JoeViking245

July 4, 2023

Glad to hear you're having fun with LaunchBox!

In short: To import manuals, just place the pdf files into \LaunchBox\Manuals\name-of-your-platform\. However, the files will need to be named the same as the game's Title.

As for making them look amazing, they'll only look as good as they do in your pdf's.

1 hour ago, DruidofParadise said:

Is there a repository of artwork for them

Not sure what you mean by artwork for them, but EmuMovies does have manuals for some (not all) games. That will vary by platform and what's been submitted to them.

July 4, 2023

48 minutes ago, Gregorick said:

Most of my other systems run on the system -cart command line but that won't work for Hyperscan. The files are CHD files so not sure if that makes a difference?

A CHD is not a "cart". It's a cdrom. Try "-cdrom" (or it may be "-cdrm"? Depends on where you look.).

Tip: As with a lot of the MAME softlists, you may be able to get away with using just the System and not having to add the Media Option at all. In this case, the Command-line Parameter would simply be "hyperscan". (Not test [by me] with Mattel's HyperScan)

July 1, 2023

11 hours ago, Cnells2000 said:

The set Key delay was already at the top. I just forgot to copy that part

Well that don't help me, help you.

11 hours ago, Cnells2000 said:

my actual arcade cabinet with usb keyboard and I-pac encoder

Presumably, if you press Alt and the arrow buttons etc. on the keyboard (on the Cab), Keyboard Splitter receives the inputs.

Maybe on your cab (for some reason), you need to send it a more literal keypress. Try using SetKeyDelay, 100, 50 This will hold the key down for 50 milliseconds and have the delay of 100 milliseconds between presses. The only other thing might [remotely] cause an issue is, for your Alt command use "LAlt" instead of "Alt". Beyond this, I'm at a loss as to why it's not receiving key inputs from AHK on your cab only.

Out of curiosity, (assuming your I-Pac is in keyboard mode and not Xinput mode) instead of using the keyboard, are you able to press Player1-Button2 and then Player1 joystick in lieu of Alt, arrow keys?

July 1, 2023

38 minutes ago, legolas119 said:

But if i run the game directly from LB/BB, bezels are cropped:

Remove "-artwork_crop" from the Default Command-line Parameters.

June 30, 2023

8 hours ago, Cnells2000 said:

Still Not grabbing.

To clarify, you got the script to work on one computer, but it doesn't work on a different computer?

In your 2nd video here, it looks like when you double-click the script, KeyboardSplitter takes focus. But not 6 seconds later. Which tells me, after you start the script, you click on KS to set focus. So we don't know if the 2nd line of the script is even working. Granted, KS has focus and after 6 seconds the key presses should be sent.

Speaking of lines in the script, try adding back-in the SetKeyDelay line. Some apps can't handle a rapid succession of key inputs so they need that slight delay. If that line bothers you, you can go back to what the AI told you and put a Sleep after each keypress. These 2 do the exact same thing, it's just the 2nd way gives your brain more of a visual of what's going on (and is fugly ).

June 29, 2023

1 hour ago, Zaphod54 said:

any advantage to treating NAOMI and Model 2 as separate platforms vs. just playlists under Arcade, when using a different emulator for those games, particularly in regard to having an "associated" emulator to the platform?

The advantage (for me) of having them in their own platform is setting the associated emulator. If they were all in Arcade, I'd have to determine which games I need to change their respective emulators for. There may be a way to filter, then just do a bulk edit. But [for me] this is way easier.

1 hour ago, Zaphod54 said:

what does configuring an emulator to be associated with a platform actually do?

With multiple associated emulators, you're able to right click a game and select one-or-the-other of them. Say you had the Atari 7800 platform using RetroArch and you wanted to test the A7800 emulator. You add A7800 and associate it to Atari 7800 (not making it Default) then can right click various game to test it. ...as one example.

June 28, 2023

11 hours ago, Cnells2000 said:

i couldnt find this.

You had it highlighted right at the end of the video.

To verify the script is doing something, add in some message boxes at key points. Like right before the 1st "Send", add "MsgBox, About to send keys". Then after those sends', "MsgBox, Keys sent Waiting for tmnt to exit". And maybe some others if you feel like it.

The window is in-focus (you can see it), but does it have-focus (it's the active window)? To be sure, after your 3 second pause, you could add in "WinActivate ahk_exe whateverGKS.exe". (replacing the last part with your Gaming Keyboard Splitter executable)

June 27, 2023

1 minute ago, Cnells2000 said:

everything works now.

You beat me to it. Glad you got it working.

I adjusted the script [above] to reflect the proper WinWaitActive line.

June 27, 2023

14 hours ago, Cnells2000 said:

Its supposed to finish these steps.....

Try giving tmnt more time to [fully] close. (1 [FULL] second? 2 seconds?)

Is it safe to assume that 'Send {Tab}' is to set focus on "OK" (then 'Send {Enter}' to select it)?

SetKeyDelay, 100

Sleep, 3000

Send {Alt}
Send {Right 4}
Send {Down}
Send {Right}
Send {Down}
Send {Enter}
Sleep, 3000
Send, {Tab}
Send {Enter}

; Wait for the "tmnt.exe" window to become active
WinWaitActive, ahk_exe tmnt.exe

; Wait until the process closes
Process, WaitClose, tmnt.exe

; give it a sec to completely close
Sleep 1000

Send {Tab}

; Send Enter key
Send {Enter}
Sleep 2000

; Send Alt + F4 to close the Keyboard Splitter Program
Send !{F4}

;not required
;ExitApp

June 19, 2023

8 hours ago, bradbradbrad said:

The UCR UI overlays on top of the game. Is there a way to launch it minimized or behind the game itself?

This should help with that.

Run, "UCR.exe" -p "Steam",,Min

June 18, 2023

34 minutes ago, bradbradbrad said:

I added the absolute path per your recommendation. I then made sure to save it as a .ahk extension, but it didn't load UCR at all still for some reason.

Line 1 in the script is missing some quotation marks. Because the path to UCR.exe has spaces in it, that whole part needs to be encapsulated.

Run, "C:\Program Files (x86)\UCR_v0.9.0\UCR.exe" -p "Steam"

June 18, 2023

3 minutes ago, DeadVoivod said:

I know that you can put whatever link you want, that's what I usually do, but I don't want it to say Wikipedia when it's clearly not.

Ya, the latter part of the method I showed (changing the W image) is an all-or-nothing deal. Which I agree, doesn't help too much.

Another [interim] workaround is to add a Custom Field that has the Value set to your ROM Hack site URL. And again, with some creative xaml manipulation, make the Custom Field clickable to take you to the site.

June 18, 2023

[Not to stray too much from the OP...]

9 hours ago, DeadVoivod said:

I made once a request in BitBucket to be able to add customizable fields for the URL fields, there's only one for Video and one for Wikipedia, I would like to change the name f.ex. to Hack that would point you to the ROM Hack site instead of Wikipedia.

For the interim, you can put whatever hyperlink/web-URL you want in the Wikipedia field.

And with some creative xaml manipulation, you could even change the <Path Data= line to change the icon that's shown.

Edit: Something like this

June 16, 2023

41 minutes ago, midd said:

So now it’s making more sense.

Yes it does.

I don't emulate DC much either. In fact, I think I only have 1 game for testing purposes. lol

Curious... with the ROM File (screenshot) not actually pointing to the physical file, is LB able to launch the game through emulator?

💡 Is it safe to assume that your emulator settings in LaunchBox has the checkbox: Use Filename Only without extension, checked? If so, then the emulator knows to look for the folder named after the ROM name (minus extension).

Thanks again for digging into this!

June 16, 2023

36 minutes ago, midd said:

My DreamCast games are in their own folders.

Thanks for following through. I was getting ready to have the plugin create a massive debug log to (hopefully) help pinpoint the issue.

If you haven't changed them all already, can you please share a screenshot of the Launching section (edit game) for one of your games that are still in their own folder?

June 15, 2023

40 minutes ago, midd said:

They are in the right location and path file

Really not sure what to say then. Is the full path to, and including the ROM name by chance super long? i.e.

D:\This\is\a\super\long\path\to\way\deep\into\the\harddrive\where\no\man\has\gone\before\Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (USA).gdi

Is the ROM located on a server of sorts making the path different than normal? Had one use during beta testing say theirs was on a server, but it had worked as expected. I know nothing about servers so don't know hot that all works. But supposedly it did.

Beyond that, I'm at a loss.

June 15, 2023

10 minutes ago, midd said:

take notice of me. Pac-Man . Look below the concert box and you’ll see the file that the plug in claimed to not use found.

The plugin gets the games ROM location from its Application Path.

Can you edit the game "Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness", go to the Launching section and confirm that ROM File is pointing to either the Full\Path\To\ or Relative\Path\To\ the .gdi file?

June 15, 2023

Copy Metadata (plugin): Apply metadata from someone else's XML file to your own.

View File

Scenario:
"I have a build where I'm manually changing every game genre to a single genre/subgenre value and would love to share it, but without a tool to apply my metadata to their own it's kinda pointless."

Solution:
Copy Metadata plugin.

Purpose:
Import selected metadata from someone else's platform_name.xml file into one of your existing Platforms.

This will scan a LaunchBox platform_name.xml file and compare it your existing platform. For all matching games*, it will update the metadata you chose to have imported.

(*See Finding Matching Games for how games are matched up.)

Metadata fields to import (can select one or more):

Genre
Series
Developer
Publisher
Notes
ReleaseDate
DatabaseID
VideoUrl
WikipediaURL
CustomField (up to 3)

Warning:

This will REPLACE any existing metadata for the fields you've selected. There is no un-do button.
The exception is Custom Field(s).
- This will add new Custom Fields.
- If an existing Custom Field with the same Name as one be imported is found, you have the option to
  - Overwrite your existing Custom Field
  - Add a new Custom Field (creating 2 with the same Name but different Values)

How to:
Requires LaunchBox 13.3 or newer

Download, unblock the zip file, copy the contents of the zip to ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\
- i.e. D:\LaunchBox\Plugins\CopyMetadata\CopyMetadata.dll
Start LaunchBox
Click Tools
Select "Copy Metadata"
Click Browse to locate and select the xml file you want to import from
- (optional) Drag & Drop the file onto the TextBlock (directly above the Browse button)
Select your platform you want the metadata imported to
- (The plugin will attempt to 'select' the appropriate one for you)
Check the metadata items you want imported
To import a Custom Field
- Click "Include Custom Field(s)"
- Click the dropdown box and select the one you want imported
- Check the box next to it to have it imported
- (optional: you can select up to 2 others to be imported)
Click Import

Finding Matching Games:
Every effort is made to properly match games in your existing platform to an external platform_name.xml.

It will first use the games LBDatabaseID # to ensure an exact match.
If there are no matching database ID #'s, it will compare the games file_name.ext.
If there are still no matches, it will look for a matching game Title.

Concept for this plugin was inspired by @C-Beats who caught me when I was bored and looking for a plugin idea.

Submitter

JoeViking245
Submitted

06/15/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

June 15, 2023

50 minutes ago, midd said:

Thanks for the reply. This is what I get when I try. I suppose it has something to do with the gdi file? My Dreamcast roms are a gdi file along with bin. I assumed the plug-in would comvert based on the bin files.

Screenshots are worth a thousand words! The plugin you're using is the [older] Bulk Convert .cue/.bin files which will only look for .cue files.

At the top of this page, click the blue View File. This will open a new page.
The top of the new page will show Bulk Convert cue/gdi/iso files to CHD. On the right, click the red Download this file.
Follow Installing the plugin as outlined on the 'new page'.
Before starting LaunchBox, Open Window Explorer and delete the old plugin folder. ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\cue2chd\
- Not to be confused with the new one ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BulkConvert2CHD\

June 15, 2023

11 minutes ago, midd said:

When i use this to convert Dreamcast games, none of them convert? If I do one at a time using chdman and a bat file it converts individual games

Are you getting any kind of error (or otherwise) messages? Such as "Converting", "Please Wait", ""Converting Complete", "Error Converting".... Any details you can provide will greatly help to determine what is or is-not going on.

Does your batch file use the same "createcd" command line parameter for chdman?

It's possible you have different versions of chdman.exe on your system. Copy the one your batch file uses (the one that works for you) into your ../LaunchBox/Plugins/BulkConvert2CHD/ folder and run the plugin again.

Please let me know what you find. Thanks.

June 11, 2023

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

Are there others who are into it?

Of course. Just go to the Third-Party Applications and Plugins (Released) section and you should see quite a few. Or simply peruse the Downloads section.

June 11, 2023

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

the media name is derived from `<Title>`, as presumably underscore replaces the colon, and the result would not fit the pattern of the rom name.

When LaunchBox imports images, pretty sure it bases it off the game Tile. As you deduced. That said, if you bring in your own images, LaunchBox will match them to either the games Title or the ROM name. Both of these will work:

Tomcat - The F-14 Fighter Simulator (USA).png
Tomcat_ The F-14 Fighter Simulator.png

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

what is the replacement algorithm for all invalid filename chars?

To replace invalid (filename) characters, you can make use of the built in System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars(). When doing one of my [more obscure] plugins, I found that LB also replaces the single quote ( ' ). Since I was needing to do this often, I created a method that accommodates both the built in list and the single quote.

private string ReplaceInvalidChars(string filename)
{
   return string.Join("_", filename.Split(System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars())).Replace("'","_");
}

(Hint: Click "Code" next to the above smiley face to inset code with syntax highlighting. The forum does use Markdown. I commend the attempt though. )

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

if there's two "Pong_01.png" and Pong_01.jpg", which is given priority?

Don't know. But if you select a game in LB that has both image formats, you can press F5 and it will randomly switch between the 2. The key here being "random". (as opposed to 'alternating') Actually, as I think about it, that may be just if you have _01, _02 etc.

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

is there any way to set the image name in the database manually?

LB doesn't store a record(s) of your images. (That would get ugly, fast.) But if you wish to rename your images that are stored on your HDD (or wherever you may have them stored) to the ROM name (ugh), there's a plugin that will do that for you.

June 10, 2023

Try removing -cart and use only mtx512.

Also, it appears any actual "games" for this system are on cassette media (mtx_cass). (Assuming it's the games you're after.) So if removing -cart doesn't work, try using -cass instead.

June 10, 2023

17 minutes ago, Headrush69 said:

smart quotations

Appears that was my oversite. Never even paid attention to that. What's unfortunate is I copied 5thWolfs [in-line] text and pasted it into the 'code' formatting here when replying. The original in-line text appears fine, but when pasted, they come out as smart quotes. Note [to self] for future: pay attention to the quotations. 😊

June 9, 2023

5 hours ago, 5thWolf said:

Mine is just a windows error popup box from mame, will send a pic tomorrow when i can, doesn't look like your pic though just that single line i quoted before.

Open the Windows Command Prompt from your MAME folder and start mame.exe. You'll get a verbose readout in that window, and MAME will start to load then close (no error popup window should appear [this time]). In the Command Prompt window, about the 2nd line up from the bottom should be that message ("Fatal Error:"). Hopefully the line above that will give some more clarity.

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Copy Metadata (plugin): Apply metadata from someone else's XML file to your own.