LaunchBox 2019 New Feature Poll

[ReaperZer0]

I also missed the live stream (thought it'd be later in the day). My thoughts aren't really super important though but here they are.

* Better Romhack/Translation support like maybe be able to have icons show that it's been translated or is a hack. Maybe specifically import certain files as hacks of a game so that nothing gets looked up for them. Maybe even *pie in the sky* pull information about the hack/translation from RHDN or SMW Central.

* Also a thing that's been bugging me since I first got Launchbox is I've wanted to drag and drop images I've found online into the box to add them. However I have to save them to my drive then navigate to the folder and add them. It can get annoying. Any way to fix that minor annoyance? 

* Also on the topic of minor annoyances. I can't seem to highlight anything in the fields right now, where I used to in previous versions? I don't know if that's a "me thing" or what.

*Slight other thing would be the ability to more easily change the emulators/cores per system and the order they're in as right now it's.. *shrugs*.

[Lordmonkus]

The poll is done, there wont be any new items added.

[Jason Carr]

I am reading though.

[Rincewind]

Drag and Drop images WOW why is it when someone comes up with an idea like that you think to yourself BANG that's so obvious why is this not a thing already.

[Jason Carr]

Just now, Rincewind said:

Drag and Drop images WOW why is it when someone comes up with an idea like that you think to yourself BANG that's so obvious why is this not a thing already.

I have to admit I had that same thought lol. I've heard it before I think but somehow it never stuck.

[Ghostlines]

Hey guys, missed the stream due to work. I understand the polls are closed but if Jason is still reading.., I'd like to see the ability to use specific sound packs for specific platforms. I thought I saw this on the previous poll but I dont remember if it was implemented. If so, my bad lol. 

[eatkinola]

Whoa quite a few of these poll items are really getting into the weeds, which is a testament to how feature-rich LB /BB has become. Great job!

[quaigoner]

Is there any possibility on making Conroller configuration for emulators? Maybe first for RetroArch and others emulators will be covered by community by plugins?

[CodaBroda]

Hopefully trackball support in 2020, that would be a nice little addition for cabs. Regret not giving it a +1 during the stream.

[HTPCei]

1 hour ago, eatkinola said:

Whoa quite a few of these poll items are really getting into the weeds, which is a testament to how feature-rich LB /BB has become. Great job!

That summed up what I was thinking after voting. I'm also pleasantly surprised at how many votes some of these "weeds" are getting, I thought there'd be more votes for the shiny new android prospects.

[Daliant]

First of all I want to thank Jason for the great work he does every day developing this project and taking care of his community. I think all this would not be possible without your great effort in listening to your users. Thanks Jason.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see live streaming and it hurt me to see how one of the most expected options for me was finally in yellow, and today it does not even appear in the list of votes.

It is about the possibility of seeing all the versions of the same game in the different platforms that we have configured (In streaming, Jason gave the example of the game Lemmings, which if we have it installed on the MS-DOS platform, a list would appear telling us that we also have it available in NES, SNES ....)

I have to say that I have been a premium user for more than 10 years of GameEx before moving to Launchbox a couple of years ago, and this feature has always been implemented in GameEx.

I heard Jason talk about how complicated it is to match two games from two different platforms so that the system recognizes that they belong to the same family, but if you download GameEx you will see that it does really well and the truth is a joy to go through. all versions of the same game installed on your system and see the differences between them.

Today is the only thing that I miss GameEx since all the other features of launchbox far exceed GameEx (which is a great frontend in my opinion, honestly, although now I no longer use it).

I just wanted to leave my little restlessness here, it's not a complaint, in fact I understand Jason when he says that this is something very complicated, but what I can not understand is how he has not even been on the list of votes.

I suppose it will be because most Launchbox users have never tried GameEx and have not seen how nice this feature is when you spend more time admiring your collection than playing video games.

Thanks anyway Jason and a lot of encouragement in this fantastic project.

A big hug from Spain.

-------------------------------------

Edit:

I'm not a professional programmer, but I think an approach to the solution could be:

1 - Make Launchbox group the games by name matching, adding each group created a unique ID

2 - Allow the user to edit said group by checking or unchecking a check box next to each game if he wants it to belong or not to said self-assigned group

In this way a first organization of the games would be done only by aporximation of name (which in many cases would be correct) and users would have the possibility to modify these listings to add or remove games to said group manually.

As I said before GameEx does everything automatically and I understand that your system is based simply on finding a match of 90% in the name of the games to create these lists. I'm almost convinced that this works in this way, since sometimes games that are called equal but that are not the same game appear.

Therefore, if we add the possibility that the user can modify these self-created lists, we can "clean" these games that do not belong to the list manually, leaving them perfectly smooth.

 

If you want to see an example of how this option works in GameEx I leave a link to a video where you can see the game "Captain America and the Avengers" and how all the platforms where it is installed appear:

 

 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Daliant

[Lordmonkus]

Jason went off the input of the users in the chat and at the end of it there were 38 green items that got a lot of positive response. This left 2 slots to move yellow items over to the final poll which we discussed as a group in the mods channel in Discord and felt that Parental Restrictions and Name Media to the File Name were the 2 most important features out the other "yellow" items.

This is just how putting things to the community goes, the majority rules. I do feel your pain though, there have been times in the past polls where something I wanted to see added not get enough positive response from the community and even times when items I did want got added they ended up getting only a handful of votes.

On the bright side though Jason does at times add in a feature that missed the poll if it's something that takes very little time. If that doesn't happen this time around it's a pretty good bet that the yellow items from the discussion will probably make it into the next poll when that happens.

[Alucard205]

Please direct your attention to the parsec intagration option on the poll. If anyone is unaware, parsec is a virtual desktop program that allows you to control another computer from your own system, at a respectable latency rate. Using this program, it is possible to play a game or ROM with a friend, without leaving the house. Wanna have 35 round game of Mario Party with your friend in Texas? No problem. Need to prove once and for all that you are the Street Fighter 2 battle master to your brother in Maine? Not an issue. Wanna enjoy a fun day of Kirby with your significant other in another country? Don't even sweat. While this definitely isn't the only cool thing on the poll, it is really exciting, and should have more votes in my personal opinion. 

Thank you all for your time, and thank Jason for all being extremely involved in this community. 

[neil9000]

4 hours ago, quaigoner said:

Is there any possibility on making Conroller configuration for emulators? Maybe first for RetroArch and others emulators will be covered by community by plugins?

I dont get why this is needed, all emulators have a option for input and its usually as simple as clicking a button in the UI then pressing the button you want on your controller. I dont see why a frontend should have/need to handle this at all as its complicated to implement and has to be done on a per emulator basis. At the end of the day it would end up being very similar to what you already do inside of the emulator to set controls. So yeah, i dont get the need for it.

[darreldearth]

Xpadder support would be great to see so I can use different profiles per system/game for platforms which are difficult to setup a controller

[Freddy]

For controls panels with alot of buttons and when you have a lists with alot of games, I think a keyboard mapping for a button that jumps forward to next letter would be
a nice addition. Also, a button that jumps back to the previous letter.

My plan would be to use my game buttons next to my joystick on the control panel.
So, the joystick moves one game up/down, left most game buttons page-up/down (using existing feature) and next buttons jump letter up/down (using new proposed feature)

Related issue is that, my kids struggle to use the left menu (ie move joystick left and you get letter vector….I think the proposed button method would be alot easier for them…In fact, I would love an option checkbox to prevent the left letter menu. My kids try to scroll down the games and accidentally trigger it all the time and it confuses them.

LaunchBox is awesome!

Freddy

[Freddy]

 

Another idea...

For my kids again, it would be great to allow them to add/remove to "kid" playlists but not all playlists.

Don't want them to change mine but need them to be able to add or remove from their own playlists.

Right now, you have to unlock BigBox to allow adding to playlists....so basically its all or none.

So, what I was thinking was a an option in security menus that could allow selecting a playlist from a dropdown menu of playlists and allow enable/disable the add/remove playlists function on the game screen.

So, this would allow ability to unlock some playlists while in locked mode.

Again, basically a kid oriented feature.

Freddy

[neil9000]

Just now, Freddy said:

 

Another idea...

For my kids again, it would be great to allow them to add/remove to "kid" playlists but not all playlists.

Don't want them to change mine but need them to be able to add or remove from their own playlists.

Right now, you have to unlock BigBox to allow adding to playlists....so basically its all or none.

So, what I was thinking was a an option in security menus that could allow selecting a playlist from a dropdown menu of playlists and allow enable/disable the add/remove playlists function on the game screen.

So, this would allow ability to unlock some playlists while in locked mode.

Again, basically a kid oriented feature.

Freddy

Suggestions for the poll are actually closed, all the suggestions that may be implemented are listed at the top of the page to be voted on. No more features/request will be added to this poll.

[Freddy]

Finally, how about an option to start attract mode in a specific user-selected playlist.

Then you can use the existing option to force it to stay on that playlist.

useful, to keep BigBox attract mode on big lists instead of superfast bouncing you get on playlists with only three games.

Freddy 

[Freddy]

3 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Suggestions for the poll are actually closed, all the suggestions that may be implemented are listed at the top of the page to be voted on. No more features/request will be added to this poll.

oops.....sorry  my bad

Freddy