FYI: Media File Naming

[CMOSS]

11 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Yes, anything after a bracket or parenthesis.

Thanks a lot!

Is the final name trimmed (e.g. "The Game (xxx)" ends up as "The Game" or "The Game ")?

[sards]

I have done my own testing of LaunchBox's behavior. I want to make a couple of corrections and additions to Zombeaver's original post.

Here are the four ways to match a media file to a game:

1. Match game title to the media filename.

• The file extension is ignored
• Upper case vs. lower case is ignored
• In the filename, all illegal filename characters from the title (as well as '  single quote) must be replaced by _ (underscore). A title of "Ultima III: Exodus" matches a filename of "Ultime III_ Exodus.jpg".
• If there is a run of multiple consecutive illegal characters in the title, they must be replaced by a single underscore in the filename. So a title of "Game/:?" matches a filename of "Game_.jpg".
• The full list of illegal characters to be replaced by underscore is < > : " / \ | ? * '
• A hyphen followed by a number can be appended to the end of the filename. Any number of digits works. So a title of "Doom" matches "Doom-1.jpg", "Doom-11.jpg", "Doom-111.jpg", etc.

2. Match ROM/application filename to the media filename.

• Upper case vs. lower case is ignored
• Otherwise, the filenames must match exactly, except for:
• A hyphen followed by a number can be appended to the end of the filename. Any number of digits works. So a ROM file of "Doom.zip" matches "Doom-1.jpg", "Doom-11.jpg", "Doom-111.jpg", etc.

3. Match stripped game title to stripped media filename.

• NOTE: In Zombeaver's post, he said that the stripped ROM filename can match the stripped media filename. This is not true.  It is the stripped title, not ROM filename that works this way.
• Upper case vs. lower case is ignored
• In this matching mode, all of the following are ignored (i.e. removed from the strings before the string comparison is done):
• Whitespace is ignored
• These special characters are ignored: ! - . & ' , : " / \ ?
• Matched parentheses/brackets/braces and their contents are ignored. (), [], {}, (a), [b], {c} will all be ignored. However, single unmatched parentheses/brackets/braces will not be ignored.
• The words "a", "an", "and", and "the" are ignored. However, Launchbox's behavior with these is weird. If there are two consecutive ands ("and and") or thes ("the the"), etc. it doesn't ignore them. I don't fully understand Launchbox's logic here. Also, there may be other "magic words" that get ignored, but I haven't found any.
• In this mode, illegal characters in the title are not replaced by underscore. This has the consequence that titles containing these illegal characters <>|* cannot use this matching mode.
• However, underscores in the title must have a corresponding underscore in the media filename.
• Unlike matching modes 1 and 2, the hyphen followed by a number at the end of the filename is not allowed.
• Example: A title of "My Strangely_(named) ??Game and, the" will match these filenames: "MyStrangely_Game.jpg", "My Strangely_(named) Game and the.jpg", "My Strangely_ Game (USA) [b] and.jpg", "My Strangely_Game &the.jpg", "TheMyStrangely_GameAnd.jpg", etc.

4. Match game ID to media filename.

• If the media filename contains the game ID (anywhere; it can be preceded and followed by other stuff in the filename), it matches the game.
• This is the long local GUID that loos like "46f2a757-d3f3-4540-939f-02f978bbb76e", not the LaunchBox database ID.

This is all I have found in my testing. There are probably some more quirks in the third matching mode, but these rules should cover the vast majority of cases.

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by sards

[ConQwerTyRi]

I would appreciate if someone can help me, I have been trying to find the metadata of Super Mario Bros. 3 but they do not match, I only see Super Mario Bros. 3X which is a HACK Rom in which the original images do not match, I have tried several names but I can't find the correct database connection

 

[amschneider04]

Hello, Any idea where to save video marquee files to get them to work on a dedicated marquee monitor? Currently only seeing a path to marquee images. Thanks!

[Retro808]

48 minutes ago, amschneider04 said:

Hello, Any idea where to save video marquee files to get them to work on a dedicated marquee monitor? Currently only seeing a path to marquee images. Thanks!

In your \Videos\Platforms folder. Each platform you have added has its own \Videos\[Platform Name]\Marquee folder.

[BeemanDev]

I notice rom
Beat _Em & Eat _Em.zip
will NOT match art
Beat _Em & Eat _Em (USA).jpg

Which bought me here.
I anticipated that contents of parentheses would be stripped + subsequent trailing spaces trimmed first, from both comparators? Strangely if there are no special characters in name such as Bee-Ball.zip it will match Bee-Ball (USA).jpg
Is this a bug in the matching code for names with both special characters AND parantheses?

PS: I don't like the subfolders for countries it creates or the -01 suffixes, as it makes it less compatible with other front ends, so removed them all. I could just remove the country suffixes, but would then lose info.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by BeemanDev

[Lucoshi]

On 4/12/2021 at 5:08 PM, sards said:

This is the long local GUID that loos like "46f2a757-d3f3-4540-939f-02f978bbb76e", not the LaunchBox database ID.

This one is the annoying one!