Feature Request (perhaps?) - Browser-based games

[geckogirl191]

Hello. I just downloaded LaunchBox and added my wide collection of digitally downloaded PC games to properly organize, and I gotta say, I wish I heard of this tool much sooner. Now, as I was adding my games, I got a bit curious about something: "Would it be possible to add a browser-based game to the bunch, and run it by opening your default browser to the web address entered?" Of course, it was not the case with my version, but maybe this could be a new feature? I do understand if this seems completely infeasible or otherwise unnecessary. I just thought it'd be a neat idea.

[bd00]

I don't think this is unnecessary or infeasible and I think it is a great idea. LaunchBox is designed to get all your games in one place, why should browser games be any different? Are you sure it is not already possible? To get the games to launch at least? Are these games online, with a web address? Have you tried creating a shortcut and pointing LB to that shortcut? If you be a little more specific, I could probably make it work for you. Welcome to the forums btw

[geckogirl191]

I was talking about any game you play from a webpage in a browser (and may or may not be online), whether it'd be run through a Flash Player or programmed in some HTML-ish witchcraft or the like. Apparently, LaunchBox doesn't support URL formats entered directly into the application path. I hadn't thought of making a shortcut to a webpage before. I've tried it now, and it works like a charm. Thanks for the tip, bd00.

[bd00]

No probs Scraping browser based games is not available, so you will have to add all the info and images manually, but that's not so bad.

[bd00]

Also, the same principle will work for flash based offline games and the like too. But you don't need to create a shortcut, just link directly to the file.

[Jason Carr]

Ah, great idea geckogirl, and welcome to the forums. I'll add an item to my list to enable web addresses in the application path so you don't have to use shortcuts.

[xHELLAFLUSHx]

Hi, i added a Browser Game To my launcherbox list, follow this steps: 1.- In your desktop: Right Click, New, Shortcut, a new window will apear 2.- In "Location Of The Item" write the game link, Example, "www.game.com" (Whitout the " ") 3.- Write the name of the shortcut 4.- In launchBox, add a new game, add name, description. etc, and you can make an image for it, i do the images in 640x903, you can use phtoshop 5.- Edit the game path, click browsee and change "Files of type" from "exe, bat" to "Any Files (*.*)" and select the shortcut you have created. 6.- Now you can open the game via LaunchBox (It will open the Browser Based Game, whit your default web browser, mine is firefox) 7.- Enjoy, and i will show you how it can look, i added and created the image for the game DarkOrbit, a MMO Space game, Look at my picture, the game is correctly added and it works

[SentaiBrad]

Honestly... It is a great idea, but for my purposes completely unneeded. I am glad people are finding ways to use LaunchBox to their desired effect. Considering right now it seems the direction is aimed at more Theater PC or HTPC setups, pointing back in to a browser completely defeats the purpose. However, regular laptop and desktop users could find that very handy. If you want to step up web integration Jason, I would suggest looking at Kongregate.com. Probably the best place for web based gaming. You may even find some rudimentary scraping options but I think it would be the same problem as MobyGames. So does this fit with the program in my opinion? Sure, anything can. Does it fit with ease of use? Not at all. Like I said though, im happy people are finding more awesome functions for LB.

[bd00]

SentaiBrad said Honestly... It is a great idea, but for my purposes completely unneeded. I am glad people are finding ways to use LaunchBox to their desired effect. Considering right now it seems the direction is aimed at more Theater PC or HTPC setups, pointing back in to a browser completely defeats the purpose. However, regular laptop and desktop users could find that very handy. If you want to step up web integration Jason, I would suggest looking at Kongregate.com. Probably the best place for web based gaming. You may even find some rudimentary scraping options but I think it would be the same problem as MobyGames. So does this fit with the program in my opinion? Sure, anything can. Does it fit with ease of use? Not at all. Like I said though, im happy people are finding more awesome functions for LB.

That gave me a thought! If you want more of an HTPC experience, you can open the browser full screen. Then close with alt+f4 when finished (can be mapped to a controller button if using xpadder) and automatically return to LaunchBox. To open your browser games full screen you can press F11 (again, can be mapped to controller button with xpadder), or if you are using chrome I think you can use the command -start-maximized in your shortcut to automatically launch fullscreen. I don't think there is an option for Firefox, please correct me if I am wrong. If you do use Firefox, you could download Chrome Portable and save it to your emulators directory and only use it for browser games you launch from LB. Like an emulator.

---

*EDIT* It is probably possible to use the "additional applications" feature of LB and a small script that emulates the F11 keystroke shortly after launch of browser. Might do that this week sometime. Or maybe Jason could add the F11 keystroke emulation into LB when launching browser games so this wouldn't be necessary?

[SentaiBrad]

bd00 said

SentaiBrad said Honestly... It is a great idea, but for my purposes completely unneeded. I am glad people are finding ways to use LaunchBox to their desired effect. Considering right now it seems the direction is aimed at more Theater PC or HTPC setups, pointing back in to a browser completely defeats the purpose. However, regular laptop and desktop users could find that very handy. If you want to step up web integration Jason, I would suggest looking at Kongregate.com. Probably the best place for web based gaming. You may even find some rudimentary scraping options but I think it would be the same problem as MobyGames. So does this fit with the program in my opinion? Sure, anything can. Does it fit with ease of use? Not at all. Like I said though, im happy people are finding more awesome functions for LB.

That gave me a thought! If you want more of an HTPC experience, you can open the browser full screen. Then close with alt+f4 when finished (can be mapped to a controller button if using xpadder) and automatically return to LaunchBox. To open your browser games full screen you can press F11 (again, can be mapped to controller button with xpadder), or if you are using chrome I think you can use the command -start-maximized in your shortcut to automatically launch fullscreen. I don't think there is an option for Firefox, please correct me if I am wrong. If you do use Firefox, you could download Chrome Portable and save it to your emulators directory and only use it for browser games you launch from LB. Like an emulator.

---

*EDIT* It is probably possible to use the "additional applications" feature of LB and a small script that emulates the F11 keystroke shortly after launch of browser. Might do that this week sometime. Or maybe Jason could add the F11 keystroke emulation into LB when launching browser games so this wouldn't be necessary?

Except that defeats the purpose of the controller. You can map opening and closing, then how do you map playing? Per each game? The point of an HTPC setup is to run setup once or import config files, then not having to touch it again unless something breaks. All I am saying is for the time you would have to spend doing this, you could have just loaded up Kongregate.com, looked through a few things you are thinking about playing then just clicking on the game. They're not suited for a controller. Edit: And I talked to Jason about being able to include button configuring in LB and it handeling config files and including emulators etc. But even if that happened, each flash game differs wildly. At least with consoles its the same button layout, that never changes.

[bd00]

SentaiBrad said Except that defeats the purpose of the controller. You can map opening and closing, then how do you map playing? Per each game? The point of an HTPC setup is to run setup once or import config files, then not having to touch it again unless something breaks. All I am saying is for the time you would have to spend doing this, you could have just loaded up Kongregate.com, looked through a few things you are thinking about playing then just clicking on the game. They're not suited for a controller. Edit: And I talked to Jason about being able to include button configuring in LB and it handeling config files and including emulators etc. But even if that happened, each flash game differs wildly. At least with consoles its the same button layout, that never changes.

I wasn't talking about adding button configs in LB, I use Xpadder for that. You can add keys to open and close AND play the games in the same config. I have not set up my controllers in most of the emu's I use, I just create a profile in Xpadder using the default keys provided. 9 times out of 10, that leaves me free controller buttons to map to things like closing the emu, adjusting the volume, saving/loading save states, etc. All I was asking Jason to do is add a timed keystroke (F11) when launching browser games, to save users who might add browser games the trouble of creating scripts or finding other workarounds. I thought it was a fair request and one that should be very easy to implement. As for the time it takes me to do this, I am unsure of what you are referring too? Launching a browser game from LB? Well I suppose it may be quicker not to use LB at all, go to your browser, and navigate to Kongregate.com and find the game you want to play. However, the same can be said for PC games, just create a shortcut on your desktop and double click it. Or ROMs, just open your emulator and load the rom, or better yet run it through RoM Jacket and create an exe or a .bat file and again just launch it from a folder on the desktop with a double click. But that is not what these frontends are about now is it? Or were you referring to Setting up Xpadder? It actually takes no longer than setting up the controllers within the emulators. Or do you mean because each browser game is different? This is true, but to be honest I very rarely play browser games so that is not a problem for me, but it may be to others and that is exactly why I am trying to think of ways to make this simpler for them. Since people seem to be adding browser games to LB, I tried to consider what would make this great for them and offered some suggestions. I was just trying to help. Also, a lot of browser games of similar genres often use the same keys, so a general configuration would work a lot of the time. I use X360 controllers and I map the mouse to the right thumbstick and the thumbstick button to the mouse click. This works fine for navigating menus. I was actually going to suggest people who use Xpadder, to start uploading profiles for browser games (and emulators) and we can try build a nice repository to save others time. For anyone interested, I have tried a couple of browser games and Xpadder works fine for both game controls and general keyboard/mouse actions, it could work with a HTPC setup without a keyboard and mouse with a lot of games. I can load a browser game from LB, have the browser load automatically to full screen, navigate the menu, play the game and exit back to LB all from the controller. So if anyone has a HTPC and some browser games they would like to set-up, all while avoiding having to use a keyboard and mouse, it can be done and is not very difficult. If anyone want's some assistance setting it up (Xpadder/full screen script/etc), just ask and I would be happy to help.

[SentaiBrad]

bd00 said

SentaiBrad said Except that defeats the purpose of the controller. You can map opening and closing, then how do you map playing? Per each game? The point of an HTPC setup is to run setup once or import config files, then not having to touch it again unless something breaks. All I am saying is for the time you would have to spend doing this, you could have just loaded up Kongregate.com, looked through a few things you are thinking about playing then just clicking on the game. They're not suited for a controller. Edit: And I talked to Jason about being able to include button configuring in LB and it handeling config files and including emulators etc. But even if that happened, each flash game differs wildly. At least with consoles its the same button layout, that never changes.

I wasn't talking about adding button configs in LB, I use Xpadder for that. You can add keys to open and close AND play the games in the same config. I have not set up my controllers in most of the emu's I use, I just create a profile in Xpadder using the default keys provided. 9 times out of 10, that leaves me free controller buttons to map to things like closing the emu, adjusting the volume, saving/loading save states, etc. All I was asking Jason to do is add a timed keystroke (F11) when launching browser games, to save users who might add browser games the trouble of creating scripts or finding other workarounds. I thought it was a fair request and one that should be very easy to implement. As for the time it takes me to do this, I am unsure of what you are referring too? Launching a browser game from LB? Well I suppose it may be quicker not to use LB at all, go to your browser, and navigate to Kongregate.com and find the game you want to play. However, the same can be said for PC games, just create a shortcut on your desktop and double click it. Or ROMs, just open your emulator and load the rom, or better yet run it through RoM Jacket and create an exe or a .bat file and again just launch it from a folder on the desktop with a double click. But that is not what these frontends are about now is it? Or were you referring to Setting up Xpadder? It actually takes no longer than setting up the controllers within the emulators. Or do you mean because each browser game is different? This is true, but to be honest I very rarely play browser games so that is not a problem for me, but it may be to others and that is exactly why I am trying to think of ways to make this simpler for them. Since people seem to be adding browser games to LB, I tried to consider what would make this great for them and offered some suggestions. I was just trying to help. Also, a lot of browser games of similar genres often use the same keys, so a general configuration would work a lot of the time. I use X360 controllers and I map the mouse to the right thumbstick and the thumbstick button to the mouse click. This works fine for navigating menus. I was actually going to suggest people who use Xpadder, to start uploading profiles for browser games (and emulators) and we can try build a nice repository to save others time. For anyone interested, I have tried a couple of browser games and Xpadder works fine for both game controls and general keyboard/mouse actions, it could work with a HTPC setup without a keyboard and mouse with a lot of games. I can load a browser game from LB, have the browser load automatically to full screen, navigate the menu, play the game and exit back to LB all from the controller. So if anyone has a HTPC and some browser games they would like to set-up, all while avoiding having to use a keyboard and mouse, it can be done and is not very difficult. If anyone want's some assistance setting it up (Xpadder/full screen script/etc), just ask and I would be happy to help.

That's good then. My fear was that it did sound difficult with the wide range of options. There is really no standard. I was trying to think Ease of Use. Yea, setting up LB and scraping takes a while, but once you have that setup too, its as simple as carrying over images and config files. Web based games just happen to change a lot, that's the nature of web development I think. I'm all for it if it can be done easily and make sense for a majority of users who want to use this set of features.

[bd00]

SentaiBrad said That's good then. My fear was that it did sound difficult with the wide range of options. There is really no standard. I was trying to think Ease of Use. Yea, setting up LB and scraping takes a while, but once you have that setup too, its as simple as carrying over images and config files. Web based games just happen to change a lot, that's the nature of web development I think. I'm all for it if it can be done easily and make sense for a majority of users who want to use this set of features.

It shouldn't be anymore difficult for the end user. If they are going to add browser games, they are going to add browser games, nothing will change except it will load full screen. If they use Xpadder, they already know that part. If they have set up a HTPC, this will be a breeze. Yeah, setting up is time consuming and scraping is a big problem at the min, which reminds me, are you any closer to adding that wiki scraper?

[SentaiBrad]

bd00 said

SentaiBrad said That's good then. My fear was that it did sound difficult with the wide range of options. There is really no standard. I was trying to think Ease of Use. Yea, setting up LB and scraping takes a while, but once you have that setup too, its as simple as carrying over images and config files. Web based games just happen to change a lot, that's the nature of web development I think. I'm all for it if it can be done easily and make sense for a majority of users who want to use this set of features.

It shouldn't be anymore difficult for the end user. If they are going to add browser games, they are going to add browser games, nothing will change except it will load full screen. If they use Xpadder, they already know that part. If they have set up a HTPC, this will be a breeze. Yeah, setting up is time consuming and scraping is a big problem at the min, which reminds me, are you any closer to adding that wiki scraper?

It is going to take some time. There is a Wiki API but there needs to be a lot of arguments on each search. Like for the console, the game name and of course that it is a game all together and not a movie or something else.

[Jason Carr]

Hey guys, good thoughts. I will be enabling URLs in the application path soon (probably for the next version). Full screen support would be easy enough, but it would probably be better to be able to configure it (specify which browser to run and whether to run full screen, etc.). I'll add that to my list, but as less of a priority as some of the more pressing things. I'll add an item for customizable controller mapping as well (to possibly replace Xpadder). The Wikipedia API is planned, but I have some other things to work on first before I can tackle it.

[gamerboii]

On 30.7.2014 at 2:46 AM, Jason Carr said:

Hey guys, good thoughts. I will be enabling URLs in the application path soon (probably for the next version). Full screen support would be easy enough, but it would probably be better to be able to configure it (specify which browser to run and whether to run full screen, etc.). I'll add that to my list, but as less of a priority as some of the more pressing things. I'll add an item for customizable controller mapping as well (to possibly replace Xpadder). The Wikipedia API is planned, but I have some other things to work on first before I can tackle it.

Ey bro Are these things still on your list? I might be the only one intrested though.....

[Jason Carr]

Hi @gamerboii, what things in particular? A lot of those were already done a long time ago.

[gamerboii]

20 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Hi @gamerboii, what things in particular? A lot of those were already done a long time ago.

.''I'll add an item for customizable controller mapping as well (to possibly replace Xpadder). ''

 

This.

Dont know if I understood it correctly though. I am looking for a soulotion to edit game controls PER game with my browser games. I currently play them with my mouse and keyboard. So bassicly i want to click a game, and that game loads with automatic my custom controls. Can this be done in Xpadder or another program? Have tried to find a program that lets me do this automatic. I have loads of games setup via http://swiffout.com/

Everything works perfectly for me. The only thing i need now for this setup is a way to edit controller setings per game. Then all my games will run as any other pc game or emulator which i find pretty cool. Lots of underrated browser games out there. At least when you get all ads and web browser junk out of the way using swiffout.

 

More simply put:

Is there a program that can auto launch a spesific controller setup when i open a .swf shortcut file?

Edited October 20, 2016 by gamerboii

[Jason Carr]

Ah, I see. Xpadder will do this for you, yes, but you'll need some custom configuration help in order to pull it off. Basically, you can add an additional app to LaunchBox that fires immediately before the game is run to enable a specific Xpadder profile per game. It should great but might not be the easiest thing to set up. We still plan to tackle a controls mapping solution like that ourselves, but it isn't the highest priority, so unfortunately it will probably be a while still.

[gamerboii]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Ah, I see. Xpadder will do this for you, yes, but you'll need some custom configuration help in order to pull it off. Basically, you can add an additional app to LaunchBox that fires immediately before the game is run to enable a specific Xpadder profile per game. It should great but might not be the easiest thing to set up. We still plan to tackle a controls mapping solution like that ourselves, but it isn't the highest priority, so unfortunately it will probably be a while still.

Eyman! Glad to hear that its planned. Might be good for the app that every game is added easy, including browser games

However after some googeling i found what i was after. Pinnacle Game Profiler does everything i need.

I have about 500 browser games setup now, complete with image, videoes, info and everything. Now comes the job of adding 500 controller setups and pinnacle will launch them. The end result will be that browser games can be played JUST like any other system. Fullscreen, crispy graphics and controller support.

When im done with making the controller profiles for all the games i will upload a video of the whole thing in use using only a xbox 360 controller

Cheers

 

Here is a picture of a game ingame when i press the ''print screen' button on my computer  The games are played at a 50 inch tv and looks great.