VPin Studio Preferences - syd711/vpin-studio GitHub Wiki
Cabinet Settings
Client Settings
The client settings page offers different options to adapt the appearance of the VPin Studio client, such as enabling/disabling the available emulators:
Emulator Settings
Additionally, the available Table Overview columns and sections can be toggled on/off:
Table Overview Settings
Visible Table Columns & Sidebar Sections
The Network Share
You can configure the system folder buttons (yellow icons) so that these are available on remote clients too.
Media Sources
Media Sources configure additional locations the VPin Studio searches when auto-filling or looking up table assets. Besides the built-in sources (PinUP Popper's own media, PinballX, tutorial videos, the SuperHac ROM repository and, if VPin Mania is enabled, its logo repository - all listed as "Provided" and always available), you can Add your own local folder as a source:
- Name - a display name for the source.
- Folder - the folder location on your cabinet.
- Enabled - whether the source is currently active.
- Search Strategy - either Auto-Detect (the asset type is guessed from the file's name and path; files that can't be matched are excluded) or Selected Screens (the source is only used for the frontend screens/asset types you explicitly check - if none are checked, it's used for all of them).
Built-in web sources can be enabled/disabled and scoped to specific screens the same way, but their location isn't editable since it's provided by the VPin Studio itself.
Media Sources
Adding a Media Source
Server Settings
Automatic Shutdown
The automatic shutdown option is a useful tool when you want to make sure that your VPin isn't turned on and idle for too long. If the VPin does not register a key input for n minutes, it will shutdown automatically. Note that this shutdown countdown is resetted for every HTTP request that is done by the VPin Studio.
Server Options
Server Options
Drop-In Folder
A watched folder for quick table/asset installs - drop a file into it and, once it's finished downloading/copying, it shows up in the Drop-In Assets menu in the header toolbar ready to install. Enable it, pick the folder to watch, and choose what should happen to a file once it has been installed: do nothing, move it to a folder (optionally into a per-table subfolder), ask for a folder every time, or delete it (optionally to the recycle bin).
Drop-In Folder Settings
Studio Backup & Restore
This backs up your VPin Studio configuration, not your tables - for table backups see
Table Backups. Use Create Backup to write a single
JSON file (VPin-Studio-Backup[date-time].json) containing your preferences, players, VPS comments and per-table
notes/mappings. The server also creates one of these automatically whenever a minor version upgrade is detected.
Backup Actions
Restore Backup lets you select a backup file and choose exactly what to restore - Preferences (note: this includes sensitive data like your Discord bot token), Players, Virtual Pinball Spreadsheet Comments, Table Data (optionally narrowed further to Notes, VPS Mappings, Highscore Card Settings and Table Version), PinVol.ini Files and your pinemhi.ini file. Restoring is selective - only the sections you check are applied, and table data is matched back onto tables by filename. No media (images, videos, screenshots) is included in this backup.
Restore Backup Dialog
Popper Settings
This page lets you tweak PinUP Popper behavior that normally has to be set through its own "Custom Options" script box. All changes are written there for you and applied on next launch. A few of the more commonly needed ones:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Autostart PinUP Menu with VPin Studio Server | Starts Popper with the server, so you no longer need Popper's own autostart. |
| Return To Next | Advances to the next game when you return to the game selection screen. |
| No System Favourites / No System Playlists | Hides the built-in auto-generated Favourites/most-played playlists. |
| 'Play Only' Mode | Enables a child-lock style restricted mode once Popper is running. |
| Pause Displays On Load / Pause Playfield On Load | Pauses displays (or just the playfield) while a table loads, for speed - disable the playfield one if your loading videos should play seamlessly. |
| Attract Mode On Start | Popper starts on a random/attract-mode game instead of the last-used one. |
| Mute Launch Audio | Mutes table audio during the launch sequence. |
| Watchdog | Experimental. Monitors the playfield media player on 24/7 cabinets and restarts Popper if it crashes. |
| Emulator Exit Count | Number of exit-key presses required to close the emulator (1-3). |
| Return Delay | Delay in ms before the menu reappears after a game closes, to let DMD/DOF devices re-initialize. |
| Rapid Fire Count | Suppresses accidental repeated next/previous key presses beyond this count. |
| Auto Exit Emulator | Automatically returns to Popper after N seconds without any input inside the emulator. |
| Intro Skip | Automatically stops the intro video after N seconds. |
| Launch Timeout | How long Popper waits before hiding itself after launching a table - increase this for slow-loading tables (e.g. Future Pinball). |
| Loading Fade Out Mode | Normal, fade out video and audio, or keep playing the loading video until it ends or a key is pressed. |
Other available toggles include Show Info In Game, Pop Up Hide On Any Key, Joystick Axis Move, Volume Change, Use Alt Wheels, Default Media Directory, Wheel Animation Time and Wheel Update Speed.
Popper Settings
Controller Setup
The controller setup must be started on the cabinet itself. It configures the keys for the pause menu and overlay.
You can also bind a reset key which will kill all emulators and restart the frontend.
Pause Menu Preferences
The pause menu is a custom menu that is used to pause VPX and show additional information about the table that is currently played.
The menu item are created using the existing assets from the "help", "other2" and "info" folders of PinUP Popper. Note that all assets from these folders are loaded and provided as individual menu items in the menu. These assets can be images or videos. The menu will show or play them once the menu is selected.
Additionally, the Virtual-Pinball-Spreadsheet is used to look up available tutorials for the table and provide tutorial menu entries for them.
Pause Menu & Tutorial Videos
Tutorial videos are streamed and played natively inside the pause menu itself - there is no dependency on Chrome or any other browser being installed on the VPin, and no separate browser process is launched for them. In order for these videos to appear in the pause menu navigation, you have to make sure, that the VPS mapping table is set. You can do that inside the Table Data Manager or in the VPS sidebar section, because these tutorial videos are mapped in the Virtual Pinball Spreadsheet.
Overlay Preferences
The overlay dashboard can be shown on startup of the VPin for via an additional button. The button for the overlay must have been mapped in the Controller preferences.
Overlay Designs
You can choose from different designs for your overlay. The designs differ in the widgets that are displayed. Additionally, you can choose a design with an embedded external URL. This can be used e.g. to embed a iscored.info dashboard.
Notifications
The VPin Studio can show small on-screen notifications for a number of events, independent of the Discord notifications described in Discord Notifications. Each event type has its own toggle, so you can enable only the ones that are useful for your setup:
- New highscore created
- Highscore checked (table exited, no new highscore found)
- Studio/server startup
- iScored score submission
- Discord activity
- Competition start / end
- Generic desktop notifications
- Recording start / recording end (see Media Recorder)
For the notification popup itself you can configure the display duration, the screen offset and the target screen it should appear on. Use the Test button to preview a notification with the current settings before saving.
Notification Settings
Score Format
Filter Highscores restricts which highscores are processed for events and the dashboard to only those whose initials match one of your configured players - handy if strangers' initials from ROM default highscores keep showing up. See Highscore Filtering for more detail.
This page also has a Download NVRams button. "Resetted" nvram files (which lower the score threshold needed to register as a new highscore) are normally downloaded automatically on server startup - use this button to force a re-download on demand.
Shortcuts
A read-only reference of every keyboard shortcut available in the table overview and elsewhere in the Studio client (nothing on this page is rebindable). The most useful ones:
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+O | Open the table details dialog |
| Ctrl+I | Open the table assets dialog |
| Ctrl+D | Open the table's Virtual Pinball Spreadsheet entry |
| Ctrl+U | Upload and import a table |
| Ctrl+R | Force-reload the selected table(s) |
| Ctrl+L | Launch the selected table |
| Ctrl+B | Backup the selected table(s) |
| Ctrl+T | Tag the selected table(s) |
| Ctrl+F | Focus the search field |
| Ctrl+K | Kill all frontend and VPX processes |
| Delete | Delete the selected table(s) |
| F2-F7 | Switch between the All Tables / Backglasses / VPS Tables / Table Backups / Table Statistics / Media Recorder tabs |
There are also four window-resize shortcuts (Ctrl+Alt+H/W/S for FullHD/WQHD/HD-ready) and Ctrl+Alt+U to reopen the latest release notes.
Shortcuts Reference