9.2-beta-1 Released

[Omen]

9 hours ago, faydesmee said:

I would suggest some button in the toolbar or better - configurable keyboard shortcuts. That would make life a lot easier!

That’s not what he is talking about, he is saying that with the new playlist generator, there are too many to manage with the existing system. Playlists need a folder structure or an option to hide a playlist from the add to option. 

[Chris Kant]

2 hours ago, Omen said:

That’s not what he is talking about, he is saying that with the new playlist generator, there are too many to manage with the existing system. Playlists need a folder structure or an option to hide a playlist from the add to option. 

Correct

[Jason Carr]

On 12/8/2018 at 12:01 PM, GreenGriffon said:

Thanks @Jason Carr. I wasn't actually speaking about something like a fanart background. That would indeed be boring. I meant something more specialized.

Here's one of my own WIP artwork projects as an example.

With hundreds or even thousands of games on a given device, I want to be able to show my users the controls for each game using a launch screen. This art is intended for Retropie (I build custom Raspberry Pi retrocades). Going forward, I would love to be able to do this with my full-sized cabinets that will be based on Win10 with Launchbox as the frontend. Obviously my particular launch screens are specific to the joystick layout I'm using, but it's just a rough example for illustration.

Here's the logic I'm proposing. Each LB platform has an image folder called "Startup Screens". Each rom that is loaded searches for an image in the following order:

1. romname.jpg (a per-game launch screen)

2. default.jpg (a general launch screen for the platform)

3. If neither exists, the "themed" launch screen is generated

 

Feel free to completely shoot this idea down, but I think it would be a tremendous addition that would give the user total flexibility over the launch image feature, and yet another reason to abandon the use of RocketLauncher.

 

This does work already as-is, sans for the fact that there's not a specific new image type available in LaunchBox for it, so you'd have to hijack an existing one. But, for example, if you just put those images in as fanart on your games, then they would show up just fine in the default startup theme, and it's easy to remove the extra stuff if you want to.

I'm not sold on the thought that adding images directly into the startup theme instead of XAML would be the best solution here.

[Omen]

4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

This does work already as-is, sans for the fact that there's not a specific new image type available in LaunchBox for it, so you'd have to hijack an existing one.

@GreenGriffon "Arcade - Control Panel" or "Arcade - Controls Information" seems like the perfect image category for this.

[Jason Carr]

Thank you all; I've noted the issues thus far and I'm diving back into development. The next step of course is to add emulator and game-specific settings for the startup screens. I've also noted the couple of issues with playlists due to the number of them with the auto-generated playlists.

[neil9000]

15 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

if you just put those images in as fanart on your games, then they would show up just fine in the default startup theme, and it's easy to remove the extra stuff if you want to.

Yup, the startup screens are coded a certain way, but simply enough that even i posted a file on the forums. Image priority's help immensely here people. Check your, Tools/Options/Game Startup, and your Tools/Options/ "any image type" priorites.

[GreenGriffon]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

This does work already as-is, sans for the fact that there's not a specific new image type available in LaunchBox for it, so you'd have to hijack an existing one. But, for example, if you just put those images in as fanart on your games, then they would show up just fine in the default startup theme, and it's easy to remove the extra stuff if you want to.

I'm not sold on the thought that adding images directly into the startup theme instead of XAML would be the best solution here.

Thanks @Jason Carr.  I get what you're saying, but this sounds like it would create a giant problem with every LB theme that uses fanart as backgrounds. Looking again at my use case where I'd like to display the controls for a game, I would suddenly have those instructions as the backdrop while browsing games in BigBox. That would look terrible.

I think it's worth clarifying the approach I'm pitching. Not replacing the XAML theme - simply allowing the user (if they wish) to override the themed startup for a game or system by having a properly-named startup image in the right place. Nothing more than that. 

Or, perhaps another image folder type called "startup screens" or something could be created, and we could use that for this feature going forward?

If there isn't any interest in allowing that flexibility, I completely understand and won't say another word about it.  Thanks for giving it consideration though.

Edited December 10, 2018 by GreenGriffon

[ed20910]

it is possible to create a generic image for a system if. maybe not the best way or efficient but it works.  

i created an image named "Default.jpg" and put in the System Name/Images/Fan-Art Backgrounds.  My background image priority is set to Fan-art background.

I copied the default start up xaml and renamed it to my system (Atari 2600)

I changed line 16 where the xaml looks for the game specific background image and replaced it with the full path to the "Default" image i wanted to use.

<Image Source="{Binding BackgroundImagePath}"

changed to:

<Image Source="C:\Users\ed209\Desktop\LaunchBox\Images\Atari 2600\Fanart - Background\Default.jpg"

This works, but the unless there is a way to increase the startup screen delay before the eumulator shows, there really isnt enough time to see the actual image (controller layout for example).  For the longer loading emulators, not an issue but for something like Atari, the screen is only up for a second.

my image was a little transparent, but i think there is something in the xaml to fix that, but havent messed with it enough to figure out.  

 

Edit:

since you are pointing to a specific image path for the system, i don't see why you couldnt create a folder for Loading Screen images and place your specific static images there.  might clean up the image placement. You would still need to create the appropriate system xaml.

Edited December 10, 2018 by ed20910

[Jason Carr]

3 hours ago, GreenGriffon said:

Thanks @Jason Carr.  I get what you're saying, but this sounds like it would create a giant problem with every LB theme that uses fanart as backgrounds. Looking again at my use case where I'd like to display the controls for a game, I would suddenly have those instructions as the backdrop while browsing games in BigBox. That would look terrible.

I think it's worth clarifying the approach I'm pitching. Not replacing the XAML theme - simply allowing the user (if they wish) to override the themed startup for a game or system by having a properly-named startup image in the right place. Nothing more than that. 

Or, perhaps another image folder type called "startup screens" or something could be created, and we could use that for this feature going forward?

If there isn't any interest in allowing that flexibility, I completely understand and won't say another word about it.  Thanks for giving it consideration though.

Yeah, I'm in agreement that we could use a separate image type or category for the startup screens (which I think is basically what you're saying). The Unified themes basically do exactly this already from within the theme itself, so what you're looking for is already possible if someone just imitates the Unified themes. For that reason, I'm torn on adding a completely new image group and image type to LaunchBox itself, but I'm considering it.

Edit: Lol, I just noticed that @ed20910 is basically making the same point.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 2 is out now with some big improvements:

I decided to start a new thread, mostly because this is such a popular discussion subject. Closing this one out.