The LaunchBox 2021 Community Poll

[Lordmonkus]

With it built in then there wouldn't (in theory) be any risk of it breaking with an update.

[Knowcontrol]

5 hours ago, Archmage_R said:

There is nothing I hate more than having shit "suggested" to me, ... I don't need to be suggested/shown ads/be told what to watch/play/do next. 

Oh, that's not how I had pictured it in my mind - yeah that would suck.

How I pictured this feature was the ability to sort by suggested games. Instead of sorting by stars, you would sort by suggestions. Suggestions would be different from stars since they would be curated by one to three people who come up with a custom list of their favorite games and this list would be presented to the user as only those games, you wouldn't see any other games in that particular platform other than what is suggested. It would be enabled/disabled as easily as using the sort feature.

That's how I imagine this feature in my mind.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Knowcontrol

[chainsaw39573]

Still didn't see a long requested feature of scrolling through games list with a trackball.?

[annluan]

3 hours ago, Kevin_Flynn said:

You compared GOG Galaxy and Launchbox, and I use them both (for modern vs retro games). The only difference is that rather than load the game details on the right-hand panel, GOG opens it on the main screen and has a back button to return to the previous screen. "a complete GUI overhaul" is uncalled for. The performance of GOG Galaxy is significantly faster - this could because of the way the assets are optimized and not a fault of the Launchbox as we provide the assets ourselves and these can vary in size... or because I have Launchbox/Bigbox hosted on the network, haha.

I absolutely agree, man. I'm not a native English speaker so maybe I sounded a bit harsher than I intended. The thing is, launchbox already does everything those other two do way better, it just lacks the eye candy and is a bit more rough around the edges. After all, as you said, it has way more assets and whatnot... But... so does Playnite. And the whole point of a launcher is not needing another launcher, that's why I refuse to use anything other than LB. 

I'm not looking to compare them, since as I said you can't even dare to do so. And maybe talking about a COMPLETE OVERHAUL was indeed uncalled for. What I meant is just that the GUI update is a nice idea, and I'm glad it made it into the community poll. We could use smooth scrolling, highlighting boxes, little icons in list mode and whatnot in the default theme.  

[Lordmonkus]

18 minutes ago, annluan said:

it just lacks the eye candy

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/category/30-launchbox-custom-themes/

18 minutes ago, annluan said:

is a bit more rough around the edges

How so ?

 

[annluan]

2 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/category/30-launchbox-custom-themes/

How so ?

 

Thank you for the suggestion, @Lordmonkus. I'm already using the Lambda Beta 1.1. But there's just so much a community theme can do. 

Concerning the rough edges, I'm pretty sure the devs can pinpoint nice doable upgrades for the interface. 

But boot up modern launchers and you'll understand what I'm talking about, one of aforementioned, or even Steam or RetroArch itself... It may sound petty to care about glow/parallax effects on selected boxes/cartridges, or smooth scrolling, or icons in list mode or whatever, but I believe for many people the "game browsing experience" is pretty much most of the, if not the only, point of using a launcher as LB... Thus the overwhelming success of BigBox - which I particularly believe to be borderline perfect, and a masterpiece by the dev team. 

 

[Lordmonkus]

Well I guess I don't understand what you're saying then.

On one hand you say it's "borderline perfect" while on the other hand you say the other launchers have glow / parallax meanwhile Launchbox has themes which can give a variety of effects. Launchbox itself could use more themes to show off how it can look but sadly the theme developers don't seem to be all that interested in working on them. If they did I would bet that they would look every bit just as good as Playnites themes.

Personally I prefer a clean aesthetic  over gaudy flash but flashy themes for both LB and BB exist.

And to be perfectly honest if I were Jason I would feel offended at people coming here and saying that LB should be more like other frontends such as Playnite when Playnite started out life as a very blatant ripoff of LB and when I last tried it I found it very lacking in the setup department, though admittedly was a very long time ago when it first came out. I have no clue what it has progressed into.

13 minutes ago, annluan said:

Concerning the rough edges, I'm pretty sure the devs can pinpoint nice doable upgrades for the interface.

Well you're the one that said it was rough around the edges but you won't what that is.

To me LB is perfectly functional and clean with options for customization and the options menu is clean and well laid out, it doesn't need to be flashy to be "modern", it just needs to function well while not being an eye sore and hard to navigate.

[harryoke]

still no ability to make me better at some retro games.

Delta & armalyte on c64 still kick my arse.

[Wally]

Launchbox is the best PC application I have ever bought.

The effort and the dedication is tremendous.

My only issue with Launchbox (I am registered user but I mostly use Launchbox instead of BigBox) is that its performance is deteriorating.

I remember how snappy it was since version 7 (and maybe 8).

It is a bit disappointing to choke in scrolling the covers. I do not know if a move from XMLs to a portable DBMS could make a difference.

Jason and the rest of the team...keep up the good work!!

[Lordmonkus]

Another reminder to please keep this thread on topic. I have already deleted one post and will delete more if necessary.

[zeorangr]

So - question about the poll:

For the first question regarding back / next buttons in the game edit menu, I'm assuming that would allow navigation to the previous / next game in the list?

Something like this:
 

Edited July 29, 2021 by zeorangr
attached image

[C-Beats]

3 minutes ago, zeorangr said:

So - question about the poll:

For the first question regarding back / next buttons in the game edit menu, I'm assuming that would allow navigation to the previous / next game in the list?

Yes, Essentially you would go to Add/Edit Game, make changes and save them (without closing the window) and then able to hit Next/Previous to move to next game and then rinse/repeat.

[MrHwang]

As to the poll question about Suggested/Recommended games....this is the single most important thing to me, if it is focused on retro games only.  And so long as it does not morph into low-key advertising or monetization stream. 

As a noob to retro gaming, having thousands of roms is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.  No normal person is going to play a thousand games and, more to the point, no normal person is going to enjoy trudging through that many games to find out what they like. 

At most, what I really want access to is the best 50 to 100 games from across all retro arcade/console platforms, based on user reviews and popularity. 

Now, yes this should be a feature the user can enable/disable.  It should not ruin the user-interface experience.  It should only add to the experience. 

Also, I see no reason for this feature to be applied to modern games (console or pc).  It only makes sense as applied to retro games.  I don't need Launchbox to recommend modern games to me. 

 

[The Papaw]

Would love to see some of the itmes I submitted to bitbucket.org like:

Be able to Hide Games in BB like you can LB
An option in the context menu of the game edit to go to the video folders when you click on a game, like you can with the images (Open Images Folder).
An option for a default video in the platform edit like you can set up default images for them.

Of course all the improvements done are always very much appreciated by myself and most everyone esle. Thanks Jason and all others that contribute in every way!

[C-Beats]

38 minutes ago, Wanderer189 said:

Be able to Hide Games in BB like you can LB

Not sure I understand this one. You can already hide games in Big Box.

[Koolaid245]

Would be nice if there was an option in the poll for a native linux port or at least improving the experience in wine or proton which only works in older versions or launchbox/big box. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Koolaid245

[Lordmonkus]

Again, please keep this thread on topic about the the poll and questions relating to the poll.

This is not a thread for feedback outside of the poll.

This is not a thread to ask for features.

This is not a thread to complain about features not on the poll.

This is not a troubleshooting thread.

This is getting really tiresome having to repeat this.

[The Papaw]

3 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Not sure I understand this one. You can already hide games in Big Box.

In order to hide them in BB, you have to launch LB first to hide them, then go back to BB. Unless I have never found it in BB...

[drphobus]

Most if not all features are nice, but none have that wow factor

 Might be not many users use bitbucket. At lest on a forum you get input and a chance to refine options

please don't get me wrong but as a long time user  the continuing development  is the very best. 

just getting the felling  the poll has less user input than in the past.

 

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, drphobus said:

just getting the felling  the poll has less user input than in the past.

I think the below piece of the original post from @faeran Should not be overlooked by all of us. Yes, the prior poll from 2019 had very specific types of items users got to vote on. With the LB team growing this poll is a great chance for the team to see which way to better take development. So, yeah it may not be a poll for "Hey do you want this feature or that feature, but one to get a better feel for where to put an emphasis on development. To me that is a lot of user input. Getting to let a developer know which way you want them to lean.

On 7/28/2021 at 12:28 PM, faeran said:

By answering all the questions, you will be able to shape the direction of our development over the course of the next while, by helping us prioritize the things you want to see most.

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