9.0-beta-1 Released

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, deliyuerek85 said:

 @Jason Carr

Hi Jason, playlists are still not updating automatically, if I add a new game to a platform via the "Add" button.

The new feature to automatically generate categories is really cool. However, it would be cool, if you could add a "sort by" button in BigBox within the platforms/playlists. You could add the button into the sidebar next to the search button for example. I dont want to create a playlist for example for "Playstation (sorted by year)", "Playstation (sorted by title)", Playstation (sorted by date added)" etc.

I am aware of that issue. Playlists will update after a restart but the cache is currently not updating automatically when game metadata changes.

Sort by in Big Box makes sense; I'll add that to my list for the next poll.

[Jason Carr]

4 hours ago, faydesmee said:

I generated playlists for PS2. It takes ages (at least a few minutes) to start LB at 60%/70% CPU usage. I have 728 playlists.

I just did some performance testing over here. I added over 1,000 playlists and my LaunchBox is starting up in about 20 seconds. Granted, I do have a fast machine and that is slower than it was before, but at some point there's gonna be a tradeoff and certain things are just going to require better hardware. I may get back to some performance improvements before the official release, but there may not be a good solution. I'm actually tempted to remove the options to auto-generate developers and publishers playlists because there's just so many of them and it gets a bit unruly.

So that's a question for everyone, does anyone here envision wanting developer and publisher playlists?

[deliyuerek85]

Quote

 

I am aware of that issue. Playlists will update after a restart but the cache is currently not updating automatically when game metadata changes. 

Sort by in Big Box makes sense; I'll add that to my list for the next poll.

 

Cool, thanks. That's a feature that I was wishing for a long time. I hope it will not take a long time to implement.?

Edited October 24, 2018 by deliyuerek85

[Mr. RetroLust]

51 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I just did some performance testing over here. I added over 1,000 playlists and my LaunchBox is starting up in about 20 seconds. Granted, I do have a fast machine and that is slower than it was before, but at some point there's gonna be a tradeoff and certain things are just going to require better hardware. I may get back to some performance improvements before the official release, but there may not be a good solution. I'm actually tempted to remove the options to auto-generate developers and publishers playlists because there's just so many of them and it gets a bit unruly.

So that's a question for everyone, does anyone here envision wanting developer and publisher playlists?

Personally I prefer a favorites playlist automatically more than developers/publishers, those could be made manually which would be less playlists (faster system) as most people probably would create a favorite developer/publisher playlist, but thats just a thought. A warning message could be very helpful indeed, getting best of both worlds.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Mr. RetroLust

[Crush]

1 hour ago, faydesmee said:

 Though my library is over 33,000 game

I guess that you take longer to sort through the playlists than to actually play a game... ?

Developers/publishers playlist - i don't care if they are removed. Waiting 20-30 secs to load LB is bad especially if you need a restart every time you modify a playlist for it to be updated.

 

[Jason Carr]

Alright, beta 4 is out now with an overhaul for the auto-generated playlists:

Details:

• Added Favorites playlist
• Sorted All Games and Favorites playlists first using Sort Title
• Added notes to Developers and Publishers that they're not recommended for performance reasons
• Added an option to remove all existing auto-generated categories and playlists

Unfortunately, the new option to remove all existing auto-generated categories and playlists won't work for the playlists generated with the previous beta, since I added a new Auto-Generated field in order to handle it. The easiest way to remove the playlists generated by the previous beta is just to remove the playlist files from the LaunchBox\Data\Playlists folder while LaunchBox is closed. Going forward, you can use this dialog to remove them now as well.

[Omen]

After adding about 1600 playlists LB now takes nearly 3 minutes to load, it used to only take about 20 seconds max to load. I think I'm going to have to delete some playlists. My CPU is a 4790k, I guess it's age is catching up to it.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Omen

[scooter1974]

1 hour ago, Omen said:

After adding about 1600 playlists LB now takes nearly 3 minutes to load, it used to only take about 20 seconds max to load. I think I'm going to have to delete some playlists. My CPU is a 4790k, I guess it's age is catching up to it.

1600 Playlists.....?

[spycat]

I don't even have 1600 games in LB.

[GreenGriffon]

3 hours ago, Omen said:

After adding about 1600 playlists LB now takes nearly 3 minutes to load, it used to only take about 20 seconds max to load. I think I'm going to have to delete some playlists. My CPU is a 4790k, I guess it's age is catching up to it.

I'd say having 1600 playlists qualifies as a 'fringe' use case.

 

[Jason Carr]

It's easy to end up with 1600 playlists when you generate playlists for developers and publishers, which is why I'm noting that it's not recommended in the interface. I'm tempted to remove that option altogether, but I do see how it can be useful. But yeah, it definitely gets unruly. It's not hard to do though with the new auto-generating playlists.

[RULLUR]

11 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

 

So that's a question for everyone, does anyone here envision wanting developer and publisher playlists?

As of last night I've trying to organize my Publisher's section and I have came across some entries that seem should be mark under one name at times to where I'm merging things together like various names Acclaim or Activision went by or if someone had Ltd. or Inc. in their name or not & etc. I also have made the mistake at times of using the drop list when I Bulk Edit the Publishers in the Value part instead of just typing the name in which makes things Unresponsive and I have to End Task.

I'd like Publishers and Developers in, but somehow I hope they aren't too messy in the names to where you get things for example like "Acclaim" "Acclaim Entertainment" "Acclaim Publishing" when it all should just be "Acclaim" and maybe the exception of "Acclaim Sports" being its own thing.

I have like 75,000+ games on mine that I'm trying to sort out properly and make sure I need to expand while making sure all of them work and can be easily found too. Sorry of the long explanation, but just wanted you to know what I'm dealing with and how necessary some features will be for me on my end and unsure whoelse is doing about the same thing in their set too.

Just one other thing I'm dealing with that I'm unsure anyone else is having trouble with is Super Nintendo details are taking a while to come up. I could even have 1 SNES game listed in a search with some from other Platforms, but that one SNES game gets stuck for almost over a minute at times. Not sure what could be the case since I have more C-64 titles than SNES or anything else, yet the SNES stuff takes the longest to show up. I just figured I'd let you know @Jason Carr

Edited October 25, 2018 by RULLUR

[Kondorito]

Maybe I am missing something, but isn't it easier to just open LB in List View, arrange all games by Developer or Publisher and then just bulk edit the mismatches? 

[Omen]

12 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

It's easy to end up with 1600 playlists when you generate playlists for developers and publishers, which is why I'm noting that it's not recommended in the interface. I'm tempted to remove that option altogether, but I do see how it can be useful. But yeah, it definitely gets unruly. It's not hard to do though with the new auto-generating playlists.

The funny part is this is after I removed developer and publisher playlists, when I had those I had nearly 4000 playlists and LB took about 5 full minutes to load. ?

[Retrofrogg]

15 hours ago, GreenGriffon said:

I'd say having 1600 playlists qualifies as a 'fringe' use case.

You’d be wrong! 

[Chris Kant]

currently I only have around 100 Playlist and in total 25k games but it feel not really faster than before. taking around one minute to start LaunchBox.

 

one thing maybe would good to implement in Launchbox nested Playlist. if I have an playlist in a playlist (example --> NES Platform --> Genre Playlist --> Action Playlist) and I want to delete the Genre Playlist with all Playlist in it, it is impossible. it will only delete the genre playlist and put all playlist from the former genre playlist to the root. can we get an check and a question like "do you want to delete genre an all playlist in it or only the genre playlist"? I it feels a bit strange that I always have to close Launchbox than delete all the other playlist in the explorer.

 

----

 

issue while trying to find some games in the GamesDB

Der Wert darf nicht NULL sein.
Parameter name: item

App:     LaunchBox
Version: 9.0-beta-4
Type:    System.ArgumentNullException
Site:    Int32 AddInternal(System.Object)
Source:  System.Windows.Forms

   at System.Windows.Forms.ListBox.ObjectCollection.AddInternal(Object item)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ListBox.ObjectCollection.Add(Object item)
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.Forms.ErrorsKeepForm..ctor(String text, String question, String[] errors)
   at (<>c__DisplayClass2_0 )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.MenuActions.DownloadMetadataAndMediaMenuAction.<>c__DisplayClass2_0.<Finish>b__0()
   at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeDelegateCore()
   at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeImpl()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.Wait(TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherOperation operation, CancellationToken cancellationToken, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Invoke(Action callback, DispatcherPriority priority, CancellationToken cancellationToken, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Invoke(Action callback, DispatcherPriority priority)
   at (Action , DispatcherPriority )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Wpf.Threading.Invoke(Action callback, DispatcherPriority priority)
   at (DownloadMetadataTask )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.MenuActions.DownloadMetadataAndMediaMenuAction.Finish(DownloadMetadataTask task)
   at (<>c__DisplayClass0_0 , Object )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Desktop.MenuActions.DownloadMetadataAndMediaMenuAction.<>c__DisplayClass0_0.<OnSelect>b__1(Object state)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem()
   at System.Threading.ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch()

Recent Log:

   20:08:33 Music.Prepare Start
   20:08:33 Music.Kill Start
   20:08:33 Music.Kill Finished
   20:08:33 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:08:33 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:08:48 Music.Prepare Start
   20:08:48 Music.Kill Start
   20:08:48 Music.Kill Finished
   20:08:48 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:08:48 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:08:51 Music.Prepare Start
   20:08:51 Music.Kill Start
   20:08:51 Music.Kill Finished
   20:08:51 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:08:51 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:08:56 Music.Prepare Start
   20:08:56 Music.Kill Start
   20:08:56 Music.Kill Finished
   20:08:56 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:08:56 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:08:59 Music.Prepare Start
   20:08:59 Music.Kill Start
   20:08:59 Music.Kill Finished
   20:08:59 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:08:59 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:09:22 Music.Prepare Start
   20:09:22 Music.Kill Start
   20:09:22 Music.Kill Finished
   20:09:22 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:09:22 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:10:05 Music.Prepare Start
   20:10:05 Music.Kill Start
   20:10:05 Music.Kill Finished
   20:10:05 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:10:05 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:10:06 Music.Prepare Start
   20:10:06 Music.Kill Start
   20:10:06 Music.Kill Finished
   20:10:06 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:10:06 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:10:14 Music.Prepare Start
   20:10:14 Music.Kill Start
   20:10:14 Music.Kill Finished
   20:10:14 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:10:14 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:10:15 Music.Prepare Start
   20:10:15 Music.Kill Start
   20:10:15 Music.Kill Finished
   20:10:15 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   20:10:15 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   20:10:16 Exception

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Chris Kant

[DOS76]

 

52 minutes ago, Dan said:

You’d be wrong! 

before this new feature was released I would definitely say its a fringe case just because a few users maybe on the fringe doesn't change that. It's probably still fringe at this point.

[Omen]

@Jason Carr I've noticed if I disable Auto Populate in each playlist there is a significant startup speed increase. I tried bulk disabling it for each playlist with Notepad++ but I noticed the games aren't saved then, and Auto Populate must be disabled from within LB in order to save the currently populated games. Would it be possible to add an Auto Populate check mark, and if left unchecked then LB would created the playlists, populate them, but not enable Auto Populate for those playlists? It seems populating the playlists at every launch is causing huge startup delays.

[Omen]

Just now, DOS76 said:

 

before this new feature was released I would definitely say its a fringe case just because a few users maybe on the fringe doesn't change that. It's probably still fringe at this point.

Before this feature was released I only had about 75 playlists. With this feature I don't think 1000+ playlists will be fringe at all.

[DOS76]

I can't say for sure how users will use it in the future but with the feature currently in early beta I doubt many users have yet to go quite that far.