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Dilemma:
"Oh snap! I used the MAME Arcade Full Set Import Wizard, unchecked all filter boxes and now I have a bunch of extra junk in my Arcade platform."
image.thumb.png.023b3ce50d290420945df4d5d48e11b5.png

 

Solution(s):
Option 1:  Delete the Arcade platform and re-import again (this time paying attention to the boxes you decide to un-check).

This is actually a super easy and relatively fast process.  And you won't need to re-download images again (assuming you downloaded some and didn't delete the media also when deleting the platform).

Option 2:  Run this plugin and check the boxes to have those filter types removed from your collection and click Delete.
image.thumb.png.7223f96132df06daed852bd414209e61.png

 

Plugin Features:

  • Show you the number of 'games' you have in each filter type. (unplayable, bootleg, quiz, rhythm, mahjong etc.)
  • Check the boxes for the filter type(s) you wish to remove and click Delete to remove them from your LaunchBox collection.
  • Click the number next to the filter type to show a list of the 'games' included with that filter.  (shows ROM name and game Title)
    • (optional)  Create a text file of "the list" (for whatever reason)
    • (optional)  Create a playlist from "the list"

image.thumb.png.11b27bd8d45cb1fb08a966cfd5d0637f.png


Notes:
You don't need to have used the MAME Arcade Full Set Import Wizard to make use of this plugin.

When launched, the plugin will attempt to load the platform "Arcade". If that's not found or you want to check a different platform that uses MAME ROMs, select the platform from the drop-down list then click Get Counts.

"Total Games" only takes into account your Main Games. No Additional Apps (clones) are accounted for in that number.

When clicking Delete to remove the games in the selected filter type(s), if a game being removed has Additional Apps, those will be removed too.  No ROMs will be deleted from your system.  Only the entries in your LaunchBox collection.

It won't delete any images associated with the removed games.  But most likely, the 'junk' won't have any anyway.  If they did, it's nothing that a suitable application of Clean Up Media located in the Tools menu couldn't take care of.

The Save to Text File option saves the file to ..\Plugins\FilterArcadePlatform\Output\[filter_type].txt

The Add to Playlist option will name the new playlist "Arcade type-[fileter_type]" and place it under the category "Arcade".  If your selected platform is named something other than "Arcade", it' will name the playlist and put it under the category using your platforms actual name.
    
RE: Game Counts:

  • Some games fall into multiple filter types.  i.e. some (but not all) Fruit games are also included in with Casino games.  
    • So don't try to add the numbers up and have them make sense.
  • "Remove Preliminary" refers to Emulation Status and only includes games that are marked as Preliminary AND are not included any of the other filter types.


Example Usage:

  1. Using the Import Wizard, un-check Skip games unplayable in MAME
    • Once done, from the Arcade platform Search for source:model3
    • Select all the resulting games
    • Press Ctrl+E to start the Bulk Edit Wizard
    • Select the Field "Platform"
    • Set the Value to (type in) "Sega Model 3" (without quotes)
    • Save
    • From here, you can
      • Do "Option 1" (above) and your Sega Model 3 games will [now] be safe.
      • Or, using the plugin and have it remove the remaining "Unplayable Games".
  2. Have the Import Wizard include "Bootleg", "Hacked" and "Prototype" games
    • Use the plugin to create playlists of those respective filter types
  3. Select the playlist "Arcade type-Bootleg" created in example (2) and... well, I don't know.  Attempt to play them, I guess.

    


Beyond that (if that), it's not very practical. But may have some merits.


What's New in Version 1.0.1   See changelog

Released

Fixed: - An Error would sometimes occur when loading the plugin

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 2
  • Unusual Gem 1

User Feedback

Recommended Comments

Retrofrogg

Posted

I haven't used this plugin, but it sounds great. This feature should be an integral part of Launchbox really!

sundogak

Posted

Thanks for the all the useful plugins.  On beta 13.17 beta 4 I get the following error when launching the plugin.  It still seems to work as intended after closing the error box but if close and relaunch will get same error.    

  Reveal hidden contents

 

JoeViking245

Posted

  On 10/11/2024 at 4:04 PM, sundogak said:

Thanks for the all the useful plugins.  On beta 13.17 beta 4 I get the following error when launching the plugin.  It still seems to work as intended after closing the error box but if close and relaunch will get same error. 

Expand  

You are very welcome! 

Thanks for the heads up.  I think this error occurs when you don't have a platform named "Arcade" (with a capital "A").  At least that's how I was able to reproduce the error.  

A presumptuous assumption on my part. 😊

This should be fixed now in v1.0.1.

sundogak

Posted

  On 10/11/2024 at 5:43 PM, JoeViking245 said:

You are very welcome! 

Thanks for the heads up.  I think this error occurs when you don't have a platform named "Arcade" (with a capital "A").  At least that's how I was able to reproduce the error.  

A presumptuous assumption on my part. 😊

This should be fixed now in v1.0.1.

Expand  

Yep that fixed it, good assumption!  I do have an Arcade Platform but the MAME games are specifically under MAME platform nested under Arcade. 

  • Game On 1
Zaphod54

Posted

Oh, wow!  I just found, and can't wait to try this plugin!!  I wish this existed back when I first set up my Launchbox.  I did exactly what this plugin does, but did it all manually.  This would have saved me a bunch of time!

More specifically, I purposely did not check any of the boxes during the import and then manually created playlists for them, and manually selected all games in each playlist (CTRL-A) and marked them as Hide.

Just personal preference, I like to have more control over things to know exactly what items are being hidden than letting the system do it automatically and never knowing what those items were.

Actually, that could be a feature request for this plugin.  Add an option when creating playlists to automatically mark the games as Hide.

JoeViking245

Posted

  On 10/30/2024 at 5:13 AM, Zaphod54 said:

Add an option when creating playlists to automatically mark the games as Hide.

Expand  

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll add it to the Request List.  If/when I get more similar requests, I'll look into adding that option.

After you've imported a plethora of extracurricular crap ROMs that are mostly unplayable, it's nearly impossible to make heads or tails of what's what in the main platform. So using this plugin, we filter out what we can into playlists. 

It seems to me that you'd want to at least get a visual of what's in theses playlist(s) before hiding those ROMs that you're-never-going-to-look-at-or-even-attempt-to-play-ever-again.  Granted, I suppose you can see them in a list before generating the playlist.

Zaphod54

Posted

Thanks for considering adding the "automatically mark games as Hide" option.

 

  On 10/30/2024 at 12:10 PM, JoeViking245 said:

After you've imported a plethora of extracurricular crap ROMs that are mostly unplayable, it's nearly impossible to make heads or tails of what's what in the main platform. So using this plugin, we filter out what we can into playlists. 

Expand  

Exactly!  That's why I did exactly that, but I created all the playlists manually back when I first set mine up a year ago.  So when I reimport things in the future, I can use this plugin now and save me a bunch of time!

I'm also curious to see how this plugin creates the playlists compared to what I did manually, to see if I missed anything when I created mine.

 

  On 10/30/2024 at 12:10 PM, JoeViking245 said:

It seems to me that you'd want to at least get a visual of what's in theses playlist(s) before hiding those ROMs that you're-never-going-to-look-at-or-even-attempt-to-play-ever-again.  Granted, I suppose you can see them in a list before generating the playlist.

Expand  

Yes, absolutely.  Especially if someone is setting it up for the first time.  Certainly, the option to automatically mark as hide should be an "option" and probably default it to off for exactly that reason.

But now that I know what I'm doing and essentially trust it, if I ever want to regenerate those playlists for some reason, or maybe I'm setting up a new LB on another computer, or just starting over from scratch, it would save me the time of going through each playlist manually, doing CTRL-A, and bulk edit to mark Hide on all of them.  AND if I do want to actually look through the list, it's easy enough to temporarily turn off the View option to hide games marked as hidden so I can view what's in them.

JoeViking245

Posted

  On 10/31/2024 at 12:11 AM, Zaphod54 said:

I'm also curious to see how this plugin creates the playlists compared to what I did manually, to see if I missed anything when I created mine.

Expand  

The plugin parses /LaunchBox/Metadata/Mame.xml.  It looks at each game (in the file) and looks for its "game type" (for lack of better words) and adds it to that type.

  • IsMechanical;
  • IsBootleg;
  • IsPrototype;
  • IsHack;
  • IsMature
  • IsQuiz
  • IsFruit
  • IsCasino
  • IsRhythm
  • IsTabletop
  • IsPlaychoice
  • IsMahjong
  • IsNonArcade

If the Genre is "System / Device", it added as a "System Device".

If the games Status is "preliminary" AND it didn't fall into any of the above categories ('game types'), it's added as Preliminary.

Lastly, it checks "RequiresChd" = True and adds those to.. you guessed it, "Requires CHD".

 

Note: Some games fall into multiple filter types.  See RE: Game Counts: in the description.

Zaphod54

Posted

Good info!  Thanks!!  When I created my playlists for these, I based it all on Genre.  So like...

Genre Contains Puzzle /

Genre Contains Quiz /

etc., etc.

I don't think the game type that you're parsing from the Mame.xml gets imported as a field in Launchbox.  Or at least it it's not a field that can be used for auto-populate with a playlist.  So yeah, I'll be curious how my playlists compare to yours.

It'll probably be a few days before I get a chance to try the plugin though.

JoeViking245

Posted

  On 10/31/2024 at 11:55 PM, Zaphod54 said:

I don't think the game type that you're parsing from the Mame.xml gets imported as a field in Launchbox.  Or at least it it's not a field that can be used for auto-populate with a playlist.  So yeah, I'll be curious how my playlists compare to yours.

Expand  

None of those get imported as metadata in that state as a Boolean.  They're just what LaunchBox uses with the MAME Arcade Import Wizard.  

I believe LaunchBox sets them (at least some of them) by parsing \LaunchBox\ThirdParty\MAME\catver.ini.

 

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