7.15-beta-1 Released

[Jason Carr]

16 hours ago, CTRL-ALT-DEFEAT said:

This is super fantastic! Thank you for implementing this! I just went and unlocked 22 achievements in Super Metroid.

I'm sure it's already been asked, but is it feasible or realistic that, at some point, something similar could be implemented for displaying Steam, Origin, GOG and uPlay achievements? Like integrating your login for these services (like EmuMovies or RetroAchievements) into LB/BB and displaying them that way?

That's actually a new request, believe it or not. I do like that idea, but of course it would depend on their being an API available for reading the achievements on each of those platforms. We'll have to look.

[Jason Carr]

5 hours ago, ALIE said:

Been testing it today and it's awesome.

Question/idea for future improvements. 

Later could a achievement viewer like Xbox has be implemented (obviously it would be better designed wouldn't take much?).. 

Also like games has hearts and ratings now. Maybe a logo that shows this game has achievements. 

Yeah, we'll definitely be expanding on the user interface with more details to show eventually. I want to make sure we can get the API fully working first though.

[Jason Carr]

5 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Something showing your overall achievement score and per-game achievement score while on that title would be nice too. Both of which would probably require theme-implementation in BB (though the per-game score could probably be added into the details pane in LB).

Yup, agreed.

[Jason Carr]

4 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

There's a link to a page that has it in LB, but alternately login to your account on Retroachievements. Now go to Settings -> My Settings. Then under "account privileges" you'll see API Key: followed by a bunch of letters and numbers.

Glad you shared this; I didn't know it was available there. I updated the link in LaunchBox to go here instead because it's a lot easier than the other page.

[Jason Carr]

4 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Implementation of the friends leaderboard would be nice too:

Also agreed.

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, Charco said:

Especially if I am top of the list, yes.

@Jason Carr, tried it out just now and really happy with how it is integrated so far. I assigned a button to View Achievements in Big Box and found it a little counter-intuitive to have to press the Back button to close the pop up window. Would it not be better to have the same assigned button close the pop up window also?

Since the Escape button is used to close out every other popup, I figured this made the most sense for consistency. However, maybe the Enter button could close it out as well?

[Charco]

I didn't realise this was the same behaviour as other popups, just seemed a bit off to me on first use, I kept hitting the same button expecting it to close.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 4 is out now guys, finally with proper star ratings support in Big Box:

- New Premium Feature: Star ratings are now available in Big Box! They will show up by default in the game details views, but can be disabled under Options > Game Details.

- New Premium Feature: Star ratings can now be set in Big Box from either the game details menu or via a hotkey or controller button under Options > Keyboard Mappings > Set Star Rating or Options > Controller Buttons > Set Star Rating. An option is available to hide the Star Rating from the game details menu as well.

Finally, I added the point values to the achievements titles in LaunchBox and Big Box.

[Omen]

4 hours ago, FistyDollars said:

Just tried that, they still crash LaunchBox. 

Damn that sucks... I don't know what else you could do.

[dragon57]

10 minutes ago, Omen said:

Damn that sucks... I don't know what else you could do.

I would suggest two different solutions to this. Either find a replacement file that was originally output as mp4, or just reencode the problem files using an app like Handbrake or Vidcoder. I have to do that quite often and these tools are a must have in your software tool box.

[HankChill]

Hi Jason,

Long time lurker, first time poster

Loving the RetroAchievements integration so far. Been waiting for that feature for a while, nice to see it finally coming to fruition. I'm huge into achievements in my games, so I'm excited that developments are being made there!

However, my post is related to a bug in Big Box mode. If you select a platform and then a game, where it shows the menu to play, launch with, etc etc above that is a clear logo for the game you selected. If you go back and select another game, the clear logo will still show that of the previous game you chose. It will keep displaying the same image until you back out of the current platform, and reselect it or select a new platform.

I do also have a small feature request: in Big Box mode, can we get an option to mark a game as Completed, and in the game list show an indicator such as a checkmark or something beside the game name to indicate it's been completed? The only way to mark a game as complete right now is not very intuitive and to see whether a game is complete or not requires selecting the game to see the details and seeing the completed mark beside the ESRB rating. Seeing as how I use Launchbox exclusively in Big Box mode as well, this would really help

Thanks for listening!

--Henry

[Jlponyo]

Wow, nice color on your launch box! Mines white because thats the color it chooses to be no matter what colors I select. Its one of the many many basic features that do not work right or at all. But thank god I now have retroachievements integration. Thats a super basic feature I feel should have been included for 20 bucks I paid, but now its here! I cant wait to see more basic/essential features added  like a special button that plays the mario theme whenever I press it!

I know you are all hard at work improving the app, but please take your time! I have no problem continuing to groan every time I launch big box to play one of my many vertical shmups on my tate monitor because the text looks like this :

BATT..

BATS..

DIM..

and because just to see info like my playcount and last played I have to wait 5 SECONDS just for the text to start to scroll.

Yes, I'm being very negative and sarcastic. I'm just very frustrated. Big box is awesome in so many ways, but for me its insanely frustrating at best and unusable at worst. Since my purchase the app has been updated several times with a bunch of stuff that I cant possibly understand being easier to develop than text resizing. I guess thats not a feature you can advertise on your site to bring in more money.  I feel like when its finally fixed and the app no longer makes my eyes barf all those fixes will be locked behind a paywall because my year sub will have expired.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Good luck with everything.

[Jason Carr]

@Jlponyo First off, a refund is on its way. Secondly, very rarely if ever do I argue with users about the issues they're running into, but in that case, you're bringing up issues that do not exist elsewhere for thousands of people, issues that I've never even heard of. So in all honesty, I'm not sure if your computer's just broken or if you're just being a troll.

Thirdly, nothing good ever comes from words like those. I sincerely hope you didn't expect a positive response lol.

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, HankChill said:

Hi Jason,

Long time lurker, first time poster

Loving the RetroAchievements integration so far. Been waiting for that feature for a while, nice to see it finally coming to fruition. I'm huge into achievements in my games, so I'm excited that developments are being made there!

However, my post is related to a bug in Big Box mode. If you select a platform and then a game, where it shows the menu to play, launch with, etc etc above that is a clear logo for the game you selected. If you go back and select another game, the clear logo will still show that of the previous game you chose. It will keep displaying the same image until you back out of the current platform, and reselect it or select a new platform.

I do also have a small feature request: in Big Box mode, can we get an option to mark a game as Completed, and in the game list show an indicator such as a checkmark or something beside the game name to indicate it's been completed? The only way to mark a game as complete right now is not very intuitive and to see whether a game is complete or not requires selecting the game to see the details and seeing the completed mark beside the ESRB rating. Seeing as how I use Launchbox exclusively in Big Box mode as well, this would really help

Thanks for listening!

--Henry

Thanks @HankChill; I will look into that issue. Gotcha about the completed stuff too. Maybe we can just add that to the game details?

[GreenGriffon]

1 hour ago, Jlponyo said:

Wow, nice color on your launch box! Mines white because thats the color it chooses to be no matter what colors I select. Its one of the many many basic features that do not work right or at all. But thank god I now have retroachievements integration. Thats a super basic feature I feel should have been included for 20 bucks I paid, but now its here! I cant wait to see more basic/essential features added  like a special button that plays the mario theme whenever I press it!

I know you are all hard at work improving the app, but please take your time! I have no problem continuing to groan every time I launch big box to play one of my many vertical shmups on my tate monitor because the text looks like this :

BATT..

BATS..

DIM..

and because just to see info like my playcount and last played I have to wait 5 SECONDS just for the text to start to scroll.

Yes, I'm being very negative and sarcastic. I'm just very frustrated. Big box is awesome in so many ways, but for me its insanely frustrating at best and unusable at worst. Since my purchase the app has been updated several times with a bunch of stuff that I cant possibly understand being easier to develop than text resizing. I guess thats not a feature you can advertise on your site to bring in more money.  I feel like when its finally fixed and the app no longer makes my eyes barf all those fixes will be locked behind a paywall because my year sub will have expired.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Good luck with everything.

 

Well, as we can see from your post count which, including this colorful one, amounts to a whopping 2 posts, it seems you never bothered to ask anyone on the forums for the slightest bit of help.

I hear Jason was planning to implement telepathic tech support in the next beta, where he can instantly be aware of any issues you're having with his software, all without you saying a word! Too bad you won't be around to see him roll out that new feature.

Good luck.

 

[HankChill]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

Thanks @HankChill; I will look into that issue. Gotcha about the completed stuff too. Maybe we can just add that to the game details?

Thanks for the response  I attached a mockup of what I was referring to in regards to displaying the game as complete in the game list. Of course low on the priority list, but I'm glad you're open to suggestions!

--Henry

[DOS76]

7 hours ago, GreenGriffon said:

Well, as we can see from your post count which, including this colorful one, amounts to a whopping 2 posts, it seems you never bothered to ask anyone on the forums for the slightest bit of help.

Well to be fair his other post is reporting the issue he is describing it was from around the middle of October (a month ago) and it never received any type of response which in no way is an excuse for his attitude in the post but basically this one fell through the cracks and I'm assuming that Jason never saw the post and thus it never got any attention.

 

[jayjay]

Firstly. I will take this opportunity to report a sort of bug, but not really a bug. Not sure if its just me though.. In the per game menu, you have the "PLAY VIDEO" option.  The video is already playing when you enter the menu. So if clicking on it, it stays at "play video". Could it be changed to say "stop video" when entering the game menu. Sorry if this has already been discussed.

 

Secondly a feature request. I would like LB to find me a girlfriend. Im not fussy but she needs to have a well paid job so I can become a stay a home bum. Its my dream. I mean... dude... Iv paid for a life time license. 

 

Thirdly. Do these achievements scrape (I dont really know what im talking about). With retroarch you can still acquire the achievements offline. Obviously the online retro achievements account wont update until back online but is LB achievements the same? Can you still get them offline?

[neil9000]

37 minutes ago, jayjay said:

Do these achievements scrape (I dont really know what im talking about). With retroarch you can still acquire the achievements offline. Obviously the online retro achievements account wont update until back online but is LB achievements the same? Can you still get them offline?

I would guess you have to be logged into your account and online, launchbox is just connecting to your account to see what achievements you have, it's not actually unlocking any in Launchbox, that is still done through the emulator, Launchbox just reflects any changes from the Retro Achievements site.

[HankChill]

5 hours ago, neil9000 said:

I would guess you have to be logged into your account and online, launchbox is just connecting to your account to see what achievements you have, it's not actually unlocking any in Launchbox, that is still done through the emulator, Launchbox just reflects any changes from the Retro Achievements site.

Yes, you must be online to be able to unlock achievements. Launchbox is simply retrieving the achievements you've already unlocked. To earn the achievements, you have to use either the RetroAchievements own emulators, or within RetroArch using a core that supports achievement unlocking for your specified platform. If you're offline, either of these applications cannot communicate with RetroAchievements, and therefore cannot know what you've already unlocked, and cannot send the message to the RA servers that you've unlocked an achievement.

tl;dr You gotta be online to unlock achievements with your favourite compatible emulator