MAME Software Lists Import Tool - plugin

[JoeViking245]

On 1/16/2022 at 3:38 PM, mcfilmmakers said:

Is there a way to avoid having the plugin rename everything?

Check the box "Ignore games that only have a Title change (when updating)"  

 

V4.04 (Jan. 18, 2022)

• New feature: Added a checkbox for when updating an existing Platform, if the game Title in your Platform doesn't match MAME's game Title (either MAME updated the Title or you modified yours), it will skip that game.
• Removed: Copy to Clipboard Feature introduced in v3.11.3-beta-17 due to conflicts when using the plugin remotely
• Fixed: Accidental 2nd click while Importing is already in progress

[mcfilmmakers]

5 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Check the box "Ignore games that only have a Title change (when updating)"  

 

V4.04 (Jan. 18, 2022)

• New feature: Added a checkbox for when updating an existing Platform, if the game Title in your Platform doesn't match MAME's game Title (either MAME updated the Title or you modified yours), it will skip that game.
• Removed: Copy to Clipboard Feature introduced in v3.11.3-beta-17 due to conflicts when using the plugin remotely
• Fixed: Accidental 2nd click while Importing is already in progress

It works!! If I could give you a million coins, I would. Thank you good sir!

Just an fyi, there's a visual bug:

[launchretrogirl2562]

not sure if it has been reported here.
But read my comment on the 12.10 beta thread for a bug which is caused by the mame software list importer

EDIT 30-04-2022 : Seems this had nothing to do with this plugin. It just seemed to fix the error but in fact it didn't. Thanks to JoeViking for spotting that.

Edited April 30, 2022 by launchretrogirl2562

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, launchretrogirl2562 said:

not sure if it has been reported here.
But read my comment on the 12.10 beta thread for a bug which is caused by the mame software list importer

The LaunchBox Development Team will most likely have this issue resolved with their next beta release.

[Tomkun]

Hello.

This is such a useful plugin. Thank you so much.

I'd like to request a feature. It has been requested before, but I think has been forgotten.

Could you make the plugin remove the information from the brackets in the title? I have so many games that have the region or other information in brackets after the game title. Not only does it look ugly, but I think it is also preventing some games being detected in the Launchbox database correctly.

Thanks again!

[Knowcontrol]

19 minutes ago, Tomkun said:

remove the information from the brackets in the title?

https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/

Does a good job of this. Just have it search for [jp] and you will see the result on the right pane. When ready, just execute the rename.

[JoeViking245]

8 minutes ago, Tomkun said:

Hello.

This is such a useful plugin. Thank you so much.

I'd like to request a feature. It has been requested before, but I think has been forgotten.

Could you make the plugin remove the information from the brackets in the title? I have so many games that have the region or other information in brackets after the game title. Not only does it look ugly, but I think it is also preventing some games being detected in the Launchbox database correctly.

Thanks again!

Thank you! I'm glad you find it useful.

The game titles that get added come directly from MAME's hash files.  I don't recall seeing any titles having 'brackets' (which I agree, are ugly) but many do have extra information in parenthesis.  Though I could be wrong about the [brackets] part.  This "extra" information is actually quite useful, especially if you import clones.  Otherwise there is no distinction between games that have the exact same name (aside from what you might be able to see in the game details [unless it's an Additional App, in which you'd see no additional information]).

As for being ugly to see, you can turn off seeing the game versions (the information found inside the parenthesis) on your games images/list by un-selecting View, Show / Hide, Versions.

Just uncheck Versions (or press Ctrl+R) and anything in parenthesis (and brackets) won't show in the games list.  Though it will still show in the game details.

 

Regarding searching the LaunchBox database for games, I believe LB will 1st ignore anything in ( ) and [ ] when searching. And then if there're duplicate game titles in that given Platform, use the "extra" info to detect region.  (but again, I could be wrong)  Generally when an imported game can't be detected by the database, there's a discrepancy between the main part of the title that MAME has listed, and the title listed in the [user supported] database.

An off-the-wall example may be "Aero the Acro-Bat" vs "Aero the AcroBat".  Though if it's a commonly known game, I imagine the latter would be listed in the database as an alternate name, which would (should?) get picked up when scanning for metadata.

 

Long answer, short... No.  It would do more 'damage' than it would do good to remove the extra information.

[Tomkun]

Thank you for your detailed reply!

I was mistaking (parenthesis) for [brackets]. When I grew up we called them both brackets, so sorry about that.

What I specifically was referring to was the ones that say the region and occasionally some othe info for example from the MSX: 

3-D Golf Simulation - High Speed (Jpn)

123 (Arab, Alt)

I appreciate your point about the extra information being useful, but we already have region and version fields which could be used for this purpose. Could the parenthesised information not be parsed and used to fill in those fields?

Finally, thank you for the tip about hiding the information. That's very useful, but I don't appear to have that option. Neither in the menu or the Ctrl-R shortcut. Although that is not an issue with your plugin.

Edit: The option does exist but doesn't appear in list view for some reason, only images view. I tried it out and it works on some systems, but not others. It works on Acorn Electron for example, but not MSX. Do you have any idea why that could be?

Edit 2: It doesn't work on MSX, because that information is not in the version field, but in the title.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Tomkun
Added some info.

[JoeViking245]

13 hours ago, Tomkun said:

What I specifically was referring to was the ones that say the region and occasionally some othe info for example from the MSX: 

Short reply:

You're right. This can be improved.  I will try to talk my team into implementing this feature request for the next update.  My plan is to copy the additional information to the Version field, ignoring Region. (more details below)

 

Long reply:

I ran a test on my MSX1 cartridges Platform.  After importing, I have this:

Verifying the Platform was set to Scrape As Microsoft MSX, I ran Tools, Download, Update Metadata and Media for Selected Games.

I got this:

Beautifil, ain't it?  All games are now properly titled. 

But this will only happen if you select the 1st option (download and replace).

If you select option 2 (do not replace any existing fields), the [existing] field Title doesn't get updated.

The caveat of selecting 'download and replace' is when you have something like:

it becomes this:

From what I can see, users haven't added to the LB database any distinguishing characteristics for different possible versions/regions.  At least not for all consoles.  MSX doesn't.  Sega Saturn does.

 

So (as you tried to tell me in the 1st place ) it would make sense to copy the (additional) (information) to the Version field.  I say "copy" because the titles get 'fixed' when downloading metadata.  Selecting option #1 will only replace this [copied] Version info if there's actually information in the LB database for that game, in the Version field.  Which in my several tests on a few different Platforms, that won't be an issue.

I also say, copy them to [only] the Version field because determining/deciphering whether the additional information is meant to be Region(s), a Version, a combination or something completely different would be a pain.   "(Jpn)" is pretty straight forward.  Looking at ST-V, "Batman Forever (JUE 960507 V1.000)"... I'm guessing it's Japan, US, Europe, ?somthing?, Version 1.000

I will try to talk my team into implementing this feature request for the next update.

[Tomkun]

This is great stuff, thank you!

[JoeViking245]

May 14, 2022

• New Feature: Information found inside parenthesis in a Games Title will be added to games "Version" (metadata)

• When downloading metadata and Media, choose Yes, download and replace all existing metadata and media to remove 'version' info from the games Title.
  • To add Version info to an existing console (Platform) using this new feature, run the plugin and
  • DO NOT CHECK Ignore games that only have a Title change (when updating)

@Tomkun

[Tomkun]

Really wonderful. Thank you!

[Muumm-Ra]

Wonderful tool!!!

Do you plan to add new features? I have some ideas. If needed, I can help implement new features.

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Vanei said:

Wonderful tool!!!

Do you plan to add new features? I have some ideas. If needed, I can help implement new features.

Thank you!  After 3 years, I have no plans of adding new features.  But that's only because I haven't thought about it, and no one's suggested any recently.  The original intent of the plugin was to simply provide a means of getting MAME's softlists into LaunchBox using their proper game titles and pointing LB to the ROMs.  It has expanded beyond that to working with CHDs, accommodating ROM updating and even auditing your currently imports set.  Maybe even some other stuff I've forgotten about. lol

As with all my plugins, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions and ideas.  I would like to hear what you have.  

[Muumm-Ra]

7 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Thank you!  After 3 years, I have no plans of adding new features.  But that's only because I haven't thought about it, and no one's suggested any recently.  The original intent of the plugin was to simply provide a means of getting MAME's softlists into LaunchBox using their proper game titles and pointing LB to the ROMs.  It has expanded beyond that to working with CHDs, accommodating ROM updating and even auditing your currently imports set.  Maybe even some other stuff I've forgotten about. lol

As with all my plugins, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions and ideas.  I would like to hear what you have.  

Well I have suggestions:

• Have the option to import other information such as developer and release date.
• An option to choose which console is equivalent in Launchbox (eg "Atari 2600 cartridges" and "Atari 2600 cassettes" can be imported as different platforms but both marked in Launchbox as Atari 2600, thus making it easier to search for images).
• An option to, when importing clones as separate games, create a custom Launchbox attribute "cloneof" containing the name of the original game (would help create playlists and filters).
• An option to automatically mark as broken when importing games that are not supported (it would help to filter by so that, for example, in Launchbox it appears for editing and monitor when it starts working, but in BigBox when using it to play, it does not appear).

[JoeViking245]

Thanks for the suggestions.

1 hour ago, Vanei said:

Have the option to import other information such as developer and release date.

This would be a duplicate effort of LaucnhBox's Update Metadata and Media tool option.  You'll be using that tool anyway to at least get the games Notes, at which time will also add developer, release date and a whole lot more.

 

1 hour ago, Vanei said:

An option to choose which console is equivalent in Launchbox

You're talking about setting the platforms Scrape As value.  This would be wonderful!  Unfortunately, LaunchBox's default scrape-as values are not available through the API (unless I missed it somewhere).  As in, there isn't an available list automatically generated to select from.  To make this work, I would need to manually create a list of the currently 190+/- existing possibilities.  Me (or someone) creating the list is not the problem.  Updating the plugin every time new ones are added, is.

 

1 hour ago, Vanei said:

An option to, when importing clones as separate games, create a custom Launchbox attribute "cloneof" containing the name of the original game

I had thought about this early on in the project.  But I was also trying to somewhat mirror what the built-in MAME Import Wizard does.  As soon as I saw the Wizard didn't deal with clones [beyond the option of adding as Additional Apps to the Parent], I abandoned the thought.  

The option to add a Custom Field "Clone of" is not an unreasonable one.  But this will only work when selecting Import clones separately.  Additional Apps (when selecting Import clones as additional apps) don't have the option of Custom Field.

Not sure if this helps any, release v4.05 puts any information found in ( parenthesis ) in the games Title into that games "Version" metadata.  Generally indicating that game is a clone.  However, it doesn't indicate what it's a clone of.  If you wanted to make a playlist of parents only or clones only, you could filter it off of "Version" being empty or not.  Unless of course the games Title has something in parenthesis that is actually part of the name and has nothing to do with versioning. 😊

Maybe if I had a real-life example(s) of how you'd use "Clone of" to create a Playlist, we can come up with something that would be practical to implement.

 

3 hours ago, Vanei said:

An option to automatically mark as broken when importing games that are not supported

Version 1.32 (March 4, 2020)

- New Feature: If a newly imported game is tagged as not supported by MAME, it will be marked as "Broken".
    Will also check existing games in the Platform being imported to (in case MAME updated its' status)
    (Not applicable to clones when imported as additional apps)

[GIKAS1]

Hey! Long time fan of this plugin which has helped me immensely in completing my LB setup! This is my first time encountering a problem with this (if it is actually related)... Im trying to add a really obscure platform called gameking 3 but it wont launch the games through LB and only through MAME itself... The command is gameking3 -cart. Could anyone test adding this platform through this plugin and tell me if it works for them? All the other platforms work fine btw.... Even gameking 1. Many thanks in advance!

 

EDIT:  5 minutes after posting this I found out that the correct command is supposed to be gamekin3 -cart. After that the games work fine. I'll leave my comment however for the 2 other people that may stumble upon it

Edited April 3, 2023 by GIKAS1