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Fry

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Files posted by Fry

  1. Big Box Auto Play

    https://bigboxautoplay.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
    BigBoxAutoPlay
    BigBoxAutoPlay is a plug-in for BigBox that can automatically launch into a game when BigBox starts up 
    Installation
    Download the latest version of the plugin Copy BigBoxAutoPlay.dll and Prism.dll into the LaunchBox\Plugins folder  
    Settings
    A new menu item is added to LaunchBox under Tools > Configure BigBox AutoPlay.
    Enable
    Check the box to automatically play a game when BigBox starts. Uncheck the box to disable the auto-play plugin.
    Select game
    Check the box to have launch box select the game in the UI before launching it.  This should allow the marquee to display properly for the selected game.
    Only favorites
    Check the box to filter the randomly selected game to only include favorites
    Hidden games
    Check the box to include hidden games
    Broken games
    Check the box to include broken games
    Platform
    Optional. To filter the randomly selected game to only games in the selected platform.
    Playlist
    Optional. To filter the randomly selected game to only games in the selected playlist.
    Game
    Optional. To specify a specific game to auto-play. This list is filtered based on the selected platform and/or playlist.
    Delay
    Specify the number of seconds to delay before launching the game. When a startup video is used with BigBox, this delay can help the auto played game from launching behind BigBox by giving BigBox a chance to fully initialize before launching the game.
     
    Link to GitHub repo
    https://github.com/AtomFry/BigBoxAutoPlay

    115 downloads

       (3 reviews)

    1 comment

    Updated

  2. Eclipse

    Eclipse
    Eclipse for BigBox is a different kind of theme.  Rather than using the normal theme engine, it uses a plug-in to build the user interface from the ground up.  The goal for this plug-in is to provide: 
    Netflix style user interface with multiple lists of games on the screen at one time Voice search Random game function  
    Platform list view

     
    Game detail view

     
    Options for categorizing games

     
    Startup theme

     
    Shutdown theme

     
    Attract mode (screen saver)

     
    Demo
     
    Installation Instructions
    1. Download: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/file/3220-eclipse/
    2. Extract the contents to a folder
    3. Inside the Eclipse folder is a folder called LaunchBox
    4. Copy the Plugins, StartupThemes, and Themes folders
    5. Go to your Launch Box installation folder and paste the copied folders
    6. Open Big Box
    7. Esc to get to options
    8. Select Options > Views
    9. Set Theme to Eclipse
    10. Set Platforms List View to Platform Wheel 1
    11. If you want to use the startup theme, Options > Game Startup
        - Uncheck Show "Loading Game..." Message
        - Check Enable Startup Screen
        - Startup Theme: Eclipse
        - Minimum Startup Screen Display Time: 5 seconds
        - Maximum Startup screen Display Time: 5 seconds
        - Check Hide Mouse Cursor on Startup Screens
    12. Go back - the first time the theme starts will take a long load time to generate the image cache
    13. NOTE - If you get any errors, you can check the log file called Eclipse.txt in your LaunchBox folder and message me on the forums to let me know
    General usage
    - Up, Down, Left, Right - moves around
    - Enter - selects something
    - Escape - cancel or go back - pressing it will get you back to the BigBox settings where you can exit the application
    - Page Up - pick a random game
    - Page Down - voice search
    Bezels
    - Bezel images can be displayed around the preview videos
    - The system will first look for a game specific bezel. If not found, it will look for a platform specific bezel. If not found, it will look for a default bezel. 
    - A few default bezels are provided with the installation. You can delete them from the folders specified below if you prefer the videos without bezels.
    Game specific bezels
    - The system tries to find a game specific bezel image in the following order:
    1. In plug-in media directory:
    ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\{CleanGameTitle}.png
    - Here {CleanGameTitle} replaces any invalid characters with an underscore. Characters like ' and : cannot appear in file names so they are replaced with an underscore
    - For example: A bezel file for the game "19XX: The War Against Destiny" should have the following path and file name ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Images\Arcade\Bezel\19XX_ The War Against Destiny.png
    MAME bezels
    - If a game specific bezel isn't found in the plug-ins media folder as described above, then the program will look into the MAME installation folder. In order for MAME bezels to work, installing the bezel project for MAME would create files with this structure:
    ..\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME\artwork{game.ApplicationFilePath}"Bezel.png"
    Retroarch bezels
    - Bezels installed by the bezel project for retroarch will go into a folder location like this:
    ..\LaunchBox\Emulators\Retroarch\overlays\GameBezels{RetroarchPlatform}{game.ApplicationFilePath}.png
    Platform specific bezels
    - These are used if there are no game specific bezels found
    - You can specify a different image for horizontally and vertically oriented games so that they fit appropriately
    - The platform specific bezel image files must have the following file names and locations:
    ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\Horizontal.png
    ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\Vertical.png
    System default bezels
    - These are used if there are no game specific or platform specific bezels found
    - You can specify a different image for horizontally and vertically oriented games so that they fit appropriately
    - The default bezel image files must have the following file name and location:
    ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\Platforms\Default\Horizontal.png
    ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\Platforms\Default\Vertical.png
    Looking for feedback
    I'm looking for any suggestions that would make this theme better.  What's currently on my list for improvements:
    New option to add a game to a playlist from the game detail screen New option to display game manuals from the game detail screen Improve image cache logic to better detect differences between LB images and plugin image cache Use VLC for video playback  Option to flip box art  This could be expanded a bit more to  Show achievements in game details Improvements to the options side-panel that opens up under the gear (add some icons and make it look a little less "blah") Several ideas for configuration options Default category and list to pick when opening  Minimum number of games required to be included in a category This would allow you to eliminate lists don't have more than 1 game showing in the series category for example Improvements to the loading screen to make it prettier Performance improvements for loading times by doing more work in the background Overhaul of entire codebase Support for any resolution or aspect ratio - currently this only works (well) on 16:9 screens Make game lists more dynamic - the implementation of the lists uses a bunch of static image controls  Localization If anyone thinks of anything that could make this theme better, I'd be interested to hear it!
    Source Code
    If you're interested in the source code, it's (not pretty and it's) available here: 
    https://github.com/AtomFry/Eclipse
    Submitter Fry Submitted 10/22/2021 Category Big Box Custom Themes

    2,731 downloads

       (6 reviews)

    154 comments

    Updated

  3. LaunchBox ROM Patch Manager

    LaunchBox ROM Patch Manager
    LaunchBox ROM Patch Manager is a plug-in for LaunchBox that intends to streamline the process of applying a patch to a ROM file and importing the patched ROM into your LaunchBox library
    Demo
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFBjIEwC-v4
    Installation
    Download LaunchBoxRomPatchManager.zip Extract LaunchBoxRomPatchManager.zip to a folder.  Inside the LaunchBoxRomPatchManager folder is a folder called LaunchBox. Inside the LaunchBox folder will be two folders: LaunchBoxRomPatchManager and Plugins. Copy these two folders. Go to your LaunchBox installation folder and paste the copied folders Included Patchers - Floating IPS
    The plug-in includes Floating IPS by Alcaro to be used as IPS patcher. This patcher should be automatically included when following the installation instructions and can be found in your LaunchBox folder under LaunchBoxRomPatchManager\Patchers. By default, the plugin will be configured to use Floating IPS to patch games for the following platforms:
    Nintendo Entertainment System Nintendo Game Boy Advance Nintendo Game Boy Color Nintendo 64 Super Nintendo Entertainment System Sega Genesis Sega 32X NEC TurboGrafx-16 Included Patchers - Paradox PPF
    The plug-in includes Paradox PPF 3 by Icarus of Paradox to be used as a PPF patcher. This patcher should be automatically included when following the installation instructions and can be found in your LaunchBox folder under LaunchBoxRomPatchManager\Patchers. By default, the plugin will be configured to use Paradox PPF to patch games for the following platforms:
    Sony Playstation Sony PSP Managing ROM Patchers
    The plug-in includes a menu item called "Manage ROM Patchers" under the LaunchBox Tools menu. The plug-in uses these configurations when applying a patch to a game.
    Name - Specify a name for the patcher File path - Specify the path to the patcher Command line - Specify the format of the command line that should be used when applying a patch to a game file. There are two special values that need to be included in the command line field for the plug-in to know how to apply a patch to a game file. {patch} indicates the patch file and {rom} indicates the game's rom file. Platforms - Select the platforms that the patcher can be used with Importing a ROM Hack
    The plug-in includes a menu item called "Import ROM Hack" when you right click on a game. To import a rom hack, right click on a game and select "Import ROM Hack". A file dialog will open prompting to select a patch file. Select the file that contains the patch file. The "Import rom hack" screen will be displayed with information about the selected game and selected patch file. Enter values for the imported ROM hack as desired and click OK. The plug-in will make a copy of the source game, extract files as needed, apply the selected patch file to the source ROM file, and import the game into your LaunchBox library.
    Source code
    https://github.com/AtomFry/LaunchBoxRomPatchManager

    272 downloads

       (2 reviews)

    15 comments

    Updated

  4. Big Box Voice Search

    BigBoxVoiceSearch
    BigBoxVoiceSearch is a plug-in for BigBox that enables searching for games using your voice and a microphone via microsoft's speech recognition.  To make use of this plug-in, the plug-in components must be installed to the LaunchBox plugins folder and a few lines of XAML code must be added to the themes where you wish to use it.
     
    Demo
    Installation
    1.  Download the latest version of BigBoxVoiceSearch.zip from the LaunchBox forums or from this github repositories Releases
    2.  Extract BigBoxVoiceSearch.zip to a folder.  Inside the BigBoxVoiceSearch folder is a folder called LaunchBox.  Inside the LaunchBox folder is a folder called Plugins.  Copy the plugins folder
    3.  Go to your LaunchBox installation folder and paste the copied folder
    4.  To verify the installation - confirm the following files exist in your LaunchBox\Plugins folder
      - BigBoxVoiceSearch.dll
      - System.Speech.dll    
    5.  You can delete the downloaded zip file and extracted folder once the files have been copied into your LaunchBox plugins folder
    Adding the voice search element to a theme
    In order to use the voice recognition function, a few lines of XAML must be added to the views of the themes that you would like to use this with.  Since it's easy to make simple mistakes while tinkering with XAML, it's strongly recommended to make a copy of whatever theme you plan to use this with and make your changes to a copy of the theme so that you can revert to the original theme if mistakes are made.  Inside your copied theme there is a views folder.  Inside the views folder are xaml files that correspond to the views that you use in BigBox.  Select the view(s) for which you wish to include voice searching functionality and edit them in a text editor like notepad or visual studio.
    XMLNS
    Each view starts with a UserControl element.  The user control element will include several lines that start with xmlns.  Add the following line to the user control element along with the other xmlns lines.  
    xmlns:BigBoxVoiceSearch="clr-namespace:BigBoxVoiceSearch.View;assembly=BigBoxVoiceSearch" Examples of adding the voice search user control to a theme
    Once the above XMLNS line has been added to a views user control element, you can add the BigBoxVoiceSearch:MainWindowView anywhere inside the theme that you would like it to appear.  There are a few properties that you can set on the voice search control to specify how it should behave.  First, here are some examples of how it would look to add the voice search control inside a theme:
    <!-- Trigger voice recognition with page up, the control is always displayed --> <BigBoxVoiceSearch:MainWindowView ActivationMode="PageUp" ShowInitializing="true" ShowInitializingFailed="true" ShowInactive="true" ShowActive="true" ShowRecognizing="true"/>  
    <!-- Trigger voice recognition with page down, the control is only displayed while recognizing --> <BigBoxVoiceSearch:MainWindowView ActivationMode="PageDown" ShowInitializing="false" ShowInitializingFailed="false" ShowInactive="false" ShowActive="false" ShowRecognizing="true"/>  
    <!-- Activate the user control with Up - you will need to press enter to trigger the voice search, the control is always displayed --> <BigBoxVoiceSearch:MainWindowView ActivationMode="Up" ShowInitializing="true" ShowInitializingFailed="true" ShowInactive="true" ShowActive="true" ShowRecognizing="true"/>  
    <!-- Trigger voice recognition with page up, the control is always displayed, override default images with theme specific images --> <BigBoxVoiceSearch:MainWindowView ActivationMode="PageUp" ShowInitializing="true" InitializingImagePath="Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\MySpecialTheme\Initializing.png" ShowInitializingFailed="true" InitializingFailedImagePath="Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\MySpecialTheme\InitializingFailed.png" ShowInactive="true" InactiveImagePath="Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\MySpecialTheme\Inactive.png" ShowRecognizing="true" RecognizingImagePath="Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\MySpecialTheme\Recognizing.png"/>  
    ActivationMode
    By specifying the ActivationMode property on the voice search user control, you can control how the voice search control is activated and how the voice search is triggered with the following options: 
    Off The plug-in is effectively disabled No button will activate the user control or trigger speech recognition Up The up button will activate the user control The down button will deactivate the user control  Once activated, press enter to start speech recognition Down The down button will activate the user control The up button will deactivate the user control  Once activated, press enter to start speech recognition Left The left button will activate the user control The right button will deactivate the user control  Once activated, press enter to start speech recognition Right The right button will activate the user control The left button will deactivate the user control  Once activated, press enter to start speech recognition PageUp The page up button will trigger voice recognition immediately You do not need to press enter after pressing Page Up You do not need to press any button to deactivate the user control PageDown The page down button will trigger voice recognition immediately You do not need to press enter after pressing Page Down You do not need to press any button to deactivate the user control VisibilityMode 
    The VisibilityMode property from previous versions has been replaced with individual boolean properties ShowInitializing, ShowInitializingFailed, ShowInactive, ShowActive, and ShowRecognizing.
    ShowInitializing
    The ShowInitializing property accepts the values "true" or "false" to indicate whether the user control should be displayed while initializing.  When the view is loaded, there is an intialization period where the titles in the launchbox game library are parsed to create the speech recognition grammar.  Setting this property to true can give a visual indication that the speech recognition functionality is not yet ready to use.  This property defaults to false if not specified on the UserControl.  
      
    ShowInitializingFailed
    The ShowInitializingFailed property accepts the values "true" or "false" to indicate whether the user control should be displayed if initialization fails.  Failures could occur while the user control is initializing if there is no default audio device for the speech recognition engine to use.  Setting this property to true can give the indication that speech recognition was not setup successfully and is therefore disabled.  If errors are encountered, check the log.txt file in the LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch folder for any error details.  This property defaults to false if not specified on the UserControl.  
    ShowInactive
    The ShowInactive property accepts the values "true" or "false" to indicate whether the user control should be displayed while it is inactive.  The user control will be inactive after initialization completes successfully.  Setting this property to true can give the indication that speech recognition is setup and available to use.  The property defaults to false if not specified on the UserControl.  
    ShowActive
    The ShowActive property accepts the values "true" or "false" to indicate whether the user control should be displayed while it is active.  The user control is put in an active state when you press Up, Down, Left, or Right and the ActivationMode property is set to Up, Down, Left, or Right.  Setting this property to true can give the indication that the speech recognition user control is active and will perform a search of enter is pressed.  The property defaults to false if not specified on the UserControl.  
    ShowRecognizing
    The ShowRecognizing property accepts the values "true" or "false" to indicates whether the usr control should be displayed while recognizing speech.  The user control recognizes speech when you press Page Up or Page Down and the ActivationMode is set to PageUp or PageDown or when you press Enter while the speech recognition user control is active (if ActivationMode set to Up, Down, Left, or Right).  The property defaults to false if not specified on the UserControl.
    Default image paths 
    If no custom image paths are specified on the user control, the plugin will look for images with the following path to display in various states: 
    | State              | Default image path                                                          | |--------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Initializing       | ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\Default\Initializing.png       | | InitializingFailed | ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\Default\InitializingFailed.png | | Inactive           | ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\Default\Inactive.png           | | Active             | ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\Default\Active.png             | | Recognizing        | ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\BigBoxVoiceSearch\Media\Default\Recognizing.png        |  
     
    Custom image paths 
    Images displayed by the user control can be overridden or customized by specifying a relative path to the image file on the user control with the following properties: 
    - InitializingImagePath
    - InitializingFailedImagePath
    - InactiveImagePath
    - ActiveImagePath
    - RecognizingImagePath
    Settings
    When BigBox loads for the first time, a settings file will be created that will allow you specify how the plugin should behave.  Currently there is only one setting to configure 
    {   "VoiceSearchTimeoutInSeconds": 5 } VoiceSearchTimeoutInSeconds
    Specify the number of seconds that the voice search should stay open before it stops listening
    Link to GitHub repo
    https://github.com/AtomFry/BigBoxVoiceSearch
     

    109 downloads

       (0 reviews)

    7 comments

    Updated

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