Hierarchy - Best Way To Do This?

[Paultimate]

What is the best way to get the below images file hierarchy into Launchbox that matches its hierarchy? These files were painstakingly sorted and Id like them to remain this way in the launcher. I have not found a good way to do this via playlists. 

In my previous install (this is a fresh launchbox install today)I have been brute forcing platforms and sub-platforms but this is a horrible way to do this. There must be a more appropriate way in such richly featured launcher?

All SNES roms. Some folders have subfolders by region. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Paultimate

[C-Beats]

LaunchBox image hierarchy works as follows:

Platform > Image Type > Region

As long as the files are named in a way LaunchBox expects, copying the images from the region folder you have them to the appropriate region folder of the correct image type SHOULD work (unless I am misunderstanding your picture)

[Paultimate]

Hacks, Homebrew, Beta, Revisions, and subcatagories of each by region is what im looking for. Just like the picture. Region only wont do this unless im not understanding.

 

Inside the "beta" folder is separated by region. Inside the "revisions" folder is the same. The folders that are "Usa" "europe" etc have the non-beta, non-revision, non etc pure first generation games. It would be easy if it were just those, but SNES had far far more games and I would like to add them respecting separations of their categories under the Super Nintendo main category.

 

As it stands now Im having to create entirely new categories inside of launchbox for each folder so hierarchy is maintained, as I dont see a proper non-tedious way to do this. 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Paultimate

[C-Beats]

No there is no way to leave the hierarchy you are describing without each of those subsections being their own platform.

[JoeViking245]

7 hours ago, Paultimate said:

I dont see a proper non-tedious way to do this. 

That's a pretty elaborate breakdown which will require some extra work on your part, as you've discovered.

Personally, what I think would be the best way to organize that in LB/BB would be to have the one Platform (SNES) and then from it, create Categories and Playlists per your breakdown.  (Again, just my opinion)

"Proper" and "non-tedious"... probably not possible in this case.   

I think (there I go thinking again) the "easiest" way to do this is to start from scratch.  That is, delete your current Super Nintendo Entertainment System Platform.  Then....

• Import your blurred out games [that don't fall into one of the other Categories] to get your SNES Platform started.  (Drag and drop just those roms into LB.)  
• In LB's left hand pane, right below "Search", select the view Platform Categories.
• Scroll down to SNES, right click it and select Add... New Category.  Start wherever you want... name it appropriately.  i.e. "SNES Hacks".  Go to the Parents tab and uncheck "Root" and check Super Nintendo Ent Sys...  Click OK.
• Now right click on the new "SNES Hacks" and this time add New Playlist.  "SNES Hacks US".  Unless ../Hacks/US has more of a breakdown.  If so, you'll need another Category and THEN the Playlist(s).

Set up all your other Categories and Playlists.  (Since you can't add games to Categories, Playlists are needed.)

Sounds like you know all that and ya, it's pretty tedious.  But now that that's done, getting the games/roms into their respective Playlists is a little easier.  Well, "easier" than going through them one-by-one.

Drag and drop (using my example) just the roms located in ../Hacks/US  (assuming there's no further breakdown below that) into LB, and putting them into your SNES Platform.  When done, click Arrange By and select Date Added.  The nice thing here is it'll show the Date, and more importantly, the Time they were imported.  

Select all the games that were added during the Time [of day] you added the US Hacks.  Now right click on [one of] those and select Add to Playlist and then select "SNES Hacks US".

'Lather, rinse and repeat'.

Hope that all makes sense and yes, we'll all agree it seems pretty tedious.  But being 'completionists' and 'requiring' an elaborate breakdown comes great responsibility, time and effort.  But daw-gon-it, in the end, it's a pretty sweet looking setup!!! 

 

[C-Beats]

Could potentially just use the Release Type field to auto-generate playlists as well. Set up a "Hacks" playlist for games with "Hack" as the release type sort of thing.

[Paultimate]

5 hours ago, C-Beats said:

No there is no way to leave the hierarchy you are describing without each of those subsections being their own platform.

Ah well, thanks for taking the time to respond anyway. I'd like to request this feature in a future version, it would be great for the few of us that are super into keeping things *very* organized. Possibly this can be done with Playlists but ive gone through a couple hours of that and its rather hit or miss. I think it needs a hard-coded XML to go along with it? Im not advanced enough to know if thats possible in 11.8, and after all that it feels like there could be an easier way to do with with subfolders for categories that all look to the same Super Nintendo superstructure, so to speak. 

4 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Could potentially just use the Release Type field to auto-generate playlists as well. Set up a "Hacks" playlist for games with "Hack" as the release type sort of thing.

I will look into this

Edited December 4, 2020 by Paultimate

[Paultimate]

4 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

That's a pretty elaborate breakdown which will require some extra work on your part, as you've discovered.

txt

 

 

As you've eloquently laid out, this is basically what Im doing now. Im mainly making sure as I redo Launchbox fresh that im not missing a better method. Thanks for the response!

[Paultimate]

So looking more into Release Type, and while it is a great start, it is severely underdeveloped and prone to mis-catagorization.  The system itself is good, but the database just isnt upto the task (yet?). As its been many years since most of the SNES roms have been created (even 99% of hacks and translations etc) and the LBDB has been around for many years as well, Im not really hopeful this will be filled out properly in the next few years.

It is also missing a few important category distinctions. Namely Beta, Prototype, Revisions, Translations, Samples, and Regions maybe but regions has good development behind it so its not as big an issue. 

 

So I think it comes down to this; what is easier,

1. adding in the ability to do sub-platforms that inherit a main-platforms general config (like emulator, overarching platform, and all the folders associated with it). This allows for a more hands-on approach in separating ROMs when filters are not enough while foregoing silliness like having to add "SNES - Revisions" as a platform type to Retroarch and watching hundreds of folders fill up the image/music/etc with fake platforms. This causes a huge issue with duplicate files too as it stands currently without this inheritance.

2. Making a huge effort to update the database and the 'release type' so ROMs are categorized appropriately for their release type, letting the user import their 7000+ (non-duplicate) SNES roms and watch LB work its magic separating things itself via playlists?

3. Let this continue to be a hole in advanced users setups even though 99% of the functionality is present to implement it... ? 

 

 

Thanks for reading! Love LB and want to see it continue to improve. 

(one of my snes sources list is attached, i have several more, but after overlap i assume 7k~+ roms is in the ballpark)

snespartlist.txt

Edited December 5, 2020 by Paultimate

[C-Beats]

Just so we are clear, that Release Type field does have drop down values for what the DB currently uses, but you CAN put anything you want in that field. If you want to use Beta in that field for your library you have that option. You can also bulk edit games and change that field en masse to make things easier on you.

[Paultimate]

11 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Just so we are clear, that Release Type field does have drop down values for what the DB currently uses, but you CAN put anything you want in that field. If you want to use Beta in that field for your library you have that option. You can also bulk edit games and change that field en masse to make things easier on you.

Yeah unfortunately this doesnt change much due to the limitation of how files are initially imported, LB not knowing about 1000s of files (i really cant expect it to) and thus doesn't have an appropriate type attached to them. This leaves 1000s of files to deal with in an awkward way. It was a good suggestion and the best current way to do this though, but is still highly prone to error and mis-sorting. Ex. Fresh install. Import 100 snes beta roms. After import select them all and change release type to 'Beta'. Import 100 more roms, do the same --- oops an unknown number of these next 100 roms had release type 'beta' by chance too. No way to find what ones unless i want to comb through 1000s of files later. Drink heavily. I have an idea how to get around this, but you get the idea, tedious.

I made a feature request on bitbucket. Basically, if the rom import wizards last screen also included the bulk edit wizard, this process becomes massively easier and the import wizard becomes a lot more powerful in terms of initial organization. From that, playlists become useful in this regard. https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/5798/please-add-the-bulk-edit-wizard-to-the This would use already existing features in LB and adds them in a very useful place when doing initial importing. 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Paultimate