Autodelete roms and media?

[damageinc86]

i don't know.  when i right click and then delete, it still only does the game metadata.

[DerHof2007]

4 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

i don't know.  when i right click and then delete, it still only does the game metadata.

Yeah... I don't think its working properly. I'm certain they said in one of their youtube videos that you would be able to delete all game artwork and everything with one click.

Actually before this update I though you could delete a game including the rom... but that doesn't even seem to be an option right now...

[DOS76]

It should be an option in LB has to be turned on in tools>options>general

[DerHof2007]

Doing a test and not getting it.
Right click to delete game.

Pop up>>> Are you sure you wish to permanently delete 'game'?  yes...
Pop up>>> Rom confirmation.... yes

Never asks about the art and it doesn't delete it...

[neil9000]

19 minutes ago, DerHof2007 said:

Doing a test and not getting it.
Right click to delete game.

Pop up>>> Are you sure you wish to permanently delete 'game'?  yes...
Pop up>>> Rom confirmation.... yes

Never asks about the art and it doesn't delete it...

Correct, media is not deleted when deleting roms.

You can however run the clean up images option in the tools menu after you delete games and that should clear out the images attached to the deleted games.

[DerHof2007]

4 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Correct, media is not deleted when deleting roms.

You can however run the clean up images option in the tools menu after you delete games and that should clear out the images attached to the deleted games.

Ok, I don't know where I got this but I swear I heard in one of your YT videos that there would be an option to delete everything in one click... as well as right clicking and deleting individual artwork in the info pane.

Maybe I was drunk... Mandela effect? Something.... but I swear I heard this!!!

[neil9000]

Just now, DerHof2007 said:

Ok, I don't know where I got this but I swear I heard in one of your YT videos that there would be an option to delete everything in one click... as well as right clicking and deleting individual artwork in the info pane.

Maybe I was drunk... Mandela effect? Something.... but I swear I heard this!!!

That may of been in the brainstorming session for the next poll, I'm not really sure. Its definitely not in though, maybe you are thinking of the option I mentioned, it does the same thing, just not automatically when you delete a rom. Just delete what games you want then run the Tools/clean up images option.

[DerHof2007]

10 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

That may of been in the brainstorming session for the next poll, I'm not really sure. Its definitely not in though, maybe you are thinking of the option I mentioned, it does the same thing, just not automatically when you delete a rom. Just delete what games you want then run the Tools/clean up images option.

Well, I've known about deleting the rom with the game for some time but I was certain I heard the individual image delete in the info pane... because that was one of the first things I tried when I upgraded from 7.16 last week... and was immediately disappointed :-(

I think this would be a great option because sometimes with autodownload you can get some crappy images, doubles at different resolution, etc. It'd be a nice way to clean up without hunting them down.

Edited March 28, 2018 by DerHof2007

[damageinc86]

Sometimes I add games that the kids want to try out, and then they suck, and I'd like to be able to delete them and all media including the videos that I downloaded during the import from emumovies. 

[FlightRisk]

On 12/26/2017 at 3:57 PM, DerHof2007 said:

No problem.... I have a batch file set up that makes this a snap. I'll finish off the rom list and will be able to clean out the artwork in less than 10 minutes.

 

And no... I already had that box checked in LB.... but saw no way to do in BB.

Thanks again!

Can you share these batch files so I could see what you are doing? I want to do the same thing and was going to write a program in C# or Delphi, but realize this could get pretty involved trying to find .cue files and whatever else. I was thinking that a program should read .dat files and then allow you to choose where things are and delete everything, but maybe just deleting them from LB and having a bat file to get the videos will be enough. Maybe something even simpler like a delete them from LB and have the batch file reference a names list and if "not exist" delete every folder with the same name.

Edited June 25, 2018 by FlightRisk

[DerHof2007]

11 hours ago, FlightRisk said:

Can you share these batch files so I could see what you are doing? I want to do the same thing and was going to write a program in C# or Delphi, but realize this could get pretty involved trying to find .cue files and whatever else. I was thinking that a program should read .dat files and then allow you to choose where things are and delete everything, but maybe just deleting them from LB and having a bat file to get the videos will be enough. Maybe something even simpler like a delete them from LB and have the batch file reference a names list and if "not exist" delete every folder with the same name.

Hey Dude... Sure, no problem at all. A little tied up at the moment so let me get back to you tomorrow on this when I get a chance to dig up the info.
I can't take credit for this. I had help from someone in the BYOAC forum a while back. I'll post all the info tomorrow night.

[FlightRisk]

23 hours ago, DerHof2007 said:

Hey Dude... Sure, no problem at all. A little tied up at the moment so let me get back to you tomorrow on this when I get a chance to dig up the info.
I can't take credit for this. I had help from someone in the BYOAC forum a while back. I'll post all the info tomorrow night.

`tHANKS!

[DerHof2007]

On 6/25/2018 at 7:46 AM, FlightRisk said:

Can you share these batch files so I could see what you are doing? I want to do the same thing and was going to write a program in C# or Delphi, but realize this could get pretty involved trying to find .cue files and whatever else. I was thinking that a program should read .dat files and then allow you to choose where things are and delete everything, but maybe just deleting them from LB and having a bat file to get the videos will be enough. Maybe something even simpler like a delete them from LB and have the batch file reference a names list and if "not exist" delete every folder with the same name.

Ok, just so you know if your artwork/videos are named for the game instead of the rom name this doesn't work.

I'm going to just paste the post here that 'yamatetsu' posted for me in BYOAC. When I first read this I thought it was extremely over complicated and I almost dismissed it. After I actually did it, it was incredible simple.

You'll need a text editor like Notepad ++ ... I think he actually made my first file for me but I later learned how with this.
Notepad++

In his post he also explains how he used this batch file to test all his games out. For deleting all the artwork you can go through the complete MAME set in 10 minutes with this. I have my collection whittled down to just over 200 roms and this allowed me to eliminate about 200,000 worthless files.

So here is the post... I was just going to link it but didn't know if I should link to another forum here. If you want that then let me know. Here is a copy of the post.

The biggest hassle for me is having to start each game manually. To avoid this, I use a batch file.

The games.

I go into the roms directory and start a DOS prompt. Then I make a .bat file that contains the name of all the game roms.

dir /b >mametest.bat

Now I start a text editor that has a 'macro' feature, opening mametest.bat. I put the cursor at the beginning of line 1.
Now I make a macro that puts 'mame ' in front of every rom name (without the ' of course), then goes to the beginning of
the line and then goes one line down.
Then I use the macro until every line in the .bat is done.
Now I have a batch file that starts every .zip file in the roms folder automatically.

I move mametest.bat into the MAME root folder. I start a DOS prompt and start mametest.bat.
The first game is launched. When I exit it, the next one is automatically started. When I find a game that I like, I use ALT+TAB
to switch to the DOS window, where I can see the name of the rom that is now running.

I copy that rom to a backup folder. For convenience I use a file manager that uses two windows, one is set to the roms folder, the
other to the backup folder, so that I just need to drag the rom from one window to the other.
After that, I ALT+TAB back to MAME and exit the game. Rinse and repeat.

When I'm tired of testing the games, I ALT+TAB to the DOS window to get the romname of the current game, then I close the DOS window,
this also shuts down MAME.
Then I edit mametest.bat, deleting all the lines up to and including the last game I tested. When I start mametest.bat the next time,
it will pick up where I stopped.

After everything is done, I have a backup folder that contains all the games I want to keep, BUT any needed files like BIOSes and drivers are missing.
So I go to the MAME root folder and rename the roms directory to romsbackup, then I rename the directory containing my wanted games to roms.
Now I make a new mametest.bat, but this time only using the games that I want to keep.
If a game doesn't run, the .bat will start the next one. Now I ALT+TAB to the DOS window to see which file(s) the non-working game is missing.

In DOS-mode, MAME kindly provides the info. It states that rom 'xy' is not working, missing 'so and so', having looked in 'xy' and, for example 'namco79'.
So I know that namco79.zip is missing. This I copy from the romsbackup directory to the roms directory. The game will now work.
Rinse and repeat for all games.
When I'm done, I start the mametest.bat again and make sure that every game is working. When done, I can safely delete the romsbackup directory.

The artwork.

I go into the artwork directory and make a new directory named 1. I go to the MAME root directory and copy mametest.bat to the artwork directory.
Back to the artwork directory. I edit the mametest.bat, replacing the word 'mame' with 'copy' and '.zip' with '.zip 1\'.
I start mametest.bat. This results in the .bat copying all the needed artwork files to the '1' directory.
After that, I delete every .zip file in the artwork directory and move every file in the 1 directory to the artwork directory. Now the artwork directory only
contains the artwork files that I need.

Flyers / manuals.
Should be the same process as with the artwork, except that mametest.bat doesn't need to be edited. Just copy it to the flyers / manuals folder, create the 1 directory and start mametest.bat.

[FlightRisk]

Thanks for that. I'll use it in my logic. Yeah, Notepad++ is my favorite text editor. I code, so use a text editor and a hex editor every day. I can use this to get ideas for the program I wrote. It doesn't do much now, but it looks in a rom folder and compares what it finds to the database for that platform, then finds their title/description and puts them in a table with a checkbox. So I can mark them for deletion or find all the folders that have artwork and the rest. It's in VB.NET right now. I have selectors for all the different files and folders that can be associated with a rom. This process is sort of what I do now, but with XML files and a database in my program. So you can save where you were just like he does manually with the batch file. Gave me some ideas!