LaunchBox for Android New Version - Beta Testing

[fernandocarvalho155]

On 9/18/2022 at 7:33 AM, SegaDreamer said:

Although the lack of 'full screen' doesn't bother me it would be good option to be able to hide the menu bar, maybe a pinch zoom in / out to show and hide or a swipe up to temporarily show.  This way only the thin system bar would be visible which isn't an issue (for me at least).

Yeap. 
An option to hide the menu bar would do the trick.

 

 

[fernandocarvalho155]

Hello ! 

A little feedback about messy image folder transfer.
(Not launchbox fault, but any ways...) 

Not sure if I'm the only one with this problem, but when i move the image files to or from internal/SD some of then are being corrupted. (both android file browser or FTP)  

The file is still there, but its not show on game selection screen. Neither will download with a download missing media for that plataform. 

I Tried to manually copy the files again, but the launchbox are not updating the game view. Maby a corrupted cache/tumb ?


Any way to update the cache files and\or force to redownload media for a given game?

Many corrypted files are show as zero bite files. Maybe include zero bite files when download missing media ?

 

 

 

 

[Jason Carr]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:49 AM, oyehia said:

FYI, the latest Dolphin released on Nvidia Shield finally supports scoped storage, which means my roms on the network should be able to launch, the only issue is i have to launch them twice or three times, the first time i only get the dolphin logo then kicks me back to launchbox the second time the game runs fine!

That's good to know that they're updating Dolphin to help with that. The having to launch several times bug though is still a bug with Dolphin that unfortunately needs to be fixed by the Dolphin devs.

On 9/18/2022 at 3:33 AM, SegaDreamer said:

Although the lack of 'full screen' doesn't bother me it would be good option to be able to hide the menu bar, maybe a pinch zoom in / out to show and hide or a swipe up to temporarily show.  This way only the thin system bar would be visible which isn't an issue (for me at least).

Yeah, I need to do more research to see if I can do that without introducing the fullscreen pop-out issues. I don't think I could, though, last I checked, if I remember correctly.

3 hours ago, Clads92 said:

Yep, same problem with Dig  
It's ok from retroarch directly, but not with a frontend 

Okay, that's what I was afraid of. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything we can do to fix that then.

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, fernandocarvalho155 said:

Not sure if I'm the only one with this problem, but when i move the image files to or from internal/SD some of then are being corrupted. (both android file browser or FTP)  

How are you moving those files? With the exporter on the computer? Assuming that is what you're doing, that's probably a device-specific issue. Unfortunately the stability for file copies can vary tremendously across various devices. Some devices unfortunately do a terrible job with their drivers that they use to connect to a PC.

2 hours ago, fernandocarvalho155 said:

Any way to update the cache files and\or force to redownload media for a given game?

If you re-copy that image folder over, that will include the cache. The cache is not generated on-the-fly like it is on Windows. However, some devices also do a terrible job allowing you to overwrite files when copying from a PC. So to be safe, you may want to delete the entire Images folder on your Android device itself, then connect it up to the computer and re-copy the entire folder.

3 hours ago, fernandocarvalho155 said:

Many corrypted files are show as zero bite files. Maybe include zero bite files when download missing media ?

Not a bad idea. I can add that to the list.

[Boofnuts]

Is the default android theme bannerbox? I prefer how it instantly fades out platforms as you scroll through them as apposed to bannerbox on pc which only fades platforms if you hover on a platform for a few seconds. Is there a way I can set that on bannerbox pc theme? 

[Jason Carr]

3 hours ago, Boofnuts said:

Is the default android theme bannerbox? I prefer how it instantly fades out platforms as you scroll through them as apposed to bannerbox on pc which only fades platforms if you hover on a platform for a few seconds. Is there a way I can set that on bannerbox pc theme? 

For the platform view it is the default on Android, yes. But it's not available exactly like that on PC. You would have to tweak the theme files yourself in order to achieve that. You're welcome to though.

[Boofnuts]

9 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

For the platform view it is the default on Android, yes. But it's not available exactly like that on PC. You would have to tweak the theme files yourself in order to achieve that. You're welcome to though.

I thought so. I've looked at the xaml file for platform view but I'm not sure what I'm looking for. There's a section titled <storyboards> or something like that which has a "time in" value for something to "collapse"... I think I'm on the right track but I'm still a bit lost.

[Jason Carr]

On 9/23/2022 at 6:27 PM, Boofnuts said:

I thought so. I've looked at the xaml file for platform view but I'm not sure what I'm looking for. There's a section titled <storyboards> or something like that which has a "time in" value for something to "collapse"... I think I'm on the right track but I'm still a bit lost.

Yeah, it won't be the easiest thing to catch on to quickly. Unfortunately I can't walk you through the XAML though, especially since I didn't even write the theme, so that would be a ton of work.

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, LaunchBox for Android 1.6-beta-2 is out today with a shiny new Themes Manager, just like the desktop apps. Let me know how testing goes.

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, beta 3 is out now with the following:

• You can now pick and choose which game images to download from the LaunchBox Games Database by going to the Edit Media menu item on a game and then selecting Browse for New Games Database Image from the listed image types

• Image download priorities have been improved for images from the LaunchBox Games Database without a region (which should help to avoid downloading, for example, Japanese images on North American games)

• Fixed several issues with the manual game search process when editing a game's metadata, where the correct values were not always being used and updated

[Bawnanable]

This update is brilliant! I'm almost exclusively a Launchbox for Android user, so I wasn't aware how many mismatched and incorrect box art images I had downloaded; and now I'm getting nostalgic over seeing all the correct ones from my childhood again. Cheers @Jason Carr!

[Jason Carr]

4 hours ago, Bawnanable said:

This update is brilliant! I'm almost exclusively a Launchbox for Android user, so I wasn't aware how many mismatched and incorrect box art images I had downloaded; and now I'm getting nostalgic over seeing all the correct ones from my childhood again. Cheers @Jason Carr!

Good to hear. Thanks.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 4 is out now with some minor fixes to the manual searches from the games database and image browser. We're hoping to release tomorrow, so any testing that folks can do would be much appreciated.

[Slpstrm]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:47 AM, Jason Carr said:

Beta 4 is out now with some minor fixes to the manual searches from the games database and image browser. We're hoping to release tomorrow, so any testing that folks can do would be much appreciated.

All appears to be working well, I love the new Image browser built in so i can get the artwork that I want to try and keep a more consistent look to my systems.

Keep up the amazing work for gaming on the go you cant beat launchbox as a front end system for both style and ability.

👾🕹️🎮👍🏻

[Dbxfan]

@Jason Carr any way we can get a categories section for the primary filter? Would like to be able sort out arcade, console, computers, etc and use some clear logos for said categories. Best kind of filter in my opinion.

[Jason Carr]

On 10/30/2022 at 5:08 PM, Dbxfan said:

@Jason Carr any way we can get a categories section for the primary filter? Would like to be able sort out arcade, console, computers, etc and use some clear logos for said categories. Best kind of filter in my opinion.

This is definitely coming, though I'm not sure exactly when yet.

[Jason Carr]

Just an update for you all on development. I actually dove into the RetroArch for Android code and submitted a pull request to them a few weeks ago:

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/pull/14578

I'm hoping that they'll merge it here soon, so that we'll be able to implement an auto-install and auto-configure feature for RetroArch on Android. This way, we should be able to automatically install RetroArch and download the necessary cores, without any manual interaction inside of the RetroArch interface. So that is planned here for the next release, if we can get RetroArch to merge that pull request. I have been in talks with someone from the team over there, so hopefully that all will work out here soon.

[tom75000]

Thank you for the bigfixes

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, I have LaunchBox for Android 1.7-beta-1 out now with the following:

• LaunchBox for Android can now be fullscreen! Two new options have been added to the main Options menu for hiding Android's top status bar and bottom navigation bar.

• LaunchBox for Android now supports platform categories such as Arcade, Computers, Consoles, and Handhelds. A new option to turn this on or off is available in the Options menu (Start with Platform Categories).

• Arcade filters have been added for various arcade genres and manufacturers, similar to LaunchBox on the desktop. A new option to turn this on or off is available in the Options menu (Override Arcade Genres with Improved Arcade Filters).

• A new Favorites filter has been added to all filters views (that have favorited games), with an option to turn it off in the Options menu

• Nintendo Switch emulator Skyline is now supported

• The Recently Played filter will no longer show up if no games have been played

• Performance has been significantly improved with the games grid views, which now use a more native renderer

• Downloading missing media should now do a better job of replacing any 0-byte files that were the result of previous failed downloads

Per the RetroArch auto-install stuff, progress is being made towards getting the changes integrated into RetroArch, but we're not there yet. Those changes will probably make it into version 1.8. Even though this is the first Android beta to come out, we are planning on having it be the release candidate, and we hope to release the official version next week. Any testing you can do would be appreciated.

[Bawnanable]

Aye! Another great update Jason-- it's so nice having Launchbox full-screen now, and I haven't noticed anything majorly abnormal from the change on my end. I have noticed I get an error with Faeran's Pure theme that I never got before; "Cannot assign property 'UseTransparentTheme'; Property does not exist".

I also really like the addition of Platform categories! However, I know I'd personally only use it if the option of adding videos to each category was possible-- I know that's not a simple request but I thought I'd at least throw it out there. 😂