9.8-beta-1 Released

[FlightRisk]

Ok. I'll probably just install a later version while I am at it.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 11 is out now with minor emulator compatibility/default settings updates. I figured out that a lot of the emulators that were previously not working with the pause screens now work great if you uncheck the "Forceful Activation" setting in the emulator pause screen options. So I think we're getting pretty close to ready to go with the pause screen showing and hiding functionality. Next week I can focus on game-specific pause screen settings and actually make the pause screens useful.

I'm marking Project 64, Sega Model 2 Emulator, and VisualBoyAdvance-M as fully working with this release.

We can really use some more help testing various emulators in the Emulator Coverage thread here:

Going forward, if an emulator isn't working with the pause screens, please try unchecking/checking the "Forceful Automation" box in the emulator pause screen settings, and let us know which setting you're using when you report an emulator as working or broken. Thanks all.

[qu1r0s]

The last beta is giving me an error every time i press some keys, more specifically the ones that open square brackets (wich is also the one for accent marks) and curly brackets. I don't know if this is a beta issue or i did something wrong, but wasn't happening yesterday with the previous beta.

Spoiler

Valor demasiado grande o demasiado pequeño para un carácter.

App:     LaunchBox
Version: 9.8-beta-11
Type:    System.OverflowException
Site:    Char ToChar(UInt32)
Source:  mscorlib

   at System.Convert.ToChar(UInt32 value)
   at (KeyboardHookEventArgs , KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.LowLevelHooks.Keyboard.KeyboardHookEventArgs.set_LParam(KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT value)
   at (KeyboardHook , Int32 , IntPtr , IntPtr )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.LowLevelHooks.Keyboard.KeyboardHook.KeyboardHookCallback(Int32 nCode, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam)

Recent Log:

   12:23:02 Music.Prepare Start
   12:23:02 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:02 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:02 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:02 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:09 Music.Play Start
   12:23:09 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:09 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:09 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:09 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:09 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:10 Music.Play Start
   12:23:10 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:10 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:10 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:10 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:10 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:12 Music.Play Start
   12:23:12 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:12 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:12 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:12 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:12 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.Play Start
   12:23:13 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:13 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:13 Music.Play Create Player
   12:23:13 Music.Play Player Play
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   12:23:14 Music.Stop Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Player Dispose
   12:23:14 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:17 Exception

 

 

[zetec-s-joe]

Any chance of being able to have pause set as a single key on a controller? Like the "Guide" button on an Xbox One controller, Pause menu is working well - I will try and get some emulators tested for reporting

[SirTay]

Happened to me as well.  What's the easiest way to go back to the previous update?

[neil9000]

8 minutes ago, SirTay said:

Happened to me as well.  What's the easiest way to go back to the previous update?

Betas are labeled beta for a reason, they are not for general use so if you dont like helping to squash bugs and issues then dont use betas.  

In order to roll back to a older version look in your Launchbox/Updates folder and find the version you want and run the installer directly over the top of your current build.

[wallmachine]

For me now no custom startup theme works but if i copy the code into the default startup folder it will work.

Edit:
Somewhere along from beta 8-9 and rolling back between the two something must of got corrupt its now working on a fresh install of LB.

However Game Loader ALL RH does not display the Shutdown theme and it goes to the desktop or the taskbar appears above BB and if the game rotates to vertical BigBox themes get stuffed up.

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by wallmachine

[Jason Carr]

On 5/4/2019 at 3:54 AM, qu1r0s said:

The last beta is giving me an error every time i press some keys, more specifically the ones that open square brackets (wich is also the one for accent marks) and curly brackets. I don't know if this is a beta issue or i did something wrong, but wasn't happening yesterday with the previous beta.

  Reveal hidden contents

Valor demasiado grande o demasiado pequeño para un carácter.

App:     LaunchBox
Version: 9.8-beta-11
Type:    System.OverflowException
Site:    Char ToChar(UInt32)
Source:  mscorlib

   at System.Convert.ToChar(UInt32 value)
   at (KeyboardHookEventArgs , KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.LowLevelHooks.Keyboard.KeyboardHookEventArgs.set_LParam(KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT value)
   at (KeyboardHook , Int32 , IntPtr , IntPtr )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.LowLevelHooks.Keyboard.KeyboardHook.KeyboardHookCallback(Int32 nCode, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam)

Recent Log:

   12:23:02 Music.Prepare Start
   12:23:02 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:02 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:02 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:02 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:09 Music.Play Start
   12:23:09 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:09 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:09 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:09 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:09 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:10 Music.Play Start
   12:23:10 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:10 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:10 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:10 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:10 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:12 Music.Play Start
   12:23:12 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:12 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:12 Music.Play Empty Music Path
   12:23:12 Music.NotifyTrackList Start
   12:23:12 Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.Play Start
   12:23:13 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:13 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:13 Music.Play Create Player
   12:23:13 Music.Play Player Play
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   12:23:13 Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   12:23:14 Music.Stop Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Player Dispose
   12:23:14 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:14 Music.Kill Finished
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:15 Music.Pause Start
   12:23:17 Exception

 

 

This looks to be a culture issue of some sort. I believe I've fixed it for the next beta.

[Jason Carr]

On 5/4/2019 at 2:20 PM, zetec-s-joe said:

Any chance of being able to have pause set as a single key on a controller? Like the "Guide" button on an Xbox One controller, Pause menu is working well - I will try and get some emulators tested for reporting

We can add that eventually, but I have to stick with pause screens for now.

[Jason Carr]

13 hours ago, wallmachine said:

For me now no custom startup theme works but if i copy the code into the default startup folder it will work.

Edit:
Somewhere along from beta 8-9 and rolling back between the two something must of got corrupt its now working on a fresh install of LB.

However Game Loader ALL RH does not display the Shutdown theme and it goes to the desktop or the taskbar appears above BB and if the game rotates to vertical BigBox themes get stuffed up.

 

I still haven't played with GameLoader RH, but I'll give it a shot at some point before the official release.

[wallmachine]

49 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I still haven't played with GameLoader RH, but I'll give it a shot at some point before the official release.

no worries, if you turn on that forceful option both the startup and shutdown will appear at the same time.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 12 is out now with the following:

• Pause screens now have a menu
• You can now view manuals from pause screen menus
• You can now view additional application PDFs from pause screen menus
• You can now save and load states from pause screen menus (for correctly configured emulators only)
• You can now reset games from pause screen menus (for correctly configured emulators only)
• Hopeful fix for a keyboard automation culture issue where certain keys were causing errors

Per the new saving and loading states and resetting games features, they require emulator-specific AutoHotkey scripts for them to work properly. I have added working scripts for Retroarch, Project64, and Dolphin, and they all seem to work great. However, unfortunately MAME is being a nightmare because of it's odd refusal to accept any virtual key presses, so MAME does not yet support save states or game resets. Rocket Launcher apparently gets around this issue by using LUA scripts, which is a scripting/plugin interface of sorts for MAME, so we may have to do the same in order to get MAME working.

Per other emulators, generally, all that is needed is to figure out the keyboard shortcuts for saving and loading states and resetting games, and then mimic the existing scripts using the new keyboard shortcuts. It should be relatively easy to set up for other emulators. If you do get other emulators working, please let us know here and I can include new default scripts for them.

At this point, other than bugs, emulator compatibility, and stuff like that, I'm looking at pause screens as functionally complete. I have a few plans in my head for ways to clean them up a bit (such as strategically muting audio), but for the emulators that are working, I'd say it's where I was hoping it would be. Let me know if you have any additional features that you want to see in the pause screens; I can't make any promises of course, but I will consider them before release.

[Jason Carr]

@DOS76 pointed out that if you change MAME's keyboardprovider setting to dinput in the MAME.ini file, then AutoHotkey will be able to send key presses to MAME, so that's a win. You can also send that setting from the command-line, so unless anyone knows of any good reason not to, I'll probably force that setting to dinput so that the AutoHotkey stuff works, and that will solve it for MAME.

[Omen]

30 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

At this point, other than bugs, emulator compatibility, and stuff like that, I'm looking at pause screens as functionally complete. I have a few plans in my head for ways to clean them up a bit (such as strategically muting audio), but for the emulators that are working, I'd say it's where I was hoping it would be. Let me know if you have any additional features that you want to see in the pause screens; I can't make any promises of course, but I will consider them before release.

What about an option to exit the game? I think this is the main function most people want from pause screens.

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, Omen said:

What about an option to exit the game? I think this is the main function most people want from pause screens.

Pretty sure if people just wanted to exit...they would exit. But I can probably put that in. Just suggesting that it's the main feature people want is pretty far off lol.

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, Omen said:

What about an option to exit the game? I think this is the main function most people want from pause screens.

Im not sure i totally agree there. We already have automation to exit emulators. I mean it couldnt hurt to have it, but i think most people are looking for save/load and manual/image.

[RULLUR]

Almost sounds like we are getting closer to a Keyboard & Mouse to Controller Mapping thing eventually with all the Hotkey stuff..or at least I hope so. Would be so cool to have one without the hassle much with trying to get Joy-to-Key and others to Launch with PC & DOS games and then trying to get them to close right without it still being open and messing with the controls of other things after you exit

[Omen]

17 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Pretty sure if people just wanted to exit...they would exit. But I can probably put that in. Just suggesting that it's the main feature people want is pretty far off lol.

I guess you're right, most people just want the save/load and view manual stuff. I should have worded it differently. I personally would love an exit option that works off of an AHK script the same way you've implemented the other pause options.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Omen

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, Omen said:

I guess you're right, most people just want the save/load and view manual stuff. I should have worded it differently. I personally would love an exit option that works off of an AHK script the same way you've implemented the other pause options.

Is there a reason you're looking for a separate AutoHotkey script? I was thinking just using the same code we have in place for controller and keyboard automation exiting.

[Omen]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Is there a reason you're looking for a separate AutoHotkey script? I was thinking just using the same code we have in place for controller and keyboard automation exiting.

No not really, you could use the code you have in place already. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Omen