Bulk Edit Titles/DB Matching?

[phillip9933]

So most of my games are scraping correctly but a lot of the Japanese titles are not.  I have found the bulk Download metadata/Art tool but that only works when the scraper finds a matching title.  Is there an option to bulk edit titles that are not matching anything in the database?  If I edit them individually it works but it would be nice to be able to go through a list and then bulk donwload the metadata / artwork.  Any way to accomplish this?

[SentaiBrad]

I may be misunderstanding what it is exactly you're asking for, so I'll cover both of what I think you are asking. You can sort the entries by LaunchBoxGames Database ID, highlight the group that doesn't have an ID then run the Images and Metadata Updater there, or during the Images and Metadata Wizard, select the option to only download metadata and media for fields that are missing data. The Metadata and Media tool works the same exact way as the import tool, so if the automatic solution doesn't work then either a database entry needs to be made, an existing database entry needs to be edited or the game will have to be renamed to match the database entry. You should be able to individual assign a game to a LBGDBID, skip downloading anything at that time, then use the tool to download missing artwork and it should grab it from the entry the games are attached to. Unfortunately, we still don't have alternate or regional naming so this situation is a bit more convoluted for the time being.  There should still be a ticket for these alternate naming features which should help in the long term.

I do notice with a lot of Japanese games, the Romanji of Japanese games differs from source to source, so it's a little hard to nail down. If you are feeling adventurous and want to help us out in this region, we would appreciate any help you can give us in terms of the Database, it is free for anyone to edit within the rules. If the database entry is correct in the end, then maybe think about renaming the rom file instead; I've had to do this a lot myself. I try and add the random missing JRPG from time to time, but there is just too much!

[phillip9933]

Thanks for the quick response!.  Those are good tips, but I was actually looking for sort of a combination of the auto wizard/manual edit.  Most other types of scrapers will give you the option when scraping a group that "xx number of titles couldn't be found in the database, would you like to manually match them?".  I can do it manually as it won't take much longer, just a lot more clicking edit and searching instead of an automated proceed to next unmatched title kind of thing.  Maybe I can write a script to to that/interface with the DB.

So many databases mark the game titles in so many different way that it is hard to know if I should title the roms with Kanji/Kana or Romaji.  And when using romaji the amount of variances in titles can be huge.  I would be glad to help try and standardize some of the japanese games/titles in the DB.

Also as a side note, how are you arranging your rom sets for the different systems / regions?

I initially wanted to keep all of the regions of the game under one title using the alternate mapping but that turned out to be a TON of manual work and kind of hard to navigate.  So now I basically have two systems for each console
example....
GameBoy - This one holds english games
ゲームボイ - This on hold all of the Japanese language games

I could pare it down to a single copy per game I guess but sometimes I feel like playing the English version or Japanese version depending on the game.

[SentaiBrad]

Personally, I only ever keep English games, with Japanese and European exclusives. I will get Japanese or Euro specifics when I want to mess around with something (Like the Link to the Past Randomizer), and then of course I have Japanese English translated games, even re-trans. I have them all in one folder. For me, I let LaunchBox do all my sorting and beautiful-ness, so them all being in 1 folder doesn't really phase me. The only thing I don't do is mix and match consoles (Famicom and NES being the same in this specific scenario). I also try and keep mine to the Romanji as my Kanji is really bad. Romanji also works by default for most PC's and text options. I'm not even sure if our database can display Japanese characters? I feel like I've seen them on our Database in the past, but I honestly can not remember right now.

 

Obviously, the ideal solution would be to have games have 2, 3, 4, 5, as many names as it needs on the database. English, Romanji, Japanese, European etc. This would also cut down on a lot of technical duplicates that currently exist. Also, what you describe is a really good idea, if it doesn't already exist on the BitBucket you are more than welcome to add it yourself; click Issues/Requests at the top of the forums.

 

As for what I think you should... I don't know actually. All I can tell you is what I've done, and that is rename games where possible (because that's a lot easier than changing the entry on the database as that requires 3 approvals from DB moderators), and only if the name on the database is correct. If the database entry is completely incorrect (with some sources) then I'll go through the process quickly of changing the name on the DB. If it's a Romanji difference, some places say one way and some places say another, then I just go with whats on the Database at the time, it's not worth it in that case. Sometimes I will also put the games in their translated title, even if it isn't technically correct. Even then, I'll match the rom to the database more than likely change it, and add in quotes on the entry the name in translated English. I don't know if any of that really helps, but it's kind of the process I go through. If the game name is actually wrong wrong, then I will fix it, otherwise if it's a "disagreement" I tend to move with the Database than against it. In every single situation, alternate names seems to be the winning idea.