Jason Carr

It's a complicated algorithm. Every image should be providing a color when that setting is on, though some colors are less obvious than others.

The MainForm one will fix it in OG LaunchBox but not in .Next. I'm not sure if the issue exists in .Next as well though.

It should be the Strings file I believe.

@wantwon @RULLUR I'll look into those errors. Both issues above are by design, and will disappear once .Next replaces OG. These options will be coming in some form soon, but not as a priority for the next release.

Is this happening strictly with Windows Media Player as the video playback engine? I know that certain users have stated that it's an issue with Big Box on their systems, but it's been so long since I heard about it that I forgot it was a thing. I think it must be some sort of system-specific issue. That said, I've heard about it quite a bit for .Next, so I'll be looking into it to see what I can do.

I'm guessing this is because you have "Colorize Backgrounds to Match Images" enabled in the .Next options, under Boxes.

This is still on my list to address.

Thank you all for the bug reports/sleuthing. @MadK9, that is especially helpful to know. I think there must be some kind of weird video conflict between .Next and various applications that use video acceleration in some cases, at least that's my guess. I would call it just an MS bug, but obviously it's not an issue with Big Box, so there has to be something causing it. I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm holding off on the next official release until I can get these various bugs solved. They're a challenge because most of them are very difficult to reproduce (if I can reproduce them at all), but I'll get it all worked out. Hopefully we'll see the next official release some time next week.

I haven't gone back to tackle it yet unfortunately, but it is still on my shortlist.

Thank you all so much. As it turns out I'm still neck-deep in solving some unexpected bugs that have come up with LaunchBox.Next, so we'll proceed with the new version when I can finally get them all solved, which will probably end up being next week.

Hey all, it's that time again. Everything is ready to go for the 8.4 release, and all the translation packages have been updated. There is one new form for translating called NextAvailableForm.resx, which prompts users to try .Next instead of the original LaunchBox interface. Other than that, there's probably only stuff in the Strings.resx file that needs updated. Thanks so much as always. I'm hoping to put out the next official release on Thursday, but we can wait until Monday if the extra time will help (especially since there's not a weekend in between now and then). Let me know. @CliveBarker @AFaustini @Wattoo @Opak @dukeemu @cyanjiang @Bardock @MajKSA @gamehacker @Cauptain @Kondorito

Beta 15 is out now with just some minimal changes: Fixed a crash on single-core/single-threaded machines Prepped the changelog and the release notes for the translators @kmoney I looked into the volume control differences between VLC and WMP, and that's unfortunately a pain to solve. It seems like they're the same at 100% volumes but for some reason VLC and WMP behave entirely differently at various volume levels, so I'm not sure if there's even anything I can do about it. Strange, but I guess it's just how they made them. Also, I'm still waiting to hear back on the hopeful fix for freezes loading up the .Next Options screen, and the hopeful fix for the disappearing boxes. If anyone can test and let me know, I'd appreciate it. I'm sending this release over to the translators for translating, so hopefully we can get the official release out in a few days or so.

Hi James, please email us at support@unbrokensoftware.com and we can help. Not sure why you're getting an error but let us know your email address and we'll get it fixed.

Beta 14 is out now with the following: When starting up OG LaunchBox, there is now a window prompting you to use .Next instead, if you wish. There are options for yes and no, as well as options to always start .Next or stop prompting entirely. This should inform anyone who isn't aware of .Next about what's coming. Fixed a few .Next translation issues. Fixed .Next to behave correctly with image groups and selecting All, or when a particular image group is not remembered via platforms, playlists, or platform categories. It should now show the default image group properly instead of just using what the previously selected image group was. Implemented "Colorize Background Fade" in .Next Added an option to revert to OG LaunchBox in the .Next main menu. This is necessary due to the option to "always use .Next" when starting up OG LaunchBox. Hopeful fix for the occasional .Next freezing issue when selecting Options Hopeful fix for the boxes not displaying properly issue in .Next with certain box and window sizes There are still a few one-off issues out there with .Next that I have heard from a few different people, but I believe that the remaining issues are due to driver or MS bugs, though it's hard to confirm. Hopefully we'll get more feedback from people after the official release comes out (which should be very soon, early next week at the latest, but hopefully sooner). Anyways, please let me know how this beta fares and if the above listed issues are indeed fixed for you.

Good to know.

I might add this at a later date, but unfortunately this probably won't make it into the next official release. Custom themes will be supported soon, so it'll be really easy to reduce the spacing settings once that comes out. One of the objectives with .Next is to make the application usable for touch devices, which is the reason for the added spacing. It sounds like there's some odd/abnormal issues going on with that install; I'm not really sure what could be causing it, but I haven't heard either of those issues come up elsewhere. If you do get the time, I can help you troubleshoot it, but it's likely to turn out to be either an MS glitch or a driver issue of some sort.

Hi @luchaos, good to have you here. Yes, the API key stays on the local user's machine; we have no need of it on our end and we do not collect them. I'll be looking forward to ra.org API improvements. The API has worked out very well for us so far; the main thing that we're missing is notifications of some sort (which I know will probably be difficult from an API perspective). But the biggest request we have, related to retro achievements, is to be able to pop up a notification when an achievement is reached (of course). I don't know of any way to do that without some sort of an event or notification system with the API. If there's a way to conquer that, the whole community would be ecstatic.

Based on that error, it looks like Big Box/.NET are unable to decode any PNG image files, which I can imagine is going to really screw everything up. I did some Googling and I've found a few related links/discussions: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/f8d208a8-88be-4d8a-a6ba-c7fe543c2614/except-duing-install-of-vs-2012-for-desktop?forum=vssetup https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/48f64c33-4183-4593-9857-d44812a4fc95/launchpad-and-dashboard-will-not-start-on-one-pc?forum=whs2011 https://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=5985 https://github.com/hbons/SparkleShare/issues/1312 https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/Q283067/bitmapdecoder-setupdecoderfromuriorstream-exception-when-loading-dxmap I only skimmed them but I haven't found a quick or easy solution within them, unfortunately. The only thing I've found is stuff like reinstalling Windows to fix the issue.

That is a possibility, but with people's various preferences as well as the various nature of the aspect ratios of boxes even in a particular platform (unfortunately often the images are not exactly all the same aspect ratio), it would probably resort in at least minor issues to automatically detect the aspect ratio. And of course it wouldn't work at all for situations where sizes were mixed. I have thought about trying to do it on a row-by-row basis though; it would be a challenge but I might at least attempt it at some point. Per the spacing issue getting magnified with less boxes on a row, you should be able to tweak your settings so that it's not an issue.

Should also work just to resize the window or the side bars, or change the image size.

@dbalcar Yes, I believe so, but it should be fairly rare. I assume it's happening in OG LaunchBox?

Thanks; that helps. All I can figure is that maybe it's a threading issue. I'll do my best to get it figured out. This is separate from a caching issue; I have seen it and it's on my list to resolve. For whatever reason on rare occasions with certain size settings the boxes don't display properly. A fix is coming.

Ah, you're right; it looks like I did fix that in OG LaunchBox a while back and forgot that I had changed it. Hopefully I can do the same for .Next. I'm not certain but I think @Suhrvivor's issues were different, though I could be wrong. Are you still experiencing similar issues @Suhrvivor? You should be able to fix any issues with lines being cut off by adjusting the aspect ratio and spacing settings. The vertical space issue always has been an issue, even with OG LaunchBox. We may look to solve that at some point with some trickery, but it's not a new issue; unfortunately there's no good way to solve it. In the future, we might add a platform-specific aspect ratio setting, so that extra space is removed for platforms like SNES (for example), but it still doesn't solve the issue of Japanese vs. NA boxes being different heights.

Unfortunately this seems like too much of a confusing or a user-specific request. There are other ways to hide games, such as marking them as Hidden or Broken.

Yeah, this sounds like a nasty MS glitch. I'm honestly not sure what we could do about it. I am curious to know if it's come up for anyone else. Does it have anything to do with a resolution change or anything like that?