8.8-beta-1 Released

[Jason Carr]

On 9/27/2018 at 1:16 PM, PattersonCZ said:

OK i have another question. I wanna under each platform same name  category and same name playlist but it 1, get everywhere even under different platform or 2, i must name differently because this name already exist.  I know abou unique and nested name but it looks their function is reversed. Unique name goes to side bar and nested name can be the same but dont show in side bar. I dont have problem have unique name like STRATEGY STEAM in unique name but i wanna see only STRATEGY in sidebar.

Nested names will be displayed when in the nested platform category view, but the unique name will be displayed in other views. I assume that's what you're seeing? Unless you're in the nested platform categories view, you otherwise can't tell what it is without the unique name.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/27/2018 at 2:13 PM, rexryan said:

yes I have the same thing..Also need an option to delete folders on images.. If you delete the platform the folders are still on my drive.

 

 

I believe the Clean Up Images process should remove those stray folders. Let me know if not. I plan to add an option to do the same for videos and other media types in the future.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/27/2018 at 10:50 PM, MadK9 said:

@Jason Carr Sorry it was so long getting back to you, but you threw in a Beta3, so been testing it a lot.

Just for clarification. i5 6600k 16gig. 

LB performance is now back on par for me with 8.7 (albeit a little slower switching between image selections, but its very minor, and not important at all with the additions i expected it.), but BB video lag is still very real, yet 8.7 still runs smooth (i used the same video folder for both versions to test). 

I even went as far as a fresh windows install and fresh Beta3 and added my systems again using the import function, not just copying the data folder over, and still the same issue.

If you still need my Data folder, give me a poke on Discord or here.

Cheers.

Can you explain exactly the BB video lag issue? Exactly where is it lagging? Feel free to PM me your data as well, and I can dive into that particular area to troubleshoot. It might be difficult without your media though.

I don't think I changed anything to improve LB performance for beta 3, other than fix some bugs, so maybe there's a bug in there somewhere that is causing the performance issues.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/28/2018 at 11:53 AM, DOS76 said:

Is there any plans to implement something that will allow you to bulk edit whether the root element is checked under the parent tab when editing a platform. I have a Marvel comic build going that has thousands upon thousands of titles being used as platforms all under platform categories and now it is all duplicated to show both under the Platform Category and under the Root which is definitely not how I want it to be. I just manually edited on my Video Game build and the 20+ platforms on there were long and tedious no way I'm going to be able to do this in the other build. Is there an element in an XML file that is boolean for whether or not this is checked and if so what XML can I find it in.

Sorry for this; that's not by design. I'll look into why they're showing up by default in both locations. Depending on your collection, platforms should migrate to one place or the other when you upgrade, but not both. I'll look into it.

[Retrofrogg]

19 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Hi Dan, do I have your data? I thought I did but I'm not seeing it in my PMs. Can you zip up and PM me your LaunchBox\Data folder? I'll look into the 0 counts. 

Thanks Jason. Just PM'd you with my zipped data folder.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Dan

[Jason Carr]

On 9/28/2018 at 12:04 PM, InfinityFox said:

I've never added any custom categories just used the generic onces within LB

I'm not sure of the changes made in the new beta releases although I elected to download them, but I added the Sega Saturn as usual within the tools menu, choosing Sega Saturn as a platform and importing the roms. In the past they would then be added once imported to the relevant platform catagory.

Looking at the edit menu for Sega Saturn it has root checked as well as consoles and locomailto games are just present in the root.

So what I find strange is both systems that I added did two different things. When you import systems going forward, will they gett added to the root folder and then I manually have to place them in the relevent catagory

I can see how to remedy the problem but seeing as there have been a few issues recently I thought I'd leave things until I checked with you guys

I'm working on this issue for the next beta (platforms showing up in two different places by default, or not showing up in the correct places by default).

[Jason Carr]

On 9/28/2018 at 10:14 PM, ZeSystem said:

I got an error when I clicked on "Add" when I was trying to add a platform.

 

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

App:     LaunchBox
Version: 8.8-beta-3
Type:    System.NullReferenceException
Site:    Void (Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.Forms.AddEditPlatformForm)
Source:  LaunchBox

   at (AddEditPlatformForm )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.Forms.AddEditPlatformForm.LoadValues()
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.Forms.AddEditPlatformForm..ctor(Platform platform)
   at (ManagePlatformsForm , Object , EventArgs )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.Forms.ManagePlatformsForm.addButton_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at (CustomButton , MouseEventArgs )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.FormsControls.CustomButton.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Recent Log:

   1:11:42 AM Music.Prepare Start
   1:11:42 AM Music.Kill Start
   1:11:42 AM Music.Kill Finished
   1:11:42 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   1:11:42 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   1:12:40 AM Music.Prepare Start
   1:12:40 AM Music.Kill Start
   1:12:40 AM Music.Kill Finished
   1:12:40 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   1:12:40 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   1:13:07 AM Exception

 

This has been fixed for the next beta.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/29/2018 at 3:35 AM, deliyuerek85 said:

Another bug I have detected is, that my playlists do not update anymore if I add new games to any platform. The new added games are not visible in the playlists.

I'll look into this.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/29/2018 at 3:13 PM, alissongamer said:

I wanted to suggest that the created playlists of MAME (Capcom Play System II, Cave, etc ...) executed with the RocketLauncher according to the name, because in the rocketlauncher I have separated all the machines of arcade, however as in the launchbox it is treated as playslist end up running as the MAME platform in RocketLauncher and I wanted to run separately to be able to use the fades of each one, not to mention that as I use Retroarch I end up using the core of MAME for certain platforms and the FBA for others.

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.

[Jason Carr]

45 minutes ago, mdreffet said:

I had two playlists under that platform. I am running CriticalCid's Unified theme.

While testing things out I only had issues when trying to add playlists to a Platform. Once I created new Platform Categories and moved playlists in there everything worked fine

Okay, though if we have a bug with adding playlists to platforms I still need to get it fixed. If you can replicate, let me know. Then you can PM me your data and I can look into what's going on.

[mdreffet]

9 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Okay, though if we have a bug with adding playlists to platforms I still need to get it fixed. If you can replicate, let me know. Then you can PM me your data and I can look into what's going on.

I'll see if I can replicate it

[Jason Carr]

On 9/26/2018 at 3:29 PM, Dan said:

Hi @Jason Carr, yes the game count aren't displaying in some of the parent folders. If I understand you correctly, then the "regions" list (seen below) should show the total game count of all the sub-lists - but instead it shows "0":

Also, wee question - if the exact same game/rom appears in 2 playlists (due to meeting their criteria), is it counted twice in the cumulative total specified next to the parent folders?

Okay, after looking at your data @Dan I see what's going on. This is an interesting thing to think about though. The issue is that the "Regions" item is a playlist instead of a platform category. Since that playlist contains no games, it is showing 0 for the count, instead of the number of nested items underneath it. If you change it to be a platform category instead, it should fix the issue.

However, that is certainly an area of potential confusion for folks. I'm wondering if there's ever any reason to nest things under playlists? If we restrict that it might help to prevent some potential confusion. Thoughts, anyone?

I know that confusion will be significantly reduced already, now that we've updated the side bar right click menu so that you have to select a platform, playlist, or category when you add a new item. I think part of the problem here is that it was confusing what you were adding in previous betas. But I still think we might be able to reduce confusion further by only allowing things to be nested underneath platforms or categories; I can't think of any specific reasons why people would need to nest things under playlists.

[Jason Carr]

2 minutes ago, mdreffet said:

I'll see if I can replicate it

Thank you @mdreffet.

[Retrofrogg]

7 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I can't think of any specific reasons why people would need to nest things under playlists. 

Thanks for looking into this Jason, and interesting to see what the issue is. In my mind, "platform categories" had been categories of platforms, and nothing more - the highest level of categorisation. Below that is platforms. In my scheme I had regions next - which are not categories of platform, hence I had not used the platform category for this. What else would I label "regions" as here? It's not a platform either. Just a playlist, really.

I tried to test your theory - but how do I change a playlist to a platform category?

Edited October 1, 2018 by Dan

[Jason Carr]

2 minutes ago, Dan said:

Thanks for looking into this Jason, and interesting to see what the issue is. In my mind, "platform categories" had been categories of platforms, and nothing more - the highest level of categorisation. Below that is platforms. In my scheme I had regions next - which are not categories of platform, hence I had not used the platform category for this. What else would I label "regions" as here? It's not a platform either. Just a playlist, really.

I tried to test your theory - but how do I change a playlist to a platform category?

Hence why I think maybe we need to restrict it, to reduce that confusion. Categories should be used anywhere you need a parent category that won't directly contain any games. There's no point in using a playlist for a "Regions" node, because all it will be doing is hosting playlists, and won't contain any games directly in itself.

Unfortunately, there's not really a good way to switch it from a playlist to a platform category currently. I don't think this will be a big issue once we reduce the confusion, but it might be. What you can do right now is just delete that "Regions" playlist and then add a new "Regions" platform category to the same spot. The child playlists should all be thrown into the root, and then you can move them back into the new platform category. Seems like that could use some work though.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 4 is out now with the following:

- Fixed the null reference error when adding a new platform

- Fixed playlists not sorting properly in Big Box

- Fixed a bug where Big Box was taking a long time to exit (staying open in Task Manager) when Allow Sleep is enabled in the Big Box options

- Fixed various bugs that were causing platforms and playlists to show up both in the root and in their respective platform categories (and various other related issues). When migrating from the old platform category system on update, platforms and playlists without a platform category should now be placed only in the root, while platforms and playlists with a platform category should show up only under their respective categories. Basically, things should look as they did before on updating. Anyone who has a backup of their data before upgrading to the betas and wants to test this, it would be appreciated.

I am currently taking a short hiatus from new features for a bit to focus on performance improvements and bug fixes, both related to these new changes and bugs that exist but that are rare (and that I haven't been able to replicate), such as the controller performance issues that a handful of people are experiencing.

[PattersonCZ]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Nested names will be displayed when in the nested platform category view, but the unique name will be displayed in other views. I assume that's what you're seeing? Unless you're in the nested platform categories view, you otherwise can't tell what it is without the unique name.

I created category with unique name : 1 and nested name : 2 but : 1 show up and yes i am using Platform Category view. 

[rexryan]

Im creating Genre Categories Is there a way to edit existing xml for other systems? I see each playlist has a unique ID number.

[Omen]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

I am currently taking a short hiatus from new features for a bit to focus on performance improvements and bug fixes, both related to these new changes and bugs that exist but that are rare (and that I haven't been able to replicate), such as the controller performance issues that a handful of people are experiencing.

Any chance the pause menu will be the next major feature after your hiatus? Also when you do get to the pause menu, will the community be able to make suggestions on what the menu contains?

[Jason Carr]

34 minutes ago, rexryan said:

Im creating Genre Categories Is there a way to edit existing xml for other systems? I see each playlist has a unique ID number.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. What are you wanting to do in the XML?