Easy way to sync with Launchbox DB?

[pandawanka]

Okay, so I added my FB Alpha rom list to Launchbox, and most games were parsed correctly, but there are a lot of roms which didn't get synced to Launchbox DB, so I've been sorting them one by one by searching for their meta data one by one.

Is there any easier way to do this before I end up having to do all 4000 unparsed games by hand one by one?

[SentaiBrad]

Make sure to scrape it as Arcade (Tools -> Manage Systems, double click on this system then scrape it as Arcade). From there, make sure you're viewing just this platform, click on a game, Ctrl + A to highlight them all, then go to Tools -> Download Metadata and Images. This will re-run an import like process. Set your preferences and go. Keep in mind too, that not every game will found. The initial import and the downloader are strict to try and curb games being misidentified. So if the name of the game is different than the one on the Database, or is off too much you'll need to do it manually. If they're Arcade roms though, it should have been ran through the MAME Importer initially and most Arcade games exist actually. Otherwise, the game may also not exist on the Database, in which case someone would have to add it.

[pandawanka]

2 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

Make sure to scrape it as Arcade (Tools -> Manage Systems, double click on this system then scrape it as Arcade). From there, make sure you're viewing just this platform, click on a game, Ctrl + A to highlight them all, then go to Tools -> Download Metadata and Images. This will re-run an import like process. Set your preferences and go. Keep in mind too, that not every game will found. The initial import and the downloader are strict to try and curb games being misidentified. So if the name of the game is different than the one on the Database, or is off too much you'll need to do it manually. If they're Arcade roms though, it should have been ran through the MAME Importer initially and most Arcade games exist actually. Otherwise, the game may also not exist on the Database, in which case someone would have to add it.

Thanks for the tip! So for the stuff that still doesn't get parsed correctly, I'll have to add manually? Is there a way I can rename the files so that it's easier for Launchbox to find in the DB?

I've been adding as many games as I can to the DB as well, so hopefully anything I don't find will be added to the DB in the process. The goal is to add the entire FB Alpha library then also figure out what parameters would be good defaults!

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, you don't have to add games to the Database if you don't want to, but if you want to and they follow the guidelines that's awesome and we appreciate it! By scrape manually, I meant Right Click -> Edit a game, and you can either change the file name (and update the rom file attached to that entry), or change the name in LaunchBox and press the Search button again. The FBA platform is a platform that actually shouldn't be there. We had come to an agreement previously that duplicate platforms should be merged with the proper platforms, and all of those arcade boards belong under Arcade. The only reason it hasn't yet (along with a ton of other Database updates), is because Jason, the owner, is the only developer. So needless to say, he is low on time.

With Scrape As, it doesn't matter either, you can create any number of custom platforms and use the emulators you want. This is why I said they should have been ran through the MAME importer initially and scraped as Arcade. All of the roms should be regular MAME roms, with the internal shorthand names. So if you call the platform what ever, scrape it as Arcade, then check the box to force using mame metadata during import everything should be pretty much found.