7.10-beta-1 Released

[Ize]

Hey @Jason Carr, good work on the plugin system so far

Just started working on my first test plugin and it's going really well right now.

I only know C# from working in Unity but it translates surprisingly well to a normal application

[Jason Carr]

On 5/5/2017 at 4:28 PM, Evil_Orko said:

Any way to make a quick fix to the importing of .exe files?  It's really a pain in the rear to import them under any random emulator and then batch editing the entire group to use 'no emulator'.   I think that a launcher should launch .exe files easier than it is currently.  Just hoping it's a quick fix...  Thanks.

It's certainly not a tremendous amount of effort, but I'll need to spend a few hours on it to do it right. Sorry that's been a pain point for so long. You can of course add games individually just by using the Add button, but I know that's much less convenient. Hopefully I can sneak something like that in soon, but I don't think it will make it into 7.10.

[ckp]

oh dam, most exciting feature ever is plugins. there is a working video download plugin, so easy to use!! thats is something great! woohoo!! 

[Jason Carr]

On 5/5/2017 at 6:27 PM, Maddoc1007 said:

@Jason Carr there is a problem with trying to work on any theme in Visual Studio with the game wheel views etc that use coverflow coverfactory i think it is down to visual studio not finding the plugins for coverfactory and therefore you cannot work on any theme views using coverfactory with the latest beta

Thank you Maddoc, I'm still seeing this myself too unfortunately. It doesn't prevent you from working on it, just gives trouble with the previews. I was talking to @Nielk1 about it and we think it has something to do with the constructor of the CoverFlow class, but my experimentation so far unfortunately has not solved it yet.

[Jason Carr]

On 5/5/2017 at 7:15 PM, Maddoc1007 said:

@Jason Carr Just also noticed that transitions:TransitionPresenter x:Name="Video" TransitionSelector="{Binding ImageVideoTransitionSelector}" Content="{Binding ImageVideoView} is no longer pulling the images when Use Game Background Video is ticked in the settings in themes in BigBox in latest beta but when it is not ticked the small video still works and the large background image works.

Ah, is it only when Use Game Background Videos is checked? That would explain why I haven't been able to reproduce this. I'll look into it.

[Jason Carr]

On 5/5/2017 at 9:21 PM, dovella said:

Yep ,

The problem is not wanting to sync everything, but decide what to sync.
For example, no commands (use different gamepads),

Gotcha. LaunchBox and Big Box do a decent job of trying to apply settings properly across various pieces of hardware, but yes, there are certainly more involved situations that could use some customization options there. Good to know.

[Jason Carr]

On 5/6/2017 at 9:52 PM, Nielk1 said:

Welp, I have my "Install with Steam" plugin working mostly.  The issue I'm having is that since the libraries I need to use are 32 bit in some cases I had to write an interprocess system using Named Pipes and JSON.  Those darn Named Pipes like to get all sorts of screwed up for me.  No one else will have any issue like that, it's just an issue I'm having that might influence some of my suggestions for plugin types.

That is a good point; I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure how that would work running on a 32-bit system, either. Obviously LaunchBox and Big Box do work on 32-bit systems, so I'm a little confused how all that works. Everything LaunchBox official is built using "Any CPU" of course so that it works properly on both 32-bits and 64-bits (and supposedly will still take advantage of 64-bit extensions via the framework).

 

[Jason Carr]

On 5/7/2017 at 3:53 PM, Lmagnus87 said:

Beta 5 is slower than before?

I tried to delete my configuration but the startup is little slow

Honestly that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Has anyone else seen any significant performance differences between beta 5 and beta 3?
 

[Jason Carr]

On 5/7/2017 at 11:32 PM, emko said:

same here used to show start up video then bigbox now its showing the vdeo twice

Good to know. I have seen some bugs/crashes on startup that I do need to address. Maybe it's related (it's a threading issue). That has been an issue since beta 3 though, so I'm confused.

[Jason Carr]

On 5/8/2017 at 3:05 PM, Maddoc1007 said:

@Jason Carr And all Theme Developers.  I Think i might have the DPI scaling issue for text solved.  We just have to put in the Themes anything that uses text inside a Viewbox, i have tried this on Normal (100%), Medium (125%) and Large (150%) and the text did not expand over its container on any of those sizes.  Here is a code example:-

<Viewbox x:Name="viewbox" Margin="0,-6,0,-12" Width="365">
                    <Canvas x:Name="PlatformDetails" Width="523" ClipToBounds="True"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="0,0,0,0" Height="158"
RenderTransformOrigin="0.5,0.5" >
                        <controls:ScrollableTextBlock x:Name="Details" Text="{Binding
Details}" FontFamily="Cambria" FontSize="26" Foreground="White"
TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow" Width="423" ScrollBeginDelay="6" ScrollSpeed="2"
ScrollAutoReverse="True" ScrollEndDelay="6" ReverseScrollSpeed="0.5" ScrollDirection="Up"
TextOptions.TextFormattingMode="Display" TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"
TextOptions.TextHintingMode="Fixed" FontWeight="Bold" >
                        </controls:ScrollableTextBlock>
                    </Canvas>
                </Viewbox>
            </DockPanel>

 

Wow, that's pretty incredible Maddoc. Nice find!

[Jason Carr]

21 hours ago, emko said:

the CRC dupe check is not working for some games and each time i run the metadate update i get a new image

 

fix this buy manually deleting all of the killer7 front box and then did the metadata download and this time it will only get 1 so its working but its still getting dupes for all the other media types, i tried this method on another game that is having this problem but it does not work.

 

http://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/images/31 is it possible the problem is that the database has more then 1 front cover and its confusing the CRC check? seems like the games i have so far found all have more then 1 front cover not sure if this means anything.

 

 

on beta 2 i did clean images and it removed all dupes, i have not used emumovies for anything all the new metadata/images where grabbed from Launchbox DB so something is still not right it should show no deleted images.

How many are you finding that it is duplicating? If it's just one or two, my guess would be we have a bad checksum value on the server for that image. It's also possible that the image was replaced on the games database or something weird like that.

[Jason Carr]

15 hours ago, Izegod said:

Hey @Jason Carr, good work on the plugin system so far

Just started working on my first test plugin and it's going really well right now.

I only know C# from working in Unity but it translates surprisingly well to a normal application

Great to hear @Izegod.

[ckp]

updated to the latest beta today. LB startup time went from around 10 seconds to 9 seconds. navigating platforms come up quite fast, which is much more important to me than startup time. thank you.

[Nielk1]

5 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Thank you Maddoc, I'm still seeing this myself too unfortunately. It doesn't prevent you from working on it, just gives trouble with the previews. I was talking to @Nielk1 about it and we think it has something to do with the constructor of the CoverFlow class, but my experimentation so far unfortunately has not solved it yet.

I think this might be a different issue that manifests in a similar symptom.  In this case it looks like his XAML editor is not seeing the object in its libraries.  The issue I was reffering to witht he constructor fix is this one:

@Maddoc1007 Make sure your reference to LaunchBox\Metadata\Unbroken.LaunchBox.Wpf.dll is working properly.  You might need to throw in a reference to BigBox.exe if it's not present.  You might even need LaunchBox.exe or some of the other DLLs in \Metadata\.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Nielk1

[Nielk1]

5 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

That is a good point; I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure how that would work running on a 32-bit system, either. Obviously LaunchBox and Big Box do work on 32-bit systems, so I'm a little confused how all that works. Everything LaunchBox official is built using "Any CPU" of course so that it works properly on both 32-bits and 64-bits (and supposedly will still take advantage of 64-bit extensions via the framework).

 

LB and BB are set up fine.  I'm writing my SteamContext so that if it's running in 32bit it passes through directly and if it's running in 64bit it uses my inter-process program.  I had to specifically compile all my libraries as Any CPU so I could reference them in 64bit programs but write in a bunch of checks to prevent the native calls from concurring if it's running under 64bit.  If I make any of my modules 32bit or 64bit only suddenly they won't work anymore on the other system architecture as LB/BB runs on the optimal mode.  This sort of soft check with an interproc that is itself forced to 32bit only is my best method.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Nielk1

[Maddoc1007]

26 minutes ago, Nielk1 said:

 

@Maddoc1007 Make sure your reference to LaunchBox\Metadata\Unbroken.LaunchBox.Wpf.dll is working properly.  You might need to throw in a reference to BigBox.exe if it's not present.  You might even need LaunchBox.exe or some of the other DLLs in \Metadata\.

@Nielk1 If i go back to Beta 3 all works fine and the LaunchBox\Metadata\Unbroken.LaunchBox.Wpf.dll is working properly the reference to BigBox.exe is there in the references placed copy of the launchbox.exe in the metadata folder but still the same the preview doesnt work which can make it time consuming when fine tuning things which i use the visual preview for. 

[Nielk1]

@Maddoc1007 I had some issues like this but I resolved them all by adding references.  I am having trouble re-creating the issue now though that I've seemingly 'fixed' it.

[Maddoc1007]

@Nielk1 When i click on add reference and go to browse and click on BigBox.exe i get no items found see screenshot as you can see on the right BigBox is there.

[Nielk1]

@Maddoc1007 I can see BigBox is already in your list on the right as it should be, but it might be worth seeing if any of the other Metadata DLLs help.  The way to browse is to click the 2nd browse button on the bottom of the window and find the DLL or exe file you want to try to add.

[Maddoc1007]

@Nielk1 Re-added references to all the dlls inside the metadata folder and now at least i can see the preview but the coverfactory is still not working in the preview.  see screenshot thanks you for the time you are putting in to help KUDOS