BigBox - Select Random Game Feature fixed by "Wheel Spin"

[Grila]

In your first example, if you chose Cooperative it will now show any games that have that included in their play-mode. But, it has to be there in Launchbox, it can't automagically know if a game has cooperative game-play or not.

So in LaunchBox any games, regardless of their other tags, have to be marked as coop to show:

So in this example, if you choose Cooperative in the plugin, it will include items 2 and 3 in the randomization.

[MayorQwert]

3 minutes ago, Grila said:

In your first example, if you chose Cooperative it will now show any games that have that included in their play-mode. But, it has to be there in Launchbox, it can't automagically know if a game has cooperative game-play or not.

So in LaunchBox any games, regardless of their other tags, have to be marked as coop to show:

So in this example, if you choose Cooperative in the plugin, it will include items 2 and 3 in the randomization.

Yes, that's exactly right, and if you choose '2-Player Simultaneous' it would conversely include 1 and 2 in the randomization!

[Grila]

Awesome, i made changes this morning and have it working like this now. It's not published to the site yet because I'm adding some of the other suggestions, but it should be ready relatively soon.

[MayorQwert]

3 minutes ago, Grila said:

Awesome, i made changes this morning and have it working like this now. It's not published to the site yet because I'm adding some of the other suggestions, but it should be ready relatively soon.

Excellent! Really looking forward to seeing it!

 

[Grila]

Actually I'll give you the new file to test for me if you don't mind:

 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Grila
File removed

[MayorQwert]

Here's several tests (also tested the random games displayed, and saw no problems! I specifically tested 2-Player Simultaneous, as i have many cooperative/competitive ones for that).

 

First, I made a playlist that contains all games with "hide" set to false. Basically mirrors "View all games":

Sega Classics Playlist:

Arcade Platform:

 

Quick odd note, my machine is composed almost entirely of arcade games, there is only one game that isn't an arcade title, and that one is the Dreamcast title Sturmwind.  It's only included because it feels like an arcade game (and I wanted to have an excuse to put the music from it on my cab).

So to the point, it's weird that the "All Games" playlist doesn't work since it only has one extra game than the "Arcade" platform. ?

[MayorQwert]

I'm afraid I won't be here for a couple hours, about to head out somewhere, but hopefully that helps @Grila!

[MayorQwert]

Just noticed something odd.  In all those tests just 'Cooperative' or 'Competitive were never given as a choice, like how it was in your example. For example, in the "Arcade" platform, I can't just have it shuffle random 'Competitive' games, I have to choose <player number>; Competitive

[MayorQwert]

Oh and I finally got around to testing what happens if I delete the playlists that are giving trouble, listed below, and let them restore themselves.  Seems like nothing changes ant it still throws the same error. Oddly enough, if I create a playlist in Launchbox. add all the games over to it, import any existing metadata, and delete the old one, it works fine.  It's just the auto-generated versions of these playlists that are causing trouble.

• Capcom Classics
• Data East Classics
• Konami Classics
• Sega Naomi
• Taito Classics

The specific one that I deleted and replaced is Sega Naomi, which is working now. Although I'm not sure what would happen if I were to import another Sega Naomi game and have it try to automatically add it.

[Grila]

5 minutes ago, MayorQwert said:

Just noticed something odd.  In all those tests just 'Cooperative' or 'Competitive were never given as a choice, like how it was in your example. For example, in the "Arcade" platform, I can't just have it shuffle random 'Competitive' games, I have to choose <player number>; Competitive

I see and I know what's causing it but I'll have to think of a good way to solve it. Basically the problem is the list items are pulled from the Play Mode field in LaunchBox. Since you don't have any games marked solely as Competetive, it doesn't get a list item. I believe I can solve this by parsing the Play Mode, then adding the items to the list but I have to do some testing.

 

[Grila]

@MayorQwert test this file. It has the changes fixed hopefully and also has another menu added when you hold left for your entire collection. Test that out please also.

 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Grila
File removed

[MayorQwert]

Wow, the full collection one works wonderfully! I also tested Cooperative, Competitive and "*No Preferred Play-mode", and all of them worked wonderfully!

"View All Games":

Sega Classics Playlist:

Arcade Platform:

Also adding some notes here again.

Noticed that the "hold left" menu is present regardless of where I am browsing (not saying this is bad or good, just letting you know all the changes).  Also noticed that "*No Preferred Play-Mode" is only available for all games, I figure this was just a test round but that would be cool functionality to add across the board!

 

All in all though, looking great!

[Grila]

Yes, the hold left menu doesn't rely on a platform or playlist, it gets all your games, so it will work anywhere.

And I will look into adding the "*No Preferred Play-Mode" to the other menus as well. Thanks for the feedback and testing. I have a few more minor things to do and I'll release this new version on the downloads page.

[MayorQwert]

18 minutes ago, Grila said:

Yes, the hold left menu doesn't rely on a platform or playlist, it gets all your games, so it will work anywhere.

And I will look into adding the "*No Preferred Play-Mode" to the other menus as well. Thanks for the feedback and testing. I have a few more minor things to do and I'll release this new version on the downloads page.

Have you considered perhaps rolling everything into a single hotkey? Like possibly have where you hold it and have the option to either search current view or entire collection?  Current setup is fine, but I am thinking down the line when perhaps the ability to set a hotkey becomes feasible and that way there can be a single hotkey for the whole plugin, a "random game button" if you will.

[Grila]

5 hours ago, MayorQwert said:

Have you considered perhaps rolling everything into a single hotkey? Like possibly have where you hold it and have the option to either search current view or entire collection?  Current setup is fine, but I am thinking down the line when perhaps the ability to set a hotkey becomes feasible and that way there can be a single hotkey for the whole plugin, a "random game button" if you will.

Yeah, I just wanted to get the code scratched out first. Adding another menu level is the easy part.

Just got the "*No Preferred Play-Mode" added to the platform/playlist sections and I also got rid of the XML call so that may fix your issue with those few playlists. Try this file out and see if it fixes the playlist problem:

 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Grila
File removed

[MayorQwert]

23 minutes ago, Grila said:

Yeah, I just wanted to get the code scratched out first. Adding another menu level is the easy part.

Just got the "*No Preferred Play-Mode" added to the platform/playlist sections and I also got rid of the XML call so that may fix your issue with those few playlists. Try this file out and see if it fixes the playlist problem:

BigBoxRGS.dll

Just going to post one screen cap this time, everything seems to be working without error! Tested all of the playlists that previously gave trouble, along with a few old ones, and there are no errors whatsoever!

I have to say I'm very surprised you were able to get everything fixed so quickly!

 

I can't think of anything else that would need to be added from a feature standpoint. I suppose as you said rolling the menus into one perhaps. Are there any plans to have options like those available to the normal BigBox views, such as toggling having additional information displayed along with the box art, such as description, genre, etc.?

[Grila]

41 minutes ago, MayorQwert said:

Just going to post one screen cap this time, everything seems to be working without error! Tested all of the playlists that previously gave trouble, along with a few old ones, and there are no errors whatsoever!

I have to say I'm very surprised you were able to get everything fixed so quickly!

 

I can't think of anything else that would need to be added from a feature standpoint. I suppose as you said rolling the menus into one perhaps. Are there any plans to have options like those available to the normal BigBox views, such as toggling having additional information displayed along with the box art, such as description, genre, etc.?

Awesome. 

The extra options are certainly a possibility, in fact my initial view had all the details to the right of the cover but I scrapped it for the more simplified view before showing it to everyone a few days ago. I'm out of the office until Tuesday now, so I won't be working on that until then. 

Later tonight I'll remote into my work computer and officially release the newest revision with all the changes made. Thank you for taking the time to test all the changes. 

[MayorQwert]

1 minute ago, Grila said:

Awesome. 

The extra options are certainly a possibility, in fact my initial view had all the details to the right of the cover but I scrapped it for the more simplified view before showing it to everyone a few days ago. I'm out of the office until Tuesday now, so I won't be working on that until then. 

Later tonight I'll remote into my work computer and officially release the newest revision with all the changes made. Thank you for taking the time to test all the changes. 

No! Thank you for putting all this time into making such a fine plugin for everyone!

[Grila]

Added a bunch of new features today and the file is now updated in the downloads section.

Changelog Version 2.2

• the plugin will now check if you have "Skip Game Details Screen" in your BigBox options and either launch the chosen game directly (Skip Game Details Screen enabled) or show the BigBox Games Detail Screen (Skip Game Details Screen disabled) Thanks @Kondorito for the suggestion
• you can now select a random game from your entire library by holding left to call the plugin. This adds back the functionality of the original version 1 plugin without the need to go to the System Menu. Thanks @FreeSoftwareServers for mentioning it in the thread
• the individual play-modes are now parsed and only shown once per occurrence in the list. Thanks @MayorQwert
• the plugin no longer reads the XML files, but now gets all its data directly from the API
• added a "No preferred play-mode" option to the platform and playlist views. Thanks @MayorQwert for the suggestion

[MayorQwert]

3 hours ago, Grila said:

Added a bunch of new features today and the file is now updated in the downloads section.

Changelog Version 2.2

• the plugin will now check if you have "Skip Game Details Screen" in your BigBox options and either launch the chosen game directly (Skip Game Details Screen enabled) or show the BigBox Games Detail Screen (Skip Game Details Screen disabled) Thanks @Kondorito for the suggestion
• you can now select a random game from your entire library by holding left to call the plugin. This adds back the functionality of the original version 1 plugin without the need to go to the System Menu. Thanks @FreeSoftwareServers for mentioning it in the thread
• the individual play-modes are now parsed and only shown once per occurrence in the list. Thanks @MayorQwert
• the plugin no longer reads the XML files, but now gets all its data directly from the API
• added a "No preferred play-mode" option to the platform and playlist views. Thanks @MayorQwert for the suggestion

Wowwie crazy how far this has come in such a short time, and I look forward to seeing where this goes from here!

I had a few ideas pop in my head today while I was out as well, would it be difficult to have an option to select genres as well?  Not sure how feasible that would be but I think it could be interesting. Also was thinking it would be nifty if there was a way to select multiple options, such as by pressing X-number of options with a "confirm" button or something similar. Once again I have no idea how hard such a feature would be to implement.

 

Not going to complain though, this has made more progress in one day than most projects make in weeks!