Fursphere

Too funny. I was just wondering if Big Box ever implemented a feature to change/mute the volume in attract mode. Googled up this thread, with a link to my original feature request that I had completely forgotten about. From way back in 2016 no less. Can I make a donation to get this feature implemented?

I created a work around for this. Basically its a batch file (.bat) that launches along side the game itself, and has a 10-15 second wait time before it fires the appropriate LEDBlinky.exe command. LB/BB lunches games - sends command to ledblinky to start lights. (using the Steam ID game launch method) lights light up. now "steam game ID" can't be seen, so the lights go out, because LB/BB "thinks" the game has closed / ended. My batch file fires a second ledblinky command a few seconds after that, which start the lights back up - which will stay lit until something else sends ledblinky a command. (which happens when you really close the game and LB/BB comes back into focus and starts sending ledblinky commands again). You have to modify every steam game's launch setup to get it to to work, but it works. (is there a way to batch mass edit the things in LB??)

Awesome, thanks!

Bumping an old thread because it seems vary relevant. I just checked my /updates/ folder and its 17 GB in size! Would it be possible to add in a automatic cleanup routine? (maybe with an automatic roll back option as well, if you're going to keep a few older installers around? although I have never had to roll back.) My folder has a whole bunch of named installers (LaunchBox-7.10-beta-2-Setup.exe for example), then a bunch of GUID based files (e4fb21bf-803e-4977-bb89-666cc2eceb3c.exe for example). I'm assuming these are all safe to delete?

Ah. So really it needs an overhaul to be abstracted from the code - so the end users can maintain thier own lists. #FeatureRequest

Must be pretty old then. I update almost every version, and I haven't seen a new game added in a long time. Not that thats a bad thing.. MAME is mostly about the classics. The interface (and options to handle clones, slot machines, etc) made me thing it was using ROMlister in some fashion, which in turn uses the MAME.EXE -LISTXML file dump. So.. how do we go about getting this list refreshed?

Something I've noticed for awhile is when I update my MAME set, and then in Launchbox scan for new games - it never finds any new ones. How does Launchbox actually generate the MAME game list?

This is what I did... eXoDos is in 5 collections. So I made five folders. Unzipped everything into there respective collections (yes, it took a long time). Then I just had launchbox import each collection "Import DOS game" - again, it took a long time. Did it five times, once for each collection. Launchbox DOS game importer did a really good job at find the correct 'launching' file, and for the most part, they all just work. Every once and awhile I have to tweak one - but its not a big deal. Don't overthink it.

Just tested this. Works perfectly! thanks!

PD has EXO it in five parts.

For what its worth, I have the newest (I think?) ExoDOS collection, and I imported the entire thing into LB. Most games work first try. A few need tweaking. My virus scanner said 2 - 3 of them were dangerous, so I nuked those specific games (didn't recognize the names anyway). Took a VERY long time to unzip them all, and even longer to import them into LB. lol

@Jason Carr Some feedback for playlists. For auto-populating can you add some "exact" search features in the contains logic? For example - I built a playlist for Contra to look for "title contains Contra" - but it picks up "CONTRAption zack" (love that old dos game). I know in other computer systems adding quotes is a way to get an exact match. like "Contra" or something. Could you add an "audit" feature to playlists (right click - audit) - or something. Right now its still not clear if i'm deleting a title from the just the playlist, or form the database it came from. An audit feature could possible pull all the details like you do from the platform audit menu? Might be really complicated though. thanks!

@arzoo @Jason Carr I may have figured out a workaround for this. For a Steam URL game, I edited the game and added an additional program to automatically run after the main application. The application itself is a simple batch file. @echo off timeout 15 start d:\ledblinky\ledblinky.exe windows windows The timeout 15 gives it enough time (15 seconds) to let Launchbox go through its LEDBlinky start game / stop game routine, then manually fires off a "start game" command. As long as LEDBlinky doesn't receive any more commands, it should be good. Is there a way to mass-edit the games list to add this additional app work around? Having to manually edit them all could be tedious....

Is it possible to get Dynamic Playlists? For example, base a playlists contents based on search criteria (or multiple searches - "mario bros" and "super mario" for example to populate a playlist)? Might be too CPU intensive, or maybe too small a use case. But figured I'd throw the idea out there.

No option. No message box. It just deleted (and seemingly corrupted the playlist at the same time). I had to delete the playlist to keep LaunchBox running.

So I just created a playlist called "Super Mario Bros", and had it display in Platforms (did not pick a platform genre) Then searched all platforms for "mario" and added everything to the above mentioned playlist. (including a few things that weren't super mario related... on purpose) Open the playlist, everything looked ok. Deleted a title from it. This is where things went sideways. 1) it deleted the title from the playlist AND from the original platform. did not expect this. 2) now when I try and view that playlist, launchbox crashes. its dead. Running beta 2.

As a work around for this issue, I was trying to figure out how to launch a simple batch file prior to game start to get the LEDblinky light map running. But due to the nature of how the Steam games launch (URL based) I haven't come up with anything that works.

To be honest, I'm not sure if any other Front Ends handle steam games w/ LEBlinky. Probably because most front ends don't support Steam games at all to my knowledge. HyperSpin had a 3rd party steam game importer that sometimes worked, but I'm not sure I every got it working with LEDBlinky integration.

Maybe if you disable the "game end" check, LEDBlinky should just update the next time it gets a command. That would be when you're back in BB and you select a new game - the preview should queue up the light map? Maybe?

Just updated to the new beta 7.7 beta 9 and it looks like its still not working. Now when I start a game, instead of nothing at all, it flashes the controls on for a brief second, then they go dark again. The LEDBlinky debug logs show the GAME START command (yay!), then immediately the GAME END command. Same second in the logs..

Thank you Gentlemen! My kiddos will be thrilled. (they're having issues figured out which button is which in the Lego games... the colors help a ton as my control panel has no letter labels)

Is anyone else having problems with LB/BB, LEDBlinky and the "Windows" platform? ON my setup, LEDBlinky works with all platforms except 'Windows" (which is mostly a Steam library import). I setup a default color map to apply to all games, that works fine when you call it via command line "ledblinky.exe windows windows", but LB/BB never seems to send the "start game" command. I opened an Issue tracker for it awhile back ( Issue #2216 ), but it doens't seem to have gotten any traction. I'm wondering if its just my setup, or a bug in LB/BB itself? thanks

I submitted a feature request for this: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/1977/big-box-attract-mode-volume-control You could vote for it. I believe I've used this in the past with some success: http://www.rlauncher.com/forum/showthread.php?396-Another-Idle-Volume-Adjuster I haven't messed with it in awhile though, so I'm not sure how it would work with LB/BB.... may have to download and try it again. Basically drops the volume level after 'X' amount of time without keyboard or mouse input. I think I stopped using it before because it didn't detect joystick input or something. (My main input is joystick encoders on the cabinet - but if you're using keyboard encoders you should be fine)

Just tested this - seemed to work perfectly. I was swapping out a ROM collection for an entire platform. Removed the ROM directory first (outside of LB), ran the "Scan for removed games" feature and 'poof' - the whole platform was gone. Looks like its working as intended.

Just sent you the Debug. LB/BB just updated to the latest beta too, so in case that has any effect on the logs (didn't seem to effect anything)