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Feature Request - Possible? Steam Grid Images


Vinicius256

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So, I was thinking lately, Steam has a TON of games, and lots of them are indie titles that probably don't have a GamesDB.net page, or if they have, they don't have a boxart, mainly because these games were always digital. My idea is to add an option to LaunchBox, that allows you to use the default game images that Steam uses on grid view and Big Picture when importing Steam games, instead of downloading the images from GamesDB.net. The problem is, I don't know if that's possible, as I don't recall Steam actually saving those images on the PC. Any thoughts on this? *EDIT*: BTW, if it is indeed possible, it could become a great way of separating Steam and PC as different platforms (I actually do that on my LaunchBox setup, so I know what I installed from CD's and what is digital.)
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Vinicius256 said So, I was thinking lately, Steam has a TON of games, and lots of them are indie titles that probably don't have a GamesDB.net page, or if they have, they don't have a boxart, mainly because these games were always digital. My idea is to add an option to LaunchBox, that allows you to use the default game images that Steam uses on grid view and Big Picture when importing Steam games, instead of downloading the images from GamesDB.net. The problem is, I don't know if that's possible, as I don't recall Steam actually saving those images on the PC. Any thoughts on this? *EDIT*: BTW, if it is indeed possible, it could become a great way of separating Steam and PC as different platforms (I actually do that on my LaunchBox setup, so I know what I installed from CD's and what is digital.)
There is a distinction already if you filter by Imported roms etc, or just by platform. As far as using the images, there is no API for importing games. What it is doing right now is scanning your folders for specific files. That is why sometimes the names are off or it finds games that you've removed before. So if it finds that file regardless of if the game is installed etc it adds the game. So I am unsure where the images are even cached? If it is in the file that LB scans then it has to decipher that image from the file. This would be cool for games that are not in TheGamesDB, but I am unsure how feasible it is. I know there is API for using Steam to sign in to other platforms but not for detecting installed games.
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Vinicius256 said I did some more research, and apparently Steam saves the grid images, game icons and lots of other data on the httpcache folder, so that doesn't help anyway, because that folder is a complete mess from what I've seen.
Well its probably sorted by Steam Game ID's, which would be in the filing most likely. So if there could be a system to match them up... maybe.
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Vinicius256 said Or we could find a way to download the images from the Steam website itself, but I don't know how that could possibly be done =P
Easily. Download RightToClick and Thumbnail Zoom Plus for Firefox from the AddOn site. They do several things each but you should then be able to right click imagery and "Save full size image". I also have EnhancedSteam but I don't think that would help in image downloading. That's how you do it manually. As far as the importer? There is a Steam API but I have no clue if that allows and help you to download images and game data.
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Vinicius256 said Oh, I was referring to the importer, Doing it manually is pretty easy like you said, and you can find the images even on Google. Well, if there's no way, I can always try to help increase the games database then Wink
That would be the most ideal way before the Wikipedia importing works.
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Yeah, just to recap, good idea Vinicius, but unfortunately there's most likely no good way to get at the images. The HTTP cache folder is just a cache, so wouldn't necessarily contain all the images. And since Steam most likely does not want me auto-stealing their images... ;) Probably can't be, unfortunately.
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Jason Carr said Yeah, just to recap, good idea Vinicius, but unfortunately there's most likely no good way to get at the images. The HTTP cache folder is just a cache, so wouldn't necessarily contain all the images. And since Steam most likely does not want me auto-stealing their images... ;) Probably can't be, unfortunately.
Yea it would be fantastic to have the entire Steam Library available to scrape for data but that would cause a huge amount of server stress on their part because im sure we're not the only ones, and there are tons of sites that already pull data from profiles through API calls and or public profile data... so I am sure they don't want game data pulled in mass either. It would be pretty awesome because then it is another step that TheGamesDB doesn't need to be relied on.
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