Changing the location of the images/media folders

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, GAMe said:

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the reply... as above the version is the latest 10.13 ?

 

Oic, I get it now. Yeah, LaunchBox.xml was retired years ago, so anything that refers to it now is moot. I haven't read this whole thread, so I don't know exactly what you're referring to. But you can change the folders for platforms under Tools > Manage Platforms. If you're requesting to be able to change all of them at once, you might have better luck using a text editor with search and replace on the platform XMLs. Just be careful with and make sure you create backups first.

[GAMe]

1 minute ago, Jason Carr said:

Oic, I get it now. Yeah, LaunchBox.xml was retired years ago, so anything that refers to it now is moot. I haven't read this whole thread, so I don't know exactly what you're referring to. But you can change the folders for platforms under Tools > Manage Platforms. If you're requesting to be able to change all of them at once, you might have better luck using a text editor with search and replace on the platform XMLs. Just be careful with and make sure you create backups first.

Hi Jason,

I really appreciate your reply, im not sure you are understanding what I mean. I have tried changing the platforms.xml folder paths with a text editor... this works when I go into LB however when I import ROMs for those platforms it resets the folders back to the default root of the LB folder. This is a huge issue as I have it running with the system on a mirrored SSD (40GB) with a 2TB (Storage Spaces Array) configured for the ROMs (And hopefully media). When it pulls down the images and video (EMU movies) it fills the disk and crashes out LB. I tried LB out some years ago and just didn't find it was where I wanted it to be so I have been using Hyperspin for years. A friend of mine advised me to revisit LB as it has come far and I can definitely say its almost perfect (Super great job to the dev team) however this is a stumbling block for me ?

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, GAMe said:

Hi Jason,

I really appreciate your reply, im not sure you are understanding what I mean. I have tried changing the platforms.xml folder paths with a text editor... this works when I go into LB however when I import ROMs for those platforms it resets the folders back to the default root of the LB folder. This is a huge issue as I have it running with the system on a mirrored SSD (40GB) with a 2TB (Storage Spaces Array) configured for the ROMs (And hopefully media). When it pulls down the images and video (EMU movies) it fills the disk and crashes out LB. I tried LB out some years ago and just didn't find it was where I wanted it to be so I have been using Hyperspin for years. A friend of mine advised me to revisit LB as it has come far and I can definitely say its almost perfect (Super great job to the dev team) however this is a stumbling block for me ?

If it's changing them, it should be changing them to whatever folder you're choosing for importing the ROMs from. I've never heard that it's resetting them back to the defaults on imports, but I'll do some testing and we'll get it fixed if I can replicate.

[GAMe]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

If it's changing them, it should be changing them to whatever folder you're choosing for importing the ROMs from. I've never heard that it's resetting them back to the defaults on imports, but I'll do some testing and we'll get it fixed if I can replicate.

Hi Jason,

Brilliant, Thanks for looking into it. It would be great if there was a Global option to specify the root media for all new platforms and thanks again, LB has come so far and is really impressive compared to where it was several years ago.

[Retro808]

@GAMe When you edited directly in the xaml file was LaunchBox open? If so that would explain it reverting back to the old folder path. I just tested editing the path in the xaml and then importing a few new games. The path stayed the same as what I changed it to. This worked only because LB was not opened when I edited the file. 

[GAMe]

22 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

@GAMe When you edited directly in the xaml file was LaunchBox open? If so that would explain it reverting back to the old folder path. I just tested editing the path in the xaml and then importing a few new games. The path stayed the same as what I changed it to. This worked only because LB was not opened when I edited the file. 

Hi Retro,

No, I closed LB and edited the file then checked the folders were correct in tools > platforms. I am just retesting now and here is the setup

LB install = C:\LaunchBox\

Data (ROMS/Media) = E:\Media

Example of videos path for a platform is: E:\Media\Videos\Super Nintendo Entertainment System

If I set the media folders in the UI or the XML via a text editor as soon as I run tools > import > ROM Files to import the ROMS I want it downloads all media data (Videos, Music, Images, etc) to the ones contained in the LB folder (eg C:\LaunchBox\Videos) this then fills the disk and crashes out the application.

?

 

 

 

 

[Retro808]

@GAMe I was able to replicate this. Before I was simply making a completely different folder in the existing LB structure and pointing images there and it was working fine. If I changed the path to be on a different drive completely outside the LB structure LB does retain the path when you edit and look at the folder paths, but when I imported the game it saved the images to the LB default. So it looks like the issue is if you change to a path outside \Launchbox folder to another drive.

@Jason Carr

[GAMe]

22 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

OK. The only difference is I typically drag and drop roms files versus using the tools > import > roms. The way I did it in my test did not change the folder path. I will test again

So looking at this its possibly downloading chunks to the LB directories and then moving them to the selected directories ? Is that right? why wouldn't it just download to the correct dir?

Also I still think this would be really good to set a global option for where to download/save the media info. Is there a design or technical reason this isn't the case? ?

 

[Retro808]

Just now, GAMe said:

So looking at this its possibly downloading chunks to the LB directories and then moving them to the selected directories ? Is that right? why wouldn't it just download to the correct dir?

Also I still think this would be really good to set a global option for where to download/save the media info. Is there a design or technical reason this isn't the case? ?

 

I edited my prior post. I was able to replicate what is happening.

[GAMe]

7 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

@GAMe I was able to replicate this. Before I was simply making a completely different folder in the existing LB structure and pointing images there and it was working fine. If I changed the path to be on a different drive completely outside the LB structure LB does retain the path when you edit and look at the folder paths, but when I imported the game it saved the images to the LB default. So it looks like the issue is if you change to a path outside \Launchbox folder to another drive.

@Jason Carr

Yeah, So are we thinking a bug to be fixed?

[GAMe]

another addition to this is, it would be great to be able to goto tools > platforms and add a platform based off the defaults you see when the goto the import ROMs wizard. That way you could configure the dirs. before you import the ROMs (If a global option doesn't exist). Currently im having to goto tools > Import > ROM files then let it start and then stop it once it creates the platform then change dirs. then go back and reimport. ? probably not the place for a feature request/improvement but thought I would mention it. ?

 

[GAMe]

ok so for the moment I have worked around the issue by moving the contents of Games, Images, Manuals, Music and Videos to the relevant folders on my other drive. I then deleted the folders in the root LB folder and then created symbolic links via the mklink /D command.

I have just tested and its working as I hoped so a good workaround for anyone in the same position. ?

[C-Beats]

Just tried every method I saw in this thread, and I'm not able to replicate this at all. Could either of you give me the exact steps you took to see what you saw? Also include any details about what buttons you pressed during the import process (as well as how you started the process, ie drag n drop vs rom import button in tools menu)

[rodww]

@Game..    I had a similar issue here when I was trying to do this.  But in the end, I was able retain the changes I made by ensuring Launchbox was closed *before* editing the Platforms.xml.  I found that any change I made was reverted by LB, if I closed it *after* saving my change to the .XML, I'm guessing it overwrites/updates Platform.xml to what it was last set to while running, upon exit.   And I found manually updating all the fields for all platforms one at a time in LB was too time consuming, editing the .XML was far quicker.

I didn't see a way around initially importing a single game to get LB to add the platform initially.   So I would do this first (without importing any media using the wizard), then I would close LB, edit the XML to point to my network drive where the ROMs and media are stored for that specific platform, save it, go back into LB, verify the folder paths were correct in the Manage Platforms menu, do a full import on the game library including all the media, then delete the game I initially imported to remove that duplicate.  I also removed any media folders in their default locations created by this process within Launchbox, since they were empty anyway.  This seemed to work as expected (no symbolic links required!), and performance is surprisingly good for my setup, even using WiFi it's not bad once LB has a chance to cache things (I left the BB and LB Cache folders in their default locations, didn't attempt to change this - assuming that is even possible - as it seems to be fine as is and caching over the LAN/WiFi I think defeats the performance benefit).

One last thing.. make sure you edit the 'Game' path for the respective Platform section near the top - it usually has '</folder>' with no value initially - and not just the images/media folders below it in that file.  I made this mistake too and it still imported things into the LB folders.

Edited April 20, 2020 by rodww