Jason Carr

Ah, sure, that would make sense. Though I think I'd rather use a metadata file per previous discussion. Bd, you'll notice that the new export process does automatically arrange all the games for the zip file, so I'm not really far off from an option to "consolidate game files". At this point I didn't add the metadata files, but that wouldn't be too hard. Just didn't yet see that compelling of a reason to do it at this point. Could also move the images into the game folder, which would make it an isolated set. Think that's worth doing?

Alright, here's version 3.3 beta 1. There's quite a bit to talk about with this release. And as usual, quite a bit to test. New stuff so far: - Swapping discs in DOSBox is now supported (see the new thread I created). Please test if you can. - The root LaunchBox folder has been cleaned up to only include LaunchBox.xml and LaunchBox.exe. All other files have been moved elsewhere (for instance the default dosbox.conf file is now under the DOSBox folder). Please test to confirm that files move properly. - Now the entire file structure for LaunchBox is extracted on startup directly from LaunchBox.exe. Please try putting LaunchBox.exe in an empty folder and confirm that everything works properly. - There's a new "root folder" field on games. This field is auto-populated for existing games (guessed based on the application or configuration path). However, it is used in DOSBox as the mount point and also for exporting games. It helps to make sure that all files are included in these scenarios. - There's a new Export Selected Games option under the Tools menu. It's a wizard that will export games to a zip file. An import process is on the way, but I need this export process tested extensively, if possible. It will create a zip file that contains an entire collection, so you can test it by extracting the files and running LaunchBox from the extracted files (make sure games work, paths are right, etc.). Of course there's more in the change log. Thanks to everyone for all your help; I'm hoping to add the import and then put out the official 3.3 version. Thanks, Jason

Hey Dexter, sorry for the late response on this one. I'll add a non-priority to-do item to save the previous path. I hear you on the real world. Don't we all wish we could leave.

What happened to this thread? I don't see any content anymore... Let me know if it just disappeared or something, weird.

Added you to the beta testing group in the beta testing thread.

Accepted you too, Conehead.

Sweet...added you.

Hey pogowolf, there is actually: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox Please don't submit tickets there, though, as I prefer things to come through the forums (or the submission forms on the site). Still, that includes most everything that is planned. I've added you to the Trusted Members group on the forums, so you should have access to beta releases going forward. I'll be putting out a new beta release later today.

Great discussion guys. Pogowolf, I'd love to be able to define a standard to include metadata and images, etc., inside of a ROM file, but unfortunately there's no way to do it without breaking support for all of the emulators. The only way to do it would be to get all of the emulator developers on board, which would of course be impossible. Once you change the structure of a file at all, for the most part it will no longer work with existing software. We will be looking into which emulators to include soon; I'll definitely take a look at the ones you've mentioned.

Yeah, currently, the platforms list is populated only by existing games in your library. That might change going forward, but I'm not sure. I think I'd rather not force a bunch of extra platforms if you're only interested in two or three, for example.

One more thing, pogowolf, did I read that you have a technical/development background of sorts? Care to join the beta testing community (if you haven't already)?

Great to see this discussion guys; thanks bd and Brad for helping out. For various reasons (described in the Library Brainstorming topic), I dropped the plan to split up LaunchBox into many different XML files/libraries. However, I'm pretty sure we can tackle the performance issues without that being too much of a problem. The biggest issue right now is that all the images are in RAM, which obviously becomes a major issue with 30,000+ games. I have plans to work on the caching to limit the number of images in the cache, though I can't tackle it right away.

Okay, thanks. That's odd. So either there's an issue with LaunchBox not picking up some release dates, or maybe an issue with the search engine for TheGamesDB. I'll look into it and confirm. Thanks for detailing it all out for me.

Conehead, can you explain? I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

Yes, occasionally they do seem to go down, but it shouldn't last long.

Sure, I like the banner idea. Added to my list. I'll add another item too to see if I can get it to remember folders.

Wow, nice job bd. Thanks for that. That'll prove helpful for the future indeed. nmc, all good points, yes. I can always use the help advertising on the various sites because I'm currently putting most of my time towards development and forum discussions. I agree on the database as well. An API of sorts would definitely be a good thing. It's a ways off, but I am thinking along those lines.

Very nice collection, sla.ro. Thanks for the post. Any chance you want to help beta test?

Ah, good to know. Thanks.

Hey guys, good thoughts. I will be enabling URLs in the application path soon (probably for the next version). Full screen support would be easy enough, but it would probably be better to be able to configure it (specify which browser to run and whether to run full screen, etc.). I'll add that to my list, but as less of a priority as some of the more pressing things. I'll add an item for customizable controller mapping as well (to possibly replace Xpadder). The Wikipedia API is planned, but I have some other things to work on first before I can tackle it.

Thanks, bd for helping Vinicius. Vinicius, I'm excited to see the video. The 128x128 image is actually the largest I have anyways. Brad, great ideas, as usual. I definitely do need to work on making emulation much easier, including possibly even including some emulators with LaunchBox. For that I'll need some help identifying what emulators to possibly include (identifying the emulators that are the best for their platform and have licenses that would allow them to be included). I'll probably keep this in the free version though because anything that makes things easier to use I'm thinking would be better off free. bd, I definitely like the concept of getting users to advertise/share LaunchBox, for sure. That's huge. Great idea. We'll take that approach going forward.

New in version 3.3 is support for swapping discs in DOSBox. Some games require that multiple discs be switched out within the same drive, either while playing the game or during the game's installation process. DOSBox supports mounting more than one disc at once, and allows you to switch between discs by pressing Ctrl + F4. Previously, however, LaunchBox did not support mounting multiple discs to a single drive. The Mounts tab of the Add/Edit dialog now allows you to assign multiple mounts to the same drive letter. Therefore, if your game happens to have three discs, you would add all three images or folders to the Mounts grid and assign them all to be the same drive letter, for example drive D. Then during the game or installation process, you could switch between discs as needed by pressing Ctrl + F4. Feel free to comment here if anyone needs help or finds something not working properly with this feature. Thanks, Jason

Conehead said i too agree on this. but you must know that "the community decision " from here will be the view of just 10/20 people so for getting feedback on this from all the LB users you should use some other methods like a one time poll when the users open LB. also, not all are capable of donating even thought they would like using LB so i suggest that before releasing a premium version you should release an equivalent free version which would be stable like the Premium one but would have less features like Themes ,blocked Popup etc. and you could also release updates for the free version just like the Premium but with less features. Thanks, Conehead. Yes, I can see the advantage of polling the entire community, but my current thoughts are that I'm more interested in the feedback of people who are well-informed, vocal, and involved in the project more than those who really don't know what's going on. Obviously, users who don't understand the issues with not going premium or haven't had the experience to appreciate the ongoing development of LaunchBox are likely to all vote "no, I do not want a premium version" without much thought at all. Therefore, I'd rather work on getting users more involved so they can make more informed decisions from that front instead of just randomly throwing it out there. And yes, we'll certainly keep updating both versions, regardless. The intent will certainly not be "upgrade to premium to keep up to date". It will be "update to premium for these advanced features".

bd00 said Yeah your right, not being able to disable it would be too much, forget I suggested that. I hate ads in apps too, but I do understand why devs need to do it. What we are talking about here, I don't really consider it as an ad but more of a notice. Seeing notices in free apps saying "If you like this app, please donate..." never bothers me like true ads do. I also think you should start encouraging your users to start spreading the word about LaunchBox, but that's just my opinion. I also think anyone who helps you in beta testing, should get a license too. Good point about encouraging users to spread the word. I have zero marketing experience. Anyone have any ideas as to how best to encourage people to spread the word? Agreed about the licenses for beta testers; yes, that was the plan but obviously I do have to draw the line at some point. Everyone on this thread currently will get a license but I'd rather not hand out licenses to everyone who puts in a minimal amount of effort beta testing (otherwise we'll have people just hopping on to do the least amount of effort to grab a license). Significant contributors like all of you obviously are a different story.

Thank you jtrain for donating! Vinicius, I know how that is, and even after going premium I'm likely to just hand it out to people who want it but have legitimate reasons why they really couldn't pay. Thanks for sharing your input, and I'll make sure that people who have major issues paying for things on the Internet (or flat out can't afford much at all) will still be able to ask for and probably receive a copy. To be clear, I am envisioning that anyone who pays would get a lifetime license to the premium version. I'm not looking to nickel and dime folks, that's for sure. bd, you're right, I haven't done any in-app advertising asking for donations. In fact, I've wanted to completely avoid it, because I know how irritating it is. That said, obviously it will need to happen at some point. Maybe for the next version we can advertise on the welcome dialog at least. What I want to avoid entirely though is spamming people with advertisements who've already donated or already purchased the premium version. I dislike forcing that welcome dialog too, because I know it would piss me off. Anyways, thanks everyone for your feedback. It does sound like we will probably look to create a premium version eventually, though it will probably be at least a couple versions before it happens.