Shredder_guitar

Hi all, I shared this with a small audience and got some positive feedback so I thought i would share to a broader audience. I have made a Plugin the connects launchbox to Kavita reader to better store and utilize strategy guides. This is the first project I've ever made so no haters please, I'm really proud of it....constructive criticism, feature requests welcome. Overview It allows you to: Link a LaunchBox game to a strategy guide in Kavita Search for and choose from multiple possible matches Launch the linked guide directly from LaunchBox Open the guide in either windowed or fullscreen reader mode Sync the linked guide as an Additional App entry Display cover art and metadata during guide selection Use publisher badge detection for supported publishers Enable optional debug logging when troubleshooting This project is currently focused on strategy guide integration. Features Kavita integration Connects to a Kavita server using your server URL and API key Guide linking Search Kavita for potential strategy guide matches based on the selected LaunchBox game Choose from one or more returned matches Save the linked guide to the game Guide relinking Re-run guide matching and replace an existing linked guide Clear linked guide Remove the linked guide from the game Remove the corresponding Additional App entry if one exists Additional App sync Linked guides can be represented as a LaunchBox Additional App entry for easier visibility and management Reader launch support Launch the linked guide in: Windowed mode Fullscreen mode Cover and metadata display Show guide cover art when available Display metadata such as title, publisher, and other helpful information during selection Publisher badge logic Supports publisher badge detection for: Prima Nintendo Brady Games Configurable debug logging Debug logging can be enabled or disabled from the plugin tools menu Logging should only be written when debug logging is enabled Download Link https://github.com/Shredder5262/Kavita-Reader-LaunchBox-Plugin

you can also use PDF's in kavita... i didn't mention it, but yes, it's a thing...it's basically plex for books. I use Kavita a self hosted docker image, and access it through a web browser so I have made it under the assumption that kavita is accessed through the web... if there is another way (local windows install) I'm not sure how that process works...so as long as you access it via web browser it would be fine. If things are stored in kavita you can also view those same things on a mobile app or tablet so it's a centralized place to store strategy guides. something on the horizon to deal with these things, I've got lots of stage maps and things also. Stay tuned. I don't know how long this other thing is going to take me though...programmatically speaking, playlists are evil. Question about this though.... what would an 'Official' term for these things be called?

@JoeViking245 @Tsik Thoughts?

Not Perfect, but a large improvement over the original. Original Enhanced

@JoeViking245 Since you're not familiar with cbz's I converted a nintendo manual from pdf to cbz and did some minor upscaling and resizing to showcase what the end result could be on a manual. I'm using my mouse wheel to scroll, but this could easily be tied to a button. Overall the quality of manuals and old documentation is abysmal at best, but it's what we got so I work with those things... and highly skilled photoshopper would be able to get better quality out of these manuals. So I think... png/Imageglass = maps, stage maps, diagrams cbz/comicrack = manuals and strategy guides pdf/pdf reader = cheat codes game faq parsed walkthroughs Would be a great combo, the missing piece is adding the additional app functionality into the pause menu.

I truely think that 'documents' like manuals and strategy guides should be standardized as cbz's , much more palatable experience than a pdf. I think a PDF only serves well for use cases like a cheat code list or a quick faq lookup...lengthy documents = cbz. I do feel strongly enough about it to submit a formal request.

In my opinion of a perfect world, I would set up a cbz as an additional document and assign the 'emulator/supplemental program' to handle it same as any emulator, the pause menu would see it as a document and launch it just like any other emulator with parameters that I give it...the pieces are all already there, ...just whatever backend mechanism is not there to treat it like a program launch is not in place. I could do without the batch wrapper, if that functionality is already in place. The functionality in launchbox, while also useful and ideal, does not facilitate the use of the material in-gam. I want to be able to pause the menu...check a strategy guide or map (reasonably quickly) then, unpause and go back to playing.

I think cbz stands for "comic book zip'.... it's basically a zip file with sequential images and an xml for indexing. Here is some basic info about the technical details of CBZ's https://www.comicconverter.com/about-cbz They are usually viewed in something like comicrack (for comics) or Kavita reader (basically, plex for books, comics, manga, and graphic novels). I did a modified version of your suggestion and tried a small portable version of ImageGlass as an emulator (https://imageglass.org) which works great ...as long as it's launched in big box (just as you mentioned). It would work ideal for Maps and stage layouts if there are several images in a folder and supports command line options. But in Pause it doesn't load. There is a possibility of using batch as a wrapper, something similar to what @Tsik suggested, but that also doesn't work in pause. It seems that PDF is the only acceptable thing that functions in a pause menu. Would really like to see an image support for 3rd party app launching like imageviewer or...in theory.. if additional, apps were supported for pause I could connect it to comic rack and launch a cbz viewer for strategy guides. If you can't tell already, my opinons of pdf's in general isn't very high...only because they're not very intuitive if you have a document with lots of pages. I'm fine with a few page doc as a pdf, but endless scrolling is annoying (imo)

ok, I was able to get it to display as a PDF. That takes care of the txt files, seems I have a bunch of converting to do. Not sure about the maps/level maps. Don't really want to commit to PDF's for all of them but I might have to... maps as PDF's aren't very intuitive imo...to be fair, they weren't intuitive as regular png's in rlauncher either... I really think cbz is 'the way' on all this stuff, I would like to see support for that added.. that opens up the possibility for full strategy guides, etc. (just thinking out loud).... anyway this unsticks me for a bit, thanks @JoeViking245 and @dragon57 for the suggestions

any special settings i need to have? I tried this and i didn't notice anything different. I would expect a new menu item to appear in pause, but that didn't happen...

Pause is where I ultimately want them, but I don't know how to get them there, going to try @JoeViking245's suggestion, if they show up as doc's that may solve the issue, I know that different menus appear sometimes in pause...but I don't know what causes that.

So I've got all these stage maps and diagrams and text file walkthroughs and passwords that I've collected from random places over the years. I've stored this stuff in Rlauncher, but I'm trying to move all files out of rlauncher and store them elsewhere and cleanup storage space, but still be able to utilize them. Launchbox has a place for manuals...but I don't see or know of any place other than that I may be able to utilize them. Looking for ideas or suggestions on what to do with them. I don't want to just delete them.

Can be downloaded at the link below. A few more to come soon. https://emumovies.com/files/file/6038-unified-genre-generic-category-themes-16x9/

1. launchbox itself has nothing to do with RA bezels...they are separate things 2. probably a broken reference in the config. Navigate to [ra folder]>Config> [core name folder]>corename.slangp (if it exists) and check the reference path for the bezel and make sure that exists ...you should see something like "#reference ":/shaders/Mega Bezel_Packs/Duimon-Mega-Bezel/Presets/Standard/Nintendo_NES/NES-[STD]-[Guest]-[Bezel].slangp" ....follow that path (your path will be different) and see if the bezel exists there... if it's not the same as what is listed in your slangp file...that's the issue. If the slangp file doesn't exist at all, that is also the issue.

Retroarch? Mame? Bezel Project? Other?

This game.... WOOOOO BUDDY! Nailed it! I only played the first couple levels cuz i want to stream it later. but MAAAAAANNNN. This game is awesome so far.

I'll have to try it that way...next time and see how it works out... Now that i've done this a couple times, I still have a Sunsoft Theme to make and then hopefully my theme making days are over.

This one turned out a bit better. I really dislike making these things. but I do enjoy when they're finished. Taito Type X-2.mp4

So I used adobe premier to make this... I know almost nothing about premier...it turned out slightly better than shitty, this is my first attempt in making a theme this way...so be gentle...but it works...posting this in case one of the other 3 people on the entire internet plays these unity games. Unity Games.mp4

Title pretty much says it all. There are a few systems that i have searched high and low for a unified theme and they just simply do not exist, So It looks like I'll need to create my own. I can create the artworks in photoshop, but, What then? I've seen a brief mention of someone doing a theme in powerpoint...? Is that the way? Just not sure how it's done...previously I would create themes in hypertheme...but that is clearly no longer the way and outdated... Just looking for a guide or someone to offer advice on how it's done now. The pic is just for visual reference on the style of theme I'm wanting to create.

thought I would circle back to report this... I just clicked on the games DB link at the top of the forum page and the page didn't load...I closed the tab and navigated to the forum page again and clicked on the link at the top of the page and it loaded.... could have just been one of those technical snafu's but this thread came to mind.

I don't recall having this exact experience. I noticed that some system images on games DB were not loading...but that's been a thing pretty much ever since I've been going to the site...so I assumed it was known...other than that...no issue for me that i recall.

First attempt Thoughts...questions...comments...concerns?