Jason Carr

yattah, I do plan on adding an auto-populate search box to the toolbar. Would this do it?

Hi frostmute, it is open to everyone. Download the latest here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies I'll be coming out with a new version soon.

Thanks, Wolfereign; both features are, in fact, planned.

It is, using the additional apps feature.

Good question. Really, though, this should be a part of the DOSBox feature set. Though I have no idea if we'll ever see it implemented. Maybe you could make a request with the DOSBox team?

Conehead said column of icons of gaming system would be good only if the person doesnt need to scroll down(to find his console/system) at all. but this can be solved if the person can change the size of icons of the system which would appear on the left side. in the current version small icons next to the names of the system would be nice but it would look more like openemu, which i guess is not what jason would want. scree has suggested an interested thing too. I actually do like that concept (small icons next to the platforms); it might not be in the next release (because I need a way for the user to manage the icons first), but it's currently part of the plan.

scree said I like the new sidebar, but I find it's constant presence unnecessary. A sliding window similar to that once implemented (via third party support) on the old Windows Vista gadgets sidebar would be nicer. With this feature, LaunchBox would open as per version 3.5, with a tiny icon placed midway down the left edge of the screen. Clicking (or hovering over) this little icon would slide the sidebar into view. The sidebar would remain visible and usable as long as the mouse stayed within it's boundaries or the access icon was clicked again. Moving the mouse to the right into the main games window or clicking the access icon would cause the sidebar to slide left until it vanished leaving only it's access icon. A similar sliding window could be added to the right edge. This could slide a user customisable sidebar; e.g. games info/screenshots/web metadata etc into view. It's just a thought, but perhaps something similar might be considered down the line. Hi Scree, yes, I will be implementing some sort of method of hiding/showing the sidebar before release. I'm not certain I'll have a solution that advanced, but I'll give it a shot.

SentaiBrad said Yea, it is looking awesome. I also have a question for the Beta Testers. Do you guys use a controller with LB? Ideally in a "Steam Box" fashion? Or just on your TV like 5 feet away? Or do you use a controller at all? The question I have is, with the new UI would icons on the left be something that would make life easier? Maybe a 2 column system with an arrow at the bottom. 2 columns of game system icons. I would like to add icons similar to OpenEmu's presentation. The problem, though, is not everything works well with icons. Obviously statuses and such will not have icons associated with them, so it might be able to be done for platforms, for instance, but the interface would have to be changed back to text for other types.

Conehead said got back yesterday and saw this . the new interface is really good. bugs .. none so far awesome work Jason Thank you Conehead!

nmc said Hello guys, The new GUI is getting really hot, nice work Jason. Is there a way to extend the controller usage into the platform sidebar browser? Aside from that, it´s getting really cool. Thank you nmc! That's great to hear. Yes, I do plan on getting the controller working in the sidebar before release.

KeenanW said Jason Carr said Keenan, good find, but I can't reproduce it. Can you screenshot or copy paste me the error text? It's just a generic "Stopped Responding" error message. No error log as far as I can see. For the right-click issue, staying in the main game list window and waiting five seconds doesn't make it crash. My XML file is 2.5MB, so maybe it's taking a bit of a time to load that information. If I right click anything before five seconds have passed, it crashes. Interesting, sounds like maybe it's happening while pre-populating images to the cache. I'll see if I can figure anything out. Brad, can you, or anyone else with a very large library, try right-clicking several games immediately after starting the app?

Brad, care to do a video? In all honesty, I'm relatively clueless with this MAME stuff.

Yes, corrupted images currently wreak havoc on LaunchBox. I'm going to try and put in some better error handling to hopefully deal with this situation in a safer manner. I'll look specifically into your error, too, Circinus.

Hi Hafitz, I actually have thought about this scenario, and I've tried a few things. There's been at least one other forum post about it too. Unfortunately, though, old Windows games are notoriously difficult to get running on modern Windows machines. Do the games play successfully on your machine *with* the CD? If so, then yes, you should be able to use Alcohol or Daemon Tools or similar to mount the CD. You can use the Additional Applications to run commands before and after the game launches, which has worked well for a number of people. However, if the game doesn't run under your current version of Windows, unfortunately the only way to get it to run is to use virtual machine software. VMware seems to be your best bet. But that is a pain; it involves installing a version of Windows that runs the game in a virtual machine, and then running the game that way. So it's quite involved.

Yeah, that makes sense. Games will continue to be the focus, of course, but you could certainly add movies, music, apps, or whatever else you might want to your collection as well.

Hi ps4, glad that's working for you; good to know.

Hey Circinus, just posted the beta release I promised: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies

Just put up another new nightly: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies This version has a bunch of sidebar and styling fixes for various DPI settings and related things, as well as a themed scrollbar on the games view.

I added a safety check here; you'll probably still get an error warning on startup but at least it shouldn't crash the application. I'll be putting up a new beta release here soon (probably tonight), you can download that and give that a try when it's up. To fix it for real, you'll probably need to fix the file permissions for your temporary folder. Try opening Windows Explorer and putting %tmp% or %temp% in your address bar. That should take you to the temporary folder.

Ah, so I looked further into this. Apparently the temp path on your computer has file system permissions that are messed up; that seems to be what's going on. However, it'd be better if LaunchBox didn't crash as a result, as it's just a matter of not showing the images in the welcome screen I think. So I'll see if I can make it work regardless.

Hi Bob, welcome to the forums. I think the beta version might solve this problem for you, with the new sidebar. Check it out here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/launchbox-beta-testing/page-12 Let me know if that helps solve the problem. Thanks, Jason

No worries, Vinicius, I know how it is. Thanks for giving it a test run. Keenan, good find, but I can't reproduce it. Can you screenshot or copy paste me the error text?

This is where it starts getting exciting. I put up a new nightly. I've been working on the new sidebar (it's mostly done now) and also I've rethemed the main window. I don't have the options dialogs done yet, but this should allow for custom coloring as well (and eventually full-on skins, should we take it that far). Keep in mind that there's still a lot to do (for example, I don't have minimize/maximize/close buttons yet), but the app is usable with the new theme. But if you see something that's missing, it just means it isn't done yet. I'm looking for feedback on this; I want to hear what everybody thinks of the direction that I've taken. Also, let me know if you run into any bugs. Thanks guys, enjoy. https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies

Welcome scree and Saboti, thanks for your additions. Brad, any chance you could update the list?

Hi mnemonic, I've tried to keep a traditional approach to the menu titles and organization; believe it or not, it is common practice to do things the way LaunchBox does them. There's also an Add button on the button bar that is visible by default when you start LaunchBox up for the first time. I do agree that the Tools menu is getting a bit cluttered, though, so I might have to start splitting things up at some point.