Launchbox 8.6 Change Log

[Lordmonkus]

Version 8.6 - Released September 3, 2018

- Note: The original LaunchBox interface has been completely removed and replaced with the LaunchBox.Next interface. This was done in order to allow much quicker development going forward, solve a number of long-standing stability and flexibility problems caused by the previous interface, and solve fragmentation problems. Please let us know on the forums if you have issues with the new interface.

- New Premium Feature: LaunchBox now supports custom themes just like Big Box! Check out the new LaunchBox\LBThemes folder, and change the theme under Tools > Options > Visuals.

- New Premium Feature: A new "Disable Mouse Cursor Across All Apps" option is available in Big Box under Options > Mouse; this option will hide the mouse cursor completely while Big Box is open, in all apps.

- New Premium Feature: Big Box now has options to allow or disable sleep, reboot, shut down, switch image type, switch view, and switch filter type (view type) while locked

- New Feature: A new "Import MAME Arcade Full Set" wizard has been added to LaunchBox (under Tools > Import); this wizard will allow you to import a full set of the latest version of MAME games, and will work with merged, split, or non-merged sets. As a result, MAME imports no longer have to be tied to files.

- New Feature: When importing a full set via the new "Import MAME Arcade Full Set" wizard, clones are optionally imported into additional apps. This allows you to have all clones accessible without cluttering your collection.

- New Premium Feature: Now that MAME/Arcade metadata is much more accurate, the MAME/Arcade playlists have been overhauled to use the auto-filtering playlist system instead of a list of games (which turns out to be much more effective and also more performant). In addition, many new playlists have been added, including playlists for 2-player and 4-player games, as well as various genres like Beat Em Ups, Racing Games, etc. These new playlist options are available in the new "Import MAME Arcade Full Set" wizard as well as the "Create Missing Arcade/MAME Playlists" option from the Tools menu. Please keep in mind though that you will need to update and overwrite your metadata for your MAME games or the new playlists will not work properly.

- Improvement: The LaunchBox MAME metadata (used to filter and gather metadata for MAME games on import) has been updated to the MAME 0.201 data, and a new backend system has been put in place to easily update the data for new MAME versions in the future. Hooray!

- Improvement: The Download Metadata and Media and Import ROMs from Files wizards have been updated to prioritize the new, more accurate MAME data

- Improvement: The LaunchBox.Next and LaunchBox image cache folders have been consolidated into a new LaunchBox\Images\Cache-LB folder, and the Big Box image cache has been changed to LaunchBox\Images\Cache-BB. These changes should take effect upon starting LaunchBox or Big Box.

- Improvement: The LaunchBox main menu is now being cached on startup so that it opens quicker on first launch

- Improvement: Many new platform/category/playlist theme videos have been added to the video downloader thanks to RetroHumanoid, PaDeMoniuM, CTRL-ALT-DEFEAT, dragon57, harryoke, and uv777bk from the forums, as well as prioritization options for each

- Improvement: Any plugin errors that occur will no longer prompt the user; however, for developers, the errors will still show up in the debug logs

- Fixed: Some message boxes were not centering properly

- Fixed: Several background music priority/overlap bugs have been fixed in Big Box

- Fixed: Controller input in Big Box was experiencing occasional hiccups on some systems

- Fixed: Setting controller buttons in LaunchBox was occasionally glitching out

- Fixed: Controllers were lagging sporadically in Big Box on some systems (especially underpowered systems). If you still experience controller lag in Big Box, please make sure that the "Use All Controllers" setting in Big Box is disabled.

- Fixed: Gif images were not displaying in the LaunchBox Game Details Sidebar

- Fixed: The list view in LaunchBox was not sorting secondarily by title when other columns were the primary sort

- Fixed: LaunchBox was occasionally creating Manuals, Music, and Videos folders in emulator directories

- Fixed: LaunchBox (.Next) was missing plugin support for the Tools menu

- Fixed: LaunchBox (.Next) was missing LEDBlinky support

- Fixed: LaunchBox (.Next) was missing plugin events for LaunchBox for startup completed and shutdown beginning

[Leandro_F]

The new interface is really much faster than the old one, but the frames behind games (also the individual coloring on them - I tried switching this option off, but didn't work) make it a little too much. The spacing between systems on the left panel could also be smaller. With the old interface, I could see all of my systems in the list. Now I have to scroll to see half of them (even after reducing font size to 9). The same goes for the right panel.

I wish there was a way to at least "skin" (is there - or will there be?) the new one so it would look more like the old one in this sense, without the frames behind each game and with smaller spacing. Then we would have the best of both worlds.

But, regarding speed, there's absolutely no doubt the new one is way better.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, Leandro_F said:

The new interface is really much faster than the old one, but the frames behind games (also the individual coloring on them - I tried switching this option off, but didn't work) make it a little too much. The spacing between systems on the left panel could also be smaller. With the old interface, I could see all of my systems in the list. Now I have to scroll to see half of them (even after reducing font size to 9). The same goes for the right panel.

I wish there was a way to at least "skin" (is there - or will there be?) the new one so it would look more like the old one in this sense, without the frames behind each game and with smaller spacing. Then we would have the best of both worlds.

But, regarding speed, there's absolutely no doubt the new one is way better.

Yes Launchbox is now themeable just like bigbox. The background boxes can be removed in Tools/Options/Boxes and slide the Background Opacity to zero. Also the box size can also be adjusted with a slider in Tools/Options/Spacing.

Here is how mine looks.

 

[Leandro_F]

3 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Yes Launchbox is now themeable just like bigbox. The background boxes can be removed in Tools/Options/Boxes and slide the Background Opacity to zero. Also the box size can also be adjusted with a slider in Tools/Options/Spacing.

Here is how mine looks.

 

Yes! Thanks for the tips! That's basically how I want mine to look.

Also, how did you make it so the panels stretch all the way up and down inside the window? Mine still has the gigantic "Platform: XXXXX" above the games, taking too much space, and the right panel also has the frame that does not occupy the entire space. And how did you change the spacing in the left panel (the one with the systems)?

Mine is looking like this now:

 

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, Leandro_F said:

Yes! Thanks for the tips! That's basically how I want mine to look.

Also, how did you make it so the panels stretch all the way up and down inside the window? Mine still has the gigantic "Platform: XXXXX" above the games, taking too much space, and the right panel also has the frame that does not occupy the entire space. And how did you change the spacing in the left panel (the one with the systems)?

Mine is looking like this now:

 

I use this theme.

 

[Leandro_F]

16 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

I use this theme.

 

Excellent! It looks great now! Thanks!

[midd]

Does 8.6 Launchbox replace Launchbox.Next?

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, midd said:

Does 8.6 Launchbox replace Launchbox.Next?

Yes.

[midd]

ok thanks. I figured as much but wanted to be sure.