Import ROMs from files: not whole filename imported?

[sylandro]

Hi, First of all, excellent job making this software! After having tried multiple frontends over the last years, I feel this is the one that fits my needs best. I'm considering buying premium once all my (10K+) games are imported into the frontend. I'm having an issue while importing ROMs, though. I have a collection of ROMs that use the NoIntro nomenclature, and when I try to import them through the Import Folder wizard, the words between parenthesis are not parsed. That means that if I have a game that has the same name in two or more regions, the wizard will add two games with the same name (no region tag), creating confusion when trying to add metadata, cover images or running the game. This is a screenshot of the differences between the filename and the name that is imported: Is there a way to use the filename as the game title without it being cut automatically?

[SentaiBrad]

sylandro said Hi, First of all, excellent job making this software! After having tried multiple frontends over the last years, I feel this is the one that fits my needs best. I'm considering buying premium once all my (10K+) games are imported into the frontend. I'm having an issue while importing ROMs, though. I have a collection of ROMs that use the NoIntro nomenclature, and when I try to import them through the Import Folder wizard, the words between parenthesis are not parsed. That means that if I have a game that has the same name in two or more regions, the wizard will add two games with the same name (no region tag), creating confusion when trying to add metadata, cover images or running the game. This is a screenshot of the differences between the filename and the name that is imported: Is there a way to use the filename as the game title without it being cut automatically?

No, LaunchBox ignores anything in [] or (). Personally, i leave stuff like Disc 1, Disc 2, out of the () or [], but then it just throws off the scraping. That would be why I assume LB ignores it. One extra word will cause it to not scan. So its a trade-off, have your multi disc games be found, data be imported and you mark the disc #, or you manually import the data and specify the disc number. Same deal for regions if you have multiples. I only keep out of region games if there is no US equivalent so I generally don't need to mark them.

[Jason Carr]

Hi Sylandro, welcome. All text between parenthesis or bracket characters is currently removed, as most users don't want multiple versions of a game in their collection, and searching TheGamesDB for metadata won't work as well if (Japan) or (Europe) are left in the title. I did add a Region field in the last version, but unfortunately the ROM importer currently won't automatically identify it from the file names. That is a good point, though; I'll add an item to my list to see if I can do that. Probably an option to not remove those characters should be provided as well.

[Jason Carr]

Ha, didn't see your reply, Brad.

[SentaiBrad]

Jason Carr said Ha, didn't see your reply, Brad.

That's cause I am a Ninja.

[sylandro]

Is there any technical reason why it's implemented this way? It would be a good idea to optionally allow the parser to recognize what's inside parenthesis or brackets, I don't think i'm the only one who would benefit from this (given that I could add the metadata manually).

[SentaiBrad]

Jason Carr said and searching TheGamesDB for metadata won't work as well if (Japan) or (Europe) are left in the title.

SentaiBrad said Personally, i leave stuff like Disc 1, Disc 2, out of the () or [], but then it just throws off the scraping. That would be why I assume LB ignores it. One extra word will cause it to not scan.

[kamyk2000]

If I am understanding what you want correctly, something slightly tedious you can do Sylandro, is to re-add the extra data to the Title in Launchbox manually after downloading the info from the database. I have added the number of discs involved in my games to the title in that fashion. Ie.: Final Fantasy VII (3 Discs) as the Launchbox title for that game. That also works to differentiate games from other games with the same name in Launchbox because Launchbox doesn;t actually care if it has multiple copies of the same game file or game files that seem the same name. All it cares about is the Title text being duplicated or not. For example say you have Mame and you have Mortal Kombat 3 Rev1 and Rev2. When you import them into Launchbox don't allow them to be automatically checked against the databases. Then they won't be renamed, and after they have imported edit them to download or add the metadata you want, then change the Title name back to what you want it to be before clicking OK. (In case you didn't know already, if you click inside the title box on the import screen, you can edit the titles.) In the example picture you gave, call the first one 10-yard fight-rev1 and the second one 10-yard fight usa when you import them. They will both import. Then after they are done importing go to the first one and right click then edit. Add your metadata to it however you choose to, then change the Title entry to read 10-Yard Fight (Rev 1), then click OK. Do the same with the second one, just rename it to 10-Yard Fight (USA, Europe) before you finish. Hope that helps. Edit: You might also consider reading the thread: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/child-games-under-a-parent-game as it gives advice on how to add multiple versions of a game, different episodes of one, or multiple cd games, all into the same Launchbox entry. Which is actually quite useful and far less cluttered.

[sylandro]

Thanks for the suggestions. Either way there's a lot of work I'll have to do by hand. To keep my library clean, I think the best approach would be for me to manually enter each game's region and missing metadata. One suggestion for a future version would be to automatically fill each game's metadata according to its filename (title or checksum), depending on the nomenclature the user chooses (GoodMerge, No-Intro, TOSEC, etc). Or better yet, try to match the name with one of the many existing rom info databases, like this: http://emumovies.com/forums/files/file/607-system-ini-files, instead of connecting to TheGamesDB, which is very incomplete. This would save a lot of time to collectors who own full rom sets.

[Jason Carr]

Yes, I've added that to my to do list.

[mathflair]

I ran into this same problem today. To help address this problem, I created a little tool that can scan all of the games you have imported into LaunchBox, and have it use the file name and update launchbox with the region and version. It can also update the titles to have this information as well. I've attached the file, and you can also grab it from git (https://bitbucket.org/mathflair/launchboxannotator). Currently, it supports the No-Intro naming conventions. If there is a desire for more naming conventions or the ability to grab more data from the title, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also, the list of regions isn't exhaustive. I'm currently importing the entire No-Intro set though, and when done I should have all the regions in that set supported.

[Jason Carr]

Very cool @mathflair, thanks for that. :)

[sylandro]

mathflair said I ran into this same problem today. To help address this problem, I created a little tool that can scan all of the games you have imported into LaunchBox, and have it use the file name and update launchbox with the region and version. It can also update the titles to have this information as well. I've attached the file, and you can also grab it from git (https://bitbucket.org/mathflair/launchboxannotator). Currently, it supports the No-Intro naming conventions. If there is a desire for more naming conventions or the ability to grab more data from the title, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also, the list of regions isn't exhaustive. I'm currently importing the entire No-Intro set though, and when done I should have all the regions in that set supported.

That's beautiful @mathflair, thanks!! As for the rest of the metadata. I had the idea to build a tool that would scan these files: http://emumovies.com/forums/files/file/607-system-ini-files and automatically generate the metadata for my matching games. I know it wouldn't be too hard since it's just parsing and formatting, but I never have the time for any programming other that my main job .

[mathflair]

Let me see if you understand what you are looking for. You want to take games you have already imported into LaunchBox, match them against the names in the the .ini files, and update LaunchBox's info with the properties from the .ini files. Is that correct? Some questions: 1) Is the info in those files more complete then what LaunchDB auto scrapes? 2) Are you fine with doing exact title matching against the .ini file, or would you want some kind of fuzzy-matching logic between LaunchBox's title and what is in the ini. 3) Does the ini include fields that LaunchBox doesn't use?

[sylandro]

mathflair said Let me see if you understand what you are looking for. You want to take games you have already imported into LaunchBox, match them against the names in the the .ini files, and update LaunchBox's info with the properties from the .ini files. Is that correct? Some questions: 1) Is the info in those files more complete then what LaunchDB auto scrapes? 2) Are you fine with doing exact title matching against the .ini file, or would you want some kind of fuzzy-matching logic between LaunchBox's title and what is in the ini. 3) Does the ini include fields that LaunchBox doesn't use?

Hi, it's nice to see you interested in this, here are the answers to your questions: 1) There are two reasons I like those files. First, I'd say they are a good complement to Launchbox's scrapers, especially because they contain data on some obscure titles. These files were specially designed for frontend developers to read metadata from a standarized database. Second and most importantly, you can match games from various regions/versions/etc to a parent game with the following tool (which I forgot to mention in the previous post): SIFT http://emumovies.com/forums/files/file/724-sift-system-ini-file-tool/ For example, you can read this XMDB header from SIFT for the GameBoy game "4-in-1 Fun Pak":

<zoned type="deferred"> <bias zone="E" name="4-in-1 Fun Pak"/> <bias zone="U" name="4-in-1 Fun Pak"/> <bias zone="J" name="4-in-1 Fun Pak"/> <clone name="4-in-1 Fun Pak (USA, Europe)"/> <clone name="4-in-1 Fun Pak (Japan)"/> </zoned>

If you'd find any of those variants in your library, then you would write the following data from the corresponding System INI file into your launchbox xml:

[4-in-1 Fun Pak] Publisher=Interplay Productions, Inc. Developer=Beam Software Pty., Ltd. Released=1992 Systems= Genre= Perspective= Score=3.0 Controls= Players=1-2 Players Esrb= Url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/gameboy/4-in-1-fun-pak Description=4-in-1 Fun Pak combines four board games to play against the CPU or a fellow gamer. The include titles are Chess, Checkers, Reversi and Backgammon. Each game features a number of different difficulty settings (1 being the easiest, 6 being the hardest), with simple black and white visuals and a challenging CPU opponent to take on. Multiplayer is available, either using the same Game Boy between two players or using the system link option to play with two Game Boys.

2) The SIFT (see answer 1) headers use the No-Intro nomenclature by default and specify variants for regions and such. I don't think any fuzzy matching would be necessary then. 3) There are a few attributes that aren't used by Launchbox (Perspective, Controls, Score and Url) but they can be safely ignored. I know it may seem complicated at first, but once you get how Tempest (the author of the INI files) intended to make this work, it's not that hard. I hope you don't get discouraged!

[mathflair]

I'll take a look at this if you can send me the zip with the ini files.

[sylandro]

mathflair said I'll take a look at this if you can send me the zip with the ini files.

Sure, I've uploaded them to dropbox: SIFT https://www.dropbox.com/s/k10p5swsi5ipxsw/S.I.F.T.zip?dl=0 Ini files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8lamdk9aeo9bhlt/System%20%5BGame%5D%20Ini%20Files.zip?dl=0 EDIT: I've updated the download links because I accidentaly uploaded my tampered files. These are the original ones.

[mathflair]

I spent today reworking the tool I posted it so that it can be extended to support different naming schemes and also more generic meta-data handling for games. I hope that using this framework, next week I can add support for scanning the ini files. If you have a little time, feel free to look at the code/application at GitHub and let me know if you have any suggestions.

[mathflair]

@sylandro I have updated the application to support updating based on the .ini files. I haven't done anything with the SIFT files, and will look into them next. Currently, it only matches if the titles are an exact (case-insensitive) match. @Jason Carr I have updated this tool to have quite a few features that may be useful to LaunchBox users (metadata updating from filename, title update based on LaunchBox metadata, filename updating based on Launchbox metadata, metadata updating from system ini files). Is there a good place in the forums to make a post about the tool so I can let more people know? It didn't seem to fit in the features forum, but it isn't exactly off-topic as the tool only works in conjunction with LaunchBox.

[Jason Carr]

Hi @mathflair, very cool. I can at least sticky a post for you if you want to create a new post for it. I'm having trouble getting it to work, though; when I run the EXE nothing happens. Seems to exit right away.