Auto launch Manual to second screen?

[syntax]

Hello, 

          New to launchbox and I was wondering if there was a way to launch the game manuals to a second screen when the game starts with the ability to browse pages with hotkeys or something?

Or is there a way to view the manuals whilst playing?

Something like this maybe? 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by syntax

[neil9000]

Its not possible to launch it on a second screen as far as i know. You can however use the Pause menu to open the manual and navigate it with a controller or keyboard while in game.

[syntax]

What pause menu is that?

 

[Retro808]

The one Neil is showing is Simple Detailed Pause theme. It can be located here. 

[CaptainGreenhat]

I do this with my launchbox. I am rebuilding it at the moment so if I get something wrong I apologize ahead of time.

1. Download portable version of sumatra pdf viewer. Put it somewhere convenient I put it in an "applications" folder inside of the launchbox directory.
           https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/download-free-pdf-viewer.html

2a. Open sumatra and drag it to the screen you want it to open on then click the hamburger menu (three lines) in the upper left corner of sumatra.
2b. Go down to settings and then select "options". Untick everything (unless you want one of those options but you don't need them if you want a seamless experience)
2c. Next go back to settings and select advanced options. A settings.txt document will open in your default text editor. Now we get to edit some lines in the cfg
            line 4 "EscToExit" change from false to true
            line 33 "ShowMenubar" change from true to false       (use can always press "alt" to bring up the menu bar if you need it)
            line 52 "ShowToolbar" change from true to false                       
            line 58 "DefaultDisplayMode" change from automatic to fullscreen                    (the important edit is this one, the rest are just in case something breaks fullscreen (usually something like an emulator taking focus away)
            line 65 "ShowStartPage" change from true to false
            Go to "file" and select "save". You can now exit sumatra.  

3a. Go to tools\manage emulators and then click "add..."
3b. Name the emulator something obvious
3c. Click browse and select the .exe for sumatra portable
3d. Make sure to disable the startup and pause screens then close the emulator management window. 

4. Select Game and press ctrl+e

5. Go to additional apps tab and click "add application"

6a. In the add application dialog name it whatever, I always just name it "game name Manual" but anything works. For example: Sonic the hedgehog 1 manual"
6b. Click "browse..." to select the aplication path.
6c. This time, instead of the usual .exe you want to select "all files" from the drop down on the lower right side of the download window and then navigate to where you have the manual saved.
                                (It should show up if you have it set to all files, if it doesn't appear then you don't have all files selected)
6d. Click open and it will close the download window. Now you need to tick the box for use emulator. Select whatever you named sumatra in step 3a then tick "automatically run before main application"
                                (before because otherwise the manual opens after you close the game)

Seems like a lot but only step 6 needs repeated for each game.


It is ghetto but you can use this to do other novel things like open a jpg or animated gif on a third monitor/marquee when nothing else works.

You are also not limited to manuals, You can print pretty much any website as a pdf document. I for example combine move lists, the manual, and sometimes the games wikipage.
                                                                                                                                                                             I used to include controller mapping but I am working on adding them to pause screens.



You can use auto-hot keys and command line arguments as well but that requires a different process. It is simpler but I find the method described above as much more reliable.

Command line arguments for sumatra in case anyone wants/needs them.
      https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/docs/Command-line-arguments.html

Edited December 31, 2019 by CaptainGreenhat