CADScott

I never knew you could do that! I always thought it was just a status icon, awesome, that is a time saver.

There is now! https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/739/allow-custom-images-for-missing-artwork

I feel we should reject incorrectly sized and "cleaned up" screenshots, even if there is no other screenshot available. If we allow poor quality images in now, then we will have to spend more time fixing them up later. Also if there is no image shown, then it is easy for someone to see that something is missing rather than having to examine the image to confirm it's quality.

That is a great idea, perhaps LaunchBox could look for a Missing.png in the platform images for each system, and if found use that image for missing logo, otherwise use the default LaunchBox logo.

Ooh, that would be awesome, a game image overlay per system would be amazing! The user created templates could then be attached to the systems in the Database for download. Maybe in the future.

That is why we need a comment system for deletes and changes in the database. I moderated this image, and it appeared to be correct for the game, but I am no expert on this series.

I 100% agree! For me the screenshots for games should be in the original resolution of the game, and any resized or manipulated images should be rejected as a screenshot in the database. There is no need to resize the image at all, this can be done in LaunchBox and BigBox when it is viewed if desired, and it make the images much smaller for storage and actually an accurate picture of what the game will look like.

orac31 said Thank you I threw a few teddys out of my pram but after using your bat file it works fine now to go throw and name the games right Glad it worked for you, gotta love the Daphne games!

Another issue I am seeing quite a bit is people changing the release date to be the North American release date, from the original Japanese release date, which is most often earlier. Unless there is a way in the database to have all different regions release dates, I feel the date should be the first date of release anywhere in the world, rather than for a particular county.

I think there needs to be some discussion and rules about what constitutes Fanart for the database. I have had a lot of submissions for moderation that had issues as such: - Blown up screenshots, sometimes with the games clear logo on the screenshot. - Unrelated to the game itself (A digitally rendered space scene for a space shooter game) - Very low resolution images, such as 700 x 500, which I would consider awful as Fanart as they would usually be stretched fullscreen as a background. - I actually had a rendered pornographic image at one point, not sure what the submitter was thinking. It was not obvious, but when you saw it, it could not be unseen! I suggest fanart should have a minimum resolution standard, at least 1280 x 720, should at least be related to the game itself, and should not be a screenshot.

I love those covers! Nice work, hopefully you can share your images on the LaunchBox DB.

gamerforhire said CADScott, where were you like 5 hours ago, haha I'm just kidding, I should've checked the forums before I started tinkering tonight. That tool sounds AWESOME! Gonna go download and mess with it right now! I was asleep, sorry! The tool is great, and it does a lot more that just adding data from the filename. I like to use it to hide the regions that I don't need, so that if there are 3 versions say from USA, Europe and Japan, the tool will hide the Europe and Japan ones, but not remove them from LaunchBox, so I can always get to them later if needed. Have a play with it (Backup your LaunchBox.xml file just in case), and explore the options. If you need any help, I can probably point you in the right direction with some of the advanced usage scenarios.

Thanks Jason, that is certainly the case. If you want to keep all the metadata intact, then you need to edit your LanunchBox.xml file manually as Drybonz mentioned above. This is quite easy, but make a copy of the XML file before you do any mods, just to be safe. Then you can do a search and replace on the roms to change their location.

Unfortunately there is no way to get LaunchBox to do this automatically, but there is an easy way to do this yourself. If you delete the games from LaunchBox and then re-import them (Without scraping any media) and let LaunchBox move them to the default location, then the metadata that you have added (Images and videos etc) will still be there and will associate straight away with the new imported games. As long as you don't change the names of the games then LaunchBox should import the games just fine. If you are unsure, test this on a few games to start with. Delete them from LaunchBox and re-import, they should come in fine.

You can already add a game to favorites, by editing the game, and checking the favorites checkbox. This will then show the game at the top of your list if you then arrange by favorites.

If you are using the No-Intro format and have the roms named as they require, then you can use a tool developed by forum member mathflair called LaunchBoxAnnotator Tool. See the thread here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/launchboxannotator-tool After you have imported a No-Intro Rom set, this tool will scan the file names of the roms and extract the data, such as Region and Version, and automatically add those into the correct spots in the LaunchBox metadata. This will then allow you to sort by Region, and if you turn on the "Show Versions" option in the View menu of LaunchBox, will show the Beta, Proto and Version number tags after the names. This will give you exactly what you were asking for automatically, it works really well!

angelobodetti said So far so good - I have Mario Maker and Splatoon working perfectly. Some games crash for some reason but it is very early days. finding roms is a pain - plus the are 24gig Ouch, that size is crazy! I bet most of that is junk data like all the other Nintendo disk games. Hopefully someone will work out how to strip or compress those in the future.

Your OCD is much appreciated, I have spent a good chunk of time yesterday approving a massive list of NES media, and all of them were fantastic! Keep up the good work, we need more!

SyrianBallaS said That's good to know, I have a ton of info on games ready in launchbox. Also I'd suggest allowing changes/additions to be made within LaunchBox and not just on the site. That is definitely already already on the roadmap!

I very much agree with what Kris has said above! I have tried many front ends in the past. I started with Mala in my arcade machine, which I spent an incredible amount of time getting working well, and have moved through GameEx and Hyperspin. getting both working well, but hating how much time I spent doing it! I discovered LaunchBox completely by accident, downloaded it, and was hooked almost instantly. I purchased a lifetime licence within a few days, and have never regretted it. The ease with which I can get LaunchBox setup is amazing, and while it does not have the customisation and fancy graphics that some of the other frontends have, I think this can be a good thing. I have spent way too much time getting a frontend setup the way I wanted in the past, agonising over every graphic and transition, and actually don't end up playing many games! With BigBox, I can pick up a controller and see all my games with videos in one place, and easily select and play every system possible. As Jason has said, the community here is fantastic, very friendly and helpful, and willing and able to answer any and all questions quickly.

If you stick to known lists like the previously mentioned No-Intro dumps, and use a rom manager like Clrmamepro to check the integrity of your roms, then you can be very sure that the games will work. The No-Intro ones especially are verified and checked by a huge online community, and if there are any issues they are redumped to correct. The disc based systems are much more difficult, as there are very few good dump collections. The Darkwater group are one of the only ones I know that do proper checks on their releases. I have their collections for Dreamcast and Saturn and have not had a single issue with any game.

This has been suggested before, and I think is something that Jason plans on implementing in the future.

Ahh, that explains it, I had moderated one like that just recently, thanks for the heads up! This is another reason why a comment field for deletes would be very useful, so that mods can see the deleters reasoning!

I second the thanks for the quality of your images, they have been fantastic. I have been moderating a lot of the NES stuff, and it is great to see such high quality images being submitted. This database is well on it's way to being the best available anywhere, and I am very excited to see a central system that can combine all the best information and media available!

I have Crash Bandicoot running fine through Retroarch on PSX, so it may be an incorrect cue file, or a dodgy version as Derek said. Open the cue sheet with a text editor, and make sure the filename of the bin file in the cue sheet is exactly the same name as the actual bin file.