Jason Carr

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.

Hey Circinus, let's get this resolved. Not exactly sure what might be going on, but we'll get it figured out. Have you tried installing to a brand new folder without any existing LaunchBox.xml files (an empty collection)? Also, make sure that you have full access to the images folder; it looks to me like it might be caused by incorrect file system permissions in the images folder. So first off, see if a brand new installation of LaunchBox works properly somewhere inside your My Documents folder.

Hi mnemoic, sorry for the late reply here. Yes, I do think this would be a good idea to provide this option; I'll add a to-do item to my list.

Hi ncross, welcome indeed. Sorry I'm getting to this post so late (been hiding away feverishly building new features). An option for #1 is already planned (though it may be only in the future premium version). I'll add to do items to look into #2 and #3. Btw, if you're interested in beta testing, please do hop on in and subscribe to the beta testing thread.

Hey all, I went ahead and released 3.5 today; there were some serious bug fixes that needed to get out ASAP. I believe Brad's issues above have been solved. More importantly, I just put out a new nightly build with a very early (but semi-functional) sidebar. Feel free to give it a shot and comment on it. I expect that a lot will change with it yet, but it's a start. https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies Thanks, Jason

I see what you mean here, mnemonic. If the user specifies to use the game folder for the name, then it really should only add one game, even if there's multiple files in the folder. I'll add this to my to do list. Problem is, though, it still would have to guess which file to use.

Welcome to the forums, mnemonic. There isn't really a Windows game importer for the moment, but you can manually add them via Game > Add, as Brad suggested. The DOS game installer wizard won't work very well, though; I wouldn't suggest using that. Thanks, Jason

And here's an updated build from tonight's development: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies/src/6ae6c0361f0e199ec81086eadc6309824b340160/LaunchBox_nightly_2014-08-22_00-26-12.exe?at=master I really need some help testing this one as I've been battling some sporadic crashes while navigating between games. It seems to happen on right-clicking games but I haven't been able to check if that's the only time that it happens. Any testing anyone can do would be appreciated; most importantly, let me know if you get any crashes and what the errors are. Thanks, Jason

Alright, so I have a beta release ready sooner than I expected. I've done a lot of code cleanup for this release, so some general testing would be good. The primary change for this, though, is a new adjustable RAM cache feature that will help to speed up scrolling performance. Check out the RAM Cache tab in the Options dialog. Need to test for scrolling performance and also just to make sure that there are no crashes. Also, I've created a semi-automated "nightly" build system that will make it easier to test beta/nightly releases. You can download the releases here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies Here's the link to this particular release: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox-nightlies/src/1c345f75efe34f373e30fb4546057d8bd8261091/LaunchBox_nightly_2014-08-20_21-21-06.exe?at=master

Great, thanks Ron. I've granted you access to the beta releases. I have should have a new beta release posted within the next couple of days. Make sure you subscribe to this thread so you can get notified.

I should have another beta release coming within the next couple days. If you can subscribe to the beta testing thread I linked above, you'll get notified. Thanks, sudo.

Great. Nothing that advanced ftm. Just been posting beta releases here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/launchbox-beta-testing Though you're absolutely right, would be good to get nightlies going. I'll add that to my to-do list. Also worth noting is I have an issues list here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues?status=new&status=open It contains everything: new features, bugs, etc. I'm asking people not to add to the list (I'd rather maintain it myself and get things to come in via the forums), but feel free to browse it (and maybe vote or comment on things if you feel inclined).

Hi sudo, welcome to the forums. Let me clarify some things here... The ID generation is *not* based off of hardware at all. It's a simple industry standard GUID. LaunchBox does *not* observe your hardware for anything. And yes, LaunchBox is fully portable. Not sure how we worked hardware into the discussion, but that's not right. Brad is right regarding the character replacements in the images paths. It's not problematic if it's done consistently, and it's currently posing zero issues. However, I understand your desire to have everything inside the game folder. This is an option I might add at some point soon, because it keeps getting requested. It will likely end up in the premium version I'm planning for December, however. It is likely to slow down LaunchBox a hare, but I doubt it will be too significant; we'll have to see how it goes when I tackle it. One more thing, we are looking for more help beta testing. Interested?

Thanks, sla.ro, I've given you permissions to download the betas. You can follow this thread here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/launchbox-beta-testing I'll be putting out a new beta within the next few days.

Nice, Ron. Welcome to the forums. Hit us up here if you're interested in beta testing: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/launchbox-beta-testing

Now that's a great looking collection. Gecko, I trust that running the web browser games is working well enough for you now?

I do believe I have this fixed. I'm planning on putting out a quick bugfix release over the weekend, so this should be included.

Conehead, you're a genius. Thanks for that. I'll get this fixed.

Planning to release the official version 3.3 tomorrow night. Here is beta 3; I expect the official release to be very similar to this. The only things different in this from beta 2 are a few minor fixes, a new background fading feature, and an updated welcome dialog to introduce the upcoming premium version. Let me know if anyone runs into any bugs; otherwise, we'll shoot for an official release tomorrow night. Thanks again, everyone.

As we've previously discussed on the forums, a premium version of LaunchBox is in the works; we're shooting for December 2014 as the first release of the premium version. We're hoping this forum post can help to answer everyone's questions on the matter, and provide a good place for discussion and feedback. Why a premium version? As much as we'd love for all LaunchBox features to forever be free, we'd like to take LaunchBox much further than it already is, and we're starting to hit some walls. For example, as we've discussed previously on the forums, we'd like to add skinning support, but we would need to purchase a third-party product to integrate it into LaunchBox. Unfortunately, coming up with the funds for things like this is difficult with a donation-only model, not to mention that this site alone costs more than the what is being generously donated. Rather than be annoying and beg for donations, or just greedy and charge everyone for LaunchBox, we think that a free/premium model would be the best solution to the problem. We'd like to keep LaunchBox ad-free, nag-free, and free to distribute, and this seems to be the best solution. What will the premium version include? We're considering many different features for the premium version, but we expect most of the features to surround advanced customization abilities, such as themes/skinning support, searching more online databases than just TheGamesDB.net, and similar options. One of the biggest goals with LaunchBox from the beginning was to make everything as clean and easy as possible. We still want to keep it this way for the current free version. Therefore, the benefits of the premium version will be limited to power-user features that have not yet been implemented. Anything that is implemented to make LaunchBox easier to use will be kept in the free version. How much will it cost and what if I've already donated? Currently, we're considering charging $10 for the premium version, which we consider to be very reasonable. LaunchBox users who have already donated or who donate between now and the release of the premium version will get immediate access to it upon release. We're also planning on using a lifetime license model, so that once you pay for the premium version, you will continue to get upgrades for free for life, and can use your copy on any number of machines (even in a portable manner). We plan to include no DRM, and to discourage piracy only by stating who a premium copy of LaunchBox is licensed to in the program's title bar. We recognize that this will result in some level of piracy, but we would rather deal with a minimum amount of piracy than cripple the software for paying users. What about the current free version? Will it continue to be updated? Yes, the current free version will forever continue to be updated. New features will keep being released. When considering whether a new feature belongs in the free version or the premium version, we'll ask the question, "Is this a power-user feature?" If the answer is yes, the feature will likely end up in the premium version. However, features like imports, library management, or anything else that make LaunchBox easier and more convenient to use will continue to be released for the free version. We want LaunchBox to be the go-to app for multi-platform gaming on the PC, and we want it to be free. We need your feedback. Please let us know if you have any thoughts you'd like to share on any aspect of this. If you're excited about the premium version, let us know. If you dislike the idea, let us know as well. If you have ideas for features that you'd like to see in the premium version, by all means, do share. We want to keep LaunchBox a community-driven application, even for the premium version, as it has been from the beginning. Thanks for all your support; we can't wait to see where we can take LaunchBox going forward.

Turns out this issue was caused by the fact that with large collections, LaunchBox would take a bit of time to exit after the window was closed. Then, if it was started again while the main window was closed but LaunchBox was still running, it would result the above screenshot. I've resolved the issue by putting up a "please wait for LaunchBox to close" notice.

Thanks, bd.