7.12-beta-1 Released

[DR9]

@Jason Carr @lordmonkus Ill try to stay from the way I started my posts from now on thanks for the feedback its all good. I just didn't want LB to start to fade away like so many others in the past, its really is one if not only the best launcher out there.

Edited October 1, 2017 by DR9

[kmoney]

Back to beta testing we go

[Jason Carr]

@DR9 Thank you sir; we're gonna keep working hard on it for many years to come.

[Zombeaver]

23 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

It's currently getting the EXE path from the Windows shortcut in the Start menu, so I guess it was assumed that it would be correct.

Ah, yeah we're talking about two different things there. As far as I know™ there shouldn't be any issue there other than... I guess it not finding some games? I don't use the dedicated Windows importer enough to say. Typically I don't use the actual "Import Windows Games" importer for my PC stuff, primarily because I don't want it to do another full scan when I'm adding them (which is the way it worked the last time I tried it at least, which was quite a while back admittedly).

The methods that seem to get recommended the most for PC importing are:

A) Doing it one at a time via "Add Game"; which obviously isn't ideal for a large group of games, but is what I end up doing most often because I'm typically adding new one-off PC games as I'm installing them, so one at a time is fine for that purpose.

B) Creating shortcuts for the PC games you want to import, dumping them into a folder somewhere, and then dropping the shortcuts into LB, indicating that they're "roms" in the importer, choosing an emulator (because you're forced to do so in the wizard), and then bulk-editing them post-import and blanking out the emulator field. Making it so you can simply leave the emulator field blank on the importer would make this a lot easier.

C) Do the same thing as B except setting up a fake emulator for Windows games that simply runs the .exes so that you don't have to bulk-edit the field out.

Obviously B and C aren't elegant, but they get the job done. What I meant regarding the DOS importer specifically is just that it doesn't always pick up which .exe it should be setting as the default correctly (sometimes it'll pick up stuff in the ULTRASND directory if one is present, for example), but it's not a huge deal because you can always change it on the last screen. If something like this could be implemented in a scenario where, lets say I drag a folder of PC games (their install folders, not just shortcuts) into the LB UI, and then ran it through the wizard, if I could then just see a list of game folders on the last screen, with drop-downs of .exes within each to pick from, I think that'd be pretty handy. PC importing is something we end up seeing people ask about quite a bit.

Just my two cents!

[alnyden]

On 9/29/2017 at 7:21 PM, DR9 said:

I'm gonna get flamed but these aren't really much of in way of changes and the save settings should have been done LONG ago. I guess development really dropped off on LB over the last few months.

I purchased LB about five months ago and in that time there have been two major updates with new features, fixes and many performance improvements.  Maybe not the quantity you guys had in the past but that's still more updates than most software I've purchased.  I look forward to new features as much as the next guy but maybe try to keep things in perspective.

[Zombeaver]

1 hour ago, alnyden said:

I purchased LB about five months ago and in that time there have been two major updates with new features, fixes and many performance improvements.  Maybe not the quantity you guys had in the past but that's still more updates than most software I've purchased.  I look forward to new features as much as the next guy but maybe try to keep things in perspective.

Agreed! The way I look at it is, it's already a great, fully-functional piece of software that does what it's supposed to do, and does it well. There's always room for improvement, of course, but at this point it's to make an already good product even better. And you're right, I've seen countless other pieces of software go months or even years with nary an update of any kind.

[kmoney]

12 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

Agreed! The way I look at it is, it's already a great, fully-functional piece of software that does what it's supposed to do, and does it well. There's always room for improvement, of course, but at this point it's to make an already good product even better. And you're right, I've seen countless other pieces of software go months or even years with nary an update of any kind.

Hmmmm,one piece of software that comes to mind starts with a "H"

[GreenGriffon]

16 minutes ago, kmoney said:

Hmmmm,one piece of software that comes to mind starts with a "H"

Why beat around the bush? HyperSpin.

I've seen trees grow and evolve faster than that piece of glacial-ware.

 

[Machello]

19 hours ago, DR9 said:

@Jason Carr @lordmonkus Ill try to stay from the way I started my posts from now on thanks for the feedback its all good. I just didn't want LB to start to fade away like so many others in the past, its really is one if not only the best launcher out there.

@Jason Carr @lordmonkus I really, really like the way you guys handle the 'negative' feedback. This is one of the things which makes me believe the lb/bb project will stay alive. Thumbs up for your guys!

[Lordmonkus]

@Machello Thanks, I have zero issues when people present their criticism in a calm and rational manner. I will of course hit back hard when the criticism is grossly unfair or abusive. I have my own personal criticisms but I voice them privately to Jason or in other ways such as starting the "Small Things" thread.

Coming to the forums ranting about how "LB sucks, why you no listen to my awesome ideas ? If you don't listen to me you will fail" will not be successful and will be met with me taking great pleasure in mocking and potentially banning you

[Jason Carr]

Thanks guys. Was good to read this this morning.

On 9/30/2017 at 7:06 PM, Zombeaver said:

Ah, yeah we're talking about two different things there. As far as I know™ there shouldn't be any issue there other than... I guess it not finding some games? I don't use the dedicated Windows importer enough to say. Typically I don't use the actual "Import Windows Games" importer for my PC stuff, primarily because I don't want it to do another full scan when I'm adding them (which is the way it worked the last time I tried it at least, which was quite a while back admittedly).

The methods that seem to get recommended the most for PC importing are:

A) Doing it one at a time via "Add Game"; which obviously isn't ideal for a large group of games, but is what I end up doing most often because I'm typically adding new one-off PC games as I'm installing them, so one at a time is fine for that purpose.

B) Creating shortcuts for the PC games you want to import, dumping them into a folder somewhere, and then dropping the shortcuts into LB, indicating that they're "roms" in the importer, choosing an emulator (because you're forced to do so in the wizard), and then bulk-editing them post-import and blanking out the emulator field. Making it so you can simply leave the emulator field blank on the importer would make this a lot easier.

C) Do the same thing as B except setting up a fake emulator for Windows games that simply runs the .exes so that you don't have to bulk-edit the field out.

Obviously B and C aren't elegant, but they get the job done. What I meant regarding the DOS importer specifically is just that it doesn't always pick up which .exe it should be setting as the default correctly (sometimes it'll pick up stuff in the ULTRASND directory if one is present, for example), but it's not a huge deal because you can always change it on the last screen. If something like this could be implemented in a scenario where, lets say I drag a folder of PC games (their install folders, not just shortcuts) into the LB UI, and then ran it through the wizard, if I could then just see a list of game folders on the last screen, with drop-downs of .exes within each to pick from, I think that'd be pretty handy. PC importing is something we end up seeing people ask about quite a bit.

Just my two cents!

Gotcha. Yeah, I can see the benefit of adding a folder-based import process for Windows games like the above. It would still be fairly complicated to implement even with the user selecting the EXE from a drop down list, but hopefully we can tackle it eventually. In the mean time I do plan on allowing you to leave that emulator field blank here soon.

[Lordmonkus]

Option B is my preferred way of doing it.

[Jason Carr]

@wallmachine I'm sorry we haven't come up with specific resolutions for the issues you're running into. @CriticalCid may still have some solutions for you, however, as other themes have been able to get around pretty much all of those issues. I have struggled specifically with the video placement issues over and over again and haven't found a good solution due to the limitations of the VLC integration. There are workarounds, however; Cid is probably the most familiar with them. Per the other two issues, I'm not exactly certain what they are; it looks like the video is no longer available in the linked thread.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 2 is out now guys with the following:

- New Feature: Media items and Windows shortcuts can now be imported more easily using the new "None of the Above" import type in the import games wizard. Simply drag media files or Windows shortcuts over to LaunchBox and select "None of the Above" when choosing the type of files you are importing.

- Improvement: Checkboxes on the Import and Download Metadata and Media wizards now remember their settings for each import/run (where relevant). Selected image types are also remembered.

- Improvement: The import wizard now prefills the platform field with the currently selected platform in LaunchBox

- Improvement: Additional Applications in Big Box have now been moved into a sub-menu so that the names are not cut off and they don't clutter up the game details menu

All of the above is new except for the second item I simply added the check box saving to the Download Metadata and Media wizard as well. Tomorrow morning in the live stream I plan to tackle improvements to startup videos.

[Lordmonkus]

Awesome work Jason.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, lordmonkus said:

Awesome work Jason.

Yeah agreed, that sounds like a lot of quality of life issues fixed there.  

 

[LogicalEgo]

Nice work! Here I thought the sky was falling and all that,  

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr Thats all you did...slacker!! Just kidding...great job on the improvements Looking forward to the stream for the startup vid improvements as well.

[CriticalCid]

13 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

@wallmachine I'm sorry we haven't come up with specific resolutions for the issues you're running into. @CriticalCid may still have some solutions for you, however, as other themes have been able to get around pretty much all of those issues. I have struggled specifically with the video placement issues over and over again and haven't found a good solution due to the limitations of the VLC integration. There are workarounds, however; Cid is probably the most familiar with them. Per the other two issues, I'm not exactly certain what they are; it looks like the video is no longer available in the linked thread.

@wallmachine

A workaround for your border issue would be to force all videos to a 16:9 aspect ratio by using the background element for the video (the ImageVideoView can’t stretch media) and set up the fanart background with the appropriate ActiveGame element instead (don't forget to force activate BackgroundVideos in your ThemeSettings xml file)

If you want to keep the aspect ratios than I would suggest to try to use the normal Border properties. I have never tried it out myself and don’t know if that even works (because the dynamic sizing of the videos does weird things sometines) but I achieved something similar in CriticalZone with a drop shadow effect. Unfortunately I can’t think of any workarounds to determine the aspect ratio of a video and use the fitting border image file for it

For your other 2 issues (it’s actually the same thing) there’s no workaround to go around these technical limitations. Personally I would be very interested in this as well, so you have my up vote on this request.

[ALIE]

Hey @Jason Carr i like to think I'm not someone who usually yells loud to get what i want or complain . 

But is there any chance you could look at the image caching issue soon. The one that makes it so unless i refresh all images  these clear logos won't refresh. Im stuck with platforms out any logos in Critical. 

I know when i brought it up originally i wasn't the only one experiencing it.