A few quick questions...

[DarkMain]

1.  Is there an option to "Clean up videos"? I see there is one for images and I'm assuming that if I delete a game from my library and then use that function it will remove the images that were associated with the removed game. Is there a similar function for videos? and if not are there plans to add it in the future?
2.  Consolidate ROMs. I get that this consolidates the games in the library but is there an option to consolidate the games into the lunchbox folder? Kind of like a "Make Library Portable" option?
   I have been adding games from a second HDD and then removing the games from the library I don't want until I get it how I like it. I have done it this way so my collection isn't altered by Launchbox at all, and if I accidentally remove a game I still have the ROM files so I can add it back later, and also, so I don't have a bunch of unused ROMs sitting in my Launchbox folder.
   It would be nice to copy the ROMs that are in the library into the Launchbox folder in the future once I'm done though so it becomes portable.

[DOS76]

1 currently there is not and even though I've seen this asked for before I'm not sure there are any definite plans to implement it at this time.
2 I'm a lit iffy on what you mean here if you mean you are importing your games into LB and moving them into the LB games folder and then you are removing games from LB as long as you don't have the option to delete roms that you remove in LB then those files should still be located in your folder but not visible in LB. Also you can copy paste any roms you want into the appropriate games folder and unless you import it or scan the folder for new roms then they won't be added to LB but will still be in the folder.

[DarkMain]

I have bunch of ROM sets that I have on a separate hard drive. I have imported the games into Launchbox using the "Use the files in their current location" option.

The ROM sets are pretty much full sets including different regions/languages/betas/prototypes ect... but I only want English games and none of the unfinished prototypes. Instead of manually importing the games I want one by one, I imported the lot and used the auditing tool to remove the games I don't want (I'm still going through this process). Once I have done this I would like to be able to have Lunchbox copy all the ROMs that I have included in the database to its own folder so it becomes portable while ignoring the ROMs from the set I didn't include.

The final result would be my ROM sets on the second hard drive untouched and a new "set" created in the Launchbox directory that only includes the games I have in my library.

I know I could have used the "copy files" option from the start and allowed Lunchbox to delete any ROMs that I removed from the database, but I didn't  (Its a habit from 10+ years of DJing and having to maintain a song library of 50,000+ songs).

[ckp]

yeah that would be really cool if it could do that. but i doubt it will ever be able to do it for games that require more than one single file.

i think the closest you could come is to backup your full sets where one full backup copy of each set is inside the LB games folder (import from there and still leave in their current location when asked), then have LB set to delete the game roms when you delete from LB.

Edit: oh yeah, i forgot about the scan for new roms feature. i guess you could use that too like @DOS76 said (instead of importing), but i don't know if that new rom scan will also get you artwork and metadata. i never used that feature before.

Edited August 29, 2017 by ckp

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah this would be very tricky to do for games that have multiple files like many of the CD based systems that have a cue + bin files. The cue is the rom and needs the bin ( or multiple bins to work.

[DarkMain]

Those are good points.

I'm using a Final Burn Alpha ROM set with all the .zip files having no dependencies (not sure what that called) and all my other platforms are single files so I didnt think about .cue and .iso files.

However, wouldn't you have the same issue when you are using Launchbox to manage the ROMs? (Allow deleting of ROMs when deleting games). That would just delete the .cue and leave the .iso or .bin in the launchbox directory, yet its still an option.

[ckp]

i don't use the delete rom option, so i'm not sure what all it deletes, but yes that sounds like a reasonable guess. there are also MAME roms which need all kinds of other files to play, unless you have non merged sets. 

[DOS76]

yeah if I want to delete roms I'll go into explorer and remove them don't like the idea of allowing a program to delete my files.

[DarkMain]

7 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

yeah if I want to delete roms I'll go into explorer and remove them don't like the idea of allowing a program to delete my files.

I'm in the same camp. Like I said, its a habit from 10+ years ago back when software wasn't that reliable when it came to managing files (well, music library software at least, but that's probably a completely different ballpark).
The problem with that is when you're deleting a lot of roms at a time.

For example, the No-Intro SNES set has 3,300+ .zip files... Adding in just the English roms manually would be a pain, and adding them all and then removing the non-English ones manually would be a pain.

The only real options are a) copy them all and allow Launchbox to delete them or b) add them all in their original location, edit the LB Database and then have LB copy what you want after the fact (which is something LB doesn't do).

[DOS76]

if you go into file explorer you can use the search to quickly find and remove things if you type in the region tags you can use them to bulk remove games so search for *(j) should give you a listing of all Japanese games then you can click one and use ctl+a to select all of them and then either delete or move them to a separate folder if it contains bad dumps, trainers or translations basically the same principle just search for that tag this is how I've quickly separated out stuff in the past and while it isn't automated for you it does make it much quicker to group and remove things.

[neil9000]

2 hours ago, DarkMain said:

I'm in the same camp. Like I said, its a habit from 10+ years ago back when software wasn't that reliable when it came to managing files (well, music library software at least, but that's probably a completely different ballpark).
The problem with that is when you're deleting a lot of roms at a time.

For example, the No-Intro SNES set has 3,300+ .zip files... Adding in just the English roms manually would be a pain, and adding them all and then removing the non-English ones manually would be a pain.

The only real options are a) copy them all and allow Launchbox to delete them or b) add them all in their original location, edit the LB Database and then have LB copy what you want after the fact (which is something LB doesn't do).

If your zips are named like  Super Mario Bros (USA).zip you can just use the windows search when importing them. So when importing instead of importing the whole folder you use import files, then navigate to the folder and in the explorer search box in the top right of the window you can put "*(USA) and that willfilter to all the USA zips, then just click one then ctrl a to highlight them all and click next.

[neil9000]

Damn you @DOS76 you just beat me to it.

 

[DarkMain]

Its still extra steps. May as well spend the time to write a batch file to automate the tasks.

Using Windows search also wouldn't work with something like the "FB_Alpha_2016_Reference_Set_-_FBA_v0.2.97.39_ROMs" for example.

Edited August 30, 2017 by DarkMain

[DOS76]

Okay if you have the know how to do that then that is your best bet.

[neil9000]

Well the only extra step in the method i mentioned is typing "*(USA)" during the import no hardship really. This is exactly how i import my roms, like you i have over 3000 snes roms but i only imported the USA versions, all my roms are still on my drive, but just the USA versions are imported to launchbox.

[DR9]

Why isn't number #1 already fixed? Hook it in to the clean images up. Its very difficult to find 1 by 1 extra videos in the folders to delete.

[Lordmonkus]

Because there's a priority list and things get done according to that.