Can You Import Existing ROMs Into LaunchBox For "Portable" Mode?

[DivinityCycle]

So, I initially opted to scan my ROMs into LaunchBox but leave them in place because I wasn't 100% sure how things would work, or even if I would keep using LB. Since I'm now sold on LB as "the" launcher I want to use, I really like the idea of having my emulator applications and ROMs all stored in subdirectories inside of my main LaunchBox directory and have "everything" inside there. Is there a way to have LB import the existing ROMs I have without having to rebuild / re-scan in everything? If I do delete and re-add my ROMs will I have to redo all my art assets & videos again? Basically I'm looking to understand how LB metadata should be handled.

[Vlansix]

Hi Divinity,

I don't have all the answers, and I'm not aware of a feature that relocates your whole library to within LaunchBoxs' folder structure after import, but this may help:

 

EDIT: Zombeaver wrote up a guide to media file naming for autodetection in LB/BB if you're interested in the inner workings :). 

Image/music/video files are named after the game's title and are linked to it that way. Hence, if you were to delete every single rom you have and reimport them, the only thing that you would have to re-download would be the actual metadata, (i.e. release year / description / etc), and none of the actual companion files (images/manuals/music/videos), as long as their names are the same.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Vlansix
added link

[DOS76]

The simplest way to do this is to close LB and move your ROMs into the appropriate platform folder inside of your Games folder. Once you have the games where you want them open Notepad++ and go to the search option on the menu bar then select find. This will open a small form in the text box that is supplied type in the original path of one of your platforms after that use the count button to make sure that it finds all of your entries. If the count comes up good then go to the replace tab on the form and type in the platforms new path and then hit the replace all button. Save your work and open LB and see if the platform is working with the new path and if it is then close LB and repeat for as many platforms that you have make sure you back up your Data folder before making the changes this way if something goes wrong you can quickly revert to your install before you made any changes.

Edited October 14, 2016 by DOS76

[DivinityCycle]

Hey DOS76, I am a big fan of NP++, but unless I've missed it you didn't say which LB file needs to be edited. I was actually planning on digging into the behind-the-scenes portion of how LB handles the games to see if there's a database of some sort, but any pointers on where to look first would be a big help

[Vlansix]

Your database xml files are under LaunchBox/Data/ if you want to edit them by hand :).

[DivinityCycle]

Blamo! I'll take a look. I was going to investigate LB's database to see about maybe coding up a Kodi widget. Some of the nicer Kodi skins have home screen widgets that work with ROM Collection Browser and show your Recently Played games. I haven't looked at the code yet but I'm relatively sure the widget works by querying the RCB database and then serving up the appropriate results. I'm thinking it's probably possible to do that with LaunchBox as well, but that's way down on my To Do list

To steal a terrible Pete Holmes bit: LaunchBox is like McDonald's.... I'M LUVIN IT!