LaunchBox Beta Testing

[Jason Carr]

CADScott said Would it be possible to have the letter jump list only show the letters that are actually available in the list? This is only really an issue for the platforms, but it would neaten up the list and speed up navigation.

Potentially, chose not to tackle it immediately for performance reasons, but I will review. :)

[kmoney]

I tested the new letter jumping feature and everything seems to be working great thus far. This is a great feature that I have been waiting for a long time! Thank you @Jason

[Drybonz]

I was just looking through some of my game lists... I have to say everything looks so much cleaner with the "ignore articles" alphabetizing.

[GatoSoft]

Hi, guys! ^_^ Everything is running smoothly for me in the latest beta. I was about to post some errors I found before but, because of my limited time, some other forum members were doing that in my place. Great job! :D However, I was wondering if you'll gonna add YouTube support for videos anytime soon since LaunchBox and BigBox now uses VLC libraries for video playback and due to VLC Player's ability to play YouTube videos directly. Greetings. :)

[SentaiBrad]

GatoSoft said Hi, guys! ^_^ Everything is running smoothly for me in the latest beta. I was about to post some errors I found before but, because of my limited time, some other forum members were doing that in my place. Great job! :D However, I was wondering if you'll gonna add YouTube support for videos anytime soon since LaunchBox and BigBox now uses VLC libraries for video playback and due to VLC Player's ability to play YouTube videos directly. Greetings. :)

Well chances are we would just use the ability to play the video's within LaunchBox... but that would require users to also install Flash (not for Firefox or Chrome), so at the very least it is a great alternative. I completely forgot about it. Edit: My only concern is the content creator not getting any metrics or ad views from using VLC.

[DOS76]

Came home and found LB crashed with this error message

[GatoSoft]

SentaiBrad said Well chances are we would just use the ability to play the video's within LaunchBox... but that would require users to also install Flash (not for Firefox or Chrome), so at the very least it is a great alternative. I completely forgot about it. Edit: My only concern is the content creator not getting any metrics or ad views from using VLC.

Based on tests I've done in the past, I've played YouTube videos loading it's URLs in VLC Player on computers with Windows 7 and without Adobe Flash at all, not even Chrome or Firefox installed. Just the plain Internet Explorer 8. :P Maybe the reason about why it's working without Adobe Flash is that VLC gets the link behind the YouTube URL that leads you directly to it's respective mp4/webm/flv file. ^_^ Anyway, I don't know if VLC libraries works like that without it's own GUI. :P

[Drybonz]

I'm getting a crash when I grab and drag the scrollbar to scroll in the game details sidebar. It does not crash if I mouse wheel scroll through it... only using the scrollbar. Error message is just the generic "has stopped working".

[SentaiBrad]

Drybonz said I'm getting a crash when I grab and drag the scrollbar to scroll in the game details sidebar. It does not crash if I mouse wheel scroll through it... only using the scrollbar. Error message is just the generic "has stopped working".

Were you looking at a long Game Details bar, or any game details bar? I'll see if I can replicate.

[SentaiBrad]

Long and short, neither crash. I also tried with video playing in WMP or VLC and still no crash. I'll ask Jason to take a look, maybe there's something he can ask that might clue us in a bit.

[Drybonz]

Try opening Launchbox on a secondary monitor. Try the scrollbar then... also try opening the options menu. Let me know if they crash LB. *edit* Ah... never mind. I just tried the options menu on the primary monitor and it crashes too. So much for that theory.

[Jason Carr]

Thanks for the errors guys, I'll look into them. I'm finally coming out of my hole with a new beta and a couple new views for Big Box. Both are for the games list. The first is CoverFlow, and the second is a horizontal games box art list with game details and the video/images beneath. The presentations for these views are not set in stone; would love some feedback on them and suggested changes. Now that I have the groundwork done, I should be able to create some additional views or tweak these fairly easily (or at least a lot easier than it's been for the past week). You can enable the new views under Options > Games List > Games List View. I believe the default should be the same view as before. Going forward I plan to open up these views (and possibly other views) to the platforms/filters lists as well. I imagine we'll also need some separate views for the game details also. If anyone wants to throw up some mockups for what they'd like to see, I'd love that too. Thanks all! :)

[Justified]

Hello Everyone, I'm new to the forum but been following it for a while already. I will try to contribute to this awesome front-end and the community as much as free time allows! @Jason, here is an idea for the cover flow view, its from the FS-UAE Amiga Emulator, maybee a couple of snapshot and description details could be also added at the bottom. Another idea, is the grid view from Steam, I would probably add the game titles below each cover art, and the selected game's details at bottom. The last image is a cover flow using the fan-art as background hope it helps!

[ALIE]

new views has potential very nice start. i found bug when using overflow, i cant go side ways with my controller only keyboard arrows. also that Concept above NICE!!!!

[Klamp]

I confirm the controller bug on coverflow. Only the Back button seems to work.Looking Good btw.

[CriticalCid]

The new views are awesome! I’m really thankful for this! Some thoughts from me: CoverFlow: - My analog sticks and the shoulder buttons of my Xbox 360 gamepad aren’t working in CoverFlow. The enter and back buttons of the pad and keyboard navigation is working fine. - I would like it if it uses fanart as well. At the moment it’s just a boring black background for every game. - I also would like to have more game info in it. At least genre, year, developer and publisher would be nice. Horizontal cover: - The shoulder buttons of my 360 pad are acting weird. If I press RB it goes one entry back and if I press LB it goes one entry forth. I dont know if the one entry jump is on purpose (if yes, it would be nice if you could change that) but the directions are definitely inverted. General: - It would be nice to have the new alpha-numeric navigation in the new views as well - Instead of a general viewtype for everything it would be awesome to change that for every platform individually. - A button to change the viewtype on-the-fly when I’m navigating in a platform would be nice (I’m kinda used to it through Kodi). New views suggestions: - A mix of CoverFlow and the Horizontal viewtype. Similar like the Aeon Skins or the standard view for Rom Collection Browser in Kodi. - As already suggested in THIS THREAD a big video view for recorded HyperSpin themes. Similar like my mockup (for 16:9 themes) and HyperVision (for 4:3 themes). Also see my detailed suggestions in Post #6 in the linked thread.

[Drybonz]

Esc key for "back" doesn't seem to be working any more in Big Box. New views are cool but don't seem very practical for paging through large numbers of titles.

[Jason Carr]

Check your key mappings @Drybonz? Thanks all, I'll get the controller issues fixed. :)

[Drybonz]

Jason Carr said Check your key mappings @Drybonz?

That one was my fault... sorry.

[DOS76]

Okay I need a little help. Where are the settings to change the views? I don't see them. Also I had BB crash both times I ran it once after closing out of a game and once when I was just randomly scrolling. Edit: Just happened a third time when I exit out of RA it goes back to the screen with the options on it but when you hit back to return to the list it crashes.