faeran
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Posts posted by faeran
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CinemaBox - A Simple Movie Importer Plugin
View File
I had a day to spare on the weekend and wanted to try my hand at a LaunchBox plugin. This is the result.
I don't plan to actively develop it too much moving forward, as this was very much a weekend hobby experiment project. Still, it works, and I figured I would share it in case it is useful to someone.Requirement: LaunchBox 13.26 or higher
What does this do?
It's currently a movie importer plus metadata and artwork scraper. It is designed for people who already have a local movie collection organized for apps like Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby. It imports that folder into LaunchBox with minimal fuss.
It also downloads and configures MPV so movies can launch cleanly as an "emulator", and be used with a controller.Metadata and artwork provided by TheTVDB.
Installation
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Close LaunchBox
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Download the 7z archive
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Unblock the archive in Windows if needed (Right click > Properties > Unblock)
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Extract it into your LaunchBox Plugins folder
Your structure should end up like this:
LaunchBox\Plugins\CinemaBox\CinemaBox.dll
LaunchBox\Plugins\CinemaBox\CinemaBox.deps.jsonHow to use
Tools > CinemaBox
Runs the import and downloads and configures MPV.Right click a movie > CinemaBox > Change Match (TVDB)
Rematch the movie and re download metadata and artwork.Right click a movie > CinemaBox > Media Download (Replace Artwork)
Grab alternate artwork.A few things to be aware of:
- Matching is based on folder and file names. If your naming is messy, results may be messy.
- If TheTVDB changes their API, this plugin can break.
- Heavy scraping could potentially hit API rate limits.
- MPV configuration is basic and meant to “just work”.
If something breaks, feel free to post about it. I'll be checking in every now and then, and may be able to fix it.
Uninstall
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Close LaunchBox
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Delete the folder:
LaunchBox\Plugins\CinemaBox
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Submitter
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Submitted03/02/2026
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Category
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13 hours ago, alnyden said:
How would I turn that off? I see under Retrotastic theme specific settings - "Reset All theme-specific settings" but not an on/off toggle for that. Also, how would I clear the cache? I've already selected "Image Cache - Reset all Images." Thanks again for your help!
Something like this:
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2 hours ago, alnyden said:
Thanks for your response faeran! I turned off the option, but it didn't change anything. Attached is a screen shot. You can see that the arcade cabinet image has a black box around it. Underneath, as a 2nd image, it looks like it's using the transparent cabinet. Any thoughts? Thanks again. IMG_3896.heic
Make sure you also have Theme Specific setting also turned off. I think it's possible to turn that setting off globally but not off for RetroTastic's theme specific options.
If that still doesn't work, then you may need to clear your cache.
You can see my test here worked fine.
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7 hours ago, alnyden said:
I love Retotastic! I'm not sure if it's still being updated? My question is: I recently replaced my arcade - cabinet images (and arcade - front box) with transparent images. However, when using Retrotastic, the images still have a black box around them. (other themes are pulling the correct images). I can't find any other instance of the old image still existing. I have refreshed all images. Any idea why the images are not transparent? Thanks for any help!
The theme is done at this stage, but the code is out there for anyone wanting to pick up the mantle.
Pretty sure the theme just uses the normal "main image" transition code, which means that what you are seeing isn't an image, but the actual 3D Model of the game box, which means you could map some buttons to rotate the box and you can rotate it from that view.
You should be able to turn off 3D Models there by going into Options > Game Details > Use 3D Models for Box Images-
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LaunchBox for Android 1.22 Beta thread has opened:
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Hi Everyone,
A new beta round has begin for Android for version 1.22.
The first beta is out and introduces a powerful new Security system, visual theme update indicators, improved library optimization behavior, and an important scoped storage fix.
While the changelog is fairly straightforward, we would really appreciate focused testing, especially around the new Security system.
Testers: Things to Focus On
Please help us validate the following:
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Security System: Enable Security under Options > Security, lock multiple features, attempt editing, deleting, importing, emulator management, and platform options. Restart the app and reboot your device to confirm restrictions persist. Test while using LaunchBox as your home launcher as well.
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Theme Update Indicators: Confirm the green badge appears in Manage Themes and next to individual themes when updates are available. Update a theme and confirm the badge disappears and remains accurate after restart.
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Scoped Storage Fix: While using LaunchBox as your home launcher, attempt to set or change a Scoped Storage path and confirm it saves and functions correctly.
Beta 1 Changelog
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Added a new Security system that lets you lock down platform and game management features behind a PIN, with extensive configuration options available under Options > Security
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Added a visual update indicator for themes, showing a green badge on the Manage Themes menu item and next to individual themes when updates are availableUpdated Optimize Library behavior so star ratings across your entire library now refresh automatically when running an Update Library scan
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Fixed an issue that prevented setting a Scoped Storage path when the app was running as a homescreen launcher
Thank you for helping us refine LaunchBox for Android. Your testing and feedback continue to make the app better with every beta.
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4 hours ago, legolas119 said:
ok, i would like that LB and BB will show me the icons of the emulator and the banner/bezels and so on. If i try to choose Arcade Laserdisc (it is one of the default values):
later it asks which emulator i want to use:
Is it necessary to creare Hypseus-Singe emulator record before to import y first game?
thanks
What you can do instead is drop the bat files into LaunchBox, and then choose the option: None of the Above
Since you are not importing ROMs that's the option you'll want to use, then you won't have to choose an emulator.
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1 hour ago, Fursphere said:
Why do you release 'hotfixes' as new betas? 13.25.01 (.02, .03, etc..) would make a lot more sense than "13.25 release is broken, please update to 13.26 beta 1 or beta 2". I've never understood why a more traditional development cycle isn't followed to better indicate the intention.
Alpha Builds (usually internal only)--> Beta Builds (sometimes public) --> Release Candidate Builds (RC) (public) --> Release Builds --> Patches/Hotfixes
Just my $0.02...
We've talked extensively internally about upgrading our internal tools and infrastructure, but always delay it due to time investment and the very real risk of breaking what we already have set up and working for the last decade. If we spin up another project, we most definitely will take advantage of a more modern approach, although it will be more to help us, and less about public perception.
1 hour ago, rexryan said:Right a Hot Fix but added new features..
Not really sure it matters, but we needed to fix a problem with our import wizards locking only to find out we already fixed it internally in a branch that also contained the FB Neo import. It would have taken just as much, if not more time to decouple the two and test them separately than it would to just test what was already there and working, so hence, new feature
The next beta cycle will start soon enough as we already have branches in the code review / internal testing phases, so expect a new beta thread in the next week or so.
I'll close this one down for now until then.
Thanks everyone for the help with beta testing this release.
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1 hour ago, sebas001 said:
Did the release went out of beta just now? Got an update and now it says just 13.26. No more beta-2. Did anything change in between beta-2 and this release?
As we mentioned from the beginning of this cycle, this was a quick hotfix release cycle to address some of the major issues that showed up with 13.25. We'll have some communication shortly about the hotfix release in a number of places. For the most part, Beta 2 is what the hotfix turned into, and we've already started the next release cycle internally.
7 minutes ago, Nixx said:Ok, i understand better, i'm not used to RetroAchievements stuff, that's something i planned to setup for later.
But, do you mind add the 7z decompression as a checkbox, (checked by default so that don't change anything to your feature) in the RetroAchievements options ? Like i have some 7z that are like few gb in size, but can expend to hundred of gigabytes once decompressed. If i try to search for achievement for a whole plateform if i understand correctly, it will extract everything. Also, it would make thing easier if we want to drop in something to replace RAHasher in the future (or act as a middle man beetween lb and RAHasher)Yes, you will end up having issues if you are 7zipping games like that. Instead, I would look into compression alternatives. Ask someone on the forums for emulator specific compression alternatives that don't require decompression to run, there's most usually a solution. Also note that RetroAchievement scanning will not take place for Platforms that RetroAchievements does not support.
14 hours ago, thoraiden said:Im currently having an issue with 13.26 beta 2 where my custom background music only plays a song or two then completely stops and all music playback function stops all together, even game music and everything other than navigation sounds goes dead silent. I have a controller binding and keyboard binding that skips to the next song but that doesnt work and I also have everything on shuffle, music prioritized over video volume and video volume down to 0. Aside from that I also had a random crash happen that froze my entire computer. After a hard reboot I got error messages upon trying to re-luanch BigBox that almost my entire Data folder aside from platform and playlist xmls was corrupt which I had to use a backup to restore. It seems like ever since the 13.25 main and beta versions theres been a lot of weird performance bugs and conflicts with my system that have never happened before and Ive had launchbox/bigbox since about 6 years ago or so. I was also having trouble even launching launchbox for about a week up until the other day when Windows 11 pushed a new update since im on their Dev channel which seemed to fix that problem but the ones I listed above are still happening. Hopefully some stability improvements and fixes with audio and crashes are coming around for the next beta or 13.26 stable.
Sounds like you've had a string of bad luck, which we apologize for.
We were unable to duplicate any of the music issues you are having. We've actually specifically addressed a number of them within this hotfix release.
For any other issues you may have, it's best to both ask on the forums if there are any simple solutions you may be missing, or report a bug using the above menu under HELP & SUPPORT > REPORT A BUG
Each report should have thing you deem a bug, and you'll want to provide as much information as you possibly can. For any crash related items make sure to include a crash report, along with exact reproduction steps, including plugins, themes, views you use, features you were using, those kinds of things. Include at least your Settings files, or your entire Data folder. The more information, the better we can see if there's something in our code base that we need to address, or if it's something else we can help you with.
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33 minutes ago, dbalcar said:
@faeran I tried it with adding a platform named FinalBurn Neo but the FinalBurn Neo import page did not show up. Thanks
Make sure you are also setting the Scrape As value to Arcade. Those are the two rules in order to see the fbneo import page at the end of the import wizard.
We'll have a write up once this goes live, and we will also look to expand this logic to include the emulators as well in future updates.
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On 2/7/2026 at 9:52 AM, AbApp said:
LB unable to download retroarch. i found this issue in both beta 1 and 2
We haven't been able to recreate this, and RetroArch code hasn't been touched in a very long time, so my guess is that the issue is fairly internal to your location unfortunately, for whatever reason.
On 2/8/2026 at 7:01 AM, xokia said:why am I getting 3d box fronts as the selected image for all my platforms? I do not appear to have an easy way to switch all the platforms to box front.
The only thing I can do is go to image group and select box front, but I have to do that individually for every platformIf you are referring to LaunchBox, the default is Box Fronts, so it would be strange for it to suddenly change randomly. I don't believe there's any code that allows the change globally like that (it's always possible a plugin could introduce that kind of functionality). This would be best to troubleshoot in another thread.
On 2/8/2026 at 12:35 PM, dbalcar said:I tried to do the new FBNeo specific import in 13.26 beta 2 and the FBNeo specific import page did not appear. I chose Arcade, added FBNeo emulator and picked the games folder and the FBNeo specific import page did not appear. Also there is no FinalBurn NEO emulator in the emulator drop down box or should I just pick MAME? Thanks
The way FinalBurn Neo import currently works is that you'd have to import a platform that has a name similar enough to FinalBurn Neo, then you'll see it. In the future, I could see a benefit to opening this up to take into consideration the emulator's exe, and core for people that use RetroArch, although that won't happen for this hotfix. Let us know if naming the platform properly works for you.
21 hours ago, Jabb3rJaw said:Running the new beta and I noticed when I first start up Bigbox the wheel which is normally curved like hyperspin starts straight up and down then slowly go to a curve? Should mention I’m using Unified theme. Also I use to scroll to a letter and click on it but it would load a different letter like it didn’t catch up to where I was. This seems to be corrected now.
Thanks. Looks like it's the "RotationAmount" property. We will look into this before the hotfix drops.
20 hours ago, Jabb3rJaw said:Also still getting random crashing back to desktop.
16 minutes ago, JaredN said:Yes, me too.
I reinstalled Windows this weekend, so there are no old codecs or drivers lying around, but I'm still getting crashes without error messages that take me back to the desktop, very frequently when the video is set to FFmpeg, less often with WMP, but still present (Launchbox and Bigbox).What we would need from anyone experiencing any kind of crash for either LaunchBox or Big Box for us to take a look:
- Any Crash Reports that LaunchBox or Big Box provides
- Any Crash Reports found in Event Viewer specific to the crash that also are .NET crashes (there may be multiple per crash)
- The Settings.xml and BigBoxSettings.xml files would also be super helpful, as long as they are in the exact state that makes you crash
Then, click on HELP & SUPPORT in the menu above, and choose REPORT A BUG, and send us a full report of exactly what is happening at the time of the crash, along with all the above.
13 hours ago, Nixx said:I never used RetroAchievements for the moment but i do use 7z files packed with different rom version.
Is that really necessary to extract on temp folder, can roms bellow a certain size can just be extracted on memory ? Assuming than the crc32 info from the 7z file is not good enough to identify rom.We utilize RA Hasher, the official hashing tool from RetroAchievements, which as far as I know, doesn't allow you to read bits flowing through RAM to gain the hash that it needs. If they ever get support for that, we can look into supporting it.
RA Hasher doesn't have support to read the contents of a 7zip file to obtain the hash (hence the need to extract), but it does have support for zip. So, from a user's perspective, the better format to store your small ROM files is either uncompressed entirely, or within a zip, if RetroAchievements is important to you.
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13 minutes ago, kmoney said:
Well if the issue has been fixed, it is still not working correctly. I am still getting the same issue with beta 2. I still did not get a notification to update to beta 2 as I had to check for updates manually. It is not a big deal, just wanted to report what I am seeing.
Thanks, that trail will lead you to the answer.
What you got was the same issue when you were on beta 1. The fix was applied to beta 2
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14 minutes ago, The Papaw said:
Sorry to linger Mr Brian, but my beta 1 didn't notify me of the beta 2, BB is notifying me
The Help>Check for Update is working and downloading correctly this time, well sorta, crawling as it downloads for some reason. Internet speeds close to 750mbs DL
1 minute ago, The Papaw said:It's still downloading LOL, it might be a server issue???
Read the first post, it should explain it to you.
Also, there's currently no server issue. Not sure why it crawls from where you are. You won't get the full speed, but it's usually enough to download in a few minutes.
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Beta 2 is out with the following:
- Improved: Optimized music playback in LaunchBox to run off the main thread and reuse the same VLC session, improving overall performance and playback stability
- Improved: Addressed multiple reported issues related to music playback reliability and session management
- Fixed: Background music no longer restarts or skips the current track when the screensaver activates
- Fixed: Platform videos in LaunchBox now stop playing correctly when the platform details pane is closed
- Fixed: Restored video playback on Platform Hybrid views where videos were previously not playing
- Fixed: The Play Video Audio with Background Music option can now be toggled independently from the Prioritize Soundtrack Music setting, allowing both options to work as expected
- Fixed: Resolved an index out of range error that could occur during automatic ROM imports in rare empty list scenarios
The first post and in app explains more of how you can help test the changes in this beta.
Thanks all.
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1 minute ago, The Papaw said:
must have been my issue
Not to linger on it, but it was essentially just a flip of a setting that then caused some users not to see that an update was available in some scenarios. That was essentially it. Early adopters of 13.25 would have potentially seen this in their build.
In all cases there were ways around not getting the notification, which most people here found, with a few others ways as well that weren't mentioned.
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15 hours ago, kmoney said:
I think there is something wrong with this newest beta update. My update did not prompt a notification to download when I opened LaunchBox. I had to check for this new beta update manually even though I have check for updates upon startup and update to beta releases turn on in the options. I have never seen that happen before.
It's actually an issue with 13.25 (can't be a problem with the beta when you haven't even installed it yet :P). There was a short time where 13.25 had that issue but it has been since fixed.
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2 hours ago, Fursphere said:
Just another observation. Just did a fresh install of LB 13.25 on my desktop PC.
In the "\LaunchBox\Images\Media Packs\Platform Clear Logos\Nostalgic Platform Clear Logos\Platforms"
There are platform logos included for:
Arcade, MAME, Naomi, Naomi 2, Model 1, Model 2, Model 3, Sammy AtomisWave, TeknoParrot, Taito Type X, and a bunch of others...So the to address the statement directly "TeknoParrot is an Arcade Platform" - why does LB include media for it NOT being an Arcade Platform?
When I mentioned Arcade platform. It's less about lumping everything into an Arcade platform, and more about utilizing "Scrape As: Arcade" and the logic built behind that, which then attempted to answer your first question.
As far as Media Packs are concerned, that's just us thinking ahead so we are prepared with some default custom platform names for users.
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55 minutes ago, xokia said:
When I searched online the common solution was to unzip files. I think folks just give up. If you kept the directory in front I "think" that would fix it. I could still see an issue if someone had z:\Sega Master System\roms\Altered Beast.zip and then they had some other system that \rom in front of the system name they would collide. The directory rempap file would be called rom and cause the same failure. BUT.......rather then launchbox try to find the correct system name I "think" launchbox just needs to grab the directory immediately in from of the rom leave it to the user to resolve the directory issue. Someone could create a redundant directory z:\Sega Master System\roms\Sega Master System\alteredbeast.zip. If someone had it sorted z:\Sega Master System\USA\alteredbeast.zip vs z:\Sega Master System\Europe\alteredbeast.zip the same redundant directory structure would solve the issue just my .$02.
Well, for your example, RetroArch should already be able to play a Sega Master System game without the need to extract the file, so in that scenario, it may be a bit redundant to use LaunchBox's extraction method there (depending on core used.) Most small ROM based cores can handle playing without extracting 7z and zip, where disc based systems, almost all of them have their own compression format that they support these days that can be read without the need for extraction, which , together, all becomes a lot better for your hard drive in the long run as well.
Anyway, in order for this to work, we'd have to basically follow what RetroArch is trying to do. So if a user is using the Content Directory setting for save files and they have made the choice to utilize a region folder like \\Sega Master System\USA\, then RetroArch will place your save files inside of a USA folder, and ignore Sega Master System entirely. We would need to match this to have our feature make any sense.
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On 1/7/2026 at 10:15 AM, Fursphere said:
Teknoparrot support in launchbox has been getting much better (thank you!), but the auto-import feature still doesn't seem to work.
The 'roms' for Teknoparrot are XML files to the 'emulator', and auto-populated in the /teknoparrot/userprofiles/ folder. Add a game to TK, it makes a new XML file for that game.
Launchbox should be able to see those XML files and treat them as a newly discovered game and auto add it to the platform.Before I open a bug (or feature request, although I think I've opened one before for this) - is this a limitation by design? Is there some technical reason that LB ignores XML files for this platform?
thanks, as always
Well, let's look at it slightly differently. Remember that TeknoParrot is not a platform. The platform is Arcade, which has its own file parsing logic streams that have yet to make their way to our auto-import feature. This is why TeknoParrot, which requires a scrape as value of Arcade, won't work via the auto-import system right now. So, yes, it's currently a limitation by design.
I could see it being one of the easier ones to get working though, so it's never out of the question, where once a user has added a TeknoParrot emulator, we can deduce where the xml files should be and allow auto-imports for platforms that match or are close to the name TeknoParrot. As long as people don't drastically mis-spell or decide to name their platform something funky, it should, in theory, work. Although, the names of the xml files would also be super important to find a GamesDB match properly.
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17 hours ago, The Papaw said:
UPDATE, finally connected after 15-20 minutes
When I opened LB and seen the beta update. I told it no, until I read what it was about. Now when I open LB, it doesn't notify me of the beta. When I go to the menu and check for update, it finds it, but just hangs and never downloads. BB tells me of the update and also just hangs
LB
BB
Did you manage to get it to download? Nothing on our side indicates that anything is wrong there.
17 hours ago, JaredN said:First of all, thank you very much for this quick update, which fixes a lot of problems!
However, I have noticed two small issues:
1. Unchecking “Play Video Audio with Background Music” has no effect if “Prioritize Soundtrack Music over Video Audio” is not also checked. If “Prioritize ...” is not also checked, the video audio remains present, regardless of the status of “Play Video Audio with Background Music.”
2. When background music is selected, launching the screensaver (automatically or with a key) causes it to skip to the next track.
Once again, thank you very much for your responsiveness in releasing this beta!
Thanks for the report. Both are fixed internally and should be part of beta 2.
9 hours ago, xokia said:I found an issue with launchbox and retroarch that was driving me nuts. retroarch allows controller remaps based on the directory the game was run from. So you can choose directory_name.rmp and it will load a controller remap based entirely on the directory the game comes from. This is useful for something like sega games where one emulator runs multiple systems but the controls can be different. So you remap the controls based on the system that was run.
Retroarch uses the directory path to figure out how to name the map file. When it tries to load directory map files the directory name before the rom needs to match with the map file. Launchbox breaks this if the folder is zipped or compressed.In both cases the file is compressed as "Z:\Arcade\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.7z" (this happen if using .zip or .7z)
If I dont let launchbox unzip the file and just pass it to retroarch directly I get the following in the retroarch log file
[INFO] [Content] Loading content file: "Z:\Arcade\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.sms"
If I choose save content directory remap I get Sega Master System.rmp and this will auto load anytime a game loads from this directoryIf I let launchbox unzip the folder first I get the following
[INFO] [Content] Loading content file: "Y:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\7-Zip\Temp\Altered Beast.sms".
If I choose save content directory remap I get Temp.rmp
Any other system that has compressed roms now tries to use Temp.rmp and is completely hosed
The Temp directory is completely fine but launchbox should retain the directory directly in front of the ROM. I think retroarch would then function correctly.
"Y:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\7-Zip\Temp\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.sms"Thanks for the report. I believe it's worked like this for a very long time (like over half a decade or longer). So, while this won't make the hotfix, it's probably about time we take another look at this to smooth out the edges that may have been introduced since its implementation. I'll see about remembering to go through that entire pipeline early in the next beta cycle to see if there's some easy wins here.
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1 hour ago, bbweiners said:
Also, there is an issue where if you use the PlatformHybridView on any theme the search feature will show you results for every filter/platform, not just the filter/platform you're searching in. It also changes your view to the TextGamesView.
This part is actually working "as intended", in that there was no effort to filter down search results like this in hybrid views.
I'll see what it would take, but it would be a new effort, so I'm not sure where in line it will get placed.
As far as switching to the TextGamesView, that's by design. The PlatformHybridView is a Platform view with a game list tacked on (not the other way around), which means, that the only true Game view in that theme is the TextGamesView, which Search results requires to utilize.
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54 minutes ago, bbweiners said:
Hi @faeran,
There seems to be a video issue. If you try using your theme Aetherial the Platform/Filter and Game video won't play.
Also, there is an issue where if you use the PlatformHybridView on any theme the search feature will show you results for every filter/platform, not just the filter/platform you're searching in. It also changes your view to the TextGamesView.
Thanks!
1 minute ago, SqHd said:Hello. Thanks for the hotfix beta. Background fanart is back for Default theme (in regular and hybrid views). As bbweiners reported, platform / game videos do not show in hybrid views for the Default theme (or in Aetherial). But they do work for the original regular views.
Thanks guys. Fixed internally, should be in beta 2.
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Beta thread for 13.26 has been opened:
3-DIMENSIONS
in Big Box Custom Themes
Posted
Glad you like it!
Since the theme wasn't intended to include "media" image code, what you'd have to do is open your preferred view's xaml file and add the disc image code into it.
Our most up-to-date Big Box theming guide is found over on our strategy guide: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help