JoeViking245

If you wanted to do a little 'house cleaning', if your CDI games folder is listed in your rompath in your mame.ini file, you can just leave that one. Otherwise, a safe bet would be to place it in your "roms" folder under MAME [emulator folder]. But any location will work as long as it's in the "rompath". There's almost always 'another way' to do this, but through your digging and experimentation your found the "Right" way to it. Well done!

I tested it with MAME 0.236 (which uses the hi folder [aka "before this change"]) and 0.237 (which uses the hiscore folder), and both played nice with LaunchBox's community high score feature.. without needing to edit or change anything.

For what you're asking, the only way to check if a certain rom file exists is to change (create new) your emulator to an AHK script (or similar). You can't pass the path/rom_file to an Additional App. The AHK script you create as the emulator will see the path/rom_file.ext as %1%. You can then check for the file with something like if FileExist("%1%")

Only 2 things I can think of. When your doing a bunch of testing, (i.e. start LB [once], launch a game that starts a script then continues to the game, exit game, modify script, launch that game again.... over and over and over) occasionally [not necessarily after EVERY change] exit LB and then restart it. After exiting, check that you don't have any spurious AHK scripts lingering in the background (still running). When you Minimize LB/BB at the beginning of your script, you may want/need to restore it (them) just before your ExitApp.

In your Exodus Platform, select all the games (click one of them, then press Ctrl+A). Then click Tools, and select Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games.

Another thought is to copy the contents of the Audit to a spreadsheet and then you can remove the unneeded columns, keeping the games Title, folder location and even the duplicates column. Heck, even save it as a .csv file. Or (maybe a little more work?) put your roms in a 'temp' folder and then drag & drop them into LB to import. Then [in the Import Wizard] select the option to "Move the files". The only [potential] drawback to that is you can only move them into your ../LaunchBox/Games/yourPlatformName/ folder [which isn't necessarily a bad thing]. But the ones that don't get moved are the ones not imported. Then if ultimately you don't want then under the LaunchBox/Games folder structure, you can manually move them to their final location and use the Tools, Change ROMs Folder Path. I'm not discrediting your idea, just brainstorming current available options. To get something 'new' integrated into LaunchBox, they say the best way is to click [at the top of this page] Help & Support then Request a Feature. Sometimes thoughts, requests and ideas get "lost" (for lack of a better word) here in the forums. But the Feature Request Bitbucket is dedicated to just that.

You might could use Tools, Audit [Platform Name] after you do your Import to see what's there. If your Platform is Arcade (MAME), you'll want to be a little careful on what files you delete, depending on the type of set you have. Some arcade machine roms rely on other files that don't/won't get imported as games. Namely Bios and Device files.

Correct. For the Copy or Move options from the Import Wizard. LaunchBox should not / will not place anything in your personal Documents folder unless that's where you initially installed it. If you have your [Nintendo Switch] Platform already setup in LB, but all the existing games are pointing to the old folder location (H: drive), all you need to do is Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games. Select all games (select one, then hit Ctrl+A) and then click Tools and you'll find the option to Change there. When you want to Scan for Added Nintendo Switch ROMs, LB will look inside the Game - Folder Path you set for that Platform ("G:\LaunchBox 2\Games\Switch"). If you want to create your [Nintendo Switch] Platform from scratch, with your roms located in the 'new' (G: Drive) folder, use the Import Wizard and select Use the files in their current location. Initial clicking of the Browse button will always start from LB's main folder. Not from the Path that's in the field adjacent to it. If you look at it from the point of a self contained, portable app, that's ideally(?) where you'd have all your assets: images, videos, manuals AND emulators and roms. Again, it's browsing to a 'starting point'.

Beta 6 It's probably "just a thing", but I'm seeing an extra Log file appear when starting BigBox. The extra Log has just 2 lines: 2021-11-05 09:48:26 AM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: No OID value matches this name. at System.Security.Cryptography.Oid.FromFriendlyName(String friendlyName, OidGroup group) And then the normal Log file: 2021-11-05 09:48:15 AM All necessary config files and folders now confirmed to exist. 2021-11-05 09:48:23 AM DataManager.SaveInternal started. 2021-11-05 09:48:23 AM Saving InputBindings.xml... 2021-11-05 09:48:23 AM Saving GameControllers.xml... 2021-11-05 09:48:24 AM Saving ListCache.xml... 2021-11-05 09:48:24 AM Saving Settings.xml... 2021-11-05 09:48:25 AM DataManager.SaveInternal completed successfully. 2021-11-05 09:48:27 AM MainViewModel setting active view model: PlatformWheel1FiltersViewModel 2021-11-05 09:48:27 AM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: ImageSourceConverter cannot convert from System.String. at System.ComponentModel.TypeConverter.GetConvertFromException(Object value) 2021-11-05 09:48:27 AM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: ImageSourceConverter cannot convert from System.String. at System.ComponentModel.TypeConverter.GetConvertFromException(Object value) at System.ComponentModel.TypeConverter.ConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, CultureInfo culture, Object value) at System.Windows.Media.ImageSourceConverter.ConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, CultureInfo culture, Object value) 2021-11-05 09:48:27 AM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: ImageSourceConverter cannot convert from System.String. at MS.Internal.Data.DefaultValueConverter.ConvertHelper(Object o, Type destinationType, DependencyObject targetElement, CultureInfo culture, Boolean isForward) 2021-11-05 09:48:28 AM Music.Resume Start ..... The Exceptions in the 2nd are quite possibly from my own wonky Theme. (I'm not too worried about that.) Note the Time Stamp in the 1st one. It falls in about 8 lines down on the 2nd Log file. It only happens during BB startup and not LB. I see it both when starting BB directly and when starting BB through LB (Ctrl+B). Tested on two different PCs. There are no other Log files like this (the 2-liner) prior to beta 6.

How about creating a Playlist?

Tested with MAME 0.236 and 0.237. Both worked [here] for uploading scores via "hi" and "hiscore" folders, respectively.

You can set the specific Platforms to use a specific Theme independent of other Platforms. There are a couple vertical themes in the download section. So set the Default theme and Arcade theme to a horizontal one you like, and then VPX to a vertical theme. As for catching the event when entering the different platforms, a longshot may be "BigBoxThemeChanged". Technically the theme will have changed, but not sure if that's what the event is actually looking 'at'. Vs. say setting/changing it in Options or changing it via a keyboard shortcut. But there's one sure way to find out.

Pause Arcade.zip You can just unzip this into your /PauseThemes/Default/ folder. (assuming you don't already have an "Arcade.xaml" file in there) Oh, and your control panel images need to be in the "Arcade - Controls Information" folder. (as opposed to the "Arcade - Control Panel" folder) It turns out my startup theme was modified from the Framed Header theme that @Retro808 created a couple years ago. I guess I'm not really an "up with the times" kind of guy. lol Anyway, my customized part is not really user friendly for sharing as I changed shtuff around to work on my cab. In fact looking at the xaml file and what I did to it, it's a wonder that it even works. I would need to go through it and fix/change some things to make it portable (a.k.a. work on any other computer than my own). What you can do that's easy enough; if you find a startup theme that you like, and "all you need to do is" change that one image type to an "Arcade - Controls Information" image.. If say "that one image type that's showing" is a "Box Front", in LaunchBox, go to Tool, Options, Media, Box Front Priorities, and move "Arcade - Controls Information" to the top of the list. The beauty of this is that this won't have any effect any other Platform because they won't (shouldn't???) have a controls information image. So it just goes down the list until it does find an image.

I use a modified Default Pause Theme I made quite a while ago when I 1st started learning xaml. Since I typically don't pause Arcade games, I forgot how basic it was. lol Here's the modified Default Startup Theme that actually gets looked at. The real CP:

I don't know if CPW can/will save them as the games full title. Mine are all named the same as the rom. Which in the long run, is ideal. In the Theme I have, the Image Source is Source="{Binding SelectedGame.ArcadeControlsInformationImagePath}" ..since my images are stored in /Images/Arcade/Arcade - Controls Information/ LB/BB will look in that folder for an image file that's name is the same as (and possibly use some form of 'fuzzy matching'?) the Game Title or Rom_Name (and from what you're saying) or the game's LB id#.

It's pretty much the only way. Though you could get crazy and setup dual monitors and have them show on the 2nd monitor while you're playing the game on the 1st. But a Pause Theme would be easier and more practical. But when I was kid and went to the Arcade, we played on REAL arcade machines. We didn't have "pause" and "save states". And we had to walk to the Arcade. Up hill. Both directions. In the snow. lol Seriously though, it is a personal preference. I have mine show in the game startup theme. So you got about 4 seconds to learn what the 1 to 4 buttons do. I don't play much of the 6-button fighter games.

More than likely not. MAME's ui has had some behind the scenes work done with it (not that this has anything to do with it) , the LUA engine's been updated and CPWizard hasn't since before I started with it 3 years ago. However standalone, it works great! Well, at least for creating Control Panel images. I created a template that matches the panel on my cab then used it to 'print out' CP images for all my games. I put those inside Images/Arcade/Arcade - Controls Information/. Then from there, could add the images to my themes. So it's not a total loss. Just doesn't do what it was originally designed to do.

I'm pretty sure it's not possible to "directly" launch a game using a specific 'version of an emulator' solely based on the Playlist that it's in. You can always choose "launch with sinden_emu" or "launch with Gun4lr_emu". But the games 'home base' is always a single Platform that can only have one default emulator. So I think with your cab, it'd probably look more seamless to (as you said), import duplicates of the games into a new platform that has the default emulator of Gun4lr_emu. And then the Platform you have already has the default emulator sinden_emu. Create your Playlists, then you can launch the game(s) directly without having to find/remember "Launch with...". If "Launch with..." is not an issue, that would actually be cleaner overall (mainly 'behind the scenes'). But (a little) less seamless for when the kids go to play.