Trouble With Images

[Kriven]

Since the hierarchy transition for handling images, LaunchBox has had some major problems when games exist for the same platform with the same title (which is a pretty big issue for PC games...). Before it seemed that renaming the images with the release year of the version worked well enough to help LaunchBox keep the games' distinct, but this isn't working anymore. I'm also still having trouble with images not moving when you change a games' platform (for instance, from PC to Personal Computer). This is minor for the moment, but could be problematic in the future. I think dumping the entirety of a platform's associated imagery into large folders is probably the cause of these issues... For my current library I could easily work-around the issue by (reluctantly) using custom filters and creating a distinct platform just to handle duplicate titles, and that's probably what I'm going to end up doing, but I think the image structure should probably be looked at again. Another problem with the current structure is how difficult it has become to add images in large quantities. Before you didn't even have to rename them, you could just drop the images into the appropriate folder. This isn't the case, and unfortunately LaunchBox doesn't like Windows bulk renaming tool, so you either have to manually rename each individual image or add them via LaunchBox one at a time. I know I was an advocate for image restructuring, but the old format was definitely not without its merits... My primary issue with the old format was the bizarre naming scheme which made it difficult to navigate. I have some suggestions... I think the cleanest solution would be to allow users to point at an image folder on a by-game basis if they should choose not to utilize the traditional LaunchBox image folders for a specific title. In this way I could create distinct folders for both versions of, for instance, Tomb Raider and direct LaunchBox to them. That would be the easiest solution to integrate, I think. The long fix involves more work and another restructuring... And a blend of the old image format with the new. Keep the platform-distinct folders, "SNES" "PC" etc., but instead of within them having "Front" "Logo" "Banner", you have folders for the titles followed by their year, "Earthworm Jim (1994)", "Tomb Raider (1996)", "Tomb Raider (2013)". Individual images titled "Front", "Back", etc. should be within these folders, instead of dumping all Front images into a large Front folder. In this way you keep the cleanliness of the current format with the ease-of-use of the old format (the ability to just drop in picture files without renaming), and also better handle duplicate titles. Unfortunately the way images are currently handled means that users have to figure out their own work-arounds for instances such as this. Don't know if that's preferable.