Feature request for saving space - Downloading Media

[fab1o]

Hi there,

I like the software a lot but I hate when it downloads more images than it should. My cuse case might be others use case too. I only need one type of box art, I usuallly pick the 3D Box for all my games. So that's the only one I select when importing games. However, when there is no 3D box art, I like to go ahead and tell the software to download the 2D  version, so those titles that don't have the 3D ones, can also display at least something.

It would be good if we could order by cover photo so we can have all the titles that don't have cover grouped. That way we can easily select them and start the task to download those images, only for the titles that we select.

Or the download process could be smart and have an option to select to only download box arts for titles that have none, and not for all of them (including the ones that alreadyhave 3D boxes).

The point of all this is to save space.

 

A delete button in the Edit a game metadata screen and a smaller button in the corner of the image to delete the image and enabled "del" in the keyboard for deletion of an image in that screen.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Edited April 15, 2020 by fab1o

[Lordmonkus]

Feature Requests go here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/new

[fab1o]

4 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

Feature Requests go here: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/new

 

Just did, thanks!

[fromlostdays]

I'm not completely sure but you may be able to use the Audit feature for this.

Import and download only 3D boxes.

Audit the system.

Sort by 3D boxes (This is the part I'm not sure about, I know you can sort by video etc.)

If it sorts, highlight the games without 3D boxes and bulk update the media to download 2D boxes.

Again, not sure but its worth a try.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by fromlostdays

[neil9000]

2 hours ago, fromlostdays said:

I'm not completely sure but you may be able to use the Audit feature for this.

Import and download only 3D boxes.

Audit the system.

Sort by 3D boxes (This is the part I'm not sure about, I know you can sort by video etc.)

If it sorts, highlight the games without 3D boxes and bulk update the media to download 2D boxes.

Again, not sure but its worth a try.

 

Yes, i was about to post the same. Use the audit and sort by a image type, highlite games and right click.

[Retro808]

6 hours ago, fab1o said:

A delete button in the Edit a game metadata screen and a smaller button in the corner of the image to delete the image and enabled "del" in the keyboard for deletion of an image in that screen.

 

In the edit game screen you can right click the image and choose remove to delete an image from there.

[C-Beats]

7 hours ago, fab1o said:

It would be good if we could order by cover photo so we can have all the titles that don't have cover grouped. That way we can easily select them and start the task to download those images, only for the titles that we select.

In LaunchBox set the filter to "Games Missing Media" select Box 3D and Box to see only games missing those image types.

7 hours ago, fab1o said:

Or the download process could be smart and have an option to select to only download box arts for titles that have none, and not for all of them (including the ones that alreadyhave 3D boxes).

Go to Tools > Download Metadata and Media, select the image types you want to pull then on the last page select the middle option to not download or replace any images you already have.

8 hours ago, fab1o said:

A delete button in the Edit a game metadata screen and a smaller button in the corner of the image to delete the image and enabled "del" in the keyboard for deletion of an image in that screen

Right Click and select "Delete"

[fab1o]

11 hours ago, Retro808 said:

In the edit game screen you can right click the image and choose remove to delete an image from there.

Yeah I know you can right-click. But when you have a lot of games to delete photos, having a dedicated button saves a lot of time. It would also be good to have the size in pixels and kbytes displayed, sometimes duplicated photos are identical and the only difference is the size.

Thank you.

Edited April 15, 2020 by fab1o

[C-Beats]

I mean if you are getting THAT granular about what images you want or not, may be best to just open File Explorer and manually curate the images from there. All files are named with the game title so there shouldn't be any confusing which game you are looking at images for.

[fab1o]

9 hours ago, C-Beats said:

In LaunchBox set the filter to "Games Missing Media" select Box 3D and Box to see only games missing those image types.

Where , How do you do that?

[C-Beats]

Left hand side of LaunchBox, the filter default's to "Platform" but has several others to pick from.

[fab1o]

9 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Go to Tools > Download Metadata and Media, select the image types you want to pull then on the last page select the middle option to not download or replace any images you already have.

This doesn't work for the effect that is expected. If I have say 1,000 games, 980 have box arts (regardless of what kind, let say it's the 3D one) and 20 don't have any box art, and I go throught this process you mentioned to download images and select flat box art for those that don't have any, then Lauchbox will download images to ALL of them even if I select this option you mentioned.  Then titles will have 3D box art and flat box arts. And I only want them to have the 3D one, and for those that don't have the 3D one available, then have the flat one (but only for those 20)

The point of all this is to save space.

Or the download process could be smart with a “download only 1 type of box art image is enough button“, and choose which one is preferable (3D versus flat) or have an option to select to only download box arts for titles that have none, and (including the ones that already have 3D boxes and you are selecting to download a flat box art).

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by fab1o

[fab1o]

4 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Left hand side of LaunchBox, the filter default's to "Platform" but has several others to pick from.

That helps to address grouping the games without images, thanks!

Edited April 15, 2020 by fab1o

[C-Beats]

3 minutes ago, fab1o said:

This doesn't work for the effect that is expected. If I have say 1,000 games, 980 have box arts (regardless of what kind) and 20 don't have any box art, and I go throught this process you mentioned to download images for those that don't, then Lauchbox will download images to ALL of them even if I select this option you mentioned

Unsure what you mean. If selecting the options I said to, if a game has an image of that image type it will NOT download them. It WILL if you do that from the Add/Edit game screen and hit "Download Images". You WOULD run into an issue if a game had a 2D box but not a 3D currently and LaunchBox found a 3D. It would download the 3D then you would need to go back to that game and delete the 2D (in your scenario)

[fab1o]

4 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Unsure what you mean. If selecting the options I said to, if a game has an image of that image type it will NOT download them. It WILL if you do that from the Add/Edit game screen and hit "Download Images". You WOULD run into an issue if a game had a 2D box but not a 3D currently and LaunchBox found a 3D. It would download the 3D then you would need to go back to that game and delete the 2D (in your scenario)

Yes, that ONLY works if its thesame image type. But take into consideration that the whole point of this all is to save space on disk. Having said that,  Launchbox doesn't save space on disk in the following situation: Say I have 1,000 games, 970 have 3D box arts and 30 don't have any box art (because when you imported, you only selected 3D box art to save space).

Now the ones that don't have box art, you want them to have the flat ones, because at least they will have something to display. Now going through the process again and selecting the option in the middle, will download to ALL because other ones also don't have flat ones.

Remember: The point of all this is to save space.

So I suggest that the download process could be smart with a either “download only 1 type of box art image is enough" button, and choose which one is preferable (3D versus flat) or add a 4th option at the end, to "only download box arts for titles that have none"

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by fab1o

[neil9000]

28 minutes ago, fab1o said:

Yes, that ONLY works if its thesame image type. But take into consideration that the whole point of this all is to save space on disk. Having said that,  Launchbox doesn't save space on disk in the following situation: Say I have 1,000 games, 970 have 3D box arts and 30 don't have any box art (because when you imported, you only selected 3D box art to save space).

Now the ones that don't have box art, you want them to have the flat ones, because at least they will have something to display. Now going through the process again and selecting the option in the middle, will download to ALL because other ones also don't have flat ones.

Remember: The point of all this is to save space.

So I suggest that the download process could be smart with a either “download only 1 type of box art image is enough" button, and choose which one is preferable (3D versus flat) or add a 4th option at the end, to "only download box arts for titles that have none"

 

 

 

Im gonna interject here, sorry.

[fab1o]

The other solution is to buy alarger hard drive and then just select download ALL ? but right now I'm limited in my SSD

[fab1o]

10 hours ago, C-Beats said:

I mean if you are getting THAT granular about what images you want or not, may be best to just open File Explorer and manually curate the images from there. All files are named with the game title so there shouldn't be any confusing which game you are looking at images for.

I think that's worse. It's difficult to delete "dup" images when they are spreaded out in multiple type and region folders. The UI makes it easier.

Edited April 16, 2020 by fab1o

[fab1o]

I think the regions folder could safely be removed. Add the region to the name. ie: Alien Storm-EU-01.png, Alien Storm-NA-01.png, Alien Storm-NA-02.png... and then, leave them all in the same image type folder.

That way would be easier to eliminate dups in File Explorer.

An even better way would be always create a folder for each game, and include all the images of that game into an Images subfolder for each game (no matter what type it is) (eliminting the general Images folder alltogether) The option already exists in the import section but it doesn't do much with it. Then if a user wants all the images into 1 single folder, for some reason, include an option in Launchbox to export all the images of all selected games to a zip file or to a selected folder.

Edited April 16, 2020 by fab1o

[Retro808]

5 hours ago, fab1o said:

Yes, that ONLY works if its thesame image type. But take into consideration that the whole point of this all is to save space on disk. Having said that,  Launchbox doesn't save space on disk in the following situation: Say I have 1,000 games, 970 have 3D box arts and 30 don't have any box art (because when you imported, you only selected 3D box art to save space).

Now the ones that don't have box art, you want them to have the flat ones, because at least they will have something to display. Now going through the process again and selecting the option in the middle, will download to ALL because other ones also don't have flat ones.

Remember: The point of all this is to save space.

So I suggest that the download process could be smart with a either “download only 1 type of box art image is enough" button, and choose which one is preferable (3D versus flat) or add a 4th option at the end, to "only download box arts for titles that have none"

You can actually accomplish what you need in this scenario easily.

1. Import the roms and select 3D box for all games.

2. Once import/download is complete run the audit option on the platform.

3. Sort the 3D box column so you can see all games missing 3D box.

4. Highlight only those games then run the media wizard on only those games and select Box-Front. Now the wizard will only download box fronts on those games you selected that were missing 3D Box images.

I know you are making recommendations, but there is an existing way to do what you want.