JoeViking245

That's a personal preference. But that's how my cab's set up. I do have Playlist and Categories. However, I never even look at them. But that's just me. To keep it at 3 like you're wanting to see in BigBox, you may want to stick with Playlists or even better, Platform Categories. (Technically, that's what they are.) But of course, either works. How do you have your Platforms (the basis for all importing) setup? On mine, for Arcade Machines I have for example, separate Platforms for Arcade (using MAME) and Sega Model 3 (using Supermodel). For Pinball Platforms, I have FX2, FX3, Future Pinball and Visual Pinball. For Visual Pinball, I only have 1 VP9 table (Riverboat Gambler). All the rest I've been able to find in VPX. So there's just the 1 Platform for it. Essentially separating them all by emulator (except VP). If you've imported en masse, as an option you could "hide games" you don't want displayed in Big Box, then in Big Box 'don't show hidden games', and only show them in LaunchBox. But again, for how you're wanting to see them in BB, Platform Categories seems to be the way to go. I'll take a look at the plugin and see if it's possible to accommodate Playlists and/or Categories. But don't hold your breath. Until then, Press Select twice to launch your Jukebox.

There's a plugin that will do [almost] exactly that. The problem is it was made to be used for Platforms. I'm not sure if it can be adapted to accommodate Playlists.

Acorn Electron is not innately part a MAME's 'regular' full set [of Arcade machines]. Thus not included in LaunchBox's MAME full set [Arcade] import wizard. It is however within MAME's softlist (Software List) sets as Neil mentioned. Because of how the 2 are handled differently by MAME, coupled with the fact the 1 is Arcade and the other consists of computers, consoles, handhelds etc., to combine them into the existing full set importer for MAME would become quite convoluted. [For my own personal reference] When you selected RetroArch as your emulator when doing the standard import, was it able to get the proper game Titles? I assume you had MAME softlist roms which are stored using their 'short name'. Or did you have a different set of roms, named accordingly that MAME is able to read/launch? Again, just curious.

Then you're 2 steps ahead of me. lol At the very top of this page you'll see "View File". Click that. On the page that it takes you to, on the right you'll see "Download this File". Click it. Once you have that downloaded, follow the steps for: and after that.. But I strongly recommend that you read the ENTIRE post first, BEFORE continuing.

That shouldn't be the issue. I guess maybe backtrack a little and determine what window is taking focus after exiting and game. After the games exits, if you press and hold Alt and then hit TAB once (while still holding Alt), You'll see all open windows and the Active window will be the left most one.

As stated, both LB and BB should just regain focus when you exit. Have you tried reassigning the "Quit RetroArch" key in RetroArch itself to F12? Then you wouldn't (shouldn't) need the Running Script at all. Open RetroArch, go to Settings, Input, Hotkeys, and reassign Quit RetroArch. (Just in case it's not already, make sure Confirm Quit is set to Off.) During game play, are you Alt-Tabbing to another window? That could screw up the window order making WinActivateBottom grab the wrong window. BB could still be "Active", but may not "have focus".

To compile the AutoHotkey script you need to have the full AutoHotkey program installed on your system. Alternately, when you create your 'new emulator', instead of pointing to a compiled AHK script (script_name.exe), you can use the AutoHotkey executable that comes bundled with LaunchBox and directly use your uncompiled script_name.ahk. Here's a little how-to do this. See the part "Add the "new" Emulator:". (You can skip the end part regarding the Startup Screen.)

@dillonm @Belgarath @bobba84 @kurzih @kev25b Official release.

GameBase database Importer View File GameBase database Importer Import games and metadata from GameBase database file(s) into LaunchBox. Based on information in your GameBase database file(s), this plugin will: Create a new Platform Add games to the new Platform Add game “Extras” as Additional Applications Add available information to each game: Metadata Title Release Date Genre Developer Play Mode Max Players Platform Publisher Favorite (check box) Media Game Manual Path Image Game Screenshot Launching Full Application Path to files If you’re not familiar with GameBase, you can check it out here: https://www.bu22.com Also check out their forums for more complete and updated databases. Installing the plugin Download the plugin Unblock “ImportGameBase.zip” by right clicking the file and checking “Unblock” and clicking “OK” Open the zip file and copy the folder (containing 3 files) into /LaunchBox/Plugins/ (For those who braved testing the beta release, delete that copy of the plugin first.) Using the plugin* Start LaunchBox Select Tools, Import GameBase Click Browse and navigate to your GameBase database folder and select the database file (i.e. “Amstrad CPC.mdb”) Click Convert to xml (may take a couple seconds) (Optional) rename the Platform to be added (Optional, but recommended) Select an emulator to use with the games being imported** Click Import to LB Once you’ve clicked Import, you’re stuck until it’s done importing! This will 1st import the games and Extras into the Platform then copy Screenshot images (if they exist) When importing, DO NOT attempt to multi-task in LaunchBox!! Just sit back and let it do its thing. Once it’s done, close the plugin window. * If you plan to use an emulator already setup in GameBase, setup the “GBLaunch” emulator in LaunchBox BEFORE running the plugin. (See Using GameBase Emulators below). Some kind of important stuff: You need to have your own GameBase database file(s), ROMs, images and manuals. You need to have your databases setup in GameBase BEFORE attempting to import. Namely setting up the Paths to the ROMs, Screenshots and Extras. To make use of the emulators through GameBase, those need to be already setup AND working. You can only import into a new Platform. The Platform will not be setup to “Scrape As...”, so you’ll need to set that yourself for when you use LaunchBox to import images***. If a database you plan to import into LaunchBox doesn’t work in GameBase, it WILL NOT magically work in LaunchBox. No files will be moved, copied (except Screenshots***) or altered in your existing GameBase installation folder(s). All games and Extras imported will point to their current location in your GameBase directory. **Setting up an emulator Since GameBase pretty much sets up the emulators for you through exhaustive scripts they’ve created, it makes sense to use those. This is easily done by using GBLauncher.exe (included with GameBase). However to access game ROMs that are located in game “Extras”, you’ll need to have GBLauncher2.exe. The other option is to setup and use your own emulator in LaunchBox. Example: RetroArch for SuperNESBase. Using GameBase Emulators You need to add 2 files to your GameBase root folder. GBLauncher2.exe and GBLaunch.ahk. Download and unzip GBLauncher2.exe and place it in your GameBase root folder. “Unblock” the file the same way as in step 2 - Installing the plugin. You can download it from here: http://www.gb64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5653. Copy (or move) GBLaunch.ahk (included with the plugin) into your GameBase root folder. In LaunchBox, 1. Click Tools, Manage, Emulators… 2. Click Add 3. Give it an Emulator Name: Example: GBLaunch (But can be any name you want) 4. In Application Path: Click Browse and navigate to /LaunchBox/ThirdParty/AutoHotkey/ and select AutoHotkey.exe 5. In Default Command-Line Parameters:, type in GBLaunch.ahk 6. Now go to Associated Platforms and select an existing Platform (i.e. Atari 2600). It doesn’t matter which one. But DO NOT check Default Emulator!! You can also just type in a name like “airplane”. It doesn’t matter, as long as something is in there. 7. Click OK to save and exit. When you run the plugin, check Use Existing Emulator. "GBLaunch" (or whatever you ended up naming it in step #3) will automatically be selected. Using your own Emulator(s) These do not necessarily need to be setup in LaunchBox prior to importing. If using emulators you already have setup in LaunchBox, in the plugin, check Use Existing Emulator and select it from the dropdown list. This will automatically assign the Associated Platform to that emulator and set it as the Default Emulator for this platform. In either case, you may need to edit the emulator and assign any Default Command-Line Parameters: and in the case of RetroArch, you will need to assign the Core and Extra Command-Line Parameters (if needed). ***GameBase Images The only game images this plugin will touch are game Screenshots. The available Screenshots will be copied into the Platforms’ "Screenshot - Gameplay" folder. Any other images (box art, flyers etc.) that a database may have will not be handled by this plugin in any way, shape or form. These other images are stored too inconsistently among the various databases with respect to the folders they reside in. To add other images from the database into LaunchBox, you’ll need to copy them from the respective database folder to the corresponding LaunchBox/Images folder. For example, Box – Front images (as LaunchBox sees them) would come from: Vic20_v03 \Extras\Cover\Cart Box\Front\ Amiga 2.3 \Extras\Cover Scans\[letter or number]\ SuperNESBase \Extras\Boxart - Front\[country]\[letter or number]\ …and copied into /LaunchBox/Images/platform_name/Box – Front/ (It’s recommended you close LaunchBox prior to copying the images) Disclaimer I don’t use GameBase myself. I only know how to get the database to Import into LaunchBox. So that part I know works. 😎 If you need any help getting GameBase setup with databases and emulators they use, or setting up your own emulator(s) in LaunchBox for use with the database ROMs, ask somewhere else. These go far beyond the scope of this plugin and my personal knowledgebase. Only a select few databases have been tested. So I imagine some refinements will need to be made to accommodate other databases. Accommodations considered will be in the form of ROMs that are listed as a games “Extras”. Examples: Extras using “WHDLoad” in Amiga 2.3. And “TAP” and “Cart” in Vic20_v03. Special Thanks Huge thanks goes to @dillonm for all your time and patience. Dillon was instrumental in teaching me how GameBase works and without hesitation, took time to do testing, retesting and testing once again. Without Dillon’s guidance, contributions and willingness to help, this plugin would still be sitting in beta collecting dust. Thanks Dillon!! As always, any and all comments and suggestions are welcomed. All reasonable requests (‘reasonable’ as determined by management) will be considered. Submitter JoeViking245 Submitted 03/11/2022 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins  

Both LaunchBox (LB) and BigBox (BB) should be regaining focus when you exit a game, automatically. But since it's not doing that for you, for some reason... Move the closing emulator part to the last line. When LB/BB sees that the emulator has been closed, the "Running Script" essentially gets abandoned. Also, use the WinClose method rather than Process, Close. It's a 'nicer' way of closing an application. 2 lines can replace 10 lines of If. Also, using WinActivateBottom will grab the LB/BB GUI in case Startup/Shutdown screens. F12:: { WinActivateBottom, ahk_exe LaunchBox.exe WinActivateBottom, ahk_exe BigBox.exe WinClose, ahk_exe Retroarch.exe }

Even though I personally don't use playlists, this way is so much easier than explaining how to use the above plugin. lol However after running the Create Missing ... Playlists, deleting all playlists, running it again and selecting Yes to every option, I'm still not coming up with a Vertically Oriented Games (or a variant thereof) playlist. I then decided to get creative and used the Tools - Import - Mame Arcade Full Set.... It was there that the option for Vertically Oriented Games was found. It's a little bit longer process than using the plugin, but it does work. To get the Playlist here's what I did: NOTE: My existing set is a non-merged set. If you attempt this with a merged or split set, scanning for removed ROMs (step 2) WILL break things. Ran the Full Set import wizard Tools Import Mame Arcade Full Set.... For the Platform, selected my existing Arcade platform Pointed to my existing ROMs folder Selected my Full Set Version (0.241 in my case) Selected Manually Configure MAME Emulator since I didn't need to change anything and selected my MAME emulator Leaderboards set it up the same as I had it before Unchecked Search for game info.. since my current set was up-to-date (and it'll speed up this process a little) Clicked Check None for images Set the 1st filter screen to match my current Arcade Platform On the 2nd filter screen, checked ONLY Create Playlist for vertically oriented games Then let the importer do it's thing Scan for removed ROMs Tools Scan For Removed Arcade ROMs*** This got me back to my original 'curated' set. ***NOTE: My existing set is a non-merged set. If you have a merged or split set, scanning for removed ROMs WILL break things. From there I edited the new Playlist and reset its' Parent.

Yes. But you'd be back to square one using a script similar to the one you started with. And we see where that got you. Also, it always advised to use a games built in exit sequence when available. Glad to hear the keyboard2Xinput is now working well for you!!

I have nofa-king idea what Windjammers 2 is. That's a totally different game, isn't it??? Anyway, since step 1 worked.. Step 2: Edit your game (again) and go to the Additional Apps section. Click Add Application. Give it a fancy Application Name like "Keyboard2XinputGui". Next Browse to and select your "Keyboard2XinputGui.exe" file. Now check the box for Automatically Run Before Main Application. Click OK. And Click OK again. Now the fun part. Create a new text file and in it put: SendInput, {NumpadMult} ExitApp Save the file somewhere where you won't forget where it is. Maybe in the same folder as your "Keyboard2XinputGui.exe" file is. Like with everything else, give it a fancy name like "ExitK2X". Now rename the file to have an .ahk file extension. like "ExitK2X.ahk". Be careful that it doesn't get renamed "ExitK2X.ahk.txt". (Probably could have this last part 1st...) Edit your game once again. Go to Additional Apps section. Click Add Application. Give it a fancy Application Name like "Exit Keyboard2XinputGui". Next Browse to and select "AutoHotkey.exe". You'll find one in /LaunchBox/ThirdParty/AutoHotkey/ In the Application Command-Line Parameters field, type the full path to where you save the .ahk file, and put it in quotes. Example: "D:\Games\Keyboard2Xinput\ExitK2X.ahk" Make sure you have the correct path. Now check the box for Automatically Run After Main Application. Click OK. And Click OK again. Make sure Keyboard2XinputGui isn't already running. Launch your game via LaunchBox.

What exactly is the error saying? Can you take a screenshot of it? Sure. Step 1: Start by adding (or editing) the game. Go to the Launching section and Browse to your DoubleDragon.exe file. Next go to the Emulation section and make sure the box is unchecked. Click OK to save and close. Now (for testing and process of elimination purposes) open Windows Explorer and navigate to where your "Keyboard2XinputGui.exe" file is located. Click it and press Enter so that it loads/launches/runs/starts/does-what-it-does. Now go back to LaunchBox and launch your DD game. Play it a little. Do you still get the "error"? If so, what does it say? If not, Exit the game as you normally would. (Usually you go to a menu and select "Quit to Windows" or something like that) You should now be back in LaunchBox. Press the asterisk on your numpad. Does "Keyboard2XinputGui.exe" exit? Step 2: ..to follow, depending on the results of Step 1.

Glad to help! Are you Running the games exe file? Or are you using a shortcut to the exe (like the script is indicating)? Any reason not to use the exe directly? If you can run 'DoubleDragon.exe' directly, try something like: Run, D:\Games\Keyboard2Xinput\Keyboard2XinputGui.exe Sleep, 1000 ; sleep 1 second RunWait, D:\Games\DoubleDragon.exe SendInput, {NumpadMult} "RunWait" will start DoubleDragon.exe and hang around until it's no longer running. When it's not running anymore, then, and only then will it press the asterisk key. The script will then exit itself. You don't need all the other stuff in the script. Oh, again... make sure the path to the exe(s) is (are) correct.

According to the script, you can press the asterisk ( * ) on the number pad to close keyboard2xinput. Can you 1st verify that pressing that key does indeed work for you? If it doesn't, setting up this script won't do any good. Just sayin'. And if it does work, setup LaunchBox to point to custom AHK script instead of the games exe. To do this: Create a new text file and save it to somewhere you won't forget nor accidentally delete. Say somewhere like "D:\Games\Double Dragon\" Inside that text file, copy and paste the code you found above. Be sure that the paths on the TWO separate lines that start with Run are pointing to the correct paths and files for your app and game. Save the file, but save it with an "ahk" file extension. I.e. "MyDoubleDragon.ahk". (make sure it doesn't save as "MyDoubleDragon.ahk.txt") In LaunchBox, Edit your Double Dragon game Go to the Launching section. Where it says Application Path: click Browse and navigate to and select ../LaunchBox/ThirdParty/AutoHotkey/AutoHotkey.exe Where it says Application Command-Line Parameters:, type in the full path to where you saved the file you created above. And put quotes around it. i.e. "D:\Games\Double Dragon\MyDoubleDragon.ahk" Click OK to save and close. Play Double Dragon.

Ahh.... that's a shortcoming of the plugin. It can only create a Playlist from a Platform (vs "Platform Category") and the Platform has to be named "Arcade". I personally don't use Platform Categories so I'm not real familiar with how they work. I'll see if later this week I can dig into it some and see if it's even possible to create a Playlist from a Platform Category.

Hmmm... Yup. Looks exactly like mine. But I didn't get the error. Just the new Playlist. I'll take a look at the code and see what it's doing (or not doing). I assume your main Arcade Platform is call "Arcade".?.

Before clicking Create, does it look like this (inside the 2 red rectangles)....?

This plugin can do that for you. (After reading through the details, check out the 3rd Comment )

The issue is (I'm pretty sure) when you launch a Steam game, it runs Steam.exe -applaunch xxxxx where xxxxx is the Steam ID # for that game (aka the games Application Path as setup in LaunchBox). Steam then does whatever Steam does to load/run/launch the game, and the 'original' Steam.exe closes/exits as the game [continues to] run. So when LaunchBox sees the "original Steam.exe" exit, it launches the "Run after game exits" Additional App. To 'get around this' you can create an AutoHotkey script (or batch file) and add that as an Emulator. The script would execute the Run Before stuff, launch Steam to load the game, then keep an eye on the Registry (which will hold the Steam ID # while it's running). Once "that" Steam ID # is no longer in the Registry (game has now exited), it will execute the Run After stuff. Here's an example:

If those games are in their own platform, you can make/add a pause theme specific for that platform. If they're not in their own platform or the instructions are long and convoluted, have the instructions be the Game Manual. If the game(s) already has a Manual, you can add the instructions file as an Additional App. Another option is, if you don't ever use the Wiki link (or Video URL link), add the path to the instructions file there. Just throwing out ideas.

Try unchecking Upload Your MAME High Scores.... You'll find it under Tools, Options, Integrations, MAME.