Jason Carr Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 bd00 said I am going to drift away from the matters at hand for a second and I would like to suggest something and here your thoughts. A really great feature would be if LB could organise your files. Rename, create directories and save images and nfos to those directories, etc.. Then add a local scraper. This would allow users to easily rebuild libraries without having to download everything again, and any customisations made could be permanently saved and carried forward. Also, a lot of people already have this sort of setup from other apps and it would make it an easier transition to LB for them. You could even add the option to move everything to the LB directory. Most emulators are portable, they could go into an emulator folder, the games into the games folder (organised and renamed if they wish), etc. You could even give LB the ability to download emulators and set everything up automatically, however, you would need your own repository of emulators. And if you could somehow add Xpadder automation, that would be the icing on the cake. If you could do this and make everything a million times faster and easier than the big players, you are on to a winner. I understand this would be a big job, maybe check out "RoM Jacket" for an example. This does pretty much everything I just said, but it does so using a bunch of scripts. It is all very chaotic and messy and complex and there has been questions raised over whether it can be trusted, so if you plan to run it, consider doing so in a sandbox or a virtual machine because last time I checked it still automatically downloads a lot of stuff without asking you. But maybe it could help or be some kind of guide on how to approach something like this. The idea of RoM Jacket is great, the principle is amazing and nothing else i have come across offers this kind of automation, but it is a mess. What this market is missing is simplicity, automation and organisation and so far you have proven that you can deliver just that. Thoughts? Sorry for the long post, believe it or not I tried to keep it brief. Ah, thanks for that. Starting to understand your vision there. Yes, agreed, my biggest goal is to make everything as easy as possible. I do see the advantages of using an XML file and images per game, and placing them with the games themselves, like XBMC. I think that would work great for ROMs and probably DOS games, but of course it gets to be pretty much impossible to keep XML and images files with Windows games. Another thing that complicates matters is of course that LaunchBox can't always control the files outside of the LaunchBox folder (permissions issues, UAC, etc.). So obviously all games managed this way would have to reside inside the LaunchBox folder. I don't really want to *require* that all ROMs or DOS Games live inside the LaunchBox folder, so of course you'd have to choose to enable this scraper-based system, I guess. Which I'm torn on, because again, I want simplicity. But you bring up some definite good points about how we should proceed. For ROMs, DOS games, or anything else that *can* be easily moved around, we should encourage people to let LaunchBox manage the files and keep them inside the LaunchBox folder, asking people if they want to move the files. The DOS install wizard gets partially there already, but not all the way. So I'm definitely with you there. Not sure about images and metadata files with the games, but I can see the benefits there for sure. Maybe the import/export process should use that format? Thanks bd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 Vinicius256 said Hey Jason, about the library, you could make it like OpenEmu. Take a look to see what I mean: http://openemu.org/ They have these lists by platform on the left side of the program. They also have a drag and drop function to easily import games to your library. Just an idea though Thanks Vinicius; that is certainly a nice and simple interface and one we should consider. I'm definitely not against it. I'm curious what bd's and everyone else's thoughts are on that interface vs. nesting, as we've previously discussed. Drag and drop is a bit more complicated because of the various types of games, but yes, certainly would be nice. I believe I have it on my list already; could start up a wizard of sorts when you drag and drop files. Also, yes, please do speak up and speak up often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 SentaiBrad said Also Jason, I personally don't care about game ratings, but I know some people do. Could we look in to a Metacritic API? Some people could find that info useful. Sure, great idea. Added to my list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 SentaiBrad said So I have a new image bug. I installed the new release, I started the program then exited out. From there, I copied over the Images and XML file. Well when clicking on games, the background still changes art but the games front box art doesn't show up. After editing a game then simply hitting OK on it however the image shows back up. I didn't have any problems with just changing out the Beta exe's but this time I chose a new location for the new release. Bah, okay. Have to look into this in another late-night session. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 One more thing to note...I've already done one thing for version 3.3. I eliminated all the DLLs that LaunchBox used so that they're all built in to LaunchBox.exe instead, and also built DOSBox, CDRDAO, and ScummVM into the EXE as well (DOSBox, CDRDAO, and ScummVM are extracted to the folder if they don't exist). This means that LaunchBox can now be distributed as just LaunchBox.exe, and it'll work just fine. I don't plan to get rid of the setup, but users can choose to just distribute LaunchBox.exe if they want (and it'll help with the imports and exports if you choose to export with LaunchBox included). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Jason Carr said Some good points there. We have some interesting things to discuss regarding how to do the libraries thing, and I'm not sure if I want to nail it down to a library per platform. I was more thinking any number of libraries, and you could divide them up however you wish. That might get too complicated though, I'm not sure. Just like the game details view (or worse), we'll need to have some significant discussion on this one. Might be good to put it in a separate thread. Yeah, this could be a tricky one, will need some thought and most likely a little trial-and-error. Jason Carr said Vinicius256 said Hey Jason, about the library, you could make it like OpenEmu. Take a look to see what I mean: http://openemu.org/ They have these lists by platform on the left side of the program. They also have a drag and drop function to easily import games to your library. Just an idea though Thanks Vinicius; that is certainly a nice and simple interface and one we should consider. I'm definitely not against it. I'm curious what bd's and everyone else's thoughts are on that interface vs. nesting, as we've previously discussed. Drag and drop is a bit more complicated because of the various types of games, but yes, certainly would be nice. I believe I have it on my list already; could start up a wizard of sorts when you drag and drop files. Also, yes, please do speak up and speak up often. I like the openemu interface, I had considered mentioning it once before when you posted a link to that LB article/review, but at the time I got the impression that you were determined to keep everything on a single page so I suggested the expanding/collapsing method. I also like the idea of the drag-and-drop suggestion. If you could drop a file/folder/selection onto the LB icon on the desktop and have LB rename, move, download content and add to library, that would be a pretty great feature. (Or just add to library for PC games or apps) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Agreed, drag and drop would be very nice. The more I look at that OpenEmu interface, the more I like it, I have to admit. Still torn on which would be better, nested or a similar interface to OpenEmu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Hey folks, bd's done some great work on some mockups for the nesting interface. If you can, hit it up and vote for the approach that you like the most. https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/library-brainstorming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 When editing a game individually, you have a drop-down menu with a selection of platforms. Can this be carried over to the import roms wizard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Hmm, I seem to be mistaken. Just created a new instance of LB and the platform list in edit game has gone. There was a list in the other instance that I did not create. I remember seeing Ouya and I definitely did not put that there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 bd00 said Hmm, I seem to be mistaken. Just created a new instance of LB and the platform list in edit game has gone. There was a list in the other instance that I did not create. I remember seeing Ouya and I definitely did not put that there. That's... odd. This was your existing LB config? Carried from beta or was it fresh with the new version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 SentaiBrad said bd00 said Hmm, I seem to be mistaken. Just created a new instance of LB and the platform list in edit game has gone. There was a list in the other instance that I did not create. I remember seeing Ouya and I definitely did not put that there. That's... odd. This was your existing LB config? Carried from beta or was it fresh with the new version? Yeah sorry, it was my bad. The instance was a copy of one I had been messing around with (not beta though). Still don't know how Ouya got on there though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 1, 2014 Author Share Posted August 1, 2014 Yeah, currently, the platforms list is populated only by existing games in your library. That might change going forward, but I'm not sure. I think I'd rather not force a bunch of extra platforms if you're only interested in two or three, for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Yeah sure, makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pogowolf Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Good morning! Is there a list of features, bugs, and ideas to read? figured something like that would be easier to walk through than trying to read 9 pages of thread and missing something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Hey pogowolf, there is actually: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox Please don't submit tickets there, though, as I prefer things to come through the forums (or the submission forms on the site). Still, that includes most everything that is planned. I've added you to the Trusted Members group on the forums, so you should have access to beta releases going forward. I'll be putting out a new beta release later today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Alright, here's version 3.3 beta 1. There's quite a bit to talk about with this release. And as usual, quite a bit to test. New stuff so far: - Swapping discs in DOSBox is now supported (see the new thread I created). Please test if you can. - The root LaunchBox folder has been cleaned up to only include LaunchBox.xml and LaunchBox.exe. All other files have been moved elsewhere (for instance the default dosbox.conf file is now under the DOSBox folder). Please test to confirm that files move properly. - Now the entire file structure for LaunchBox is extracted on startup directly from LaunchBox.exe. Please try putting LaunchBox.exe in an empty folder and confirm that everything works properly. - There's a new "root folder" field on games. This field is auto-populated for existing games (guessed based on the application or configuration path). However, it is used in DOSBox as the mount point and also for exporting games. It helps to make sure that all files are included in these scenarios. - There's a new Export Selected Games option under the Tools menu. It's a wizard that will export games to a zip file. An import process is on the way, but I need this export process tested extensively, if possible. It will create a zip file that contains an entire collection, so you can test it by extracting the files and running LaunchBox from the extracted files (make sure games work, paths are right, etc.). Of course there's more in the change log. Thanks to everyone for all your help; I'm hoping to add the import and then put out the official 3.3 version. Thanks, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinicius256 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 From what I tried so far, it seems to work fine, but when I export the games, even though the option to include LaunchBox is selected, the LaunchBox .exe isn't on the .zip file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Vinicius256 said From what I tried so far, it seems to work fine, but when I export the games, even though the option to include LaunchBox is selected, the LaunchBox .exe isn't on the .zip file. Huh, that's weird. I can't seem to replicate that. What else did you select? Does it happen if you leave everything at the defaults? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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