LaunchBox Beta Testing

[newyears1978]

Yes you had told me about beta :) Thanks for double checking. Great update can't wait to get off work and check it out.

[Zombeaver]

@bundangdon There isn't a "list" - you just have to opt in to the beta in the options in Launchbox. Tools -> Options -> General -> Updates and check "Update to Beta Release". Tada! :P

[cejpe]

I've been messing around with the Beta, so far I'm a fan of the emumovies integration. A couple questions, though:

Jason Carr said - New Feature: EmuMovies images, manuals, and video downloads are now integrated into LaunchBox imports and metadata/images/media downloading

So say I wanted to update an already added system with snaps from emumovies, or I wanted to scrape new box art/etc. What would be the easiest way to do this? I tried highlighting all the games and doing a mass edit, but that didn't seem like way to go. I ended up just deleting the system and re-adding it to get the movies. Also, if emumovies is prioritized does it delete any existing files we have have downloaded from GameDB/etc when re-importing a system?

Jason Carr said - Fixed: Big Box now shows up properly in the task bar

And lastly I was just curious what purpose this served? Is this just to confirm that it is running given that you run into issues or does it have something to do with Steam integration? Seems like I may have read that somewhere but I can't really remember. Anyways, keep up the great work! This is by far the best front-end I've ever used; and while I'll admit it isn't the prettiest out there, it is easily the most powerful, intuitive and info rich. Besides, form follows function and all that.

[Jason Carr]

Thanks @cejpe. The best way to download new stuff to existing games is Tools > Download Metadata and Images. Rather than re-importing games, this should give you more control about what remains and what gets overwritten. The task bar thing was really just fixed because of user complaints; some users like it to be there so if they alt-tab away from it it's easy to get back to. There was speculation that it might fix some issues with Steam Link, but in fact it did not.

[Freestate]

Bug! When parsing MSX data on emumovies you must parse various entries because the gamesdatabase unifies all msx in one and emumovies only downloads msx data leaving blank msx2 and msx2+ entries.

[Jason Carr]

Ah, I see. Thanks @freestate.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, new beta is out. I'm hoping this will be the last beta before release, so extra testing would be appreciated. I believe all issues with the EmuMovies stuff are fixed, as well as any critical bugs. Thanks everyone. :)

[sincro]

Jason Carr said Alright, new beta is out. I'm hoping this will be the last beta before release, so extra testing would be appreciated. I believe all issues with the EmuMovies stuff are fixed, as well as any critical bugs. Thanks everyone. :)

Hello Jason, I have problems with the beta 8 when download metadata from EmuMovies for Arcade: many games only display video_MP4_HD although there are other artwork available. Request: you can make possible to download artwork even if the game does not appear on TheGameDB and Wikipedia but on Emumovies there?

[SentaiBrad]

It should but you might need to bulk download metadata and images. Click your Arcade category in your left pane and Ctrl + A all of your games. Once highlighted go to Tools -> Download Images and Metadata. You can do this however you'd like but I personally suggest when you get to the "Would you like to update games with existing Metadata?" page to select the second option which is "Yes, but do not replace any existing fields."

[Jason Carr]

Hi @sincro, hmm, I'll look into the Arcade Video_MP4_HD only thing. Is that the only one showing up in the list, or are the others there but just not checked by default? Good point on the EmuMovies without TGDB or Wikipedia. That should work fine for batch downloads but I see that it's not there for editing single games.

[sincro]

Jason Carr said Hi @sincro, hmm, I'll look into the Arcade Video_MP4_HD only thing. Is that the only one showing up in the list, or are the others there but just not checked by default? Good point on the EmuMovies without TGDB or Wikipedia. That should work fine for batch downloads but I see that it's not there for editing single games.

Hello Jason, attaching an image to explain the problem started with the beta 8 BETA 7 BETA 8

[Jason Carr]

Thanks @sincro, got it. Looking into it.

[Jason Carr]

Hi @sincro, I believe I have that bug fixed. Should have the beta out later tonight. The issue was that for "Arcade" it was searching many different "arcade"-related EmuMovies platforms, and just picking the first one it found, which happened to be ArcadePC. I removed ArcadePC from the list (you can just use an ArcadePC platform for that instead now if that's really what you want), and also sorted it so that MAME is priority.

[sincro]

Thanks @Jason

[Jason Carr]

Alright, beta 9 is out. Resolved most of the issues so went ahead and put it out. Still doesn't let you download from EmuMovies without an associated TGDB or Wikipedia ID; I may or may not get to that before the official. In the mean time it's a decent enough workaround just to delete the game and re-import it, which will work to download from EmuMovies whether or not it finds anything from TGDB or Wikipedia. This also includes updated Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese translations. Thanks everyone! Break it for me! ;)

[Lmagnus87]

Thanks for the update! :D Only 1 question, Why is Dosbox configuration on Tools menu?. Yes I know that LB started as Dosbox Launcher but maybe now the dosbox configuration need to be with other emulators on "Manage Emulator"

[Jason Carr]

We could set LaunchBox up as an emulator and the whole bit, but it'd be a lot of backtracking and such and ultimately mostly wasted effort compared to the myriad of useful features I'm hoping to add instead. So, agreed, in hindsight, it makes more sense for DOSBox and ScummVM to be emulators themselves, but as for now, I don't plan to waste time integrating them. Thanks magnus.

[Jason Carr]

A new beta version is out that only changes one thing...it allows you to disable the Big Box startup splash screen. I added this mainly to hopefully fix issues with game controllers over Steam Link. Been getting quite a few people trying that out lately so I just snuck it in.

[ic80]

Jason Carr said A new beta version is out that only changes one thing...it allows you to disable the Big Box startup splash screen. I added this mainly to hopefully fix issues with game controllers over Steam Link. Been getting quite a few people trying that out lately so I just snuck it in.

Jason, thanks for creating this awesome piece of software, and thanks again for this little fix. I registered for beta testing just so I could turn off the splash screen, now my htpc is seamless when it launches from kodi to big box and back :D I'd also like to add my 2 cents for implementing "Issue #316 - Platform image background across all menus in Big Box" as this would be great for those of us who don't download any fanart but want to theme a bit. For instance, some open source projects like retropie have theme packages with consistent controller art so those of us with ocd (like me ) could use these to have some consistency across our games collection. So for instance... https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-nbba/blob/master/n64/bg.jpg https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-nbba/blob/master/megadrive/bg.jpg https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-nbba/blob/master/psx/bg.jpg ...would be great imo for my setup (just need someone to create gamecube one though ) Anyway, keep up the good work. 11/10 - would launch from this box again.

[Zombeaver]

@Jason Thank you thank you thank you! I will report back as soon as I get home to test this tonight! I just hope my hunch was correct and that this actually solves the issue... Fingers crossed!