just download the video and drop the file onto the backglass window. If you find a DMD video, download it and drop it onto the DMD window. PinballY will install the file in the appropriate location for the window where you drop it. You can do this with still graphics or videos for any of the windows. You can also drop an audio file (.wav or .mp3) onto the playfield to install a "Launch Audio" file, which is played automatically each time you launch the game.

Step five: capture videos (optional). The HP Media Packs usually have static graphics for the playfield and backglass, but they almost never include any video. PinballY can display animated video graphics in all windows, which makes for a livelier browsing experience.

Videos for some games are available online, but coverage is spotty, and they're not as easy to find as the Media Packs. Fortunately, PinballY makes it easy to create your own videos for all windows by capturing screen shots of the live game actually running.

Please see Media Capture for how to use the built-in capture system.