stigzler

Thanks @dragon57 - a useful hack in the absence of any solutions via launchbox or retroarch settings.

I solved this here:

OK. Solved it. Download this: 3RVX Set is as a startup application with bigbox Go into 3RVX's settings and set hotkeys for vol up and down to those on your cab. Bingo.

I think this might have to do with retroarch. On initial import for psp, I selected use bezels. However, now I don't want the bezels showing. It launches via retroarch (whose UI organisation is a little baffling with overrides etc). I launch a game and then switch off the bezel via quickmenu-OnScreenOverlay-DisplayOverlay=false. I then try to save ethe core override via quickMenu-overrides-saveCoreOverrides. However, if I relaunch the same game, the bezels are back. Also for other games. What am I doing wrong? 😭 Edit: So if I do quickMenu-overrides-saveGameOverides, this works. However same for ContentDirectory doesn't. God I hate retroarch settings. Also, if I didn't want to disable the entire overlay (eg. Controls etc) how would I achieve this?

From that script, Joe, I'd guess you're no stranger to pushing the envelope of any system you find yourself working in 🤣 I'd have never thought about monitoring the registry for Steam state changes! Genius. (and thanks as ever, Gabe, for making steam the kid in the playground who refuses to play with anyone else coz he thinks he's the mutts nuts)

Thanks Joe. Will take a proper look at this tonight. Funnily enough, Sine Mora was the game that highlighted this for me, but helpfully as will need to get game launch/exit working for steam for other functions of my plugin (marquee layouts etc) Never straightforward this gig, is it?

I'm developing a per-game AHK script launcher in my plugin. As far as I know lb doesn't have this? It works by running a game script on launch and then stops it on return to BB (i.e. the lb game exiting event fires) The issue is this game exit event fires immediately after starting the game. Thus stopping the AHK script. Any ideas what's going on here?? It works fine with other emulators.

Thanks. Will put there. Have thought of a workaround that will do in the meantime time. I see IBigBoxMainViewModel has methods to change the page type, so could monitor BB for inactivity and if inactive in Discovery, will change the page type to one that supports Attract mode.

Hi. Thanks for the response. Interesting. I note you can set a hokey to launch attract mode, so wouldn't this just be a simple method call? I.e. if you can launch it via a hotkey then you could certainly launch it programmatically. I know the Devs have a lot to implement, but do you not have a feature requests system? I couldn't see this as being a huge task to code but understand you need to prioritise issues. Best wishes.

Hi all. I like my cab's home page to be the discovery center, but attract mode doesn't launch from there? Is there any setting to make sure it does?

Solved With the awesome-as-ever help of @JoeViking245, found a work-around. Posted here for posterity/others in the same boat. I had to move these two dll's to a location outside of the plugin's folder. So, I moved them to: [LaunchboxRoot]/ThirdParty/Gearbox I then had to update all of my DllImport statements to a new path relative to my Plugin's directory @ [LaunchboxRoot]/PLugins/Gearbox. E.g: [DllImport("../../ThirdParty/Gearbox/PacDrive32.dll", EntryPoint = "PacSetCallbacks", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)] private static extern void PacSetCallbacks32(USBDEVICE_ATTACHED_CALLBACK usbDeviceAttachedCallback, USBDEVICE_REMOVED_CALLBACK usbDeviceRemovedCallback); Thanks again, JoePluginKing!

Hi folks, I'm authoring some LED Controller functions into my swiss army knife plugin given LEDBlinky doesn't really cut the mustard for me. I have cloned Ben Baker's excellent PacDriveSDK from here: https://github.com/benbaker76/PacDriveSDK The repo works fine on my PC and I can use the cpp driver dlls () without any issue on the test applications. However, Launchbox doesn't seem to like them at all. I get the following errors during the Plugin Initialisation phase: I've tried just putting them in the plugins folder without my plugin files and I still get the same errors - implying it's Launchbox not liking the dlls rather than my plugin. I also couldn't get any other exception details, even after putting LB into debug mode (there were no logs in the log folder, maybe because once those exceptions are thrown, LB doesn't boot) I have emailed Ben Baker, but he may say it's a Launchbox issue - so hoping I don't get caught between a rock and a hard place on this one. My skills don't extend to cpp, so I have no idea what the compatibility issues are. Do hope someone can help or clarify what's happening here, as totally stuck with this one!

Fair points, Joe and pretty much where I've gone with it. There are some nasty edge cases that might happen (e.g. user 'swaps' the Names of two systems in LB which would be undetectable by my plugin where linked DO is via Platform Name) but that's the issue with plugin development: some things are beyond your control. Even 'multi-key' approaches are fallible, so it will have to do! Thanks for your input. 👍

Hey. Thanks for the reply, Joe. Yes - I had considered that, but the issue is if I create an associated data object linked via the LB Platform name, and then the user changes the platform name in LB that then breaks the link between the LB IPlatform and the data object. I was hoping that there was a unique (unchangeable) ID assigned at the point of creation of a new LB platform, but I'm thinking that this facility just isn't there? I've also had a look at Metadata/Platforms.xml and see no ID there either, so I'm thinking I'm going to have to do some convoluted design accommodating the possibility that the user changes the Platform name (and with no date created property, there's going to be no way to detect a platform name change, I think - so on running my plugin it'll either be a new platform created by the user or the user has changed the name). Not ideal, but I guess you have to work with what you've got. Any other ideas, Jo, just in case I'm missing something? Merry Chrimbo by the way.

Hi folks. Been working on a plugin for 2 years to do various things, but main feature being per game/platform controls layouts. However, just recently hit a major blocking point. It seems each IPlatform has no unique identifier? I had been working around it historically, but I now need to map data against each launchbox (lb) IPlatform and thus need a unique identifier on the lb platform to ensure these are mapped correctly. However, I can find no unique identifier on the data object. I have scoped this out in VS and via the api ref here: https://pluginapi.launchbox-app.com/html/092c865d-74b6-4a39-e6d9-cda1235d8355.htm I did try getting a hash via IPlatform.GetHashCode, but this produces different Hash on each lb run without any discernible changes to the IPlatform data object Also tried examining the GUID via Iplatform.GetType(), but this returns the guid of the data object type, not the instance. Frustratingly, I see IGame and IEmulator both have an Id field, but cannot leverage the latter to form a unique ID in my plugin as there appears to be no link to the ascribed emulator for a platform via `IPlatform[] platforms = PluginHelper.DataManager.GetAllPlatforms();` So onto trying to generate a unique ID: Sadly, there also seems to be no 'created date' (i.e. when the IPlatform data object was created) which I could have leveraged for a unique ID. I also considered using ScrapeAs, Name or other such variable, but these of course can change and contain duplicates. So, in short, is there any way to get or generate a unique ID for each IPlatform function?

Some helpful links to these well known resources. I'm still making progress on this, but like I said in the OP, it has indeed ended up as a 2 year long rabbit hole! Ok... maybe 2.5! There are no resources for games controls for other platforms, so this will be down to the LB community to trail blaze!!

I certainly feel in dev hell with it. 🤣

Quite. It took me a year to build my arcade machine in 2013. I've been working on showing game controls on it ever since! The missing and crucial link in emulation imho, although Ben Baker did an awesome job with CPWizard. It will happen before I die... 🤣

Funnily enough I've just moved onto working on this again. I'm afraid it's no small task to do the full system, but am currently working on just getting custom layouts working on a per platform basis, so you would, at least, be able to generate/display images for each platform (eg if on a cab, showing which cab buttons map to which controller buttons). There's a rather long winded vid here that shows you the prototype I built in action. Skip to the end to see controls in action. Will deffo need some help with this project when get it up and running, as there's a lot of stuff that needs doing to make it a community resource, beyond data entry of controls for all games, so may have to take you up on it 😜

Yeah. It started working later. The mapping mustn't be applied immediately.

I've just raised a bug ticket in the hope that someone on the LB staff can take a look at this. You can upvote it here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/9182/windows-volume-controls-disabled-by-bigbox

Given others have reported this historically and there's been no resolve, think I'll submit this as a bug and see if that fosters any solutions. I'm imagining now LB is staffed, there'd be someone on bugwatch, right?

Thanks Jo - yeah - already knew about the launch options - that's how I launched C:\Windows\System32\SndVol.exe and exlorer.exe. No dice. Yeah - it's not the winpac as all other buttons are working as mapped without launching the config app - I think the settings are stored in the WinPac itself? Thanks for trying, though.

Thanks for the reply. Shame such a necessary function was missed in design/testing.

Same problem here + have been chasing my tail all day on this one. Bit of a major oversight, really. Did you find a solution?