LaunchBox 2019 New Feature Poll

[thogar480]

With all due respect Lordmonkus, you're missing the point.  Currently, Big Box can't do what i need it to do for my project.  So in my arcade cabinet, I will probably go with another front end that can do what i need it to do regarding marquees. That's disappointing to me because i would rather use LaunchBox/Big Box in the cabinet project.  For my HTPC, Big Box works great to emulate my console roms, so I will continue to use Big Box there.  Sorry, that I mentioned the "H" word.  

     

[Johnny T]

17 minutes ago, thogar480 said:

Right, I should have been more specific.  Not sure it was weird, but whatever.  I'm disappointed that marquee support is 22 on the list and xbox controller additional support is near the top.  XBOX controller support being something i personally have ZERO need for.  I realize that's a high priority for a large number of people in this community.  I just don't want to play Total Carnage with a controller.

  I know Johnny T, like I said I'm already using Big Box and i love it.  It just doesn't have a specific feature I would like to see added, but apparently I'm in the minority.   

I hear ya mate. It's frustrating if you vote for something and the sentiment isn't shared. But, take heart mate, Jason is the brilliant at enhancing the software and I'm sure he'll fire through some of the requested mods pretty quickly. You'll get your marquee support soon enough. 

Alternatively, keep an eye on flea-bay. I just bought a 28" Litemax stretched bar LCD tonight for £100 in full working order for my new build I'm starting. They do come up. Just set a reminder in your phone to check once a week or whatever ?

[Lordmonkus]

22 minutes ago, thogar480 said:

With all due respect Lordmonkus, you're missing the point.  Currently, Big Box can't do what i need it to do for my project.  So in my arcade cabinet, I will probably go with another front end that can do what i need it to do regarding marquees. That's disappointing to me because i would rather use LaunchBox/Big Box in the cabinet project.  For my HTPC, Big Box works great to emulate my console roms, so I will continue to use Big Box there.  Sorry, that I mentioned the "H" word.  

     

No, you mentioned a bunch of stuff about XBox controllers and none of it is preventing you from using a none XBox / Xinput controller. I'm ignoring anything about marquees since your first post here mentioned nothing of it other than a hashtag at the end of it.

Like I said before, I use a TankStick on my HTPC which for all intents and purposes is just a sit down arcade cabinet since that is all it gets used as. My TankStick doesn't have an Xinput encoder in it and it controls both LB/BB and Mame perfectly with no issues.

So if you are going to tell me i'm missing the point then perhaps you would actually like to make a point that is clear and understandable beyond "i dont want to play Total Carnage with a controller"

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, thogar480 said:

Big box does everything I need except provide enough options for dynamic marquee support.  I don’t want to have to get a $500 stretch vitrolite monitor as a second screen. If we could position the marquee image where we wanted like in Hypermarquee, I’d be a happy guy.  That way, in my particular build (vewlix style cab) I could use any old monitor for the marquee by moving the image to the top of the screen and hiding the bottom.

This should already be possible you would just need to know how to code and then edit the GameMarqueeView.xaml and PlatformMarqueeView.xaml to position the image where you would want on the view. Similar to how you would position any other image or video in a BigBox theme on the canvas. You dictate the proper grid size for your monitor and set the image to be positioned in the required row/columns. So there is a way to accomplish this. Maybe not the easiest way, but at least a way exists. I have tinkered with it and got it to work and I even think Retrohumanoid has done that same. I recall seeing a couple posts from him on it. 

Unfortunately, even though cabinets may be pretty common, cabinets with video marquees do not seem to be as common with at least those users voting and posting in our forums. It was the only thing I really have been looking for since I joined and it just missed out last year and this year. I can say from my own direct talks with Jason he will get to this, it just is not high up with many users at this time. 

[Agent47]

3 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

So if you are going to tell me i'm missing the point then perhaps you would actually like to make a point that is clear and understandable beyond "i dont want to play Total Carnage with a controller"

His initial post was pretty confusing but after the other posts the point seems pretty clear. "I want marquee support and don't like that it scored low and stuff I don't care about (xbox controllers) scored higher".

[Lordmonkus]

1 minute ago, Agent47 said:

His initial post was pretty confusing but after the other posts the point seems pretty clear. "I want marquee support and don't like that it scored low and stuff I don't care about (xbox controllers) scored higher".

Yeah I get that except for this:

51 minutes ago, thogar480 said:

I realize that's a high priority for a large number of people in this community.  I just don't want to play Total Carnage with a controller.

Which has nothing to do with anything. The XBox guide button has nothing to do with controlling BB or emulators. So him bringing up as some sort of negative is just stupid and pointless and pollutes his own message.

When I get into a debate with Jason about a feature I don't start randomly bitching about something else that has nothing to with anything at the same time.

[Agent47]

27 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

When I get into a debate with Jason about a feature I don't start randomly bitching about something else that has nothing to with anything at the same time.

Just part of the joys of dealing with end users, especially in closed source software.

[thogar480]

Thanks for the input Retro808. I don't code so I'll just wait and see what happens in the updates.  But again thanks your response, you obviously get what I'm saying about my problem being an uncommon one.  This will be my third cab and I'm trying to trick it out with all of the toys.  Sorry my initial rant came off too negative.  It would be nice to maybe be able to vote for more than one thing.  Not unlimited votes or anything, but maybe our top two or three features instead of one. 

Johnny T, I'll keep my eyes to eBay for a deal like that.  Congrats on that purchase!   

And yeah guys, Jason is the man and for the third time now, I love Launch Box/Big Box and all it does.  Just hoping it fits my needs better in the future.   

[Lordmonkus]

11 minutes ago, thogar480 said:

It would be nice to maybe be able to vote for more than one thing.

You could have voted for as many of the items as you wanted, there was no limits on what you could vote for, only how many times you could vote and you couldn't change your vote. I voted for 3 items not a single one made the top 20.

[Retro808]

@thogar480 When the polls are live you are able to vote for as many items as you wanted. You were not limited to just one item, only one time choosing your top items. 

Jason keeps making it better and better and I am confident it will fit your needs in time. Jason does great work and has mentioned updates to marquee support is something that will get added at some point. 

edited: 

So I just had a quick mess around (I am no coder, but having been learning as I have been tweaking some marquee stuff, so this is all with elementary knowledge) and here is an example of marquee image moved to the top. The scrolling text in the bottom is to show there is real estate there and the image is in fact positioned in the upper most part of a 16:9 monitor. 

[Jason Carr]

6 hours ago, thogar480 said:

Jason, I don’t like Hyperspin at all.

Big box does everything I need except provide enough options for dynamic marquee support.  I don’t want to have to get a $500 stretch vitrolite monitor as a second screen. If we could position the marquee image where we wanted like in Hypermarquee, I’d be a happy guy.  That way, in my particular build (vewlix style cab) I could use any old monitor for the marquee by moving the image to the top of the screen and hiding the bottom.

I have a full blown working version of Launch box on my media computer that runs my console ROMs and I love it. This ain’t fanboy speak for Hyperspin - I think Hyperspin is a complete nightmare to work with - but it has hypermarquee   

Im a paid supporter of launch box btw. I just wish marquee support was something higher up on the new feature poll list, so it’s probably a long way away. I did what I could and voted, sent this same request through the feature wish list etc. I don’t expect you to just drop everything and put this feature in immediately - I just wish the poll system worked for my issue.  And that’s what I’m saying, my need is not as common in this community. 

I’m not probably starting the cab woodworking until October anyway when it cools off a little (in Phoenix). I appreciate that LEDBlinky is already supported and second screen is already there, I just need to move the image around. 

I appreciate your program and efforts that why I support it financially.

I see. The good news is that I do plan on tackling more marquee options relatively soon, regardless of the results. Mostly because I'm working on getting a marquee for my own cab. It's also worth noting that the theming engine is extremely flexible, so the modifications you would need in order to put marquee images on only a portion of the marquee screen (however it's oriented) would actually be really easy to pull off. I could most likely do it in 10 minutes or so, and so could most of the theme developers we have around here. So worst case scenario, I can just help you get it done and we can post it on the forums for anyone else in that same situation.

I think part of the trouble we're having here is just nothing being clear about what people really still need with marquees.

[Jason Carr]

3 hours ago, Retro808 said:

@thogar480 When the polls are live you are able to vote for as many items as you wanted. You were not limited to just one item, only one time choosing your top items. 

Jason keeps making it better and better and I am confident it will fit your needs in time. Jason does great work and has mentioned updates to marquee support is something that will get added at some point. 

edited: 

So I just had a quick mess around (I am no coder, but having been learning as I have been tweaking some marquee stuff, so this is all with elementary knowledge) and here is an example of marquee image moved to the top. The scrolling text in the bottom is to show there is real estate there and the image is in fact positioned in the upper most part of a 16:9 monitor. 

Thanks @Retro808; I didn't see this until after I posted the above. But yeah, it's super easy.

[thogar480]

That’s exactly what would help me a ton and save a bunch of money.  

Here’s a really rough photo to explain what I’m trying to do.  

Using a 16:9 or even a 21:9 monitor is a relatively inexpensive way to get that dynamic marquee affect.   The bottom half of the screen would be hidden behind the panel as it slopes forward. 

I have no idea how Retro808 did that but it’s fantastic.  I’m sorry if i was supposed to figure that out on my own - but other than checking the second monitor box in Big Box I had no idea how to reposition the image.  

[Jason Carr]

10 hours ago, thogar480 said:

That’s exactly what would help me a ton and save a bunch of money.  

Here’s a really rough photo to explain what I’m trying to do.  

Using a 16:9 or even a 21:9 monitor is a relatively inexpensive way to get that dynamic marquee affect.   The bottom half of the screen would be hidden behind the panel as it slopes forward. 

I have no idea how Retro808 did that but it’s fantastic.  I’m sorry if i was supposed to figure that out on my own - but other than checking the second monitor box in Big Box I had no idea how to reposition the image.  

Sure, let us know when it's ready to go and I'm sure we can help you get it oriented.

[RULLUR]

Any chance on getting closer on having something of a Joy-To-Key built in for LaunchBox that can be set to each title if wanted to, but mostly for PC Games that maybe didn't support controllers or are originally set in a way that maybe wasn't comfortable to play with? I think for me it's mainly that and getting the Media Database set right are the Top 2 things for me other than the Home/Guide Button Support which I'm excited to see coming soon

[Jason Carr]

21 hours ago, RULLUR said:

Any chance on getting closer on having something of a Joy-To-Key built in for LaunchBox that can be set to each title if wanted to, but mostly for PC Games that maybe didn't support controllers or are originally set in a way that maybe wasn't comfortable to play with? I think for me it's mainly that and getting the Media Database set right are the Top 2 things for me other than the Home/Guide Button Support which I'm excited to see coming soon

Unfortunately I don't plan on tackling a joy-to-key-like solution any time soon. It would be a major undertaking and it didn't seem to gather much positive interest in the brainstorming live stream.

[RULLUR]

Wow! Makes me kinda wish I joined the stream later after getting married that day. Not sure if my input of it would've maybe had influenced others interested in the feature or not, but would totally love to see that happening. It'll just be so awesome to kinda have Old PC Games played on Controllers from the couch via BigBox with the projector setup I have and not really need to worry about a keyboard or mouse all in the same sitting. I'm just trying not to lose hope in that being a thing though

[damageinc86]

12 hours ago, RULLUR said:

Wow! Makes me kinda wish I joined the stream later after getting married that day. Not sure if my input of it would've maybe had influenced others interested in the feature or not, but would totally love to see that happening. It'll just be so awesome to kinda have Old PC Games played on Controllers from the couch via BigBox with the projector setup I have and not really need to worry about a keyboard or mouse all in the same sitting. I'm just trying not to lose hope in that being a thing though

I feel like eventually it will be one of the only things left to tackle.  Same for me.  I have a lot of PC games, and some old DOS platformers that I like to use a controller with, so I need to be able to have joy2key launched when that game is started.  But it needs to be database driven so the frontend (or in my case Rocketlauncher) tells the keymapper which profile to launch depending on the game name.  There are surprisingly also a lot of modern PC games that wig out because I have so many controllers plugged into my computer, so they don't "see" the xbox controller as being the player 1 controller that it would otherwise with nothing else plugged in.  Like in broforce for example,  it thinks one of my 4 gamecube controllers plugged into the mayflash adapter is the default windows player 1 controller, and there is no way to manually set it to something else within the game.  So I have a keymapper profile for that that is binded to the controller I want.

Edited July 31, 2019 by damageinc86

[RULLUR]

4 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

I feel like eventually it will be one of the only things left to tackle.  Same for me.  I have a lot of PC games, and some old DOS platformers that I like to use a controller with, so I need to be able to have joy2key launched when that game is started.  But it needs to be database driven so the frontend (or in my case Rocketlauncher) tells the keymapper which profile to launch depending on the game name.  There are surprisingly also a lot of modern PC games that wig out because I have so many controllers plugged into my computer, so they don't "see" the xbox controller as being the player 1 controller that it would otherwise with nothing else plugged in.  Like in broforce for example,  it thinks one of my 4 gamecube controllers plugged into the mayflash adapter is the default windows player 1 controller, and there is no way to manually set it to something else within the game.  So I have a keymapper profile for that that is binded to the controller I want.

Yeah..like I been seeing many talk of once they get the actual Joy-To-Key to open with the game they have as an App with they tend to have to manually go and close the Joy-To-Key or create some sort of batch file or something way out of my league of understanding all the way without screwing it up even more. I also deal with the issue of my 2 Wireless Afterglow PS3/PC Controllers from remembering which is Player 1 and Player 2 to where I now unplug them before Restarting or Turning off my Laptop and then placing the USB dongle of the Player 1 in first and turn on the Controller and then do the same for Player 2 in the same slots as they were before I Restart or turned it off, and that for now seems to work, but I agree something needs to fix that so nobody get mixed up on which Controller they are & etc each time all come around to play something shortly after turning things on

[Kondorito]

Hey @RULLUR and @damageinc86, I use joy2key for MAME and some PC games as an additional app with a simple script that kills joy2key when the game is closed (so there is no conflict with key assignation with other games/emus once MAME or the specific games are closed).

I also use a very lightweight utility called "devreorder" (https://github.com/briankendall/devreorder), that let's me choose the order of all the controllers I have plugged in (or will be plugging), as well as hiding specific ones (i.e. for when a game is not compatible with controller 1 and needs to use 2 as the main one). This can be done for one game, one folder, or the whole system.

Let me know if the above might be of help for your setups and/or need any help with it, and I will share what I have configured.