Jason Carr

@BetaLeaf I just completely revamped this recently within the last couple of releases. All should be working well. Are you using the latest version of LaunchBox?

If I get around to updating it... Yeah, it's incredible. I'm very nostalgic for external MIDI devices with DOS games. As a kid I got a Casio general midi keyboard for Christmas one year and when I figured out I could hook my freaking keyboard up to DOOM...that's when I lost interest in everything else.

Above and beyond...

Beta 2 is out now guys with some custom themes additions: - Improvement: The Big Box wall view now supports videos for custom themes - Improvement: The FilterTitle property is now available for all games views in Big Box custom themes The wall view videos in particular have been requested by at least a couple different theme developers. @CriticalCid's Aeon MQ7 theme will support it here soon.

That's the plan @drphobus. At least for a brainstorming session.

Depends a lot on the theme and the view that is used. CoverFlow eats RAM for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I've never heard of that being an issue @neil9000. Maybe you can compare the file names to the game titles to see if they match up?

This is the first time I'm hearing about anything like this as well. Per the specs, the RAM is fairly minimal (16 gigs is recommended), though still, that shouldn't cause that problem. It seems like it's either a glitch with WPF or the .NET Framework on your particular system, or perhaps there's an input device somewhere that is wreaking havoc. The first thing I would try is unplugging everything (literally everything) from your system, and then plugging in input devices one at a time to see if the problem remains. Believe it or not, we have seen even some keyboards that do silly things like act as game controllers and such, and if they're implemented in strange ways they can interfere with things. I would also try turning off "use all controllers" and use a specific controller to see if that helps. Let me know if you can identify a specific controller or keyboard, etc. that is causing the problem.

Yeah, the default theme files are overwritten on startup, so it's impossible to change anything in the default theme. However, what you can do is duplicate the default theme to another folder and then change it.

The issue isn't just a lack of 100% coverage, it's also the development hell involved. Initial implementation would take weeks, and then every time a new version of Windows came out, it would be a crapshoot whether things would stay working. So it's not something that we're likely to tackle any time soon.

The new poll will most likely go up shortly after 8.0 comes out. The last feature I have to implement is Retroarch Netplay, which is planned for 8.0.

I will probably add separate page up and page down and zoom controls yet, yes. I will also be adding an option to disable the built-in PDF reader so you can use your existing solution, but I won't be adding a specific option to use Sumatra.

This is the exact reason why implementing any kind of an overlay would be a nightmare. Not even Rocket Launcher can do it for everything, and of course they've studied it for years and hacked it all together as best as possible. The only thing that *might* work is switching full screen to Big Box and back to the game, which would be tricky enough. But we won't be attempting any kind of an overlay over games, because it's impossible to make it work properly for everything. I remember back in the day with Windows 98 and my Voodoo 3 2000 card, any time you tried to leave or minimize the game, the games would just crash lol. At least we're doing better than that these days...

Yup, agreed. We may or may not get that far for 8.0, but yes, if you have two monitors it certainly makes sense to use one of them to display the manual. Per the "small" things list, I do keep up with that list, so no need to post them here. Most things are not small to implement, but I will be putting many of the items on the upcoming poll.

Currently, no. But I can see how we should add an option to disable it. I'll add that to my list. Yeah, #2 specifically is high up on my list as well. We'll get there.

Sadly I'm hesitant to add yet more complicated logic to the file parsing mechanisms for performance reasons. Sorry for the let down there, @kmoney. I may tackle something from the list, but since almost none of them are really "small" things most of it will have to wait for the next poll.

This would be a Chrome issue. Apparently Chrome does not support symlinks when loading a file from disk. The only thing we could do is to resolve symlinks before loading up the PDF; I'll see if there's an easy way to force them to resolve.

The actual plugin framework DLL that is used resides in the LaunchBox\Metadata folder. Technically, that Unbroken.LaunchBox.Plugins.dll file shouldn't be duplicated into the plugin folders, though it probably still works if it is (and I'm guessing some plugin authors probably are duplicating it). I've seen that one before as well with some odd Windows games. I've already looked into it as best I could and ended up labeling it a Windows/WPF glitch and moving on. Sadly, it's not something I'm likely to be able to resolve without resorting to a hack that makes everything less smooth for games that don't have the same problem. The downloads and the website do come from the same place, so if things are slow with the app downloads, then the website will be as well. That said, everything is nice and quick for most users, so all we can do is blame it on the Internet. The only thing we could do to speed things up for people at this point is to have mirrors all over the world (which is a bit out of our capabilities at the moment).

The plugin framework DLL is overwritten with the new version on every update, so that probably wasn't an issue. Feel free to post here with any issues you find.

Good to hear. Do you know what might have been left in your plugins folder?

That is a thought I had as well. Could be complicated to implement switching between Big Box and the game while it's running (I'm cringing at the thought of it), but yes, that would certainly be nice.

Unfortunately that's not in the cards, at least not soon. I'm using an embedded version of Chrome (per the initial post), and those aren't features that Chrome supports. We have the ability to put the PDF reader anywhere in Big Box (doesn't have to be full screen for instance), but Chrome doesn't support all those customizations. Per monitor settings though is certainly a possibility. Basically, in order to get that level of control I'd need to build my own PDF reader, which just seems like reinventing the wheel at this point. We also looked at free/open source libraries to do it, and they all kind of suck, so this was the best option currently.

What error did you get with the installer? It makes sense that nothing would work properly if the installer failed. Unfortunately it's the installer error message that matters here.

Just wanted to brag a little. @circo sent me a legit Roland MT-32 for Christmas. Guess what I'm setting up right now.

I don't think so, though that is controlled via the EmuMovies API itself, so that's probably a question for @circo.