Jason Carr

I've implemented the "cancel and keep your games" option in version 2.15.

Hey dreams, I just put out version 2.15 with DirectX controller input. Let me know if Vjoy is working for you now.

jtrain, FYI, I just put out version 2.15 and I've switched the controllers over to use DirectX instead. I would expect that the controller issues you were seeing should be fixed now. Let me know if they're not.

OzzieMonkey, FYI, I just put out version 2.15 with that new Sort Title field.

Thanks, dreams. At some point here I plan on replacing the joystick implementation with a DirectX version (instead of native Win32 joystick calls), which should resolve this and any related joystick issues. For now, disabling joystick input in the Options will at least allow you to keep using LaunchBox.

Dreams, hit me up at jasondavidcarr@gmail.com so we can talk offline.

Ah, yes. Makes sense. Hopefully I can get it into the next version.

Hi dreams, I see the advantage of allowing you to stop half way through and keep your games, but there are also situations where you want to cancel and you don't want your games affected (in theory, "cancel" should really mean to cancel and nothing should be done). Maybe another "Stop" option is in order though, as with long imports, it would probably be nice to stop and not lose your progress. Thanks for the note, I'll add it to the list.

Hi OzzieMonkey, glad it's working well for you. How about, instead of manually arranging the games, I add a field called "Sort Title" or something like that. It would default to the title, but you could customize it to keep Monkey Island games together, for instance. Thoughts?

Okay, good to know. I'll look into both. Thanks.

Agreed, dreams. I have that on my to do list.

Hey dreams, do you mean an import? What error are you getting exactly? Thanks, Jason

This response is a little late, bjornvil, I know, but I just added a batch import for your ROMs in version 2.13.

Sorry for the late reply here shinra; I've added your list to mine. Thanks for the feedback.

Hi nmc, Make sure your Dolphin emulator settings look like this: Specifically, the Command-Line Parameters need the /e. (Note the extra character in that box is just the cursor.) Let me know if you're still having trouble. Thanks, Jason

Thanks jtrain, that's interesting. I've found a number of odd issues with the joystick implementation; it seems I'm going to have to switch it over to use DirectX at some point instead of Windows' API calls. There are similar issues with Wiimotes as well. For now, until I can tackle the problem, you can disable joystick input in the settings. I'll hit you up when I get a new version together to test. Thanks, Jason

Hmm, good question einstone. I guess it would depend on how the emulator supported it. Currently, there's probably no way to make LaunchBox do it, unfortunately. I'll add a to-do item to my list to support it. What emulator are you using? If anyone else has used multiple disks in emulators, feel free to chime in. Thanks, Jason

Ah, oic. Makes sense. Glad you got it working, and good to know that that's sometimes the case.

Thanks for the compliments Atlantico! Yes, there are certainly a few gaps there with installing games from CDs. I know Boxer does an awesome job of making that process painless and it works tremendously well. I expect to implement a wizard of sorts in the future to make that process easier in LaunchBox, and I'll take as many ideas from Boxer as I can. For now, here's what you can do: Add a new game to LaunchBox and specify the title, but leave the "application path" blank. Under the DOSBox tab, check "Use DOSBox to play this game". Under the Mounts tab, click the "Add Folder" button and open your CD (or if you're working with a disk image, click the "Add Disk Image" button instead). If necessary, change the Type of the new mount to "CD-ROM/ISO". Finally, click the "Add Folder" button once again to add another mount. This will be where you want the game installed to on your hard drive. Choose your location, and then you should have two mounts: the first being your CD-ROM to install the game from, the second being the folder on your hard drive to install the game to. Take note of the drive letter for each; you'll need to remember them inside of DOSBox. Most likely your CD will be drive D and your destination folder will be drive E. Press OK to save the new game, and run it. DOSBox should open up, but no games will run. At the DOSBox prompt, navigate to your CD by typing "D:" (without the quotes) and pressing Enter. Change "D" to the drive letter you specified for your CD drive, if it's different. Now you'll need to start the installation program from the CD. Most DOS game installations are started by typing "install.exe" and pressing enter. If this doesn't work, type "dir /w" and press enter, look for files that end in ".EXE", and try those instead. Go through the installation program steps, and install to drive E:, or whichever drive you mounted your destination folder to. When the installation is done, hopefully the game will be ready to play. Close DOSBox, and then go back to edit your game in LaunchBox. Go back to the Mounts tab, and delete the destination folder mount (probably drive E), but leave the CD mount (probably drive D). Finally (whew), go back to the Launcher tab and click the Browse button next to Application Path. Go to the destination folder you specified for your destination mount, and select the game's EXE file. Press okay to save the game, and give it a run. Hopefully this works for you. The process should work for most games, but there are plenty of exceptions. If you run into any issues, let me know what the game is and I'll see if I can help you.

Awesome.

Featuring that screenshot on the screenshots page, btw.

LaunchBox 2.11 now has much more advanced support for gamepads and joysticks, and should allow you to navigate pretty close to the entire interface with your controller. Obviously, editing games with a controller is tedious (and relatively useless without being able to type), but you can at least open and close all dialogs without issues, mark favorites, etc. It is now relatively easy to change filters and arrangements as well, which is probably the biggest reason for the improvements. In the main LaunchBox window, your controller will behave like this: Main X/Y Axis (360 controller left stick): Controls the cursor on the screen Button 1 (360 controller A): Selects the game under the cursor, and selects menu items Button 2 (360 controller B): Opens the game context menu Button 3 (360 controller X): Starts the selected game (Play) Button 4 (360 controller Y): Opens the main LaunchBox menu Button 5 (360 controller left bumper): Opens and closes the filters panel Button 6 (360 controller right bumper): Toggles fullscreen mode POV (360 controller D-Pad): Allows you to navigate games, just like using the arrow keys on your keyboard Also, when menus are open, they can be navigated either using the main X/Y axis (360 controller left stick), or the POV switch (D-Pad). Menu items can be selected with button 1 (A). To navigate the filters, open the filters panel with button 5 (left bumper), or move the cursor all the way to the right if the filters are already open. The cursor will disappear from the games view and the focus will move to the filters. You can move between the filters fields with either the main X/Y axis (left stick) or the POV switch (D-Pad). Press button 1 (A) to select a value or button 2 (B) to clear it. To move focus back to the games, simply move back to the left. In dialogs, such as add/edit, message boxes, etc., your controller will behave like this: Main X/Y Axis (360 controller left stick): Simulates using the arrow keys on your keyboard POV (360 controller D-Pad): Also simulates using the arrow keys on your keyboard Button 1 (360 controller A): Simulates pressing the Enter key Button 2 (360 controller B): Simulates pressing the Escape key Button 3 (360 controller X): Simulates pressing the Tab key Button 4 (360 controller Y): Simulates pressing the Space key These controls should allow you to navigate through all dialogs without much trouble. For example, to mark a game as a favorite, you would use button 3 (X) to tab between the fields on the add/edit form until you reached the Favorite checkbox, then use button 4 (Y) to check the box, and then button 1 (A) to save your changes and close the dialog. Similarly, you can use button 2 (B) to cancel. Leave a comment if you have any trouble, and please do let us know how well your various controllers work with this arrangement.

Wow, very nice. Have you been using TheGamesDB? It'd be awesome to get all that metadata and images up there if it isn't already (very much wish TheGamesDB would let me implement some sort of a batch upload from LaunchBox to TheGamesDB).

Thanks, Doc, good find. I've fixed the error and I'll be putting out a new version later today. Otherwise, it looks like to get past the error you can start over with a new install (or just delete the LaunchBox.xml file), start LaunchBox, delete the demo games, close LaunchBox, and then it should work for whatever you want to do when you load it back up. Thanks again for the report; sorry for the trouble.

Alright, this is implemented (via file extensions) for the next release. I'm expecting the next release to come sometime before Monday.