Search the Community

I was helping someone in chat last night and it occurred to me that it's probably worth posting about as a sortof FYI/FAQ for others. The topic was "proper" media naming for automatic matching in LB/BB. I think the majority of the confusion stemmed from the fact that there are multiple ways in which the media can be named and it will still match (which is a really awesome feature, but it's something not everyone is accustomed to); and they're matched on the basis of your own library and your own rom files. Let's say you have an entry in your library that's titled "Final Fantasy VI" and an associated rom file named "FF6(1994)(Squaresoft).zip". In this scenario, your media could be named in any of three ways (actually four if you include appended numbers but we'll get back to that) and it will automatically associate with your LB/BB entry. It could be named based on the library title, the rom file name minus special characters, or the rom file name with all special characters. Final Fantasy VI.jpg - matches the library title; this will work FF6.jpg - matches the rom file name minus special characters; this will work note however that appended numbers (-0#) do not work in this scenario. FF6(1994)(Squaresoft).jpg - matches the rom file name with all special characters; this will work FF6(1994).jpg - includes special characters from the rom file, but not all of them; this will not work FFVI.jpg - doesn't match either the library title or the rom name; this will not work If you're matching by title and the title includes characters that are invalid for Windows file names, that character needs to be replaced by an underscore in your media file name. So if your game title is Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, your media would need to be named Super Street Fighter II_ The New Challengers.jpg. This requirement also applies to titles that use an apostrophe, despite the fact that apostrophes are usable in Windows file names. Additionally, for most types of media you can append a number at the end of the file name (formatted as -0#) and they'll match in LB/BB. So if you have 4 images in your Screenshots - Gameplay folder for Final Fantasy VI, they could be named as below and they'll show up in order in LB. Final Fantasy VI-01.jpg Final Fantasy VI-02.jpg Final Fantasy VI-03.jpg Final Fantasy VI-04.jpg For media other than screenshots, doing this will typically cause them to cycle randomly each time you select the library entry. Platform media is unique in that the files can be named anything, they simply need to be in the correct folder. If you want to add in your own platform banner for Super Nintendo, it would need to go in Launchbox -> Images -> Platforms -> Super Nintendo -> Banner. The actual image file could be named anything but so long as it's in that folder it will show up as a banner for SNES. Additionally, you can put in multiple images for platform banners and platform fanart (again, named anything) and it will cycle between them randomly whenever you select the associated platform in BB. Note that this doesn't work for platform clear logos as you have to clear their image cache for them to reset. I think this covers just about everything. If anyone else has anything else to add though, I can add it into the post.