Be jt mame, mess,arcade mameui or otheror other front-ends.
THE FILE STRUCTRE SAME
Be the platform Windows, MAC, Lunix, Android, Raspberry Pi
Still the same
Split, non-merged or merged sets.
Sane.
Clrmamepro is a rom manager and has nothing do with the front-ends.
It appears you desire to have a specialize rom with separate bios, chd, devices and roms folders. with mame as the only front-end.
First edit mame.ini <I use notepad++>
Edit the rompath to read.
Since these folders are in your root mame directory. No need for full paths.
You will have a nonstandard split rom set.
Get the dat files here.
https://www.progettosnaps.net/download/?tipo=dat_mame&file=/dats/MAME/packs/MAME_Dats_231.7z
Use clrmamepro to manage these images.