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MayorQwert

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  1. MayorQwert
    I've made several posts about this in the past but haven't had any luck finding any help. Among many other problems I've noticed that background Music in BigBox always seems to reset back to the first track in the queue whenever a game is played. Oddly the time it takes to do this seems to have something to do with how long it had been playing before a game was selected, but without fail it will always reset back regardless of how far in the queue it is. This is a major problem for me, as I have over 1000 music tracks in my background music and hearing the same ones repeatedly is really ruining the experience, especially considering the amount of work I have put into meticulously curating this list and managing the metadata. Of course this isn't the only problem with background music playback, but this is the main one that I cannot find any way to work around.
  2. MayorQwert
    I've been having this problem for a while, and have made several threads about it. No idea why nobody has addressed it yet. Sucks because I am using mine like an Arcade jukebox with over 1000 songs and no matter what after playing a game it loops back, negating 90% of the music
  3. MayorQwert
    I tested it with and without attract mode and unfortunately noticed no difference! I managed to mitigate this somewhat why using Flexible Renamer and Robobasket to both filter individual songs into subfolders and then (using Flexible Renamer) shuffle those folder names such that a rudimentary shuffling system can be established. This is very tedious and not good practice but with the large library I have collected having proper song shuffling is paramount to my BigBox experience. However, the main problem that keeps annoying me to no end is that, no matter what, after a game is played the list will eventually restart back to the first track. The amount of time it takes to do so strangely enough seems to depend on how many songs have been played up until the point the game has been played, but without fail it always resets the list, regardless of how far it made it beforehand. The same is true if I try to skip forwards/back in the songlist, resulting in the playback resetting to the first track. With over 1000 music tracks in my Bigbox library this is seriously hindering the enjoyment I can get out of this unfortunately, as I wish to use my BigBox as an 'Arcade Jukebox' of sorts when games aren't being played. I've been experimenting with other methods to get around using the abysmal media player but haven't found any that seem to quite cut it. My last attempt centered around using an external media player (Such as WinAMP) that can use windows system media controls (play/pause, stop, etc.) in conjunction with autohotkeys. Basically, I start playback on the media player and have it paused when an emulator is launched and played once again when the emulator is closed. This works for the most part, however even when "Always on Top" is on it unfortunately does not display the song title/album/artist/artwork in the corner like usual, which is a major deal breaker considering the meticulous work that I have put into collecting metadata for these tracks. Also, if one attempts to quit the game too fast, it is possible that the script can terminate whereas the emulator does not, leading to the game staying up and having music play over it. I just really wish the Devs would address this persistent problem, yes media playback is just an extra feature to the actual game playing but considering the work that has gone into adding media functionality in recent updates I think an overhaul to the BigBox media playback is completely justifiable as a concern. Please, someone fix this! ?
  4. MayorQwert
    Weird thing is that this has actually been a problem since before the implementation of platform-specific music. I started using Bigbox around a year ago and as far as I can recall this has been a persistent issue since I have been using it. For now my effective (but hilariously inefficient) way of dealing with it is having the folders for each game split so that only 2-3 tracks from each game is in a given folder which are then nested in their own subfolder and run through software such as FlexRenamer which assigns randomized numerical names to the folders so they can be 'shuffled'. The actual game soundtrack folders are nested so their names will remain unchanged so it is easy to find soundtrack files without digging through a ton of numbered folders. This is absolutely ridiculous and hilariously impractical but I really don't mind since having my music at least remotely able to be shuffled is well worth it in my opinion and if I want to shuffle again all I have to do is run the shuffle program again. ?‍♂️
  5. MayorQwert
    So glad to see someone else has the same problem as me! I've mentioned this on the forums before and nobody ever seems to offer any explanations or solutions! As you, I also have a massive selection of music (I think close to 20 hours of non-looping arcade music as of this writing) and it is a pain that it does not shuffle. I have resorted to making several dozen folders named in a convention like a - b - ... - zz with music from different games randomly shuffled in the folders and games with more than two tracks also being split into subfolders to give the "illusion" of it being shuffled. This is obviously a ridiculous amount of work for what it is but I value my BigBox machine as a retro arcade jukebox almost as much as it is a frontend for the actual games! I'd say that aside from this the frontend is everything I could ask for, but it's just a shame I have this thorn constantly in my side.
  6. MayorQwert
    This isn't so much a feature per-say but I was wondering if there is some way I could edit Big Box to have the song details remain on the screen for longer when playing background music? I know it's not in any plugins thus-far and it would be relatively unimportant for the majority of users, but I have an impressive music collection of arcade songs on my unit with a lot of information displayed when switching songs so I figure I can see if it is some simple value that can be edited in a config file somewhere or something along those lines. Please let me know if this isn't the place for such a discussion and I can gladly move to the appropriate location!
  7. MayorQwert
    Hey, I was wondering if anybody else has a problem with their background music not shuffling properly in Big Box even if the option is checked in the Big Box settings? Mine just go alphabetically down the folders in Launchbox/Music/Background and no matter what I can't seem to have them properly shuffle. ??
  8. MayorQwert
    But doesn't that replace all values with whatever you entered? It'd be nice if you could just add one value to a bunch of games whose parameters don't necessarily have to match to begin with.
  9. MayorQwert
    I really wish they had a better bulk edit feature. I have this exact issue and have a long time. I hate having to individually edit almost a thousand games when I decide to change/update a tag.
  10. MayorQwert
    It seems to definitely be an issue with attract mode, I tried the same conditions when it is disabled and never had the problem of it randomly selecting the game. It's not really something that has any real effect on usability or performance, but quite an oddity for sure.
  11. MayorQwert
    Hey! It's been a while but I had a question about the plugin @Grila. If I leave it on a game for a while in the menu (Maybe two minutes) it will automatically try to open it. Mame games don't seem to fully launch, but it does launch my Demul ones. Wasn't sure if it was intentional so I thought I'd ask to see. Plugin is working great, just took a while for daft me to realize the instructions were in plain sight to get details added. ?
  12. MayorQwert
    For some reason I can't seem to be able to get the game details and notes to show on the recent builds since it was added in 2.0.5. Not sure if I'm missing something. I have title, publisher, publisher, developer, release date, star rating, genre, series, play mode, notes and favorite icon enabled with details and notes scrolling. However, it is functioning as in previous builds with the exception of the addition made in 2.0.6, with box art being shown for games that have it and the "filler art" for those which don't working as intended.
  13. MayorQwert
    Not trying to push him to do more work than he wants too, I just like to try to give a bit of feedback thrown into whatever I find from playtesting. I honestly had no complaints about the last version he put out, I just like to throw ideas I have out there. It's really no biggie though if my ideas aren't good or just aren't worth the time, I just like to put them out there.
  14. MayorQwert
    So glad to FINALLY find someone else having this issue! I think I recall trying that but to no avail. No idea why it does this.
  15. MayorQwert
    @Grila Actually, I was wondering if you would consider having some sort of text pop up when you attempt to choose an invalid option, say pick "selected playlist" when you are in the "All Games" view, with something to the effect of "That option is not available" or "Invalid selection" so that people will know the plugin is not broke if they try to do that without realizing it won't work. I don't want anybody thinking the plugin is broke if they happen to be messing with it while I'm not there. Actually, thinking out loud here, but what if as an alternative you had it detect if you are in "All Games" or a playlist and choose the appropriate random mode for the user? I understand this would mean having to back out to go to "All Games" if you want a random game from the whole list, but this could serve to simplify the UI and eliminate the need for the "Main Menu" entirely.
  16. MayorQwert
    @Grila I just tested out the latest build, everything seemed to work great! I love the new UI and genre selection! In lieu of any real concerns, I was wondering if you have you considered adding a small pause when you reach the start/end of a list, so that you don't blow past the end of the list if you're scrolling down? I know some UIs do that, but this is completely marginal in importance. I really don't have anything else to say, it looks great, works great, and I look forward to future updates!
  17. MayorQwert
    Hey! So I have my BigBox set up as a front-end for my Multicade, with numerous arcade titles to play, going so far as to add arcade music to the "Launchbox/Music/Background" folder so that it will shuffle through various arcade musics while the game screen is up. It works excellently and I even added album art and info for each game so it displays the song name, game it's from and who the artist is, along with a nice image of the game box art when a new song plays. To make sure the album art is retained for every song, I have each game's music in a different folder within the Background folder. It displays everything fine, but the issue I'm having is it's not shuffling the music, no matter how I set it up. Here's a better description of the problem: When I launch Big Box, it does select a random song, but afterwards it will sequentially play every song from that game (folder), before moving to the next game alphabetically and playing all the music from it as well. If I force it to next song with the BigBox binding, it will indeed select a random song, but afterwards will go back to playing them alphabetically. I have shuffle turned on in settings, but no matter what it won't actually shuffle them if I leave it sitting. It's annoying, as I want it to ideally shuffle every track together, while also retaining album art and info (tried having them all mashed in one folder, this did not fix the issue and in addition messed up album art). Does anybody have any suggestions?
  18. MayorQwert
    @Grila Hey! Been absent for a while from this thread but I've been meaning to pop back in to give some updates about how the plugin's been working for me and some general feedback on the current version. I've been using it a ton lately and it's been great being able to just pop on and grab a random game to play, especially when I have a friend over and we just want to pop into a random competitive game! However, I did notice recently that it does not filter out hidden games, regardless of whether they are set to be shown or hidden in the games list. This isn't anything too major, but figured I'd throw it out there. Also, I was wondering if there were any plans to possibly allow for random games by genre (Fighting, Action, Beat em' Up, Shmup, etc.) in the foreseeable future, or maybe even multiple field selection (For example 2-player simultaneous, 3-player simultaneous and 4-player simultaneous all in the same pool). I look forward to future updates!
  19. MayorQwert
    Wowwie crazy how far this has come in such a short time, and I look forward to seeing where this goes from here! I had a few ideas pop in my head today while I was out as well, would it be difficult to have an option to select genres as well? Not sure how feasible that would be but I think it could be interesting. Also was thinking it would be nifty if there was a way to select multiple options, such as by pressing X-number of options with a "confirm" button or something similar. Once again I have no idea how hard such a feature would be to implement. Not going to complain though, this has made more progress in one day than most projects make in weeks!
  20. MayorQwert
    No! Thank you for putting all this time into making such a fine plugin for everyone!
  21. MayorQwert
    Just going to post one screen cap this time, everything seems to be working without error! Tested all of the playlists that previously gave trouble, along with a few old ones, and there are no errors whatsoever! I have to say I'm very surprised you were able to get everything fixed so quickly! I can't think of anything else that would need to be added from a feature standpoint. I suppose as you said rolling the menus into one perhaps. Are there any plans to have options like those available to the normal BigBox views, such as toggling having additional information displayed along with the box art, such as description, genre, etc.?
  22. MayorQwert
    Have you considered perhaps rolling everything into a single hotkey? Like possibly have where you hold it and have the option to either search current view or entire collection? Current setup is fine, but I am thinking down the line when perhaps the ability to set a hotkey becomes feasible and that way there can be a single hotkey for the whole plugin, a "random game button" if you will.
  23. MayorQwert
    Wow, the full collection one works wonderfully! I also tested Cooperative, Competitive and "*No Preferred Play-mode", and all of them worked wonderfully! "View All Games": Sega Classics Playlist: Arcade Platform: Also adding some notes here again. Noticed that the "hold left" menu is present regardless of where I am browsing (not saying this is bad or good, just letting you know all the changes). Also noticed that "*No Preferred Play-Mode" is only available for all games, I figure this was just a test round but that would be cool functionality to add across the board! All in all though, looking great!
  24. MayorQwert
    Oh and I finally got around to testing what happens if I delete the playlists that are giving trouble, listed below, and let them restore themselves. Seems like nothing changes ant it still throws the same error. Oddly enough, if I create a playlist in Launchbox. add all the games over to it, import any existing metadata, and delete the old one, it works fine. It's just the auto-generated versions of these playlists that are causing trouble. Capcom Classics Data East Classics Konami Classics Sega Naomi Taito Classics The specific one that I deleted and replaced is Sega Naomi, which is working now. Although I'm not sure what would happen if I were to import another Sega Naomi game and have it try to automatically add it.
  25. MayorQwert
    Just noticed something odd. In all those tests just 'Cooperative' or 'Competitive were never given as a choice, like how it was in your example. For example, in the "Arcade" platform, I can't just have it shuffle random 'Competitive' games, I have to choose <player number>; Competitive
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