8.8-beta-1 Released

[Undertherainbow]

@Jason CarrAny chance for animated wheel support in LB? mp4 file.

example:

 

[Chris Kant]

Inhaber sometimes the issue that after making a playlist for one platform that LB is not showing it. In the Data folder I found the file,plus i am not able to build the same playlist again because it is there but not showing up.

 

in lb the list on the left side is sorted after platform categories. If I set it up to show playlists i can see some of the playlist and everything looks correct configured but still nothing in the other view.

 

also strange is that if I change something in the games, like set one game as a favourite, it will not autopopulate in the specific playlist.

is this an issue or something already known?

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, Chris Kant said:

Inhaber sometimes the issue that after making a playlist for one platform that LB is not showing it. In the Data folder I found the file,plus i am not able to build the same playlist again because it is there but not showing up.

 

in lb the list on the left side is sorted after platform categories. If I set it up to show playlists i can see some of the playlist and everything looks correct configured but still nothing in the other view.

 

also strange is that if I change something in the games, like set one game as a favourite, it will not autopopulate in the specific playlist.

is this an issue or something already known?

Currently, if a playlist does not have any games, it doesn't show up in the platform categories view. I may change that because of the confusion of it though. But playlists should always show up in the Playlist view, whether they have games or not, so you should be able to manage empty playlists from there.

There is a known issue where playlists do not always update when game metadata is changed, until a restart of LaunchBox. I have plans to look into that as well.

[Chris Kant]

Even with a game in it the playlist will sometimes not shown in LB under platform categories

[Jason Carr]

15 minutes ago, Chris Kant said:

Even with a game in it the playlist will sometimes not shown in LB under platform categories

Does the issue remain even after a restart? If so, if you can zip up and PM me your data folder, I'll investigate.

[Chris Kant]

hier is an example, this playlist popped up after I added the Metal Gear Games to it

I will send you the specific zip file in a few seconds.

 

----

 

addition:

different topic: I moved some of the video folders to another driver on my PC. and now I am asking my self, even with changing the folder paths to the new section LaunchBox is generating a new folder in the former root area. example: I have the LaunchBox/videos/Nintendo 64 folder. I moved that folder to another HDD, so the old folder is no longer on its initial place. BUT later I will have an empty folder on the exact place again - I found out that the same will happen will all media folders. is this a new issue and why is this happen?

Edited October 6, 2018 by Chris Kant

[Jason Carr]

40 minutes ago, Chris Kant said:

hier is an example, this playlist popped up after I added the Metal Gear Games to it

I will send you the specific zip file in a few seconds.

Okay, this looks to be a different issue than what you described above, so now I'm confused.

2 hours ago, Chris Kant said:

Even with a game in it the playlist will sometimes not shown in LB under platform categories

This is what I was trying to figure out here first. However, I do have an idea as to what might be going on. It's possible that those games are marked as hidden or broken, and you have hidden or broken games hidden in the LaunchBox View menu. Or maybe you have some of the hide games missing media options checked. Regardless, we need to take these issues one at a time so I don't go crazy.

44 minutes ago, Chris Kant said:

different topic: I moved some of the video folders to another driver on my PC. and now I am asking my self, even with changing the folder paths to the new section LaunchBox is generating a new folder in the former root area. example: I have the LaunchBox/videos/Nintendo 64 folder. I moved that folder to another HDD, so the old folder is no longer on its initial place. BUT later I will have an empty folder on the exact place again - I found out that the same will happen will all media folders. is this a new issue and why is this happen?

If you go to Tools > Manage Platforms you can change the folder paths (including video paths) for each platform. I'm guessing your folder paths are still set to the old paths there.

[alissongamer]

On 10/1/2018 at 3:41 PM, Jason Carr said:

I think the Rocket Launcher plugin for LaunchBox needs modified to support the playlists. I haven't done any development on that Rocket Launcher plugin (it was done by the Rocket Launcher guys). I'd be happy to help, but I probably can't dive into their code on my own.

Can not solve this in the future or ask the people of Rocketlauncher to solve?

[Jason Carr]

48 minutes ago, alissongamer said:

Can not solve this in the future or ask the people of Rocketlauncher to solve?

It would probably be best if it was requested by the community.

[Agent47]

40 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

It would probably be best if it was requested by the community.

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a RocketLauncher dev, but I'm one of the very few people who provides support on their forum and updates modules and such (for context). It's also been a year or more since I've touched an install of LaunchBox I had for testing purposes so I'm admittedly not up to speed on the specifics of features.

With anything RocketLauncher related it would be best to post it on the RL forum since although I browse the LaunchBox forums semi-regularly the chances of myself or one of the other active RL community members seeing a request like this made here is extremely unlikely. I can say that I'm pretty sure nobody has requested changes due to playlists or even mentioned them on the RL forums before. The RL and RLUI plugins will need to be updated to recognize playlists and that shouldn't be too difficult. I had already planned on looking into the plugins at some point due to some sort of media issue so I can look into playlist stuff as well.

That being said, if I'm understanding @alissongamer correctly it sounds like something also needs to be solved on the LB side of things or they need to fix their configuration if this is already a thing. It seems that they want to have different fade media for the playlist platforms instead of the default Arcade ones. That would require LB sending the playlist name (ie Cave) rather than the parent platform (ie Arcade). Otherwise RL has no way of knowing if the game was launched from that Arcade platform or the Cave playlist. So some sort of playlist identifier variable would need to be sent via CLI to RL instead of the platform like it's doing currently.

[Chris Kant]

7 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Okay, this looks to be a different issue than what you described above, so now I'm confused.

This is what I was trying to figure out here first. However, I do have an idea as to what might be going on. It's possible that those games are marked as hidden or broken, and you have hidden or broken games hidden in the LaunchBox View menu. Or maybe you have some of the hide games missing media options checked. Regardless, we need to take these issues one at a time so I don't go crazy.

If you go to Tools > Manage Platforms you can change the folder paths (including video paths) for each platform. I'm guessing your folder paths are still set to the old paths there.

I know it is confusing but first I had the one issue and while doing the screenshots I found another issue on my system. about the issue from my picture, these missing Games are showing inside my Platform but not in the playlist. that makes it at least confusing for me.

[Chris Kant]

8 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Okay, this looks to be a different issue than what you described above, so now I'm confused.

This is what I was trying to figure out here first. However, I do have an idea as to what might be going on. It's possible that those games are marked as hidden or broken, and you have hidden or broken games hidden in the LaunchBox View menu. Or maybe you have some of the hide games missing media options checked. Regardless, we need to take these issues one at a time so I don't go crazy.

If you go to Tools > Manage Platforms you can change the folder paths (including video paths) for each platform. I'm guessing your folder paths are still set to the old paths there.

@Jason Carr

 

is there a easier way to change all the artwork folders for one system instead of artwork type? I tried to find something in the xml files in the data folders but was unsuccessful. Only can find the RomPath.

[Bedwyr]

22 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Okay, so it doesn't look like it's a focus issue after all. That DirectX exception in the logs is interesting, though it doesn't really explain why the keyboard fails as well. My best guess is that maybe it's some kind of really strange controller conflict or something of that nature. What controller(s) are you using?

Logitech keboard and mouse (K830/MX Anywhere, SN30 modkit from 8bitdo, XB1 controller, and Steam controller (but just in Steam). I also use Controller Companion, all to make a couch-based environment work. However it's set to have a disabling exception for BB and LB (which I checked) and I also shut it down to see if it would clear the issue. It didn't.

BB is also running through its Kodi Launcher, but I think if that were the problem then it would have happened on launch and not when exiting the game. Possibly its autohotkey functionality is borking on entering or exiting Retroarch.

[Jason Carr]

On 10/6/2018 at 8:09 PM, Agent47 said:

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a RocketLauncher dev, but I'm one of the very few people who provides support on their forum and updates modules and such (for context). It's also been a year or more since I've touched an install of LaunchBox I had for testing purposes so I'm admittedly not up to speed on the specifics of features.

With anything RocketLauncher related it would be best to post it on the RL forum since although I browse the LaunchBox forums semi-regularly the chances of myself or one of the other active RL community members seeing a request like this made here is extremely unlikely. I can say that I'm pretty sure nobody has requested changes due to playlists or even mentioned them on the RL forums before. The RL and RLUI plugins will need to be updated to recognize playlists and that shouldn't be too difficult. I had already planned on looking into the plugins at some point due to some sort of media issue so I can look into playlist stuff as well.

That being said, if I'm understanding @alissongamer correctly it sounds like something also needs to be solved on the LB side of things or they need to fix their configuration if this is already a thing. It seems that they want to have different fade media for the playlist platforms instead of the default Arcade ones. That would require LB sending the playlist name (ie Cave) rather than the parent platform (ie Arcade). Otherwise RL has no way of knowing if the game was launched from that Arcade platform or the Cave playlist. So some sort of playlist identifier variable would need to be sent via CLI to RL instead of the platform like it's doing currently.

Ah, good point; I hadn't thought of that. I'll add that to my list (sending playlist names over to Rocket Launcher). Thanks @Agent47.

On 10/7/2018 at 1:05 AM, Chris Kant said:

@Jason Carr

 

is there a easier way to change all the artwork folders for one system instead of artwork type? I tried to find something in the xml files in the data folders but was unsuccessful. Only can find the RomPath.

Currently there's no way to automatically change them all, though it should be relatively easy to use copy paste (I do know that we need a better solution there though). Find and replace in the Platforms.xml file also works (but you'll need to make a backup to be safe). I'll take a look at your data and see if I can figure out those issues.

[Jason Carr]

22 hours ago, Bedwyr said:

Logitech keboard and mouse (K830/MX Anywhere, SN30 modkit from 8bitdo, XB1 controller, and Steam controller (but just in Steam). I also use Controller Companion, all to make a couch-based environment work. However it's set to have a disabling exception for BB and LB (which I checked) and I also shut it down to see if it would clear the issue. It didn't.

BB is also running through its Kodi Launcher, but I think if that were the problem then it would have happened on launch and not when exiting the game. Possibly its autohotkey functionality is borking on entering or exiting Retroarch.

I see, sure. Unfortunately there are a lot of variables there (the several different controllers, Controller Companion, AutoHotkey) so in order to figure out, the first thing we should do is try simplifying things to see if we can narrow down what in particular is causing it. I know it's not going to be easy to figure out, but unfortunately I definitely need your help in order to fix it, as I'm not going to be able to replicate your environment over here. So what I would recommend (if you're willing) is turning everything non-standard off and unplugging all but one controller to see if you can replicate with that, and then slowly adding things back in to try and pinpoint what's causing it. Then I might be able to fix it if I have a lead as to what the issue is related to.

[Bedwyr]

4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I see, sure. Unfortunately there are a lot of variables there (the several different controllers, Controller Companion, AutoHotkey) so in order to figure out, the first thing we should do is try simplifying things to see if we can narrow down what in particular is causing it. I know it's not going to be easy to figure out, but unfortunately I definitely need your help in order to fix it, as I'm not going to be able to replicate your environment over here. So what I would recommend (if you're willing) is turning everything non-standard off and unplugging all but one controller to see if you can replicate with that, and then slowly adding things back in to try and pinpoint what's causing it. Then I might be able to fix it if I have a lead as to what the issue is related to.

Yeah, I know the workup. This will be awhile as it's not in my interest to throw myself at the problem, dedicating time until the event happens. It'll have to be piecemeal as I divide it between regular life tasks. I'll also have to set a time limit on removing everything and testing. So what I'll do is keep a count of game iterations dedicated to replicating the problem. I'll turn all that stuff off and relegate Retroarch activations to the SNES through BB, opening BB directly and disabling Kodi auto-startup. If nothing happens after, I don't know, 10-15 iterations of at least 15 minutes of gameplay, I'll call it good and add things back in. That work for you?

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, Bedwyr said:

Yeah, I know the workup. This will be awhile as it's not in my interest to throw myself at the problem, dedicating time until the event happens. It'll have to be piecemeal as I divide it between regular life tasks. I'll also have to set a time limit on removing everything and testing. So what I'll do is keep a count of game iterations dedicated to replicating the problem. I'll turn all that stuff off and relegate Retroarch activations to the SNES through BB, opening BB directly and disabling Kodi auto-startup. If nothing happens after, I don't know, 10-15 iterations of at least 15 minutes of gameplay, I'll call it good and add things back in. That work for you?

Certainly. Whatever you can do would be appreciated. Thanks much.

[Jason Carr]

@Chris Kant Looking at your data, it looks like some of the games are marked as broken, and you don't have broken games displayed in LaunchBox, so that is the reason for the difference between what is displayed in that playlist in Add/Edit and what is displayed in the main window. I'm guessing that's also why the playlist wasn't showing up originally (because it had no visible games). I am changing that for the next beta though so that playlists show up in the platform categories list whether they have any visible games or not, which should reduce that confusion.

[Jason Carr]

The first 8.9 beta is out now:

 

[alissongamer]

9 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Ah, good point; I hadn't thought of that. I'll add that to my list (sending playlist names over to Rocket Launcher). Thanks @Agent47.

About playlists you have to take into account the playlists in which there are no systems with the same name in RL. Capcom Play System II, Capcom Play System III, Cave, Data East Classics, Irem Classics, Konami Classics, Midway Classics, Namco Classics, Namco System 22, Nintendo Classics, Sega Classics, Sega ST-V, SNK Classics, SNK Neo Geo MVS, Taito Classics and Williams Classics.
As for custom playlists like 2 Players, Best Beat 'n Up, Best Shotter, etc ..., they do not exist in RL by default, so I do not know the best solution in this case.

@Jason Carr