faeran

Hey everyone, LaunchBox 13.1 beta 1 is out now with the following: New Premium Feature: The 3D Box Model can now be viewed full screen in both LaunchBox and Big Box New Premium Feature: CameraPosition binding has been added to the FlowModel control (for theme devs) Improvements: The 3D Box Model can now be panned by the middle mouse button in LaunchBox and the cursor keys on a keyboard, or dpad/left analog stick on a controller, in Big Box. Improvement: The way LaunchBox and Big Box call LEDBlinky has been improved in order to reduce apparent slowdowns when dealing with large controller boards with lots of buttons/RGB Fixed: The default logo rotation on the 3D Box Model Fixed: The appearance of some image types for EmuMovies during the Import and Download Metadata & Media Wizards Fixed: Images with transparency no longer render a 3D Model in Big Box's ImageView Beta 2: New Premium Feature: Big Box's keyboard automation can now be used without a Hold key (which enables using a single dedicated key for keyboard automation operations) New Premium Feature: A new option to automatically use Big Box as the Windows Shell has been added to Options > General in Big Box. This option will allow you to avoid loading Windows features like the Start menu, taskbar, etc. and will use Big Box exclusively as the shell. This feature is not for the faint of heart, but does result in a faster and cleaner startup for arcade cabinets and home theater environments. Improvement: Big Box's volume bindings will now work to change the system volume when the Windows shell is changed (such as when launching Big Box directly on Windows startup instead of Explorer.exe) Improvement: Added setting to stop 3D models from being used in Game Details Improvement: Added setting to stop 3D models from being used in CoverFlow views Beta 3: New Premium Feature: New options to "Hide in Big Box" have been added to platforms, platform categories, and playlists New Premium Feature: Jewel Case and Long Jewel Case models have been added to the 3D Models features. Platforms will automatically utilize this model where applicable with regionalized front spines available for certain platforms. It is also available as an option under the platform's 3D Model Settings in LaunchBox. Improvement: Support for Amiga WHDLoad filename parsing has been added to the ROM Import wizard Improvement: The Navigation Direction binding will now function in the system view, options view, and game details menu view (for Theme Devs) Fixed: Categories and playlists that contain no items will no longer appear in Big Box Fixed: Changing the Default Additional Application for a GOG game would sometimes launch the wrong app Beta 6 New Feature: A new option to automatically start applications alongside LaunchBox or Big Box has been added to LaunchBox's Options > General > Startup Applications. Improvement - LaunchBox Plugins can now correctly read StateManager.SelectedPlatform and are notified when a sidebar value changes (for plugin devs) Improvement: The jewel case 3D model has been updated to include ribs on the top, bottom, and front spines Fixed: Box - Full images were being used incorrectly in some models Thanks to your willingness to help test out these betas with us.

It's all dictated by MAME itself. They categorize every rom for each version of MAME and LaunchBox uses that info.

The page does seem to be fairly self-explanatory as to what it does. Maybe you can list some of your favorite games so you can understand why they would or wouldn't show up depending on the settings. Basically, MAME creates an extensive database of categorizing all their games. LaunchBox uses that database and presents you with options to allow you to filter MAME games during import. You can use websites like Arcade Italia to provide you a visualized breakdown of this information on a per-game version basis. For example, some games require extra CHD files to run, so by checking the Skip games that require a CHD file option, they won't be imported. This includes games like Gauntlet Legends, Street Fighter III, Area 51, CarnEvil, Mace, War Gods... etc. Some games are marked by MAME as unplayable, even if they can basically be played with bugs and the rare freeze. Those games won't be imported if you leave the check mark to Skip games unplayable in MAME, these include games like Primal Rage, Strider 2, etc...

This is actually a user setting. Go into Tools > Options > Data > Search There's an option in there called "Minimum number of community ratings in order to use". Set that number to 10, or whatever you like. There's also the ability to create auto-populated playlists with top rated games, and the Arrange by option can be used to arrange by star ratings, or the ability to look at the results in list view and sort by star rating.

What version of LaunchBox are you on? There was an update at some point that makes it so any new platform imports that happen will now set the default games folder for you based on the location of where your ROMs are located. I just tried it out and it's still working well.

I don't think there's a way to map a button to set a filter. You do have the option to create a dynamic playlist that will only show games that are currently installed on your system, then you can nest that playlist anywhere within your platform categories filter area.

Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure your portable drive just needs to be formatted in a file system that supports symlinks, so something like NTFS. Then it should work just fine.

If I'm reading this right (and sorry if I'm not), this is actually already an option. During the import, you have the option to Copy/Move files into the Games folder, or use the files in their current location. You'd want to choose the option to use the files in their current location.

This is actually a LaunchBox setting and not a theme specific one. You have complete control of what the box models look like, and the theme just displays them. However, the upside down logo, the default rotation should be fixed in the next beta release of LaunchBox, as I do believe it's facing the wrong way by default. As far as the wheel movement, yes, this was by choice, it takes the same amount of time for Big Box to tell that you have switched to the next platform, but the animation just sort of glides to the finish. So, while it doesn't take 4 seconds for the platform info to appear (that's only about 0.8 seconds no matter the speed of the wheel), or for you to be able to enter into the platform, the full animation takes 4 seconds, but majority of the animation completes in about 0.8 seconds and the rest of it is a gentle glide. You are right that the more rapidly you press the button the quicker the animation gets, and that's just the way Big Box has always been.

This was a recent change to that theme. You could simply download an older version and use that if you wish.

Make sure you don't have any additional apps trying to open, or any other apps that could be trying to pull focus. You could try and use Windows Focus Logger to see if it provides you with any insight on any programs that could be pulling focus away: https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Window-Focus-Logger.shtml

Not sure how much help these are, but good luck with your theme.

You will need to point a game to an m3u file, and the m3u file would contain the multiple tracks. The m3u file itself would contain just a basic list of all the tracks, one line per track. As far as normalization, you'll need to use a music program to do that to the tracks themselves.

Can you run Tools > Download > Force Update Games Database Metadata... Then try again.

You would need to adjust the animation time within the xaml code itself. Depending on the view you want to adjust, you would open up that xaml file, find the relevant animation storyboards and adjust times.

For people that might be interested: Lambda uses a slightly modified version of the old box grid from the old default theme where it sets a set height for everything, and you are beholden to that size. Default Plus is simply just Default with some minor changes, so it works just like current Default which dynamically reduces white space on a per-row basis. Beats uses a hybrid that takes on the dynamic reduction of white space, but vertically centers the images, and aligns the rest of the elements (like text) evenly on a per-row basis. All of this is theme specific and requires changes to the code.

Hmm, this still points to some kind of data file issue. What it could be, I'm not entirely sure. If you want, PM me your data files and when I get some time, I can look into it for you.