Jason Carr

Alright, beta 2 is out: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies Fixed a bunch of things, added support for problem child emulators like Project64 1.6 and nullDC, added more automatic emulator settings, tweaked the interface, etc. I'm hoping no news is good news?

Yeah, I'm settling not to include any emulators. There's just too many of them. I'm including download links to make it easy. I've messed around with Retroarch, and yeah, it doesn't look like it would work or be a good idea to auto-configure it. It just has too many options, and I know too little about how it all works. The maths question...first time I've heard or seen that. But, odd. You got in though?

Got it fixed; I should have a new beta up tonight. I was attempting to not duplicate results between the LocalDB and TheGamesDB, but the results were confusing and I'm not sure it was working right anyways.

Ah, wow. Good find. Will fix for 4.2.

I've figured this out; LaunchBox puts a space in between the file name and the command line parameters, which works for pretty much every other emulator, except, of course, for this one because of the =. I'm going to try and add an option to support it for 4.2.

Welcome Duckeenie, yes, right now that isn't easy to do. Glad you were able to search and replace in the XML. If you keep LaunchBox next to your ROM files (or put your ROM files somewhere inside of your LaunchBox folder), you can move the whole thing anywhere you need without it messing anything up. But of course right now I haven't yet added a tool to auto-update all of the paths. This is planned. Thanks, Jason

Most definitely; big thanks to bd for his work on this post. As I had previously promised, I've finally started to integrate these settings into LaunchBox itself (so they automatically populate and such). I just put out version 4.2-beta-1 ( https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies ) which includes settings for a handful of them. I'm adding them slowly in because I'm testing them one-by-one.

Thanks, Conehead; I'll take a look at that error. In the mean time, I just released 4.2-beta-1: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies As always, any testing is much appreciated. Here is the changelog: - New Premium Feature: Game counts can now be added to the sidebar from the Options dialog (with the option to align right if desired) - New Feature: "All", "(None)", and "(Exists)" side bar items can now be hidden, shown, or renamed in the Options dialog; "(None)" and "(Exists)" are now hidden by default - New Feature: New Manage Emulators option is available under the Tools menu - New Feature: LaunchBox now automatically knows proper configurations for select emulators and can automatically suggest emulators and settings for various platforms - Improvement: Emulators now support multiple platforms with different command-line parameters for each platform - Improvement: Emulator command-line parameters can now be set per emulator, per platform, or per game - Improvement: The search box can now be accessed using Ctrl+F; the shortcut for fullscreen is now F11 - Improvement: The search box no longer flickers - Improvement: Empty folders are now added in export packages - Fixed: Touch screen swiping now works with the new themes - Fixed: Side bar scrollbar wasn't showing up or hiding in some cases when adding or removing games - Fixed: Side bar was in some cases not showing items until scrolling after changing filter types

Hi weshollet, I haven't used NullDC as of yet, but you can try putting something like this in your command line parameters: -config ImageReader:defaultImage= LaunchBox automatically adds the ROM file path to the end of the parameters, so hopefully that will work. Do let us know. Also, it's worth noting that there's a list of configurations here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/emulation/command-line-parameters-arguments

Yup, on my short list.

Another way to do it would be to use an AutoHotKey script. I have plans to integrate AutoHotKey into LaunchBox sometime soon, but you could still do it manually for now. AutoHotKey can check for any combination of controller buttons, and then perform an action like do a keyboard combination (Alt+F4 should close pretty much anything). An automated solution for that is coming...

Hey folks, I'm looking to simplify emulation for LaunchBox 4.2. In the very least, I'd like to include this list of settings within LaunchBox so that you can choose an emulator and have it automatically use the right settings. That said, it might be nice if I could include emulators for some platforms out of the box. I'd love to hear feedback on everyone's thoughts regarding this and what emulators they might suggest. I've looked into possibly including a multi-platform emulator like RetroArch or MESS but I have very little experience with them, and I'm not sure if that would be a good idea or not. Open to any and all ideas. The primary goal I have is to make emulation with LaunchBox as easy as possible, while allowing for customization where needed. Thanks, Jason

Great idea; added to my to dos.

Yup, no kidding. I hear you there. I just can't resist the shiny.

Ah, I see. So the compelling reason to hide it in the taskbar is so that you can keep it running all the time, but not have it get in the way. That makes sense...thanks.

Great.

Sure, I'm one of those "latest and greatest" addicts. It does bite me from time to time, though, certainly.

Thanks much, p.; there is not a hotkey for the new search bar, but I'll add that to my to dos. Unfortunately for the moment there's no good way to batch import DOS games. I do have it on my list to implement, but it is most definitely a challenge. Haven't ever heard of M.E.A.G.R.E. before; I thought I'd seen them all. Anyways, if you can get them in D-Fend, that's probably your best (and only) option for a mass import. I can imagine, though, there will probably be a few issues in translation.

Microsoft made a lot of API improvements regarding GDI+ with the release of Windows Vista, so I suspect that is the reason. But Windows is three versions ahead of XP now; it's almost surprising that it works at all, to be honest. Are you forever sticking to XP or just haven't gotten around to upgrading yet?

Well that's interesting...LaunchBox does not, in fact, look poor like that first image on the machines I use. What version of Windows are you running?

Ah, certainly, yeah. I agree, that is a good idea; it takes the guesswork out of it. I need to add it to the options menu as well and allow for finer control.

Hi hani, #18 has been a popular request so I'll likely be adding that soon. Per #19, I remember trying to make that happen during development for something like 2 hours, and finally giving up on it. Just had too many issues trying to refresh the parent window while the modal dialog box was open. But yeah, I agree, I need to go back to that.

That's actually been a popular request, so I'll likely be adding it soon.

Thanks, shinra; all noted. Can you try something for me? Know how to ping? Can you ping www.launchbox-app.com and tell me the IP address that you get? Also, where do you live? The site is fine for almost everyone but there are still a few people who are having troubles, apparently. I think it's due to DNS propagation issues with certain ISPs/networks, but I'm not positive.

Hi jh0nny, I do have plans to add extended music support for the premium version (full soundtracks, etc.). And scrapers for the music and manuals, etc. are planned as well. I see where you're going with editing the sidebar, but at some point it does get too complicated, and I've always wanted to focus on simplicity and ease of use. That said, I do still plan on adding an option to hide the (Exists) and (None) items.