SentaiBrad

Vinicius256 said Jason Carr said - Assuming you hadn't already donated, would you pay to upgrade to the better version with advanced features? I would love to contribute by donating or buying the program, the problem is that I'm still 15 and to buy things on the internet is already terrible, because I have to ask my parents to buy stuff for me, and knowing my parents, they won't let me donate, sadly I was planning on donating several times when I can. So the first $10 I donate next Thursday will be on your behalf.

Yes, what bd said. It would most likely be $10 at max anyways.

Jason Carr said I've been thinking a bit. This is a pretty controversial topic I realize...but sooner or later, I'm gonna hit a wall with the project financially and probably eventually time-wise too. There's a million things to do yet with the project beyond what we already have, and I think it has HUGE potential. The issue is, the bigger it gets, the more money it will cost to maintain (web hosting, etc.) and the more time it will take to maintain and improve. I'm currently considering a freeware/premium model of sorts, where all of the current functionality is available for free, but you have the option to upgrade to an improved version with special features (like theming, more advanced customization options, etc.). I'm considering this mostly because I want this to be a long-term project, and I don't want to have to limit its features or not make it as good as it could be because I'm scrounging for funds. I also have to admit I would *love* for this project to be a full time focus (as opposed to the side project that it is currently). To be clear, anyone who's donated already would have the upgraded version free for life. I also hate DRM, so that would absolutely *NOT* be included, and the cost of the upgrade would be extremely inexpensive (probably $5 or $10 or similar). If everyone hates this idea, I won't go through with it. Straight up. I want this to be at least somewhat a community decision, as obviously it affects us all. So, to those of us on this thread, let me ask you a few questions: - Would you find it offensive or would it leave a bad taste in your mouth if LaunchBox went to this free/premium model? - Assuming you hadn't already donated, would you pay to upgrade to the better version with advanced features? - Specifically, what would you want to avoid doing if we did move to a free/premium model? Thanks everyone; please do speak up as we need as many people's feedback on this as possible. Obviously this isn't an easy decision to make (and trust me, it's not one that I had planned on making). Let me know. Thanks, Jason I am torn on this. I agree with you, you want it to be full time. You would probably like to hire or recruit some extra help. But on the other hand, if the user feels like they have to pay for the program to any useful, then they just wont use it. They'll stick to current methods or find alternatives. I am not saying I am against it, I am saying the message needs to be clear that the program works just fine, and the same features that you've been used to since launch. Also make it clear you're not forgetting the general user base who doesn't want to donate, doesn't think its worth it, or simply can't - which is the camp I fall in to saddly. I want to donate, and will when I can, but can't just donate when ever. There needs to be a clear structure for the program. Usability, basic scraper functionality and maybe some other Features we can work out will be free. Always free, because if not then what is the point? But if you want some more advanced scrapper options, themeing support, maybe some forum incentives and priority support with the program, you can donate some money.

We literally have $70 in the bank till she gets paid again next Thursday, and I am saving at least $30 now and $30 next time for Sims 4. Day one videos. So sorry, I could use donations actually. That said, screw trying to get access to it? Do we NEED that license? Is it just for the styles or for the ability to use it for the program? If there is no way to build it in themeing right now, then if the program is going to undergo UI and UX changes what about a code rewrite? I know, that's a nightmare to think about, but you said there are things you could have done better. I don't know if all of it needs to be rewritten but... something to think about if the long term effects are we can keep everything "in engine" and doesn't require a license for 3rd party access. Not to mention who knows how restrictive that license is? Not that you are going to charge for LB, but it could be a nightmare? Either way, I am happy to see LB coming along.

nmc said Hi all, just got back from my vacations. Glad to see the new launchbox features. I would like to see a diferent concept in Launchbox, like a slider dock with the emulators images, it would support perfectly both the mouse and controllers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu1G34GSrKM I don´t know how hard it is to implement a concept like this ( double layer ), the wheels are diferent from the other frontends i have ever seen. Just a thought. That I do not think would go over so well. Putting that in to the program would require graphic design and using DirectX or OpenGL libraries probably. Jason and I already talked about utilizing GPU for some processing power, and that is just not in the cards with just him. So building an entire graphical interface? Not to mention, I think that would get away from being intuitive. The program as it sits right now at least most people know how to use at a base level. Once you confuse someone with a new look, a radically new look that only the power user would have normally seen, I think you start to alienate the audience. I agree that looks pretty cool, and with the ./hack Wallpaper, its fitting. But maybe in the future? Maybe as a theme if and when a themeing system can be implemented well enough for that level? We still have a lot of relatively big issues and the design choices were talking about in this thread are minimal changes compared to what you're talking about. Though I will admit... it looks pretty badass, save for a little bit of clunkiness.

jtrain said Awesome work guys, love the mock-ups. To add my 2 cents: I think the sidebar idea looks the best (and would be the most functional) when using LB from my desktop. However I would actually prefer the layers approach when using LB on my HTPC in my living room. I have a pretty big TV but I sit quite a ways away from it, and I think a sidebar would be too hard to read. I think the layers approach would look the best and be the easiest to navigate with only a 360 controller. I prefer the one that shows a grid of platform icons, which the user could modify if they so chose. Of course the best of both worlds would be a way to choose between the two depending on preference, but this creates a lot more work for those doing the dev! That is partly what I was thinking of too, or for a Windows Surface Tablet. A Bigger Icon would be nice. My thought is to still keep it in the side bar. There could be different themeing options. Just the regular here is your sidebar with a list and icons, pick what you want or leave it alone and your result on the right. Or you can choose to switch it to Icons. So no words, just an icon and pressing the icon will show the result on the right. Honestly, there is no ideal set up. Some set up somewhere is going to have its draw backs. Like I said above too, you don't want 50 options that get lost then someone just quits because its too much to wrap their head around. As much as Jason wants to keep the program portable, I think it is going to work against us. I honestly think forking it from portable to a regularly installed program with saved config files is best, or find a way to include them in with the exe so it can still be portable, but you need the folder instead of just the exe. When the program launch it can be plainly laid out and ask if you want a regular Desktop / Laptop interface or do you want a Controller / Touch interface. The settings can also assign several different values that we've been talking about, like a voting system etc.

Actually I don't have a camera... that is the only problem. >< I am sure I could find one or borrow one... And no, im honestly not that closed minded. If someone has a method or an idea, I am all for hearing it. It is just that I've worked so hard for little pay off. It gets to be a lot sometimes. My girlfriend has to watch me go through that too, and I am sure she hates it. It then makes me not want to do anything around the house. X_X Anyways, about the program. All great ideas and addendums to my thoughts BD. All I agree with. We also keep saying "make it a choice", but at a certain point there needs to be a design decision. We cant have LB cluttered up with 40 options. We may like that approach, and maybe there can be a fork of LB for the extreme power users in the future, but for a mass audience we need to try and make it as intuitive as possible. I think the side bar would be the best choice. Clicking a system, then it replacing the systems with options to refine the search is perfect and a back button to take you back. There would also need to be options for the entire library in one go. So keeping it similar to the way it is now, but adding the powerful sorting as well. We'll figure it out.

Just skimmed through. I was going to go about creating Pixel representations of consoles and controls because I knew that this was a direction Jason wanted to go, but It doesn't look like I need to do that anymore. As far as which look, I prefer the Left Sidebar view, but I have a big screen. For those with a smaller display maybe there can be a choice on the initial start up but detecting that would be difficult but either way, make it a choice honestly. Saying that, I realize that could be a nightmare so I personally would go for the Left bar styled look. As for showing the content you want. Why make it so overly complicated? Sorting by developers I find strongly useless. Platform, Genre, Rating, maybe Year or Metacritic Rating (for those that want it) would be fine. Someone would like the developer sorting too, but I think it needs to make sense. The way I saw that was you Click a filter, like Snes, then you hit another Filter like Electronic Arts, etc etc. That's what I took away from the layered look. If you went a left bar route you could choose the master sorting method. I.e. Genre or Platform. Then from there a choice indented from your master choice pops up. From there you can pick year or anything else you can come up with. Similar to how you can refine searches in Amazon or NewEgg. This is all of course predicated on the fact that TheGamesDB has every game in your library, which they do not for me. Not even close. So powerful sorting is fine and all, but Wikipedia searching is a must. That said, and I'll put this in the Beta Post too, but I changed over to the new version, and even though I imported all my images, they are all gone. Whats more is that TheGamesDB has some games, but no images. So I also think that if an image is missing it can populate the game system with it saying something along the lines of "No Image Available" especially since even with Wikipedia searching, finding images is still going to be a pain. Edit: Also, sorry I haven't been saying much recently. My images bug pissed me off, but there has been some stuff I've been thinking about for LB, and bugs I've been needing to talk about. I've just been really trying to focus on my YouTube and my other stuff... I need my YouTube to finally take off and im sure Jason can agree, trying to make your own way and not work for someone else, like a YouTube channel or creating your own program, is very hard. Sometimes I get really depressed and reclusive for a while.

So I have a new image bug. I installed the new release, I started the program then exited out. From there, I copied over the Images and XML file. Well when clicking on games, the background still changes art but the games front box art doesn't show up. After editing a game then simply hitting OK on it however the image shows back up. I didn't have any problems with just changing out the Beta exe's but this time I chose a new location for the new release.

Vinicius256 said SentaiBrad said We can probably learn from OpenEmu, but at its heart two very different programs. LaunchBox is looking to be the Box from which you Launch everything on your PC, tied to Open Source or at least Free Information databases like TheGamesDB and Wikipedia. When you said everything I kinda imagined LaunchBox being able to support movies XD But I see what you mean =P Actually, XBMC is the same exact styled program for Video and Music. It has a completely different GUI, and they even have a games portion similar to what LaunchBox does, but we do it better because LB is a dedicated program for that function. I love XBMC though, all my anime, movies and TV shows are categorized, images are downloaded, info is downloaded, ratings are downloaded etc. It's a very awesome and beautiful way to show all that info. It can do music too, but I still just prefer Pandora and WinAmp for all of that. Also Jason, I personally don't care about game ratings, but I know some people do. Could we look in to a Metacritic API? Some people could find that info useful.

bd00 said Sorry for the long post, believe it or not I tried to keep it brief. I tried to at first too..... I stopped trying. Instead a lot of the conversation has moved over to Steam. It's just easier for us to talk when he needs something answered quick or to test a new interim build.

Vinicius256 said Hey Jason, about the library, you could make it like OpenEmu. Take a look to see what I mean: http://openemu.org/ They have these lists by platform on the left side of the program. They also have a drag and drop function to easily import games to your library. Just an idea though Now I don't speak for Jason, but I THINK he would say that he doesn't want to copy another program. Honestly, I don't want him to either. We talked about OpenEmu a while ago, and I told him LaunchBox could be perceived as the Windows equivalent to OpenEmu since OpenEmu doesn't seem willing to transition to PC or Linux. LaunchBox really isn't in a place to be ported to other systems yet either, but rest assured Jason wants to do that... I'm hoping for Linux personally. That said, LaunchBox will no doubt be compared to OpenEmu. I fully expect that, so does Jason I assume. That's the nature of the internet. OpenEmu from what I can tell has a Core for each system it shows off. Meaning, it its self is an actual Emulator. LaunchBox is not. Two different philosophies. We can probably learn from OpenEmu, but at its heart two very different programs. LaunchBox is looking to be the Box from which you Launch everything on your PC, tied to Open Source or at least Free Information databases like TheGamesDB and Wikipedia. OpenEmu, and this is from not ever speaking to any of their development team, I assume is just interested in being Emulator focused and I am sure they'll expand that as time goes on. The possible new library function has just been literally brought up and I'm sure he has ideas floating around, I would love to see the GUI go the more artistic route with cool console images, I will probably offer my help with that too seeing as how I do video and photoshop as a hobby I am trying to get paid to do. No, Jason doesn't pay me. Nor do I want him to... nor can he. xD Also, don't keep my long posts, BD's long posts or Jason's long posts from letting anyone else comment! I'm finally glad in about 3 pages its more than just us. xD

Both features sound like a good idea but I honestly would rather make sure we have searching for games and importing games down. Most of it is just fine, but DOS importing most likely still need work and Wikipedia searching was being talked about. Batch editing still has some work, unless you've fixed that up for the release, I haven't taken a look yet. I also think it could be a bit more streamlined to adding games. Like last night we were talking and I was completely oblivious to the regular "Add" button. Also, have you made any headway on being able to detect gog .dll's? Huge libraries was barely a thought until I started pushing the size, but if some users can't easily add everything or they don't think they can add everything some might get turned off. I find libraries redundant however if you create them based on System, but if it helps RAM a lot, then that could be a benefit. Being able to export also sounds like a fantastic idea, but only export what the user wants, not everything. I would say create a dialogue when you select export. From there have the user check box what they want. Exe, Games located in the LB folder and / or system files. I can think of this being useful if someone needs to reinstall windows and they can just carry over their LB config files so they don't have to re-import everything. Again, I find this a tad redundant if you have LB located on an external hard drive or thumb drive. That is an if though. I would venture to guess most users don't though... I could be wrong. That said, is there a way for you to get usage stats on the program? If you can, do or could, would it even help?

We talked about the wizard approach. I personally don't mind it, but with one option at a time it sucks. He also told me that the edit menu for multi edit would be a nightmare. My suggestion was to keep using the Wizard but let us select multiple fields at a time. We can expand the wizard here and there so a coding nightmare could be avoided.

Beta 6 should be tonight if Jason has done more than I think. He's been working tirelessly. I'm running a Beta 6 build and the search functions have greatly increased. The scan you do when you import roms was very very strict. Now its still strict, but the rules for searching have been expanded upon greatly. Out of a set of 150 roms he had, all that were in the DB were found on the initial scan. I've found a higher % on initial import too. So this next full release will be huge. On a side note, I've started adding in more DOS games again too. I finished up most of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games and I am filling out more and more slowly.

Yay, look, I am breaking it! Error Code System.ArgumentException: Parameter is not valid. at System.Drawing.Bitmap..ctor(Int32 width, Int32 height, PixelFormat format) at LaunchBox.GameGui.RefreshImage(Game game, Size size) at LaunchBox.GameGui.RefreshImage() at LaunchBox.GamesControl.Application_Idle(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponent.FDoIdle(Int32 grfidlef) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ComponentManager.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponentManager.FPushMessageLoop(Int32 dwComponentID, Int32 reason, Int32 pvLoopData) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog(IWin32Window owner) at LaunchBox.Program.HandleException(Exception ex) at LaunchBox.Program.Application_ThreadException(Object sender, ThreadExceptionEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.OnThreadException(Exception t) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProcException(Exception e) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam) at System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessageW(MSG& msg) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ComponentManager.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponentManager.FPushMessageLoop(Int32 dwComponentID, Int32 reason, Int32 pvLoopData) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices.WindowsFormsApplicationBase.OnRun() at Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices.WindowsFormsApplicationBase.DoApplicationModel() at Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices.WindowsFormsApplicationBase.Run(String[] commandLine) at LaunchBox.Program.SingleInstanceApplication.Run(Form form, StartupNextInstanceEventHandler startupHandler) at LaunchBox.Program.Main(String[] args) So, what I was doing was adding DOS games manually. I went in to the folder: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Pools Of Darkness (1991)(Strategic Simulations Inc). I realized I already added the game and I went to back out of the import. So from the menu that asks you to select the proper exe for the game you're importing I just hit cancel and got this. Edit: Actually, I take that back. It was after you select the exe and the edit screen pops up. I hit the search button and realized I already added the game, so then I hit cancel from that menu.

Yea, that is fantastic. If it is open source, maybe there can be very specific clients that don't get distributed and you can import Data.. I know that would never be a public thing, but for a select few. I doubt it. Either way, at least we can work through some of the issues instead of creating a set of new problems.

Gosh, AUTHOR CODE FAAASSSTEEERRRR. You're not keeping up with me. Good work, really. Just in the bit I've been around its developing quickly, squashing the bugs that probably only happen for me.

I haven't again no. It looks to be like a fluke, but I see an error and I report them.

So, when you import a rom set, regardless of if it finds a game or not, it still applies the System you said it belonged to. When you import Steam games it doesn't specify games it can't find on TheGamesDB, so when I went to my PC filter to delete everything from there, it didn't remove all of the games. So now I have a bunch of PC games it didn't find that I have to manually delete. I think its good that no matter what you always have the System filter to go by, but not in this case. Edit: Also, when you get the :, - and The more situated can you implement an option to rescan the games to see if It can re-find some of the games? Holy crap I have a lot of stuff that doesn't have data or images.

So Jason did express that he wanted to test CDRDAO with as many games as possible. Since that is very specific and I don't want to create a thread for each game, I figured a master thread and just chronicling each game to see if they work through this method should be fine. I honestly don't know where to put this thread, so if it is in the wrong location Jason, sorry. Keep it to just DOSBox installs through CDRDAO please. Try and follow the basic layout below that way if there are errors we can try and relate them to the install process, LaunchBox, CDRDAO or DosBox. Also, remember to un-rar the CDRDAO package to where you have LaunchBox installed, otherwise you will get an error everytime during install. Make sure its the CDRDAO folder and not the individual files. Specify the game name. Publisher / Developer for Bonus points. Specify how you installed the game. I.e. Physical Disc or Disk, An image file for a Disc or Disk, or In a folder on your hard drive. Just so everyone knows, a Disc is general an optical disc and a Disk is a floppy disk. 3 1/2 or 5 3/4. Specify if the install was a success or not. Specify separately if the game launches or not because it may not be related to the install. It could be a DOSBox error instead. Specify any other errors you may get and at what you got them at. Installing I'll start the thread off with Voyeur from Interplay. I am using a Physical Disc. Install wasn't successful. It did not recognize my DVD Drive. The program said it could be an emulated drive but it was not. I got this when trying to copy the contents of the CD to the hard drive. So I tried the option to not copy over the Disc contents, I figured do that afterwards. I then got an error: "And error occurred while trying to launch DOSBox: object reference not set to an instance of an object." I installed DOSBox 0.74 to my LaunchBox folder, the one with the exe in it, and that folder is just named DOSBox.

I can say Jason and I looked in to Wikipedia and how to pull info from them. Jason was shocked. It is going to be a lot easier than we realized. They even have a public API! We just need to figure out how to parse the info and put it in the correct fields, and make sure we're pulling the right console and date info. I haven't tested the DOS install features yet, ive just been working on LaunchBox for a lot of other things. I've been trying to break it and get my library going. I've got a lot of it filled in with pictures now. - and : throw off the name scanning in TGDB because a lot of roms use - instead of : because you can't use : in explorer. Also, Disc 1, Disc 2, that sort of thing throws off the searching capabilities too, I often have to remove the Disc 1 portion then add it back after It's found the game. I already went through and removed the [ ] around the Disc portions so that the program would add them in to the title, they are important after all, but I didn't realize it would throw it off this bad.

Ok, sorry about that then.

Cool, that way I can reference this and point you towards it or let you know to add something to it. I wont touch the page though.

I'll let you know if I do. I was specifically reimporting ISO files, it found 0, I then quickly went to change filters. Also, I posted the bug here because there is no Bug Reporting sub sections.